Arimaa Forum - Print Page


    
      
        Arimaa Forum
        (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi)
      

        Arimaa >> Game Analysis >> Game 198948: Belteshazzar vs. bot_Sharp2011P2
        
(Message started by: Belteshazzar on Oct 11^th, 2011, 9:45am)

Title: Game 198948: Belteshazzar vs. bot_Sharp2011P2
Post by Belteshazzar on Oct 11^th, 2011, 9:45am

I've realized that I can only beat Sharp2011 when it advances rabbits way too quickly. Such was not the case in this game (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=198948&s=w). What should I have done differently?

Title: Re: Game 198948: Belteshazzar vs. bot_Sharp2011P2
Post by Nazgand on Oct 11^th, 2011, 10:21am

You moved out of the way early on and let the opponent's elephant go on the offensive. Also, you took the camel, when you had little protection on the east side. You were again too material-hungry when you framed its horse, capture it, and its cat. These were essentially bait so that you would be too preoccupied to protect the east side, which was its goal. 16g rabbit rush was a bad idea; you should have kept it down to use as defense until silver's rabbit threat was dealt with.

Title: Re: Game 198948: Belteshazzar vs. bot_Sharp2011P2
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 11^th, 2011, 10:23am

You did a great job gaining a material advantage, but the depletion around your f3 trap should have been a flashing danger sign. Already after winning M for H, my first thought would have been that I needed to split my MH, so as to have one heavy piece on each wing. Instead you went for winning more material, and that worked, although you lost your grip on f3 even more, so the extra material came at a price.

I believe you were still winning, albeit in precarious fashion, until 16g when you created a hole on your back line that enabled sharp to make goal threats. Despite having solid control of f3, sharp couldn't have broken through to goal without your helpful creation of space. 16g E->f4 (to prevent capture in f3) and H->b4 (to prevent your horse from being picked off by the silver elephant changing wings) would begin the laborious process of consolidating your material gain. Ideally you would work your horse around to f2 or g3, leaving your camel as sheriff of the east.

Had you been looking ahead to this future already on move 15g, and decided that your horse belonged in the fight for f3, you could have captured the silver cat while ending with your horse on c4, two steps closer to where it needed to be. In the same vein, see my move 27s in my ongoing Postal Mixer game against Nombril (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/opengamewin.cgi?gameid=224335&role=v). I realized my horse was in the wrong fight, so I captured in a way that brought my horse two steps closer to where it could be most effective.

This is my advice as a control player. If you have a large material advantage, why would you lose control over a home trap? It is too dangerous. Just winning camel for horse is enough that you should never lose control of a home trap after that, and your material advantage was larger.

Would a racing player give you other advice? Would a racing player say, "If you have a material advantage, why would you ever lose a race?" I don't think the parallel holds. You can lose a race, not because you are weaker, but because you started too late. The super-weak f6-trap looks like a tempting target for wriggling through a rabbit, but you don't have any other piece there to support a rabbit advance. You are way behind in the race. I suggest you only race when you are going to win.

Title: Re: Game 198948: Belteshazzar vs. bot_Sharp2011P2
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 11^th, 2011, 10:24am

Heh, Nazgand beat me to it, and said it more succinctly. :P

Title: Re: Game 198948: Belteshazzar vs. bot_Sharp2011P2
Post by ginrunner on Oct 11^th, 2011, 4:10pm

" I suggest you only race when you are going to win."

I actually disagree with this (but you are much better than me so who am i to argue :-P). I agree basically with every other comment that has been made here on the game specifically. In my opinion there are really only 2 times to start racing. The first is you are losing materially and if you let the game continue to be a control game you will ultimately lose and so you start advancing as hard as you can (this is what the computer did to you, it took your piece advantage away simply by being overly offensive and you couldn't cope). The second time to race is if you foresee an opponent about to start a race, both sides are relatively even on material, and both sides don't have the necessary resources to stop the threat. The second is rarer. Either way, I think your problem was you saw the computer starting to race and you did two things. You started your own single rabbit threat to try and "race" yourself and you kept trying to get material in the west. My plan would have been to completely stop the threat in the east giving you the ability to continue your "control" type of game and THEN continue the material munching in the west AND east. Your biggest problem was you allowed the computer to race and tried to compete in an area where your advantage didn't mean anything.

Title: Re: Game 198948: Belteshazzar vs. bot_Sharp2011P2
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 11^th, 2011, 4:36pm

on 10/11/11 at 16:10:25, ginrunner wrote:

" I suggest you only race when you are going to win."

I actually disagree with this[...]

I agree with your disagreement. :) What I should have said is that IF you are winning without racing, then only race if you are going to win the race.

Title: Re: Game 198948: Belteshazzar vs. bot_Sharp2011P2
Post by Swynndla on Oct 12^th, 2011, 3:09am

I think you played a great game - 16g though needed some exact play, ie E to f4 or something like that (and I think you are winning, although I haven't analysed). The east is weak for both of you, and more-so for you (even though at first sight silver's east looks weaker). Goal racing when you are ahead on material is sort of like throwing dice, so you shouldn't risk it, as you are winning anyway, and you can win by more sure methods. I'm guessing you know that and you thought that silver would have had to fall back to defend your goal threats. So the game was lost with one bad move. (This is just my 2 cents worth without analyzing.)

Edit: I just read Fritz's post ... being the reckless person I am, instead of the long strategy of moving the H to help with f3, I would have tried to keep both the camel & horse in the west to attack c6, and keep my E on f4 to protect f3, and tried for the quick win that way. It is not as solid as Fritz's way, but if I could control c6 with enough pieces in the short term, then it'd be a quick win. Maybe you had this in mind too.

Title: Re: Game 198948: Belteshazzar vs. bot_Sharp2011P2
Post by Hippo on Oct 12^th, 2011, 10:06am

BTW: Why you don't comment on the game comments?