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deep_blue
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Win on Score
« on: Mar 13th, 2015, 5:48am » |
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I saw there was a discussion in the chat today about the Score win rule so maybe we should start (reopen) a thread on this.
Here's my opinion on some of the suggestions:
1. Browni once suggested to let a bot evaluate the position.
I would definitely disagree on this one since it's not plannable how the bot would evaluate the final position thus Arimaa would become a game with no perfect information anymore.
2. Aaaa's reasoned that the rule should be changed becaues of me exploiting the bots.
I also disagree on this one and agree to Fritzlein who meant that this shows that bots just aren't artificially intelligent. Besides it shouldn't be difficult to implement something against Score wins.
3. Kzb had the idea to do something like 50-moves-rule in chess (I guess that means like 50 moves without a capture).
That seems like a fair solution to me but could have some problems. First problem is a general one, we would include draws again. The second problem is that a too short move number might affect some strategical battle in an unnecessary way. If move number is too high that might easily lead to a R exchange every 50 moves or so so games could take days.
But maybe there's a way to make this rule working I haven't thought about before.
4. Aaaa suggested to count the friendly pieces in opponent's half throughout the game or in the end to calculate who's more active.
I see two problems with this: 1. It would be a disadvantage to play a home game and there's no need to restrict the number of playable styles. 2. Such delaying games like me vs. Z tend to have no "little" pieces in the opponents side from both sides that play.
5. Material could be counted like 1. How many rabbits? 2. How many pieces? and so on.
The problem with this is that rabbits have to be one of the first questions since they are really important. But then one also could just trade M vs. r instead of M vs. h like I did.
6. Lightvector had the idea (though probably not being serious) that both lose on score (e.g. in an event game like the WC).
Although it seems strange to have no winner and probably is somewhat unfair I would still consider it to be an interesting suggestion. One could e.g. unrate unofficial games and in the official ones take that rule. But that's probably just too big change in a tournament when both players can lose.
7. My suggestion: keep the score rule how it is now. Eventually change it to adjucate some trades that are obvious. That would mean in case of even rabbits let the side win that has an obvious material advantage (that even a beginner would see) like M vs. h, MH vs. hh, MD vs. hc but NOT e.g. MD vs. hh since that is somewhat unclear.
The problem with that rule is that it doesn't help in that many cases and would even complicate the rules.
8. A new idea I had: Take the static material values (like implemented in a bot) that seem most accurate (also possibly the wiki page on material balance though that should be expanded then) and adjucate using them. To make it fair there could be a counter that shows how the actual value of the position is. (having this also in the plan window where you can try out lines)
The idea of this is that it's avoiding the problem with imperfect information and still is somewhat more fair than the current system. A problem could be if people disagree what's worth more for a certain material balance but it's probably still fairer than the current system.
9. Like already suggested in 2/7: Keep the Score how it is now. It was like this for a long time and humans and bots have to deal with it. If bots learn to deal with the Scoring function which should not be too difficult there's nothing really unfair. A bad material trade that wins on Score is just "advanced strategy" so to say.
What do you think about those ideas? Do you have any other ones?
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cadwallon
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Re: Win on Score
« Reply #1 on: Mar 13th, 2015, 6:46am » |
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Not sure we are asking the right question here. In your games v sharp and z, I doubt the scoring function entered the bots' thoughts, as it would have been too far away to contemplate. It certainly wasn't what caused Sharp to break the deadlock, as it was Silver and would have won had the game been adjudicated by score.
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deep_blue
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Re: Win on Score
« Reply #2 on: Mar 13th, 2015, 8:17am » |
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As far as I know sharp and Z both don't have anything about Score implemented (that should change of course). I agree that it wasn't Score that lead sharp to attacking me and that game (in my opinion) isn't part of the discussion.
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JimmSlimm
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Re: Win on Score
« Reply #3 on: Mar 13th, 2015, 8:43am » |
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We can't change it just because bots are being exploited. Keep the score rule as it is, its the bots' problem to deal with the rules of the game.
Semi offtopic: I'd rather change the repetition rule to repeat-once
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browni3141
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Re: Win on Score
« Reply #4 on: Mar 13th, 2015, 2:43pm » |
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What I don't like about score is that I feel it is really ugly game design, although other solutions I've proposed are also kind of ugly (although very much less so, IMO)
Double loss is not hard to implement for elimination tournaments. We already deal with it through double forfeits. Double loss seems very fair, except when both players played very well. It would be funny if the perfect game ended in a double loss  . I think it is not as good as a draw, but a lot better than the current scoring function. I would personally recommend switching to this and be open to further improvement in the future.
Draw by N move rule with accelerating time controls would both allow a fair result and keep the game length manageable, but we should adapt the WC/WCC for the possibility of a draw before changing to something like that.
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rbarreira
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Re: Win on Score
« Reply #5 on: Mar 14th, 2015, 10:41am » |
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on Mar 13th, 2015, 2:43pm, browni3141 wrote:
Double loss is not hard to implement for elimination tournaments. We already deal with it through double forfeits. Double loss seems very fair, except when both players played very well. |
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How would double loss work for the challenge / challenge screening games?
on Mar 13th, 2015, 8:17am, deep_blue wrote:| As far as I know sharp and Z both don't have anything about Score implemented (that should change of course). |
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Judging from the chat archive during your game vs Z, neither did you apparently  (before the game at least).
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deep_blue
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Re: Win on Score
« Reply #6 on: Mar 15th, 2015, 4:27am » |
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About the double loss: I think it could be an interesting idea (otherwise I wouldn't have suggested it). I don't know if it was the first time that idea popped up or if there were some discussions on it earlier, maybe arimaa veterans like Fritzlein can tell.
For the Challenge one could just not let it count and play another game instead.
The main problem I see in what Browni already wrote: A perfect (or very good at least) game might end in a double loss which doesn't make sense.
The biggest problem I still see in a game in which there's no winner (and let it only be a psychological problem).
Rbarreira, I am not sure what you meant with your second comment. Did you mean my "tripple checking question" that I am the winner? (I was at least 99% sure I would be since I read that exact rule only two days ago and won on Score vs. Sharp2014blitz and Ziltoid2014fast)
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rbarreira
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Re: Win on Score
« Reply #7 on: Mar 15th, 2015, 5:17am » |
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on Mar 15th, 2015, 4:27am, deep_blue wrote:
Rbarreira, I am not sure what you meant with your second comment. Did you mean my "tripple checking question" that I am the winner? (I was at least 99% sure I would be since I read that exact rule only two days ago and won on Score vs. Sharp2014blitz and Ziltoid2014fast) |
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Yeah I meant that.
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CraggyCornmeal
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Re: Win on Score
« Reply #8 on: Mar 16th, 2015, 5:46pm » |
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A possibility that hasn't been mentioned: simply remove the time limit on games. This would prevent players from tacitly agreeing to play passively and wait to hit the limit. If a game doesn't have a predetermined stop time, the players will search for opportunities to attack.
I also like the double loss idea. Removing the time limit stops rewarding passivity, but the prospect of a double loss more actively encourages aggression. I don't share Browni's concern that a perfectly played game could end in a double loss. When a game is decided by score, it usually means the players mutually abandoned the idea of attacking, not that they played sterling defense.
The problem with deciding a game by score is that it rewards you for grinding the game to a halt. The deep_blue/bot_Z game is the most boring game of Arimaa I've ever looked through. I congratulate deep_blue for finding a novel way to to defeat bot_Z. But this style of play undercuts the spirit of the game, so I think we should amend the rules to discourage it.
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browni3141
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Re: Win on Score
« Reply #9 on: Mar 16th, 2015, 7:46pm » |
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on Mar 16th, 2015, 5:46pm, CraggyCornmeal wrote:| I don't share Browni's concern that a perfectly played game could end in a double loss. When a game is decided by score, it usually means the players mutually abandoned the idea of attacking, not that they played sterling defense. |
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Assuming the colors are almost exactly even, it is very likely that a perfect game of Arimaa will have a very high move count, far exceeding the point at which score is used right now.
Score can also come into play when both (non-perfect) players are trying to win and even if one of the players is aggressive and some kind of stalemate position is reached. Camel frames and double away frames, both the result of aggression, can become near stalemate positions. In a highly aggressive attacking game of mine I had gotten into a position which was AFAIK a stalemate as the result of a blunder, but the other player broke it and went on to lose.
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=316691
Look at 23s and beyond, and especially after 29g after my opponent eliminated any plans of bringing pieces through the trap for himself.
Note that in a game like this is would be even worse to have no time limit. It would become a contest of waiting out the opponent.
I believe this game might have gotten more attention if it had actually ended on score. Perhaps the scoring function is intrinsically self-preserving. People don't care to worry about it because it "never" comes in to play, but when it does come into play one of the players ends up breaking the stalemate because the rules would have him shuffle for hours to claim a victory, and the game goes unnoticed
I think that positions likely to end on score are almost never reached because both players gave up on trying to win. It's just not the nature of humans to do that, especially not both players. Bots certainly have, but I don't care so much about bots being stupid.
For the record, I don't think deep's method of beating Z counts as novel, since I beat one of Z's ancestors this way
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| « Last Edit: Mar 16th, 2015, 7:55pm by browni3141 » |
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deep_blue
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Re: Win on Score
« Reply #10 on: Mar 16th, 2015, 10:10pm » |
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I agree with browni that some score rule is necessary. There are indeed too many positions that are so stalematet that they would never end without score (except on play "blunders" to play on but that shouldnt be right too).
You may call winning on score boring, I disagree and call it one of many many playing strategies/styles.
My Screening wins weren't showing the score rule has to change, it showed the bots have to change.
If (what I think) perfect play is longer than score limit then there would be a problem with double defeat. If it was not like this (and we eventually found out who loses to give him the "score right") then there would be no point in delaying since one would lose eventually if the oponent plays the correct moves (and delaying doesn't pose any problems to the oponent...).
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rbarreira
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Re: Win on Score
« Reply #11 on: Mar 17th, 2015, 4:24pm » |
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on Mar 16th, 2015, 5:46pm, CraggyCornmeal wrote:| A possibility that hasn't been mentioned: simply remove the time limit on games. |
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This seems like the simplest and most elegant solution indeed. It's not like games are getting too long and stalemated with good play, so there's no reason to worry about never-ending games. Even bot vs bot games don't last for very long.
Edit - also, if a game between humans is stalemated and they're encouraged to attack by the score function, they should get similarly encouraged by the fact they'll fall asleep eventually.
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| « Last Edit: Mar 17th, 2015, 4:32pm by rbarreira » |
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supersamu
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Re: Win on Score
« Reply #12 on: Mar 17th, 2015, 5:19pm » |
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I dislike a function that determines the winner when the function can theoretically give the win to a player who is most definitely losing. (Like browni demonstrated is possible in a game against briareus, giving up a goal in 1 seconds before the game time limit was reached ( http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=261898 ))
But I would also dislike it if a game is a draw one move before a player has a goal in 1 available, which can also happen if we have an arbitrary cutoff.
- We could have a committee decide whether to continue the game for x more moves (The committee would decide again and again until the game is drawn or someone has won)
- We could have accelerating time controls and a trigger that needs to be activated (for example a capture) for the game to continue for x more moves and not draw.
I would not like an infinite game, because then the win could go to the player that has less IRL obligations.
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| « Last Edit: Mar 17th, 2015, 5:28pm by supersamu » |
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CraggyCornmeal
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Re: Win on Score
« Reply #14 on: Mar 17th, 2015, 5:43pm » |
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on Mar 16th, 2015, 7:46pm, browni3141 wrote:| Score can also come into play when both (non-perfect) players are trying to win and even if one of the players is aggressive and some kind of stalemate position is reached. |
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Good point. I think this is the most common application of the score rule in games that don't involve novice players or bots.
The pertinent question is, how do we want to conclude games that reach a stalemated position? Do we want some way of discerning who the victor is, or do we want to encourage the players to break the stalemate?
I think the biggest virtue of deciding games by score is that when the time limit nears, the losing player should naturally become more aggressive. If Z knew it was about to lose to deep_blue, surely it would have waged an attack late in the game.
However, I'm still concerned about the incentives for the player who is ahead by score. As the time limit nears, their incentive switches from reaching goal to eating up as much of the clock as possible. I would hate to see a game decided by score because the winning player continually uses the maximum time for each of their moves late in the game, preventing the other player from having enough moves to try to break the stalemate.
So if you guys aren't inclined to dramatically change the rule by removing the time limit or by awarding a double loss, I have a more modest proposal. Instead of a game having a time limit of, for example, four hours, I think we should give each player a personal time limit of two hours. When the player who is losing by score reaches their personal two hour limit, the game ends and they lose. However, if the player who is winning by score is the first to reach their personal time limit, the game continues until the losing player either reaches their personal time limit or pulls ahead in score.
The player who is ahead by score would no longer be incentivized to eat the clock. If you're down by score and nearing your personal time limit, you can move quickly each turn to keep the game going, and it doesn't matter how much or little time your opponent uses.
A similarly modest change would be to decide a game by score after x moves instead of after x hours.
Whether the score rule changes or remains the same, I think our goal should be to minimize the incentives players have to let the game sit in a stalemated or stagnant position.
on Mar 16th, 2015, 7:46pm, browni3141 wrote:| I think that positions likely to end on score are almost never reached because both players gave up on trying to win. It's just not the nature of humans to do that, especially not both players. Bots certainly have, but I don't care so much about bots being stupid. |
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I agree about bots. The deep_blue/Z game illustrates Z's shortcomings a lot more than it illustrates the shortcomings of the score rule.
I disagree about human nature, though. Chess games often end when both players give up on winning and agree to a draw. Arimaa largely avoids this pitfall of human nature by making draws impossible.
on Mar 16th, 2015, 7:46pm, browni3141 wrote:| Assuming the colors are almost exactly even, it is very likely that a perfect game of Arimaa will have a very high move count, far exceeding the point at which score is used right now. |
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If this is true, it would be a shame for the score rule to cut short a perfectly played game of Arimaa.
on Mar 16th, 2015, 10:10pm, deep_blue wrote:| You may call winning on score boring, I disagree and call it one of many many playing strategies/styles. |
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Both are true. Your strategy against Z was definitely effective, but the game was definitely boring. When Z gets some code telling it about the score rule, your shuffling strategy will stop being effective and such boring games will stop happening.
As a side note, I like how the repetition rule encourages stalemated positions to break up. In the game browni talked about, arimaa_master may have made some mistakes, but there are several times where the repetition rule gets applied, providing opportunities to break the stalemate.
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