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(Message started by: PMertens on Feb 24th, 2005, 4:10pm)
Title: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Feb 24th, 2005, 4:10pm
thanks a lot for the new championchip bots ...

a side effect will be that the "player of the month" will have a lot of games to play :-)

(10 different championchip bots + our regular bots)

should player of the month be limited to human vs human games ?
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 24th, 2005, 9:11pm
Yes, that now makes 14 bots anybody can play, and those are just the ones Omar maintains, so there's also the real Bomb, Clueless, etc.
 
An alternative to not counting wins against bots would be to let wins against humans count for three points and wins against bots only one point.  I'm trying to win player of the month right now, but it's a lot of work.  To win the contest may just prove that I have more time and patience than the next guy.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Feb 26th, 2005, 11:19pm
In case of a tie for the longest winning streak, the one who played most recently wins ...

ah at what time does the month end ?
(on our globe we got different timezones - and it would be a shame if California would have more time than Australia ;-) )
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 27th, 2005, 9:52am
I believe that to be counted the game has to end before  midnight GMT, so everyone has the same cutoff.

I should have faced the reality that I would have a better chance of winning Player of the month by playing you head-to-head than by trying to play more bots.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Feb 27th, 2005, 10:32am
And still you go on with that :-)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 27th, 2005, 11:11am
OK, Let's make a deal.  Let's play heads up for Player of the Month on the 28th, no matter who is ahead at that time.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Feb 27th, 2005, 1:54pm
that deal wont solve the problem :-)

Midnight GMT would be unfair to US players that can only play in the evening.

I certainly would prefer a shared prize, since I cant think of any timerelated earthwide fair rule.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on Feb 28th, 2005, 3:20am
Haha, you two are so funny.  I don't think I'll ever even play that many games in a month, let alone in a winning streak!

I would volunteer to be the final game of the month for both of you... :-)

... however that will be my first day of work.

PS if anyone wants to see a crazily tense game - have a look at my game against omar in the postal.  My brain is overloading so much that I probably won't be able to play my next move for days.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by mouse on Feb 28th, 2005, 5:02am
I think the competition between Fritzlein and PMertens may created a very long winning streak possible the longest ever. But a lot of the games do not contain much meaning. Neither of the 2 will be likely to lose a game against Arimaalon or Gno_bot2004CC expect by disconnect.

So I agree with Fritzlein that there is a need for some sort of reform in the competition. Like rewarding human games higher and perhaps also rewarding players taking on harder competitors. For the moment all wins count as the same even if there is several hundreds rating points of difference between the players. This could be changed to give more points for games between players with similar strength.

A new weighting scheme could be something like this:

1 point for a win against a bot with a rating lower than the player.
2 points for a win against a bot with a rating higher than the player.
1 point for a win against a human more than 25 places lower on the established player list (or a certain number of ratings point) than the player
2 points for a win against a human less than 25 places lower than the player
3 points for a win against a human less than 10 places lower than the player
5 points for a win against a human higher rating than the player

This scoring system would encourage more exiting games if a player would like to win the player of the month.  8) On the downside it is more complex than the present system and may be difficult to implement.  :-/
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Feb 28th, 2005, 7:55am
I still think, that simply skipping the bots might allready make some sense.

Those games have absolutely no meaning since both of us CAN outplay the bots in a more or less boring way.

I got 3 bots to go - 2 of them are 3 min movers :-(


If Fritzl agrees , then I would share the winning prize even if we both got 15 games ... unless he insists on playing more games.
(Even if technically I am first now - but as I said I dislike the rule "last one wins"
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Adanac on Feb 28th, 2005, 8:47am

on 02/28/05 at 03:20:25, 99of9 wrote:
I would volunteer to be the final game of the month for both of you... :-)


If you win both games, I'm sure that Yusei will be shocked to learn that he's won the Player of the Month award  8)

I'd like to see a new system that's both easy to learn and which encourages more human vs. human play.  Fritzlein's suggestion of 3 points for a victory over a human seems like a nice idea.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by mouse on Feb 28th, 2005, 8:53am
If you win both games, I'm sure that Yusei will be shocked to learn that he's won the Player of the Month award.

Actually if these games take place and 99of9 wins both he will be player of the month assuming nobody else get to more than 4 wins or get the 4th win after the end of the last of the 2 games. ;D
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Feb 28th, 2005, 6:13pm
now I won by 6 minutes because Fritzl final game ended in the wrong month  :-/
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Mar 1st, 2005, 10:10pm
maybe it makes more sense if the FIRST to reach his points wins ? that should be easy to implement ...
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on Mar 2nd, 2005, 1:28am
Yes, I agree - at least that would make it a race to win, risking your current streak.

Personally I think bot games should not count at all because bots keep spawning copies of themselves.  On the other hand, it does encourage people to play the bots.  Is that good?
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Mar 2nd, 2005, 2:01am

Quote:
On the other hand, it does encourage people to play the bots.  Is that good?


it does encourage to play them in a known way - and that is not good.

I think that nobody will disagree if I say that there is a certain way to beat bomb every game :-)
(and since there are so many bots to play only few players would take the risk to do st. new)

Playing speedy is a totally different story, since that thing is evolving and hopefully gets harder and harder.
(Same for other evolving bots)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 2nd, 2005, 12:17pm
Since there are about 3 copies of every bot, it makes perfect sense that wins against humans should count for 3 points and wins against bots only one point.  :-)

Mouse's proposal that it should count for more points to beat a player rated higher than onesself is interesting, although it makes it harder for high-rated players to accumulate points, since there won't necessarily be any even-higher-rated folks available for them to play against.  Perhaps it is good to level the playing field in this way, because player of the month is currently vastly easier for stronger players to win.

An alternative way to level the playing field would be for the wins in the winning streak to each count for as many points as the rating system thinks you had a percentage chance of losing.  If I beat Bomb2004, the system says I have a 13% chance of losing, so that win would only get me 13 points, but if I play 99of9 and win I would get 51 points since I have a 51% chance of losing.  (Actually much higher, but that's what the ratings say.)  It would still be easier for stronger players to win player of the month, but not by much, since lower-rated players could collect points against weak bots which would give almost no points to the stronger-rated players.

Probably if this idea is used, it should be coupled with the idea of weighting human games three times more, so that ones rating relative to the rating of the bots isn't the primary determining factor.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Mar 2nd, 2005, 8:37pm
it would be interesting to hear Omars opinion ;-)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by mouse on Mar 3rd, 2005, 10:11am

on 03/02/05 at 12:17:21, Fritzlein wrote:
Mouse's proposal that it should count for more points to beat a player rated higher than onesself is interesting, although it makes it harder for high-rated players to accumulate points, since there won't necessarily be any even-higher-rated folks available for them to play against.  Perhaps it is good to level the playing field in this way, because player of the month is currently vastly easier for stronger players to win.


Thats why I would also give extra points if you play someone with a little lower rating.
;)

If you want more than a few players to try for the player of the month you will have to level the playing field. For the momment only players who can beat bomb on a regular basis will have a chance with all the bomb versions.


on 03/02/05 at 12:17:21, Fritzlein wrote:
An alternative way to level the playing field would be for the wins in the winning streak to each count for as many points as the rating system thinks you had a percentage chance of losing.  If I beat Bomb2004, the system says I have a 13% chance of losing, so that win would only get me 13 points, but if I play 99of9 and win I would get 51 points since I have a 51% chance of losing.  (Actually much higher, but that's what the ratings say.)  It would still be easier for stronger players to win player of the month, but not by much, since lower-rated players could collect points against weak bots which would give almost no points to the stronger-rated players.


There is a extra advantage with this method it will vastly decrease the likelihood of a two players ending with the same number of points at the end of the month.  

And I am not sure this method will actually give a big advantage to players with a high rating. A player with a rating arround 1500 who can get a win against Arimaanator will have a very good chance of winning the player of the month with this scoring scheme.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Mar 3rd, 2005, 6:16pm
It's been about 2 years since I started the player of the month contest. At the time we didn't have many humans or bots so even getting 5 or 6 people on your list was a challenge :-) Thing have definitely changed since then and I think it might be time to redefine the player of the month contest altogether. I'd like the new definition to meet the following goals:

* Any player should be able to win the contest regardless of how strong they are
* It should encourage more human vs human games
* It should encourage more completed games
* The rules should be fairly simple and easy to understand

The simplest thing I can think of which meets these goals is: the player who has played the most humans (unique) regardless of whether they won or lost the game, wins the contest.

To discourage someone from playing a game and resigning quickly just to add another person to their list, lets not add the game to a players list if the person resigns or loses on time (still counts if the opponent resigns or loses on time).

But because some people are having problems with the flash client crashing or network problems maybe we should not count the games where either player lost on time.

Of course only rated games count and the game must also begin and end in the same month. In case of a tie the player who played more recently wins.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 4th, 2005, 8:01am
Now that you lay out your goals, Omar, it makes sense to completely alter the structure of player of the month.  However, I am leery of simply counting the number of distinct humans played.  There is no incentive to play one's best.  On the contrary, there is a strong incentive not to prolong a struggle, because the quicker you lose, the quicker you can challenge another human to get another point.  Resigning and losing on time are not the only ways to lose by giving up; one can simply play randomly with no thoughts of strategy, on intentionally play poor moves.

At a minimum I'd add an additional incentive for winning.  For example, give one point for every human you have played in the month but not beaten, and two points for every human you have beaten.  To a certain extent, quantity can overcome quality.  Everyone still has a shot at winning, and the most active players have the best shot.  On the other hand, winning games still matters, and the player of the month won't necessarily go to the person who can throw the most games most quickly.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Mar 4th, 2005, 9:14am
I agree somehow with Fritz

I guess we count only the first unique hh game ?
Or is it more like 1 point for every uhhg and 1 extra point for winning in at least one of the games against that particular human ? (or would that backfire and prevent from playing a second game that month since I could try not to give him a chance to get his second point ...)

Should silver/gold be taken into account since statistics tell us a slightly higher chance of gold winning ?

2 Points for winning would of course be much better for the top players, since they need half the games of a beginner - but then how do you define player of the month :-) (in Omars version the player could have <1k points and lose just every game - well, that could still happen with the 2:1 points but less likely)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Mar 4th, 2005, 9:16am
oh and by the way:

the player who plays most recently makes again no sense omar - that lead to Fritzl playing bomb last minute and finishing just 5 minutes to late - and there was no point for me in playing another game before him.

should be the other way round
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 11th, 2005, 4:12pm

on 03/03/05 at 18:16:45, omar wrote:
* Any player should be able to win the contest regardless of how strong they are
* It should encourage more human vs human games
* It should encourage more completed games
* The rules should be fairly simple and easy to understand


Omar,

I've been thinking more about your goals.  I don't see a way to meet all four of them at the same time: you can only have three of the four.  Your proposal to count the number of distinct humans played is simple, encourages HvH games, and can be won by anyone, but doesn't encourage completed games, at least not in the sense of trying hard the whole way.  There is no incentive for committed play.

I have a proposal that meets a different three of your goals: it isn't totally simple, but anyone can win, it encourages HvH games, and it encourages completed games.  Here's the idea:

For each human you beat during the month, you score the root of your odds of losing to them according to the ratings.  A table of examples:
rating diff odds on favorite favorite gets underdog gets
01:111
2414:11/22
3829:11/33
48216:11/44

So if I went around playing people rated 482 points below me, I would need to beat 16 of them to get 4 points in the contest, but if any one of them beat me, that one person would get four points in the contest from that one victory.  The risks are balanced, assuming the ratings are correct (which they aren't; I'm overrated from playing bots, but that's my fault :-))

I propose not counting bots, not counting losses, and not counting repeat victories.  There would never be a risk for playing new people, as there is under the current system when you have to put your winning streak on the line.  You just try to beat as many distinct humans in the month as possible.

I think this would really give folks an incentive to mix it up, and to try hard every game.  Because of the weighting of rewards, truly anyone can win, and your standing in the contest gets better and better (on average) the more distinct humans you play.  Whoever plays the widest variety of human opposition has the best chance to win, regardless of their rating.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Mar 11th, 2005, 6:36pm
I guess, someone could play to goal, but not really try hard. I was thinking that since these would be rated games, people wouldn't do that to protect their ratings. But maybe winning the contest could become more important than maintaining the rating. Or someone might get the idea of creating a second account to use for the contest games; not good.

I like your proposal, Karl. Would it still be OK if we did it in a discrete way like:

Rating difference, favored gets, underdog gets
450 or more, 1, 16
350 to 450, 1, 9
250 to 350, 1, 4
0 to 250, 1, 1

Maybe we should also consider the side and thus allow two unique games against the same opponent where the sides are different.

I see PMertens point about the tie breaker. If you only acheive the same score then the person who a acheived it first should still be considered the winner.

OK let me throw out another proposal for how to score the player of the month contest. How about winner gets 3 points and loser gets points based on how long they could defend: 3 points if the game is 60 moves or more; 2 points if the game is 40 moves or more and 1 point if the game is 20 moves or more. I think this would encourage a person to not lose and at least try and defend as long as possible. The one who plays the most unique human games this way would win the contest. Though a good player could win with fewer games a weaker player might be encouraged to win the contest by playing more games because after each game they see their score going up (most anyone can defend for 20 moves if they try).
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 11th, 2005, 7:49pm

on 03/11/05 at 18:36:38, omar wrote:
OK let me throw out another proposal for how to score the player of the month contest. How about winner gets 3 points and loser gets points based on how long they could defend: 3 points if the game is 60 moves or more; 2 points if the game is 40 moves or more and 1 point if the game is 20 moves or more.


This new proposal gives an incentive to try harder, but now favors stronger players again, so you are still getting only three of your four goals.  :-)  My more complicated proposal should be exactly fair to stronger and weaker players (assuming those mythical accurate ratings exist, of course).


Quote:
I like your proposal, Karl. Would it still be OK if we did it in a discrete way like:

Rating difference, favored gets, underdog gets
450 or more, 1, 16
350 to 450, 1, 9
250 to 350, 1, 4
0 to 250, 1, 1


Sure, we could discretize it, but the way you scaled it means that the most evenly matched games will, on average, count the least, when they should, on average, count the most.  I would suggest instead:

0-50       5/5
50-120   6/4
120-240 8/3
240-440 12/2
440+      24/1

But I'm sceptical that discretizing actually makes it simpler.  True, everyone's score in the contest will be a whole number, but by the same token you have to list the ranges and hard code them, etc. rather than using a single formula.  It's a matter of taste, I guess.


Quote:
Maybe we should also consider the side and thus allow two unique games against the same opponent where the sides are different.


I like the idea of allowing two games per pair of players so that there would be an incentive for a rematch for the winner of the first game.  On the other hand, I really like keeping the focus on playing as many different humans as possible.


Quote:
I see PMertens point about the tie breaker. If you only acheive the same score then the person who a acheived it first should still be considered the winner.


I quite agree, but one advantage of using the continuous version of my proposal is that ties won't happen.  :-)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 11th, 2005, 7:56pm
I just thought of a horrible disadvantage to my proposal: it creates an incentive to intentionally lower your own rating, because the lower your rating is, the more points you get for each victory.  So in between my games against humans, I could lose a bunch of times to Arimaazilla to keep my rating low, in order to maximize the points I get in the POTM contest.  Yuck.

This flaw is so glaring that I think it would, in fact, be better to just count the number of distinct humans played without regard to wins and losses.  True, that would make the contest itself dumb, but at least people wouldn't have such an incentive to mess up their own ratings.  :(

An alternative would be to use Omar's latest idea (3 to the winner and 3, 2, or 1 to the loser) but make it simpler:  The winner gets 60 and the loser gets the number of moves in the game, capped at 59.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Adanac on Mar 12th, 2005, 11:53am
I much prefer human vs. human games for many reasons but I’m surprised that the player of the month award may not include bot games anymore.  Given that arimaa was invented to promote AI research, shouldn’t there be some small incentive to play the bots too?  Obviously it’s a waste of time for 2000+ players to play the 2004CCbots but it would be a shame if every brand new player logged onto the site and found themselves swamped with match requests from every player trying to boost their point totals while all the bots sat around idly.  Here’s my alternate proposal, which encourages established humans to play one another while not ignoring the bots altogether (it’s very similar to Fritzlein’s original proposal).

3 points for each game played against a distinct human with an RU below 100
1 point for each game played against a computer
1 point for each victory against a distinct opponent.

What do you think of my version of the ‘3 out of 4’ proposal?

On a completely separate issue (which I probably belongs in a separate thread), another problem with the current system is that you can double-count by playing bots at regular and fast time controls, while it only counts once for humans regardless of the speed of play.  Is there any plan to eventually have 1 account for each bot with different ratings for different speeds?  Of course, I mean after the Postal Championship when more time is available  :)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Mar 17th, 2005, 12:21am

on 03/12/05 at 11:53:59, Adanac wrote:
On a completely separate issue (which I probably belongs in a separate thread), another problem with the current system is that you can double-count by playing bots at regular and fast time controls, while it only counts once for humans regardless of the speed of play.  Is there any plan to eventually have 1 account for each bot with different ratings for different speeds?  Of course, I mean after the Postal Championship when more time is available  :)


There is a discussion of how to include different speeds into the rating; but it applies not just to bots, but humans also since humans play very differently at different time controls also. I think the thread is:
Omar = OmarFast   ,   bot_bomb = bot

Hummm, should we includes bots with reduced scores as suggested by Adanac or not include them at all. I could go either way on that. I'd be interested to see what others think before we finalize it.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Apr 5th, 2005, 10:48am
any changes ?
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Apr 6th, 2005, 6:50pm
I'll try to make the chages this month so that May will be the first month with the new rules.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 6th, 2005, 8:01pm
I initially favored counting the human vs. bot games for something, but I've changed my mind.  Already over 85% of the games are human versus bot at the moment.  Such games are mostly boring, and anyway they will still make up the majority of games on the server no matter how the contest changes.  Only human vs. human games should count in Player of the Month, because that's what we need to promote.

I think there should be some premium on winning, or else the award becomes a silly "quantity play" award, in which no one will have to try hard to win.  More human vs. human games is only interesting if the humans involved are straining as hard as possible to win.  On the other hand, I don't like the "winning streak" format.  Right now, if I have the longest winning streak, I have a reason to avoid all rated games, because they put my winning streak on the line.  The new rules should encourage BOTH the leader AND the chasers to play more human versus human games.

I'd keep a couple of current good rules: only rated games count and only games against players with at least 2 games of experience.

Anything within those guidelines will seem like a big improvement to me, even if it makes the contest harder for me to win.  If I had to give a specific point scheme at the moment, I would say: 1 point for every distinct human played but not beaten and 2 points for every distinct human played and beaten.  If you lose every game, you have to play twice as many games as someone who wins every game, so you had better try hard to win, but losses never hurt you, so persistence pays off.

An emphasis on distinct humans should really mix things up around here.  I'll try to win the contest no matter what the rules are, but I know my rating will sink like a stone once I stop pumping it up against bots.  Hmmm... maybe I should try to get a rating of 2300 this month, just for the record books, before the rules change and I take a nosedive against humans.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on Apr 7th, 2005, 3:15am
I second Fritz's suggestion, verbatim.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by mouse on Apr 9th, 2005, 5:56am

on 04/09/05 at 00:04:46, Arimanator wrote:
One thing I don't understand about this contest is why am I on OLTI's list and he on mine? If everybody can be on everybody's list where is the contest? That may not be apparent now since bots are not allowed to participate but what if with human players you end up with the first ten with each the nine others on their list, is there something I am not getting here? Please somebody explain my head hurts  :)


The player of the month is the one with the longest winning streak against different opponnents. If you win against a opponent this game will be included in your winning streak. But to promote more play you will not lose your winning streak if you later lose to a player allready in your winning streak.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Apr 9th, 2005, 11:27am
I've written up the new rules and posted them here:
 http://arimaa.com/arimaa/potm/rules200503.html

Let me know what you think.

First of all Im glad we seem to be settling on the decision to include the bots or not. I could have gone either way on that. But, I guess it would have made the contest a little easier for the stonger players if we had included the bots and the rules favored the winning player (which seems hard to avoid). So it seems better to not include the bot games even though those are the type of games that are played the most.

The other issue is how to keep the rules from favoring the stronger players and yet preventing low quality games. If we give equal points to the winner and loser, then there is no advantage for stronger players, but the players also have no incentive to win; so we can get very low quality games. In fact if any points are given for losing, a player can rack up points by losing quickly and playing lots of games that way. Adding a rule which says the losing player must last for at least some minumum number of moves in order to receive the points helps to prevent this. I figured as long as we will need a rule like this, we might as well expand that rule and make it so that a player who really trys hard but still loses can get the same number of points as the winning player. Thus the same rule also helps to reduce the strong player advantage. I chose to expand the rule to have 3 levels with 1 point given at 20 moves, 2 points at 40 moves and 3 points at 60 moves (the winning player always get 3 points). We could have done this by having the losing player get points proportional to the number of moves they lasted. But we would still need to introduce cutoffs at the two ends; like no more than 60 points and 0 if less than 20. This helps to reduce the chance of ties. But since it doesn't eliminate ties, we would still need another tie breaker rule just in case. I could still be persuaded to go with this is if it offers a clear advantage that I haven't noticed yet.

One thing that we did not discuss, but I added while writting up these rules is the time control needed in order for the game to count. I added that the games should use at least a 45 sec per move time control and sudden death type games are not counted. The reason I thought we needed this was to maintain the quality of the games. With bots we don't have a choice about the time control, but when both players are humans we do and we might have a tendency to pick faster games just to get them over quickly. Also there is a rule which says that a player does not receive any points if they lose on time (but the opponent should still get the points for the win to prevent the possibility of losing on time to throw away the game). So stronger players could use fast games to their advantage. This trys to minimize that.

I would like to start with the new rules in May if possible.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 9th, 2005, 8:14pm

on 04/09/05 at 11:27:13, omar wrote:
I chose to expand the rule to have 3 levels with 1 point given at 20 moves, 2 points at 40 moves and 3 points at 60 moves (the winning player always get 3 points).


I like the fact that there is an incentive for playing hard in that long losses are worth more than short losses.  I don't really care for rewarding losses so much relative to wins, though.  Losing in over 40 moves is fairly typical, and doesn't necessarily indicate a close game.  See, for example, my loss to Belbo in the EU vs. US match, where he crushed me but it took 47 moves.   I was outplayed from start to finish but I would get 2/3 of a win!

My prediction is that many winners of the contest in the months to come will do so with a pile of losses, and the contest will become quantity over quality.  To keep a better balance I like a four-point scale, i.e. four points for a win and the same as you suggest for losses, up to four points if you lose in over 80 moves.

This is all hypothetical, though.  Let's just implement some change and see what happens.  You can always tweak it again for June if it seems to be out of whack.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on Apr 9th, 2005, 11:12pm

on 04/09/05 at 12:20:01, Arimanator wrote:
I propose that the points that the loser doesn't get belong to the winner. they share 6 points together, equally if the game lasted 60 plus moves , 4-2, 5-1, 6-0 otherwise.


Once the game goes past 60 moves there is then no incentive to win.  About 1/4 high quality games from top players go past this point.  Though I guess this is true in Omar's plan too...

I don't think you should try so hard to make people aggressive.  This may have the side effect of reducing the "quality" of the games.  Arimaa may well be a theoretically defensive game.

Another side effect is that good players may seek low-ranked "prey" to play against and win 6 points.  At least in Omar's model Fritzlein is rewarded as much for beating me as he is for beating a newbie.  In your system he may never bother playing me, nor I him.  (In my experience close games are very tiring - but that is exactly what we want to encourage people to play.)

I do support small incentives for quick wins (as was done in some of the prediction contests for championships), but not when you get to choose your opponents, and certainly not as large ones as you suggest.  They are good for making players play interesting endgames (to finish off defeated opponents as quickly as possible), but I don't think they should be used to artificially put pressure on everyone to play entire games aggressively.

I'm not sure which I think is best out of Omar and Fritz's points plan.  At this stage I'd go with Fritz's, because at least it preserves the incentive for winning until move 80.  Personally though I'd say that the winner should always get 1 more point than it is possible for the loser to get.  Oh... what about a combination of the two schemes:

4 points for a win
0 points for a loss under 20 moves
1 point for a loss of 21-40 moves
2 points for  a loss of 41-60 moves
3 points for a loss of over 60 moves

(+1 bonus point if you are playing someone with a rating over 200 above you?)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on Apr 9th, 2005, 11:35pm
"Another game against the same player will also be counted if the sides (colors) are changed"

I love this rule.  I think colours are very important in arimaa, so it is very important to get good games from both colours.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on Apr 10th, 2005, 8:20am

on 04/10/05 at 07:21:53, Arimanator wrote:
 What are we talking about hustling a few gullible newbies in a bar for a beer?

I'm just suggesting that we shouldn't incentivize this behaviour more than playing tough games against people of similar standard.  Your proposal, if it had been instituted, would do exactly that.  Later in your post you suggest that I am only interested in rewarding high ratings, my argument against this part of your proposal is for exactly the opposite reason.


on 04/10/05 at 07:21:53, Arimanator wrote:
(for example if you play someone with 300 + less than you the game will not be valid for the contest).

Haha Fritz... you will get to play exactly 2 games per month... both against me :-).


on 04/10/05 at 07:21:53, Arimanator wrote:
And the idea as I understood it and I will wait for Omar to say if I am right or not is to give everyone a chance whether they're top notch or not and reward the effort more than the performance because as I said once again you only see the high level part of the game not the little people who need to be encouraged to continue playing and I am still waiting for Omar for a confirmation about that. Now you may say that past 60 or 75 moves the incentive to win will be gone and I doubt it when you play a game with talent for 75 moves you don't all of a sudden say to yourself, well now I will just push my pieces and see what happens.

Now if you see any contest only as a means to reward the higher rating, have it your way.


Obviously people who are better at the game will always have a better chance in any contest, unless they are directly penalised (eg by my rating imbalance bonus suggestion).  This is because they are able to better control the outcome of every game they play.  Not only regarding whether they win or not, but also how fast they win.  It is very difficult to come up with a set of rules which gives everyone an equal chance of winning.

I agree that Omar has had a good shot at it, but I am simply pointing out that under his (and your) scheme, there is no incentive apart from ratings to win after move 60.  Perhaps the ratings incentive is enough, perhaps it is not.

Just say I am willing to let my rating take a dive for a month, just to win POTM:  I am pretty sure I could take nearly anyone to 60 moves as long as I go in with the plan that I do not need to try to push for a win, I simply need to get the game to 60 moves.   I bet you would consider such games very boring to watch :-) (as would I probably).
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 10th, 2005, 8:50am

on 04/10/05 at 07:21:53, Arimanator wrote:
I believe that Omar will be the "referee" here to know who abused of their right to play weaker players and there can be limitative rules (for example if you play someone with 300 + less than you the game will not be valid for the contest).


It is hard to design a system where everyone has a reasonable chance of winning.  Under your suggestion, the only game of mine that would count is against 99of9, because nobody else is within 300 rating points of me.  I don't think this gives me a reasonable chance of winning!  :-)  If you made the cutoff 500 points instead, I would have nine active humans I could play, and that would at least give me a fighting chance, although other folks would have over twenty potential opponents.  If we need an additional way to level the contest, I would prefer a 500-point cutoff and my four-point scale to Omar's three-point scale with no cutoff.


Quote:
Now if you see any contest only as a means to reward the higher rating, have it your way.


It is tough to make a contest that anyone can win regardless of rating, but also one that encourages serious play.  There probably isn't a perfect solution.  In fact, we probably can't even tell in advance what solution will be better and what will be worse.  Omar is just going to have to try something out and see what happens.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Apr 13th, 2005, 4:35pm
Thanks for the great feedback guys. I am a bit suprised though because I thought the majority of the feedback would be about what time controls should count, but nothing was said about that. I'll assume for now that everyone agrees on the time controls that will count.

What I was mainly looking for was to see if anyone would notice any major loop hole or flaw in the rules. I didn't see any and I think no one else did either. The discussion has focused mainly on some finer adjustments to the rules.

For now I think I will keep the rules as they are posted on the new rules page and just give it a try. It's often too hard to predict how a set of rules will play out without actually trying it. After a few months I think we will have a better idea and can decide then if we need to make any adjustments.

However, I am fairly confident these rules should serve
the stated goal pretty well. As I mentioned on the new rules page, the contest should be won by the player who made the most effort to play high quality games against many different human opponents. I have changed the wording now from "high quality" to "serious", because I think that better reflects the intent. High quality might be interperted to mean games that are without blunders and exciting to watch, but that not what I mean. As long as the person made a serious effort to play a good game, it doesn't matter how flawless or exciting the game is.

Since the games are rated, I definitely think the ratings are enough for people to have an incentive to win throughout the game, regardless of the contest rules. I have yet to see rated games between humans where the players are not trying hard to win.

The winning player does have a bit of an incentive to win faster so that his opponent does not get as many points. It's not as strong as directly gaining more points for winning faster, but I don't think we really want it to be that strong since it could have other side effects like making the contest more favorable to stronger players.

There is a possiblity that the winner maybe be someone who played a lot of games in a a boring dragged out manner and lost a lot of them. But I think that's quite alright; I don't see anything wrong with doing that. Just the fact that they engaged more people to play and gave them a chance to play a game against a human player is a good thing.

We might have new players to the site getting invited by a lot of expericenced players for an easy game. But again I don't see anything wrong with someone who does that a lot and wins the contest. The new players might get a chance to chat and learn something on a personal level about Arimaa from an experienced player. I think overall it's a good thing.

So lets give this a try and see what happens. The new rules will take effect in May.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Apr 17th, 2005, 7:45pm
Here is the future 'Player of the Month' contest page.

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/potm/potm200503.cgi

This won't actually begin until May 2005, but I put it up now so that we can test it. If you notice any games that should have been picked up, but didn't; or ones that did but should not have been, please let me know through the 'Contact' page. Thanks.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 22nd, 2005, 5:33pm
It looks like Robinson has been credited with three wins against Belbo when two is the limit by the rules.  I'll also send this to you via the contact page, Omar.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by jdb on Apr 23rd, 2005, 12:04pm
I think the player should still get their points if they lose on time. At a minimum they need to play 20 moves to get a point anyway. After playing that many moves, losing on time doesn't seem so wrong to me. I guess I don't understand what the rationale is for foreiting the points when losing on time.

Just my opinion...
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 23rd, 2005, 4:52pm
Good point JDB.  You can be trying very hard when you lose on time after 65 moves and then you get nothing.  That doesn't seem fair.  But notice also that if you don't penalize losing on time you can't penalize resignation, because people  who want to resign would just let their time run out, so it is both or neither.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Apr 27th, 2005, 4:05pm
Thanks for pointing out that bug Karl. I've fixed it now.

Wow, it looks like this might already be a record breaking month for H-H games.

Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 28th, 2005, 5:54pm
Actually, I do think the competition will get wild and wooly.  And it will be a great service to Arimaa to have more human-human games, because we will be teaching each other directly, in a sense.  For example, the theorectical discussion about the value of Gold attacking around behind a trap won't be furthered by human vs bot games, because a bot will always give the same response.  Humans, on the other hand, will try various ways of preventing the around-the-back-attack and/or they will counter-attack as in the recent Robinson vs. 99of9 game.  Eventually we will probably reach a consensus on the best thing to do, and will have deepened our collective understanding in a way that wouldn't have happened from a thousand human vs bot games.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 29th, 2005, 10:19am
Omar, this is a minor point, but it seems that the prospective Player of the Month calculator is doing the tiebreak incorrectly.  The rules say that the first one to reach the same score will win in case of a tie, but right now Arimanator with 13 points is listed ahead of JDB, even though JDB got up to 13 points first.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on May 1st, 2005, 8:56am

on 04/17/05 at 19:45:11, omar wrote:
Here is the future 'Player of the Month' contest page.

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/potm/potm200503.cgi

This won't actually begin until May 2005


Hi Omar, this is probably a totally obvious comment, but the POTM evaluation method on the link from the forum has not changed over now that it is May.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on May 4th, 2005, 3:54pm
It's a good thing Omar didn't put up the new P1 and P2 bots until after the revised Player of the Month rules took effect.  There are now 22 bots available for regular play.  And you thought beating 14 in a row was a hassle...

Anyway, the proliferation of different versions of bots makes it all the more clear that human vs. bot games should not count at all towards the Player of the Month contest.  Power to the people!
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on May 5th, 2005, 6:46pm

on 04/29/05 at 10:19:06, Fritzlein wrote:
Omar, this is a minor point, but it seems that the prospective Player of the Month calculator is doing the tiebreak incorrectly.  The rules say that the first one to reach the same score will win in case of a tie, but right now Arimanator with 13 points is listed ahead of JDB, even though JDB got up to 13 points first.


You're right. Fixed it now.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on May 28th, 2005, 4:19am
Well I must say, I think Omar's changed POTM has been a great success.  It's much more exciting now from a spectator's point of view (I wasn't really aiming for it myself this month).

The wild and wooliness has only just begun.  There are 3 players within 2 points of each other with only days to go!

(And, incidentally, none of the 3 have played both their games against me - so there are more points available this weekend!)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on May 28th, 2005, 6:01am
Wow, definitly a lot of HvH games this month.

Thanks to Paul and Karl for initiating the this discussion and everyone else who provided comments and suggestions.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on May 28th, 2005, 9:36am
its a shame that 15s games dont count ....  ;)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on May 28th, 2005, 7:46pm

on 04/23/05 at 11:04:30, Arimanator wrote:
From the next month on when people new to this game or not will connect to this site they'll be most likely to get invited in a game instead of sadly play a couple of games against a bot and that can only profit to the cause of arimaa as a whole  :) Two thumbs up Omar for a swell idea :)


I agree with you exactly Arimanator.  It's a great feature of the new rules that new players will get invited to a game by humans right away instead of having to only play bots.  It's good for Arimaa as a whole.  I'm afraid I won't be winning Player of the Month this month, and not very often in the future either unless I go back to always-on Internet access, but anyway my hat is off to Omar for the great rule changes.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on May 29th, 2005, 2:24am
of course kudos to omar

and lots of kudos to Fritzl, who helped to bring down the old version even if it was secure 30$ each month.
(noone else did beat all bots with this clockwork precision)


I like playing games for the fun of playing (especially strategy games)
Naturally I am not the best player (or most successful) simply because I dont play for victory or points or money or rank but for fun.
That means that I get beaten far to often but still enjoy a good spanking and I have even more fun beating someone who does not like losing :-) (Ok, I am mean)

I would never complain about someone "cheating" or "exploiting a weakness".
If this weakness exists not only in my opinion but in the opinion of the majority, then I will point it out and discuss this and there will be rules to be changed.
If I am the only one who sees the problem then I might not have pointed it out strong enough - meaning not with strong words but with strong arguments.

Now ... what is a cheat/weakness ?

Beating a bot over and over with the same method, just to collect points ?
Beating weak bots over and over so you dont lose and slowly collect points ?
Playing much higher rated bots, because losing wont cost you a thing but if you win then the bot will go down in rating (which might be annoying for higher rated players ;-) ) ?
Playing noobs ?
Playing simul games because your opponents are no challenge ?
Winning all the games you are playing ?

I just dont think that any of the above can be seen as a "cheat"
The rules and possibilities are just the same for everyone.

Just because someone is superman it does not mean he has to give you an advantage !
Brazil does not play soccer with metal-backpacks and a top arimaa-player can collect points from anyone he wants.

Naturally a game against a sub 1600 player is rarely a challenge - but if we (Yes, I still count myself to the top-players :-P) choose to do so then its ok. Its our time.
If we give the opponents hints how to improve its even better.

Remember when you where still low ranking !
We all played you and you liked it - even if you stood no chance. So why not play with other noobs (this term might not apply to you anymore ;-) )

If I count right then you got 22 games and robinson got 18 - but 7 more points.
The way I see it he did win because he was just better this month and you probably will get far more out of your games next month (you got 11 games with just 1 point ... prolong those games to 2 points and you got it ;-) )

Ah hell, I am to tired to write more

IT's JUST A GAME (and 30$ are and always will be peanuts)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by robinson on May 29th, 2005, 4:16am
so pat here the official statment from the accused.

after losing this award so stupid in the last month i said to myself that i definetly want to win this time ( and thats not about this 30 dollars, but nevertheless i cant say "no" to your lovely offer so i will send you my adress per email )

in the biginning of the month i tryed to play only players which are near me. but after some days being alone in a lonely gameroom i realized that i will have no chance ever win this contest when i am only playing the top. you can count the top players who are online constantly. i tryed to play them all.

so i rememberd how i started this game. and i think the biggest reason why i am one of the top players now ( i think i can say this ) was the games were i have been "cheated" by the top. you can watch my first games vs Paul, karl or toby... and of course all the advices by these players after "kicking I disagree ".
and isnt it a big honour for a new player to play with one of the top in other sports you have to pay very much money to get a chance like this. and anyway if you mean that you doesnt want this chance( and i can see no reason for ) you doesnt have to accept my invite so...

i think it is a progress were both sides are winning:
i get my points
and you can learn a lot by playing or from some nice tipps if you want because i am always open to talk about the games i have played.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on May 29th, 2005, 6:15am

on 05/29/05 at 03:20:44, Arimanator wrote:
Come on! that guy barely knew the rules he was just playing weak bots for less than a week and all of a sudden he's been offered to play 2 45s games with alternate colors against the 3rd strongest player, here. Am I the only one who can see the obvious?

I agree that it is obvious that robinson wanted this to count for player of the month (45s alternating colours).  But that itself does not make a game "cheap".

I also agree that there was very little chance of robinson losing those games, blue22 is quite new to the game, and robinson is a very good player.  I agree that this may seem to cheapen the contest a little.  But, to be perfectly honest, I have over the years played a number of games with very little chance of losing.  It is a natural part of teaching a beginner to play.  It is also just nice to meet people with similar interests to me.  POTM didn't exist for some of those games, and for others I got 0 ratings points, so I was lucky enough to escape your ire.  Similarly when I began I played a number of games where I did not have much chance of winning, against omar, clauchau, and naveed.  It's a natural part of the way I learn to play any game to always challenge myself as much as possible.  Perhaps this is true for blue22 also, he is certainly proceeding up the ranks nice and quickly.

This may seem rude, and I certainly wouldn't have said it if you hadn't made such an unsportsmanlike fuss:  On a plain reading of the opponents you have both got on your POTM list, I would say that robinson's opponents were generally higher rated / more skillful.  Not only that, I would say that you have earned 3 points from at least one game "cheaper" than blue22, namely lihanzo who has not yet notched up a win against shallowblue!  blue22 had at least beaten arimaazilla and arimaazon.  Perhaps lihanzo invited you, I don't know.  But my reading of the opponent's lists is that robinson took on a very strong field overall in this month's competition.

Also remember Omar's answer when I predicted that this exact issue would be even worse in YOUR proposed system of rules:

Quote:
We might have new players to the site getting invited by a lot of expericenced players for an easy game. But again I don't see anything wrong with someone who does that a lot and wins the contest. The new players might get a chance to chat and learn something on a personal level about Arimaa from an experienced player. I think overall it's a good thing.

Perhaps you could have mentioned at the time that you disagreed with Omar's opinion so vehemently.

Finally, again I hope this is not too rude:  I think you need to be a bit more respectful of the friendly and nice community that plays arimaa.  You have blown up (and sometimes subsequently apologised) many times on this forum, taking many things too personally or too impatiently and generally been too easily offended (in my opinion).  Just relax, we don't have anything against you, but we may grow weary if you pick too many fights.  

Arimaa is a place where friendly competition goes on.  People may unwittingly tread on one another's toes or disappoint one another once in a while.  However generally there is an air of courtesy, forbearance, friendliness, forgiveness, and dare I say it: love.  In my personal life I find all of these to be necessary for good relationships and communities.

I don't think it was a good idea in this instance to personally attack robinson for trying hard to win the contest.  Instead it would be more constructive to discuss possible ways to make the rules or guidelines better to ensure the contest is not "cheap" in your opinion.  Furthermore it may be more sportsmanlike to delay such a discussion until a month that you are not sitting in second place.  Game players need to learn to be good winners and good losers.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on May 29th, 2005, 9:04am
I will need to reply again at a later date because I do not have time to fully do justice to your post, but I would like to make a few points now:

1) My understanding of this new contest is that the whole idea is to play lots of serious games.  Therefore I would not consider it a "cheat" if you had played 9 more games, I would have considered it a very good attempt at the contest.  In fact as it is you have already done a much better job at the contest than me for example, that is why I did not even consider myself as a candidate.  I was never accusing you of "playing more games than you should"... that is the whole point of the contest!!!

2) I was instead saying that your specific accusation against robinson (about 2 games against blue22), was even more true about one of your games.

3) You accuse me of also making a personal attack on you about golden cadillacs.  I will have to review what I said later, but for now can I say that my response was ALSO figurative.  I do not really believe that you have a golden cadillac.  I'm sorry if you felt I ridiculed your position - I will have a look some day soon and clarify my position for you.  Remember though that attacking someone's point of view is different to attacking their personal integrity/"cheapness".

4) In that context I certainly did not tell you not to "shoot your mouth off".  When it is in the realm of points of view and opinions, I think the more the better.  Only when it gets personal do I worry.

5) "Other weak opponents ... megamau" No.  I never said you played *weak* opponents, I just said relative to robinson's list, his list was *strongER*.   Think of it not as a criticism of you, but as supporting the idea that robinson took the contest seriously and was not trying to exploit the rules.  If you believe your opponents were on the whole stronger, I am happy to try to average ratings, but that was my visual estimate.

6) About games you declined.  Don't worry, I don't think anyone considers that rude - it is natural that many invites will be declined.

7) I am sorry to hear that your health has not been well this month.  I wish you well getting better.

8) I do not think that the person with the higher rating should get the prize (esp in POTM where Omar has clearly specified that that is not the objective).  I am not defending robinson because of an "aristocratic assumption", since I do not hold that assumption.  I am defending robinson because I think he has been unfairly victimised.  Am I right that the term aristocratic is heavily loaded in your culture?  Should I be concerned for my neck? :-)

9) I encourage you to "want the prize more than him" next month.  That would generate even more serious games, and make arimaa even more interesting.  But of course if your job prevents you from doing this, I totally understand.

10) About leaving his games to the final week of the month:  Is this the fundamental essense of your complaint??  That is a common tactic in the POTM game.  It was used quite a lot in the previous incarnation of the contest because the rules rewarded late players.  I do not think there's any problem with this tactic.  I guess the lesson for the frontrunner is that no buffer is ever big enough :-).
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on May 29th, 2005, 9:31am
Sportsmanship is obviously a very subjective concept, and different people will have different opinions about it.  For example, Omar feels it is good sportsmanship to never resign and play to the end of every game.  In contrast, I feel that it can be good sportsmanship to resign in a lost position, because it shows respect for the opponent and says "I believe you are good enough to win from here even if I play my best."  In spite of this difference of opinion, I no longer resign games on this server, because I respect Omar's request that games be played out to the end.

Perhaps the best thing in this situation is for Omar to say what he envisions for the Player of the Month contest so that we can all respect that.  Here is my opinion:

1) It is good if everyone tries to play as many games as possible that count for the contest even up to the last minute.  It is more exciting if the contest isn't decided until the last few days or even until the very last day.  Furthermore, if competitors keep seeking out new opponents down to the last minute, then the Arimaa community will see more human-human games in more different combinations, which is also a good thing.

2) It is good if high-rated players invite low-rated players to games, and good if experienced players invite new players to games.  I think it feels much more welcoming to have games against humans than against bots only, because it gives folks a chance to chat and ask questions.  Also it is good to have different experience levels mixing up because newcomers learn faster that way.  In fact, experienced players learn a lot that way too. (For example , Kamikazeking taught me a lesson just now when he wiped the floor with me in our lightning game.  :-))

In general, Arimanator, I see no reason why you should hold yourself back from inviting every player on line to a game, and no reason why you shouldn't always ask for a rematch.  I can't see why that would unsporting in any way.  It would be great for the Arimaa community if you would play as many different people as possible, and it would be even better if several of us were all doing this at the same time because we were all trying to win the award.

This month has been the best month ever for human-human play, thanks it large part to the Player of the Month contest, and for my part I only want more and more of what I have seen.  There are still two days left in the contest, and I hope you play as many games as you can at the last minute to challenge Robinson for the title.  Next month I hope we all play so many games that 75 points will only be good enough for second place!

That's my take on sportsmanship for Player of the Month, but I'm happy to hear different opinions from everyone, especially Omar if this isn't what he had in mind.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on May 30th, 2005, 5:11am

on 05/29/05 at 10:40:58, Arimanator wrote:
As for your neck 99of9 don't worry we abolished the death penalty a long time ago, I was a teen at the time


Thankyou for your reassurance!  And for the record, I never accused you of being a witch!  Are you one?  Or do I have to drown you until you tell me?  ;-)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by RonWeasley on May 31st, 2005, 8:26am
Arimanator is not a witch.  He's a muggle.  If you try to drown a witch, she'll use the protestus charm and make all the bystanders hit you on the head with hand-made signs denouncing water pollution.  You can tell a muggle by their concern for the decimal system.  Besides, Arimanator has worked too hard to become a good player.  It's people like WagnerK you have to wonder about.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by RonWeasley on May 31st, 2005, 10:30am
I noticed that my postal game against robinson did not show up in his POTM list.  Because postal games can extend into multiple months, I propose they count for the month in which they end.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on May 31st, 2005, 3:11pm
I agree that postal games should count.  Player of the Month is supposed to encourage serious games, and postal games are often the most serious kind of game.  What is the reasoning behind disallowing games which start and end in different months?
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Jun 1st, 2005, 5:47am

on 05/29/05 at 09:31:41, Fritzlein wrote:
Sportsmanship is obviously a very subjective concept, and different people will have different opinions about it.  For example, Omar feels it is good sportsmanship to never resign and play to the end of every game.

One of the nice things about not resigning is that it brings a natural closure to the game and does not leave any doubt about what could have happened. From the point of view of the players it doesn't seem so important, but for the spectators and those reviewing the game later, it makes the game more interesting.


Quote:
Perhaps the best thing in this situation is for Omar to say what he envisions for the Player of the Month contest ...


We knew at the time of discussing the new rules that it would be possible for an experienced player to seek out easy games against new players if they wanted to. I guess we decided that the pros out weighed the cons. As such I don't think that any player should be modest in exploiting the rules of the contest in order to win. If we find a major flaw in the rules, we need to change the rules, but until then whatever you can do within the rules is fair game.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Jun 1st, 2005, 8:18pm
hey, I am leading this month  ;D
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by robinson on Jun 2nd, 2005, 8:10am
puh i am so happy that i havent needed the two endgames vs my brother ;) ;) ;) last month
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Jun 2nd, 2005, 11:55am
hell, that would have raised an eyebrow :-)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Jun 2nd, 2005, 11:56am
"exploiting the rules"

once upon a time Fritzl tried to win the contest with a last minute game - and lost by just a few minutes :-)
(I was watching the game ... how exciting)

I thought that was a nice try at that time ;-)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Jun 3rd, 2005, 11:36am

on 06/02/05 at 08:10:00, robinson wrote:
puh i am so happy that i havent needed the two endgames vs my brother ;) ;) ;) last month


Maybe we should write it into the rules that games versus nuclear family members don't count.  Otherwise I might have to recruit my wife to help me win.  :-)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Jun 5th, 2005, 9:05am

on 06/04/05 at 02:52:51, Arimanator wrote:
*Ok, for some reason that dumb search function won't work, so check "the relative value of pieces in arimaa" post number 52 or take my word for it  ;D


The default is to search in the last 7 days; besure to increase that if you are searching for older stuff.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by RonWeasley on Jun 6th, 2005, 7:32am

Quote:
By the way I looked up muggle just for the fun of it, and I found a reference to a certain Arthur Weasley muggle protection act, any relations?


That's my father.  He works in the Ministry of Magic.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 21st, 2005, 9:48pm
Omar,

There is a tiny glitch with the POTM rules.  If two players have the same number of points, then whoever achieved that number of points first wins the contest.  Just today, however, I played Robinson.  We both started the game with 6 points (he was first on tiebreaks), and I lost in 61 moves, so we both got 3 points up to 9 points each.  For some reason, I am now first in the standings!

I think that if two players reach the same point total in the same game then the tiebreak should clearly go to whoever won that game.  Of course, this fine point of the rules is very unlikely to come into play at the end of the month, because whoever is leading has little incentive to play whoever is in second place, but just in case it might be good to tweak the rules.

Oh, and that reminds me to ask: why not count postal games towards POTM for the month in which they end?  It seems you want to encourage serious games for POTM, and postal is as serious as it gets.  I ask this because I expect I will be playing postally more often in the future.

As always, thanks for reading the community feedback.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on Jul 21st, 2005, 11:46pm

on 07/21/05 at 21:48:18, Fritzlein wrote:
I think that if two players reach the same point total in the same game then the tiebreak should clearly go to whoever won that game.  Of course, this fine point of the rules is very unlikely to come into play at the end of the month, because whoever is leading has little incentive to play whoever is in second place, but just in case it might be good to tweak the rules.


But if both players earned the same points, what about just preserving the order of those two players from before the game?  i.e. since Robinson was on 6 points first, he is also first to 9 points.  That way the player leading the contest will still have an incentive to play the player coming second in the contest.

I'm not sure what should happen if one player catches up to the other's number of points.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on Jul 22nd, 2005, 1:17am
I've thought about it a bit, and I now think it doesn't matter much at all.  Since Fritz's method is most likely easier to implement than mine, I support going with that.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Jul 22nd, 2005, 5:22pm
Thanks for pointing out that glitch Karl, I've modifed the program, but we'll have to see if it really does the right thing. It uses the method Karl suggest.

If most people perfer counting postal games that were started in previous months then I can change it include that also. Just let me know.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by robinson on Jul 23rd, 2005, 7:40am
i am for counting postals too, cause of the given reasons.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by RonWeasley on Jul 23rd, 2005, 2:15pm
I am in favor of counting owl games too.  They are the only way muggles get credit for beating me.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Jul 27th, 2005, 5:56am
Sounds like most people are in favor of it.

I will activate this rule starting Aug 2005.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Jul 27th, 2005, 6:34am
The rule will also apply to interactive games. Thus any game (postal or interactive) which starts in one month and ends in a different month is counted in the month that it ends.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 27th, 2005, 5:17pm

on 07/27/05 at 06:34:33, omar wrote:
The rule will also apply to interactive games. Thus any game (postal or interactive) which starts in one month and ends in a different month is counted in the month that it ends.


Thanks for making this change, Omar.  Robinson will still probably win every month if he keeps up his human-bashing, but at least this way all serious human-human games will be recognized, even if they are so unfortunate as to straddle months.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 31st, 2005, 11:24pm
Omar, it looks like the rule hasn't kicked in yet.  My postal versus PMertens should count in August, because it ended in August and the new rules should apply.  (Or else it ended in July, in which case it started and ended in the same month, in which case I would have won for July! :-))
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on Aug 1st, 2005, 12:11am
Maybe the new code had to be in force when the game started rather than when it finished??
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on Aug 1st, 2005, 3:22am

on 08/01/05 at 01:08:36, Arimanator wrote:
With all due respect, that's not very practical.

Some games last more than one month (not to mention more than one year !!!) so that means that in some cases you'd have to wait several months to know who actually won the contest or get back the money from one contestant and give it to another (rather awkward  ;D ).

I'm not saying that's how it *should* work.  I'm just saying that maybe Omar has implemented it, but it hasn't backdated the flags on current games.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Aug 2nd, 2005, 10:10am

on 07/31/05 at 23:24:23, Fritzlein wrote:
Omar, it looks like the rule hasn't kicked in yet.  My postal versus PMertens should count in August, because it ended in August and the new rules should apply.  (Or else it ended in July, in which case it started and ended in the same month, in which case I would have won for July! :-))


I had not updated the links to use the program with the new rules. It should be OK now.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Aug 7th, 2005, 1:01am
Omar, I think the rules for PotM need to be amended again for September.  I just lost game 17673 to PMertens when my browser crashed after 66 moves.  I'm not worried about the rating points, since he had me dead to rights anyway, but it doesn't seem fair that it should be a zero-point loss, since I fought hard the whole way and it was a good, serious game.  I'm not saying that I should get points for it this month, but I do think the rule doesn't make sense as is.  As always, thanks for listening.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by 99of9 on Aug 7th, 2005, 4:06am
Agreed.  You should get points for the number of moves you last, no matter what happens after you last them.

If the points are reinstated this month (which I support)... you deserve another one for the game against me.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Aug 15th, 2005, 3:55pm
Humm, this rule change would effect the original goals.

Remember one of my stated goals for the new player of the month contest was:

* It should encourage more completed games

With the games that count for the POTM contest I wanted to encourage games that were completed and discourage resigning. So a player would be penalized for resigning by not receiving any points for the game.

In our discussion near the bottom of page three, we realized that penalizing resigning also ment that losing on time would be penalized as a side effect. We can't have one and not the other.

So the question comes down to do we throw out that original stated goal or not. I'll have to think about this one a bit.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Aug 15th, 2005, 6:16pm

on 08/15/05 at 15:55:52, omar wrote:
Remember one of my stated goals for the new player of the month contest was:

* It should encourage more completed games


One possibility to have your cake and eat it too is to reward the loser on a per-move basis.  Then resignation or timeout would always cost something relative to playing even for one more move, never mind playing on until the end of the game.  A possible formula for this would be 3 points to the winner, and to the loser 3*(1 - 0.5^(moves/25)) points.

To me it seems that the length of survival is the right thing to emphasize, as opposed to the method in which the game ends.  After 61 moves against PMertens, I was already going to get my 3 points for PotM, and I was quite sure I was going to lose.  I could very easily have "blundered" on purpose and let his rabbit slip through to end the game.  Had I done that and lost by goal, I would have been better off than fighting to move 66 and losing by browser crash.  From that perspective, the current rules punished me for fighting on, because the current rules are concerned about the type of termination more than about the game length.

In the future I could make sure to lose quickly by goal once I have no hope of winning, in order to minimize the risk of a crash costing me all of my hard-earned points.  I wouldn't do this, of course, but it is the type of behavior the rules currently would reward.  My proposed formula, in contrast, would punish (albeit slightly) purposely losing in any fashion.

That said, I'm just grateful that you run this contest, Omar, and you certainly have the right to run it however you choose.  Whatever you decide on this rule, I'll abide by the spirit of the contest.  Thanks for having this fun incentive to play!
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Aug 17th, 2005, 5:35pm

on 08/15/05 at 18:16:06, Fritzlein wrote:
One possibility to have your cake and eat it too is to reward the loser on a per-move basis.  Then resignation or timeout would always cost something relative to playing even for one more move, never mind playing on until the end of the game.  A possible formula for this would be 3 points to the winner, and to the loser 3*(1 - 0.5^(moves/25)) points.


That seems like a pretty nice solution.

I'll include it starting in September.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Aug 17th, 2005, 5:53pm
Thanks, Omar.  It is very good of you to be so responsive to suggestions.  For good or for ill, it is because you take suggestions so seriously that you keep getting advice from all sides! :-)  Hopefully the Arimaa community ends up better off that way in the long run.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Aug 17th, 2005, 6:07pm
Actually I feel that Im not responsive enough.

But eventually I think things will stabalize and there will be less suggestions and we will have built a very good system around Arimaa for contests, tournaments, ratings, etc.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Aug 17th, 2005, 9:53pm

on 08/16/05 at 01:00:50, Arimanator wrote:
I believe that people who want to find loopholes in a set of rules always do.
With all due respect Omar, the ones you punish here is the honest time-outers ...


Most players who are in the know do try to play games to completion, so you are right that it only really effects the honest time-outers.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Aug 26th, 2005, 7:54am

on 08/15/05 at 18:16:06, Fritzlein wrote:
One possibility to have your cake and eat it too is to reward the loser on a per-move basis.  Then resignation or timeout would always cost something relative to playing even for one more move, never mind playing on until the end of the game.  A possible formula for this would be 3 points to the winner, and to the loser 3*(1 - 0.5^(moves/25)) points.


I was about to make this rule change, but then thought that it might be enough just to say: "If a player resigns or forfeits the player does not receive any points". That requires the least amount of changes to the rules.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Aug 26th, 2005, 6:24pm

on 08/26/05 at 07:54:01, omar wrote:
I was about to make this rule change, but then thought that it might be enough just to say: "If a player resigns or forfeits the player does not receive any points". That requires the least amount of changes to the rules.


I can understand that you want to keep it simple.  It's a tradeoff, of course, that not every single move will be rewarded, so that a losing player has no incentive to prolong the game once he is past the 60-move mark, but on the bright side the scores will stay intergral.

What does "forefeit" mean in this context, though?  I thought the only scheduled matches could be lost by forfeit, not regular live games.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Aug 27th, 2005, 11:24am

on 08/26/05 at 18:24:59, Fritzlein wrote:
What does "forefeit" mean in this context, though?  I thought the only scheduled matches could be lost by forfeit, not regular live games.


You're right "forefeit" applies only to scheduled games. We currently don't use the schedule game feature much, but it is possible. In the code I check for it just in case and so I wrote it that way in the description.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Sep 13th, 2005, 9:34am
JDB and me just played a rated game - this was later changed to unrated due to connection problems.

Unfortunately it is still counted for PotM (well, unfortunately for jdb, not for me ;-) )

It is certainly among the lesser important problems - unless someone else tries for the contest this month ...
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Sep 24th, 2005, 4:59am
I don't see any unrated game with JDB in your list of opponents. If possible could you give me the game number and I'll check it out. Thanks.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Sep 23rd, 2005, 8:22pm
mea culpa ... I obviosly played 2 games without noticing it :-)

your code is fine, I have to work on my eyes   :-[
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Sep 29th, 2005, 10:23pm
Hmmmmmmmm ...

Looks like this month was decided 18 days ago  :-/

But I really feel bad due to the fact that the server problems might have crushed any attempts far better than my early lead.

Since I really prefer a good challenge over an easy victory I would be willing to offer this month prize money for a double or nothing special in october ... that is if Omar is willing to do it  8)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 1st, 2005, 10:26pm

on 09/29/05 at 22:23:42, PMertens wrote:
But I really feel bad due to the fact that the server problems might have crushed any attempts far better than my early lead.


I think you won September fair and square, Paul.  Anyone who plays an "I'll catch up later" strategy for Player of the Month has himself to blame if opponents are hard to come by later.  Let's start over fresh for October and see what happens.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 20th, 2005, 11:14pm

on 08/26/05 at 07:54:01, omar wrote:
I was about to make this rule change, but then thought that it might be enough just to say: "If a player resigns or forfeits the player does not receive any points". That requires the least amount of changes to the rules.

Didn't the rules change so that you can get points if you lose on time?  Yet I see PMertens is getting zero points for his time loss to 99of9 in game 21716.  I think that this rule is just zapping folks who time out due to browser crashes or network troubles, and I thought you had decided to change it, but if you had decided to keep time losses as zero points I respect your decision.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by omar on Nov 21st, 2005, 10:42pm
I forgot to copy over the new rules program at the begining of this month. So it was still using the old program to show the current status. Should be OK now. Thanks for mentioning it.
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Nov 22nd, 2005, 8:46am
thanks guys  :)

I did not want to mention it during the tourney, but naturally I like the new order much better  ;D
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Adanac on Nov 22nd, 2005, 9:22am
I was also thinking about PoTM during the tournament.  My first thought when my opponent didn't show up wasn't about an automatic victory in the tournament.  It was missing an opportunity to earn up to 3 PoTM points  ;D
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 22nd, 2005, 10:07am
Yes, Adanac, and against an opponent that the other PotM contenders probably won't get to play.  Mr. Brain was a very rough draw for me for the first round, but at least he is someone I get to play and PMertens doesn't!
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Nov 29th, 2005, 8:06pm
and the end of the month draws near .. and no opponents to be found anywhere ;-)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 30th, 2005, 4:52pm

on 11/29/05 at 20:06:05, PMertens wrote:
and the end of the month draws near .. and no opponents to be found anywhere ;-)

That's why you need to have a postal game up your sleeve.  ;-)  (To tell the truth, blue22 had been moving slowly, and I didn't even consider that our game would end in November until after it had.  I had actually resigned myself to not being able to catch up to you on the last day, due to a dearth of opponents.)
Title: Re: player of the month
Post by PMertens on Nov 30th, 2005, 6:46pm
well well ... grats anyway ;-)


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