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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> Amazing..... Silver are the winners !!!!!
        
(Message started by: phairland on Jan 10^th, 2015, 4:51am)

Title: Amazing..... Silver are the winners !!!!!
Post by phairland on Jan 10^th, 2015, 4:51am

I got the full database of games from 2002 until 2014. I made a query from all Human vs Human games and got the following result:

Games Won by any means:
7,657 games Won by Silver
7,175 games Won by Gold

Games Won by Goal:
4,845 games Won by Silver
4,520 games Won by Gold

Games Won by Time:
1,536 games Won by Gold
1,519 games Won by Silver

Games Won by Resignation:
1,114 games Won by Silver
1,070 games Won by Gold

Games Won by any means whose rating are >2000:
162 games Won by Gold
162 games Won by Silver
YES exactly 50% :o

So according to this statistics there is no advantage for Gold ;D

Title: Re: Amazing..... Silver are the winners !!!!!
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 10^th, 2015, 10:10am

Unfortunately, the raw winning percentages are statistically suspect because the color assignment is not random. The player who issues an invitation chooses which color to play. Or from the bot activation page, the player starting the bot chooses which color the bot will play. I'll bet that if you take the average rating of the players in all the rated games, you will find that Silver has been the stronger player, and therefore should have the higher winning percentage.

You can check out this thread (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi?board=talk;action=display;num=1163650023;start=0) for how I tried to address the non-randomness of the color assignment. Maybe you can provide an even better solution?

Title: Re: Amazing..... Silver are the winners !!!!!
Post by Ail on Jan 21^st, 2015, 7:58am

Well, compared to chess' 27%(White):17%(Black):56%(Draw)-Winning-percentages, Arimaa's percentages are amazing regardless.

I'm leader of an, admittedly very low ranked, chess-club-team and people regularly cry about having to play black.
I really wish Arimaa was as popular as chess or chess as balanced as Arimaa.

Sometimes I actually wonder if the relatively high possibility of chess games between equal players ending in a draw is a good or a bad thing.
I feel that after a long and tough fight a draw is a result that can make both players very content. Where as deciding a game usually leaves one of the player feeling bad about himself.