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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> How much is the elephant worth?
        
(Message started by: browni3141 on May 29^th, 2012, 12:33pm)

Title: How much is the elephant worth?
Post by browni3141 on May 29^th, 2012, 12:33pm

Although there probably isn't a very realistic position where you could trade an elephant for several other pieces, how much do you think it is worth? We're assuming no other trades have been made and no side has a clear positional advantage. I think I would give my elephant for MHH, but this is a real shot in the dark. It might be fun to play some unrated games to find out.

Title: Re: How much is the elephant worth?
Post by rbarreira on May 29^th, 2012, 12:49pm

The FAME and Harlog algorithms value E ~= MHD.

Title: Re: How much is the elephant worth?
Post by browni3141 on Jun 1^st, 2012, 3:33pm

I have played two games with supersamu, which increase my belief that E > MHD. However, I think that gold's real strength other than his elephant is his remaining horse, which is fairly obvious, but I think the horse is worth much more than I thought before the games. The power of the horse leads me to believe that ER < MHD after a horse trade. I even believe that ERR may be less than MHD after a horse trade. I don't think I would give more than two rabbits to trade horses. Because of all this I think that for E vs. MHH the side with the elephant is at a very large disadvantage. I can somewhat confidently say that MHD < E < MHH.

I pretty much got owned in the opening, but supersamu allowed a horse trade and I was able to contest both enemy home traps.

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=232920

I've been wondering if while there will likely never be an actual trade like this, there is still some use for studying it. It might be somewhat useful for studying some strongest free piece situations.

Title: Re: How much is the elephant worth?
Post by supersamu on Jun 1^st, 2012, 4:49pm

During my first game as gold against browni3141 (myself with a MHD handicap), i thought about do's and dont's that the side with the elephant should follow in order to win:

Do's:
1.: let your horse stay away from the enemy's camel, so your elephant can immediately attack any piece without losing a horse.
2.: Let your elephant centralised and on the fifth or sixth rank, so you can (hopefully) flip pieces out and threaten them in your home traps. Because the elephant is centralised, no advances can be done without risking a capture.
3.: Let your horse near your hometrap, so you are not prone to a swarm.
4.: Your horse can pull rabbits, these can be captured easily and without much counterplay.

Dont's:

1.: Don't advance pieces other than your elephant or horse, because these can be captured by pieces other than the enemy camel.
2.: Don't trade horses. Don't trade equally, because at a certain point in the game, the number of pieces is more important than their strength.

Conclusion: When following these rules, i am convinced that you should win against the side with an elephant handicap. Thus, i prefer to have an elephant over MHD.

Title: Re: How much is the elephant worth?
Post by ginrunner on Jun 2^nd, 2012, 8:54am

My initial thoughts are this is a quantity over quality question. First, how many pieces other than rabbits is the elephant worth? 3 ... being MHH maybe? 4? Since the elephant is such a powerful piece at what point does the other side have enough units to overpower?

Title: Re: How much is the elephant worth?
Post by supersamu on Jun 2^nd, 2012, 10:58am

@Ginrunner:
I would be happy to play against you with a CCDDH Handicap.

Title: Re: How much is the elephant worth?
Post by ginrunner on Jun 2^nd, 2012, 11:46pm

I should have much more free time in the coming weeks than I have previously had so we should try it.

Title: Re: How much is the elephant worth?
Post by browni3141 on Jun 3^rd, 2012, 12:39pm

on 06/02/12 at 10:58:45, supersamu wrote:

@Ginrunner:
I would be happy to play against you with a CCDDH Handicap.

I would take the elephant side here I believe. I will take the elephant side if you want to play.

Title: Re: How much is the elephant worth?
Post by ginrunner on Jun 3^rd, 2012, 2:57pm

Funny I think I would prefer the non E side but lets see ... I see you are both online atm

Edit: Decided to put my rational. With only 3 units (granted they are the strongest) you would only be able to truly own 2 traps at most. unless the non E side gives up something then there just aren't enough units to stop a racer. Though I could be very very wrong

Title: Re: How much is the elephant worth?
Post by ginrunner on Jun 4^th, 2012, 9:34am

Maybe this was obvious to everyone but me but the E side seemed easier to play. Not to say it was a hugely imbalanced game but the non elephant side had no room to make any errors whereas the E side could more easily recover from misjudgments.