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Topic: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions (Read 10080 times) |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #45 on: Jan 30th, 2009, 6:46am » |
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on Jan 29th, 2009, 5:28pm, omar wrote:| I really would suggest people to record the moves on paper next time they play or review a game; then open a plan window and make the moves by looking at only the notation on paper. It's one thing to talk about it in theory and another thing to do it in practice. |
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I second this sentiment. This is not to say that when everyone has tried out the various proposals we all will agree on what is best; I just mean that I had strong intuitions about what short notation would be best, but when I actually tried to use it for my book, what worked best was different than I expected.
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clauchau
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #46 on: Feb 3rd, 2009, 5:02am » |
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After 15 years of playing with computer chess and a lot of variants and similar games by emails, and logging the moves of several game engines of mine, I'm still mentally uncomfortable with identifying columns by their traditional letters on a 8x8 board, except by keeping an eye on a board with labels on every side. Columns f and g are the most difficult to identify to me. I always need a couple of seconds. Columns a and b are the only ones I never mentally hesitate upon.
Row numbers aren't totally easy either, though they are easier than letters.
More compelling, even after 6 years of playing Arimaa, I don't remember having ever gone through the hurdle of thoroughly reading and fully understanding any noted move in the old fashioned way. It has always looked senseless enough to keep me from trying. I don't like how ee6e doesn't strike me at first glance.
Ideally, I'll go for small animal pictures, some symbolic graphics denoting the square and fat arrows. Meanwhile, on limited computer files, screens and keyboard, I vote to make the pieces look as distinct as possible from the squares. I rather agree with using capital letters for pieces, both Gold and Silver.
Maybe we could relabel the columns ab jk st yz ? As soon as I would see t, I would easily see it belongs to the right half of the board, left half of that half, right half of that half of half.
Maybe if one insist to show Gold from Silver, one could prefix any move of Silver's with a minus.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 3rd, 2009, 5:03am by clauchau » |
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RonWeasley
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #47 on: Feb 3rd, 2009, 8:56am » |
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We learned the letter order with a kid's song that goes: Albino Bats Climb Down Exits From Glass Houses. The tune just follows all the notes on the scale.
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omar
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #48 on: Feb 3rd, 2009, 12:09pm » |
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on Feb 3rd, 2009, 5:02am, clauchau wrote:| After 15 years of playing with computer chess and a lot of variants and similar games by emails, and logging the moves of several game engines of mine, I'm still mentally uncomfortable with identifying columns by their traditional letters on a 8x8 board, except by keeping an eye on a board with labels on every side. Columns f and g are the most difficult to identify to me. I always need a couple of seconds. Columns a and b are the only ones I never mentally hesitate upon. |
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Wow, I also have difficulty using letter for the columns. I am OK with a-c, but have to think twice for the rest. I feel like I'm confessing at an AA meeting 
Your suggestion for the labeling might be better, but still would require a little getting used to. Using numbers I think is still the most natural and intuitive. I have a feeling that the chess folks used letters for one of the dimension just so there would not be any mix up with which number goes with which dimension.
Yesterday I tried recording the Adanac-Fritzlein game from round 3 using the notation suggested by 99of9, the notation currently described on the short notation page and the original short notation which used the scans. I did this from the point of view that I am playing an OTB game and have to record the moves myself fairly quickly; although I recorded the moves in a computer file rather than on paper. I also timed myself to see how much time I spent on each.
99of9 - using case sensitive piece letters and disambiguating by specifying the square location with letters for columns and numbers for rows took about 35 minutes.
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/learn/shortNotationTest/99
Fritzlein - using upper case for all pieces and disambiguating by specifying the row or column if possible; otherwise specifying the square with letter and number took about 29 minutes.
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/learn/shortNotationTest/kj
original short notation - using lower case for all pieces and disambiguating by scan number took about 26 minutes.
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/learn/shortNotationTest/orig
Though I was trying to do it briskly I was replaying the moves a few times to make sure I got it right. Some things I noticed were:
* using case sensitive letters for the pieces adds a little delay to make sure you have the right case; though this is good for readability it makes recording a bit slower; I wouldn't mind doing it in a write up of a game, but wouldn't want to do it while also playing the game.
* using square location to disambiguate adds a lot of redundancy; most of the time the column is sufficient to disambiguate and having to specify the row just slows you down; I definitely wouldn't want to do this while also playing the game.
* when using columns or rows to disambiguate there were only two times during the whole game that is was not enough and both column and row had to be specified.
* the scan number works really well for horse, dog and cat; even faster than using rows or columns, but rabbits slow you down and you have to carefully count.
* I could feel that the columns being letters was slowing me down; wished the columns were numbers.
* it felt a bit unnatural to write the weaker piece first in a pull; there seems to be a tendency to want to write the stronger piece first.
I then tried somewhat of a hybrid approach using scan number for the horse, dog and cat and columns for the rabbits and specifying column and row only if needed. I also used numbers for the columns so that only one number after a rabbit is the column number and two numbers is column and row. I also used a local scan to specify the weaker piece if needed in a push/pull. Even for a pull I wrote the stronger piece first and used a '/' character to specify that the next direction character is for a pull. I used lower case for all pieces to making the recording faster, but it could be done case sensitive also.
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/learn/shortNotationTest/test
Recording the moves this way felt very easy. I was able to record the game in about 20 minutes. I don't think it's possible to make the recording any faster. Also it is easier to read when the columns are not letters; thus letters are only for pieces; numbers for disambiguation and special characters (except for v) for directions and captures. Of course case sensitive letters could be used if one is not in a hurry.
Now the only thing bothering me was what if someone in a game write up wanted to refer to the square location using numbers for both the column and row; how could you distinguish that from a move number. For example "I should have captured the rabbit on 23". Is that move 23 or the square 23. Usually we specify the moves by including a g or s after them to indicate the side to move so this could help distinguish it. But what I am going to suggest is that a '#' character be used in front of a square location to make it absolutely clear. Thus if you ment the rabbit on square 23 you would write it as: "I should have captured the rabbit on #23".
The other consideration is what if someone wants to use the standard 'a1' type of square locations in the write up of a game. I am going to suggest that you can also use that. However, where as #11 would be at the lower left corner of the specified view the square a1 will always be at the lower left corner of the gold player. I think people are more accustomed to it being that way.
I also considered using a column number and if needed a row for the horse, dog and cat. It would eliminate a bit of exception in the notation rules, but I know from practical experience that a scan between two pieces is much faster than what column they are on; even when the columns are numbers. If I was recording while playing I would definitely prefer to use the scan for the horse, dog and cat.
I know we've been experimenting a lot with making the short notation better and perhaps you are getting tired of me changing it so much. But I am starting to feel as if this version is perhaps the fastest for recording and visually clearest for reading. I would suggest others to really try it out and see how it feels to you.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 3rd, 2009, 2:16pm by omar » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #49 on: Feb 3rd, 2009, 2:47pm » |
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I'm very reluctant to change the notation in my book again, given how close I am to publishing and given how much time it takes to make the change. If, however, we are not discussing what goes in my book, and we are instead discussing the future evolution of Arimaa notation, I think there is still room for improvement. We need to keep comparing systems and see what works the best for the most people.
on Feb 3rd, 2009, 12:09pm, omar wrote:| Wow, I also have difficulty using letter for the columns. I am OK with a-c, but have to think twice for the rest. |
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Hmm, I don't have any trouble with using letters for columns. If you tell me "f4" I can point to the square without hesitating or hitting e4 or g4 by accident. Surely this is a product of my chess upbringing.
On the other hand, because I am not used to it, I would have to hesitate between square 65 and square 56.
Quote:| I then tried somewhat of a hybrid approach using scan number for the horse, dog and cat and columns for the rabbits and specifying column and row only if needed. |
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You don't think it will be confusing that h2 means the second horse but r2 means the rabbit on the second column, unless it is a push when er2 means the second rabbit the elephant can push? That's a triple-meaning for the disambiguating '2'! One advantage of the previous iteration was that the disambiguation was consistent, so that the 'f' in Hf and Rf and ERf always meant the f-column.
Quote:| I also used numbers for the columns so that only one number after a rabbit is the column number and two numbers is column and row. |
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There is a slight loss of efficiency there. In the short notation currently in my book I can write R7 for my one and only rabbit on the seventh row (and did a couple of times), because we know the 7 isn't the 7th column. In your latest suggestion even if there is only one rabbit on the 7th row, you have to write the column too before disambiguating.
Quote:| Even for a pull I wrote the stronger piece first and used a '/' character to specify that the next direction character is for a pull. |
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I confess that the notation currently in my book is confusing on the score of pulls. It is more intuitive to always write the stronger piece first. The problem is exacerbated because the pieces are all capital, so you don't know which piece is yours and which is the opponent's. If the stronger piece always came first, that would also mean that your own piece always comes first, which is how we think about it intuitively.
Unfortunately, not only does your suggestion add another character to indicate pulls, it also moves the direction far from the piece moving in that direction. In 'md/^' it is the camel moving north, not the dog or the slash, so you have to get used to commuting the ^ across two characters to the piece that is actually moving ^. Still, that may be less confusing than trying to sort which of two pieces is the stronger. I would have to try it out to know.
An alternative to consider is 'm^/d' which reads as "camel moves up, pulls dog"
Quote:| Now the only thing bothering me was what if someone in a game write up wanted to refer to the square location using numbers for both the column and row; how could you distinguish that from a move number. For example "I should have captured the rabbit on 23". Is that move 23 or the square 23. Usually we specify the moves by including a g or s after them to indicate the side to move so this could help distinguish it. But what I am going to suggest is that a '#' character be used in front of a square location to make it absolutely clear. Thus if you ment the rabbit on square 23 you would write it as: "I should have captured the rabbit on #23". |
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I note that this is something that you haven't tried out. You can't really try it out until you try to write text about a position as well as trying to notate moves. I refer to squares all the time in my book, and I am not persuaded that #23 would read nearly as smoothly as b3. I believe that we would be trading away ease of reference to squares in order to get the benefit of being able to use lower-case letters for pieces.
Quote:| I would suggest others to really try it out and see how it feels to you. |
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Yes, I'll try it, but not for this book! Maybe by the time I come out with a second edition of my book, Arimaa notation will have evolved further, and I will want to replace the notation then.
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clauchau
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #50 on: Feb 4th, 2009, 8:46am » |
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I like Omar's last scheme best 
Have you noticed that about half the disambiguating characters could be further omitted if you added that in case of ambiguity, the choice closest to the last moved piece would prevail? Compare the beginning of Adanac-Fritzlein game as Omar last wrote it
2w e^^^h1^, evvd2vh1v
3w h1^^<m<, ev<vmv
4w e<h2^c2<r6^, e>ec/<h2v
5w r5^e<eh/>, ec^d1vv
6w eh/>m^h1^, emvdvc1v
7w d2<^m<d1^, mvvmh/^
8w ed>v, e>>er/<*
9w m^^h>r3^, r3vr3vh1>>
10w r8^^h1vr5>, r8vvc2vv
with what it becomes with that additional disambiguating rule :
2g e^^^h^, evvdvh1v
3g h^^<m<, ev<vmv
4g e<h^c<r6^, e>ec/<hv
5g r5^e<eh/>, ec^dvv
6g eh/>m^h^, emvdvcv
7g d<^m<d1^, mvvmh/^
8g ed>v, e>>er/<*
9g m^^h>r^, rvrvh1>>
10g r8^^hvr5>, r8vvcvv
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clauchau
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #51 on: Feb 4th, 2009, 8:58am » |
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on Feb 3rd, 2009, 2:47pm, Fritzlein wrote:| You don't think it will be confusing that h2 means the second horse but r2 means the rabbit on the second column, unless it is a push when er2 means the second rabbit the elephant can push? That's a triple-meaning for the disambiguating '2'! |
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Here is a nice fix : Let's not use the digits 1 or 2 when disambiguating by scan. Instead of 1, use nothing, and instead of 2 use "
In other words, digits are only for rabbits !
Now what Omar wrote would become :
2w e^^^h^, evvd"vhv
3w h^^<m<, ev<vmv
4w e<h"^c"<r6^, e>ec/<h"v
5w r5^e<eh/>, ec^dvv
6w eh/>m^h^, emvdvcv
7w d"<^m<d^, mvvmh/^
8w ed>v, e>>er/<*
9w m^^h>r3^, r3vr3vh>>
10w r8^^hvr5>, r8vvc"vv
and if we add disambiguating by shortest distance :
2g e^^^h^, evvdvhv
3g h^^<m<, ev<vmv
4g e<h^c<r6^, e>ec/<hv
5g r5^e<eh/>, ec^dvv
6g eh/>m^h^, emvdvcv
7g d<^m<d^, mvvmh/^
8g ed>v, e>>er/<*
9g m^^h>r^, rvrvh>>
10g r8^^hvr5>, r8vvcvv
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| « Last Edit: Feb 4th, 2009, 9:02am by clauchau » |
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Janzert
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #52 on: Feb 4th, 2009, 9:14am » |
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I think there is some inherent tension in the goals between making a format that is easy to write and one that is easy to read. It seems that a lot of the effort here is in making something easy to write. I would argue that for most situations the ease of reading is much more important.
Janzert
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Fritzlein
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #53 on: Feb 4th, 2009, 10:59am » |
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I totally agree with Janzert about the tradeoff between ease of reading and ease of writing. I could record games even faster than Omar's fastest if I didn't disambiguate pieces at all. Unfortunately then it would be unreadable.
A good test of readability is to ask someone else to recreate the game you have recorded, so that the actual move isn't still lingering in your mind from when you recorded it. It's not fair to be the one to test decoding if you did the encoding yourself. Omar, perhaps you can enlist Aamir for this task; each of you record a different game, and then each of you play back the game the other person has recorded.
It was instructive for me to have Elmo reading the text of my book. She considered the old notation unwieldy, and prefers using arrows. However, her reactions convinced me that I can't be satisfied just because the notation is unambiguous. At one point I wrote C^, and didn't put a letter to show which cat was going north. It was unambiguous because only one cat could go north. Unfortunately the time it takes for a reader to determine that the other cat can't move that way is greater than the time it takes them to read an extra character in Cd^ and locate the cat on the d-file. So I have already given up some compression in favor of faster reading.
I think clauchau's disambiguation by proximity to the last piece moved is very clever, since we usually move pieces in the same quadrant. I want to try this scheme out, because it may be fast to read. Expectations are important to fast comprehension, and the reason I will not be disambiguating elephants ever. In the move Ed4^, I was expecting the elephant to be on d4, so the redundancy just slows me down, and E^ is faster. Similarly when I see E^C> I expect that the cat move will be related to the elephant move, and if my expectations are true, it can be faster to read than E^Cd>.
But the metric we use for judging should definitely not be as simple as, "I used fewer characters," or, "I recorded the game in less time." We also have to consider speed of replaying the game, ease of using the notation in the middle of sentences, speed of learning the notation, frequency of mistakes recording, frequency of mistakes replaying, etc.
For example, it might be that clauchau's scheme of disambiguation by proximity is both clear and fast, but error-prone because it is so easy for people to overlook the near cat and accidentally move the far cat when replaying. Or it may happen too often that one cat is three squares away while the other is four squares away, or that they are equal distance away, or that one is nearer where the last piece to move started, while the other is nearer to where the last piece to move ended.
I love all the ideas being generated. Let's keep at it and keep trying things out. The way we will know what notation is best is surely not by well-defined theoretical metrics, but rather by using that notation and seeing what goes wrong with it.
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chessandgo
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #54 on: Feb 5th, 2009, 12:39am » |
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on Feb 4th, 2009, 9:14am, Janzert wrote:I think there is some inherent tension in the goals between making a format that is easy to write and one that is easy to read. It seems that a lot of the effort here is in making something easy to write. I would argue that for most situations the ease of reading is much more important.
Janzert |
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This.
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clauchau
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #55 on: Feb 5th, 2009, 12:42am » |
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Well, good point, since in my eagerness to get as short a notation as possible, I was wrong suggesting using no disambiguating character to mean both the first scanned and the closest. It could mean two different choices without any way to tell which.
I now suggest c' and c" (or c0 and c9?) to mean the first and last cats in scan order.
I also admit seeing which piece is closest to another is easily prone to mistakes over long distances or along slanted paths. It also makes it dependant on the previous move, resulting in potential mistakes when quoting a step out of context. I agree we'd better stay careful on this one and use it only sparingly if ever.
on Feb 3rd, 2009, 2:47pm, Fritzlein wrote:| In the short notation currently in my book I can write R7 for my one and only rabbit on the seventh row (and did a couple of times), because we know the 7 isn't the 7th column. In your latest suggestion even if there is only one rabbit on the 7th row, you have to write the column too before disambiguating. |
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It could be noted R" since it also happens to be the last rabbit in scan mode.
We could also write R07 to specify a row without specifying a column. Longer but almost as fast.
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omar
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #56 on: Feb 9th, 2009, 5:37pm » |
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on Feb 3rd, 2009, 2:47pm, Fritzlein wrote:| I'm very reluctant to change the notation in my book again, given how close I am to publishing and given how much time it takes to make the change. If, however, we are not discussing what goes in my book, and we are instead discussing the future evolution of Arimaa notation, I think there is still room for improvement. We need to keep comparing systems and see what works the best for the most people. |
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I think what you have in the book now is much easier for humans than the computer friendly notation. I think we've taken a major leap already towards human friendly notation and the finer details usually take more time, effort and experience to settle down.
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Hmm, I don't have any trouble with using letters for columns. If you tell me "f4" I can point to the square without hesitating or hitting e4 or g4 by accident. Surely this is a product of my chess upbringing.
On the other hand, because I am not used to it, I would have to hesitate between square 65 and square 56.
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This will vary from person to person and for people who are not heavily into chess notation the numbers would probably be easier. Also not using letters to specify the squares allows both upper and lower case to be used for pieces. Also it is nice that most of the time you never have to specify the square and columns are usually sufficient; at least for the g and s views.
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You don't think it will be confusing that h2 means the second horse but r2 means the rabbit on the second column, unless it is a push when er2 means the second rabbit the elephant can push? That's a triple-meaning for the disambiguating '2'! One advantage of the previous iteration was that the disambiguation was consistent, so that the 'f' in Hf and Rf and ERf always meant the f-column.
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It would seem that this would be confusing, but when I actually did it wasn't confusing at all.
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There is a slight loss of efficiency there. In the short notation currently in my book I can write R7 for my one and only rabbit on the seventh row (and did a couple of times), because we know the 7 isn't the 7th column. In your latest suggestion even if there is only one rabbit on the 7th row, you have to write the column too before disambiguating.
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Yes, there is some loss of efficiency, but it's not much since specifying a square is usually not needed and most rabbit disambiguation can be done by columns. Using letters to specify columns does make things like Rc> look a bit confusing (cat pulls rabbit east or rabbit on column c moves east).
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I confess that the notation currently in my book is confusing on the score of pulls. It is more intuitive to always write the stronger piece first. The problem is exacerbated because the pieces are all capital, so you don't know which piece is yours and which is the opponent's. If the stronger piece always came first, that would also mean that your own piece always comes first, which is how we think about it intuitively.
Unfortunately, not only does your suggestion add another character to indicate pulls, it also moves the direction far from the piece moving in that direction. In 'md/^' it is the camel moving north, not the dog or the slash, so you have to get used to commuting the ^ across two characters to the piece that is actually moving ^. Still, that may be less confusing than trying to sort which of two pieces is the stronger. I would have to try it out to know.
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Give it a try, it didn't feel confusing to me. The way I think of it is first linking the two pieces together and then moving them based on the direction characters that follow. One thing that can be done when you do it this way is to easily mix push/pull combinations. For example Eh/^> means elephant goes north pulling the horse and then pushs the horse east (the / applies only to the direction character immediately after it)
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An alternative to consider is 'm^/d' which reads as "camel moves up, pulls dog" |
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But could look a bit confusing if the next step was a cat movement: m^/dc>
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I note that this is something that you haven't tried out. You can't really try it out until you try to write text about a position as well as trying to notate moves. I refer to squares all the time in my book, and I am not persuaded that #23 would read nearly as smoothly as b3. I believe that we would be trading away ease of reference to squares in order to get the benefit of being able to use lower-case letters for pieces. |
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I would reccomend continuing to use the a1 type of notation in the text. In the move notation squares are rarely specified.
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Yes, I'll try it, but not for this book! Maybe by the time I come out with a second edition of my book, Arimaa notation will have evolved further, and I will want to replace the notation then. |
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I think what would really help get the notation hashed out is if we had an OTB tournament and had to record our moves by hand. It's hard to force yourself to do that when you don't have to
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omar
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #57 on: Feb 9th, 2009, 5:49pm » |
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on Feb 5th, 2009, 12:42am, clauchau wrote:Well, good point, since in my eagerness to get as short a notation as possible, I was wrong suggesting using no disambiguating character to mean both the first scanned and the closest. It could mean two different choices without any way to tell which.
I now suggest c' and c" (or c0 and c9?) to mean the first and last cats in scan order.
I also admit seeing which piece is closest to another is easily prone to mistakes over long distances or along slanted paths. It also makes it dependant on the previous move, resulting in potential mistakes when quoting a step out of context. I agree we'd better stay careful on this one and use it only sparingly if ever.
It could be noted R" since it also happens to be the last rabbit in scan mode. |
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Interesting; I'll try out these suggestions.
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We could also write R07 to specify a row without specifying a column. Longer but almost as fast. |
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Good suggestion; this would be useful for the 'n' view. Yes, less precision but still unambiguous is what seems to makes the notation faster and less error prone. Perhaps rabbit on row 7 could be written more visually as R=7 (the = kind of looks like rows).
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omar
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #58 on: Feb 9th, 2009, 6:01pm » |
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on Feb 4th, 2009, 9:14am, Janzert wrote:I think there is some inherent tension in the goals between making a format that is easy to write and one that is easy to read. It seems that a lot of the effort here is in making something easy to write. I would argue that for most situations the ease of reading is much more important.
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I am finding that its not so much the number of characters that make the notation easier to write, but rather having to specify less is what makes it easier; and less error prone.
As for easier to read; I am finding that using different types of characters for different things (piece type, direction, disambiguation) makes it easier for me to read.
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mattj256
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Re: Short notation for Arimaa games and positions
« Reply #59 on: May 12th, 2015, 10:33am » |
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Hi all.
There's a community volunteer effort under way to create a new Arimaa website. (front end and back end.)
As part of the discussion, some members of the community have mentioned that they don't like the standard Arimaa notation. I think it's extremely important that the new site support standard Arimaa notation, and I'm open to also supporting other notations as well.
I wasn't sure if I should start a new thread or resurrect an old one.
If people have specific recommendations and if there's consensus then we can talk about implementing other notations as options.
(This is assuming that Omar gives his stamp of approval.)
Some questions to think about:
1. What are the most important features that a good notation should have?
2. Who is the primary audience? (humans or bots)
3. What features do we like in other notations?
4. What features do we not like in other notations?
Thanks in advance for your help.
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