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Topic: One versus the Mob (Read 10222 times) |
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Fritzlein
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One versus the Mob
« on: Mar 19th, 2007, 6:03pm » |
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on Mar 16th, 2007, 11:31pm, The_Jeh wrote:| I would like to see one of the top players face off against the entire Arimaa community. Everyone votes on the next move. The problem with this, of course, is that there are far too many moves to choose from. To overcome this problem, I would have three to five other top players or bots suggest moves, and a move is elected among these. This would weaken the experiment, but it would still be interesting. Also, the ensuing debates would be healthful. |
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I think that this would be a fascinating experiment. I would love to participate in the discussion, or alternatively be the One player and read afterwards what the Mob thought about my play. In particular, I am curious how often the Mob would be surprised by a move from the One. I often overlook a strong move by my opponent, even in a postal game. Would it be true that, "to many eyes, all bugs are shallow", or would there still be instances of collective blindness?
I don't particularly like the idea of having a vote between the suggestions of three or five leading players. That would preclude a lot of creativity that could result from finding variations and mutations of good moves that are potentially stronger than the original suggestion. Also it leads to a plurality problem where 60% of people want to pursue a particular strategy, but they split 25-20-15 between three variations on the idea, whereas the 40% minority of voters unite on an unpopular move, winning by plurality. I would suggest instead that, after a discussion phase, each member of the Mob would list their favorite move, and if there is no majority, each member of the Mob would make a preferential ballot.
on Mar 19th, 2007, 1:15pm, IdahoEv wrote:| This would be a lot of fun. We'd have to set up a thread in this forum for each move, and the challenged player (Fritz? Chessandgo?) would have to promise not to read them so as not to be spoiled. There would probably have to be a single person who was the central coordinator for the opposition team to organize the discussion, coordinate votes, etc. |
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I expect there would need to be a whole separate area of the forum for the discussion to prevent the thread-per-move discussion of the game from taking over the main forum space. I think Omar could easily create that space for us. And I very much support the notion of a Mob coordinator, to orchestrate the votes if nothing else. The One would have to promise not to read the discussion, and I don't think trust would be a problem in our friendly community.
What sort of time control would you suggest? I don't think it could possibly go faster than one move per week. Would it be reasonable to play with no time limit, and just a suggestion for how fast the moves should generally occur?
I would enjoy playing being the One, but I can barely keep up with my current Postal Tournament games. Maybe chessandgo is game-hungry at the moment, in addition to which he is having a dominating start to the postal tournament. Maybe 99of9 is the prime candidate, since he was the undefeated winner of last year's postal tournament. Or maybe all three of us would be reluctant to be the One at the moment. Here's an idea: If anyone goes undefeated in this year's postal tournament (or appears from the board positions to be likely to go undefeated), then we can draft that person as the One.
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chessandgo
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Re: One versus the Mob
« Reply #1 on: Mar 20th, 2007, 4:32am » |
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Nice idea, The_Jeh ! I'd like both playing on the "One" side and participating to the discussion. Like you, Karl, I've some trouble to keep up with my postal games, but I guess that with a very slow time control (about a week per move ?), it would be no problem for the single player, rather for the rest to agree on something.
Anyway, I hope we'll be able to play this game, would be a lot of fun 
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IdahoEv
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Re: One versus the Mob
« Reply #2 on: Mar 20th, 2007, 1:31pm » |
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on Mar 19th, 2007, 6:03pm, Fritzlein wrote:| I expect there would need to be a whole separate area of the forum for the discussion to prevent the thread-per-move discussion of the game from taking over the main forum space. I think Omar could easily create that space for us. |
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Another possibility: it takes me about 20 minutes to set up a community website using the joomla content management system; I'd be happy to do it for the project. (It's a one-click install via my webhost's control panel.) The nice thing about it is in addition to a discussion forum for planning it has a built-in poll system that could handle voting on the moves.
I'd rather somebody else be the coordinator / central point for the group discussion, but I'm happy to set up the tools to make that and the voting easy.
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| « Last Edit: Mar 20th, 2007, 1:34pm by IdahoEv » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: One versus the Mob
« Reply #3 on: Mar 20th, 2007, 6:00pm » |
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I'm glad chessandgo is willing to be the One. On further reflection I'd rather be part of the Mob. However, my experience with team chess games is that the team should really have at least ten members or so to keep it interesting. Would we really get ten members of the Mob? Maybe once about half of the postal tournament is done, it would be easier to drum up participation.
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omar
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Re: One versus the Mob
« Reply #5 on: Mar 21st, 2007, 12:15am » |
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Karl and I were commuting to work this morning when he told me about the 'One vs the Mob' idea that The_Jeh proposed. Lately I've been counting on Karl to keep me updated on the forum lately
I like this idea also; especially the community aspect of a group trying to decide on a move. This got me thinking about the possibility of having group vs group postal games. One year we had a EU vs US match, but it was a set of one on one games. It might be interesting to have a EU group vs US group postal match.
This forum supports placing users into groups and limiting access to selections of the forum based on the groups. So I guess we might be able to use this feature for discussing the moves.
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chessandgo
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Re: One versus the Mob
« Reply #6 on: Mar 21st, 2007, 3:00am » |
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on Mar 20th, 2007, 6:00pm, Fritzlein wrote:| I'm glad chessandgo is willing to be the One. |
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I'd be equally happy if you (or someone else) played ; I've not had many game-related discussions these last month, so debating inside the "rest of the world" team sounds great 
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RonWeasley
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Re: One versus the Mob
« Reply #7 on: Mar 21st, 2007, 12:01pm » |
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Another benefit from this contest would be a record of the decision process used to make a move. Contributors to the decision would be among the best players, both muggles and wizards. Players of all experience levels would be able to read what tactical and strategic factors the top players consider. This would be an invaluable learning tool. Also consider that bot programmers may be able to implement some of these considerations or learn more about how to resolve known but conflicting factors.
I would enjoy participating in the mob. Just like in potions with Snape, I could suggest a strategy and then a better player can reject it and explain why it won't work. And no explosions! It would be like a master class.
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OLTI
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Re: One versus the Mob
« Reply #8 on: Mar 21st, 2007, 4:27pm » |
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I like more Omar idea
on Mar 21st, 2007, 12:15am, omar wrote:
This got me thinking about the possibility of having group vs group postal games. One year we had a EU vs US match, but it was a set of one on one games. It might be interesting to have a EU group vs US group postal match.
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jdb
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Re: One versus the Mob
« Reply #9 on: Mar 21st, 2007, 5:50pm » |
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I also like Omar's idea of a group vs group match.
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Fritzlein
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Re: One versus the Mob
« Reply #10 on: Mar 21st, 2007, 7:26pm » |
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A group vs. group match would be interesting, but the trouble with U.S. vs. E.U. is that it leaves out a lot of players, including Canadian JDB. How about instead North & South America versus the rest of the world? The rest of the world might have a few more players in this scheme than the Americas team, but Omar would be on the Americas team, so he could rig the server...
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IdahoEv
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Re: One versus the Mob
« Reply #11 on: Mar 21st, 2007, 7:36pm » |
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A hemispheric group grudge match! I really like this idea.
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99of9
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Re: One versus the Mob
« Reply #12 on: Mar 21st, 2007, 9:03pm » |
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Since when did North and South America take up an entire hemisphere Idaho??
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Fritzlein
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Re: One versus the Mob
« Reply #13 on: Mar 21st, 2007, 9:39pm » |
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on Mar 21st, 2007, 9:03pm, 99of9 wrote:| Since when did North and South America take up an entire hemisphere Idaho?? |
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Oooh, so now we're LITTLE are we? You'll regret that remark when the games begin, buster.
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NIC1138
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Re: One versus the Mob
« Reply #14 on: Mar 22nd, 2007, 12:04am » |
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on Mar 21st, 2007, 7:26pm, Fritzlein wrote:| How about instead North & South America versus the rest of the world? |
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Well, we can't do South America versus rest of the world, since all the best players are located there, it's not fair... 
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