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        Arimaa >> Site Discussion >> Postal games
        
(Message started by: hyperpape on Jun 12th, 2013, 1:32pm)
Title: Postal games
Post by hyperpape on Jun 12th, 2013, 1:32pm
I signed up for postal auto-pairing at the end of April, and haven't been assigned any games. Are all the postal players occupied by the postal mixer, or is there a problem with pairing?

I have a gameroom rating of 1596, signed up to have up to 2 opponents, within 200 points of me.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by supersamu on Jun 12th, 2013, 3:58pm
When I started signing up for postal games, I got my first opponents pretty soon after that. I had a comparable rating back then. This is probably a site issue. You could try to sign up for 3 games and hope there was a glitch. I donīt think all available players are occupied with the postal mixer.
Maybe you should contact omar directly about that, because he doesnīt always read the forum.
Or you could make a new game under "play now" -> "create open game" and try to get opponents this way. But this game wouldnīt count towards your event rating.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by hyperpape on Jun 13th, 2013, 11:45am
Good to know: I had not made the connection that you could open individual postal games.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by hyperpape on Jun 25th, 2013, 7:58pm
Can anyone confirm that they are being paired?
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by robinz on Jun 26th, 2013, 2:35am
Nope - but I can confirm that I'm not.

(I'd have inquired much earlier, but I still have 3 ongoing postal mixer games to keep me busy...)
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by harvestsnow on Jul 15th, 2013, 6:19pm

on 06/12/13 at 15:58:11, supersamu wrote:
Or you could make a new game under "play now" -> "create open game" and try to get opponents this way.


Games started this way seem to time out pretty quickly if nobody will notice and accept them. There is a workaround: take the gold pieces, start the game and make the first move. Your opponent's turn will begin immediately, giving him a small time handicap, but at least you may have one and settle that later if need be.

Otherwise, I suppose you could start a dedicated thread and ask people to challenge you.

[late edit:
It's actually not necessary to make the first move. Starting the clock is enough.]
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by robinz on Aug 18th, 2013, 12:34am
It looks like this still hasn't been fixed. My last Postal Mixer game finished yesterday, so I currently have a big void of being involved in no Arimaa postal games at all - I think for the first time in the 2+ years since I first signed up for Autopostal  :(

Does anyone know what the problem is, and if and when we can expect it to be resolved? I know that I could start some games as suggested above, but I much prefer getting automatically paired against someone with a similar rating to mine  :)
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by rbarreira on Aug 18th, 2013, 4:35am
I recommend using the Contact form on the website, since Omar does not always look at the forum:

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/contact/
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by supersamu on Aug 20th, 2013, 4:04am
I am signed up in the Autopostal for 1 game, and at one point in the last 15 hours, I got an opponent.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by Hippo on Aug 20th, 2013, 4:56am

on 08/20/13 at 04:04:07, supersamu wrote:
I am signed up in the Autopostal for 1 game, and at one point in the last 15 hours, I got an opponent.


OK, I have refreshed the autopostal status of me and my bot to see what happens.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by Hippo on Aug 20th, 2013, 5:39am

on 08/20/13 at 04:56:31, Hippo wrote:
OK, I have refreshed the autopostal status of me and my bot to see what happens.


And according to the e-mail my bot is I am paired from today 5:07 in another time zone ... so during 11 minutes (it was 12:07 here). (Actually the game was already rejected).

BTW: with the time shift suggested for my location the posts in this forum are shown with time 1 hour in past.
I suppose it does something with daylight saving time.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by robinz on Aug 20th, 2013, 11:45am
I also got a new pairing today, in the early hours of this morning (UK time). But when I opened it I got a page saying "expired game". I don't know if this means that my opponent cancelled the game before moving (although that has happened to me before and I don't recall seeing that page), or if it means there is still something amiss with Autopostal pairings.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by ocmiente on Aug 20th, 2013, 3:53pm

on 08/20/13 at 11:45:53, robinz wrote:
I also got a new pairing today, in the early hours of this morning (UK time). But when I opened it I got a page saying "expired game". I don't know if this means that my opponent cancelled the game before moving (although that has happened to me before and I don't recall seeing that page), or if it means there is still something amiss with Autopostal pairings.


I had the same experience :)  I didn't cancel it as far as I know.  There might be a problem.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by icke on Aug 28th, 2013, 3:18am
Hello,

I came here to ask exactly what's being discussed in this thread. I started with Arimaa a couple of months ago and played a few postal matches. Then, because of a lot of stuff going on in my life I stopped playing for a while.

I came back a few weeks ago, set me up for three postal games within 250 points of my rating, and have so far gotten one match out of it. When I wanted to play said match, it was already expired.

I hope this gets fixed soon, I'll try the contact form as well.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by hyperpape on Aug 30th, 2013, 8:45am
I just recently got a match, I should note. I did sign up for more than one, but there's evidence that we're not going totally unpaired.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by dht on Aug 31st, 2013, 1:59am
My first autopostal game with the bot took a while to come, and then when I tried to load the game in the link with the email the match timed out and now the game's expired :/
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by supersamu on Sep 23rd, 2013, 4:49am
I have one autopostal game going on. 2 weeks ago, I changed the automatic pairing settings to 4 simultaneous games with a rating range of 300.
(The maximum range)
2 days ago, I changed it to 10 games with a rating range of 300.

I still have only one autopostal opponent.
If anyone (I donīt care for your rating) wants to invite me for a postal game, go ahead.
I would like a 1d/20d/100/0/300d/21d time control to speed it up a little bit.
I am going to make two open games.

Edit: The "move in 1 day with 14 day reserve" option is fine and will contribute to our WHRP (I think)
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by arhart on Nov 24th, 2013, 1:26am
feel free to challenge me to potal games as well (-: I'm not getting auto-paired either )-:
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by Hippo on Jan 6th, 2014, 3:34am
Does autopostal started working today?
At least I have got a pairing...
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by arimaa_master on Jan 6th, 2014, 7:15am

on 01/06/14 at 03:34:34, Hippo wrote:
Does autopostal started working today?
At least I have got a pairing...


I wonder the same thing (and got a pairing too).
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by mistre on Jan 6th, 2014, 9:56am
me too!
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 6th, 2014, 10:32am

on 01/06/14 at 03:34:34, Hippo wrote:
Does autopostal started working today?
At least I have got a pairing...

Ah, I leaned on Omar Saturday night, saying the broken autopostal pairing was the biggest site issue on arimaa.com at present.  Hats off to him for fixing it!  (Assuming, of course, that it is truly fixed.  If autopostal pairing still does not behave as it ought to, this thread is probably as good a place to post about it as any.)
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by odin73 on Jan 6th, 2014, 10:56am
I donīt think itīs completely fixed. Please check the list of all postal games.
As already the case ca. 2 years ago, the list is now crowded by 90% of dead games between a human player (most of them not online for a long time) vs. bot_arimaascore_P1 that never started and probably wonīt start in future.

Omar already fixed this issue long time ago after I sent him a hint.

Surely, this does not pose a problem to active players playing games.  8)
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 6th, 2014, 2:14pm

on 01/06/14 at 10:56:18, odin73 wrote:
Omar already fixed this issue long time ago after I sent him a hint.

I am fairly sure the autopostal pairing broke completely because Omar was trying to fix something about it.  The time to apply any further corrections is immediately, while it is still fresh in his mind how things work.  I will alert him to this thread.  Bear in mind, however, that the current behavior may be what he wanted!
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by browni3141 on Jan 6th, 2014, 8:31pm
I got paired with supersamu, but the game disappeared without either of us doing anything to it.
The only thing  did was turn auto-postal back off.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by mistre on Jan 7th, 2014, 11:10am
Hmm, my original paired game with Nombril has disappeared before I took my first move.  Now I have been paired with Robinz.

So there is still a problem obviously.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by Hippo on Jan 8th, 2014, 6:08am
I have unchecked the Autopostal for bot_drake_rank, (moreover the number of opponents is set to 1) and it was paired twice with bot_Arimanator.

It is on 2nd turn on both games now.
I am not sure if it will use it's 1 day for thinking :).
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by browni3141 on Jan 8th, 2014, 1:41pm

on 01/08/14 at 06:08:29, Hippo wrote:
I have unchecked the Autopostal for bot_drake_rank, (moreover the number of opponents is set to 1) and it was paired twice with bot_Arimanator.

It is on 2nd turn on both games now.
I am not sure if it will use it's 1 day for thinking :).

Arimaanator has open postal games in the gameroom. Maybe the bot sat in those? I didn't even know bots could use autopostal.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 8th, 2014, 1:54pm
As far as I know, bot_Arimaanator is not signed up for the autopostal, and if it is, it wasn't my doing.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by Hippo on Jan 14th, 2014, 9:36am

on 01/08/14 at 13:41:51, browni3141 wrote:
Arimaanator has open postal games in the gameroom. Maybe the bot sat in those? I didn't even know bots could use autopostal.


A had bot_Hippo in autopostal mode with several concurent games ... pre postal mixer.

The case of bot_drake_rank could be ... it just sat on open game with bot with close enough rating.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 14th, 2014, 9:51am

on 01/14/14 at 09:36:57, Hippo wrote:
The case of bot_drake_rank could be ... it just sat on open game with bot with close enough rating.

Do you want to resign those game for drake, or let them time out, or actually have drake play postally?
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by Hippo on Jan 14th, 2014, 10:51am
I don't want drake_rank play postally... OK I am going to resign them.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 15th, 2014, 11:45am

on 01/14/14 at 10:51:38, Hippo wrote:
I don't want drake_rank play postally... OK I am going to resign them.

Thanks.  I hope it doesn't cause a problem for you that bot_Arimaanator acquires games by opening them in the game room.  Perhaps you can add an exception to the logic for which games bot_drake_rank joins?
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by Hippo on Jan 15th, 2014, 1:05pm

on 01/15/14 at 11:45:27, Fritzlein wrote:
Thanks.  I hope it doesn't cause a problem for you that bot_Arimaanator acquires games by opening them in the game room.  Perhaps you can add an exception to the logic for which games bot_drake_rank joins?


I have already added an exception to MarwinFast2011, but I don't expect to run bot_drake_rank in it's current state anymore. I have already written review to the thesis and Master Thesis defense will be next week.
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by hyperpape on Feb 11th, 2014, 2:00pm
How does manually opening postal games work? Is there a place to view the open games, or would I have to post/solicit a link to a game that someone else has opened?
Title: Re: Postal games
Post by harvestsnow on Feb 11th, 2014, 10:55pm
You can create open games from there:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/newgame.cgi ,
or Play Now > Create open game in the site menu.

Open postal games are presented in the same place as live ones, on the gameroom main page.

Unfortunately open games disappear quickly if nothing happens. To make them last longer, take gold, sit and start the clock.


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