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Topic: 2007 Computer Championship (Read 2901 times) |
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IdahoEv
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #15 on: Jan 13th, 2007, 11:17am » |
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Round III Standings:
If I understand the pairings correctly, GnoBot is eliminated and Bomb gets a bye for round 4.
| Bot | Record | Defeated | Defeated by | | Bomb | 3-0 | GnoBot,Faerie,Zombie | | Zombie | 2-1 | Occam, Aamira | Bomb | | Faerie | 2-1 | Clueless, Aamira | Bomb | | Clueless | 2-1 | GnoBot,Loc | Faerie | | Loc | 1-2 | Occam | Clueless, Aamira | | Aamira | 1-2 | Loc | Zombie, Faerie | | Occam | 1-2 | GnoBot | Zombie, Loc | | GnoBot | 0-3 | | Bomb, Clueless, Occam |
Round III Games report: (click the heading to open game viewer)
Zombie vs. Bomb*
This game had an exciting and bloody opening that wound down to a bot-like stalemate through the midgame. Zombie opened with an immediate EH attack; E forward 4 on turn 1w, H forward 4 on turn 2w, and followed it up with a camel advancement, then immediately traded HR for DC (I think based on search depth that it probably only saw H for DC, which zombie's material eval would view as an advantageous trade) and giving up a camel hostage. From there, Bomb used the camel hostage to continually threaten Zombie's back line with a lone camel while zombie kept advancing rabbits in an attempt keep the hostage alive and/or generate a goal threat. Eventually, Zombie advanced too much material without generating an effective threat, and its position collapsed.
Aamira vs. Faerie*
Aamira's initial advance of officers led Faerie into an EMH attack. Faerie retreated the M after Aamira took the offered H hostage. An advance on the opposite flank allowed Faerie to abandon the H hostage in order to capture Aamira's cat and set up simultaneous threats to Aamira's camel and horse. The ensuing scramble led to a complex tactical situation in which it appears Faerie had a deeper search; Aamira lost a significant amount of material between turns 10 and 30 while Faerie gave up relatively little. The endgame was a minor race, but Aamira had given up too many rabbits to mount a goal threat.
Occam* vs. GnoBot
The game was dominated by mixed tactical positions with no captures until turn 31. Most of this time was spent with the two bots alternately breaking and re-establishing a particular frame of one of Occam's rabbits that was pinning a horse. Occam's elephant was free to break the frame, but Gnobby's elephant kept the framing officer unfrozen and able to re-establish the frame in 2 steps each time. This sequence was repeated in various forms for almost 40 ply in total before Occam's slow forward swarm overwhelmed GnoBot tactically. A goal threat forced the loss of one of Gnobby's cats, reducing defense density enough for the rabbit to goal in that quadrant a few turns later.
Clueless* vs. Loc
Both bots maneuvered to gain control of the other's traps for about 20 turns. While clueless reinforced its back line, Loc preferred to scatter pieces away from its home traps. The scattering gave clueless total control of Loc's trap space while Loc's E and M had managed to gain only shared control of clueless' traps. Around turn 20, this led to the quick capture of several of Loc's pieces at home. The material deficit led to an inevitable, if slow, win by clueless, who focussed entirely on capturing more material rather than generating goal threats. The moral may be that, in the face of one or two strong opponents, reinforcing a trap with many small pieces is a better strategy than scattering.
EDIT: Descriptions of the remaining matches added.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 14th, 2007, 4:59pm by IdahoEv » |
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omar
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #16 on: Jan 14th, 2007, 2:25pm » |
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I just looked at the events log on the server and it seems to me that there may have been a network problem on the arimaa.com server during the clueless vs Zombie game.
1168735908 [Sun Jan 14 00:51:48 2007] move 14b received from b
1168736010 [Sun Jan 14 00:53:30 2007] move 15w received from w
1168736142 [Sun Jan 14 00:55:42 2007] move 15b received from b
1168736426 [Sun Jan 14 01:00:26 2007] move 16w received from w
1168736468 [Sun Jan 14 01:01:08 2007] w player has left
1168736469 [Sun Jan 14 01:01:09 2007] w player has left
1168736478 [Sun Jan 14 01:01:18 2007] b player has left
1168736486 [Sun Jan 14 01:01:26 2007] w player joining
1168736486 [Sun Jan 14 01:01:26 2007] w player present
1168736489 [Sun Jan 14 01:01:29 2007] b player joining
1168736489 [Sun Jan 14 01:01:29 2007] b player present
1168736615 [Sun Jan 14 01:03:35 2007] game finished with result w t
Shortly after receiving the move from clueless the
server thinks both players left and joined again a
few seconds after. This is a strong sign of a network
problem at the server.
For now I have cancled the next round that I had
previously setup. I have also notified the TD and
will wait for the official decision.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 14th, 2007, 2:26pm by omar » |
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IdahoEv
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #17 on: Jan 14th, 2007, 4:58pm » |
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on Jan 14th, 2007, 2:25pm, omar wrote:| I just looked at the events log on the server and it seems to me that there may have been a network problem on the arimaa.com server during the clueless vs Zombie game. |
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Thanks for checking on this Omar. I'll admit it seemed pretty unlikely to me for Zombie to timeout like that, and in offline tests it didn't particularly have trouble with that position.
I'll wait to report on round 4 until the refereeing is completed.
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Janzert
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #18 on: Jan 14th, 2007, 7:09pm » |
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FYI, as I mentioned in chat, as I was watching the game live I noticed Zombie's * (seated indicator) next to it's name disappear for a second or two at the beginning of the turn where it timed out.
Is it possible to restart the game from the same position? Since the bots won't have gained any advantage of thinking the position over. Then if Zombie times out again it'll be sure that it wasn't just the network problem.
Janzert
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #19 on: Jan 14th, 2007, 8:07pm » |
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on Jan 14th, 2007, 2:25pm, omar wrote:| For now I have cancled the next round that I had previously setup. I have also notified the TD and will wait for the official decision. |
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Interestingly, the pairings for round five should be identical whether Zombie or Clueless wins. The only way to avoid a repeat pairing is to give Clueless the bye and pair Zombie vs. Faerie and Bomb vs. Aamira. Then in round six, Clueless almost certainly has to play Bomb.
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RonWeasley
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #20 on: Jan 15th, 2007, 8:43am » |
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Since there was a game site server problem, the clueless vs. Zombie game in round 4 should be restarted from the position of the timeout. Reserve times should be set accordingly if possible. Otherwise, set reserve times as close as possible.
Tournament Director
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omar
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #21 on: Jan 15th, 2007, 12:24pm » |
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Thanks for the decision Ned.
I will try my best to restart this game from the same position with reserve times set as close to actual as possible. But after setting up the game I will have to immeadiately start the bots to start playing (otherwise the game will timeout again). Thus I will not be able to give advance notice of when the game will be continued (for those wishing to watch it live). Probably sometime later today I will get a chance to setup and continue this game.
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IdahoEv
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Round 4 Report
« Reply #22 on: Jan 16th, 2007, 1:23am » |
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Round 4 Standings:
In round 4, Occam and Loc were eliminated after losing to Aami-ra and Faerie,
respectively.
| Bot | Record | Defeated | Defeated by | | Bomb | 3-0 | GnoBot,Faerie,Zombie | | Faerie | 3-1 | Clueless, Aamira, Loc | Bomb | | Clueless | 3-1 | GnoBot,Loc, Zombie | Faerie | | Zombie | 2-2 | Occam, Aamira | Bomb, Clueless | | Aamira | 2-2 | Loc, Occam | Zombie, Faerie | | Occam | 1-3 | GnoBot | Zombie, Loc, Aamira | | Loc | 1-3 | Occam | Clueless, Aamira, Faerie | | GnoBot | 0-3 | | Bomb, Clueless, Occam |
Round 4 Games report: (click the heading to open game viewer)
Aamira* vs. Occam
Fritzlein summarized it nicely in comments: "When you get two bots that both advance full throttle, I guess it is logical that they will run right past each other!". Both bots rushed forward with numerous pieces, ignoring opportunities to hostage or possibly capture opposing pieces, and neglecting to defend home traps. But, Aamira's rush included a rabbit supported by an elephant in a quadrant that Occam had nearly emptied in its rush. That Occam had gained control of both Aamira's traps didn't matter at all when Aamira's one advanced rabbit goaled on turn 13.
Loc vs. Faerie*
This was an exciting game. Wow. In the opening and early mid-game, both bots used alternating threats of trades to leverage their way to greater threats, or short term "rescues" to reduce the severity of a threat. (For example, on 7w Faerie is facing an M for h trade, but rescues the M with a dog, dooming the dog but changing the trade to a muche more advantageous D for h trade. Loc declines the trade, rescuing the h and threatening a free D capture. Faerie responds by converting to a different D for h trade. Loc converts this back into the original M-for-h trade). Then, the critical moment came at turn 11w: one of those moves where a mixture of a fairly deep tactical search and luck begins to look eerily like high strategy. Faerie accepts the M-for-h trade, making a two-step move and opting not to defend the M, which it could have done with the dog, at least long enough for the E to arrive on the scene. Instead, conserving the dog loses the camel but sets Faerie up to occupy a Loc's weaker trap the next turn with an E-D attack. That attack triggered an uninterrupted sequence of four captures - rabbit, rabbit, cat, dog. But the first of those captures did not occur until three turns (six ply) after it decided to abandon the M rather than reinforce with the dog ... well outside the search horizon of any bot. As far as I understand it, Faerie could not have known that the dog had a more important use than rescuing the camel, but somehow it did. Afterwards, the dramatic material swing made Faerie's win more or less inevitable.
clueless* vs. Zombie (part 1)
The opening: clueless begins to pull a rabbit with a horse, and Zombie counterattacks with e-m. Clueless quickly takes the camel hostage, and Zombie responds by attempting to threaten various officers (dog, horse), but Zombie's limited mobility allows them to escape. Then, while clueless works on another rabbit pull, Zombie builds up a threat to clueless' camel and quickly converts it into an offer to trade the hostaged m for both clueless' M and H. Clueless can't rescue both, and is forced to allow the hostaged camel to escape, possibly setting up Zombie to control a trap and/or capture a horse within two turns.
At this point, Zombie timed out. However, the tournament director later determined that the timeout was likely caused by network or server trouble, and so the game was continued later in Part 2....
clueless * vs. Zombie (part 2)
The continuation of this game was unfortunately not very exciting, but it did reveal a critical flaw in Zombie: Zombie's search routine does not check for repeated positions. The escaped camel hostage of the first half became the center of a back-and-forth reversal as clueless and Zombie alternately made and unmade a not-quite-frame of the camel. This situation persisted for about 12 turns until Zombie repeated a position for the third time, losing the game.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #23 on: Jan 17th, 2007, 3:55pm » |
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Well, Faerie could have gotten a round 6 bye by winning in round 5. Given that Zombie won instead, it looks like we must have a Zombie-Faerie rematch in round 6 while Clueless and Bomb play. The good news for Zombie/Faerie is that the winner of their rematch will get a round 7 bye while Clueless and Bomb are forced to rematch.
Bomb is sitting pretty, needing only to win three before losing three. I still don't think Bomb will go undefeated, but I expect it can manage better than 50% from here on out.
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IdahoEv
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #24 on: Jan 17th, 2007, 5:31pm » |
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Round 5 Standings:
Aamira was eliminated after losing to Bomb.
| Bot | Record | Defeated | Defeated by | | Bomb | 4-0 | GnoBot,Faerie,Zombie,Aamira | | Clueless | 3-1 | GnoBot,Loc, Zombie | Faerie | | Zombie | 3-2 | Occam, Aamira, Faerie | Bomb, Clueless | | Faerie | 3-2 | Clueless, Aamira, Loc | Bomb, Zombie | | Aamira | 2-3 | Loc, Occam | Zombie, Faerie, Bomb |
Round 5 Games report: (click the heading to open game viewer)
Bomb* vs. Aamira
A fairly straightforward game: Aamira's forward rush got it into trouble early against Bomb's superior tactical play, with a horse loss on turn 6 and several other captures following. The resulting lack of defending officers on Aamira's line made for an easy goal by Bomb a few turns later.
Zombie* vs. Faerie
In early tactical maneuvering, both bots threatened the other's camel. Zombie converted the threat on its camel into an EMH attack on Faerie's c6 home trap. Moving up a pair of wing rabbits, Zombie was able to retain the mobility of the attacking camel and horse, freeing the elephant for other tasks as the two bots exchanged threats. Zombie used the mobile phant to create a split, forcing Faerie to choose between its camel and a dog. Since the dog was near the c6 trap, Faerie's defense was fatally weakened. Zombie moved up a dog to support the attack, took full control of the trap, and used its elephant to maintain a threat against Faerie's camel. After a few small trades, Zombie managed to push through one of the two early-advanced rabbits to goal on turn 23w.
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IdahoEv
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #25 on: Jan 18th, 2007, 1:04pm » |
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on Jan 17th, 2007, 3:55pm, Fritzlein wrote:| Bomb is sitting pretty, needing only to win three before losing three. I still don't think Bomb will go undefeated, but I expect it can manage better than 50% from here on out. |
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I think Bomb *will* go undefeated.
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IdahoEv
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #26 on: Jan 19th, 2007, 4:57pm » |
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Round 6 Standings:
Faerie was eliminated after losing to Zombie for a second time.
| Bot | Record | Defeated | Defeated by | | Bomb | 5-0 | GnoBot,Faerie,Zombie,Aamira,Clueless | | Clueless | 3-2 | GnoBot,Loc, Zombie | Faerie, Bomb | | Zombie | 4-2 | Occam, Aamira, Faerie x2 | Bomb, Clueless | | Faerie | 3-3 | Clueless, Aamira, Loc | Bomb, Zombie x2 |
Round 6 Games report: (click the heading to open game viewer)
Bomb* vs. Clueless
As noted by Fritzlein in the game's comments, clueless gave up a horse hostage to Bomb's elephant but failed to use its own camel and other horse to capitalize on the reduced mobility of Bomb's phant. Instead, over-cautious play allowed both those officers to get into trouble. Clueless abandoned the hostage, losing the horse and failing to take any material in return. A subsequent gridlocked snarl of most of the remaining material on the eastern wing (both E's, both camels, two horses) left Bomb with an unopposed horse and dog to push a rabbit through in the other corner.
Faerie * vs. Zombie
Zombie launched an EMH attack early, and managed to avoid getting either the M or H forked between Faerie's traps. Faerie made an unsupported M attack that eventually led to a trade of Zombie's advanced horse for Faerie's advanced camel, and a subsequent trade of Zombie's cat for Faerie's dog. Then in a clear demonstration of the material eval difference between the two bots, on turns 20-22 both bots opted to trade Zombie's camel for Faerie's cat and dog. (Faerie thinks M=5000, D=1800, C=1500, while for Zombie, C+D > M in all cases). Despite the material deficit, Faerie launched a goal threat after an injudicious rabbit advance by Zombie created a hole in his defensive line. However, the gold rabbit didn't reach goal, and the decentralization of Faerie's elephant -- created in trying to push its own rabbit through -- allowed Zombie to generate material threats that emptied Faerie's defenses in the opposite corner.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 19th, 2007, 5:03pm by IdahoEv » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #27 on: Jan 19th, 2007, 5:45pm » |
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on Jan 18th, 2007, 1:04pm, IdahoEv wrote:| I think Bomb *will* go undefeated. |
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Hmm... Only two wins to go for that. I guess I have to hope either that Bomb's dismemberment of Clueless was a fluke, or that Zombie's dangerous threats to Bomb were not a fluke. If Bomb wins undefeated, it will be the first time it has done so since beating just Gnobot and Occam in 2004. Bomb lost once to Clueless in both 2005 and 2006.
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IdahoEv
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #28 on: Jan 19th, 2007, 6:35pm » |
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on Jan 19th, 2007, 5:45pm, Fritzlein wrote:| If Bomb wins undefeated, it will be the first time it has done so since beating just Gnobot and Occam in 2004. |
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Hmm, I wasn't aware of the history. My opinion is in part my bias based on the fact that I can't beat Bomb. I tend to think of Bomb as invincible. Perhaps Clueless will win the next round, and we will continue to have an interesting tournament.
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DorianGaray
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #29 on: Jan 20th, 2007, 5:37am » |
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on Jan 19th, 2007, 5:45pm, Fritzlein wrote:
Hmm... Only two wins to go for that. I guess I have to hope either that Bomb's dismemberment of Clueless was a fluke, or that Zombie's dangerous threats to Bomb were not a fluke. If Bomb wins undefeated, it will be the first time it has done so since beating just Gnobot and Occam in 2004. Bomb lost once to Clueless in both 2005 and 2006. |
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Looks like we're not making much progress, are we? 
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