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        Arimaa >> Events >> Selection of the best program
        
(Message started by: Eltripas on Feb 27^th, 2010, 4:41pm)

Title: Selection of the best program
Post by Eltripas on Feb 27^th, 2010, 4:41pm

"The two programs which finished first and second in the 2010 World Computer Championship will compete in a preliminary for the right to play in the Arimaa challenge match. The two programs will be made available online for humans to play against for a duration of two weeks. Any human player that wants to play against the programs must play both programs equally in terms of number of times and color. A human player must not play more than two times against either program and no more than one time with the same color. Thus, if a human player plays program A as gold, the player must then play program B as gold. The program which has a better record after the two weeks will go on to play in the challenge match. In case of a tie the program which won the computer championship will go on to play in the challenge match. The games will be played using the 2/2/100/10/8 time control."

I think that 2 minutes per move is way to much time, is there a specific reason to use this time control other than this is the time control for the challenge?

If not I suggest to change to a minute, I don't think that it would change the outcome of the selection, and more players would be able to play since some players doesn't have the time and/or patience to play that kind of game, with out mentioning players like me who simply don't have the capacity to use the 2 minutes of time.

Or maybe give the option if you want to play 1 or 2 minute matches.

Title: Re: Selection of the best program
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 28^th, 2010, 2:33pm

on 02/27/10 at 16:41:52, Eltripas wrote:

I think that 2 minutes per move is way to much time, is there a specific reason to use this time control other than this is the time control for the challenge?

That's the reason. It makes sense for the screening to have the same time control as the Challenge itself. It is unlikely that the order of strength changes between 1 minute per move and 2 minutes per move, but it might, and anyway where would you draw the line? We would get maximum participation with blitz time controls, but we certainly don't want the best blitz bot.

Part of the reason the Challenge time control is so slow is that we are looking ahead to the day when the humans will need the extra time. At the moment we could easily defend the challenge at one mintue per move, but on the year when humans finally lose to the bots, we don't want the losers to say they felt rushed. Two minutes per move is about the ideal for our chances against the machines: any longer and it would wear down our stamina, but any shorter and it would mean more blunders.