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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> Trends in game length
        
(Message started by: Fritzlein on Jul 12^th, 2006, 1:31pm)

Title: Trends in game length
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 12^th, 2006, 1:31pm

99of9 mentioned in chat that he's curious about the latest trends in game length. I complied stats on all rated games ending in "g" or "m", and made separate categories for games with both players human, and for games with both players rated 1700+.

In mid-2004, when I first started playing we thought that Arimaa games were going to get longer and longer indefinitely as the players became more skilled, because everyone would learn that defensive play is best, and get better and better at defending. There had been a clear trend of lengthening games compared to the early days of Arimaa.

That trend did not continue, however, because robinson, blue22, PMertens, and others began to have success with wild attacking play. Despite ups and downs since then, it seems that average game length has more or less held steady for the two years that I have been playing.

There is some correlation to longer games in players even stronger than 1700, but not much. When I ran the query over all HvH games with both players rated 2000+, the average was 45, only one move longer than the average for 1700+ HvH games. Perhaps we are approaching some number that is more or less intrinsic to Arimaa, i.e. the innate offense/defense balance.

Note that games ending in resignation don't count for these stats. I expect that if the Arimaa community had the same attitude towards resignation that the chess community has, the two games would be of essentially equal length.

Year	Month	All	HvH	1700+	1700+ HvH
2002	11	22	22
2002	12	21	21
2003	1	20	19
2003	2	24	18
2003	3	26	22	34
2003	4	24	31	28
2003	5	29	26	34
2003	6	24	24	22
2003	7	24	22	25
2003	8	29	34	29	33
2003	9	30	28	33	28
2003	10	31	35	33	40
2003	11	31	35	38	39
2003	12	36	38	46	45
2004	1	37	49	44	51
2004	2	34	25	48	27
2004	3	38	50	49	51
2004	4	31	37	36	46
2004	5	31	43	41	43
2004	6	45	35	35	46
2004	7	37	69	48	69
2004	8	42	41	41	43
2004	9	39	42	54	42
2004	10	34	47	40	50
2004	11	36	36	46	40
2004	12	37	39	47	42
2005	1	32	40	49	44
2005	2	33	40	50	45
2005	3	38	42	52	49
2005	4	35	37	53	54
2005	5	38	36	51	44
2005	6	37	40	50	44
2005	7	36	39	44	42
2005	8	35	38	46	44
2005	9	37	38	49	47
2005	10	38	46	48	51
2005	11	36	39	46	45
2005	12	37	43	46	47
2006	1	39	42	47	46
2006	2	32	42	46	46
2006	3	35	37	42	43
2006	4	34	39	42	44
2006	5	34	37	45	42
2006	6	33	37	41	42
Total		35	38	45	44

Title: Re: Trends in game length
Post by 99of9 on Jul 12^th, 2006, 8:35pm

Thanks for running that Fritz. I'm glad that Arimaa games are not continuing to lengthen. This way we can still play great interactive games within a reasonable amount of time.

Title: Re: Trends in game length
Post by PMertens on Aug 5^th, 2006, 1:21pm

I just took a surprised look at this months PotM competition ...

There are shockingly many 3's there ...
(= Games over 60 moves)