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        Arimaa >> Events >> One-Day Tournaments
        
(Message started by: The_Jeh on Oct 18^th, 2009, 8:25pm)

Title: One-Day Tournaments
Post by The_Jeh on Oct 18^th, 2009, 8:25pm

I realize the time for inventing tournaments is after the WC, but with the discussion on team events, I thought I'd just throw this out there...

For chess, I go to mostly 4-round Swiss tournaments that happen over the course of a single day, usually a Saturday. The rounds start at set times. I think in the future, such a tournament could be tried online. Maybe we could do a 3-round Swiss on a single Saturday. Just pretend that you have hopped in your car and driven to the tournament site, even though you're in the comfort of your own home.

Of course, such a tournament would appeal mostly to the players in the same time zone as the director, but I don't think that wouldn't be a reason not to try it. Players could request half-point byes and play in the rounds that work for them. We could also try a one-day blitz tournament, which could be consolidated into such a small time frame that it might be viable to both Europe and the Americas.

Since the start times would be set, we can avoid the scheduling hassle altogether, admittedly at the expense of a reduced playing pool. On the other hand, maybe more beginners would play, because it would not require a commitment lasting several weeks.

I might also like to try a single-day knockout tournament.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 19^th, 2009, 4:38am

I'd be interested in a one-day four-round Swiss even before the World Championship. Unlike a long one-round-per-week event, there would be time to organize and complete such an event well before January.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Oct 19^th, 2009, 7:29am

on 10/19/09 at 04:38:34, Fritzlein wrote:

Count me in. I think it would be great to have 1 or 2 of these tournaments in December as a warm-up to the WC. And the chat room would be packed all day and quite exciting with all of the games to watch & discuss.

A 30-second per move tournament with 1.5 hour time slots for each game would allow a 4-round swiss over a 6-hour period of time. We could even add a 1 hour break between round 2 & 3 to allow for meals, etc. Then we could include everyone from the Western Americas to Europe to compete in the same tournament:

Los Angeles, California
07:00 Round 1
08:30 Round 2
10:00 Break
11:00 Round 3
12:30 Round 4

Berlin, Germany
16:00 Round 1
17:30 Round 2
19:00 Break
20:00 Round 3
21:30 Round 4

Or would everyone else prefer 45 second per move? In that case, we should extend the time slots to 2 hours for each game. That would mean the final game would go until 1am for most Europeans. Unless the California players were willing to wake up at 6am and the European players would finish around midnight? Or we could just have 4 consecutive 2-hour time slots without any breaks to condense the schedule. Since many games will finish under 40 moves (approximately 1 hour with 45 seconds per move), there will be plenty of time to take breaks and eat.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 19^th, 2009, 9:56am

I like the proposed schedule, except that I would cut out the break, because there would already be breaks between the games. The average game will be only 45 minutes, leaving time between games to grab a bite. We can then start an hour later to give the west coast a break.

Playing at 30 seconds per move rather than 45 also strikes me as a good idea, to make the time commitment less. Saturday would probably be the best weekday for this, as The_Jeh suggests, because Sunday night could cramp the Europeans who need to work Monday.

Let's get one of these going ASAP and then plan a second one based on how the first one goes. Everything can be re-negotiated based on how the first one feels. Is this Saturday (October 24) too soon? Do people have other plans for the following Saturday (October 31, Halloween)? How about November 7?

I hereby start a straw poll for dates people would play a four-round Swiss according to Adanac's schedule (or something very like it).

October 24 - too soon for me
October 31 - I'm in!
November 7 - I'm in!

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by The_Jeh on Oct 19^th, 2009, 10:00am

November 14 is the first good Saturday for me, but if the rest of you want to do something earlier, I have no problem with that. In fact, I encourage it.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Oct 19^th, 2009, 10:18am

My Saturday afternoons are open for the next 5 weeks, so Yes to all those dates.

And yes, I agree we should begin all tournaments at 08:00 PST rather than 07:00 PST to improve participation on the west coast. That means eliminating my proposed 1 hour break after round 2.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by omar on Oct 20^th, 2009, 9:24am

Great idea John. In fact I had mentioned to Karl recently that we should set aside one day a week for H-H games and turn the bots off that day. It would sort of be like an online Arimaa club meeting day.

I will definitely try to join in the swiss on the days that I am free during the tournament time. But even if I am not able to play in the swiss I would still like to drop in and play a casual game or two with someone else who is also not able to play in the swiss that day.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Arimabuff on Oct 20^th, 2009, 10:16am

on 10/20/09 at 09:24:30, omar wrote:

I am on board with this idea as long as we can still play the bots that are hosted elsewhere like marwin, clueless, quad... etc.

The chances of playing these bots are so scarce that it'd be a shame to waste some of them because of policy plus we can consider them as players vis a vis this site.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by megajester on Oct 20^th, 2009, 3:35pm

Great idea. Shame I'm busy on Saturday evenings, but given that I'm an hour ahead of Berlin I doubt you could include me and still make everybody happy. All the best!

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by PhilomathBret on Oct 20^th, 2009, 7:40pm

Great idea! I'm up for anything that encourages more human to human play and makes it possible to play an opponent that isn't a bot!

ICC has several chess tournaments every day and they get many players. arimaa.com ought to be able to get a good number of players for tournaments.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Oct 21^st, 2009, 4:20am

on 10/20/09 at 15:35:43, megajester wrote:

Great idea. Shame I'm busy on Saturday evenings, but given that I'm an hour ahead of Berlin I doubt you could include me and still make everybody happy. All the best!

Maybe we should run a Sunday tournament on a different weekend, after the Saturday tournament has been completed. That would benefit players like yourself that can't play on Saturdays. But if we're going to have players on both sides of the Atlantic competing, then you'd probably be going to sleep around at midnight.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Oct 21^st, 2009, 7:59am

on 10/21/09 at 04:20:47, Adanac wrote:

Well, it doesn't hurt to ask: Who would be willing to play a Sunday tournament? (EU players would be finishing late on Sunday evening: 11pm for most, midnight for megajester).

October 25th - I cannot play
November 1st - Yes
November 8th - Yes
November 15th - Maybe

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by megajester on Oct 21^st, 2009, 8:20am

:( sorry

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Oct 21^st, 2009, 9:07am

Does that mean, "Sorry" you can't play on Sundays?

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by megajester on Oct 21^st, 2009, 9:50am

Yeah, to be honest I don't get that much free time all at once on a weekend :(

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 21^st, 2009, 10:41am

October 25th - I cannot play
November 1st - Yes
November 8th - Yes
November 15th - Yes

There hasn't been a flood of positive responses, so maybe we should shoot for November 14 when we have Fritzlein, Adanac, and The_Jeh for sure, probably PhilomathBret, maybe omar. Five people would give us a core participation. Omar could link the registration page from the game room, which would attract more signups, probably at least ten. 24 days seems like a long time to wait, but on the flip side more people could plan in advance.

Omar, I'm a little bit leery of having a "no bots" day coinciding with the tournament. It's not that I am opposed to experimenting with a new means of encouraging HvH games, it's just that when two experiments are stacked it can be hard to tell which is a success/failure. What if the nascent tournament scene is smothered by resentment from people who are mad that they can't play bots? What if people, instead of reasoning that they might as well join the tournament since it is the only game in town, blame the tournament for costing them bot opponents, and therefore boycott the tournament?

I'm not implacably against turning off the bots on tournament day, just concerned that new ideas are sometimes better introduced separately than together, especially since there is always some inherent resistance to any new idea. How about turning off bots during the Saturday after the first attempt at a one-day Swiss?

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Simon on Oct 21^st, 2009, 12:15pm

I would be interested in these tournaments and expect to be available most weekends, but I will not be able to play on the weekend of November 14-15.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 21^st, 2009, 12:30pm

Thanks Simon. That gets us closer to having enough players for a tournament on some day.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Oct 21^st, 2009, 12:41pm

on 10/21/09 at 10:41:17, Fritzlein wrote:

There hasn't been a flood of positive responses, so maybe we should shoot for November 14 when we have Fritzlein, Adanac, and The_Jeh for sure, probably PhilomathBret, maybe omar. Five people would give us a core participation. Omar could link the registration page from the game room, which would attract more signups, probably at least ten. 24 days seems like a long time to wait, but on the flip side more people could plan in advance.

Omar, I'm a little bit leery of having a "no bots" day coinciding with the tournament. It's not that I am opposed to experimenting with a new means of encouraging HvH games, it's just that when two experiments are stacked it can be hard to tell which is a success/failure. What if the nascent tournament scene is smothered by resentment from people who are mad that they can't play bots? What if people, instead of reasoning that they might as well join the tournament since it is the only game in town, blame the tournament for costing them bot opponents, and therefore boycott the tournament?

Sure, let's try for a tournament on November 14th. Are we going to cap it at the first 16 players for a 4-round tournament? That would give people incentive to sign up early and keep that day open ;)

If the November 14th tournament and the no-bot day are announced on October 21st, then players have 24 days to brace themselves for a single day of bot-withdrawal syndrome. No big deal. But maybe Fritzlein is right about separating the two events. If a brand new player logs in to see 0 bots and all the humans seem to be committed to an all-day tournament, that new player might simply leave without getting a chance to play at all. I’d rather have a separate event where if new players had no bot opponents, they’d at least have lots of human opponents to choose from -- without an ongoing tournament. The more experienced players could then login that day for the purpose of playing tutorial games with the new players (perhaps with M + H odds, for example).

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Manuel on Oct 23^rd, 2009, 12:26am

On november 14, I would like to play as well.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 23^rd, 2009, 5:53am

on 10/23/09 at 00:26:53, Manuel wrote:

On november 14, I would like to play as well.

Great, I think that makes four "yes" and two "probably" for the 14th. For a four-rounder there should be about eight to sixteen participants, and it looks like that is where we are headed.

on 10/21/09 at 12:41:45, Adanac wrote:

Are we going to cap it at the first 16 players for a 4-round tournament? That would give people incentive to sign up early and keep that day open ;)

A cap also gives people incentive to sign up early even if they can't keep the day open, since there is no cost for not showing up. Let's not fill up the roster with fluff.

Instead, let's keep the signup open and be prepared to deal with no-shows and last-minute entries and even (as The_Jeh suggested) late entries with half-point byes, although I guess I would want to cap late entries to a maximum participation of 16. If more than sixteen actually sign up to play ahead of time, we have a problem, but a pleasant one. Should we try to cram in five rounds the next week, or just hold one-day tournaments every week so there isn't so much pent up demand? For November 14, though, I think I'll be able to contain my disappointment if we end up with two undefeated players. ;)

By the way, I would volunteer to pair this event by hand, but maybe someone else would like the honor and/or has a pairing program handy.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Oct 23^rd, 2009, 7:29am

on 10/23/09 at 05:53:05, Fritzlein wrote:

By the way, I would volunteer to pair this event by hand, but maybe someone else would like the honor and/or has a pairing program handy.

I can’t check these while at work, but both of these links advertise free Swiss System programs. This could make our lives a lot easier!

http://utenti.lycos.it/forlano/vega/en/index.htm

http://www.nechessleague.com/ncl/tdx.ncl

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Ice on Oct 23^rd, 2009, 8:27am

I'd be interested in participating in one or two of these. Maybe once a month or every other month would be all the more often I'd be able to though.

How soon is this expected to happen? My near future available Saturdays would be Oct 31st or Nov 14th. Beyond that I couldn't give a very good guess.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Oct 23^rd, 2009, 8:59am

on 10/23/09 at 08:27:46, Ice wrote:

How soon is this expected to happen? My near future available Saturdays would be Oct 31st or Nov 14th. Beyond that I couldn't give a very good guess.

You're in luck! We have a tournament planned for November 14th.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by PhilomathBret on Oct 24^th, 2009, 4:02pm

I'd love to play in any tournament that encourages some human vs. human play. I'm so sick of these bots!! But I'm PDT and I wouldn't want to play in any tournament that starts earlier than 10am my time.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by omar on Oct 24^th, 2009, 5:21pm

Arimaabuff: the external bots like marwin and quad would still be available.

Fritzlein: OK I won't turn the bots off and we'll see how it goes.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by PhilomathBret on Oct 24^th, 2009, 5:48pm

on 10/21/09 at 07:59:23, Adanac wrote:

I can play Sundays but I prefer Saturdays. I don't go to bed until around 3am. So I'm available from 11am-3am PDT Sat. and Sunday or 6pm-3am on weekdays.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by amalgam on Oct 24^th, 2009, 9:13pm

Hello all,

I think that this is a fantastic idea for encouraging human vs human games, and I really hope that this will end up successful. Perhaps, in future, if (or when, if one is optimistic :)) Arimaa becomes relatively popular, we will even be able to have separate rating division categories, so people who are not incredibly gifted (i.e. me) can play, without too much fear of being trounced each time. :)

I'd like to play, but I'm a school student and my exams are coming up soon, so I probably won't be able to play until Nov. 21, but I should be able to play after that.

Out of curiosity, as I am living in Australia, what time would the tournament take place for me ( in my local time)? Perhaps a list of GMT times for easy conversion for people of different countries could be posted here. I could probably go from 2pm - 5pm and 8pm - 11pm on Saturdays, so hopefully I'll be able to get some games here.

Thanks again for this great initiative. I really hope this catches on, and becomes a successful venture.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Oct 25^th, 2009, 5:09am

on 10/24/09 at 17:48:21, PhilomathBret wrote:

I can play Sundays but I prefer Saturdays. I don't go to bed until around 3am. So I'm available from 11am-3am PDT Sat. and Sunday or 6pm-3am on weekdays.

Saturdays are the consensus for tournament days, but they’re going to begin at 08:00 PST. You could take byes for the first 2 rounds and play the final 2 rounds starting at 11:00 – I'm not the tournament director or anything, but I don’t expect anyone would object to that in a “fun” tournament.

However, if these tournaments become really popular & frequent then we should eventually create continent-specific tournaments: for example, we could start the Americas tournament at noon PST so that it's at a reasonable start time for everyone (distant players could join, of course, but the time might not be as convenient). We could do the same for a European tournament so that people aren’t going to sleep after midnight. Someday maybe we’ll have enough Asian, Australian & NZ players to create a 3rd tournament for players like amalgam. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough players there right now and participating in an America-Europe tournament would require them to stay up all through the night and then sleep through the daytime! But with the growth of popularity of Arimaa, hopefully everyone worldwide will have the opportunity to participate in frequent tournaments by 2011 or so.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by camelback on Oct 29^th, 2009, 4:53am

I have some classes on Saturday mornings, so I may not able to join :-/

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by omar on Oct 29^th, 2009, 6:17pm

I've setup a registration page for the Oct 31 one day swiss.

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/events/reg.cgi?e=onedayswiss20091031

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 29^th, 2009, 7:04pm

on 10/29/09 at 18:17:19, omar wrote:

I've setup a registration page for the Oct 31 one day swiss.

Thanks for volunteering to be the TD, Omar. Adanac and I already registered and Ice said he could play, so that makes three. The absolute minimum would be five players, in which case the Swiss almost turns into a round-robin. Will we get enough to play?

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 30^th, 2009, 4:44am

Omar, will your tournament accommodate late-joining players?

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Oct 30^th, 2009, 6:52am

on 10/29/09 at 19:04:14, Fritzlein wrote:

But 5 players would require 5 rounds due to each player receiving a bye. I think we should should have a 3-round swiss with 4 or 5 players and a 4-round swiss with 6+ players.

EDIT: Actually a 3-round 5-player swiss is less than ideal because someone with a 1-1 record is likely to get a bye (possibly to tie for 1st with a free point in the final round). We should just have a 3-round-robin for 4 players and a 5-round-robin for 5 players. In the latter case we'll have to speed up the schedule a bit: As soon as a game finishes, the player with the bye immediately begins his next game against one of the those 2 players.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Ice on Oct 30^th, 2009, 7:33am

Unfortunately, something came up for Saturday during the day... so I won't be able to make it.
Sorry but this wasn't scheduled before I agreed to go to a different event.

I'm a bit sad too, I was looking forward to this kind of tournament. Next time!

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 30^th, 2009, 8:02am

on 10/30/09 at 07:33:36, Ice wrote:

Sorry but this wasn't scheduled before I agreed to go to a different event.

Yeah, we need to plan in advance, which is why I suggested November 14. But then Omar wanted to try out his new Tournament Director tools, and didn't want to wait until November 14. If we don't get enough players for October 31, no sweat, we can wait for November 14 anyway, in which case we are no worse off than before.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Simon on Oct 30^th, 2009, 5:45pm

Well, I can't come on November 14, so more people please sign up for tomorrow!

One possibility, is that if there are no EU players who are going to sign up anyway, and if it is OK with all three of us already signed up, is to start the tournament a few hours later to accomodate PhilomathBret and any other players who would prefer a later time.

On the other hand, I would think PhilomathBret could consider waking up early, given how eager he seems for h v. h. games.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 31^st, 2009, 10:46am

Thus went the inaugural Saturday tournament on October 31, 2009:

. . | A | F | S | W |
Adanac .| - | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3
Fritzlein | 0 | - | 1 | 1 | 2
Simon .| 0 | 0 | - | 1 | 1
woh . | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | 0

Congratulations Adanac! Rematch next week?

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Simon on Oct 31^st, 2009, 2:51pm

Round 1:

Simon v. Adanac http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=122703

Fritzlein v. woh http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=122704

Round 2:

Adanac v. Fritzlein http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=122710

woh v. Simon http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=122711

Round 3:

Fritzlein v. Simon http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=122714

Adanac v. woh http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=122715

A note about time control differences: the first round games were done by manual invite since omar hadn't shown up yet; in the second round and third rounds omar scheduled the games with a different time control (still 30s per move though), but in the second round game against me woh timed out at the very beginning due to client issues, and we restarted the game by manual invite with the same time control that was used in the first round.

The scheduled game between me and woh was
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=122708

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Nov 1^st, 2009, 3:31am

on 10/31/09 at 10:46:57, Fritzlein wrote:

Thus went the inaugural Saturday tournament on October 31, 2009:

. . | A | F | S | W |
Adanac .| - | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3
Fritzlein | 0 | - | 1 | 1 | 2
Simon .| 0 | 0 | - | 1 | 1
won . | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | 0

Congratulations Adanac! Rematch next week?

I'll be back for the November 14th tournament. Judging by the responses so far, that should be a big one!

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 1^st, 2009, 9:16am

on 11/01/09 at 03:31:30, Adanac wrote:

I'll be back for the November 14th tournament. Judging by the responses so far, that should be a big one!

Yes, let's not have one November 7, and instead target a bigger event on November 14. We have proof of concept, so now let's go for participation. Omar, could you open a new event registration page for November 14?

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by woh on Nov 1^st, 2009, 9:44am

on 10/31/09 at 10:46:57, Fritzlein wrote:

Congratulations Adanac!

It was great fun to participate in this tournament.
I am looking forward to join in again November 14th.

BTW: It seems to me, looking at his results, the 4th player made a bad choice for his player id ;)

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 1^st, 2009, 4:39pm

on 11/01/09 at 09:44:53, woh wrote:

BTW: It seems to me, looking at his results, the 4th player made a bad choice for his player id ;)

Ha ha! I will correct the original, but since I have been quoted, my shame lives eternally. :-[

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by omar on Nov 6^th, 2009, 8:51am

Registration for the next one-day event is now open:

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/events/reg.cgi?e=onedayswiss20091114

This is for Nov 14.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Nov 6^th, 2009, 9:46am

on 11/06/09 at 08:51:17, omar wrote:

Registration for the next one-day event is now open:

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/events/reg.cgi?e=onedayswiss20091114

This is for Nov 14.

Thanks Omar.

A question about the start time: it's telling me that my local start time is 10:00. If so, that means that people on the west coast will need to wake up at 7:00. Maybe we should give them that extra hour of sleep and push back the start time? ;)

I liked the scheduling of the first tournament with each round beginning 90 minutes after the start of the previous round.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by qswanger on Nov 6^th, 2009, 5:33pm

I would love to play. Unfortunately the time control for the tournament is such that I don't trust any of the clients not to lock up on me and cause me to lose on time, which has happened several times to me now to my extreme frustration. :-(

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by omar on Nov 10^th, 2009, 7:26pm

on 11/06/09 at 09:46:55, Adanac wrote:

A question about the start time: it's telling me that my local start time is 10:00. If so, that means that people on the west coast will need to wake up at 7:00. Maybe we should give them that extra hour of sleep and push back the start time? ;)

I used the same time that we did for the first one, but one hour later might be better. OK I've changed it to one hour later. Hope it doesn't get too late for someone in Europe.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by omar on Nov 10^th, 2009, 7:45pm

on 11/06/09 at 17:33:04, qswanger wrote:

The JavaScript client has been working pretty good for me. Have you tried that yet?

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 10^th, 2009, 8:33pm

on 11/10/09 at 19:26:18, omar wrote:

I used the same time that we did for the first one, but one hour later might be better. OK I've changed it to one hour later. Hope it doesn't get too late for someone in Europe.

Daylight Savings Time strikes again! You used the same time but it appeared earlier since we all set our clocks back. Anyway, we'll see whether the Americans complain more about how early it is, or the Europeans complain more about how late it is.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by omar on Nov 10^th, 2009, 9:41pm

Oh yeah; I forgot about the time change :-)

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Nombril on Nov 12^th, 2009, 12:07pm

I'm on the fence about signing up to play Nov 14. I have a lot to learn still, and if ratings are any indication I'll loose every game. I'm OK with being the underdog... but will it adversely impact the tournament dynamics? Also, what was decided on for the spacing of the games? Every 90min, w/o a break?

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 12^th, 2009, 2:39pm

on 11/12/09 at 12:07:41, Nombril wrote:

If you don't mind being the underdog, then don't worry about adversely affecting the tournament. My "mismatch" rule of thumb is that you need to be within 400 points of your opponent to make it a good game. By that measure you should be able to give an interesting challenge to Ice, froody, Manuel, and woh.

Furthermore the tournament is Swiss paired, so you will gravitate towards the closer matches. In an eight-player Swiss where the favorite always wins, the #8 seed gets to play #4, #6, #7, and #5 in that order. But the favorite doesn't always win. Go ahead and sign up; you might surprise yourself!

The main disadvantage of being the bottom seed in my book is that when the number of players is odd, the bye is given to the lowest player in the standings. Not only does that force you to sit out a round, playing only three games instead of four, it also gives you a win in the first round that can bump you up to playing a strong player in the second round. Therefore, if you do sign up as the seventh player, you should also try to recruit an eighth.

Quote:

Also, what was decided on for the spacing of the games? Every 90min, w/o a break?

That's what we did last time. It worked pretty well, so I do see any reason to deviate, but Adanac will be the TD this time, so you would have to ask him. I will not be playing because I will be at the live club that Omar is hosting. :-)

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Nov 12^th, 2009, 2:44pm

on 11/12/09 at 14:39:18, Fritzlein wrote:

Yes, I'm planning to start each round 90 minutes apart. That worked well last time, and there was more than enough idle time for each player to eat between games, etc.

I'd encourage Nombril and any other new players to sign up. Your participation might just encourage a few others to join as well 8)

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by aaaa on Nov 12^th, 2009, 2:50pm

How about (developer) bots? Or does that go against the point of this tournament?

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Arimabuff on Nov 12^th, 2009, 5:35pm

on 11/12/09 at 14:50:59, aaaa wrote:

How about (developer) bots? Or does that go against the point of this tournament?

If memory serves in most tournaments, developer bots have the same status as human players.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 12^th, 2009, 6:16pm

In the Continuous Tournament, I was happy when developer bots participated. For this event, I would also be happy to see developer bots participate, but I hesitate to speak for the group when I am not running the event, and in particular when I won't be playing in the next one.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by omar on Nov 12^th, 2009, 7:31pm

I would encourage developer bots to participate in the one-day tournaments.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by The_Jeh on Nov 13^th, 2009, 6:26pm

I'm afraid I have to withdraw due to my computer recently developing a tendency to freeze-up. Hopefully, I will get this fixed in time to participate in the next installment. My apologies.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 14^th, 2009, 7:58am

on 11/12/09 at 19:31:03, omar wrote:

I would encourage developer bots to participate in the one-day tournaments.

OK, but how do they sign up?

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Arimabuff on Nov 14^th, 2009, 12:01pm

on 11/14/09 at 07:58:05, Fritzlein wrote:

OK, but how do they sign up?

My guess would be by using their bot's account.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 14^th, 2009, 4:17pm

November 14 results:

. A M f w I N V SS
Adanac - 1 1 1 1 - 4 7
Manuel 0 - 1 0 - 1 2 9
froody 0 0 - - 1 1 2 8
woh . 0 1 - - 0 1 2 8
Ice . 0 - 0 1 - 0 1 9
Nombril - 0 0 0 1 - 1 7

Congratulations Adanac! We're going to have to keep holding these tournaments at least until you don't win one. ;)

Nombril, I'm glad you registered. Not only were your fears of messing it up for others unfounded, you even won a game. Well done!

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 14^th, 2009, 4:20pm

I can't play next weekend due to the Board Game Geek conference, or the weekend after due to Thanksgiving, so the next Saturday I can play is December 5. Is there enough interest for another one-day tournament prior to December 5? I didn't see any discussion in the chat room as to when to hold the next one.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Nov 14^th, 2009, 4:23pm

I added a Swiss Tournament page to the Arimma Wiki, including the results of today's games:

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/2009_Saturday_Swiss_Tournaments

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Nov 15^th, 2009, 4:43am

on 11/14/09 at 16:23:04, Adanac wrote:

I added a Swiss Tournament page to the Arimma Wiki, including the results of today's games:

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/2009_Saturday_Swiss_Tournaments

Omar, I want to link to the Arimaa Wiki to the specific rounds on the Event page. However, it didn't assign the round 3 or 4 games to the correct section:

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/eventgames.cgi

I learned that it's better to change the matchups with the pairing tool rather than manually adding the game from the Change Game screen. When I did that in the final round everything worked more smoothly. If you ever need me to TD again in the future, I can gladly do it. :)

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Manuel on Nov 15^th, 2009, 4:44am

Thanks Adanac for directing the tournement!
Thanks everyone for playing.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Nombril on Nov 15^th, 2009, 8:18am

Thanks to everyone who helped organize this. I'd definitely do it again, right now it looks like I could play one of the first two Saturdays in Dec.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 24^th, 2009, 1:54pm

Omar, would you be so good as to open a one-day tournament event for December 5? We have two votes in favor and no one advocating an alternate day.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by omar on Nov 24^th, 2009, 7:43pm

After seeing some of the problems Greg ran into while using the tournament management tool, I've been redoing it almost from scratch. I hope to finish it up this weekend. So I'll setup the next event once it's ready.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Tuks on Nov 26^th, 2009, 1:10pm

hey Fritz, can we start the continuous tournament again, 10 people are registered and im sure even more have an extra 2 hours at some point in the week, we did have people with whole days to play ;)

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 26^th, 2009, 9:30pm

on 11/26/09 at 13:10:00, Tuks wrote:

hey Fritz, can we start the continuous tournament again, 10 people are registered and im sure even more have an extra 2 hours at some point in the week, we did have people with whole days to play ;)

I think we can restart it, although it can't overlap with the World Championship because it uses the same scheduler, and even if the events could technically run at the same time, I wouldn't want them to.

Another reason to pause is that we have three types of events trying to get in some games in December, namely the one-day tournaments, the World League, and the Continuous Tournament. They might all appeal to basically the same group of players. If some players decide they can't do them all, we may end up dividing the player pool and not getting any of the three events started. But it is worth a try.

To make sure there is sufficient interest, I would like to clear the registration and try to get ten or more people signed up in the same week, all of them knowing the week in which they are committing to play. It doesn't really count if ten people have registered in the past two months, because they might have been available/interested at the time that they signed up but not for next week.

When I get home from Thanksgiving vacation I will dust off woh's old pairing script to see whether I can still remember how to run it. If I can figure it out, I will re-open registration with a clean slate, post an invitation in a new thread, and perhaps we can squeeze in a few rounds before the end of the year. Thanks for your interest!

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Tuks on Nov 27^th, 2009, 1:08am

two thing, i thought the league was for 2010 and second, i suggested restarting it because i figured there would be a lot of people who can and want to play official human games but cant spend an entire 12 hours for a single day tournament...like me, i always have something going for at least 4 hours on a saturday or sunday

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Adanac on Nov 27^th, 2009, 1:11pm

on 11/27/09 at 01:08:31, Tuks wrote:

I also thought the World League was beginning in 2010 after the WC.

It's only 6 hours for the Daily Tournaments, not 12!

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by megajester on Nov 28^th, 2009, 5:42am

Yes, the World League will be starting officially after the WC but we had been hoping to be able to have a couple of friendly matches for, say, the middle two weeks in December. Wouldn't it be possible to use the same scheduling tool for more than one tournament at the same time?

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 1^st, 2009, 9:56am

on 11/28/09 at 05:42:42, megajester wrote:

Wouldn't it be possible to use the same scheduling tool for more than one tournament at the same time?

As I understand it, you can only enter one set of time preferences. You can't enter one set of preferences for one event and a different set for another event. In particular, there is no way to prevent the scheduler for scheduling your two games in the two different events at the same time.

Title: Re: One-Day Tournaments
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 5^th, 2009, 1:37pm

December 5 results:

. . P TB F o N T S b
Fritzlein 4 7 - 1 1 1 1 -
omar . 3 8 0 - 1 1 1 -
Nombril 2 8 0 0 - - 1 1
Tuks . 1 7 0 0 - - - 1
Sconibulus 1 9 0 0 0 - - 1
bye . 0 - - - 0 0 0 -

I followed what I think are traditions in Swiss pairing, namely that late joins get 0.5-point byes, while players in the tournament get 1-point byes. Thus Tuks gets two half-point byes, while Sconibulus and Nombril each get one full-point bye.