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        Arimaa >> Site Discussion >> Resurrect Player of the Month Contest?
        
(Message started by: mistre on May 3^rd, 2011, 9:21am)

Title: Resurrect Player of the Month Contest?
Post by mistre on May 3^rd, 2011, 9:21am

In an effort to encourage more live HvH games, how about we bring back the Player of the Month contest?

The previous contest rules are posted here: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/potm/rules.html

I think the reason that Omar stopped the contest is that the same person was taking advantage of the rules and winning every month.

I would propose the following rule changes:

1) Using the WHR (which wasn't around when the contest ran before), points are only awarded if you play against someone within 300 rating points above or below (a 600-pt range).
2) Make it "Players of the month" and spread out the prizes to the top 3 finishers.
3) Defeating someone with a higher WHR rating is worth 5 pts. (up for discussion).
4) Allow any time control except for postal, blitz, or lightning (up for discussion).

I guess the real question for making this work is if the gameroom can recognize player's WHR ratings and award points accordingly.

Title: Re: Resurrect Player of the Month Contest?
Post by Fritzlein on May 3^rd, 2011, 10:37am

on 05/03/11 at 09:21:20, mistre wrote:

1) Using the WHR (which wasn't around when the contest ran before), points are only awarded if you play against someone within 300 rating points above or below (a 600-pt range).

This gives an incentive to purposely sandbag the WHR. I'm guessing that the reason nobody has intentionally lowered their WHR to this point (as they have intentionally lowered their game room ratings) is not that it would be difficult, but that there has been no incentive to do so. I'm leery of creating that incentive now.

Also, apart from sandbagging, this rule would mean that chessandgo can't participate. His WHR is within 300 points of only Adanac and me. This is extreme, but in general the playing field would be tipped against higher-rated players having fewer potential opponents whereas players withing 300 points of the 1500 beginner rating would have a bonanza of potential opponents.

After the breakdown of Player of the Month, I tried the Continuous Tournament to encourage "good" HvH games, with moderate success, and then came the AWL which encouraged good HvH games with even more success. I'd lay my bets on trying to resurrect what did work (AWL) rather than on trying to resurrect what didn't work (PotM). Just my intuition, though; your mileage may vary.

Title: Re: Resurrect Player of the Month Contest?
Post by mistre on May 3^rd, 2011, 2:08pm

Thanks for pointing that out. I definitely want to avoid sandbagging. Having said that, the advantage of this type of incentive to play HvH vs a tournament or league is that there is no need for scheduling and players can play as much or as little as they want to.

So in an attempt to address your concerns - here is an alternate idea:

Instead of having one cash prize for the winner of a month, players are awarded a small amount of Arimaa points for playing HvH games (excluding Lightning, Blitz, and Postal modes) .

- For each game completed (no forfeits, resigns, or timeouts), a player earns 10 arimaa points and 1 entry into an end-of the month drawing for 2000 arimaa points.

- Each player is limited to 100 arimaa points and 10 entries per month.

- Players with a WHR of <1600 on the first day of the month are ineligible to participate that month.

Title: Re: Resurrect Player of the Month Contest?
Post by omar on May 10^th, 2011, 6:25pm

I had thought about trying to bring back the Player of the Month also, but couldn't think of a good set of rules that didn't have loopholes.

I was also thinking about setting up a ladder system to encourage more HvH games, but it's going to require some time to code it up.

Title: Re: Resurrect Player of the Month Contest?
Post by Hippo on May 11^th, 2011, 9:00am

on 05/03/11 at 14:08:09, mistre wrote:

Who would sponsor these games? I know 1$ limit per player per month is not too much but ...

Title: Re: Resurrect Player of the Month Contest?
Post by ginrunner on May 12^th, 2011, 2:14am

you could have a yearly entry fee maybe? $12? some people make back more than they put in others make back less?

Title: Re: Resurrect Player of the Month Contest?
Post by omar on May 14^th, 2011, 12:04pm

I just had a thought; I don't know if there might be loopholes in this, but how about if all the players trying for the POTM contest pitch in 100 points and winner gets the pot. Only games against players who have joined the contest count. Players can join the contest at anytime during the month by adding 100 points to the pot. Other rules would be same as what they used to be:

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/potm/rules.html

Title: Re: Resurrect Player of the Month Contest?
Post by dree12 on Jul 17^th, 2011, 4:48pm

That would encourage boycotting the top player so far, and the lack of second-or-third place prizes completely removes all incentive of playing at all (because playing with anyone above you so far, assuming you are of equal skill, can only hurt your chances).

Title: Re: Resurrect Player of the Month Contest?
Post by Arimabuff on Aug 3^rd, 2011, 4:53pm

It looks like as a rule we are becoming more and more cynical. I find that sad.