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Topic: 2012 Postal Mixer (Read 10721 times) |
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rbarreira
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2012 Postal Mixer
« on: Feb 6th, 2012, 6:49am » |
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A few random thoughts:
1- The registration for the postal mixer is supposed to start Feb 1, 2012 but I don't see a way to register yet.
2- Are any bot developers planning to enter their bots? I'm curious to see sharp and marwin playing as they haven't played much postally.
3- Speaking of bots in the Postal Mixer, I noticed that the games start Apr 8. which is around the same time the Challenge games are ongoing. This could create an interesting situation where the defenders of the Challenge can play the bot they're defending against. Of course it's possible to work around this by having the challenging bot avoid playing any/many postal moves until the challenge games are over (at least in the games against Challenge defenders).
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| « Last Edit: Feb 6th, 2012, 7:04am by rbarreira » |
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #1 on: Feb 10th, 2012, 3:23pm » |
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In 2010 Omar forgot about the Postal Mixer until the week before it was supposed to happen. He opened registration for two weeks with no fee, and 42 people signed up. I expected a complete disaster on the theory that free signup would encourage people to join who weren't serious enough to complete their games. As it turned out, there were only an average number of incomplete games.
In 2011 Omar remembered the Postal Mixer ahead of time and opened registration over four months in advance. He charged a $10 entry fee, which I expected would encourage seriousness and increase the number of completed games, especially as the number of registrants dropped to 29. Again I was wrong, as a significant number of people abandoned the tournament.
The moral of the story is that opening registration early is a bad idea. Someone who signs up the week before the tournament and loses interest in Arimaa three months later may actually have completed most of his games before leaving, whereas someone who signs up three months before the tournament and loses interest three months later won't even start his games. I suggest we learn from experience, open registration at the last minute, and charge no entry fee. I think we could easily get 50 participants this year, and barring a raft of spurious signups, we could have the best tournament ever.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 10th, 2012, 3:25pm by Fritzlein » |
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tize
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #2 on: Feb 11th, 2012, 3:33am » |
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I'm not completely decided about it yet but I don't think that marwin will play in the postal mixer.
And if I register him then it will probably be with marwin thinking something like 5-10 minutes per move as to not use up to much of my computer.
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omar
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #3 on: Feb 13th, 2012, 4:45pm » |
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I needed to do some work to integrate the postal mixer with the tournament management tool. Sorry about the delay.
I've activated the registration, so anyone who wants can sign up now. I won't announce it in the gameroom until a couple of weeks before the registration ends.
I think it should be OK for a challenge defender to play the challenge bot in a postal. The timecontrols being very different should cause the bot to play differently from even the same position. But as you mentioned the bot could use some of the vacation time to avoid playing the challenge defenders if the bot developer is concerned.
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rbarreira
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #4 on: Mar 21st, 2012, 6:49am » |
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bot_briareus is signed up for 20 games. Hippo said that he registered bot_hippo too.
Omar is there any way we can see the list of signed up players?
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arimaa_master
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #5 on: Mar 21st, 2012, 8:51am » |
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on Mar 21st, 2012, 6:49am, rbarreira wrote:bot_briareus is signed up for 20 games. Hippo said that he registered bot_hippo too.
Omar is there any way we can see the list of signed up players? |
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I am not Omar - but you can find list of Registered players here:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/events/reg.cgi?e=2012pt
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #6 on: Mar 21st, 2012, 10:13am » |
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Is the seeding of bot_Hippo and bot_briareus reversed on that page? It seems odd for the likely Arimaa Challenger to be the low seed in the Postal Mixer.
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rbarreira
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #7 on: Mar 21st, 2012, 10:15am » |
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on Mar 21st, 2012, 10:13am, Fritzlein wrote:| Is the seeding of bot_Hippo and bot_briareus reversed on that page? It seems odd for the likely Arimaa Challenger to be the low seed in the Postal Mixer. |
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On that page, the bots apparently get the gameroom rating of their owners. But WHRE has the priority over gameroom rating according to the rules of the postal mixer, so it probably doesn't matter. It probably also means that Omar has to seed the players manually.
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Hippo
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #8 on: Mar 21st, 2012, 11:45am » |
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Oh I hoped my bot would not be seeded according my WHRE.
I really don't expect it to be par with me in near future.
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| « Last Edit: Mar 21st, 2012, 11:46am by Hippo » |
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rbarreira
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #9 on: Mar 21st, 2012, 11:54am » |
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Vladan your bot will be seeded according to its own gameroom rating, according to the rules (because it doesn't have a WHRE rating).
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #10 on: Mar 21st, 2012, 1:02pm » |
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Ten players already signed up, ten days left to sign up: It looks good for having more than twenty participants again this year, despite the increased deposit.
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mistre
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #11 on: Mar 21st, 2012, 1:18pm » |
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Omar,
Is there any chance of an increased incentive to play in the postal mixer? I am fine with the refundable deposit, but it would be nice if there was a little prize money available. Perhaps one idea is if anyone does drop out that their deposit is distributed equally among remaining players. Another idea is offering free or discounted entry fees into other tournaments based on the number of completed games.
Regardless of this, I will be joining the mixer, I just thought it would be nice to have some added incentives.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #12 on: Mar 21st, 2012, 1:29pm » |
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on Mar 21st, 2012, 1:18pm, mistre wrote:| Regardless of this, I will be joining the mixer, |
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Eleven. Woohoo!
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omar
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #13 on: Mar 21st, 2012, 8:10pm » |
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on Mar 21st, 2012, 1:18pm, mistre wrote:Omar,
Is there any chance of an increased incentive to play in the postal mixer? I am fine with the refundable deposit, but it would be nice if there was a little prize money available. Perhaps one idea is if anyone does drop out that their deposit is distributed equally among remaining players. Another idea is offering free or discounted entry fees into other tournaments based on the number of completed games.
Regardless of this, I will be joining the mixer, I just thought it would be nice to have some added incentives. |
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I won't make any changes this year. But maybe we can discuss something for next year.
What if the registration fee went into a prize fund and was distributed similar to the WC. That is, the prize fund is divided by the total number of games and players get that amount for each game they win. It would create an incentive to play more games also.
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mistre
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Re: 2012 Postal Mixer
« Reply #14 on: Mar 21st, 2012, 8:27pm » |
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on Mar 21st, 2012, 8:10pm, omar wrote:
I won't make any changes this year. But maybe we can discuss something for next year.
What if the registration fee went into a prize fund and was distributed similar to the WC. That is, the prize fund is divided by the total number of games and players get that amount for each game they win. It would create an incentive to play more games also.
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I like it, let's do it for next year. Also, give people the option to contribute more than the registration fee to the prize fund if they choose (like in the WC and prediction contest).
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