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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> Positions with a wing camel
        
(Message started by: jdb on Apr 26th, 2010, 4:39pm)
Title: Positions with a wing camel
Post by jdb on Apr 26th, 2010, 4:39pm
I have some questions about positions involving a wing camel. Looking through the game records, it seems like a lot of variations using the wing camel have been attempted. I was wondering if there are any opinions on what seems to work.

For discussion lets say gold sets up with horses on a2 and b2, camel on g2 and elephant on c2. If silver sets up with horses on a7 and g7 and keeps the camel in the middle, this seems to give the advantage to gold. It looks like silver needs to use the camel on the a and b file to keep the two gold horses in check. Is this the right strategy for silver?

This is a random example game. There are dozens of others to look at as well.

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/opengamewin.cgi?client=1&gameid=141553&role=v&side=w
Title: Re: Positions with a wing camel
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 26th, 2010, 10:22pm
I think it is waaaay too early to know what works, but you can look at my ongoing Postal Mixer games against Tuks and chessandgo for the flavor of my current answer.  Both times I set up MH opposite the HH, and put my other horse in the middle, leaving only a dog to face the wing camel.  The intent is not to defend against the EHH attack, but to smash it to tiny bits.  I have a nagging feeling, though, that my answer won't work as well against chessandgo as it did against Tuks.  Even excellent opening strategy fails against chessandgo.  :P

Anyway, there is major experimentation going on in other directions too.  I notice several people as Silver set up M opposite M, plus one H opposite HH, leaving an H for the middle.   Hippo did it against me in the Postal Mixer and woh did it against Hirocon in the World League.  It doesn't look threatening, but as I played out lines, it seemed that even if Gold gets what he wants, namely a horse hostage to be persecuted by EHH, creating an elephant deadlock, Gold doesn't have the strongest free piece on the other wing.  It's just a camel faceoff.  On the other hand, if Gold tries an EH attack, the opponent has the central horse handy on defense, which makes progress extremely difficult.  Indeed the position seemed so lifeless in my game against Hippo that I eventually sacrificed a rabbit just to try to get something started.  Seems like a solid, flexible defense.

Also I see Silver sometimes setting up M opposite HH, and HH in the center, which is another reasonable-looking idea.  This, like any setup with camels on opposite flanks, seems very unstable to me, and very likely to lead to a race.

JDB, your question about what to do after that unbalanced Gold setup reminds me of the good old days when fotland asked what Bomb should do after it took an opposing horse hostage with its elephant.  If I remember correctly, I gave three possible answers then as well.  It wasn't for another year or so that I started to feel confident that the "right" answer was to pass off the hostage horse to the friendly camel.  I suspect you will have to wait at least a year for a decent answer to your current question.

It's funny how "answering" questions in Arimaa just seems to set off a chain reaction of more questions.  When we knew that an elephant holding a horse hostage was useless without a camel to pass the hostage to, it inspired chessandgo to start forcing the (of course centralized) enemy camel to choose sides so a horse could advance on the other wing and pull a rabbit.  I never found an effective counter to his formula until I put both horses on the same wing and the camel on the other, so that there would be nowhere for a horse to attack.  But now chessandgo has become so enamored with the unbalanced setup, he sees it as an attacking option rather than a defense as I conceived of it.  Suddenly he no longer wants to pull my rabbits at all, but rather wants to steamroll me.  So trying to figure out the answer to one question (i.e. what to do with elephant holding horse hostage) seems to have merely called into question a formerly generally accepted answer (i.e. pulling rabbits is good).

Side note: In my Postal Mixer game against chessandgo, we have made a combined 24 steps, all 24 of them straight forward.  We are both so desperate to swarm that we can't even contemplate the inefficiency of a sideways step.  Such an opening would have been inconceivable in 2007.  Probably in 2012 we will look back on the present game and have a good laugh too, but for completely new reasons.

Just for fun, I intend to take a contrarian position about everything, not because I believe conventional wisdom is wrong, but because I want to make the point that we have no idea what is right.

1) I submit that an unbalanced setup is bad, both for Gold and for Silver.  Folks have gotten lucky with it only because we don't know how to handle it yet.

2) I submit that Gold secures an advantage by setting up symmetrically.  Since the unbalanced setup is bad, Silver has nothing better to do than set up symmetrically too, conceding the first move advantage to Gold.

3) I submit that pulling rabbits is good, that swarming is fundamentally flawed, and the only correct attitude is to play a home game.

And if that doesn't stop you from asking, I'll start answering your question with, "What was it like before the Big Bang?", and, "What is the purpose of my existence?"  ;D
Title: Re: Positions with a wing camel
Post by jdb on Apr 27th, 2010, 2:51am
Thanks for the detailed reply. I'll try and summarize my current thoughts, which are very open to change.

There are 4 major pieces, the horses,camel and elephant. The rest of the pieces take on supporting roles, depending on how the major pieces are distributed.

Attacks can happen on the left flank, right flank or centre. The elephant can attack in the centre because it is immune from capture. The other major pieces can be captured into two traps if they attack up the centre. If they attack on a wing, the elephant only has to protect one trap. So they seem better suited to attack on a wing.

With a balanced setup, (ie gold and silver have their major pieces distributed the same way) attacking is very difficult. It boils down to trying to drag an enemy piece into home territory.

With an unbalanced setup there are lots of attacking options. Setting up with major pieces in the middle, is just delaying the choice of wing. Once the attacking starts, the pieces need to go to one wing or the other.

There are many possible combinations for unbalanced setups on each wing.  EHH will beat EH. EMH will beat EHH. EM will beat EH. There are lots of other options that I dont know what happens. Something like M vs HH, EHH vs EM.

It is important to use the supporting pieces to free up the elephant to switch wings when needed.
Title: Re: Positions with a wing camel
Post by chessandgo on May 6th, 2010, 10:43am

on 04/26/10 at 16:39:51, jdb wrote:
For discussion lets say gold sets up with horses on a2 and b2, camel on g2 and elephant on c2. If silver sets up with horses on a7 and g7 and keeps the camel in the middle, this seems to give the advantage to gold. It looks like silver needs to use the camel on the a and b file to keep the two gold horses in check. Is this the right strategy for silver?



on 04/26/10 at 16:39:51, jdb wrote:
This is a random example game. There are dozens of others to look at as well.

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/opengamewin.cgi?client=1&gameid=141553&role=v&side=w


Cool game! Woah 35g :-)

I think Tuks had the advantage after the setups. Attacking on the west rather than dragging gold pieces towards c6 would have looked really good, I can't think of a plan for gold.


on 04/26/10 at 22:22:44, Fritzlein wrote:
I think it is waaaay too early to know what works, but you can look at my ongoing Postal Mixer games against Tuks and chessandgo for the flavor of my current answer.  Both times I set up MH opposite the HH, and put my other horse in the middle, leaving only a dog to face the wing camel.  The intent is not to defend against the EHH attack, but to smash it to tiny bits.  I have a nagging feeling, though, that my answer won't work as well against chessandgo as it did against Tuks.  Even excellent opening strategy fails against chessandgo.  :P


The difference is mostly that Tuks is blitzing in his Postal games, as far I can say.


on 04/26/10 at 22:22:44, Fritzlein wrote:
Side note: In my Postal Mixer game against chessandgo, we have made a combined 24 steps, all 24 of them straight forward.  We are both so desperate to swarm that we can't even contemplate the inefficiency of a sideways step.  Such an opening would have been inconceivable in 2007.  Probably in 2012 we will look back on the present game and have a good laugh too, but for completely new reasons.

Just for fun, I intend to take a contrarian position about everything, not because I believe conventional wisdom is wrong, but because I want to make the point that we have no idea what is right.

1) I submit that an unbalanced setup is bad, both for Gold and for Silver.  Folks have gotten lucky with it only because we don't know how to handle it yet.

2) I submit that Gold secures an advantage by setting up symmetrically.  Since the unbalanced setup is bad, Silver has nothing better to do than set up symmetrically too, conceding the first move advantage to Gold.

3) I submit that pulling rabbits is good, that swarming is fundamentally flawed, and the only correct attitude is to play a home game.


I fear I've played backards (and rabbit pulling) steps since this post :) And like yourself, I disagree with all three points :p Even if the EHH setup turns out to be bad as gold I would be extremely surprised if it is unsound as silver ... well, I thought the contrary a couple years ago, so ...


on 04/27/10 at 02:51:05, jdb wrote:
Thanks for the detailed reply. I'll try and summarize my current thoughts, which are very open to change.

There are 4 major pieces, the horses,camel and elephant. The rest of the pieces take on supporting roles, depending on how the major pieces are distributed.

Attacks can happen on the left flank, right flank or centre. The elephant can attack in the centre because it is immune from capture. The other major pieces can be captured into two traps if they attack up the centre. If they attack on a wing, the elephant only has to protect one trap. So they seem better suited to attack on a wing.

With a balanced setup, (ie gold and silver have their major pieces distributed the same way) attacking is very difficult. It boils down to trying to drag an enemy piece into home territory.

With an unbalanced setup there are lots of attacking options. Setting up with major pieces in the middle, is just delaying the choice of wing. Once the attacking starts, the pieces need to go to one wing or the other.

There are many possible combinations for unbalanced setups on each wing.  EHH will beat EH. EMH will beat EHH. EM will beat EH. There are lots of other options that I dont know what happens. Something like M vs HH, EHH vs EM.

It is important to use the supporting pieces to free up the elephant to switch wings when needed.


I basically agree with all that, apart maybe with "balanced setups -> attacking is difficult". Imo M beats HH, EHH and EM neutralize each other, but M vs hh + EHH vs m positions might just be described as M vs hh and HH vs m, with Elephant positions being just temporary (unstable). I think the word "beat" actually hides different types of results. By nature, Elephants might want to shift wings any time, so there is a whole array of results from "free Elephant" to "absolutely tied elephant". I guess "material capture even with the elephant saying" is still a stronger result on this scale :)

I like a lot Fritz's silver plan with center horses vs the EHH setup. Leaving the M floating on its wing, facing no heavy piece and fearing that the silver elephant might shift wings looks one of the strongest ways to fight EHH. I used to do something similar like 3 years ago against the EHH, actually moving both horses along with camel and elephant on the EHH wing, so that the game went M vs nothing and EHH vs emhh. I recall doing roughly ok vs robinson with this strategy, thinking that EHH was bad. But center horses are much more flexible, I like it a lot.
Title: Re: Positions with a wing camel
Post by FireBorn on May 6th, 2010, 3:58pm

on 04/26/10 at 16:39:51, jdb wrote:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/opengamewin.cgi?client=1&gameid=141553&role=v&side=w

On 20s, did Silver miss the camel capture? Or did he just decline for some reason?
Title: Re: Positions with a wing camel
Post by Hippo on May 7th, 2010, 9:57am

on 05/06/10 at 15:58:01, FireBorn wrote:
On 20s, did Silver miss the camel capture? Or did he just decline for some reason?


Yes, it happens in 30s per move. :)
Title: Re: Positions with a wing camel
Post by jdb on May 7th, 2010, 3:51pm
I read over all the posts and thought about it some more.

Lets assume that a player wants to use an unbalanced distribution of pieces whenever possible. (For the moment, I don't care if this is the correct strategy or not)  In the following, Silver will be using the unbalanced strategy.

Case 1)  Gold uses EHH on one flank and M on the other flank. Silver places EMH opposite gold's EHH and H vs M.

Case 2) Gold uses the 99of9 setup, with H on each wing and EM in the middle. Silver sets up EHH on one flank and M on the other. Or would it be better to go with EMH on one flank and H on the other?

Case 3) Gold uses EMH on one wing and H on the other. Silver places E opposite gold's EMH and places MHH opposite the H.

The general idea is on the side with 3 heavy pieces, you want to be the strongest on that side, because an  attack with 3 heavy pieces can do damage a lot faster than an attack with only one heavy piece.

Any thoughts?
Title: Re: Positions with a wing camel
Post by chessandgo on May 8th, 2010, 2:44am
I'd vaguely think the opposite, in an unbalanced setup, you want to be the strongest on the non-elephant side. Now this is not a static issue, since elephants can switch wings. So there is a initiative contest, where the player who currently is unhappy with the elephant position tries to force both elephants to switch wings.

If the elephants lie on opposite wing (probably each on the wing he wants both elephants to be, ie on his non-camel side), there is a race.


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