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        Arimaa >> Events >> 2010 Events pre-announcement
        
(Message started by: omar on Oct 16^th, 2009, 3:22pm)

Title: 2010 Events pre-announcement
Post by omar on Oct 16^th, 2009, 3:22pm

I've posted the details for this years events. I want to thank everyone who contributed to the discussion of the computer championship qualifying phase. I would like to especially thank Karl for initiating the discussion and creating a draft for the rules. It was very helpful.
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wc/2010/sch.html (fixed the link)
Follow the links on this page to the event pages.

I am really looking forward to this years events. It will be very interesting to see how the experiment with the qualifying phase works out. I guess even if we have 8 or less bots register we will need the qualifying phase to determine the initial ranking in the finals. So for sure we will be having a qualifying phase. :-)

There are a few other things that I want to try this year. I am planning to run the scheduler on Sunday night and notify the players of the tentative game time so they have an idea right away and can change their preferences before I run the scheduler again on Monday to fix the game times. Hopefully this will reduce the number of requests to change the times after they are fixed.

This year I am opening up the prize fund so that others can add to it also. I hope this works better than collecting entry/registration fees to fund the prizes. This year I also tried to contact some companies to see if they might sponsor the world championship or computer championship, but not much luck so far. If anyone can help me with connections in this area it would really be nice. Just send me an email if you can help.

I enjoyed watching the videos Karl and Jean made so much that I am seriously thinking about how to broadcast some of the event games with live commentary. Having commentary along with the game really brings it to life. I think we may get more spectators that way also. Aamir and I tested out ustream.com and found that we can run a skype confrence at the same time to allow for multiple commentators in different locations. Now I just need some brave volunteers to be commentators. I think it would be good to have about 3 or 4 commentators discussing the game to keep the conversation lively and active. If you would like to be a commentator just send an email to let me know.

So lots of new stuff coming up this year. I hope everyone will try to participate (at least in the spectator contest) and enjoy the upcoming events.

Title: Re: 2010 Events pre-announcement
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 16^th, 2009, 4:30pm

Hey, it's awesome that Boardgames 4 Us is sponsoring the tournament this year, along with the continuing sponsorship of Z-Man Games. My thanks to them for contributing and to you, Omar, for lining it up.

I also like that you have allowed contributors to your prize fund to specify where their donations will go. I personally think all the money should go towards the Computer Championship, and more towards the per-win fund than the top-three fund. The bot ladder is one of the coolest things about Arimaa.com, and the bots on it all come from the hard work of developers who enter them into the Computer Championship. Any developer who participates is giving a gift to the community, and that's where the community should be most willing to give back.

As for the players in the human World Championship, sheer glory should be enough to satisfy them, even if there were no prizes whatsoever. :)

Title: Re: 2010 Events pre-announcement
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 16^th, 2009, 4:34pm

on 10/16/09 at 15:22:37, omar wrote:

Aamir and I tested out ustream.com and found that we can run a skype confrence at the same time to allow for multiple commentators in different locations. Now I just need some brave volunteers to be commentators. I think it would be good to have about 3 or 4 commentators discussing the game to keep the conversation lively and active.

Awesome idea. Is the lag in the Skype conference bad? I ask because it could be very awkward to have multiple commentators talking over each other, which is inevitable when it is laggy. I think even a single commentator rambling on would increase viewership.

Title: Re: 2010 Events pre-announcement
Post by Janzert on Oct 16^th, 2009, 9:55pm

Since Fritzlein seems to have no problem I'm not sure what might be going wrong for me; but in case anyone else is also getting 404 errors from the above link the following seems to work.

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wc/2010/
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wcc/2010/

Janzert

Title: Re: 2010 Events pre-announcement
Post by ChrisB on Oct 17^th, 2009, 1:24am

I got errors also, but the following link works to get to the main page:

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wc/2010/sch.html

(The only difference from Omar's link is an "l" at the end; so "htm" becomes "html".)

Title: Re: 2010 Events pre-announcement
Post by tize on Oct 17^th, 2009, 4:25am

Will the tournament servers use a 64-bit version of CentOS?

I really hope so, because that will/can give an about 2x boost in speed for bit board bots.

Title: Re: 2010 Events pre-announcement
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 17^th, 2009, 4:45am

on 10/16/09 at 21:55:04, Janzert wrote:

Since Fritzlein seems to have no problem I'm not sure what might be going wrong for me;

No, the link didn't work for me either; I just forgot to mention it.

Title: Re: 2010 Events pre-announcement
Post by omar on Oct 18^th, 2009, 7:34am

Oops; sorry about the broken link. Fixed it now.

tize: Yes, I'll try to if the ISP provides that option. I just need to make sure that 32-bit bots from previous years can run on it without recompile, since arimaa.com will be transfered to this server after the tournament.

Title: Re: 2010 Events pre-announcement
Post by tize on Oct 18^th, 2009, 1:30pm

Great. Hopefully it will work without too much hassle :)