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Title: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Jan 5th, 2011, 4:52am It would be funny to see 20 games between arima_master and 722caasi ... :) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jan 5th, 2011, 8:34am on 01/05/11 at 04:52:19, Hippo wrote:
Heheh. The pairing algorithm limits each pair of player to two games, one with each color assignment. Thus, in the past, even players who have requested fifty games have only gotten fifteen or so. It would be fun to follow the record participation of the World Championship with record participation in the Postal Mixer, but that seems unlikely given that last year's Postal Mixer was free and this year's costs ten dollars. I expect that as usual one will be able to get about eleven games without repeat pairings and about fifteen or sixteen games including repeat pairings. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Jan 12th, 2011, 4:28pm You can count me in for the Postal Mixer this year. Looking forward to it. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by omar on Jan 19th, 2011, 3:46pm on 01/12/11 at 16:28:53, mistre wrote:
Nice to hear from you Mark. I'm glad you can play this year. I hope we have a record breaking turn out. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Jan 24th, 2011, 10:59pm Thanks Omar. I took a bit of a break from Arimaa, but I am back now. Thanks for continuing to follow up with me, your contact eventually led me into plunging back in and seeing what I missed being away for a while. I just missed the start of the WC, but hopefully I can play in it next year. FYI, I registered for the postal mixer, but I don't show up on the player list for some reason. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by omar on Jan 27th, 2011, 2:13pm Sorry about the confusion Mark. Although it's mentioned on the rules page, I forgot to mention on the registration page about making a contribution to the prize fund. I've made a note to add that. I've been waiting to get an email or a payment from the player before activating the registration. http://arimaa.com/arimaa/tourn/postal/2011/ http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wc/2011/prizefund/ |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Heyckie on Mar 20th, 2011, 9:25pm I made a 30$ (>2*10$) donation to the WC prize fund when I registered to play in the Arimaa Open. I would like to play in the postal mixer as well but my registration doesn't appear to get completed unless I donate to "the prize fund". Is there a separate prize fund for the postal mixer and if so, how does one make a contribution there? It seems kind of silly to add more money to the WC fund now that the tournaments are already over. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Mar 21st, 2011, 10:34am on 03/20/11 at 21:25:07, Heyckie wrote:
Yes, any donations that are made now are not going to the prize fund, but rather to particular individuals. If I took second place, I could sign up twenty of my closest friends to the Postal Mixer, allocating all of their entry fees to second place, i.e. back to myself. And even when it isn't me paying myself, it is silly to be able to direct money, not on the basis of an achievement, but on the basis of who among the winners one happens to like. Omar should close the prize fund for this year, pay out the prizes, and if there needs to be a receptacle for further entry fees, let it be the 2012 prize fund. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by omar on Mar 23rd, 2011, 10:52pm on 03/20/11 at 21:25:07, Heyckie wrote:
You are signed up for the Postal Mixer now. If anyone else is in the same situation, please send me a message. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by omar on Mar 23rd, 2011, 10:57pm on 03/21/11 at 10:34:11, Fritzlein wrote:
If there are any more registrations I guess I will just have to apply the full amount towards the game winners portion. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Mar 28th, 2011, 7:52am Omar is it possible to sign up bot_briareus for 18 games? I think I contributed $20 to the prize fund so that should cover the WCC participation and the postal mixer, but please correct me if that's wrong. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Mar 28th, 2011, 11:04am Thanks for entering briareus. It increases the fun of the Postal Mixer (at least for me) to have at least one bot participating, as a benchmark for the ongoing man vs. machine struggle. My game against clueless in the 2010 Postal Mixer was one of my more tense and instructive games. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by omar on Mar 28th, 2011, 1:26pm on 03/28/11 at 07:52:02, rbarreira wrote:
I've added bot_briareus to the Postal Mixer. It would be good to have some more bots play in the mixer. I think some of the other developers have also overpaid and could add their bots. I guess it's more a matter of being able to run the bot on their computer for that long. Just send me a message if want to enter your bot. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by UruramTururam on Mar 30th, 2011, 4:43am Eh. I finally decided to register for the mixer. I'm afraid I'll get hopelessly beaten but I guess I'll learn something. :) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Mar 30th, 2011, 2:52pm on 03/30/11 at 04:43:17, UruramTururam wrote:
I don't think you will regret it. Postal games encourage a very different kind of learning about Arimaa than live games or puzzles or reading about Arimaa. You must rely entirely on your own resources, just like a live game, but you have as long as you like to play, just as if you were studying. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by UruramTururam on Mar 31st, 2011, 12:58am I guess I'll need to learn first how to focus on a game position for a longer time than a minute or two! :D |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Mar 31st, 2011, 1:03am on 03/31/11 at 00:58:25, UruramTururam wrote:
Not necessarily; you could just as well learn how to not make a move the instant your focus gives out, but rather wait and return to the position the next day to see if something different occurs to you. ;) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by UruramTururam on Mar 31st, 2011, 2:31am Good point! Thanks! |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Apr 2nd, 2011, 2:32pm on 03/28/11 at 07:52:02, rbarreira wrote:
Rbarreria, Is briareus improved from the version that entered the computer championship? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Apr 2nd, 2011, 2:37pm on 04/02/11 at 14:32:25, mistre wrote:
Yes, I have done a few improvements, both in the eval and the search. Also, it will be running on stronger hardware than that used for the computer championship. It will probably be thinking for 3 hours per move. I think that should be possible, unless many people are moving very fast in their games against it. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by UruramTururam on Apr 2nd, 2011, 2:46pm I'd rather play against human opponents... |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Apr 2nd, 2011, 3:12pm I'd rather have a game against each computer opponent, even though last year my eleven games got filled up before I got down to OpFor, so I had to be content to with just my game against clueless. I hope that this year briareus will be rated high enough that I get paired with briareus before my eleven games run out. I think, however, that we will open a can of worms if we start trying to honor individual pairing requests to have or not have bots as opponents. Even though it presumably can't hurt a bot's feelings to be excluded (or contrariwise make the bot feel special to be specifically requested by an opponent) there are potential logistical nightmares in adding cases to the pairing code. If bots are included in the tournament at all, they should be paired like everyone else. It is, of course, open for debate whether bots should be allowed to participate in the Postal Mixer at all. I strongly feel that they should. The man vs. machine theme is so much a part of Arimaa that the only event that I want computers to be excluded from is the World Championship and the only event I want humans to be excluded from is the Computer Championship. Other than that, I am happiest to have every event be mixed. If there had been enough willing developers, I would have even liked to see a computer team in the Arimaa World League. I understand, though, if others feel differently. How do the other folks who have signed up for the Postal Mixer feel about competing against a bot? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by UruramTururam on Apr 2nd, 2011, 3:26pm Yup I also think bots should be allowed to play. And if I'm paired with a bot I will not complain. Maybe it is worth considering for the next year mixer to add an option: a switch [pair me with humans if possible / pair me with bots if possible / I don't care]. Of course "if possible" is important part there. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Apr 2nd, 2011, 3:29pm on 04/02/11 at 15:12:17, Fritzlein wrote:
I don't mind setting up additional postal games for anyone who doesn't get paired against it and wants to play it. Of course they wouldn't count for the postal mixer, but if that's not a problem we can set up a game anyway. Up to a reasonable limit on the number of games of course (which is not likely to be reached). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Apr 2nd, 2011, 3:39pm on 04/02/11 at 15:29:48, rbarreira wrote:
Thanks for that generous offer, extending the generosity of entering briareus in the Postal Mixer in the first place. I expect I will get paired against briareus within the Postal Mixer, but if I don't, I certainly will take you up on your offer. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by ChrisB on Apr 2nd, 2011, 4:23pm on 04/02/11 at 15:12:17, Fritzlein wrote:
I've enjoyed playing bots in the previous postal mixers and would be interested in playing briareus and/or other bots in the upcoming mixer. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Apr 8th, 2011, 4:13am Maybe one day when bots play better it would be fun to have a Mob game against a bot thinking 7 days per move. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Apr 8th, 2011, 9:53am on 04/08/11 at 04:13:10, rbarreira wrote:
You might find some interest for that even at the current level of bot play. Part of the reason there is no Mob game going on at present is that chessandgo and I found it grueling to be The One. If you are interested in offering briareus as The One, you should open a thread to gauge interest in the Mob participation. But aren't you already dedicating your server full time for the Postal Mixer? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Apr 8th, 2011, 9:58am on 04/08/11 at 09:53:23, Fritzlein wrote:
Yes my main computer will be busy with the postal for the next few months, and I wouldn't consider it interesting to do it with a slower computer that might be available. First let's see how it does in the postal. It might play pretty bad, in which case it wouldn't be so interesting to even propose it. I wonder if any other bot developer would be interested to do it with their bot? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by UruramTururam on Apr 8th, 2011, 11:19am on 04/08/11 at 09:58:56, rbarreira wrote:
A mob game against marwin or sharp allowed to calculate a week per move would be a nice experience... Well, then? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Apr 8th, 2011, 1:36pm Omar, I am almost sure I was registered for the postal mixer already on January. Now I have checked the list and ... I am not there ... I wanted to update number of games registered from (10 to 12). I hoped to play it :). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Apr 8th, 2011, 2:41pm on 04/08/11 at 13:36:34, Hippo wrote:
I was wondering why you weren't in there - figured you would want to play - oh great I am going to get swarmed again.... LOL. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by omar on Apr 8th, 2011, 6:42pm on 04/08/11 at 13:36:34, Hippo wrote:
I have you registered for 10 games; which is what was entered. I didn't see this before setting up the games. It's hard to change it now since I've setup all the games in the gameroom. Hope you can live with 10 :-) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Apr 8th, 2011, 6:55pm on 04/02/11 at 15:29:48, rbarreira wrote:
It seems I didn't get my hoped-for pairing against briareus. Is your offer still open? Can you accept a match on briareus' behalf if I issue a challenge? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Apr 9th, 2011, 1:32am on 04/08/11 at 18:42:44, omar wrote:
Yes it's absolutely OK :) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Apr 9th, 2011, 3:15am on 04/08/11 at 18:55:59, Fritzlein wrote:
I'm not sure if a challenge would work. I guess the surest way would be for you to create an open game while I'm online and then briareus joins it (or vice-versa). Maybe tomorrow before the marwin vs rabbits game? I will probably be watching that one, if you're going to watch it too we can set it up then. As a side-note it will be thinking 4 hours per move instead. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Apr 11th, 2011, 12:32am Year . . 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Players . . 16 19 20 15 14 42 29 Games . . 80 95 85 84 70 147 141 Mismatches . 9 5 3 21 19 23 16 Not Finished . 20 31 18 8 4 31 % Mismatches . 11 5 4 25 27 16 11 % Not Finished 25 33 21 10 6 21 This year we have fewer players than last year, but more of them are game hungry, so the total number of games barely dropped from last year's record. Presumably the participants are more committed this year, due to the reinstatement of the registration fee, this time without refunds, so it is truly pay to play. (Maybe now that we have a point system so not everything has to run through PayPal, next year it wouldn't be too much trouble to award points for committed play?) Anyway, if the number of unfinished games drops as I expect, this year could easily set a record for completed games. The number of mismatches is down this year, so I expect a lot of exciting games and not too many runaway victories. It is great that this can be true even with the range in rating of participants spanning 1423 Elo. Apparently the pairing algorithm works! |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Apr 11th, 2011, 12:46am on 04/09/11 at 03:15:54, rbarreira wrote:
Thanks for setting me up. Of course it won't count in the official tournament stats, performance ratings, etc., but I will definitely treat this game on a par with the rest of my Postal Mixer games. Quote:
Nineteen games at four hours per move should be entirely doable. Of course you will dip into reserve at first, but I doubt you will even get close to timing out in any of them. Last year clueless had sixteen games, was thinking for four hours per move, and still had plenty of reserve left when it turned the corner and started gaining reserve. It took almost three months before jdb's server had any idle time, though. Thanks for this big donation of CPU time! |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Apr 14th, 2011, 1:14pm Is there a page where we can view the current status/standings of all of the postal matches in the mixer? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Tuks on Apr 14th, 2011, 2:20pm look under the 'Events" tab |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by ChrisB on Apr 15th, 2011, 1:01am on 04/14/11 at 13:14:49, mistre wrote:
The following link works best for me: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/tourn/postal/2011/showGames.cgi |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Apr 16th, 2011, 2:25am Seems the refresh rate of the page is too slow. Actual games are several more turns advanced. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Apr 16th, 2011, 9:55am on 04/16/11 at 02:25:51, Hippo wrote:
In the past that page has been up to an hour behind. That is not a bug but rather a choice not to waste resources refreshing it constantly. The topic of the thread is a bug, i.e. cases of the person to move not refreshing in the "My Games" display, where they should refresh in minutes at most. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Apr 17th, 2011, 12:35pm on 04/16/11 at 09:55:41, Fritzlein wrote:
That page is not an hour behind, it is DAYS behind. It seems like it is not updating at all. It could be another bug... Case in point (Tuks vs Arimaa_Master is on move 18! and the page only shows it on move 3). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Apr 20th, 2011, 9:03am Page is now updating! Thanks Omar! mistre vs Tuks on move 50! |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Apr 20th, 2011, 9:29am on 04/20/11 at 09:03:52, mistre wrote:
That looks like a quite uncommon game! |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Apr 20th, 2011, 10:22am It's over - Tuks wins the first game of the 2011 postal tournament in |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Apr 20th, 2011, 10:36am on 04/20/11 at 10:22:36, mistre wrote:
Wow, and I'm on about move 3 in my games. At least I'm ahead of HarryPotter and Eresbos50! (although hopefully not because they dropped out of the tournament...) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Tuks on Apr 20th, 2011, 11:06am i have vacation...and i hate seeing a game on my move :) i'll probably be done first with all my games, even before those with only 4 even though i have 14 |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Apr 20th, 2011, 2:49pm Actually we were only on move 12 three days ago in which I took 4 days to decide my move. Then the floodgates opened and I couldn't stop myself... |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by chessandgo on Apr 21st, 2011, 2:49pm Counting on Tuks to slow down the pace of a postal game is usually not the way to go apparently :) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Adanac on May 1st, 2011, 9:50am I feel like a beginner again. I used to use Flash Client V1 in previous Postal Mixers and I always found its Plan window very convenient. That no longer works so I'm testing out all the other clients for their Plan features. No client seems to have a functioning plan window. How does everyone else plan ahead in the Postal Mixer? In their head, on a physical board or some other way? I've tried using the link to the game planner from the main page and then copying and pasting the move list but I don't have a send button on my plan window and can't really do much with it. I tried using the Expert Mode in one game but that sent the real move not a test move. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on May 1st, 2011, 9:54am on 05/01/11 at 09:50:03, Adanac wrote:
Have you tried this one? http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/planGame1.cgi |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Adanac on May 1st, 2011, 11:27am Thanks, that plan window is working for me! |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by 722caasi on May 1st, 2011, 12:13pm I was wondering about a statistic that I have seen in WCC discussions: rating based on the games in the tournament alone. I think it would be interesting to see this, to see who is outperforming their rating in postal games.Would it be possible to put that on the event games page? It would provide an interesting point about the difficulty of the games. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on May 1st, 2011, 1:26pm on 05/01/11 at 12:13:57, 722caasi wrote:
http://home.scarlet.be/~woh/whr/whrp.htm |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Tuks on May 1st, 2011, 1:53pm thats for all postals, i think caasi was referring to single tournament performance, like what fritz usually posts after the postal tourny is finished. on another note, it seems that putting a price on the postal doesn't necessarily ensure finished games, two new players just lost all their games on time. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on May 1st, 2011, 1:56pm on 05/01/11 at 13:26:09, Hippo wrote:
Caution: Since these ratings are based on few games played far apart in time, they could swing wildly based on the results of a single event. In fact, I'll bet someone in this list has moved over 200 points by tournament end. I'll paste some current WHRP ratings here so we can compare later for an idea of the volatility: Fritzlein 2772.9 chessandgo 2537.8 Nombril 2511.8 Adanac 2367.1 Hippo 2253.7 RonWeasley 2249.5 ChrisB 2174.4 ocmiente 2158.6 Tuks 2097.8 blue22 2040.7 mistre 2035.9 camelback 2007.1 omar 1990.5 novacat 1839.3 toby1kenobi 1749.8 |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on May 14th, 2011, 4:55pm mistre vs. briareus has a material balance you don't see every day. Assuming that briareus takes the rabbit next, it will be DDCCR for MHH. This is an interesting test for IdahoEv's thesis that we overvalue quality of pieces and undervalue quantity of pieces. All of his "empirically optimized" material evaluators prefer to have the more numerous pieces, whereas all of the standard hand-tuned evaluators prefer to have the stronger pieces. What material evaluation does briareus use? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Tuks on May 14th, 2011, 5:13pm so its really 3 dogs for 4 cats and a rabbit, i usually like more pieces, but in this scenario, mistre will always have a major piece all over the board, all he has to theoretically do is attack to make the bot defend with E and then take over the rest f the board. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on May 15th, 2011, 4:04am on 05/14/11 at 16:55:41, Fritzlein wrote:
It uses FAME. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on May 15th, 2011, 10:04am on 05/15/11 at 04:04:27, rbarreira wrote:
Thanks for clarifying. FAME does dislike Gold's material balance less than Harlog and DAPE do. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Tuks on May 16th, 2011, 11:35am bot_briareus has found a forced goal in our postal game, i haven't figured it out yet though, could be a good puzzle it might be the only not losing defence though that briareus has taken, which would also explain the quick move. ok, maybe not, it was a long forced goal but not a very hard one to figure out, just continue taking pieces until an opening arises... |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on May 17th, 2011, 3:47am on 05/16/11 at 11:35:37, Tuks wrote:
22s, 23s, 24s and 25s were all forced. There might have been faster forced goals, but not much faster. Since there appeared to be so many forced moves, I was running the bot on a separate computer for those moves in order to get the game over with faster :) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Tuks on May 17th, 2011, 4:06am thank you, does briareus always pick the longest losing sequence when its forced, because i think it could have held out for another turn or two? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on May 17th, 2011, 4:09am on 05/17/11 at 04:06:55, Tuks wrote:
In most cases it does, but in this case I think due to some missing goal patterns it missed the longest defense... |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by UruramTururam on Jun 20th, 2011, 1:14am on 03/31/11 at 01:03:55, Fritzlein wrote:
Thank you for that advice Fritzlein! I try to follow it and my results are so far much better than I have ever expected. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jun 29th, 2011, 3:04pm on 05/14/11 at 16:55:41, Fritzlein wrote:
The ghost of IdahoEv returns to haunt us, as quantity wins over quality: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=188364 Briareus is presently 4-1 for a performance rating of 2238. (or 2155 if you calculate it the conservative way; in any case impressive) But briareus seems to be in trouble in the majority of its remaining games. To top clueless's record performance of 2072 last year, briareus needs to go 10-8 overall, i.e. winning six of its remaining thirteen games. That's a tall order, but there are enough tense games that it is definitely doable. Bot . Year Record Postal Performance --- ---- ------ ------------------ Bomb 2005 4-6 1716 Zombie 2007 1-14 1409 Sharp 2008 1-8 1568 OpFor 2008 8-9 2060 OpFor 2009 3-7 1798 OpFor 2010 6-8 1848 Clueless 2010 9-7 2072 Briareus 2011 4-1* 2238* |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jun 29th, 2011, 3:05pm on 06/20/11 at 01:14:25, UruramTururam wrote:
It's always more fun to play well, especially when the opponent is also playing well. :) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Jun 29th, 2011, 4:41pm on 06/29/11 at 15:04:00, Fritzlein wrote:
Thanks for the analysis and detailed history Fritz! But I have to disagree with one part though, out of the 13 remaining games in the postal mixer it seems to me Briareus is clearly losing in about 4-6 games at most (including a few where it's doing really bad). In the other ones it's either winning or about equal. Still, I agree that winning six more games is far from certain. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Jun 30th, 2011, 10:19am Daniel (Tuks) is the first player finishing this year postal mixer (not losing on time). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Jul 8th, 2011, 1:06pm on 06/29/11 at 15:04:00, Fritzlein wrote:
So now is Briareus 7-1, who would guess such start. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Swynndla on Jul 8th, 2011, 4:58pm Fritz said once that historically bots haven't shown much of an advantage by thinking at postal speeds (I guess because the arimaa branching factor is so huge). Briareus is doing really well ... is this because: 1) It's running on a hexa-core and has been optimized for speed? 2) People are underestimating it and didn't think too much about the moves? 3) It has a very good evaluation function? 4) Something else? I don't think it's number 3 as rbarreira has commented that the evaluation function isn't that good. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jul 9th, 2011, 7:45am Yes, that's a phenomenal start for briareus. Now it looks likely that briareus will set a new record for bot postal performance. Omar explained in his game comments how he threw away a win from over-confidence; also briareus is thinking for longer per move than any bot has before. Otherwise I'm not sure how to explain briareus' great showing. In my game against briareus (not part of the Postal Mixer, but under the same conditions), it doesn't feel like briareus is putting up much of a fight. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by robinz on Jul 9th, 2011, 7:56am on 07/09/11 at 07:45:58, Fritzlein wrote:
on 07/09/11 at 07:45:58, Fritzlein wrote:
I must make a mental note to check out your game in a few weeks' time ;) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Jul 9th, 2011, 8:10am on 07/09/11 at 07:45:58, Fritzlein wrote:
I believe Clueless was also thinking for 4 hours last year, Opfor was thinking between 2 to 4 hours (probably depending on how well the game is going?). But the real thinking time is relative to the hardware being used of course. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Jul 15th, 2011, 3:13am on 07/08/11 at 13:06:07, Hippo wrote:
It seems to me briareus is that good in endings that 10:8 record or even better would not surprise me now. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Jul 15th, 2011, 8:55am And seems to me first time in this postal mixer the bot had no job (for several minutes). ... not at all ... toby1kenobi played just in time not to let bot relax. OK :) now it could relax |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Jul 17th, 2011, 10:02pm Briareus is now 9-2! Furthermore, only 1 of its remaining 7 games looks like a sure loss, the rest are very much in doubt. So best possible would be 15-3 and at worst 9-9. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Jul 18th, 2011, 1:05am I don't think 15:3 is doable, at least 3 games look really grim for the bot, but as I have said it's very good at the ending ... . |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jul 19th, 2011, 8:24am on 07/09/11 at 07:56:36, robinz wrote:
Heh, thanks for the warning against overconfidence. Especially after the way Omar (and now blue22) lost a won position, I am not sending in any "obvious" moves on short contemplation. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Swynndla on Jul 21st, 2011, 1:03am on 07/09/11 at 08:10:38, rbarreira wrote:
So typically how many 4-step plies is briareus looking ahead on this hardware (with & without extensions)? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Jul 21st, 2011, 1:21am on 07/21/11 at 01:03:10, Swynndla wrote:
I expect it is higher in the endings :). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Jul 21st, 2011, 3:54am on 07/21/11 at 01:03:10, Swynndla wrote:
During the first few moves, it partly searched 5-6 plies (partly meaning the the 5 or 6 ply search was not complete). From there on through the middlegame, it usually partly searched 4 plies, rarely managing to start the 5 ply search and change its mind at that depth. At more endgame-ish positions (goal attacks going on), the partially and completely finished 5 ply searches were much more common than in the middlegame. But there weren't any real endgames with very few pieces yet, it would search much deeper on those. On top of that depth there's quiescence (searching captures only) and search extensions for goal threats (which means goals were seen for 2 further plies than the searched depth, so most goals in 3 should be defended and it might happen to find a goal in 4 for the bot, though the latter never actually happened so far in the postal mixer). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Swynndla on Jul 21st, 2011, 6:18am That's some interesting stuff. I'm wondering if we have enough data to plot rating vs ply depth searched (although different types of extensions make it all the more difficult). For example, if your bot ran on faster hardware and was able to search two more plies, what sort of rating would we expect it to have? Another way of asking the question is what sort of hardware would be needed to search far enough to win the arimaa challenge, and would this hardware be under $1000 by 2020? I'm expecting the answer to be no it wouldn't be under $1000 by 2020 and so we need to work on making better bots, but I'm just wondering that's all. (I hope this isn't too far off topic on this thread ... I'll stop now). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by UruramTururam on Jul 24th, 2011, 4:22am Uff, I'm done. 4-1 (3-1 in "real" games). :) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Jul 24th, 2011, 7:24am on 07/24/11 at 04:22:29, UruramTururam wrote:
Congrats. Seems the return to the game advice paid off. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jul 24th, 2011, 10:41am on 07/24/11 at 07:24:55, Hippo wrote:
Hmmm, I just failed to follow this advice in my game versus you. I got tired of thinking, but rather than coming back later I just hit send. I hope it doesn't come back to haunt me. :o |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Jul 27th, 2011, 11:04am on 07/24/11 at 10:41:04, Fritzlein wrote:
:) Your move actually scared me so I expect that is not that bad ;) ... but I wanted to announce new pastal mixer leader: Nombril with perfect record 6:0 (so far) skipped the only bot which gained a lot of points from quantity. Will anybody remain undefeated this year? Last year there were 3 such players (if I remember it well). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jul 27th, 2011, 11:50am on 07/09/11 at 07:56:36, robinz wrote:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=191268 |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jul 27th, 2011, 11:54am on 07/27/11 at 11:04:53, Hippo wrote:
Last year there were four(!) undefeated players, but only two with many games: Nombril and I. This year we play each other, so one of us must lose, but Nombril and chessandgo don't play, so they could still both be undefeated. To prevent that calamity, I just need to beat them both. ;) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Nombril on Jul 28th, 2011, 2:50pm I move faster when I feel I'm ahead...... I expect to loose half of my remaining games. Plus I have had far too little time for Arimaa this summer, so I think I'm getting rusty already. I didn't get to take people by surprise this year like I did last year. ;D |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Jul 28th, 2011, 3:07pm on 07/28/11 at 14:50:11, Nombril wrote:
Exactly that cost me a game. It's big difference to be materially/positionally ahead. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jul 28th, 2011, 3:34pm on 07/28/11 at 14:50:11, Nombril wrote:
I move faster when I'm far ahead or far behind. It's the close ones that slow me down. Our game is one of three nailbiters keeping me busy, along with my games against mistre and chessandgo. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by RonWeasley on Jul 28th, 2011, 4:44pm on 07/28/11 at 15:34:05, Fritzlein wrote:
Fritz's game with me is more like a manicure. I'm hoping to come up with a metaphorical piece of hot flint for him. (mutters inaudibly) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Eltripas on Jul 28th, 2011, 7:00pm on 07/28/11 at 15:34:05, Fritzlein wrote:
Lies, that hasn't happened. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jul 28th, 2011, 11:08pm on 07/28/11 at 19:00:56, Eltripas wrote:
Hehe, three times so far. I was undefeated in 2005, 2008, and 2010, but 99of9 beat me in 2006, and chessandgo in 2007 and 2009. Both of them described the games as being tense long after I had inwardly resigned and started making quick, intuitive moves rather than analyzing deeply. Maybe I had chances to put up more of a fight and come back if I had continued to play as hard as I do in games that are nearly equal, but such is my psychology. I'm easily demoralized. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jul 28th, 2011, 11:16pm on 07/28/11 at 16:44:06, RonWeasley wrote:
I have sped up a little in our game, despite getting the hot flint when I got overconfident against you in 2008 and blundered away my sure win, twice. Obviously playing hard on every move of every game, no matter the situation, is going to get the best results, but I'm only human. :-/ |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Jul 29th, 2011, 12:11pm on 07/28/11 at 15:34:05, Fritzlein wrote:
I was all set to move in our game and then at the very last second I saw a move that was better than any of the other moves I researched over a period of an hour. I was starting to regret my decision for not taking D-R for H, but I might still be ok... |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jul 29th, 2011, 2:40pm on 07/29/11 at 12:11:55, mistre wrote:
Interesting. This last-second move you found (23s) was the one I had expected all along, so I guess I wish you had stopped thinking about it after only half an hour. On the other hand, before your previous three moves (20s, 21s, 22s) I had thought for an hour or so each time without even considering the move you actually made. The moves you made that I hadn't expected seemed plenty strong on examination, which made me wonder what was wrong with me for not seeing them in all my analysis. Arimaa is a game to make one humble. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Swynndla on Jul 29th, 2011, 8:41pm 23s? ... I only see 21s here: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/tourn/postal/2011/showGames.cgi ... oh but the little red number is saying it's Fritz's 24 move ... I'm assuming there's a two move lag right? (I haven't checked the rules for the postal mixer - I've just learned about Lazy Evaluation in bot development and I think it's having some sort of effect on me). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Jul 29th, 2011, 10:46pm on 07/29/11 at 20:41:45, Swynndla wrote:
Yeah, I noticed that too. Is there a two move lag to prevent cheating (through player collaboration)? The last postal mixer that I took part in did not have a lag... |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jul 30th, 2011, 3:47pm on 07/29/11 at 22:46:26, mistre wrote:
Yes, and to remove the temptation to discuss ongoing positions in ways that aren't intended to cheat, but which have the effect of helping one player. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Jul 30th, 2011, 7:30pm on 07/18/11 at 01:05:47, Hippo wrote:
Seems to me the clearly lost games are over now, currently at 9:5. The remaining four all have excitement left! |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Jul 31st, 2011, 2:30am on 07/30/11 at 19:30:36, rbarreira wrote:
Yes, congrats anyway. ... and now the bot has plenty of time for relaxing... |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Jul 31st, 2011, 11:00am Tip of the hat to ChrisB for his positional sacrifice of a full dog on 9s. He didn't equalize material until 17s and didn't go ahead until 22s. Of course no bot can see eight moves ahead, so I don't know how they could cope with such good positional judgment. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Aug 4th, 2011, 6:14pm on 07/27/11 at 11:54:36, Fritzlein wrote:
This is OK, I was already defeated so if you 3 decide to lose to me :D ..., but novacat and rabbits are not so far from perfect record. Will Nombril stop rabbits or not? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Aug 4th, 2011, 9:16pm What baffles me is that some of these postal games have barely made it into the double digits on moves. I could not play at such a slow pace as I would forget what I was analyzing and have to start all over again. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Aug 4th, 2011, 9:30pm Sometimes it is an advantage to me to forget what I was thinking about and start all over. It is easy for me to get caught up in a single plan or single vision of the way the game will evolve, which is when I am most likely to miss my own best move or my opponent's best reply. I do think, however, that this year has some unusually slow games, i.e. games in which both players have nearly drained their reserves. That plus topping 90 moves could hit the 300-day game limit for the first time in tournament history. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Nombril on Aug 7th, 2011, 11:22pm Yeah, I have games at 12, 13, and 15 moves...I'm very surprised by how slow I am playing. But do you really think we will get to 90 moves??? Rabbits and I might make our next moves later this month, so you can see what just happened in our game... |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by mistre on Aug 8th, 2011, 9:23am I think he means 90 total moves (so 45 moves for each player). I personally don't think that any game would ever get to the 300-day time limit as I think players would speed up eventually and either 1 would time out or there would be a result. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by novacat on Aug 8th, 2011, 7:23pm on 08/08/11 at 09:23:48, mistre wrote:
Has to be 90 moves each. Last year Eltripas vs woh went to 83 moves each. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Aug 8th, 2011, 8:35pm Yes, to hit the 300-day total game time limit would need each player to drain the initial reserve of 60 days and get 90 days of additional time by playing 90 moves. Each player contributing 150 days adds up to 300. This has never happened, but it could result in a very warped finish if it does, because one player will know he can win simply by drawing it out to day 300. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Aug 12th, 2011, 1:51am on 06/29/11 at 15:04:00, Fritzlein wrote:
So it did it ... it is currently 10-5 and at least 2 of the remaining games are still open. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Aug 12th, 2011, 9:38am on 08/12/11 at 01:51:01, Hippo wrote:
Which one is decided? I can't tell who will win any of the three. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Aug 12th, 2011, 11:48am on 08/12/11 at 09:38:00, Fritzlein wrote:
If I understand English well, there is a difference between at least and at most. ... (I am very carefull not to be caught :)) ... but the game with Heyckie seems to be already decided ... |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Aug 12th, 2011, 4:47pm There is at least 1% chance that you are correct. ;) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Aug 13th, 2011, 12:48pm on 08/12/11 at 11:48:35, Hippo wrote:
Oh yes the game is finished now and the bot is now at 11. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Aug 20th, 2011, 8:00am And looking at the games now I again see, how strong is the bot at the ending (exchange of HD for r against novacat forced by well defended hostages). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by novacat on Aug 21st, 2011, 10:28pm on 08/20/11 at 08:00:59, Hippo wrote:
Not quite. The bot is playing well (and I have probably made some poor moves), but the exchange starts with HD for h. I will not spoil what happens after that. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Aug 22nd, 2011, 1:06am on 08/21/11 at 22:28:15, novacat wrote:
Oh I have missed the Rc2->Rc4 maneuver, what slightly changed your options. I can imagine the scenario for the rest of the game, but let us wait till the answer ... the game result. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Aug 22nd, 2011, 5:53am Now you can see 38s which was quite sneaky. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Aug 22nd, 2011, 11:19am on 08/22/11 at 05:53:45, rbarreira wrote:
OK, I must admit I like it, and I expected another move. But the game seems to be in phase where there is a lot of almost equally good moves. I hope you will let logs after the mixer ends somewhere for download. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Aug 22nd, 2011, 11:32am on 08/22/11 at 11:19:34, Hippo wrote:
Yes, I can do that... It's a file per move, but it should be possible to sort them per game. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Aug 31st, 2011, 4:16am on 07/21/11 at 03:54:57, rbarreira wrote:
It happened today in the just-finished game against novacat, finding a goal in 4 at 46s (which novacat defended for as long as possible). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Aug 31st, 2011, 7:47am on 08/31/11 at 04:16:28, rbarreira wrote:
That's an impressive detail to add to briareus's impressive total score. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Aug 31st, 2011, 9:13am So and now after Fritzlein lost to mistre and novacat to bot_briareus we have last 3 candidates for all win score. chessandgo is playing RonWeasley, Nombril plays none of them. So there could be at most 2 such players. Fritzlein plays them all ... let us see ... |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Sep 7th, 2011, 3:36pm on 05/01/11 at 13:56:09, Fritzlein wrote:
Seems around 150 point difference is there often, but 200 points would not be achieved. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Sep 8th, 2011, 5:28pm on 09/07/11 at 15:36:47, Hippo wrote:
Aren't you jumping the gun a bit? Adanac is down 178 points and could still lose to me. I am down 154 points and could still lose to Nombril or chessandgo. And Nombril is up 105 and could still win his remaining four games! |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Sep 14th, 2011, 9:50am on 08/31/11 at 09:13:31, Hippo wrote:
So now it's Nombril and chessandgo. Me and Fritzlein play them both. (But I have no chance to beat them both ;)) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Sep 16th, 2011, 6:32am on 08/13/11 at 12:48:06, Hippo wrote:
So final bot's score is known now. Congrats for the performance. If the logs could be visible somewhere, I would probably make a (quick?) look at it. Thanks Ricardo for the games played in the mixer. So now we could fully use it's one day thinking time for The Gang game :) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Sep 16th, 2011, 7:50am on 06/29/11 at 15:04:00, Fritzlein wrote:
So briareus' tournament is over. Shout out to woh for launching (and winning) a goal race in the last game after briareus had already displayed some fabulous goal racing ability in earlier games. Briareus set a new performance record of 2167. Skeptics could point to the game against Donald which was not won over the board, and was against a mysterious player who was probably overrated at 2322, but even neglecting this game would give briareus a record at 2126. In postal chess, humans held out against computers for far longer than at real-time chess, but the same pattern seems not to be holding for Arimaa. In the 2011 Arimaa Challenge screening match, marwin and sharp earned performance ratings of 2110 and 2109 respectively, below briareus' result in the 2011 Postal Mixer. Humans seem to be losing ground to silicon with no island of safety. Congratulations rbarriera! This is an impressive performance that I would have given odds against at the start of the tournament. Bot . Year Record Postal Performance --- ---- ------ ------------------ Bomb 2005 4-6 1716 Zombie 2007 1-14 1409 Sharp 2008 1-8 1568 OpFor 2008 8-9 2060 OpFor 2009 3-7 1798 OpFor 2010 6-8 1848 Clueless 2010 9-7 2072 Briareus 2011 12-6 2167 |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Sep 16th, 2011, 8:52am Thanks Hippo and Fritzlein. Even though 18 games is not a very big sample, I am indeed happy with Briareus's performance in the tournament. I'm looking forward to see how it plays in the next postal mixer, now that people got some warning :). It would be interesting to see Marwin play its first postal tournament, and to see Clueless and especially Sharp play again (since it hasn't entered since 2008 ). I will post the logs later today. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Sep 16th, 2011, 2:57pm Here are the logs: http://109.74.204.218/arimaa/briareus_postal_2011_logs.zip I grouped them by game, each game is in a separate folder with the opponent's nickname. The scores are about 33.69 per rabbit (they were based on FAME's raw output and not scaled), 1000000 is a win score and -1000000 is a loss score. The variations are printed out in square from/square to notation, and push steps appear in inverted order (never bothered fixing that yet). PS: There are some moves which have two logs, that happened when the computer lost connection to the Arimaa gameroom and had to restart for that move. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by tize on Sep 19th, 2011, 2:04pm Congrats to the very nice score for Briareus! And after checking a little in the log files, I just need to say that you have a very nice nodes count per second. Marwin is only pushing around 700knps, even if you have stronger hardware Briareus must be like 5-10 times faster. Maybe that's where I should focus my effort right now... |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Swynndla on Sep 19th, 2011, 5:23pm Is the nodes per sec calculation you are both using such that a node equals a position that has been passed to the evaluation function? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Sep 19th, 2011, 5:26pm Thanks tize. Yes, speed optimization probably helps. on 09/19/11 at 17:23:35, Swynndla wrote:
Not for me. At the top of the search function (and qsearch too) I increment the node count. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by tize on Sep 24th, 2011, 7:31am In Marwin I increment the node counter in my apply_move function which in the search is a step, push or pull, passes doesn't use the function so they are not counted. This will most likely give Marwin a higher node count than if I counted the number of calls to the search function. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Oct 5th, 2011, 3:21pm on 09/07/11 at 15:36:47, Hippo wrote:
Wow novacat got 200.5 improvement ... congrats. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Oct 6th, 2011, 1:06am So finally, after Jean was defeated by Karl, Eric was defeated by Greg and we will not have an absolute winer. The cadidates for best postal mixer score are Karl and Eric. novacat and briareus shined .. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by novacat on Oct 6th, 2011, 8:23pm on 10/05/11 at 15:21:52, Hippo wrote:
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Oct 10th, 2011, 12:05pm What games are left? I find Fritzlein vs. Adanac camelback vs. arimaa_master ChrisB vs. arimaa_master ocmiente vs. ChrisB Nombril vs. Fritzlein Hippo vs. Nombril omar vs. woh Am I missing any? Several of these games are on the verge of finishing, but ocmiente vs. ChrisB has had no captures so far! I keep wondering when we will first hit the 300-day time limit for a Postal Mixer game, and it never happens, but maybe this year... |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Oct 11th, 2011, 1:17pm on 10/10/11 at 12:05:07, Fritzlein wrote:
Links added ;) Fritzlein vs. Adanac (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=199877&s=w)[edit]*5[/edit] camelback vs. arimaa_master (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=199832&s=w)[edit]*4[/edit] ChrisB vs. arimaa_master (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=199147&s=w)[edit]*2[/edit] ocmiente vs. ChrisB (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/opengamewin.cgi?client=1&gameid=199073&role=v&side=w) [edit]*1[/edit] Nombril vs. Fritzlein (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/opengamewin.cgi?client=1&gameid=200472&role=v&side=w)[edit]*6[/edit] Hippo vs. Nombril (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/opengamewin.cgi?client=1&gameid=202345&role=v&side=w)[edit]*7[/edit] omar vs. woh (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=199441&s=w)[edit]*3[/edit] [edit]* url chaged as the game has been finished[/edit] BTW: ocmiente just captured first piece ... and 300 day limit ... does it mean next 54 full turns at least? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Oct 12th, 2011, 5:01pm on 10/10/11 at 12:05:07, Fritzlein wrote:
Interesting timing, that game has just finished :D |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Oct 12th, 2011, 5:08pm on 05/01/11 at 13:56:09, Fritzlein wrote:
Nombril lost only one game ... with rabbits and won 9 games. That lead to drop of his WHRP from 2518.8 to 2457.2. This shows how unstable this rating is at the top of the ladder. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Oct 12th, 2011, 6:25pm on 10/12/11 at 17:08:50, Hippo wrote:
Yes, wasn't Nombril briefly #1 in WHRP, before his lone loss, and while I was still 4-1? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Nombril on Oct 12th, 2011, 10:50pm Is it unstable at the top, or unstable because of the small amount of postal games I have played? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Oct 13th, 2011, 3:27am on 10/12/11 at 22:50:18, Nombril wrote:
I think the instability is more due to the ratio of games win vs games lost being very high. I remember noticing that Fritzlein's rating also dropped a lot after he lost a game against mistre, and he has many more postal games than you (but also has very few games lost). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Oct 13th, 2011, 9:28am on 09/08/11 at 17:28:44, Fritzlein wrote:
At least at the 8:0 record Nombril was at around 2512+105 |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Oct 14th, 2011, 7:42am on 10/13/11 at 09:28:39, Hippo wrote:
Right, which is just about equal to where I was after losing to mistre, when I said I was down 154 points. Maybe I always stayed ahead by a couple of points, but it was a virtual tie. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Oct 14th, 2011, 11:52am I want to announce the most nice game of the postal mixer. Of course you could not agree with me, but my game with Nombril was without big blunder (expect I will made one in next 6 turns). There were material combinations incluning goal threats in between, lasting above 10 halfturns. The result was long time open with very interesting ending. I think there was small inaccuracy just after the camel trade. I was much more afraid of e going to d3 early. h going to c2 let me save one Dog what was required to remain on the thin ice defending the goal attack around c3, but may be I am wrong. Twice in the game (so far :)) there was sacrifice of second strongest piece just to gain time to solve situation in the opposing corner. And the capture was forced. OK, if you have better candidates ... let you agitate for them :) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Oct 14th, 2011, 6:57pm on 10/14/11 at 11:52:34, Hippo wrote:
Oh, is the game over now? [edit] Ah, I see you announced goal in seven in the chat room. That is an impressive call to end an extremely dramatic game. If you are right, I will second your nomination for game of the tournament. I certainly couldn't tell what was going on, and I checked in frequently. :) |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Oct 15th, 2011, 3:20pm Hmmm, my originally planned combination does not work ... it needed one defense step in the middle, what means enough delay to not work at all (another counterthreat). So I have to find something else ... let us see result and resulting timing. ... may be it makes the game even more interesting :) [edit] [edit]At 43g I tought I could win till 47. At 43s I found a way the game could be delayed till 50 by counterthreats ... . Let us see what would be final result;)[/edit] [edit]I have to stop making predictions.[/edit] [edit] So the game was rather OK till I have start talking about it rather than playing ... 42g Db1n Ce1n Ce2e Rd1n would be hard to response. I have given Eric too much free steps just to save my thinking time :(. So consider the game the most beautifull just till 42g ;). [/edit] |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Nov 17th, 2011, 11:40am It's finally over. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Nov 17th, 2011, 12:20pm http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=202345 What a game to end with! The fact that the announced goal-in-seven turned into a goal-in-seventeen merely heightened the drama. There was a forum thread for "games that ought to be commentated"; this is my submission for that category. In particular, I wonder what bots would think of the endgame from move 40 onward. Is this an area in which modern software can surpass high-level human play, or is the situation still strategic enough that short-term tactics are overwhelmed by long-range human planning? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Nov 17th, 2011, 12:54pm Evaluation of my personal appearence on postal mixer: I played 10 games, 7 of them were against opponents I am afraid of: chessandgo, Adanac, Tuks, Fritzlein, rabbits, Nombril and unknown Donald. I didn't liked my position with Donald when he timed out. Daniel (Tuks) uses postal speed just for playing asynchroneous with opponent. He does not use the extra time for thinking and thinks 5 minutes per turn at most. He is that good player that even with these habbits he is realy dangerous. In the game we made equal trades of one horse pair and one dog pair. Than I had to sacrifice rabbit to get camel freeze and not allow mine. I got only dog for cat exchange from that and I had to release the camel. I have made 3 steps for one step exchange to made stronger goal protection and incidentaly that lead to Daniels overconfidence to start attacking. That opened his back rows and increased my goal chances what forced his phant to defend. That allowed me to capture his cat. Daniel didn't notice he cannot capture my rabbit in response due to horse two turn capture threat. So finally I had horse and dog for three rabbits materially in the midgame. I lost a concentration, what lead to loss of fourth rabbit. Fortunately I had strong goal attack fixing most of opponent's pieces for defense. Daniel missed that played a move and before I have noticed it he finds the 2 turn loss and resigns. Meanwhile I played an interesting combination with Gregory (rabbits), where my rabbit was on my camel capture delaying duty allowing me to capture two horses meanwhile. Gregory had to sacrifice his own rabbit to delay horse capture for free, but I in thrill from my victory with Daniel I made a move with absolutely no concept. I lost full turn for removing the rabbit from its duty. I were not able to concentrate on the downhill battle after camel for horse exchange. ... I still hoped I could finally capture the other horse what lead to losing control of my home traps and fast end. Meanwhile Karl (Fritzlein) gained strong positional advantage in our game. My cat was lost without interesting compensation. I hoped for some disruption on the other wing, but it lead to loss control of one of my home traps. When I lost control of the other home trap I have resigned. I have lost without seeing any particular blunder. Fritzlein won this year postal mixer deservedly. The game with Jean (chessandgo) was much more interesting for me. He is that confident that he started cat elephant attack. It is very unusual and I don't think it was correct. I do think he would beat gold in silvers position, but I am not that strong as him:(. I do think my position was still strong till 20s. I had two options how to frame the rabbit, but I was that tired after long thinking in Eric's game (camel exchange combination) that I played the 20s without deep checking the move is OK. I have lost dog and whole position in several following moves. The game with Greg (Adanac) we were several moves on treshold between playin home game and away game. Finally I have decided to go for away game at 12s. I have strong grip on both Greg home traps while he attacked my trap with horse. I have start feeling comfortable after taking horse hostage by camel at 20s. I never considered my dog beeing hostaged by camel to be problem till I have senn the other dog hostaged by horse during planning around 25g. The horse flip to f3 made me felt comfortable again. 28g and 29g made me a bit scared, but my calculations shown my goal attack is fast enough. I don't know if I was underestimated in this game or Greg had just sacrified less time for thinking. So the last game of postal mixer. Eric (Nombril) declared himself to be away player letting me to frame his horse. I was waiting till his phant is sufficiently tight to f3 to start M attacking his horse. It was in exact time. Being one step slower Eric would finish blockade of my phant, having his phant free. This way I made horse capture thread forcing Eric to let my phant breath. This actually lead to sacrifice of my camel to get time to slove f3 trap problems entirely. There was goal threat meanwhile gaining more time to got mc for MR, but when camels were traded Eric had strong grip on the c3 trap. I was scared of ed3 move, but Eric went with horse to c2 before it. This allowed me to save one dog for following goal defense. After the exchange was over, I had HC for dr but with goal weak one wing with one horse totally ut of play (together with the other horse). That of course meant Eric had one weak wing as well, but I was far behind with attacking there. I had no chance to make a slow attack there and I had to sacrifice my second strongest piece for second time forcing Eric's phant to cross wings and gain some tempo. Another goal threat meanwhile gained enough time to capture dog for sacrified horse and to solve the situation on the weaker wing. This forced dog for cat exchange and Eric's horse went to my first row. The situation was very tense, I have seen goal attacks on both sides, but each attack lead to tragical weakening of attackers goal defense. The rabbits around c3 were obstackles agianst my a file attack as well as goal counterthreats. So I made capture threat with one stap defendable goal attack. Eric started goal attack requiring full 4 steps for defense at 38s. I used his horse as a brick in my defense. At 40 we exchanged advanced rabbits and I started winning combination. Eric had just cat, phant and 3 rank6 rabbits for defense. There was goal in 7 at 41g, but there was defense with countergoal. I have seen the countergoal at 42g so I made everything to prevent it. I was rather tired from the long postal mixer season and I played quickly. Precise 42g would not end with rabbit on f1. Cat on f2 would be appropriate. What I have missed is that silver could create another counterthreat by pulling my dog from b2 to b3. Having my cat one step further, I could capture the g6 rabbit and made a goal in one threat. This way I hade to sacrify two more steps to defend ra2. My Horse was still safe as elephant with cat had not enough time to defend the goal attacks in case of capture. I have tought about cat defense but was not sure what to do with the 4th step. Rabbit to trap step surprised me. It prevented planned push to g7. I still hope I had strong attack at 45g, but as I have seen 3 turn goal nice combination, I didn't payed much attention to other moves. 10 minutes after playing the move, I have discovered that rabit flip from g6 to h7 in front of cat sitting on h8 would not work. I have seen re6 cg6 rg5 response and I understand that I have lost the game. I think Eris'c positioning rabbit to f5 was weaker as it allowed me one more step after standing with cat at e6. Morever I would be forced to leave rabbit on 6th rank were was the defense line of Eric. I have decided to change the play speed. I was happy Eric captured h6 rabbit rather than capturing the c4 Horse. That allowed me to force him to capture the Horse in four steps ending et c5 rather to b4. After the captures I were losing horse for dog materially, but with frozen horse as brick in my defense. The only problem was opposition of cats. I could not allow Eric's cat to go to f4 so capture ending on f4 was must. 49s was risky, but without goal threats requiring 2 defense steps I would lost my dog followed by goal. Fortunately I had one in hand. 50s surprised me as well, but I were in position to find nonlosing moves and there was no need to find opponent's responses. So following two moves were forced. Surprisingly a6 was better place for my rabbit than b7 as it does not allow capture to c7 defending d file. I expected 53s Rc5 cd6 leading probably to difficult ellimination fight. Unfortunately for arimaa, fortunately for me Eric haven't seen possible froze preventing Rc5 capture and that was the game over. Uff, I have learned a lot. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Nov 17th, 2011, 12:57pm on 11/17/11 at 12:20:18, Fritzlein wrote:
There was probably goal in 7 or 8, but I have missed it. The goal in 17 was actually Eric's fault not my good play. :( And Yes, I made a lot of positions to test my bot on. I am happy this is permited now ;). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Nov 17th, 2011, 1:22pm on 11/17/11 at 12:57:14, Hippo wrote:
Do you mean that your bot can verify that you had a won position, then a lost position, and then a won position again? What is the longest goal it can announce from a position in this game? |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Nov 17th, 2011, 1:40pm on 11/17/11 at 13:22:33, Fritzlein wrote:
Surprisingly I have not tested it yet :). I don't think so, but I suppose I will use this game for testing during it's development during 2012 season. There was a lot of goal threats from around 38 so the search tree could be cut a lot. I would be interested what briareus/quad/marwin thinks after 4 hours of thinking at each move in the given range. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Nov 17th, 2011, 6:36pm I ran briareus on some positions from that game, disabling unsafe pruning stuff such as null-move pruning in order to have more sure analysis (but of course some bugs might still be present). With the disclaimer out of the way, for now I can say all the silver positions from 54s to 57s are indeed lost (so every gold move from 54 on was winning, even if not the fastest win). 46s rf5s rf4w re4s re3w was a goal in 2 52s eb4n eb5n hh1w rh5s might be worth looking at. I'll post more analysis later if I have time... |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Nov 17th, 2011, 6:43pm 46g Cg7w Cf7w Ce7s Ce6s avoids the goal (or postpones it at least). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Nov 17th, 2011, 6:48pm on 11/17/11 at 13:40:02, Hippo wrote:
I may run some long analyses on a few particular moves that might be interesting (what would be good candidates?). To run 4-hour analyses on many moves I'd probably need to get paid to have incentive to do it :P (and to pay the electricity bills). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Nov 18th, 2011, 7:37am on 11/17/11 at 18:48:00, rbarreira wrote:
Speaking of financial incentives, how much do you charge for a copy of briareus for my own use in home analysis? I have Bomb2005, but it is rather buggy in the endgame; it seems to get hung up in repetition and to have some issues with positions where passing steps is correct. I'm ready to take a step up with a bot that analyzes endgames better, especially since that is a weak part of my game. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Nov 18th, 2011, 9:32am on 11/18/11 at 07:37:30, Fritzlein wrote:
I never thought about that... The bot is in a rather crude state right now (with the eval getting completely replaced) which makes me wary to sell it, but I suppose it could still be useful to some people. On the other hand I'm not sure I want to get into the whole mess of selling something in light of the restrictive Arimaa license. But to tell the truth I'm not sure that the patent on Arimaa has any restriction on me as I do not live in the U.S. and AFAIK Arimaa is not patented in other countries (and selling an Arimaa bot certainly does not violate copyright). Any comments Omar? I'll PM you later Fritz. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Nov 18th, 2011, 7:21pm I would like to know analysis of position prior 42g. The Cat invasion to g6 when elephant had to solve west problems seems to me is forced win. Unfortunately I have lost at least one deciding step on 42g forcing me to lose 2 more steps next move ... . |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Nov 18th, 2011, 7:31pm on 11/17/11 at 18:36:07, rbarreira wrote:
I will be forced to return back to Eg1 hh1, with the same attacking steps. Yes I have considered both this and the played attacking options (and I didn't liked my position). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Nov 19th, 2011, 7:32am on 11/18/11 at 19:21:17, Hippo wrote:
My bot was consistently sticking with 42g Rb5e Hb4n rb6e rc6x Hb5n, so I used it to analyze the position after that move, and it reported a forced loss. Here is the variation: 42g Rb5e Hb4n rb6e rc6x Hb5n 42s ef5w ee5w rg6s rh3s 43g Ce1e Cf1n Cf2e Cg2n 43s ed5e Rc5e ee5e Rd5e 44g Rd1n Rd2n Rd3n Rd4n 44s Re5s ef5w ee5n ee6w 45g Re4w Rd5w Rc5n Rc6n 45s ed6n Rc7s ed7w 46g Rc6e Rd6e Re6n Re7n |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Nov 19th, 2011, 8:09am on 11/19/11 at 07:32:13, rbarreira wrote:
Thanks for the analysis. It's interesting to know there is a goal in five. The given variation is weird, though. A human would intuit that the given 43s is hopeless, and therefore capture the rabbit in c3 anyway. Even if that loses, it is a critical line. But at least a strategic idea is clearly shown: the gold cat is both defending against silver goal and threatening to create a goal. There is no need to move the d1-rabbit east; indeed it proves to be a powerful attacker up the middle. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by rbarreira on Nov 19th, 2011, 8:16am on 11/19/11 at 08:09:35, Fritzlein wrote:
In that variation, 44g Cg3n Cg4e rg5s Rh5w is goal in 2. |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Nov 19th, 2011, 8:38am on 11/19/11 at 08:16:19, rbarreira wrote:
Ah, yes, in expert commentary that sort of trivial detail is omitted, but of course I didn't see the winning move. :-[ |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Nov 22nd, 2011, 2:26pm on 05/01/11 at 13:56:09, Fritzlein wrote:
The WHRP ratings have been updated for the first time since the end of the Postal Mixer, so we can see if my prediction panned out: Player . Before After Change ---------- ------ ------ ------- Fritzlein 2772.9 2738.1 - 34.8 chessandgo 2537.8 2612.3 + 74.5 Nombril 2511.8 2370.2 - 141.6 Adanac . 2367.1 2215.0 - 152.1 Hippo . 2253.7 2395.7 + 142.0 RonWeasley 2249.5 2259.8 + 10.3 ChrisB . 2174.4 2172.5 - 1.9 ocmiente 2158.6 2050.8 - 107.8 Tuks . 2097.8 2239.5 + 141.7 blue22 . 2040.7 2056.1 + 15.4 mistre . 2035.9 2187.4 + 151.5 camelback 2007.1 2012.5 + 5.4 omar . 1990.5 1992.9 + 2.4 novacat 1839.3 2037.9 + 198.6 toby1kenobi 1749.8 1706.9 - 42.9 My prediction of a 200-point swing did not materialize, but the volatility was nevertheless quite high, with six of fifteen players moving by more than 140 points up or down. That should be a caution against anyone relying on WHRP ratings to predict game results. Of course, these ratings are influenced by all postal games, not just those of the Postal Mixer. I, however, don't play any other postal games (except my quasi-event game against briareus this year), so my drop of 35 Elo is entirely attributable to my 11-1 record. Apparently my pre-tournament rating was so stratospheric that I could not have maintained it except with a 12-0 record. Talk about unrealistic expectations! But I suppose that is what chessandgo must feel as we approach the World Championship: if he takes second place everyone will think it was a bad tournament for him. Hippo's final-game victory over Nombril sealed a 283-point relative swing between the two of them: Nombril started rated 258 Elo higher, but Hippo ended rated 25 higher. The Postal Mixer is not designed to produce a clear winner, but this chart is one way to designate a winner, and the winner is... NOVACAT |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Hippo on Nov 22nd, 2011, 5:33pm on 11/19/11 at 07:32:13, rbarreira wrote:
Thanks ... so there was even faster goal than I expected. My plan was to go with rabbit west, but that was not fast enough and there was a goal counterthreat. But freezing cat was crucial and Rc5 prevents Horse freezing. ... Why was I so blind ... . I could think for more than a week on it! I felt somehow exhausted ... but a week break could help in such a case. on 11/22/11 at 14:26:27, Fritzlein wrote:
Yes, I am now on 3rd place after You and chessandgo. Seems to me the only way from here is down ... . |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by novacat on Nov 22nd, 2011, 6:20pm on 11/22/11 at 14:26:27, Fritzlein wrote:
Thanks Fritz. I may be the most improved on the list, but I'm pretty sure you are the winner at 10-1 (11-1 with the game against briareus). |
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Title: Re: 2011 Postal Mixer Post by Fritzlein on Feb 10th, 2012, 3:17pm Year . . 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Players . . 16 19 20 15 14 42 29 Games . . 80 95 85 84 70 147 141 Mismatches . 9 5 3 21 19 23 16 Not Finished . 20 31 18 8 4 31 49 % Mismatches . 11 5 4 25 27 16 11 % Not Finished 25 33 21 10 6 21 35 This was the worst year ever for incomplete games. I confess with shame that I added one to the total by resigning against mistre in a fit of pique, but most of the incomplete game total comes from folks who abandoned the tournament rather than from resignations. |
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