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Topic: 2008 World Championship Discussion (Read 5705 times) |
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: 2008 World Championship Discussion
« Reply #75 on: Mar 24th, 2008, 10:34am » |
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Thanks, everyone, for all the congratulations. I enjoy Arimaa because it is a great game, but I enjoy it much more than any other great game because of the wonderful community on arimaa.com. We are all part of something really special. When Arimaa finally hits the big time, and there are hundreds of people on line any time of the day or night, and the playing pool is too big for us to get to know each other any more, I will look back on these early days with great nostalgia. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: 2008 World Championship Discussion
« Reply #76 on: Mar 24th, 2008, 11:33am » |
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on Mar 24th, 2008, 8:30am, aaaa wrote:| I noticed that Fritzlein had Gold in both matches against chessandgo. I believe that for the purpose of determining colors, past pairings between two specific opponents should have priority over their overall color past. |
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We are lucky in Arimaa that the first move advantage is miniscule, at least so far. I can't remember what color I was playing in key games of the tournament, which would sould ridiculous to a chess player. In chess, if you remember what you did, you necessarily remember what color you had, because (for example) you don't play the French Defense with white. In arimaa I might have swarmed with either color or taken a hostage with either color or pulled rabbits with either color, so it seems much less essential. Maybe when we know what we are doing a little better it will matter more, though, so it makes sense to pay attention to the color issue now.
In this case, I definitely agree that the colors should have been reversed for the final game. Chessandgo and I had each had two gold and two silver in the first four rounds, so the colors for the final game were chosen at random. It makes sense to me to use the past head-to-head colors as a tiebreak in what otherwise is a coin flip. If color were really important, chessandgo would have a legitimate complaint that he got knocked out prematurely by having to play Silver in the first two games of our best-of-three mini-match.
However, when there is an overall color imbalance, I don't agree with you. The scenario could have been slightly different. Suppose we had been entering the sixth round, instead of the fifth, and I had had two gold and three silver while chessandgo had had two silver and three gold. Suppose also that I was on the brink of elimination by having lost with silver to someone else. Then I think it would be more unfair to give an overall color imbalance than to give a head-to-head color imbalance. If I were given my fourth silver while chessandgo got his fourth gold, just to even the colors head-to-head, and I got knocked out in that game, then I would have a legitimate complaint that I got knocked out prematurely by having to play Silver too many times overall.
In 2008 the World Championship came down to a best-of-three between myself and chessandgo with neither of us losing to anyone else, but that is by no mean guaranteed in future years. The World Championship is a open tournament where we all play against each other, and overall fairness is of primary importance. In a repeat pairing we can't assume that all the other games each player has played are inconsequential (a compliment to chessandgo and myself that we don't deserve even this year).
To return to my first point, we are lucky to be discussing something that matters only in theory. Until we have any kind of opening theory, color is much less relevant than how the tournament is seeded/paired. It would have more practical impact to discuss whether we will use the same format next year of Swiss preliminary and floating-double-elimination final, or instead use a unified floating-triple-elimination.
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aaaa
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Arimaa player #958
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Re: 2008 World Championship Discussion
« Reply #77 on: Mar 24th, 2008, 1:15pm » |
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I would like to point out that it was more than a year ago that you last defeated chessandgo in a rated game where you played Silver.
Regardless of whether we prioritize local or global color balancing, they both should be in the rules, which curiously fails to mention colors with regard to the finals except when it comes to tie-breaking games.
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: 2008 World Championship Discussion
« Reply #78 on: Mar 24th, 2008, 1:55pm » |
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on Mar 24th, 2008, 1:15pm, aaaa wrote:| I would like to point out that it was more than a year ago that you last defeated chessandgo in a rated game where you played Silver. |
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I had no idea. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. In the past year, counting only rated games, I am 8-6 against chessandgo when playing Gold, but 0-4 when playing Silver. That really does cast a shadow on the tournament result. If I had known, I would have lobbied hard for reversed colors in the final game just in case.
Let me toss another statistic into the mix: In my last 26 rated games with PMertens, I am 11-2 when I play Silver but only 3-10 when I play Gold.
Do you think that both of these statistics are meaningful? That is to say, in a PMertens/Fritzlein match, whoever plays Silver has a distinct advantage, whereas in a chessandgo/Fritzlein match whoever plays Gold has a distinct advantage?
I have been assuming until now that any color advantage is negligible, but that's just because I have been looking at the game room statistics in aggregate. Perhaps on average there is hardly any color advantage, but for each pair of players there is a color advantage, sometimes for Gold and sometimes for Silver. If so, this is an especially strong argument for ignoring the global color balancing in a tournament (since overall we can't say which is better), while diligently making sure to balance color head-to-head (since for a given pair of players some color can be a huge advantage).
The appearance of unfairness is very damaging to the credibility of the World Championship. For the 2009 World Championship let me propose the following rule: A player may unilaterally give his opponent choice of color. I hereby pledge to give my opponent choice of color in every game in order to compensate for any unfair advantage I might have gotten this year.
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| « Last Edit: Mar 24th, 2008, 2:17pm by Fritzlein » |
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Janzert
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Arimaa player #247
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Re: 2008 World Championship Discussion
« Reply #79 on: Mar 24th, 2008, 2:03pm » |
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Hmm, yeah looks like the color assignment rule for the regular games got lost when rewriting the rules for 2007. It is correctly mentioned in the 2006 rules.
I personally think the current practice of global history being used first to assign color is better than just the current pairs history. But adding the current pairing history as tie breaker before going to random assignment is probably a good idea.
Janzert
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: 2008 World Championship Discussion
« Reply #80 on: Mar 24th, 2008, 3:03pm » |
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on Mar 24th, 2008, 1:55pm, Fritzlein wrote:| For the 2009 World Championship let me propose the following rule: A player may unilaterally give his opponent choice of color. I hereby pledge to give my opponent choice of color in every game in order to compensate for any unfair advantage I might have gotten this year. |
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On second thought, it is a poor proposal for a rule change to introduce choice of color. It would make a big headache for the tournament coordinator. Furthermore, it is in any case a bad idea to try to make up for this year with next year's behavior. We should of course make the rules for next year as good as possible, but in the mean time fix this year's problems this year. So here's an alternate proposal:
If the finals were triple-elimination instead of double-elimination, we would have time to fix the head-to-head color imbalance. Let's pretend it actually is triple-elimination and play more games where chessandgo gets to be Gold every game while I am Silver. If chessandgo can win three straight against me when he has Gold, then I'll have three losses to his two, and he will have demonstrated that he is the legitimate champion.
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RonWeasley
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Harry's friend (Arimaa player #441)
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Re: 2008 World Championship Discussion
« Reply #81 on: Mar 24th, 2008, 4:16pm » |
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I agree that we want to make the rules more specific about color assignments for future WC tournaments.
As for this year's tournament, the final games were played according to the posted rules. I have reviewed the games and determined that the color assignments gave no obvious advantage to either player. In fact, the games between Fritzlein and chessandgo were very close, with the perceived advantage shifting during each game. I really believe these games were decided in the middle games, by the impressive skills of both players, accounting for the tournament situations, and not by the opening colors. Further, the community has discussed the issue of whether a color advantage exists. At present, we believe gold should have an advantage in theory, but game statistics do not yet support this belief.
I understand that there are logically consistent arguments to be made for re-examining the tournament's result and I thank aaaa especially for calling them to our attention. If we had noticed at the time, we would have reversed the colors of the final game. But the game has been played in good faith and I think this issue is not sufficient to call back the result. Therefore, in this particular case, as Tournament Director, I rule that these games were played fairly (and well) according to the tournament rules and the result stands with Fritzlein as the new World Champion.
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chessandgo
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Arimaa player #1889
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Re: 2008 World Championship Discussion
« Reply #82 on: Mar 24th, 2008, 5:21pm » |
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Yes, the color issue is not important at all. There can be no doubt as for the validity of our last game with Karl. I'm sorry that you had to make an extra official ruling here, Ron.
As we play nowadays, gold has a very slight advantage I think, but of no importance compared to the swings occuring in the games.
For next events, I don't feel a particular need for a rule change ... playing gold twice and silver 3 times is no big deal compared with 3 gold and twice silver.
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omar
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Arimaa player #2
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Re: 2008 World Championship Discussion
« Reply #83 on: Mar 24th, 2008, 10:25pm » |
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Congratulations Karl on winning the WC and congratulations Jean for placing second. This was an incredible tournament with many close and well fought games. I really enjoyed watching the games.
Thanks also to everyone who participated, both players and spectators.
Thanks for the ruling Ned. I really like the reasoning behind your decision. I am sure glad we have you to provide sound judgment in such situations. Next year I will have to be more explicit about the color assignment; so we don't run into this again.
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PMertens
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Arimaa player #692
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Re: 2008 World Championship Discussion
« Reply #84 on: Mar 30th, 2008, 3:28am » |
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Grats to all players for nice tournament and of course especially to Karl and Jean for breathtaking performance.
You two are a leauge of your own ... ( atm  )
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aaaa
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Arimaa player #958
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Re: 2008 World Championship Discussion
« Reply #85 on: Mar 30th, 2008, 10:17am » |
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I can vouch for that. My rating system has them both well in the 2700s, more than 300 points clear of the number 3, Adanac.
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: 2008 World Championship Discussion
« Reply #86 on: Mar 30th, 2008, 9:09pm » |
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Thanks for the compliments, PMertens and aaaa.
The final game commentary is up. Thanks to everyone who participated for creating great games to watch live and replay when I was trying to write them up.
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