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Fritzlein
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2008 World Championship Format
« on: Oct 3rd, 2007, 9:47pm » |
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In the carpool home today, Omar floated an idea for a new World Championship format this year. If it is going to happen, we have to get started right away, so let me present the idea for community reactions, suggestions, critique, etc.
Omar has been torn between wanting the World Championship tournament to accurately determine the best player, but not be too long. Also it is nice for it to be an open tournament, so anyone can win regardless of their past record, but the more people sign up, the longer the tournament gets.
So, the suggestion he floated is to have the World Championship be an eight-player floating triple-elimination. That would take about nine rounds, i.e. not much longer than the eight-round World Championship tournament last year, but would be more accurate due to giving everyone a third life.
To keep the tournament open, however, two of the eight seats would be assigned to the winners of a qualifying tournament in November. That tournament would be an open five-round swiss-paired tournament. In addition to being a qualifying tournament, it would give folks a chance to play five serious live games regardless of their results, as opposed to having only one non-postal tourney per year, from which you can be eliminated in only two games.
There are many details to be decided, but I think the general idea has promise. One of the biggest issues is deciding who gets the six automatic berths into the finals. My thought would be this: take the p8-ratings, but only use human versus human games as the inputs. The top six in that list get automatic invitations. The list of automatic berths would be published before the qualifying tournament, i.e. very soon. Registration for the qualifier would have to begin immediately.
Another question is whether the top six can play in the qualifier. I suggest that they be totally barred from playing, since they could spoil the fun for the rest of the players who are trying to have their own party before the big party. If, however, automatic berths were allowed to play in the qualifier just for fun, then extra places from the qualifier should get berths, e.g. if three of the six automatic berths play in the qualifier, then the top five from the qualifier get berths in the final, potentially not including the folks who chose to play instead of getting an automatic seat. If you are determined to play in the qualifying tournament even though you don't have to, then your seat in the final should be genuinely at risk to ensure serious play.
If any of the six people with automatic berths into the final decline to play in the World Championship, then additional qualifiers would be invited to play in order of finish in the qualifying tournament. Also if the top finishers in the qualifying tournament declined to play in the finals, then additional finishers would be invited in order until the eight seats were filled.
This format does make it harder for anyone not in the top six to become World Champion, but in compensation there's a nice, fun, serious tournament for anyone who wants to play and not just get slaughtered, and advancing to the finals is still a possibility. The time control in the qualifier could be a little lighter, say 60 seconds per move instead of 90 for the finals.
What does everyone think of that? Fun for all? A good way to pick a champion? Who would register for a five-round swiss? I'm really very curious how this sounds to everyone.
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omar
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #1 on: Oct 3rd, 2007, 11:19pm » |
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I've always thought that the WC tournament should have only a limited number of top rated players so it could focus on selecting the best player. Of course our current rating system is not good for this, but consider something like the p8 rating but limited to H-H games. Karl and Jeff (jdb) have always felt that the WC should give anyone who wants to try a chance to prove they are the best; and thus be open for anyone to join.
So I started thinking maybe we should have two tournaments so that everyone is satisfied. See my posting of May 18 in this thread:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi?board=talk;action=display;nu m=1114794077;start=0
The second tournament would be designed to allow many players to participate and have a faster time control like 60s or 45s or maybe even 30s per move so that more people would be able to fit the tournament games into their schedule. The purpose of the tournament would not be to select the best player, but rather to have a fun event and see who comes out on top. Initially I thought it should be a single elimination tournament with random initial seeding, but Karl suggested making it a Swiss so that players could continue playing more games if they wanted and could drop out at anytime before being paired for the next round.
In the carpool today Karl and I considered the possibility of allowing the first and second place winners of the Open Classic to automatically be offered a spot in the WC tournament, with the WC tournament being limited to the top rated players (based on p8H rating).
The more we thought about it the more it sounded like a good idea because it seems to solve a lot of conflicting problem.
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chessandgo
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #2 on: Oct 4th, 2007, 2:38am » |
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I am 100 % against the WC participation being decided on ratings. I think everyone should have equal chance, so there's no reason why the 6th rated player should have a free seat while the 7th player must compete with the rest of the world for just 2 seats. A lot more annoying, ratings are subjects to being twisted, as we most unfortunately know.
Taking a look at p8 ratings, I see that syed is the third rated player. Why does it seems weird to me that syed qualifies while robinson has to go through the side tournament ?
Even if the rating used is not the p8 rating presented in the rating page, it would still be a huge problem. Does it mean every training game played during the year might be decisive for the WC ? As young as arimaa is, should we already stop innovation and play only for result, even in training game ? Or will we play most games unrated not to have to much pressure, which make the rating system inaccurate ?
And a rating system, whatever it is, can be twisted. It would mean that people investing time to improve their rating through devilish ways would have an advantage over folks who play it "fair". This I can't conceive. At least in the current WC formula, whoever want to play registers, and then only the play over the board matters.
I am not against a final tournament, but whatever the qualifying is, please don't make ratings play any important part. All in all, the floating elemination formula (with 2 or 3 lives, all the same) seems a really good compromise to me.
My final word on this is that any formula is good enough, as long at is fair : every player has the same (or almost the same) chance to win it no matter what happens outside the tournament in itself. In particular no matter the rating ...
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camelback
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #3 on: Oct 4th, 2007, 3:35am » |
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May be we can have previous year winner and runner-up given free entry to championship round and all interested players compete in qualifying round.
Just like FIFA World Cup winner and Host is given free entry in next world cup.
This way everybody except chessandgo and Fritzlein can have fun in the preliminary round 
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99of9
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #4 on: Oct 4th, 2007, 3:43am » |
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Jean, they're not proposing to use the current p8 ratings, but instead a hypothetical p8H rating that only includes HvH games. If we're going to use ratings, I support the use of HvH only.
Nevertheless, I agree with Jean that any rating system is open to exploitation, and using ratings to decide participation will have unintended bad consequences. In addition to your points above, here are some further issues:
- Sockpuppets appear to be permissable at the moment, would sockpuppet vs sockpuppet games be included in the ratings?
- Players rated better than 6th may stop playing rated games for months in advance if they are worried about losing rating. Top chess players only seem to play a few dozen rated games per year... that might be even less than me!
- As far as I recall, p8 doesn't have a time decay. So can Fritz get automatic entry into the WC for the next 10 years as long as he doesn't play in between?
- People may become less willing to play clearly underrated opponents. Then who will those underrated people play? Bot's don't count, so they can't get their rating back up without generous opponents.
- People may seek out specific types of opponent (eg novices). We've already seen that someone of limited skill can get a very high rating by solely playing opponents way below their standard. p8 means you can't choose the same one every time, but there are plenty of novices around.
I think arimaa is still small enough to have an all-in system. If that necessarily involves a prequalifying stage with a short time control, surely a prospective champion can make it through that (assuming it has second or third chances).
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chessandgo
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #5 on: Oct 4th, 2007, 4:39am » |
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Thanks for expanding my concerns about rating abuse, even in H vs H mode, Toby. I subscribe to what you wrote.
Moreover, changing the number of lives from 2 to 3 in the current formula doesn't make the tournament much longer, I think (not more than a prequalifaction + final tournament with 3 lives, unless I'm much mistaken). So the length of the tournament doesn't seem a concern for the moment, or is it ?
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DorianGaray
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #6 on: Oct 4th, 2007, 5:42am » |
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on Oct 4th, 2007, 2:38am, chessandgo wrote:I am 100 % against the WC participation being decided on ratings. I think everyone should have equal chance, so there's no reason why the 6th rated player should have a free seat while the 7th player must compete with the rest of the world for just 2 seats. A lot more annoying, ratings are subjects to being twisted, as we most unfortunately know.
Taking a look at p8 ratings, I see that syed is the third rated player. Why does it seems weird to me that syed qualifies while robinson has to go through the side tournament ?
Even if the rating used is not the p8 rating presented in the rating page, it would still be a huge problem. Does it mean every training game played during the year might be decisive for the WC ? As young as arimaa is, should we already stop innovation and play only for result, even in training game ? Or will we play most games unrated not to have to much pressure, which make the rating system inaccurate ?
And a rating system, whatever it is, can be twisted. It would mean that people investing time to improve their rating through devilish ways would have an advantage over folks who play it "fair". This I can't conceive. At least in the current WC formula, whoever want to play registers, and then only the play over the board matters.
I am not against a final tournament, but whatever the qualifying is, please don't make ratings play any important part. All in all, the floating elemination formula (with 2 or 3 lives, all the same) seems a really good compromise to me.
My final word on this is that any formula is good enough, as long at is fair : every player has the same (or almost the same) chance to win it no matter what happens outside the tournament in itself. In particular no matter the rating ... |
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I concur in spades, H vs. H ratings are no better than H vs. B. I could have a friend of mine register, I’d boost his rating against bots a little and then I'd play him for a few games and we repeat the operation as many a time as needed, and voilà!!! I could get to 2500 H rating before you know it. Would people suspect anything? Well, maybe it were me, since some people around already branded me the devil incarnate, but what if someone else did it? Will Fritz (or someone as trustworthy) analyze every one of these games to see if there is a possibility of foul play? In my book that would be the only way to be sure.
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DorianGaray
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #7 on: Oct 4th, 2007, 5:51am » |
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on Oct 4th, 2007, 3:43am, 99of9 wrote:...Sockpuppets appear to be permissable at the moment, would sockpuppet vs sockpuppet games be included in the ratings?...
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I don't know of any of these "sockpuppet vs. sockpuppet" games. Maybe you could give us ONE EXAMPLE or are you just being hypothetical?
And just for the record, I don't intend to participate to any of those tournaments, as I never have in the past.
I don't despise them; it's just not what I do.
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UruramTururam
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #8 on: Oct 4th, 2007, 5:58am » |
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The 8 rounds WC is a good idea, but much to many places are to be awarded by the ranking. It should rather look somewhat like:
1. One slot goes automatically to the current champion.
2. One slot goes to the present postal tournament winner.
2. One slot goes to person of the highest current ranking (if it's one of the Champions the second or third ranked player is taken)
3. One slot goes to the person (not covered by the first three rules) with the highest human vs. human rating.
4. The remaining four places are for the winners of a qualification tournament.
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99of9
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #9 on: Oct 4th, 2007, 6:14am » |
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on Oct 4th, 2007, 5:51am, DorianGaray wrote:| I don't know of any of these "sockpuppet vs. sockpuppet" games. Maybe you could give us ONE EXAMPLE or are you just being hypothetical? |
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To the best of my knowledge it's just a hypothetical at the moment. But if we set up a tournament system that relied on rankings and didn't deal with this issue, then it could tempt people to try it. (Not necessarily those who already have multiple accounts.)
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DorianGaray
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #10 on: Oct 4th, 2007, 6:22am » |
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on Oct 4th, 2007, 5:58am, UruramTururam wrote:The 8 rounds WC is a good idea, but much to many places are to be awarded by the ranking. It should rather look somewhat like:
1. One slot goes automatically to the current champion.
2. One slot goes to the present postal tournament winner.
2. One slot goes to person of the highest current ranking (if it's one of the Champions the second or third ranked player is taken)
3. One slot goes to the person (not covered by the first three rules) with the highest human vs. human rating.
4. The remaining four places are for the winners of a qualification tournament. |
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I don't like the sound of that! I could agree in a pinch to number one, although I find it quite disturbing to think that a TRUE champion would avoid having to play against (most likely) much weaker opponents, why should that inconvenience him, isn't he supposed to be someone who likes the game?
2 is absurd, someone can be very crafty at postal speed and get his ... kicked by many at interactive speeds. That would clearly give an unfair advantage.
2 (the second one  ) is even worse given what we know about "ratings".
3 Makes a little more sense than 2 (the second one) but not much given the obvious loopholes it contains.
As for 4, if you are a strong player for such or such reason, you shouldn't be afraid to have to PROVE IT by going through the qualification process.
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chessandgo
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #11 on: Oct 4th, 2007, 7:39am » |
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I'd like to state again that the WC should be fair and self-contained, that is to say that the chances of a player should not depend on anything else than his moves during WC (qualifying, main tourney, ...) games. Thus taking into account rating should be done to the least extent possible. If we want to have a preliminary tournament, why not, and directly qualify players according to their perfomance in the previous WC, why not (even though it's a bit unfair for new players, but at least they'll cath up on next year), but I really beg Omar not to particularize any player according to any rating. It would only bring unfairness. And in my opinion some direct qualification according to previous WC ranking should not happen this year, as it was not stated on last championship that the first n places were rewarding something particular.
As for the issue of having a preliminary tournament at all, for the sake of having a fairer determination of the champion in no more time, aren't we so few players for the moment that we can have a 3-lives floating elimination tournament with everyone in no more time than a qualification tournament + 3-lives floating elimination tournament with 8 players ?
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UruramTururam
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #12 on: Oct 4th, 2007, 8:26am » |
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on Oct 4th, 2007, 6:22am, DorianGaray wrote:
Isomeone can be very crafty at postal speed and get his ... kicked by many at interactive speeds. That would clearly give an unfair advantage. |
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This does not matter at all. I see free slots in WC as a kind of awards for various Arimaa deeds, including winning PT.
Quote:| you shouldn't be afraid to have to PROVE IT by going through the qualification process. |
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So good players should not be afraid of a few lucky ones invited to WC either!
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jdb
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #13 on: Oct 4th, 2007, 8:54am » |
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on Oct 4th, 2007, 3:35am, camelback wrote:May be we can have previous year winner and runner-up given free entry to championship round and all interested players compete in qualifying round.
Just like FIFA World Cup winner and Host is given free entry in next world cup.
This way everybody except chessandgo and Fritzlein can have fun in the preliminary round |
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I support this format.
The winner and runner up in last year's tourny would be seeded one and two in the final tournament. The top six finishers in the qualifying tournament would be seeded third thru eighth in the final tournament. This would mean that ratings play no part in the process.
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RonWeasley
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Re: 2008 World Championship Format
« Reply #14 on: Oct 4th, 2007, 9:08am » |
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This year there may few enough so that it can work like last, I agree. I might add that currently, the players whose ratings are inconsistent with others of similar skill are not likely to compete in this HvH contest.
If there become too many, we might consider in the future using qualifying groups like in World Cup. The groups are formed by seeding players according to rating. Let's say there are four qualifying groups. Put the top 4 rated players into groups A through D. Then put players rated 5 through 8 into groups D through A. The top two performers in each group qualify for the final 8. The top seeds get an advantage by not playing each other to qualify and some groups might get stacked with underrated players, but everybody gets an equal shot at earning the championship. Sock puppets (is this term used in other e-forums?) would complicate things. Evidence would have to be reviewed by Omar and the TD as to whether to disqualify (and probably ban) the offending accounts.
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