|
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Arimaa Team League? Post by megajester on Oct 18th, 2009, 4:02am I know we'd all like to see some more PvP action to really get the community going. I think the EU v US match is a great idea, but of course we have many other players who are not from these countries. An Olympiad has also been suggested, but i think this might be a bit discouraging for people from countries with only one or two players. So... what about an Arimaa Team League? My hazy idea of the format is as follows: 6 team captains are appointed, and they call their teams whatever they like, something sports-team-ish. Depending on the uptake the teams could be anything from 3 to 10 or more players strong. Each round takes one month. So, in month one Team A would play Team B, Team C would play Team D, Team E would play Team F. The strongest player from Team A plays the strongest from Team B and then the next strongest players play each other and so on. The matched-up players would play their own game (or games, we could say one as silver one as gold) whenever in the month they felt like it. By the end of the month you get the match results, and on to the next month, when Team A moves on to Team C etc etc... So a "season" (if all play all once) would last 6 months. Maybe this could replace Player of the Month in the sense of involving cash prizes. This would be an event where nobody gets left out, players of all nationalities and strengths are catered for, and everybody gets a piece of the action. Whaddya all think? (I do apologize if someone else has proposed exactly the same thing and I missed it...) |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by Arimabuff on Oct 18th, 2009, 6:10am What's "P v P"? |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by tize on Oct 18th, 2009, 7:19am PvP = Player vs Player which is HvH games in Arimaa language. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by omar on Oct 18th, 2009, 8:44am Good idea. It think it's worth trying. The problem we might encounter is the same one that happened with the Blitz tournament that Tuks initiated. Basically that players forget to play the games unless the games are preset for them in the gameroom with a specific start time. Trying to preset the games means you have to know when they will be played. The two players would have to communicate, agree on a time and let the tournament coordinator know. In the world championship we use a web based time selection tool that lets the players enter their preferred times and then run a scheduler that assigns the game times. The output of the scheduler is then used to preset the scheduled games in the gameroom and that makes sure that the games are played because if a player doesn't show up in time it automatically becomes a forfeit. The time selection tool we use for the world championship is very specific to the one game per week schedule we've defined for that tournament. We would need a more general version of this tool for other tournaments or other situations where games need to be scheduled. Something where you specify the time of the first slot, the size of slots (like 1 hour) and number of slots would be good. But filling out the preferred time for one month might be real pain; it's bad enough for one week. Maybe we need a completely different way of specifying preferred times and agreeing on a particular time. In the mean time I guess what could be done is to tentatively schedule the games to be played on the last day of the month and then when the players agree on an earlier time they can inform the tournament coordinator to change the game time. It's a bit of a pain for the tournament coordinator though. I won't be able to be the coordinator for this; at least not right now with the events coming up. But I can set you up with an account where you can setup the scheduled games in the gameroom and change their times later. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by Fritzlein on Oct 18th, 2009, 4:30pm Omar points out a critical problem for organizing events. Experience has shown time and time again that you can't just leave it to the players to find a time for their games, or else the games won't be played. The games must be scheduled, and players who don't show up must be forfeited to keep the tournament moving. But how can one schedule games in a fair way? A second problem with league play is getting teams of comparable strength. What if, when you announce your league, Adanac and chessandgo and I form a team? Who will form other teams? If anyone does, will the matches be fun and/or interesting? I suspect there is more promise in an event like U.S. vs E.U., where geography provides a rough division of players, and the participants are motivated by patriotism. The problem you point out, that many players are excluded, could be remedied by making it a three-way tournament, with the rest of the world making the third team. I would be very interested in participating in a US vs. EU vs. ROW match, and I am not sure who would be favored to win. Hopefully a captain would step forward for each region, recruit players from his region, assign players to matches on a weekly basis, etc. At the moment the only option for scheduling games is the tool that Omar uses to pair the World Championship, so any such tournament could not overlap with the preliminaries or finals of the World Championship. I guess we wouldn't want it overlap anyway, because we don't want to lose participation from players who don't have time for both. However, if we want a team event to occur after the World Championships are over, we should start organizing it now. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by megajester on Oct 19th, 2009, 2:32am I see where you're coming from Fritzlein. Perhaps you're right, after all a US v EU v ROW would work quite well actually. However it's only one match and if we can engage the community for all of the months in between yearly championships, capturing the atmosphere of league sports and gaining a following in the process, I think that'd be well cool. I have given this a lot of thought, and I think I have found ways to address your concerns. Perhaps the best way would be to explain precisely how I think it could be organized. 1. We carry out a survey to find out how many would be up for participating in the league, and what their average rating is. This will let us know how large our teams will be and help us to set a team rating ceiling (see below). Of course it would also help us see if this is just too early for this sort of thing, and if we would be better off with a US v EU v ROW format. 2. If all goes well with the survey, the top 6 players from those that responded who are willing and able would be invited to name teams and start recruiting players. A special area could be set up in the forum for this. There would be no objection to one or more of these players naming his team, say, Team America and trying to recruit an all-American lineup. So you could maintain somewhat of the EU v US feel, though of course like with football clubs anyone can play for anyone. At the end of the recruitment period, we would randomly distribute the remaining players among the teams who still have empty slots. We would place a ceiling on the average rating of the players in any team. If the average rating of the players who responded to our initial survey was, say, 1700 we might set the team ceiling at 1900. This would mean that if you, Fritzlein, and chessandgo did come together to form a team you would have to pad the rest of your roster with, say, 1500 players. We would also use this average when randomly assigning the remaining players at the end of the recruitment period. I hope this will solve the problem of how to create more-or-less equal teams without randomly matching them, which would be pretty boring. 3. At the beginning of each round (whether 2 weeks, 3 weeks, a month, or whatever) we would pair up the players from the matched teams in order of strength. I did think of letting the team captains decide who would play on Table 1, Table 2 and so forth but I'm worried that would make things too complicated. We could use the weekly scheduling system already in place (providing I've understood it correctly) to preassign a game time individually for each game in the match for the last week of the round. Of course this would mean a lot of work for whoever fields requests from the players to change their allotted time, but provided the rounds are not too close together yours truly would be honored :) 4. The tournament would either be a round robin or a double round robin. There are online tools which we could use to set up a fixtures list right at the outset. We could have a forum section specifically for the league, where after each round we could post results, commentary, and league standings. The other issue to resolve is whether we would award points for match results (eg. 3 for a win, 1 for a draw etc.) or simply tot up the games won and lost. And of course whether or not there'll be a prize... ($)_($) |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by Fritzlein on Oct 19th, 2009, 4:45am I expect that given the current size of the playing pool, three teams might be doable, but six teams is a bit over-ambitious. True, there are lots of new players signing up these days, but past experience is that most new players are shy about playing humans until they have completed the bot ladder. On the other hand, maybe I am underestimating the interest in HvH games among the new wave of players. I don't want to discourage you from organizing something new; it would be very cool if you could pull it off. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by Adanac on Oct 19th, 2009, 6:42am on 10/19/09 at 04:45:54, Fritzlein wrote:
I would join if there was a team tournament. Most of the high-ranked EU and ROW players are currently inactive and are very unlikely to compete, whereas all of the top US players are all still active in Arimaa. If we get something like 3, 3 and 6 players for EU, ROW and USA then we could simply split the US team into East & West or North & South or whatever other split creates 3 players for each team. By HvH rating the top 7 players by region are (I included 8 for USA since The_Jeh & mistre are both active and nearly identical in HvH rating) : EU chessandgo France 2647 robinson Germany 2182 Belbo Germany 2177 PMertens Germany 2151 arimaa_master Czech Republic 2054 Tuks Germany 2054 BlackKnight Germany 2013 ROW Adanac Canada 2331 UltraWeak China 2321 blue22 Japan 2242 99of9 Australia 2241 jdb Canada 2112 Simon Canada 1742 onigawara Japan 1669 USA Fritzlein United States 2486 RonWeasley United States 2240 omar United States 2176 camelback United States 2165 mdk United States 2157 ChrisB United States 2081 mistre United States 2004 The_Jeh United States 2001 I only listed the top players for purposes of seeing how balanced the teams might be. Of course, it would be great to have all of the many new players join the teams as well. There's no better way to improve than to play lots of games against other humans 8) |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by megajester on Oct 19th, 2009, 7:28am I suppose there's only one way to settle this for sure: Have a survey. Something simple like, "If there was a team league which ran for several months of the year, where you play one or two games every 3 weeks-ish and your opponents are always more-or-less your level, would you sign up?" (And perhaps this for bot ladder climbers: "If no, would it make a difference if the games were unrated?") If say we had 30+ people say yes, we could have 6 x 5-a-side teams like in my proposal. Or whatever else you guys think would work :) |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by Fritzlein on Oct 19th, 2009, 9:33am on 10/19/09 at 07:28:22, megajester wrote:
As a cautionary tale about surveys, twelve people expressed interest in a blitz tournament earlier this year. The standings (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/2009_Blitz_Tournament) show that only 24 of 132 games were played, and only 3 of 90 HvH games were played. The level of interest reported on a survey is likely to be higher than the level of dedication. That said, a survey would give us a sense of how many teams there might be players for, and whether some sort of geographic division might work out. My personal guess is that hoping for thirty-plus players is wildly optimistic. I'm just hoping we get that many for the World Championship! The Continuous Tournament I ran two years ago probably appeals to the same crowd, and then there were ten to sixteen interested humans, depending on the week. There would have to be a lot of newly-minted interest to get up to thirty who want to play every week in the off season. on 10/19/09 at 06:42:04, Adanac wrote:
I'm with you in wanting a geographic split, but I'm with megajester in terms of thinking of larger teams. If we think we can get twelve people on board for several weeks of play, let's have two teams of six rather than four teams of three. With only two large teams we could still have a six-game season by letting #1, #2, and #3 play each of #1, #2, #3 on the other team, and then reverse colors. The same could be happening with #4, #5, #6 on each team playing each other and (should we be so lucky) #7, #8, and #9. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by megajester on Oct 19th, 2009, 12:50pm Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm... I'm gonna be really optimistic here (you have my permission to call me Polyanna) but I think there may be one or two factors that scuppered the blitz tournaments that the league idea might just solve. Firstly, the blitz tournaments didn't have a scheduler. Secondly, it was as individuals, not as teams. These factors together made it sooooooo eeeeeeasy to procrastinate, because it can take forever before you feel like it AND the guy turns up both on the same day, and by that time the initial enthusiasm is gone. Inertia, basically. With the league idea I hope the combination of a threat of forfeit and a sense of "I mustn't let the team down" might just help things along. OK 6 teams might be too many, I just thought two or three teams might get bored of each other all year. But why make it all year? Especially if this is a pilot we don't want to bite off more than we can chew. How about four teams? A season would be over in three rounds. If we get a decent uptake + commitment, then we could take it further. What do you think, could we run a survey from the gameroom? |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by qswanger on Oct 19th, 2009, 1:03pm I would definitely consider myself one of the "newly-minted" here as far as interest is concerned. :-) I still don't have very many games under my belt as I currently prefer the human vs. human postal games to anything else. I have about a dozen or so games going right now that I'm enjoying more than the bot ladder (again contradicting Fritzlein's assumptions ... sorry), of which I'm only about 14 bots through. I think I'm learning a lot ... and I'm definitely enjoying playing. Hopefully my rating will start shooting up a little bit more. :-) I imagine having relative newbies on any of the teams would be a bit of a crap-shoot since they usually are so unpredictable and their ratings are not very stable yet. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by novacat on Oct 20th, 2009, 5:46am I'd be up for it. On a somewhat related note, my suggestion to help with scheduling is to ease communication in the game room. I find the hardest thing to schedule games is that I don't know of any real direct communication with players. Other than inviting them to play at that moment (which I have used unsuccessfully as an instant chat device), one must hope the person enters the chat room to communicate. One example is Manuel, who I see in the game room often, but only when I am busy and just passing through. I played one game with him and have been hoping to play a rematch with him for several months now, but don't know a good way to communicate with him. Please tell me if there is a direct chat option or other communication tool I can use. I just looked through the forums and found the PM option, but am having a hard time finding Manuel's account. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by Fritzlein on Oct 20th, 2009, 6:28am on 10/19/09 at 12:50:49, megajester wrote:
Unfortunately, there is no survey feature in the gameroom. Instead Omar could post an announcement in the gameroom, directing interested people to come to this thread and declare themselves. on 10/20/09 at 05:46:49, novacat wrote:
Yes, the lack of instant messaging in the game room is an awkward limitation. I use the game invitation feature as a substitute way to send a message. I usually append, "I'm in the chat room," because conversations are seldom resolved in a single exchange. That often gets the job done, but is still somewhat unsatisfactory. An IM feature has been suggested before. I encourage you to re-post the suggestion in the "Site" forum so that it stays on Omar's radar. Realistically, since there is already a workaround, he might pay attention to other problems first, but then again he might stumble across an easy plug-in solution if it is on his mind. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by Ice on Oct 20th, 2009, 8:21am A couple of suggestions / ideas that I think would help. Have a method for drafting or adding new players that join the community. I could see this as a great way to provide some support to new players. If members of a team reached out to new players and set them up with a HvH game against someone from a different "team" of a similar level and was there to answer questions afterwards. Having experienced players that were part of a team and giving new players an avenue that might be more natural to ask questions. Have a way to only commit to a certain number of games at a time. Maybe something similar to the 25 man roster in baseball vs 40 man. i.e. before each match figure out how many games people are willing to play this time around and players on a team can opt out of a match or volunteer for this round. I know in the past I've tried to join a tournament only to get really busy a couple of months later and not be able to continue. I felt bad that I wasn't able to finish but it just became too much. I'd be much more willing and happy to join a team if each time around I only had to commit to a game / week for the next month or one game next week. Addition: I forgot to add that I love this idea! |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by omar on Oct 20th, 2009, 10:46am This forum doesn't have a built in survey feature. You can setup a survey on sites like http://www.surveygizmo.com/ search for 'survey tools' to find others. Also I can setup a registration page to allow players to register for the team leagues. How about if someone sets up a wiki page describing how the team leagues would work along with a link to the survey and registration page. novacat: you should be able to look in your recent games under HH games to find the id. Also rather than sending a PM through the forum you could try using the 'Play Now'-'Invite Friend' option to send a message along with the game. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by megajester on Oct 20th, 2009, 3:26pm Well, as is always the tradition with bright ideas, whoever thought of it gets to do the donkey work. With which I have no problem if no one else has any objection :) (By the way, on the question of rescheduling games, my suggestion for now is that anyone who participates in the league also provides an email address. We could add a page in the wiki with the players listed alphabetically with their league ratings and email addresses. Plus we could say that all correspondence between players regarding rescheduling be cc'd to the league co-ordinator to help us determine who forfeits if neither player turns up.) Looking at all the other suggestions that have come through, here is my latest draft proposal. I know it's a bit wordy, but I think this is the easiest solution for the participants and reasonably accommodates everybody's concerns. If you like I can put it up on the wiki just as soon as Omar gives me a login. I have also set up a preliminary survey (thanks for that link Omar), which can be edited if you think it's necessary. Perhaps we could link it somewhere in the gameroom? It is live by the way, so feel free to fill it in... http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/193817/arimaa-world-league-preliminary-survey INTRODUCTION Our first league shall be United States, European Union, Rest of the World (US v EU v ROW), because this is our most flexible format to start off with. I think the "Arimaa World League" has a nice ring to it. Players interested in the league will submit their names (email addresses ?) and which team they will play for to the league co-ordinator (LC) before the start date. (I think this will be after the WC so, 1 March 2010? I don't know the schedule so, Omar?...) Players will specify which games they think they would be available for. START On the start date the LC will check how many players applied per team and their average rating. He will use this to determine how many games will be played in each match, and what the average rating ceiling will be. To make things simple we will accept each player's rating on the start date as his rating throughout the league. Players may join the league at any stage, his rating on the date of acceptance will be taken as his rating throughout the league. (An exception to this would be if a player's rating goes up or down by a substantial amount. Any captain may apply for any player's league rating to be adjusted in case of variation exceeding 150 points, in fact that player's captain is honor-bound to do so.) An example scenario: US, 12 players applied with an average rating of 1800; EU, 8 players applied with an average rating of 1900; ROW, 10 players applied with an average rating of 1700. LC might decide that each match will consist of 5 games, where the players will have an maximum average rating of 1850. We could appoint a committee (the Arimaa World League Committee) to approve this decision. LC invites the top players from all three sides to step forward as captains. If the top player declines to be captain the next highest player will be invited. MATCH CYCLE The first match cycle will begin within 2 weeks of the start date. A match cycle consists of Week 1 and Week 2 with no gap in between matches, the following week being Week 1 of the next match cycle. Before each match cycle: Team captains will submit their teams' roster for the match. The players' average rating shall not exceed the ceiling and be in order of strongest player first. Players may play in as many or as few matches as the captain deems fit. The captain would of course be expected to consult his teammates. The roster must be submitted by Week 1, ie. before the end of Week 2 of the previous match. Week 1: LC will schedule all games in the match sometime in Week 2. It is the team captain's responsibility to make sure all players submit preferred gaming times on the scheduler tool. Otherwise the LC will have to guess which time will be best. Players may request adjustments to match times, and if necessary captains may request to substitute players after submitting the roster, but this MUST BE DONE BEFORE WEEK 2 and the average rating ceiling shall not be exceeded under any circumstances. Week 2: Games are played. Players who fail to turn up forfeit. If neither player turns up LC shall adjudicate. At the end of Week 2 the commentator (possibly the LC) could post a bulletin with results, standings, commentary, quotes from the players etc in a special section in the forum. MATCH SCHEDULE Match 1 (week 2) US Gold v EU Silver Match 2 (week 4) EU Gold v ROW Silver Match 3 (week 6) ROW Gold v US Silver Match 4 (week 8 ) EU Gold v US Silver Match 5 (week 10) ROW Gold v EU Silver Match 6 (week 12) US Gold v ROW Silver And if needed: Tiebreaker Semi Final (week 14) 2nd seed v 3rd seed 3-game match (average rating ceiling waivered) Table 1: Gold v Silver Table 2: Silver v Gold Table 3: Gold v Silver Tiebreaker Final (week 16) Winner v 1st seed (probably US) 3-game match, same format This proposed schedule is designed so that each team plays no more than two matches consecutively. The league would be over in 3 to 4 months, by which time we will know all we need to about the long-term viability of the League. SCORING A win is one point. Therefore in the example scenario 5 points would be available in each match. ENFORCEMENT Any abuse of the rules may be punished by disqualification (player) or docking of points (team). The LC will consult the AWLC before any such action is taken. GOING FORWARD... The AWLC would make the final decision about any changes to the league format, operation, etc. I know some bits may sound a bit fastidious, even draconian, but I'm thinking that whatever happens we want a guaranteed result. Most players would not need to concern themselves with everything, we would send them all an email just telling them what they need to know. Please let me know what you think. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by chessandgo on Oct 21st, 2009, 4:28am Hey guys, sounds like a cool idea! Unfortunately I have very little time for arimaa these days, so I won't be playing, but have fun! Jean |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by ChrisB on Oct 23rd, 2009, 12:33am I would be interested in playing. Thanks, megajester, for getting this going. The proposed structure seems well designed to provide close competition between the teams. The administrative infrastructure seems fairly complex, but if we don't get volunteers to handle that part, I think we could work things out more informally. I offer for consideration the following add-on proposal, which could significantly increase the number of H-H games while having a only a minor effect on the final score: A. For each match, team members not on the roster can still sign up to play games. These additional games would have only a minor effect on the final score, say one point allocated for ALL of these additional games. B. The highest rated player from team A that signs up for these additional games plays the highest rated player from team B that signs up. Correspondingly, second highest from A plays second highest from B, etc. C. If the number of additional player from one team exceeds that from the other team by two or more, the lowest rated members from the team with more sign-ups could play each other (intra-team games). D. If an odd number of additional players sign up, the last player to sign up from the team with the greater number of sign-ups has to sit out. For example, if 6 players sign up from team A and 3 from team B, the last sign-up from team A has to sit out. Then of the remaining 5 players from team A, the top 3 rated players play the 3 who signed up from team B and the number 4 and 5 players from team A can play each other. E. One possible way to score these additional games: One point is allocated for ALL of these games combined. For inter-team games, team of winning player gets 2 sub-points and team of losing player gets 1 sub-point provided losing player finishes game. For intra-team game, the team of the two players gets 1 sub-point, provided players play complete game. The number of sub-points acquired by each team are then divided by total number of sub-points to determined how much of the one point is allocated to each team. Continuing with the above example, if team A wins two of the three inter-team games, those three games are all complete games, and the two additional players from team A play a complete intra-team game, then team A gets 6 sup-points and team B gets 4. So team A gets 0.6 points from these additional games and team B gets 0.4 points. If in the roster games, team A won 2 and team B won 3, the final score for the match would be 2.6 for team A and 3.4 for team B. NOTES: * What I like most about this proposal is that if gives almost every player who wants to play in a match the opportunity to play a game. The only player who might get left out is the last to sign up from the team with the greater number of sign-ups. However, if the number of sign-ups near the end of the sign up period is odd, that may encourage a waivering player to sign up to even out the number of players and help that player's team. * I think mismatches would be more likely in these additional games than in the roster game, but at least the losing player can help the team by playing a complete game. * I guess if this proposal, or something similar, is adopted, a play-off would be less likely. * The team with the greater number of players would have an advantage in getting a larger share of the one point, but that could be an incentive for teams to recruit more players. Of course, improvements or simplifications are most welcome. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by Fritzlein on Oct 23rd, 2009, 6:27am Thanks for drafting some rules, megajester. I think that it is a good idea to go with the US vs EU vs ROW as an executive decision rather than taking a poll. As the movie line goes, "If you build it, they will come." If it turns out that the three teams are relatively even, then the rating cap won't be necessary. We can simply let each team field the N strongest players it has that are available on game week. If the teams are uneven, then we can impose the average rating cap, although that is potentially slightly problematic due to ratings abuse. We would have to keep our eyes peeled for signs of manipulated ratings. If there is a cap on average rating, it would probably scuttle ChrisB's idea of having extra boards decide a participation point. If strong players are sitting off the main boards due to a rating cap, then the extra boards are likely to be horrendous mismatches every week. However, if the teams are sufficiently even that there are no restrictions on who is playing each board, then I think the participation point is a great idea. I don't think we can take chessandgo's non-participation as too indicative of the strength of the teams this far in advance. Who knows how busy he will be in six months, or how busy any of us will be? Let's set up a reasonable framework and adjust at signup time if necessary. If the teams that actually sign up are lopsided in favor of the US, then we can still consider Adanac's suggestion of splitting the US (if turnout is heavy) or my suggestion of combining the EU and ROW (if turnout is light). If we split the US, we might split it into Texas and ROUS. :) If there is some good geographic way to balance teams, so that there is no rating restriction and thus less potential for ratings abuse, I would lean towards using geography rather than ratings. But there's not much point debating it in advance; we just have to see who wants to play when the rubber hits the road. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by megajester on Oct 23rd, 2009, 9:27am Part of the idea behind the rating cap is that it gives team captains flexibility when setting the roster for each match. Regardless of how well balanced the teams are, without a rating cap the captains will always field the best players available. However if we do have a rating cap, it's not a complete disaster if one or more of the players, even a strong one, can't play in a given match. Plus the teams are always evenly matched. For example: Lets say one of the sides has 7 players apply with ratings of 2400, 2200, 2100, 1900, 1800, 1400. This makes for an average of 1686. Lets say that for the league we set the rating ceiling at 2000 with a 4-player roster. If the captain were to field the top two players on any given match the other two players would have to have an average rating of 1700, which is only achievable by fielding the weakest players. This means he will have to mix up the roster for each match. So it's not a problem if the players who sign up are not prepared to play in each match, and even if they are willing to play the captain can promise them a place in the roster in the next match. This is part of the reason for the questions in the survey, "How many matches would you be up for?" and "Can you say you would DEFINITELY sign up?" We can look at the response to these questions when determining the size of the roster and the rating ceiling. (And Fritz, I've added a question asking which team they would play for...) It would be a shame if players willing to play were told to wait until the next match. But I'd rather that than risk having a captain unable to submit a full roster. I don't think there are many players who would lose interest just because they have to wait to play in the next match. I like your idea ChrisB, I'm just worried it will make things a bit complicated, especially seeing as this is a pilot. I do like this idea of awarding points to players who finish their games. Maybe we could say 3 points to the winner and 1 to the loser if he plays to the end. As for admin, true, the co-ordinator and the captains would be fairly busy. But that's part of the rationale behind having one match every 2 weeks. I would be happy to be the co-ordinator. The captains could use a special section in the forum to liaise with players, and then just message me with the roster. When I get the roster I could quickly check the players' present ratings against their ratings at the beginning of the league, and readjust if necessary in line with the 150-point rule. By the way, I'm thrilled to have such a response. Thanks for all your suggestions and support :) |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by qswanger on Oct 23rd, 2009, 12:42pm What about cool, creative, wacky team names? Some involving song lyrics include: "Who let the dogs out?", "Wild horses (can't drag me away)", A few cliches: "Raining cats and dogs", "Going at it like rabbits", And now some original, really cheesy suggestions: "The dromedary destroyers" "The bactrian bafflers" "The pachyderm pushers" Please add to this list! |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by megajester on Oct 23rd, 2009, 10:39pm lol. You're a funny guy qswanger, you can stay ;D I just think we might have trouble inspiring team loyalty for "Going-At-It-Like-Rabbits United". If this one goes well I had been thinking we might have "clubs." This would also solve the problem of lopsided US participation. You make one team "Team America" the other "Bald Eagles". Or whatever. And then instead of EU and ROW you could have "Viva Europa" and "Ring of Fire" (ie Pacific). The possibilities are ennnnnndless... |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by omar on Oct 24th, 2009, 5:04pm Just posted a link to the survey in he gameroom and also sent a tweet for it. chessandgo: We'll miss having you on the opposing team. It will be interesting to see if the other EU players can talk you into playing :-) |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by RonWeasley on Oct 27th, 2009, 4:01am on 10/23/09 at 12:42:46, qswanger wrote:
"Horses Behind" "Junk in the Trunk" "Load of Trap" "Camel Intense" "15 Minutes of Frame" |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by Arimabuff on Oct 27th, 2009, 6:40am on 10/27/09 at 04:01:49, RonWeasley wrote:
"Menagerie a Trois" "Doggie stylers" "Hot Tin Roof Cats" "Apocalyptic Horses" "Unforgettable Elephants" ;D |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by camelback on Oct 28th, 2009, 3:57pm Here are some more names ;D hunters-r-us touchdown rabbits bunny bunch swarming sidekicks freezing freaks cuddlers and huddlers trapping troop |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by omar on Oct 29th, 2009, 6:25pm Pretty creative guys :-) I've setup a registration page for the World League. http://arimaa.com/arimaa/events/reg.cgi?e=2010worldleague |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by megajester on Oct 31st, 2009, 4:08pm Question for you all... At the moment we're thinking of going US, EU, ROW right? However all the indications are that the EU and ROW put together is gonna come to the same number as the US. So. What I'm thinking is a fourth team... But I'm thinking that just "North US/South US" or "East Coast/West Coast" is gonna be a bit boring... And joking aside there's clearly something to be said for "cool" team names that feel a bit more sporty... ...because apart from anything else, going forward we want to be able to add more teams. However if we go US v EU v ROW we're gonna end up splitting them or even dissolving them at some point and starting again... Interestingly a lot of our ROW players who responded to the survey are actually Canadian or Australian, ie. Pacific countries... What if we said the teams were: Yankees Rockies Ring of Fire Europa So "Yankees" would be East Coast US (sort-of, forgive me Americans if I've totally misunderstood this word's vibe) and "Rockies" would be West Coast. You could get a real rivalry going there. "Ring of Fire" would be any country bordering the Pacific (Australia, Japan, Canada etc.) And "Europa" because obviously it sounds cooler than "European Union" and it would include countries that technically aren't part of the EU, like Switzerland, Norway, Russia, the Balkans, the Caucasus, (ahem) Turkey... :) And still anyone could play for anyone. If someone feels like signing up with, say, the Rockies they can. In fact I think Ring of Fire sounds so cool, you can forget the Pacific thing, I'd play for 'em :D But seriously, I think something like this would be the coolest way to split the US, AND have a sporty feel, AND have an "expandable" league, AND still keep the patriotism thing for those who want it. I mean, what could be more emotionless than "the Rest of the World", defined by what it isn't. But all of these names can inspire loyalty for one reason or another... PS. I've fleshed out the wiki page, look forward to hearing your thoughts... |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by omar on Nov 5th, 2009, 11:15am I really like the idea of having sporty team names and allowing anyone to play for any team. Nice set of names you came up with :-) Some suggestions. In the yearly championship events there is a coordinator and director. The coordinator is in charge of running the pairing program and setting up the games and does not make any decisions; thus one of the players can be a coordinator. The director makes decisions when odd cases arise that aren't covered in the predefined rules; also decides if a particular case fits the predefined rules. The director cannot be a player. I am assuming the LC mentioned in the wiki page: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/2010_Arimaa_World_League serves a role similar to the coordinator I mentioned above. You might want to consider having a single person director to over see the event rather than a committee since committees would take longer to make decisions since all members have to meet, discuss, vote, etc. I would suggest not having a average rating ceiling. Having it helps to make the teams equal, but if one team was overly strong, I am sure the other teams would find ways to recruit some strong players too. Having it seems to complicate things a little and requires having more rules. You might want to mention in the wiki that the overall format for the event is basically a round robin where each team plays every other team once. When one team plays another how is the pairing done? Is it by sorting the players of each team based on rating (WHR ratings I assume) and pairing them in order? Or does the captain of each team submits the order of the players. What will be the size of the teams? Is it fixed or can it vary from round to round. For example if in one round the team with the least number of players has only 3 players only the top 3 players from the other teams will be paired. If the size of the teams is fixed, what happens if a team does not have enough players in one round? In determining the winning team, what happens if the score of two teams is tied. What would be the tie breaker? |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by megajester on Nov 5th, 2009, 2:42pm Thanks for the feedback. I know we have some time before this goes ahead, but I think it would be good to have something definite in advance... I've edited the wiki to reflect everything discussed up to this point, thanks guys for all your input so far. Keep it coming! http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/2010_Arimaa_World_League To answer your questions Omar... on 11/05/09 at 11:15:26, omar wrote:
Like it on 11/05/09 at 11:15:26, omar wrote:
Yes it is similar. For the first time around I would be happy to serve in both roles and not participate if none of the players want to be co-ordinator. Unless of course you wanted to be director :) though I see you have enlisted as a player... on 11/05/09 at 11:15:26, omar wrote:
Yeah I suppose maintaining the geographic division solves Fritzlein's scenario of him and chessandgo teaming up and thrashing everybody... If there's a gigantic disparity between the teams we could ask some players to move over, and/or keep the ceiling idea in our back pocket if needed. Edit: I still think it would be good to find a way of encouraging teams to field new players and not just the strongest available for any given match. That way the League could help to train new players. If there are not many new players we could simply say that, if there's a 5-player roster, the 5th player must be rated under 1900. Of course before long these u-1900 players will get good, so maybe we could accept their rating at the start of the League for this purpose. As a result of this rule each team would end up recruiting proteges at the start of each League and doing their best to coach them. These proteges would expand the pool of players, so new teams would be formed in future Leagues, which would in turn recruit more proteges etc... For the first League it's probably simplest to ask the strongest players to be captains, but in subsequent Leagues we could maintain the teams as "clubs", so the players would decide democratically who their captain will be and take other decisions etc. on 11/05/09 at 11:15:26, omar wrote:
If we're scrapping the rating ceiling I guess we could just give the captain free rein in setting his roster. Of course it would be generally understood that Table 1 is usually the strongest table... but then it would be pot luck as to what level everybody plays. If a captain decides to be funny and assigns a 2200 rated player to Table 5 then the poor 1500 player he plays against won't stand a chance, which won't be much fun. So maybe we should say order the players by rating as at the beginning of Week 1 of that match cycle. Either that or we implement the "Table 5 is U-1900" rule I mentioned above. on 11/05/09 at 11:15:26, omar wrote:
We have a standard number of tables for each match set at the beginning of the League. This will make things fair, because in our double round robin we don't want the first time two teams play each other to count for more than the second time simply because there were more players around. I had been thinking we could have a points system, a bit like Chris's idea. 3 for a win, 1 for a loss when the game is played to the end, 0 for forfeit (meaning you don't turn up or you deliberately abandon the game). Let's say we've said a match will have 5 tables (games). That would mean a team could score a maximum of 15 points in a match and a minimum of 5 provided they finish all their games. on 11/05/09 at 11:15:26, omar wrote:
We'll fix the size of the roster at less than the full number of registered players in each team. That's how I can say in the wiki that you don't have to be available for every match. If 7 players apply for each team, we could set it at 4 or 5 tables. If a couple of players say they can't make it for a particular match, no sweat. If everybody does happen to be available, the 2 or 3 players who have to sit out this match can agree with their captain to play in the next one. Just in case we could say that a captain who doesn't field a player for a table forfeits that game. on 11/05/09 at 11:15:26, omar wrote:
Because it's a league, there is no need to declare a winner for a given match, only a winner of the league overall. If we come to the end of the league and it's a tie we would have tiebreaker matches as per what I've put on the wiki page, if that's ok. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by megajester on Nov 10th, 2009, 8:55am How about we set up four clubs now (Europa, Ring of Fire, Rockies, Yankees), with their own threads in the forum. That way people can choose which team they'll play for, we can select captains or let each club's members elect one, and they can start to plan their path to glory. We'll have a clearer idea of whether we need more or less clubs, and the clubs can submit suggestions and ideas before the League kicks off. Maybe we could even organize a couple of friendly matches before the League just to get everybody's juices going. Whaddya all think? |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by Fritzlein on Nov 10th, 2009, 1:59pm on 11/10/09 at 08:55:04, megajester wrote:
I think you are being a touch optimistic to expect four captains to step forward and four fulls teams to rally enough to organize themselves, given that we only have six players signed up for the one-day tournament this Saturday. In the long tradition of people doing the donkey work to make their own bright ideas reality, why don't you take the list of sixteen people who have registered for the World League, divide them into four teams of four as you see fit, post the teams and pairings to this thread, and contact Omar for help on using the game scheduler? If it works, congratulations, you made something cool happen! If it fizzles, you will have gained valuable insight into how to try again after the World Championship is over. I will happily play on a team/league that somebody else is organizing, but my "trying to make things happen" quotient is already being expended on other things in my life. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by omar on Nov 10th, 2009, 4:55pm Quote:
Yes, I'd like to just play in this event and not be a coordinator or director :-) Quote:
One way of doing it would be to have the TC or TD dived the registered players into the four teams at the start of the season so that the average ratings are as close as possible. But I know from observing the Cricket league which Naveed plays on that part of the fun for them is forming their own teams and trying to recruit players. This does cause some teams to be way stronger than other teams, but they don't seem to mind. There are pros and cons to both approaches. Quote:
Great idea. Quote:
Sounds good. Would give everyone a chance to get familiar with the process. |
||||||||||||||
|
Title: Re: Arimaa Team League? Post by megajester on Nov 13th, 2009, 10:09am Ok, we've now got a 2010 Arimaa World League section set up in the forum, so please post any new ideas, suggestions etc. to the League Feedback thread there instead of this thread here. Thanks, and keep it coming :) Clicky: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi?board=2010awl;action=display;num=1258135580 |
||||||||||||||
|
Arimaa Forum » Powered by YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.3.1! YaBB © 2000-2003. All Rights Reserved. |