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Topic: 2009 Arimaa Challenge (Read 7815 times) |
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omar
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Arimaa player #2
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #105 on: Apr 4th, 2009, 7:45am » |
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on Apr 3rd, 2009, 9:50am, RonWeasley wrote:
Yes. Please continue the game. |
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I tried to continue this game, but ran into some technical problems and wasn't able to continue it. I had to void the game.
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Simon
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Arimaa player #1198
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #106 on: Apr 4th, 2009, 8:43am » |
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I definitely think the vulnerability to elephant blockades could be fixed without weakening GnoBot too much. It would probably best to put in an asymmetric evaluation of blockade positions, since bots tend to be much worse than humans at exploiting a blockade of an enemy elephant.
That would seem to be the most obvious and significant hole for GnoBot. There seem to also be obvious but insignificant things like not recognizing elimination as a win condition, which probably doesn't have much effect (could it be turned into a GnoBot-bashing technique? I figure it probably already defends its rabbits enough that if you can win by elimination, you could probably win without it).
Now there's also more subtle stuff like the failure to detect Tuks' goal far enough in advance. I don't think this is a specific problem of GnoBot's as opposed to current bots in general. Anyway, that would definitely be tougher to fix. One possible approach is to do a search, separate from the regular alpha-beta search, to look for forced wins or losses. This would take place before the regular search and avoid evaluation, except perhaps evaluation directly related to win conditions, to save time. Any positions found to be forced wins for either player would then be added to the regular transposition table with the evaluation set to the appropriate value for a win/loss. Still, that would probably only help a little bit. A more radical approach might be to look at game positions not by looking at the board as a whole, but at a more local level. The dynamics of a single quarter of the board, for example, ought to be a lot more tractable then the board as a whole, and if it could be detected that there is long term trouble in one quarter, that could perhaps be used to decide whether to send in reinforcements. This could be a lot more complicated than current bots of course.
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Arimabuff
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Arimaa player #2764
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #107 on: Apr 4th, 2009, 10:21am » |
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I am glad that in spite of all the trouble we had this year the bot who won the screening is also the one most likely to pose problems to the defenders. With all due recognition to 99's wonderful job in developing Gnobot to such a refined level, if think this screening along with the WCC proved without the shadow of a doubt that Clueless is clearly ahead of it.
But it also proved that Gnobot is not far behind and that for next year Jdb will have his work cut out for him to keep ahead of the race.
In conclusion, I can't wait to see what game plans our worthy challenge defenders will come up with for our collective intellectual pleasure.
Let the games begin... 
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #108 on: Apr 7th, 2009, 11:58am » |
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Silicon 1 - Humanity 0. This is the first time the bot has led in any Challenge!
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omar
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #2
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #109 on: Apr 7th, 2009, 3:37pm » |
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Or how about:
Silicon 1 - Carbon 0 
arimaa_master mentioned after the game that he was experimenting a bit to see if maybe he could win by smothering bot_clueless It kind of backfired when clueless turned it into a tactical game. I think he will do fine if he plays his usual style.
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #110 on: Apr 7th, 2009, 3:49pm » |
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I agree that clueless' win was an aberration. I expect the humans to sweep the remaining eight games. But do you remember in the 2008 Postal Mixer when we all said OpFor was doing well just because we had been surprised? And then OpFor went on to win games from unclear positions against wary opponents?
I was planning to give clueless a dog handicap in my first game, but that plan is officially shelved. If I lose on Saturday, I will lose scared, not surprised.
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omar
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Arimaa player #2
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #111 on: Apr 10th, 2009, 3:50pm » |
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Yes, going into a game too confidently and underestimating the opponent is always a good formula for losing. Perhaps my being overly cautious in the first 5 games of the first challenge match is what helped me win those. Then I experimented just a bit in the last three games only after getting familiar with Bomb's ability at that level.
If I were one of the three defenders this year, I would go into the games as if I am about to face the world champion. Winning the game should be first priority and experimenting should be postponed to the third game of the series if the first two games are won.
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RonWeasley
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Harry's friend (Arimaa player #441)
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #112 on: Apr 11th, 2009, 10:44am » |
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In the first game of clueless vs. chessandgo, chessandgo did not log into the game site at the scheduled time. The alternate defender, omar, was available. We waited an hour an 10 minutes, and I ruled that omar would play that game in chessandgo's place. This game became official on move 3.
It was not logistically impractical to reschedule the game instead, but with an alternate ready to play, I decided this substitution was best for the Match as a whole. Thanks to omar for stepping in.
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omar
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Arimaa player #2
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #113 on: Apr 11th, 2009, 3:07pm » |
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Thanks Ron for being available at a critical time.
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chessandgo
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Arimaa player #1889
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #114 on: Apr 12th, 2009, 1:18am » |
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I apologize to the team and spectators for missing this game. Thanks a lot Omar for playing it.
Jean
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omar
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Arimaa player #2
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #115 on: Apr 14th, 2009, 6:14am » |
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No problem. That's what the backup is for
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RonWeasley
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Harry's friend (Arimaa player #441)
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #116 on: Apr 27th, 2009, 8:38am » |
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Let me officially congratulate arimaa_master, chessandgo, Fritzlien, and omar for a successful defense of the Arimaa Challenge. The humans won all matches and even a handicap game. Omar gets to keep his money for another year.
Let me congratulate jdb and bot_clueless for providing the strongest challenger so far. clueless's play has started the community thinking seriously again about when a bot will win the Challenge.
Now that the Challenge matches are over, I would like to remind the community that this is a good time to discuss any tournament rules changes we would like to see in next year's Challenge cycle.
Finally, thank you all for your cooperation and patience during these unexpectedly eventful matches. It is always an honor to serve as TD. It doesn't always have to be me, but I am glad for the opportunity to contribute. Active players who can't play the WC tournament might consider contacting Omar if they would like to volunteer and provide some more variety to the contest.
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #117 on: May 27th, 2009, 3:36pm » |
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Thank you for serving as Tournament Director, Ron. It is reassuring to know that when unexpected events happen, someone with Arimaa experience and steady judgment will rule on how to handle it.
I agree with you that it makes sense to suggest rule changes for next year. For the Challenge match itself, I can only think of a clarification. I disagree
umption has been that if the substitute plays some games of a mini-match, his score is added to the score of the original player to determine whether or not the bot wins the mini-match. For example, if the regular player loses one game and the sub wins two games, then the humans win that mini-match, right?
But what if more than one original player needs a substitution? Can the alternate sub in on more than one mini-match? If so, suppose two original players each win twice, and the alternate player loses twice, once for each substitution. Is it the case that humanity doesn't lose either mini-match, even though one human lost twice?
My main concerns, however, are for the screening period. I think the current setup is too prone to manipulation. Admittedly, we have not yet had anyone trying to throw the screening to one bot or the other, but the current rules still seem too easy to abuse.
I believe that most of the possibility for abuse would be eliminated by have the screening be invitation-only. Omar should invite established members of the community whom he trusts to do the screening, and those people, in accepting the responsibility to be on the Screening Committee, should for their part commit to playing all four games abiding by the decisions of the Tournament Director.
Having an invitation-only Screening Committee closes the biggest loopholes for abusing the screening process, namely that a developer might play under a pseudonym in order to throw games to his bot, or a Challenge Defender might play under a pseudonym to gain experience, or any member of the community might play under a pseudonym in order to get more than four games. If the publication of Arimaa boxed sets boosts the popularity of our game anywhere near as much as I expect it to, then being able to rely on our tiny community where we all know each other will soon be a quaint memory. There will be strong players we know nothing about, so when some newly created account comes in and loses to one bot while beating the other, we won't be able to be sure it is a duplicate account, but neither will we be able to be sure it is legitimate. That circumstance would put us in a position that would be impossible to judge, but a Screening Committee would spare us from ever facing such a situation.
Oh, and we should also release the names of the Challenge defenders at the beginning of the Computer Championship, rather than at the beginning of the Screening. To keep with the spirit of learning bots, we must allow bots to play differently against different opponents. GnoBot must be able to base its play against me on specifically my games. But for the screening period to serve its purpose of allowing humans to probe for weaknesses in the bots, we can't allow the bots to play one way during the screening and another way during the Challenge. If the names of the defenders are known before bot development is frozen, a developer could evade the prohibition on playing differently from the screening to the Challenge by hiding behind the permission to play differently against different opponents. If, however, the names of the defenders are not know until after development is frozen, this loophole disappears. This is all to say that I understand why the names of the defenders have to be secret temporarily. But once development is frozen, I see no point to the secrecy, and it has been a mild annoyance to me as a Challenge defender.
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99of9
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Gnobby's creator (player #314)
 
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Re: 2009 Arimaa Challenge
« Reply #118 on: May 27th, 2009, 7:12pm » |
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Perhaps we need more specific rules on game continuation vs replay vs abandonment vs judgement. We need to cover the following situations:
1) A human player's equipment or internet connectivity fails.
2) The server equipment, internet, or gameroom server fails.
3) Connectivity fails during the human's turn, but we cannot determine whether it was their internet or the gameroom's.
4) The bot is found to be running incorrectly on the server due to something that is not the developer's fault.
5) The bot is found to be running incorrectly on the server due to something that is the developer's fault.
6) There is some evidence that the bot is running incorrectly, but the cause cannot be determined.
1 and 5 seem easy (that party loses), but we probably need to consider the consequences of all the rest.
Are the rules different in screening and challenge?
Are the rules different for the computer championship (read all of the above as two computers)?
Is there a critical number of moves after which the rules change?
Does the broken game get added to the database that the bots can learn from?
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