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Topic: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize (Read 4175 times) |
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omar
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Arimaa player #2
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #15 on: Oct 15th, 2005, 12:47pm » |
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on Oct 13th, 2005, 4:21am, Arimanator wrote:
I sincerely doubt that any corporation would bother to put a team in the hopes of winning $100 000 ...
So I wouldn't worry about corporate involvement unless the prize goes up to 10 million or so. |
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I agree. But imagine a senerio where there are many corporate sponsors making big short term pledges and competing with each other to see who will be the first to get the cumulative prize (and also a boosted corporate image; which for corporations is probably more important). That would be cool.
I've read that the jump in IBMs stock price the day they defeated GK caused an increase in their market capital which way surpassed all the expenses.
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omar
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #16 on: Oct 15th, 2005, 12:55pm » |
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on Oct 13th, 2005, 5:48am, 99of9 wrote:
Yes, you're probably right. Unless some bigwig company decided to do it for the kudos... but I guess Arimaa's not popular enough for the kudos to be big enough either yet. |
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Yes, it's the chicken or the egg kind of thing. I think we've finished the DNA; maybe we're building the yolk now 
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nbarriga
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #17 on: Oct 18th, 2005, 12:06am » |
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on Oct 13th, 2005, 1:05am, 99of9 wrote:
(as a side note, if the challenge details are now finalised, I'm planning to open a claim at www.ideosphere.com so that a market-based agglomeration of opinions can give an estimate of the probability of the challenge being won, and if so, the length of time it might take)
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I suggest you open at least 2 claims, one for 2010 and one for 2020. Perhaps you could also open yearly claims starting with 2007.
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99of9
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #18 on: Oct 26th, 2005, 2:41am » |
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on Oct 15th, 2005, 12:32pm, omar wrote:Yes I remember you posted about this earlier. If you have a paper about the research and it mentions Arimaa, game playing, etc. then it would definitely help.
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D.R. Mason, T.S. Hudson* and A.P. Sutton, Computer Physics Communications, Volume 165, Issue 1 , 1 January 2005, Pages 37-48
* Corresponding Author
[url]http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TJ5-4DS9SS8-1&_coverDate=01%2F01%2F2005&_alid=327842502& _rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=5301 &_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000008818&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=115085&md5=e69c5977de13910b54df45b6a0e21f4f[/url]
Sorry, it doesn't mention Arimaa (I should have thought of including an acknowledgement at the time!), but it does mention that Zobrist was conceived for game-AI programming. I only learnt about Zobrist because I was programming an Arimaa bot (I learnt it from a chess site).
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| « Last Edit: Aug 1st, 2006, 2:29am by 99of9 » |
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minhtuan
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #19 on: Jan 30th, 2006, 7:19am » |
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Hello All
I am just a newcomer. I know Arimaa from English Wikipedia. This is a good game, and Mr. Omar is good at creating the game that have very big game-tree with impossibly high number of available moves. I never think a computer could beat human in this game, since the Arimaa strategy is too hard to implement in software.
But I now think about Arimaa's popularity. Sure, it fulfils your childhood fantasies of jumping to grab a flag as the goal, and it greatly fulfils Mr. Omar's paternal instinct.
But compared from orthodox chess, or new computer game like AOE series or HalfLife, this game is not a war imitation game and therefore it is hard to promote this game. Chess and its variants are so popular because it satisfies our violent instincts and promote our fighting spirit. "Fight on the board instead of making war" is chess' motto.
What I see in Arimaa? All childhood push me pull you tactics. It is a strategic game, yes, but it reminds me of a good time at a park with my friends. Nothing more.
Wow I am not a butcher. But I certainly think of other game rather than Arimaa when I need to release our old-fashioned violent emotions, which is rather common in our hectic fast-paced world.
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PMertens
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #20 on: Jan 30th, 2006, 7:46am » |
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Well well ... I clearly think pulling your defenseless horse away and push it into my (spiked) trap suits my violent instincts :-D
At least as cruel as jumping with my horse on your bishop in chess ....
OK .... rabbits are not really the typical killeranimals, but do not underestimate their teeth 
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RonWeasley
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #21 on: Jan 30th, 2006, 11:54am » |
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Quote:| this game is not a war imitation game and therefore it is hard to promote this game |
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This point is true. Arimaa can't compete with interactive video games as an imitation of warfare. Chess doesn't either, although wizard's chess has it's moments of violence, but most sets come with an infirmary with the proper healing spells. You can usually play the healed pieces again in only a few days.
The animal icons serve to soften what could be a metaphor for a more modern form of warfare. Arimaa involves the strong kidnapping the weak, holding them hostage, and if concessions are not made, killing the hostage. Sometimes you do this in the enemy's home. Surely this is the ultimate in villainy.
The icons could be worse. Imagine the faces of famous and imfamous political and military leaders from history placed on the board. Heads of state, if you will.
So, I assert arimaa is similar to chess in the warfare metaphor. I think it has the same disadvantage in that good play involves patience and concentration at a level few people can attain. It's development is a great achievement for Omar.
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omar
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #22 on: Feb 8th, 2006, 5:49pm » |
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on Jan 30th, 2006, 7:19am, minhtuan wrote:
What I see in Arimaa? All childhood push me pull you tactics. It is a strategic game, yes, but it reminds me of a good time at a park with my friends. Nothing more.
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I definitely agree with you that I feel a lot more relaxed when I play Arimaa then when I play chess; though not to the point of feeling like Im at the park I am definitely a lot more nervious when playing chess than Arimaa. I've thought about this before and I think it might be due to the sharp tactics in chess and the softer strategic nature of Arimaa. I like to think of chess as a sword fight and Arimaa as a wrestling match. Chess is very sharp and unforgiving; one little mistake can spell death; Arimaa is a softer, slower struggle and it feels like you can actually recover from small mistakes.
There was a time when I was searching for info on what makes a game interesting and I came across a couple of good articles:
Defining the Abstract:
http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/DefiningtheAbstract.shtml
Chess vs Shogi
http://www.shogi.net/shogi-l/Archive/1999/Nfeb07-06.txt
Based on the criterias given in these articles Arimaa does extreamly well. The only place it is lacking is in history and tradition because it is a new game. But in the long run I hope that it will have the most well preserved history and well established traditions.
The people who are playing Arimaa now are the type who are self thinkers and early adapters. They don't need anyone else to tell them what is good and like to decide for themselves. The majority of the people really depend on trusted sources to tell them what is good. This is why celeberties are used to promote commercial products
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Fritzlein
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #23 on: Feb 8th, 2006, 9:04pm » |
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Interesting links, Omar. I find Thompson's dichotomies much more compelling than Kaufman's eight-point scale, mostly because I don't think the elements in Kaufman's scale should have equal weight, but also partly because he himself shows how easy it is to assign the points haphazardly within his scale.
Thompson sets up the depth-clarity tension very well. You need to be able to find a handle in the position, some way to make it sensible rather than merely arbitrary or a matter of who overlooks something. If you have a bit of clarity that your opponent doesn't, you can win consistently without him understanding why, which sets up a level of depth. But what happens when he learns what you know? Is there another level of understanding awaiting, or do you both have all the clarity the game offers, reducing it once again to a contest of who makes a blunder?
I haven't played much Go, but from what I hear it is phenomenal on this axis. Students of the game achieve successive jumps in levels of awareness, and become able to simply "see" things that earlier didn't enter into their thought processes. I don't know whether top Go players are pushing the edge of all that is learnable about the game, but even if they have maxed out, Go is a game worthy of a lifetime of study.
Unless I miss my guess, Arimaa is going to fare very well in terms of depth and clarity. I've already gone through a cycle or two of learning a new way of looking at things that subsumes the old way, and allows me to make sense of formerly opaque situations. But there are still positions, quite common positions, that utterly confuse me. I hold out hope that another revelation will bring clarity to some of those, and so on for some time.
As for the drama-decisiveness axis, Arimaa also does extremely well. We've all seen too many remarkable comebacks to argue that Arimaa lacks drama. And it is important that the comebacks don't have to involve tactical blunders. Adanac's lone WC win over Robinson was a recovery from a substantial deficit, but it didn't happen in one move, it happened gradually, strategically.
Arimaa is a very decisive game as well. Small advantages tend to become bigger and bigger as the game progresses. An extra rabbit in the opening can hardly be felt, but an extra rabbit in the endgame is of great importance. At the moment there seems to be no danger that the weaker side can recover from every small mistake and keep the game in balance: on the contrary small mistakes seem to accumulate, and can only be given back by compensatory mistakes.
When dual-lone elephant play was common, it seemed that Arimaa might not be sufficiently decisive, because it is easier to retreat pieces than it is to drag them out. However, I am confident there will never be a return to pure dual-lone elephant play, given the modern knowledge that a horse can dart in advantageously on the opponent's non-camel side. There will always be rabbit pulls at least to dis-equilibriate the game, and once the game gets out of balance, it is almost impossible for it to calm back down to equilibrium.
I wonder, though. Do I like Thompson's criteria because Arimaa does so well by them? Or do I like Arimaa because it does so well by Thompson's criteria?
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IdahoEv
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #24 on: Feb 28th, 2006, 10:37pm » |
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I'd think about pitching in, but since I'm going to win it the process would be somewhat moot.
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omar
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #25 on: Mar 4th, 2006, 11:59am » |
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on Feb 28th, 2006, 10:37pm, IdahoEv wrote:I'd think about pitching in, but since I'm going to win it the process would be somewhat moot.
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Are you planning to develop a bot?
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IdahoEv
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #26 on: Mar 9th, 2006, 11:58pm » |
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on Mar 4th, 2006, 11:59am, omar wrote:
Are you planning to develop a bot?
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Sssh... don't tell anyone. It's a secret.
(Yes, I have begun development in my copious free time.)
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Swynndla
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #27 on: Mar 10th, 2006, 11:53pm » |
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If there was not only the 3 top human players that the top bot challenges, but if there was also another 3 humans that were the winners of a "premier reserve" competition (who are weaker than the top human squad) who also play the top bot, where the results in no way affect the challenge prize money, then if they all easily beat the top bot also, then corporations would see that if the bots don't even stand up against the "B" squad, then the bots will have next to no chance of beating the "A" squad, and their money will be safe.
This would be especially true if the "premier reserve" competition didn't include any of the players who enter the proper world champs.
What do you think? ... or perhaps a variation of this?
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PMertens
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #28 on: Mar 11th, 2006, 4:23pm » |
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actually I was B-squad  but chosen for other reasons ....
If you look at the challenge games I am certain you can see how easily bomb was beaten with mostly one main strategy ... and that could have done anyone among the Top 20 (or more) without a change in result.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Increasing the Arimaa Challenge prize
« Reply #29 on: Jul 31st, 2006, 9:17pm » |
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It just occured to me that another natural sponsor (apart from computer companies) would be a game manufacturer, specifically Hasbro. If I'm not mistaken, Hasbro puts up $50,000 in prize money each year for the National Scrabble Championship. (By the way, that's coming up next week, and the finals will be taped by ESPN for later broadcast.)
Obviously Arimaa is nowhere near as big a deal as Scrabble is, but also the prize money for Arimaa doesn't have to be paid out each year. Furthermore, Hasbro might produce Arimaa commercially as part of the deal. If they were selling the game and profiting from it, they would want to promote the Arimaa Challenge as well.
I think the stuff we are doing with the Wikibook and the commented game viewer and so on should also be encouraging to Hasbro. Not only would they see that folks are already jazzed about the game, but also they would see a pre-existing community for the game as a plus. They wouldn't have to start marketing from the ground up, having a (small but enthusiastic) built-in set of buyers. Furthermore, they could count on getting not only the rules, but probably also a primer on strategy written up for free by the Arimaa community. (It would have to be done from scratch, of course, due to the GFDL on Wikipedia, but that's not a big deal.)
Well, it's just a thought I wanted to throw out there, in case Omar ever has time to read the forum again.  (I know you're busy Omar -- the preceding was not a criticism.)
P.S. 99of9, could you break up the three-mile-long link in your previous post? It's making this thread display funny in my browser.
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| « Last Edit: Jul 31st, 2006, 9:19pm by Fritzlein » |
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