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Topic: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament (Read 3306 times) |
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Adanac
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Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« on: Feb 13th, 2012, 1:18pm » |
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I think it would be a great learning experience to have a Knockout Tournament where players competed in head-to-head matches (best-of-nine, I’m thinking) with the winner of each match advancing to the next round. I expect to have enough free time to organize such an event beginning in the late spring. There would be a modest entry fee plus a deposit to discourage dropouts and I’ll also add a couple hundred dollars to the pot to make it more lucrative. With 16 players there would be 4 rounds; the first two in May-December 2012 plus the semi-finals and finals in May-December 2013. So each round would last approximately 17-18 weeks with ample time to complete all the games without feeling too rushed/overwhelmed.
First of all, is there enough interest for such an event? This proposal is quite a long-term commitment and with the postal mixer and World League already overlapping during the summer this extra event might be too much (BTW, I propose trying to schedule this Knockout tournament every 2nd week to avoid the World League weekends whenever possible). With the Arimaa community growing all the time, though, I expect there should be 8-16 people who would feel they have enough time for one more tournament.
The ideas I have so far are:
- Fairly short games so that players don’t burnout from 9-game matches: maybe 45 seconds per move with a 10-15 minute initial reserve?
- Avoid conflicts with other events. Games won’t coincide with the WC, WCC or Arimaa Challenge. We could play every 2nd week from May-December so that we avoid overlapping with the Arimaa World League.
- Lots of flexibility in scheduling: players can mutually agree upon dates & times for all 9 games, and may play more than one game per day if desired. If players cannot agree to all 9 dates & times then the extra games will be scheduled by a weekly program, with each player able to block out 4 weeks for vacation, etc. Games can be re-scheduled with enough notice (72 hours? 1 week?). Again, the priority should be to avoid weekends with other events, but it may not always be possible.
- There will be a pot of prize money for each round and then player’s share in that pot proportional to the number of wins. So if there are 8 matches with a total of 50 games then a player losing 5-2 would receive 4% of that round’s prize money while each match winner receives 10% (for winning 5 of 50 games, in this example).
- Seed by WHRE initially and then sort by performance then WHRE in subsequent rounds. Pair top vs bottom: So in a 16 player tournament the first round would be 1 vs. 16, 2 vs. 15, 3 vs. 14, etc.
- To guarantee each player a minimum of 10 games, there should be a consolation 2nd round. Each consolation victory would count as 0.5 wins for prize money purposes. To make it more enjoyable for the lowest-ranked players (who will probably get eliminated in the first round by the highest-rated players) the consolation pairings should be 9 vs. 10, 11 vs. 12, 13 vs. 14, 15 vs. 16, for example in a 16-player tournament. The WHRE would be re-calculated at the beginning of the consolation round to determine pairings.
My main motivation for this is to help promote our collective knowledge of Arimaa. The top players only seem to play one another a few times each year and this tournament could help speed up our collective learning curve. I think it would be a great way to improve opening theory as well because player will have plenty of time to study losses and try out new ideas. I’ll accept the responsibility of organizing the tournament and running a scheduler, though an assistant would be excellent (in a 16-player tournament there could be up to 72 1st-round games!!)
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| « Last Edit: Feb 13th, 2012, 1:38pm by Adanac » |
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clyring
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #1 on: Feb 13th, 2012, 2:22pm » |
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on Feb 13th, 2012, 1:18pm, Adanac wrote:- There will be a pot of prize money for each round and then player’s share in that pot proportional to the number of wins. So if there are 8 matches with a total of 50 games then a player losing 5-2 would receive 4% of that round’s prize money while each match winner receives 10% (for winning 5 of 50 games, in this example).
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Perhaps, to increase the incentive of the stronger player in a particular matchup to play their best in every game, it would be an option to either award the two unnecessary games in this situation to the series' winner or to have them played anyway? Losing one more game to win 5-3 would only decrease the winner's prize for the round by about 2%, which seems rather small to me, and indeed, allows the potential for some collusion (...suppose the weaker player offers to give the stronger player half of the money they gain by losing 5-4 instead of 5-0... That gives profit for both and less money to go around to the other players.).
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| « Last Edit: Feb 13th, 2012, 2:22pm by clyring » |
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Adanac
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #2 on: Feb 13th, 2012, 3:07pm » |
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on Feb 13th, 2012, 2:22pm, clyring wrote:
Perhaps, to increase the incentive of the stronger player in a particular matchup to play their best in every game, it would be an option to either award the two unnecessary games in this situation to the series' winner or to have them played anyway? Losing one more game to win 5-3 would only decrease the winner's prize for the round by about 2%, which seems rather small to me, and indeed, allows the potential for some collusion (...suppose the weaker player offers to give the stronger player half of the money they gain by losing 5-4 instead of 5-0... That gives profit for both and less money to go around to the other players.). |
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That’s an excellent point and maybe there’s a clever way to solve this problem and one other I’m worried about: how to reduce the number of forfeits without introducing a huge deposit that would deter people from joining. For example, a $40 deposit with $10 deducted for each forfeit would certainly make people think twice about joining unless they were very committed to playing (a very important incentive in a tournament that could potentially last 2 years). But it would also make the tournament unaffordable for some people who are serious about playing but can’t afford the deposit. So maybe the deposit could be only $10 and instead use the following system to solve both problems:
1. Both players receive 0.5 wins for each “unplayed” game in the match.
2. Each forfeit loss transfers 0.5 wins from the forfeit loser to the opponent.
3. A player who forfeits 2 games during the tournament loses $5 from the deposit. Three or more forfeits costs the full $10.
Example: Player A wins the match 5-1. Each player receives 1.5 extra wins because games 7, 8 & 9 were unplayed. So player A gets 6.5 wins for the purposes of prize money and Player B receives 2.5. If Player B had forfeited 3 games then the prize money would be split 8-1 and player B would also lose the $10 deposit. Because I want to guarantee each player at least 10 games, it seems fair to give extra prize money to players who were deprived of a game(s) because an opponent lost interest in the tournament, or whatever reason. Since players can earn the equivalent of “2 wins” for prize money just for losing 5-0, there is extra incentive not to forfeit without introducing a hefty initial deposit.
And I should also point out that there are 2 other factors that would discourage throwing games to a weaker player under the original system:
1. Round 2+ seeds are determined by previous round performance. Colluding to lose games in the 1st round could give a winning player a very difficult pairing in the 2nd round.
2. After throwing games to make the score 4-4 through 8 games, the stronger player might actually lose the 9th game and therefore lose lots of potential prize money in rounds 2+.  (That would lead to serious bitterness between the players too).
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Fritzlein
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #3 on: Feb 13th, 2012, 4:29pm » |
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My preferred format for a tournament would be floating-multiple-elimination. If we can sustain a mega-tournament across ten eliminations per entrant, then FXE would be the most awesome Arimaa tournament format ever in my book. If the goal is to spread Arimaa knowledge, facing a greater variety of opponents rather than the same opponent over and over again seems like a more efficient mechanism. If the worry is that people will drop out before two years is over, then FXE will get finish in fewer total weeks while being just as epic, and while guaranteeing everyone as many games minimum.
It's quite possible with match-knockout format for someone to be out after facing only two opponents, neither of which was an even match. My first match might be a blowout win and my second a blowout loss. Furthermore, many matchups that people would love to see will never happen. If chessandgo beats Fritzlein in one semi and Adanac beats hanzack in the other semi, there will have been zero games of Fritzlien vs. hanzack, Fritzlein vs. Adanac, or chessandgo vs. hanzack. The whole match-knockout format seems like a holdover from pre-Internet days when it would have been too expensive to get everyone into the same room, so it was necessary submit to absurdities such as having the sixteenth seed lose five times to the top seed instead of getting games against a variety of opponents. Even this year, when ocmiente got to play four different opponents he said, "I did not play harren or Simon during the tournament, so the whole final rank is questionable at best."
Having said all that, I learned from megajester and the Arimaa World League that the person with the organizational energy and motivation is the best person to pick the format. You should run the kind of event that you want to run, not the kind of event anyone else wants you to run. I was skeptical that AWL would fly, but it has been a huge success. Maybe the best-of-nine match between #1 and #16 will similarly prove its worth if we give it a chance, and we will not regret that matchups that didn't happen.
Bottom line: if you organize it, I will participate. With gusto.
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99of9
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #4 on: Feb 13th, 2012, 4:46pm » |
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On the other hand, matches allow the development of opponent-specific arimaa knowledge. How do we beat Fritz? How do we beat chessandgo? Making the investment to rake through your game history is probably only worth it in a match context.
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chessandgo
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #5 on: Feb 13th, 2012, 5:30pm » |
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on Feb 13th, 2012, 4:46pm, 99of9 wrote:
We don't (unless we're Adanac) 
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Sconibulus
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #6 on: Feb 14th, 2012, 9:53am » |
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I see the merits of both sides of this, Adanac wants each game to matter less and the advancer to be the better player of the two, whereas Fritz likes the idea of multiple opponents.
I have to admit that there is a certain appeal to a straight playoff format, but then there is a much higher chance for dissatisfaction among the lower seeds. Maybe a decent hybrid system that would end up being about the same length would be a fixed-bracket double elimination. Yes, an earlier loss would mean more games required to win the tournament, but it might also mean a larger share of the prize money not awarded to the victor, and since the title would matter less in this case than in the WC, a harder road to get there means less.
Another advantage of fixed brackets is that it makes organization easier, one of the criterion Adanac might well be considering.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #7 on: Feb 14th, 2012, 11:23am » |
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Traditional fixed-bracket double-elimination has two rounds in the losers' bracket for every one in the winners' bracket. This means the schedule would have to slow down the winners' bracket to wait for the losers' bracket, unless the losers' bracket were playing matches half as long, say best-of-five instead of best-of-nine.
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tharkun
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #8 on: Feb 14th, 2012, 12:56pm » |
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My 2 cents.
First of all, it is a fantastic idea to have more human vs. human matches. My hunch is that you learn much more from such games and their subsequent post mortem and analysis than from playing against bots.
I would advise you to think carefully about the tournament's purposes. If I understand you correctly, the main goal is to increase our collective knowledge of Arimaa. As Sconibulus points out, Fritzlein's suggestion to have a greater variety of opponents seems to be more in line with this objective. Furthermore, our collective knowledge does not only benefit from the strongest players becoming even stronger, but rather from an increase in playing strength at any level. Thus, I do not understand the rationale behind an elimination format, which is intrinsically geared towards the upper echelons of the player base.
No matter what format you end up choosing, it will probably be awesome. It is a shame that I (probably) won't be able to participate, since I am unable to make commitments for the summer months at this point...
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Adanac
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #9 on: Feb 14th, 2012, 4:11pm » |
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Thanks for the feedback. Here's my new proposal to address some of the concerns:
I don’t expect too many players to join, perhaps 8-16 at most. If it’s split into two tournaments of 4-8 players each then both tournaments could be completed by the end of 2012. Everyone plays every round, so there will be a consolation bracket throughout the tournament. To speed things up, it could be a best-of-seven format with each round lasting 13 weeks, wrapping up in late December.
The entry fee could be perhaps 1500 Arimaa points ($15 US) plus a 1500 deposit to deter forfeits. I’ll add 15000 Arimaa Points to the prize fund (which would additionally include entry fees, of course) for the Open tournament and 5000 AP to the Under-2000 division. If someone rated under 2000 wants to compete for the big prizes in the Open tournament they can, but it’ll be a tougher road 
on Feb 14th, 2012, 12:56pm, tharkun wrote:| I would advise you to think carefully about the tournament's purposes. If I understand you correctly, the main goal is to increase our collective knowledge of Arimaa. As Sconibulus points out, Fritzlein's suggestion to have a greater variety of opponents seems to be more in line with this objective. Furthermore, our collective knowledge does not only benefit from the strongest players becoming even stronger, but rather from an increase in playing strength at any level. Thus, I do not understand the rationale behind an elimination format, which is intrinsically geared towards the upper echelons of the player base. |
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I guess the elimination format is to make it easier to organize. If this tournament ever becomes really popular in future years, the elimination format gives the organizer an easier time as the number of games drops in half each round. I’ll try to run two separate divisions this year to reduce the number of rounds and make it possible for everyone to compete in every round.
on Feb 13th, 2012, 4:29pm, Fritzlein wrote:My preferred format for a tournament would be floating-multiple-elimination. If we can sustain a mega-tournament across ten eliminations per entrant, then FXE would be the most awesome Arimaa tournament format ever in my book. If the goal is to spread Arimaa knowledge, facing a greater variety of opponents rather than the same opponent over and over again seems like a more efficient mechanism. If the worry is that people will drop out before two years is over, then FXE will get finish in fewer total weeks while being just as epic, and while guaranteeing everyone as many games minimum.
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I don’t want to just duplicate the World Championship format. Next year’s WC format hasn’t yet been decided upon, but I suppose we could lobby for a 64-player quadruple-elimination and have a super-epic World Championship. Other than the fact that everyone’s spouse would start complaining “When’s that stupid tournament going to end?” sometime around April/May, I think that would be a great experience (and, personally, I expect to have more free time next year if we go the big-epic tournament route but we could keep it small again if people prefer this year’s faster tournament).
I’d like to experiment with a different format that’s never been tried before in Arimaa. My true inspiration is undoubtedly the great epic chess matches; as one example, the 1927 World Championship was Alexander Alekhine’s opportunity to study Capablanca’s style of play in depth, learn to exploit his few weaknesses and then battle it out in a 34-game 11-week match for the history books (with Alekhine winning 6-3 with 25 draws). Those of us with school/jobs can’t commit that much time to Arimaa but a best-of-nineseven over a 17 13-week period should be doable, especially with 45 second games. Oh, and that Alekhine-Capablanca match had 32 Queen’s Gambit openings and yes the chess world learned a whole lot about the opening theory by the end of the match. We won't learn that much but I hope somewhere along the line players get to explore new ideas in greater depth than ever before.
Yes, your suggestion sounds more practical in many respects, but my proposal at least would have one great advantage: it’s very flexible for people with extended vacation time from May-December. Someone could leave for 3 weeks, yet still be able to play their full allotment of games before & after the vacation.
on Feb 14th, 2012, 9:53am, Sconibulus wrote:| I have to admit that there is a certain appeal to a straight playoff format, but then there is a much higher chance for dissatisfaction among the lower seeds. Maybe a decent hybrid system that would end up being about the same length would be a fixed-bracket double elimination. Yes, an earlier loss would mean more games required to win the tournament, but it might also mean a larger share of the prize money not awarded to the victor, and since the title would matter less in this case than in the WC, a harder road to get there means less. |
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Regarding the unfairness to the lower seeds: yes, many players would have to join knowing that they’ll take a 5-0 beating in the first round. That’s a big weakness in my original proposal. Like I mentioned above, perhaps it should be two separate tournaments so that the rating disparities in the 1st round are much lower. And with two tournaments it removes one round which makes the organization easier. Also, if everyone stays alive throughout the whole tournament then we only need an even number of players, rather than an exponent of 2, to avoid byes.
EDIT: What was I thinking, the winner's bracket does need an exponent of 2. Getting exactly 4 or 8 players in each of two tournaments won't be easy, but hopefully it will work out.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 14th, 2012, 4:29pm by Adanac » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #10 on: Feb 14th, 2012, 4:41pm » |
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on Feb 14th, 2012, 4:11pm, Adanac wrote:| Next year’s WC format hasn’t yet been decided upon, but I suppose we could lobby for a 64-player quadruple-elimination and have a super-epic World Championship. |
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Floating quadruple elimination is exactly the format I support for the 2013 World Championships, and I have high hopes that if the entry fee is only $10, we will indeed get sixty-four people signed up.
It makes sense to me to try a different format for a different event, if only to see how something else would work.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 14th, 2012, 4:43pm by Fritzlein » |
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tharkun
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #11 on: Feb 14th, 2012, 6:41pm » |
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on Feb 14th, 2012, 4:11pm, Adanac wrote: (...) the elimination format is to make it easier to organize. (...) the elimination format gives the organizer an easier time as the number of games drops in half each round.
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My confusion is probably caused by the fact that I do not comprehend the effort it takes to organise a large amount of games. I'm just curious, what causes the amount of work for you as an organiser to be directly related to the number of games? Can it be automated, or delegated?
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Adanac
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #12 on: Feb 15th, 2012, 9:49am » |
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on Feb 14th, 2012, 6:41pm, tharkun wrote:
My confusion is probably caused by the fact that I do not comprehend the effort it takes to organise a large amount of games. I'm just curious, what causes the amount of work for you as an organiser to be directly related to the number of games? Can it be automated, or delegated? |
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I tried organizing a single-day Saturday blitz tournament once and sometimes there were technical problems with getting the games scheduled properly. And sometimes the game would be played but it wouldn’t properly be categorized as an Event Game. Players will also have flexibility to schedule games in advance and then re-schedule with at least 1 week’s notice. That will involve a bit of manual work. And I’m planning to keep the Wiki page up-to-date for this event which will require additional effort. Yes, I could probably find a volunteer to help out but I’d still rather not over-commit to a huge tournament in the first year.
I now like the idea of 2 small 3-round tournaments for a 2012 test pilot tournament. Then in 2013, maybe try again with a larger event if everything runs smoothly this year and the effort required is manageable. The Catch-22 is that trying to organize a 32-player tournament next year would require players to make a 2-year commitment, which is too long for most people. So few people would sign up. Then we could reduce the number of rounds…which would boost interest again.
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tharkun
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #13 on: Feb 15th, 2012, 10:33am » |
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on Feb 15th, 2012, 9:49am, Adanac wrote:
Yes, I could probably find a volunteer to help out but I’d still rather not over-commit to a huge tournament in the first year.
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Fair enough. I wouldn't mind helping out, although I don't know my plans yet for the summer and beyond, so I cannot commit myself that far in advance.
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MerlokDD
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Re: Proposal: 2012-2013 Knockout Match Tournament
« Reply #14 on: Feb 15th, 2012, 1:54pm » |
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How about a swiss system?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament
The same number of games for everyone,
from round to round more and more games
of players with almost equal strength.
I'd love to have a few games with overwhelming
oponents and later some more with my strength.
There are different variants, at least one should
be suitable. Maybe just sort after each round by
in-tournament-performance and play 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, ...
Edit: I would also volunteer to help organizing if necessary...
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| « Last Edit: Feb 16th, 2012, 4:51am by MerlokDD » |
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