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        Arimaa >> Events >> 2006 Challenge match participants
        
(Message started by: omar on Jan 28^th, 2006, 10:13am)

Title: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by omar on Jan 28^th, 2006, 10:13am

Since bot_Bomb won the computer championship, it will be the computer participant in the challenge match.

The three human participants in the challenge match will be:
Karl Juhnke of USA (Fritzlein)
Greg Magne of Canada (Adanac) and
Paul Mertens of Germany (PMertens)

In selecting the players I considered mainly the performance against the previous years' bots:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/challenge/2006/showTopHumans.cgi
overall rating and bot bashing activity.

My apologies to anyone who wanted to be in the challenge match but did not get selected. Perhaps the best way to show your interest is to establish a good performance against the previous years bots.

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by Ryan_Cable on Jan 28^th, 2006, 3:12pm

Wow, Fritzlein scored more points than everyone else combined. Congratulations, and good luck everyone. I think humanity is 80%+ to go undefeated this year.

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 28^th, 2006, 3:17pm

I note that all three of us are new for this year. I wouldn't be surprised if this was my one and only time as a Challenge Defender, especially if another new crop of players arises during 2006. Omar, I imagine that if you put up the 2006 CC bots (except for Bomb, of course), people will immediately start jockeying for a place among the Defenders for 2007.

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 28^th, 2006, 3:22pm

on 01/28/06 at 15:12:16, Ryan_Cable wrote:

Wow, Fritzlein scored more points than everyone else combined. Congratulations, and good luck everyone. I think humanity is 80%+ to go undefeated this year.

Heh. I just wanted my day in the sun, I guess. I'm going to stand by my estimate that we humans are only 50% to go undefeated, simply because I don't think PMertens will be able to resist giving a huge handicap in his final game. :-)

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by PMertens on Jan 29^th, 2006, 3:18am

Oh ... I easily COULD resist, but SHOULD I ?

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 29^th, 2006, 10:49am

on 01/29/06 at 03:18:14, PMertens wrote:

Oh ... I easily COULD resist, but SHOULD I ?

Uh-oh. We may be in for a handicap in PMertens' first game. :P

It takes all kinds to make the world go around. I'm going to play straight up, with no handicaps in any of my three games, so as to drive up my chance of going undefeated as high as possible. Call me chicken...

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by PMertens on Jan 29^th, 2006, 2:46pm

Nothing to do with chickens ;)

It is simply an open question wether or not I should take the risk.
Of course we all want a 9:0 victory ... simply because 5:4 would not be a good thing to get more sponsors etc...
The question is: does a (camel)-handicap game make it easier to get sponsors ?

In other words:
I will by default play without handicap but would do so if asked to do (by omar)
I assume that a camel handicap can be won at least 90% of the games (unless I am experimenting which I certainly will not - or there were major changes to bomb since I last played it)

edit: or unless I blunder a little .... not even a full month and already out of training ...

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by omar on Feb 4^th, 2006, 12:01am

In the first Arimaa challenge match. I played the final game with a rabbit handicap. By that time I felt comfortable enough with Bomb that I was pretty sure I could pull it off. In the earlier games I also tried to play one where I did not lose any pieces (6th game) and one where I did not capture any of Bomb's pieces either (7th game). My main goal was of course to try for all wins. But when I felt comfortable with Bomb I pushed it a little to make the games interesting for the spectators.

The most important objective of the players this year should also be to try for a perfect record. Beyond that it's totally up to the players to do what they want to make the games interesting for the spectators. The only thing I am afraid of is that this might become a bot-bashing contest and one of the players taking too much risk and losing a game :-) Let's hope that doesn't happen.

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by PMertens on Feb 4^th, 2006, 5:24pm

I promise I will only make it the last game and only with the camel .... and only with rabbitpulling (even if it is boring as hell)

Actually I highly doubt that those challenge matches will be much fun to watch - compared to the human vs human games.
I will certainly only play boring ... I forgot how to play normal against bots ;)

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by 99of9 on Feb 4^th, 2006, 9:49pm

Perhaps instead of a camel sacrifice someone else could try to play their final game as though they were playing against a human (ie not deliberately anti-bot, just play what you see as the best move if you were facing Robinson).

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 4^th, 2006, 9:58pm

OK, 99of9. If I win my first two games, in my third game I will pretend I am playing Robinson on every move.

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by PMertens on Feb 5^th, 2006, 5:05am

It would not work to play that way, because bomb clearly does play totally different than rob.
I predict that you will make use of turtle's flaws wether you like it or not ;)

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by PMertens on Feb 18^th, 2006, 4:52pm

ok ... you won 2 games ...

are you really going to skip the simple and boring E-H approach ?
Or would you do the same against rob ;-)

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 19^th, 2006, 10:57am

Yes, for my third game I will skip the EH formula. Against Robinson I wouldn't launch an E-H attack unless the position begged for it. Every time Bomb makes an inferior move, I will try to contain my surprise that Robinson would make such a mistake. If I can't fool myself that way for ever, I will try to convince myself that Robinson could take over for Bomb on any move. I grant that it is psychologically impossible to completely fool myself, but I'll try.

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by PMertens on Feb 19^th, 2006, 4:41pm

in that case this should clearly be the most intereting game ....
looking forward to watch it (in replay due to the time ;-) )

Title: Re: 2006 Challenge match participants
Post by omar on Mar 1^st, 2006, 2:41pm

I just wanted to give a big thanks to Karl, Greg and Paul for playing in the 2006 challenge match. You guys did a fantastic job of defending the challenge and you will forever be remembered in Arimaa history. Compared to the way I struggled against bot_Bomb in the first challenge match, your games made it very clear that humans now have a big lead over computers.