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        Arimaa >> Site Discussion >> Bot Glitch Recovery/Instant Death...
        
(Message started by: chess123mate on Oct 9^th, 2008, 3:57pm)

Title: Bot Glitch Recovery/Instant Death...
Post by chess123mate on Oct 9^th, 2008, 3:57pm

I think that if a bot glitches and gives an illegal move, it should lose instantly.
Currently, for example, I am playing bot_Arimaazilla and it glitched on an illegal repetition (I think). Regardless, I now have to wait the 10 minutes it had in reserve in addition to the 2 minutes of natural playing time before the game is over (at least I know that I would've won even if it didn't glitch ;) )

Alternatively, a message could be sent to the bot (ie like a new command) saying "error", but I think that wouldn't work with the current system...

Hopefully this can be fixed.
Thanks,
chess123mate

Title: Re: Bot Glitch Recovery/Instant Death...
Post by omar on Oct 9^th, 2008, 4:52pm

Some of the bots don't know about the repetition rules. We recently made 3rd time repetition an illegal move rather than a losing condition. In practice though maybe we should keep repetition as a losing condition to avoid having to wait for the bot to time out.

Title: Re: Bot Glitch Recovery/Instant Death...
Post by Tuks on Oct 10^th, 2008, 10:15am

if it was a glitch, the developer would probably prefer to correct it rather than send an error message for you

its an unforeseen event so cant really be helped im afraid

Title: Re: Bot Glitch Recovery/Instant Death...
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 10^th, 2008, 11:33am

As far as I know, there is no bot that can recover if it tries to make an illegal move. Even so, should we exclude the possibility for the future? It would be unequal treatment if the third repetition were a loss for a bot but a "try again" for a human.

Title: Re: Bot Glitch Recovery/Instant Death...
Post by chess123mate on Oct 10^th, 2008, 12:17pm

It is unequal treatment, but on the other hand, the bot is supposed to know that it's illegal.

It could be fixed if an event other than 'getMove' could be initiated on a bot, more like 'errorMove'. It'd work the same way as 'getMove', but this command would indicate that the last move made was illegal.

Finally, another option would be to check and see if the bot is running any threads. If so, it must be thinking. If not, it can be concluded that it loses. It wouldn't be a bad idea to use 'errorMove' at this point, if not automatically.