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Title: I live in shame Post by IdahoEv on Feb 25th, 2006, 1:10am So I've been playing off and on for half a week now. I made it past the first three bots pretty much right off, spent 15-20 games figuring out how to beat Arimaazilla, and now am in the mid 1400's lately running about 50/50 vs. BombP1 and GnoBotP2. So I thought it was time to introduce the game to my buddy Scott, who is a very smart analyst and strategy gamer. He's always been extremely quick to intuit games, but at least I had experience. I've been playing against bots, studying the guides, played 78 games now. The experiment was to see how well he could intuit the strategies given zero experience and only an explanation of the basic rules - no tactical or strategy primer (not even that putting two pieces next to a trap is the minimum defense). He absolutely routed me on his first game. I was down a camel by turn 6! I had his in hostage on turn 5, but mine was in an extended position I thought I could get away with because of his inexperience. No such luck. I sacrificed a horse for a really good position on turn 12 or so ... he admitted that he didn't understand the overall board position well and was focussed only on materiel. The position nearly set me up for a rabbit run down the other side, but he still had some slight elephant mobility outside my left-hand trap while mine was behind the trap holding his camel hostage. I wasn't confident enough to release the camel, and with elephant support he corroded my improved position in about 6 or 8 turns, eventually capturing one of my two remaining horses around turn 20. So sad. I may be able to beat him by playing more appropriate strategies in the rematch, but it's sad I couldn't get away with even the slightest overextension in his very first game. My first game, I couldn't even beat ShallowBlue. Scott's a smart dude. :-) |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by Ryan_Cable on Feb 25th, 2006, 2:08am I couldn't find the game. Was it played offline? Your Game Record doesn't show any humans other than PMertens, and I couldn't find a Scott on the New Player list. It certainly sounds like he would make a great addition to our community. So far, the winner of the World Championship has been a player who joined about 1 year before the tournament, so he would be right on track. ;D Good luck in the rematch. :) |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by IdahoEv on Feb 25th, 2006, 5:19am Yes, it was played offline, using his chess set. I went ahead and played with very careful strategy in the second and third games, no overextension, careful defense, and using all the techniques I knew. He was quite thrown by rabbit pulling... mostly he didn't understand why I "put all that effort into such a minor piece", while he shuffled his phant and a horse around my traps in ways that didn't gain any position. Anyhow, I crushed him pretty easily in both games. I feel quite redeemed, now. He resigned within 10 turns both times; partially we were under some time and social pressure on the fringes of a party :-). I think once I explain the strategies I know to him and he puts his mind to it, he will be an extremely good player. (There certainly aren't any other games I can reliably defeat him at, and only one or two that include a lot of randomness or bluffing where I can even reliably reach 50-50.) |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by PMertens on Feb 25th, 2006, 5:58am force him to sign up here 8) we can always use new talents ... |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by omar on Feb 25th, 2006, 8:36am It would be interesting to see how fast Scott's rating shoots up if he starts playing in the gameroom. Recently I was quite impressed by Victor Claros of Peru (username filerank). He has a perfect 17-0 record so far and managed to get his rating up to 1782. But he hasn't played now for 6 day. I gave him some pointers on where to learn more about strategy, so I wouldn't be suprised if he is off studying before he continues. |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by IdahoEv on Feb 25th, 2006, 5:00pm I'm not only going to try to talk him into joining the gameroom, I'm going to try talking him into joining the postal tournament. Assuming I can find him before the end of the day, that is. (I only really learned about the postal tournament myself this morning). |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by Ryan_Cable on Feb 25th, 2006, 5:27pm That would be great, we had 16 players in the PT last year, and we are already at 18 this year. The time control is relaxed enough he should be able to spend a couple weeks practicing before he has to actually make a move. |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by Fritzlein on Feb 26th, 2006, 11:36am on 02/25/06 at 17:00:11, IdahoEv wrote:
Well done! I'm sure he'll thank you for it later... |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by IdahoEv on Feb 26th, 2006, 12:33pm He calls himself "purplebaron". Hi, Scott. |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by purplebaron on Feb 27th, 2006, 4:02pm Hey Guys, I'm online now. I thought I felt my ears burning this weekend. I'm looking forward to joining this community. Apologies to all of my opponents in the Postal Tournament. I'll be taking a few days to study up on strategy, so I won't be making moves for a week or so. |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by purplebaron on Feb 27th, 2006, 7:06pm In Idaho's defense, I only won the first game because he was playing fast and loose. If he'd been playing conservatively, I wouldn't have had a chance, as the next two games showed. |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by omar on Feb 28th, 2006, 2:05pm Hey Scott. Welcome to the Arimaa players club :-) Im sure you'll have lots of fun as you explore this game and mingle with the other friendly players that frequent this site. Evan told us you are very good at strategy games. I was just wondering what other games you play and if you have any ratings. |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by purplebaron on Feb 28th, 2006, 7:34pm I don't play anything that's organized enough to generate ratings. Here's an abbreviated list of the games I do play. Basically anything I play or like enough to think of on the spot. Axis and Allies (all variants) Fortress America Star Fleet Battles Attack Vector: Tactical Puerto Rico Carcassonne Magic: The Gathering War of the Ring Several games that Idaho and I occasionally invent. |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by seanick on May 5th, 2006, 11:10am I think this thread sounds familiar. I have yet to actually beat Swynndla (legitimately) but the very first time I played him, I was probably able to get the closest to winning. He said I might have potential to become really good at it. However- unlike Scott, I am NOT a great strategist, so I still struggle with even the level 3 bots, after 150 games and still have less than 50% win record. I already have almost as many losses as some of those who have played 4 or 5 times as many games as I have.. not too promising at all. So, maybe inexperience can almost be an advantage in terms of having no fear, or maybe it is just being very aggressive-for instance subconsciously using chess-like strategies (as much as is possible given the rule differences) that helps. I suspect it could easily be that knowing someone is new to the game can make their opponents forget that they aren't necessarily foolish, just inexperienced. At any rate, I mainly wanted to say that from what I have seen it is not all too rare for the first time someone plays that they appear much stronger than they do in later games. |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by Swynndla on May 5th, 2006, 4:49pm Of my rated games, I have only a 50% win rate. |
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Title: Re: I live in shame Post by chessandgo on May 5th, 2006, 7:22pm hmmm, I have much less :) |
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