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        Arimaa >> Events >> 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
        
(Message started by: arimaasen on Mar 20^th, 2011, 11:58am)

Title: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by arimaasen on Mar 20^th, 2011, 11:58am

Announcing the 1st Annual Arimaa Puzzle Contest!!!

Over $300 in cash and prizes in various categories.

This is a competition to increase Arimaa educational material by creating puzzles of various kinds and levels. Whether you scour through games or create new positions, show off basic rules or highlight flashy tactics, educate beginners or surprise the masters, this is your chance to help show off the fun of playing Arimaa!

Submissions will be accepted between June 1 and Sept 1. Check out the official rules at: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/2011_Arimaa_Puzzle_Contest and start creating!

Have fun!

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by omar on Mar 21^st, 2011, 10:44pm

Jeff (arimaasen) contacted me about running a puzzle contest. I thought it was a great idea. I think it will get us to study Arimaa end games and discover positions that illustrate interesting concepts. Jeff has even offered to put up some prizes for the winners. We are timing it so that the winners of the puzzle contest can be announced during the next online festival.

Jeff has asked me to select some judges for the event. If anyone is interested in being a judge (and won't be entering any puzzles) please contact me to express your interest.

I would like to give a big thanks to Jeff for sponsoring this event. I think this will be a great addition to the off-season events being planned for this year.

Also if you notice anything in the rules which might need clarification, please post your feedback here.

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by megajester on Mar 22^nd, 2011, 7:00am

I would be very honoured to be a judge, but it depends on what kind of judge you want. As a player I'm a bit "meh" if you see what I mean. On the other hand I think I would be a good judge of how beginners would get on with them...

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by Hippo on Mar 22^nd, 2011, 10:38am

on 03/20/11 at 11:58:21, arimaasen wrote:

So "Find a position with the given property" is not appropriate puzzle ... :( (at least ... because there is not unique solution).

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by arimaasen on Mar 22^nd, 2011, 10:57am

on 03/22/11 at 10:38:51, Hippo wrote:

So "Find a position with the given property" is not appropriate puzzle ... :( (at least ... because there is not unique solution).

Right. While that could be a perfectly good puzzle in general (especially if you have an unusual property in mind a neat example as an answer), that's not really in the scope of this contest. Might be for later ones...and I'd love to see an example of what you're suggesting.

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by mistre on Mar 22^nd, 2011, 12:45pm

I'd like to throw my name into the hat to be a judge. :D

Some comments/questions about the rules:

1) May I suggest that any game examples used are not already in the puzzle database here - http://arimaa.com/arimaa/twiki/bin/view/Arimaa/ArimaaPuzzles. I think it would against the nature of the contest for someone just to go to the puzzle database, find a good puzzle and submit it. Unless this is what you meant by "Previously published" in #6 and then you already have it covered.

2) I also suggest to not allow "Fantasy" puzzles. What is an impossible position? And doesn't rule #7 forbid irregular number of pieces? I just don't see the purpose of rule #8.

3) On the scoring categories - I think you put a great deal of thought into both the categories and scores. I am just wondering if clarity of objective should be worth a little more.

This is a great idea! Hopefully you will get lots of submissions.

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by arimaasen on Mar 22^nd, 2011, 4:18pm

on 03/22/11 at 12:45:04, mistre wrote:

1) May I suggest that any game examples used are not already in the puzzle database here [...]

My original intent was to exclude puzzles and examples already used in "Beginning Arimaa" or books that may come out in the interim. I don't want to discourage use of the puzzle database, so I think people can enter their own puzzles from the database, but shouldn't just enter things they've found there. I could spell that out explicitly, I suppose.

Quote:

2) I also suggest to not allow "Fantasy" puzzles. What is an impossible position? And doesn't rule #7 forbid irregular number of pieces? I just don't see the purpose of rule #8.

Excellent point. My original thought was that you had to use the standard pieces and movement (i.e., can't change how pieces move or any other rules) but a "fantasy position" with more of any particular KIND of piece would be permitted. I think that this could be confusing, however, and will disallow it, as you suggest. Maybe in the future there can be refinements that allow a "fantasy" category, but for now let's keep things simple.

Quote:

3) On the scoring categories - I think you put a great deal of thought into both the categories and scores. I am just wondering if clarity of objective should be worth a little more.

Yes, originally "clarity of objective" was worth a lot more. However, I then realized that most of the problems are likely to be straightforward (e.g., "goal in 2", "capture a piece") and will trivially get full score here. So this ends up mostly as a way to penalize vague unusual problems.

Quote:

This is a great idea! Hopefully you will get lots of submissions.

I'm glad you like it. Hope we do, too. :) Thanks for responding. I appreciate the feedback!

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by jdb on Mar 23^rd, 2011, 7:01pm

Excellent idea, should be fun.

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by 722caasi on Mar 24^th, 2011, 2:14am

To get people in the spirit of things, here is a puzzle I composed:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/puzzles/show.cgi?p=p58

Gold to move and win in one move.
I was wondering: what difficulty level would this be, and how would it do?

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by UruramTururam on Mar 24^th, 2011, 2:22am

Fine, it's win in one, not goal in one. Intermediate level I'd say.

Out of the ones I submitted some time ago my favorite is this:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/puzzles/show.cgi?p=p24

I'll have to think about something new.

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by robinz on Mar 24^th, 2011, 6:25am

on 03/24/11 at 02:14:18, 722caasi wrote:

Er, I solved this without killing my own elephant (something which didn't even occur to me until I looked at the "official" solution) - you can just push the camel away rather than pull it. I think that the elephant suicide would become the only way to win in 1 if you simply added a piece (of either colour) on E5.

Nice problem all the same (it would no doubt have taken me a lot longer had I not already seen the post here which reminded me that there were ways to win without scoring a goal)
:)

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by megajester on Mar 24^th, 2011, 9:42am

I think it's an excellent example of a "think outside the box" puzzle. Of course, if you say "goal in one" nobody will get it, but even if you had said "win in one" I'm not sure I would have gotten it. Intermediate, definitely.

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by rbarreira on Mar 24^th, 2011, 10:54am

I wonder if jdb will enter his "Gold to goal in 47 moves" puzzle (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi?board=talk;action=display;num=1220968839;start=) :D

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by Hippo on Mar 24^th, 2011, 3:34pm

on 03/24/11 at 10:54:29, rbarreira wrote:

I wonder if jdb will enter his "Gold to goal in 47 moves" puzzle (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi?board=talk;action=display;num=1220968839;start=) :D

Yes that ECR/ecr one is rather complex :).

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by 722caasi on Mar 24^th, 2011, 7:02pm

Here's a fun puzzle:
The position is just before gold's first move, and the question is "How many moves are necessary to recreate the position?"

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by omar on Mar 25^th, 2011, 10:23am

on 03/24/11 at 02:14:18, 722caasi wrote:

Nice puzzle.

This raises the question of how we will determine which category a puzzle belongs to (Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced). Will the category of the puzzle be assigned by the judges or does the person submitting the puzzle decide? Jeff, maybe this needs to be mentioned in the rules. Bot developers, is there any way to have a bot look at the position and give some kind of score on how difficult it is to find the winning move?

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by arimaasen on Mar 25^th, 2011, 11:31am

on 03/25/11 at 10:23:21, omar wrote:

This raises the question of how we will determine which category a puzzle belongs to (Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced). Will the category of the puzzle be assigned by the judges or does the person submitting the puzzle decide? Jeff, maybe this needs to be mentioned in the rules. Bot developers, is there any way to have a bot look at the position and give some kind of score on how difficult it is to find the winning move?

Rule 9 states that "All puzzles must be labeled..." so my intention was that submitters should give the level. (Note, too, that "Appropriateness to chosen level" is worth 5 points in the judging.) I gave rough definitions for the levels in the rule. I can clarify that, and, of course, it can be a required field when submitting the problem. :)

(I notice now that I forgot to require that submissions clearly state whose turn it is to move. I'll add that, too.)

FWIW, Puzzle 58 struck me as a beginner problem, mostly because I still consider myself a beginner and solved it within about 15 seconds. "Move and win" was an excellent objective and gave me the hint that it might not be by goal.

Puzzle 24 I would call advanced because it adds the difficulty of determining who will win and uses a very subtle point of the rules.

By the rules as clarified earlier, both would be eligible for submission by their authors, but may lose some surprise because they are known and not anonymous to the judges at this point.

I would not like to rely on bots to determine difficulty, as this pertains more to human perception. Part of the point of this puzzle challenge is to help us collectively understand how *people* learn the game and how we can help them improve their knowledge through guided practice. Problem levels may seem hard to gauge now, but I'm hoping we'll get a better feel for it by going through this exercise. That will aid the creation of the next generation of educational books that can better reach people unfamiliar with the game.

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 30^th, 2011, 3:19pm

on 03/24/11 at 19:02:27, 722caasi wrote:

Here's a fun puzzle:
The position is just before gold's first move, and the question is "How many moves are necessary to recreate the position?"

There is a large literature of chess puzzles, many quite entertaining, that have nothing to do with learning how to play chess well. They are merely logic puzzles which require knowledge of the rules of chess. For example, you might be given a position in which one piece has been knocked off the board, and be asked to deduce the color and rank of that piece. As much as I might enjoy the logic process involved, it has little to do with playing chess per se.

Jeff, could you be explicit about whether you are interested in such puzzles? They can be clear, sound, targeted to a particular level, demonstrate the rules of the game, and be very entertaining, yet I suspect you would still reject them. If so, I urge you to add a condition that puzzles are intended to increase the winning rate of players who take the time to solve them, or some similarly-worded condition. Or if you intent is to encourage logic puzzles of any type on an Arimaa board, say that explicitly instead.

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by arimaasen on Mar 30^th, 2011, 5:36pm

on 03/30/11 at 15:19:07, Fritzlein wrote:

Jeff, could you be explicit about whether you are interested in such puzzles? They can be clear, sound, targeted to a particular level, demonstrate the rules of the game, and be very entertaining, yet I suspect you would still reject them.

I'll look at how to make it clearer, but I would very much encourage all those kinds of puzzles. This is why the purpose statement says "problems for study and entertainment" and the judging category is for "educational or entertainment value". Under "What makes a good puzzle?" I say it should be "educational and/or entertaining". So I tried to show as often as possible that one or the other is important (e.g., a grinding goal in 40 puzzle that only a computer could love isn't really what I'm after) and purely entertaining puzzles are most welcome.

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 30^th, 2011, 10:10pm

on 03/30/11 at 17:36:02, arimaasen wrote:

I'll look at how to make it clearer [...]

How about just an example of a puzzle with an objective other than "find a move that does X"?

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by arimaasen on Mar 30^th, 2011, 10:39pm

on 03/30/11 at 22:10:23, Fritzlein wrote:

How about just an example of a puzzle with an objective other than "find a move that does X"?

Great idea. I can make one up, but is there already an example? I know of the Sherlock Holmes "what piece was removed and whose turn is it" for chess, but does anything like that exist yet for Arimaa?

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 31^st, 2011, 12:50am

on 03/30/11 at 22:39:19, arimaasen wrote:

I don't think any such thing exists for Arimaa. Here's a quick attempt from me:

+--------+
+11101110+
+11111121+
+11001111+
+22111211+
+22000011+
+11011011+
+11122111+
+00001111+
+--------+

The above board corresponds to a position (of course reachable by legal moves under the rules of Arimaa) in which no piece of higher rank than a cat remains. Gold is to move. The number in each square indicates the number of different gold pieces that could end Gold's turn on that square. (Different pieces of the same rank count as different.) Reconstruct the position. (I think the answer is unique, but go ahead and post if you have a solution, in case it is not the one I intended.)

There's nothing special going on there, but I'm sure puzzles of this type could get very intricate. I expect that I would enjoy solving a clever one.

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by Eltripas on Mar 31^st, 2011, 10:37am

on 03/31/11 at 00:50:20, Fritzlein wrote:

Pieces that are already in the squares count as pieces that could end Gold's turn on that square?

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 31^st, 2011, 10:40am

on 03/31/11 at 10:37:40, Eltripas wrote:

Pieces that are already in the squares count as pieces that could end Gold's turn on that square?

Yes, so a frozen gold piece that can't move at all is a piece that can end Gold's turn on its square.

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by arimaasen on Mar 31^st, 2011, 10:52am

on 03/31/11 at 00:50:20, Fritzlein wrote:

...The number in each square indicates the number of different gold pieces that could end Gold's turn on that square.

Ok, this helps point out what needs to be clarified. I believe Omar has agreed to create entry pages that will let us gather entries with all the necessary information (and manage judging them, I hope). The page will be based on the existing puzzle library and will only accept board positions for standard pieces. So while a puzzle like the one you propose would be fine philosophically, I don't think we have an easy way of entering it. I'd rather not deal with general e-mail or other submissions that then have to be interpreted. Having one automated entry system will simplify things a lot.

That said, the "objective" section will just be free-form text, so if someone wants to enter it just as you did here, I don't have any problem with it.

Title: Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 31^st, 2011, 11:06am

on 03/31/11 at 10:52:24, arimaasen wrote:

I believe Omar has agreed to create entry pages that will let us gather entries with all the necessary information (and manage judging them, I hope).

If entries are to be submitted and managed through Omar's puzzle tool, then I believe you are indeed limited to exactly puzzles of the type "find a move that does X". The only solution that the puzzle tool can accept is a move list. So while there is still freedom as to what X is, the solution must be the one and only move that does X.

Quote:

I'd rather not deal with general e-mail or other submissions that then have to be interpreted.

I can imagine that there are creative ways of using the puzzle tool beyond what it was designed for. However, if you don't want to deal with e-mail and submissions that have to be interpreted, you probably also don't want to deal with pushing the limits of the puzzle tool by submitting puzzles it wasn't designed to handle, correct?

For example I think you will have to change your invitation to use fantasy pieces, since there is no provision in the puzzle tool for displaying fantasy pieces on the board. Yes, one could submit an ordinary-looking position along with instructions saying that rabbits are actually rats and that cats gain a special "exploding step" for the purposes of the puzzle, but that would just create interpretation problems, right?