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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> Continuous Tournament 2009
        
(Message started by: Fritzlein on May 31^st, 2009, 6:44pm)

Title: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on May 31^st, 2009, 6:44pm

I am finally ready to restart the continuous tournament for 2009. However, it may be that players are still busy with their postal mixer games and/or with the blitz tournament. Therefore, I will only start if at least ten players (not counting me) register themselves within the next week at this URL: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/tourn/ct/

My apologies to 722caasi, Eltripas, and simpleton. I unregistered you in case you registered months ago and have long since forgotten that you signed up. If you still want to play, please re-register. Everyone is welcome, especially newcomers!

If I don't get ten players within the week, then I'll call it off for now and try again in a few months.

Peace,
Fritz

Rules:

The format will be continuous play at the pace of one game per week, just like the World Championship. Players can join or withdraw at any time by posting to this thread or e-mailing me. There is no entry fee. Pairings, results, and standings will be listed on http://arimaa.com/arimaa/tourn/ct/status/ . The rules will be listed in this first post of the thread, and I will also update the rules as we go, entirely at my whim. As the benevolent tournament dictator director, I will not play in the tournament if it would make the number of players odd and force someone to take a bye.

I will offer prizes to encourage serious participation at all levels. The pairing will be Swiss-like to ensure that everyone has nearly-even games, not only so that everyone can earn prize points, but also because nearly-even games are the most interesting and fun. If you win a game, your opponent the next round will be tougher, whereas if you lose, your opponent next round will be weaker.

For all players at the start of the tournament, and for late-joining players as they arrive, I will estimate the appropriate pairing flight entirely subjectively. For example, if PMertens joins late I might pair him at flight 8 of 10. If a newcomer joins late, I will probably pair him at flight zero, i.e. I will give him the easiest possible opponent. After my arbitrary seeding, a player's flight will be calculated by the formula NewFlight = 0.9 * OldFlight + (1 for win | 0 for loss). Thus if you were paired as a 3-win player this round and win, you will be paired as a 3.7-win player next round.

Players will not be paired against anyone they have played in the previous four rounds. I will increase or decrease the number of rounds to exclude repeat pairings depending on whether more or fewer players sign up.

Color assignment within each pairing will be made on the basis of games each player has played within the tournament, including forfeits. The rules are given in order of strict priority, i.e. a later rule will apply only if no prior rule distinguishes between the players.
1. Assign Gold to the player with a lower total of previous games as Gold minus previous games as Silver.
2. Assign Gold to the player with fewer previous games as Gold among games between the two players.
3. Break both color streaks.
4. Break the color streak of the player with the longer streak.
5. Swap colors with respect to the last time the two players played against each other.
6. Assign color arbitrarily.

All games will be played at a time control of 60s/5m/75/0/4h/4m.

The prize points will be as follows:
100 points for a win
X points for a non-forfeit loss where X is the number of moves in the game or 80, whichever is smaller
-100 points for a forfeit

Points can be redeemed for prizes as follows:
400 points for an Arimaa bumper sticker
2200 points for an Arimaa T-shirt
2200 points for Beginning Arimaa
(free international shipping included)

I reserve the right to subtract any or all points from accounts of players who engage in unsporting behavior, including but not limited to playing with a duplicate account, intentionally losing a game, and intentionally not winning in order to prolong a game.

Players who forfeit will automatically be withdrawn from future rounds unless they individually post to this thread or e-mail me that they would like to rejoin. Players who give notice that they would like to withdraw before the round is paired will not lose any prize points, and their flight number will stay the same should they rejoin at a later date. Thus the tournament will accommodate players who can only play sporadically, as long as such players give advance notice every time they withdraw or rejoin.

The tournament will not be linked into Omar's system for automatic e-mail reminders, so it will be the responsibility of players to go to http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/selectTimes.cgi every week to update their available time slots. However, if players can mutually agree on a time to play, I will be able to change the automatically scheduled time to whatever time they agree on.

If a game ends due to forfeit or technical difficulties before move 10g has been played, the two players involved may replay it from the start. (I originally wanted interrupted games to be resumed from the ending position only, but this is so great a hassle as to be technically infeasible.) No one is obliged to replay a game. For a game to replace the official game, it must be a rated game at the time control of sixty seconds per move, played before the end of the week, and the player who won the official game must add a comment to the replacement game saying that it should count instead of the official game.

Bots may play, but only if they are run by their developer, i.e. no home copies of Bomb.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by jdb on Jun 3^rd, 2009, 4:58am

Clueless would like to enter.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Jun 3^rd, 2009, 9:27am

on 06/03/09 at 04:58:01, jdb wrote:

Clueless would like to enter.

Excellent! I have registered clueless, which brings the total to five with woh, Tuks, Simon, and camelback. I expect that folks are interested in taking on clueless in slower games as well as blitz, especially since you continue to actively develop.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Arimabuff on Jun 3^rd, 2009, 10:00am

I am a little busy lately and can't commit to a long game but if you leave the option open for at least a couple of weeks you most certainly can count me in.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Jun 3^rd, 2009, 12:47pm

on 06/03/09 at 10:00:36, Arimabuff wrote:

I am a little busy lately and can't commit to a long game but if you leave the option open for at least a couple of weeks you most certainly can count me in.

If enough players commit to get the tournament started, then you are certainly welcome to join at any time, and play only on the weeks when you have enough time. I would be glad if you participated.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Jun 7^th, 2009, 11:52am

Well, only six players have expressed interest, which isn't enough for the tournament format to work. Perhaps the hunger for games is dampened a bit by the ongoing Postal Mixer and Blitz Tournament. Thanks to all who signed up. I will ask again later in the summer; perhaps there will be more interest then.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Tuks on Jun 7^th, 2009, 11:54am

aww. and school is over and i have too much time on my hands

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by omar on Jul 12^th, 2009, 7:10pm

I was traveling most of June and early part of July. The kids are on summer vacation so we were visiting relatives and attending some weddings. I should be able to join next time.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 1^st, 2009, 10:07am

on 11/26/09 at 13:10:00, Tuks wrote:

hey Fritz, can we start the continuous tournament again, 10 people are registered and im sure even more have an extra 2 hours at some point in the week, we did have people with whole days to play ;)

OK, I will take another stab at opening the Continuous Tournament. If there is a huge groundswell of interest, we could conceivably get in three rounds before the end of the year and the beginning of the World Championships.

I have unregistered all of the players, because I have no way of knowing whether folks signed up last week, last month, or months ago. Everyone who would like to play a game specifically between December 10 and December 14 please go to http://arimaa.com/arimaa/tourn/ct/ and register for Round 22. I will only restart the tournament if ten or more participants sign up.

If developers would like to register their bots, they need to post in this thread so that I can register the bot myself. There is no smooth way for me to handle the entry of both a developer and that developer's bot, so only one or the other can enter.

Game time preferences can be selected at http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/selectTimes.cgi

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by jdb on Dec 1^st, 2009, 1:25pm

on 12/01/09 at 10:07:53, Fritzlein wrote:

Clueless would like to enter.

If there is an odd number of entrants, or whatever other reason, it can sit out a week. Any time is fine for the game.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 2^nd, 2009, 6:48am

on 12/01/09 at 13:25:39, jdb wrote:

Clueless would like to enter.

Great, that brings us to five entrants, six counting me.

Quote:

If there is an odd number of entrants, or whatever other reason, it can sit out a week.

Thanks for that flexibility. I don't mind taking the bye myself, but sometimes I want to play!

Quote:

Any time is fine for the game.

For scheduling clueless, I use your time preferences, JDB. I don't know what happens if you don't enter times, but you could always go in and enter everything as a top preference, to give your opponent full control over the choice.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 5^th, 2009, 1:55pm

OK, ten people have signed up, so Round 22 is ON!

Everyone please enter time preferences. If you don't enter preferences, your game will be scheduled purely at the convenience of your opponent. Yes, I can change the time of a game, but I will not do it unless both players agree. Your opponent is under no obligation to change game time because you messed up your time preferences or never got around to setting them. Indeed, I consider it somewhat rude to be too lazy to go through a fair method of scheduling. You can't avoid the appearance that you bypassed the impartial scheduler in order to get an advantage to yourself.

I have entered my times, including a dozen bottom picks. It would stink to get paired on one of those slots, but at least it will be good practice for the World Championship. :-)

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by jdb on Dec 6^th, 2009, 8:20am

on 12/02/09 at 06:48:33, Fritzlein wrote:

For clueless, I entered all 119 slots as preference 3.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 6^th, 2009, 10:20am

Thanks, JDB. We're now up to 11 registrants, which would mean giving a bye to clueless, but I'm going to delay pairing and scheduling Round 22 in the hopes of getting up to 12. I can wait at least until Monday, as the games don't start until Wednesday at the earliest anyway.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 7^th, 2009, 4:47pm

Wow, 13 participants! JDB, thank you for letting clueless take a bye. That will make me happy because I get to play and make aaaa happy because he doesn't have to play a computer.

I decided to ignore the previous history when I set the pairings. Those games were so long ago nobody should be upset to get repeat pairings, if they can even remember who they played way back when.

I ran the pairings through the tournament scheduler and created the games in the game room. The scheduler seemed to produce reasonable times, except for the game Simon vs. woh. Guys (Simon & woh), did you two both remember to input your time preferences?

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Simon on Dec 7^th, 2009, 5:28pm

I actually set that time slot (1 am my local time) to a second-rank preference since it's actually better for me than a lot of other times...but still I have downgraded it to third rank now since it is less good than other times I have also set to second rank.

Woh must also have set his time preferences since none of my first rank choices were selected.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 7^th, 2009, 5:55pm

on 12/07/09 at 17:28:33, Simon wrote:

OK, cool, I'm glad you at least got a second-highest preference. If you can start a game a 1 a.m. you must be a night owl like PhilomathBret. I've been on that kind of schedule at times in my life, but nowadays it would tax me to start at 11 p.m. (which I had to include for some 5th-place preferences). I was fortunate to get a first-place preference this round.

Quote:

Woh must also have set his time preferences since none of my first rank choices were selected.

Ah, good logic. And the time appears more reasonable for him than you (9 a.m. local for him?), although it is a weekday morning rather than a weekend morning as I would have expected.

Anyway, I'm glad the tool worked as intended, and it may even be that it worked more efficiently that negotiation would have!

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by woh on Dec 8^th, 2009, 3:36am

on 12/07/09 at 17:28:33, Simon wrote:

Woh must also have set his time preferences since none of my first rank choices were selected.

Yes I did and the selected time slot was a first choice to me.

Fritzlein, Simon and I have agreed to switch the start time of our game to 2pm Simon's LT/10pm my local time on saturday, if that's ok with you.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 8^th, 2009, 6:00am

on 12/08/09 at 03:36:56, woh wrote:

Fritzlein, Simon and I have agreed to switch the start time of our game to 2pm Simon's LT/10pm my local time on saturday, if that's ok with you.

Sure, that's fine. Please check that I have made the correct change.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Simon on Dec 8^th, 2009, 7:32am

That is correct and ty to Woh for the change and Fritzlein for implementing it.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by PhilomathBret on Dec 8^th, 2009, 7:04pm

I wonder if you could change the time controls for the tournament to the normal :60/6:00/100 instead of this :60/5:00/75. I especially don't like that only 75% of the unused time gets added to your reserve. I really wish they'd just do away with that number in the time control and make it always 100%.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 8^th, 2009, 9:21pm

on 12/08/09 at 19:04:18, PhilomathBret wrote:

I especially don't like that only 75% of the unused time gets added to your reserve.

What don't you like about it?

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Arimabuff on Dec 9^th, 2009, 2:07am

on 12/08/09 at 21:21:38, Fritzlein wrote:

What don't you like about it?

I am just guessing here but it could be that what he doesn't like is that 25% of the time you don't use goes to waste. ;)

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by PhilomathBret on Dec 9^th, 2009, 4:45am

on 12/08/09 at 21:21:38, Fritzlein wrote:

What don't you like about it?

Arimaabuff is basically correct. And I just think it's confusing and unnecessary to ever have anything besides 100%. This doesn't exist in chess and I don't see why it should be in Arimaa. It basically just makes it so that you mostly want to use up your extra minute of time, unless you're really sure of what to play before the minute is up.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 9^th, 2009, 9:06am

on 12/09/09 at 04:45:55, PhilomathBret wrote:

And I just think it's confusing and unnecessary to ever have anything besides 100%. This doesn't exist in chess and I don't see why it should be in Arimaa. It basically just makes it so that you mostly want to use up your extra minute of time, unless you're really sure of what to play before the minute is up.

You are quite right that the incentive created by not banking 100% of unused time is to discourage moving in less than the full minute. There is a slight bonus for taking approximately the same time on every move, and a slight penalty for varying between fast and slow moves.

Yes, there is nothing like this in chess, as far as I know. And it is precisely because of the chess experience that Omar and I have wanted to create a different incentive. I never got very good at playing chess, but I did enjoy watching chess, especially the World Championship matches. Unfortunately, the chess time controls make for a terrible spectator sport. The players rap out the first dozen moves in just a few minutes, without giving any time for the spectators/commentators to think/talk about the alternatives, the pros and cons of the various options, and what the players might be thinking. Before you know it, we land in a middle game.

And then, in the middle game, things get way too slow. Sometimes I would wait ten minutes without any move being played, and just get bored and go do something else. I understand that the players are not trying to entertain me, they are trying to manage their time to maximize winning chances, but understanding that doesn't make it any more fun to sit around and wait for something to happen. And, ironically, players very often don't manage their time optimally so there is a scramble to meet time control in which someone blunders. Plus, if there is a time scramble, the game again starts moving too fast for optimal spectator enjoyment.

Several people (particularly those who are used to chess) have argued that the spectators don't matter, and that the game conditions should be 100% about the comfort and convenience of the players. That difference of opinion is difficult to resolve, because if you don't care about spectators, you don't care about spectators, and I'm probably not going to be able to convince you otherwise.

Hopefully, though, this explanation makes the time control seem less random and confusing. Yes, I intend to give the players an incentive to pace their moves equally. Yes, I want to make Arimaa different from chess. The change is all about making Arimaa more spectator-friendly than chess is.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Arimabuff on Dec 9^th, 2009, 1:30pm

on 12/09/09 at 09:06:28, Fritzlein wrote:

I think that your main concern that is the fast playing of the ten first moves of the game is totally unwarranted. The middle game in Arimaa happens after the second move at most, especially when you play against a human player who is by essence mostly unpredictable.

Therefore, what you’re doing is penalizing the people who take longer to think about some moves than others and rewarding the ones who take exactly the allotted time REGARDLESS of the complexity of the situation. And I think that there is something fundamentally wrong about that, not enormously wrong but wrong all the same.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Arimabuff on Dec 9^th, 2009, 1:46pm

I think a better way to go would be to let people capitalize all their unused time but to limit the duration of one move.

E.G. (add 1 min. per move but allow 4 min. max for one move).

I simply don't like the idea that my opponent should be rewarded because I am capable of a better time management than he is.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by omar on Dec 9^th, 2009, 10:23pm

Having spectator friendly time controls is a good thing. An event just wouldn't be the same without spectators :-)

The T parameter which defines the amount of time within which a player must make the move wasn't part of the original time control specs.
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/learn/matchRules.html_030312

It was introduced in Sep 2004. We should probably call it the spectator threshold parameter :-) It provides a guarantee for the spectators that they will see a move in this much time.

Perhaps when a time control has specified the T parameter it might be better to set the P parameter (percent time add to the the reserve) to 100% since there is no danger of a player accumulating a lot of time with quick moves and then taking excessively long on some moves.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 10^th, 2009, 7:48am

on 12/09/09 at 13:46:52, Arimabuff wrote:

I simply don't like the idea that my opponent should be rewarded because I am capable of a better time management than he is.

Good time management is indeed a skill, but to me it seems like a skill that is less fundamental to Arimaa than, say, tactical calculation or strategic judgment. If Time Control X exaggerates the importance of good time management and Time Control Y minimizes the importance of good time management, which is better? You could argue that Time Control X is a game of greater skill because one needs to master tactics, strategy, and time management to do well at it. I would argue instead that Time Control Y is better because it measures Arimaa skill more accurately, because the extraneous skill of time management isn't muddying the water so much, concealing who is best at playing the game per se.

An extreme example is the sudden death time control. When there is no additional time allotted on every move, time management can actually become more important than finding good moves on the board. The first video on the page here (http://main.uschess.org/content/view/8467/456) was previously linked from the Arimaa Forum (although I can't find the thread). I think it makes a strong argument against time controls that exaggerate the importance of time management. As one person commented on the blog story:
Quote:

It is clear (because Anna admitted as much) that she won because she was just shuffling pieces close to the clock. She didn't have to "do" anything with her position, whereas Irina had to win. [...]this incident points up the lunacy of deciding a major championship in such an unsatisfactory manner.

The impact of allocating 75% or 100% of unused time to reserve is quite minor compared to the impact of having a sudden death time control. Most of us probably don't feel the impact at all. But insofar as it does matter, I am on the side of reducing the importance of time management. Indeed, I am in favor of encouraging play at a steady pace, which reduces the extent to which time management happens at all.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 10^th, 2009, 7:53am

on 12/09/09 at 22:23:06, omar wrote:

Perhaps when a time control has specified the T parameter it might be better to set the P parameter (percent time add to the the reserve) to 100% since there is no danger of a player accumulating a lot of time with quick moves and then taking excessively long on some moves.

The T parameter prohibits extra-long moves only; the P parameter is an incentive against both extra-long and extra-short moves. It is most spectator-friendly to have the incentive on both sides.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 13^th, 2009, 9:05am

Two games of Round 22 are completed, and the other four are all scheduled for today. Tomorrow (Monday, December 14) at approximately midnight GMT, I will pair Round 23 if we still have enough registered players. I note that Simon, novacat, Nombril, Sconibulus, 722caasi, woh are all committed to play in the World League. If you folks don't want to play two games next week (one for the Continuous Tournament and one for the World League), then please unregister from the Continuous Tournament, either by posting to this thread or by clicking here (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/tourn/ct/register.cgi). If you do want to play two games next week, I will schedule the Continuous Tournament games first, so that you will be able to uncheck those times in the World League scheduler. Of course new players are welcome to join at any round.

As usual I will only run the round if there are ten or more participants signed up. I suspect there may not be enough interest to run both the Continuous Tournament and the World League at the same time, but that's not a problem; at the moment megajester has more organizational fervor than I do, so it is fine by me if his event is where folks want to play.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 14^th, 2009, 7:48am

I have updated the status page with the results of Round 22. As of this moment there are twelve players still registered, so Round 23 is on unless people unregister in the next ten hours. For folks playing in both the Continuous Tournament and the World League, don't forget that the two schedulers are independent. For the Continuous Tournament your preferred game times must be entered here (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/selectTimes.cgi).

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 14^th, 2009, 3:56pm

OK, Nombril and 722caasi apparently don't want to be double-booked, but that leaves eleven players still registered. Clueless took the bye in Round 22, so I will take the bye in Round 23.

The next round, Round 24, would theoretically run on December 24-28. Given the Christmas holiday, I would be astonished if ten people wanted to schedule a game over this time. Nevertheless, if ten people sign up for it, I will run another round.

Supposing that Round 24 would miraculously happen, I would not then run Round 25, because I don't want to conflict with the World Championship.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by novacat on Dec 17^th, 2009, 12:29pm

Sorry I am late Omar! I ran into some traffic on my way home due do poor weather today. Any chance we can reschedule?

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 21^st, 2009, 6:27am

Sorry I was busy yesterday when most of the games this round were being played. (Knowing I had a busy weekend contributed to my decision not to play this round.)

I see the chat regarding Tuks vs. aaaa. I'm afraid my rules allow for a replay only if the technical issue occurred within the first ten moves.

Aaaa, you asked whether the prize points could be spent on the Computer Championship entry fee, and they can at the rate of a penny a point. Unfortunately, since Omar raised the entry fee to $20, this year it would require 2000 points, and I would not like to pay out partial prizes. If the entry fee deters you from participating this year, perhaps Omar will next year reconsider the size of the fee, or even having a fee at all.

I don't see a game result for PhilomathBret vs. Simon or for ngerhart vs. Sconibulus. Normally if only one player shows up and sits down at the table, he wins by forfeit. Also the player who is present often makes an appearance in chat to ask what to do. Since neither of these happened, I will count each game as a double forfeit, unless the players correct me. But Simon and ngerhart would have a tough time making a case for the win, since neither was even logged in yesterday. :-p

With the automatic unregistration of forfeiting players, it is clear there will not be enough players for a round over Christmas. I will therefore suspend the tournament and gauge the interest for restarting it in April.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Sconibulus on Dec 21^st, 2009, 9:04am

Double forfeit seems reasonable in my case, I ended up showing up about an hour late (inclement weather), but saw the game wasn't gone so sat down for a while and was waiting to see if maybe he'd come back (thinking he'd come and gone). I think I left after about two hours of sitting there.

Title: Re: Continuous Tournament 2009
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 21^st, 2009, 12:44pm

Thanks for explaining, Sconibulus. Driving through bad weather and seeing a few cars in the ditch gives one perspective on the relative importance of Arimaa.