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Topic: Widening gap? (Read 4995 times) |
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Fritzlein
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Widening gap?
« on: Sep 10th, 2005, 11:12pm » |
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I just noticed that there are now 7 humans rated ahead of the strongest bot, the first time this has happened since speedy came on line. This certainly validates the concept of a team of three humans defending the challenge, because even if a few top players decline the honor, there is still plenty of talent and knowledge to see the humans through.
Also I notice that there are five humans rated above 2000, which I think has happened for the first time. This is especially impressive because I believe that a 2000 ranking nowadays represents a higher level of achievement now than it used to. Probably a 2000 player today is would have been rated 2100 a year ago, and 2200 two years ago. The level of human play is steadily rising, and the bots have a lot of work to do this fall/winter just to catch up to where they were last year.
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PMertens
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #1 on: Sep 11th, 2005, 1:23pm » |
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Actually it is now 8 players ahead if we count only active bots 
Oh, and 6 player 2k+ :-P (Go Belbo, go ...)
(Speedy is overrated anyway  )
Are you trying to explain why some Top players lost about 100 rating points over the last year ? 
I agree, that the 2k+ players are probably better than last year (because of newfound strategies) but I also think that it became far easier to reach such heights.
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Arimanator
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #2 on: Sep 11th, 2005, 3:39pm » |
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Speedy wouldn't be so overrated if some people didn't feed him back points as soon as it's low. I've always expected blitz to go under the 1700s sooner or later but for some reason each time it gets close to that people lose against it (in droves apparently) and it's right back up over 1900s and sometimes even close to 2000. This bot works like the stock market.
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| « Last Edit: Sep 11th, 2005, 3:40pm by Arimanator » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #3 on: Sep 11th, 2005, 11:29pm » |
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on Sep 11th, 2005, 1:23pm, PMertens wrote:Are you trying to explain why some Top players lost about 100 rating points over the last year ?
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Hehe, in my case it would be a 100-rating-point decline over the past couple of months, and I don't think deflation is working quite that fast. On the other hand, Arimanator, Robinson, and Adanac learned how to play, and the points they won had to be taken from somewhere. Also look at blue22: he's rated only 1800 but at his strength he certainly would have been rated 2000 only a year ago.
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I agree, that the 2k+ players are probably better than last year (because of newfound strategies) but I also think that it became far easier to reach such heights. |
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In what sense is it easier to reach a good playing strength? If you mean it is easier because there is a Wikipedia article, and there are more humans to learn from, and more different bots to learn from, I agree that all of these factors help players get good at Arimaa faster.
These aids notwithstanding, in some sense 2000 is still harder to reach than it used to be because the competition you have to climb over has gotten tougher. I got almost to 2000 myself just by beating bot_Arimaanator 80%-90% of the time, but when blue22 did the same it only got him to 1800 because bot_Arimaanator's rating had deflated 200 points in the mean time. And there are plenty of other examples. Speedy is about the only bot whose rating hasn't deflated compared to last year, and that is just because it hasn't been playing. If speedy were online all the time, I expect it would lose about 100 points too, and bounce around 1875 (a bit higher than BombFast) for its average rating. After that stabilization, despite the fact that speedy is a stronger bot than it used to be, one would have to be able to beat it a higher percentage of the time to get a 2000 rating, etc.
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| « Last Edit: Sep 11th, 2005, 11:32pm by Fritzlein » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #4 on: Sep 11th, 2005, 11:40pm » |
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on Sep 11th, 2005, 3:39pm, Arimanator wrote:| I've always expected blitz to go under the 1700s sooner or later but for some reason each time it gets close to that people lose against it (in droves apparently) |
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I think this is at least partly attributable to people who play experimentally despite known methods of beating Bomb. The prime example is Naveed. I'm sure he could beat BombBlitz every single game in a number of ways, but that's not how he likes to play. And even after he discovers a new method of winning, like that spectacular E+H and M+H on the second trap with a rabbit wiggling through, he abandons it after a couple of games to resume his losing ways.
Some of the time I find it embarrassing that some bots still have ratings as high as they do, and I wonder why humanity hasn't beaten them down yet, but other times I'm grateful for the people who don't give hoot about ratings and play for the joy of it. Fortunately the world is big enough for people like me to earn inflated ratings, and for freer spirits to play however it suits them.
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PMertens
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #5 on: Sep 12th, 2005, 10:03am » |
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Quote:| In what sense is it easier to reach a good playing strength? If you mean it is easier because there is a Wikipedia article, and there are more humans to learn from, and more different bots to learn from, I agree that all of these factors help players get good at Arimaa faster |
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It is certainly easier to become a better player than the frozen-in-time-players one year ago.
But with reaching heights I meant points not playing-strength.
To reach 2k points by playing a blitz-bot is not really harder than playing 'nator a year ago - just faster :-P
(of course it is a stronger bot, but we know its weaknesses)
Quote:| Fortunately the world is big enough for people like me to earn inflated ratings |
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If I remember correctly you manage to beat humans once in a while ... so maybe your rating is not that far inflated :-P
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PMertens
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #6 on: Sep 13th, 2005, 9:38am » |
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I just noticed that there are now 9 humans rated ahead of the strongest (active) bot ... and 1 human is only 1 point behind ...
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Fritzlein
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #7 on: Sep 13th, 2005, 10:32am » |
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on Sep 13th, 2005, 9:38am, PMertens wrote:I just noticed that there are now 9 humans rated ahead of the strongest (active) bot ... and 1 human is only 1 point behind ...
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Well, OK, but if you are only counting active bots, shouldn't you only count active humans? Still, any way you slice it, apparently a whole troop of humans could defend the challenge this year, when last year we were wondering if there were four of us.
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PMertens
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #8 on: Sep 13th, 2005, 11:29am » |
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both mouse and bleitner have been last seen less than 30 days ago
(I hope they join the ranks of online players for the championchip)
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Arimanator
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #9 on: Sep 13th, 2005, 3:08pm » |
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on Sep 13th, 2005, 9:38am, PMertens wrote:I just noticed that there are now 9 humans rated ahead of the strongest (active) bot ... and 1 human is only 1 point behind ...
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Maybe the fact that blitz got recently quite a beating has something to do with that?
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Fritzlein
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #10 on: Sep 14th, 2005, 7:03am » |
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OK, now Belbo made it back over 2000 too, for a record 7 players over 2000 all at the same time. Who's next? If mouse doesn't come out of retirement soon, my bet is on blue22, just because he is giving me fits in our postal game.
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PMertens
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #11 on: Sep 14th, 2005, 7:43am » |
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probably ... after all he is Top5 of players with RU 30
(and Top7 with RU 31)
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Fritzlein
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #12 on: Sep 23rd, 2005, 11:39pm » |
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Wow, suddenly the top active bot (where active means RU <= 50) is only rated 1800 flat, which means there are eleven active humans ahead of it. Hopefully the developers will show us some serious upgrades this fall, and bot_haizhi and bot_weiser will use new methods to reach new heights. We wouldn't want the challenge matches to start getting boring, would we?
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| « Last Edit: Sep 23rd, 2005, 11:41pm by Fritzlein » |
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #13 on: Oct 6th, 2005, 6:28pm » |
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For fun I decided to create a graphical view of the evolution of the strength of humans relative to computers. I went back through the database and listed the top eight players at the end of each week, then charted them with blue for humans and pink for bots. I allowed diferent versions of the same bot, i.e. both Occam and Arimaazilla earlier, and then all the versions of Bomb later. I excluded OmarFast, though, and would have excluded other duplicate human accounts if I had known of any.
It looks like bots and humans were running about even through mid-2003, but then humans started to pull away. Speedy has occasionally made a run at the top spot, but has always been beaten back. As of the last week shown, namely late September, only speedy is representing silicon in the top eight, and perhaps only due to inactivity.
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PMertens
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Arimaa player #692
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Re: Widening gap?
« Reply #14 on: Oct 6th, 2005, 9:14pm » |
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nice graph ... would be a nice addition to the rating inflation topic as well
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