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Topic: 2011 World Championship (Read 21186 times) |
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #180 on: Feb 7th, 2011, 8:41pm » |
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on Feb 7th, 2011, 6:00pm, 99of9 wrote:| I find the new rules of the spectator contest too difficult for someone in a bad timezone for viewing games live. |
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True, the new rules give a substantial advantage to a live viewer. Presumably the ability to change prediction will end when the game ends, i.e. 15 minutes before the spectators know it has ended, or else it would be too easy to cheat. Indeed, for the games I'm playing, I would have to go out of my way not to let my wife know that the game has ended. And if the predictions can't be changed any more starting about five moves from the end, then an exact prediction won't always be necessary to win. That means people who aren't watching the game live have at least a little chance to win with a prediction that is close but not exact. It isn't as bad as if the games were truly live. But yes, if you can't watch the game live, you will still be at a disadvantage.
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omar
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #181 on: Feb 7th, 2011, 10:04pm » |
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on Feb 7th, 2011, 10:05am, RonWeasley wrote:
Because nobody has had to commit to a posted time yet, I want to use the pairings from the algorithm we prefer. They would be the pairings quoted above.
If this question were asked later when players had already begun making plans based on the scheduler, I would use the inferior pairings. So Omar, please use the quoted pairing above. |
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I've changed the pairing algorithm to fix this problem and ran the pairing again. It now matches what Karl and Greg expected. Although running the pairing again caused the colors of the players to be changed sometimes where the algorithm had a choice. The algorithm randomly assigns the color when it has a choice.
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RonWeasley
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #182 on: Feb 8th, 2011, 7:21am » |
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on Feb 7th, 2011, 4:28pm, Adanac wrote:I was quite disappointed to see that we've already passed the deadline for the Spectator Contest and only 12 people signed up. What happened?? The Open Classic doubled in size this year while the Spectator Contest shrunk in half. 
Edit: Oh, I'm pretty sure this was the first year in which Omar added an entry fee. That's probably the reason. |
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I had already donated. So for me the Spectator Contest is free. I don't intend to change predictions in mid-game, even though Professor Trelawney is allowing it. I'm not even trying to understand that.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #183 on: Feb 8th, 2011, 9:23am » |
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on Feb 7th, 2011, 10:04pm, omar wrote:| I've changed the pairing algorithm to fix this problem and ran the pairing again. It now matches what Karl and Greg expected. |
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Thanks for changing that, Omar. I'm glad it was a small change to the algorithm, so you could re-run the automation rather than having to do the pairing by hand.
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Adanac
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #184 on: Feb 8th, 2011, 9:41am » |
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on Feb 7th, 2011, 8:41pm, Fritzlein wrote:
True, the new rules give a substantial advantage to a live viewer. Presumably the ability to change prediction will end when the game ends, i.e. 15 minutes before the spectators know it has ended, or else it would be too easy to cheat. Indeed, for the games I'm playing, I would have to go out of my way not to let my wife know that the game has ended. And if the predictions can't be changed any more starting about five moves from the end, then an exact prediction won't always be necessary to win. That means people who aren't watching the game live have at least a little chance to win with a prediction that is close but not exact. It isn't as bad as if the games were truly live. But yes, if you can't watch the game live, you will still be at a disadvantage. |
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So the Spectator Contest provides another advantage to delayed broadcasts, in addition to the fact that the players are better prepared for post-game interviews. But, wow, what a huge disadvantage for players who can't watch the games live.
Out of curiousity, will the system remember the initial predictions? Last year I entered them in the Wiki so that the community's pre-game predictions could be displayed after the game summary. With such a small number of contest participants this year, plus the ability to change predictions mid-game, it may not be worth the effort this time.
But I can totally appreciate how the mid-game prediction changes would make live viewing more enjoyable.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 8th, 2011, 10:28am by Adanac » |
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omar
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #185 on: Feb 8th, 2011, 6:58pm » |
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on Feb 8th, 2011, 9:23am, Fritzlein wrote:
Thanks for changing that, Omar. I'm glad it was a small change to the algorithm, so you could re-run the automation rather than having to do the pairing by hand. |
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Thanks to you and Greg for taking the time to ingestive this and explaining the root of the problem.
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omar
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #186 on: Feb 8th, 2011, 7:13pm » |
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on Feb 8th, 2011, 9:41am, Adanac wrote:
Out of curiousity, will the system remember the initial predictions? |
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Well, I can keep a log of the predictions for the game over time and it could be used to see what the predictions were at the beginning of the game, if we needed to. But I would not suggest you entering this in the wiki; you are already doing a lot by writing the game highlights. I'll just provide a link to the log so people can see how the predictions changed over time.
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omar
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #187 on: Feb 8th, 2011, 7:42pm » |
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on Feb 7th, 2011, 8:41pm, Fritzlein wrote:
True, the new rules give a substantial advantage to a live viewer. |
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I guess the advantage would decrease as the number of people participating increases.
Quote:| Presumably the ability to change prediction will end when the game ends, i.e. 15 minutes before the spectators know it has ended, or else it would be too easy to cheat. |
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Nope, a side effect of delaying reporting to the gameroom is that the ability to predict will not end until 15 minutes after the game is over. This by itself would not be a problem, except that the players will know the result. Players can't predict on their own games so a player would have to tell someone else.
Maybe what I'll do is stop the ability to predict at about 30 minutes after the scheduled game start time. Although most WC finals games go way beyond 30 minutes, there could of course be some wild game that ends sooner and still run the risk of being leaked. This also will give some advantage to being present at the game, but not as much as being able to predict to the end.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #188 on: Feb 8th, 2011, 9:29pm » |
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on Feb 8th, 2011, 7:42pm, omar wrote:| I guess the advantage would decrease as the number of people participating increases. |
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Yes, the more people that participate, the more likely it is that changing predictions mid-game will be of no use, because the winner will be an exact prediction entered before the game started. Since last year 30 predictors only managed to nail six out of sixteen games, this year 12 predictors should be expected to nail only two or three of sixteen games. Thus we should expect, with the low participation this year, that the ability to change mid-game will be very important.
Quote:| Nope, a side effect of delaying reporting to the gameroom is that the ability to predict will not end until 15 minutes after the game is over. This by itself would not be a problem, except that the players will know the result. Players can't predict on their own games so a player would have to tell someone else. |
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Right, that's my point. If predictions can go on for fifteen minutes after the game, there is a huge loophole. Imagine this scenario: I am losing to chessandgo, but pull off a last-minute swindle to win on move 55. The winning contestant turns out to be my wife Katie, who entered her prediction five minutes before the game ended. Afterwards we both swear that I didn't let out a peep after I won, and that she was just watching the game, and got excited that I might come back, and changed her prediction at the last minute to have me winning just because she saw a chance that chessandgo might mess up. Well, we can say whatever we like, and it might even be true, but the situation is entirely untenable, because we had the means to cheat trivially, and you will never know if we did or not. Indeed, to avoid winning in a way that everyone could assume is cheating, Katie will have to handicap herself by making her bets on my games before the games start and not changing thereafter.
Quote:| Maybe what I'll do is stop the ability to predict at about 30 minutes after the scheduled game start time. Although most WC finals games go way beyond 30 minutes, there could of course be some wild game that ends sooner and still run the risk of being leaked. This also will give some advantage to being present at the game, but not as much as being able to predict to the end. |
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Allowing only 30 minutes of prediction-changing seems like a reasonable compromise. Everyone who changes his prediction after the game starts will have to wonder whether that exact prediction was made before the game by someone who isn't watching and isn't going to change, so that blunts the advantage of being a live watcher. Also, ending the ability to change prediction before the game ends takes away the easy avenue for cheating.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #189 on: Feb 8th, 2011, 9:43pm » |
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on Feb 8th, 2011, 7:13pm, omar wrote:| Well, I can keep a log of the predictions for the game over time and it could be used to see what the predictions were at the beginning of the game, if we needed to. |
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But it is important not to display any information about what other people have predicted until after the cutoff for making changes. This is true whether the cutoff for making changes is before or after the start of the game.
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99of9
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #190 on: Feb 8th, 2011, 10:19pm » |
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on Feb 8th, 2011, 9:29pm, Fritzlein wrote:| Katie will have to handicap herself by making her bets on my games before the games start and not changing thereafter. |
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Karl will also have to handicap himself by not letting out groans and squeals during play. Imagine if you asked the tennis players to abide by such a handicap - there would be uproar! 
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Janzert
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #191 on: Feb 8th, 2011, 10:41pm » |
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on Feb 8th, 2011, 9:43pm, Fritzlein wrote:
But it is important not to display any information about what other people have predicted until after the cutoff for making changes. This is true whether the cutoff for making changes is before or after the start of the game. |
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Oh no, I hadn't considered that before. But I think you're right the predictions have to be hidden until after the predictions have closed.
I dropped out of participating in the spectator contest after it was changed such that the best strategy for play was not to choose your best prediction for the outcome of the game. I still found it pretty interesting to find out at the start of a game what the predictions were though. I guess I'm pretty far away from the target for the spectator contest and I suppose the changes made probably have made it better for them, it just seems each change ends up making it less interesting to me. 
Janzert
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #192 on: Feb 8th, 2011, 11:32pm » |
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on Feb 8th, 2011, 10:41pm, Janzert wrote:| I dropped out of participating in the spectator contest after it was changed such that the best strategy for play was not to choose your best prediction for the outcome of the game. |
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My sentiments exactly. The original contest rewarded accurate estimation. Now it is more of a lottery.
Quote:| I guess I'm pretty far away from the target for the spectator contest and I suppose the changes made probably have made it better for them, it just seems each change ends up making it less interesting to me. |
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Yes, I'm apparently not in the target audience either. But I'm not a gambler by nature. The majority of people seem to like bingo and raffles and guessing games. The less skill-based a game becomes, the more everyone can play along and have a chance. I think that's why Omar has evolved the spectator contest in the direction he has. After all, if people wanted a game of pure skill, they would be playing Arimaa. 
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #193 on: Feb 8th, 2011, 11:41pm » |
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on Feb 8th, 2011, 10:19pm, 99of9 wrote:| Karl will also have to handicap himself by not letting out groans and squeals during play. |
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Oh, man, you don't want to know what you would have heard in my house during my game with rabbits, particularly after I realized how bad my move 45g was. Let's just say that vulgar and blasphemous don't entirely cover it...
I suppose for my games Katie is going to have to leave her prediction unaltered regardless of when the change deadline is. But win or lose, she has fun keeping her predictions secret and teasing me about whether she is betting for or against me on any given game.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 8th, 2011, 11:42pm by Fritzlein » |
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omar
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Re: 2011 World Championship
« Reply #194 on: Feb 9th, 2011, 7:35am » |
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I decided to go back to using last years format for the spectator contest to avoid the complications of allowing predictions to be changed during delayed games.
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