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Topic: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup (Read 6158 times) |
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browni3141
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Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« on: Aug 7th, 2012, 12:07pm » |
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As gold:
As silver:
Before explaining my ideas, I want to here what others think of it. I've had some great successes with it that perfectly demonstrate my setup's idea. I will show some examples after I hear what you think.
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Boo
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #1 on: Aug 7th, 2012, 1:01pm » |
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As gold facing your silver setup I can play M->c3 + Ed3, and whatever your ideas are, the symetrical HME setup in the left wing should not lead to advantage for any side assuming correct play.
The question is if I am really scared or not ... 
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browni3141
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #2 on: Aug 7th, 2012, 1:23pm » |
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on Aug 7th, 2012, 1:01pm, Boo wrote:As gold facing your silver setup I can play M->c3 + Ed3, and whatever your ideas are, the symetrical HME setup in the left wing should not lead to advantage for any side assuming correct play.
The question is if I am really scared or not ... |
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The opening certainly doesn't mean to give silver an overwhelming advantage, but I would say after your move it is even or even very slightly better for silver because gold has used most of his extra tempi to achieve symmetry. Silver now throws the first punch.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #3 on: Aug 7th, 2012, 3:36pm » |
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As Silver I would face your MH with my M, face your H with my HH, and generally track your E with my E. The strategic idea is that I am better able to pull rabbits than you are, so you have to do something aggressive to make it not a rabbit-pulling game. On the other hand, you don't have an obviously good advance of your M or of either H, so it makes it easier for me to punish your aggression when it comes.
Or you can re-align your M against my HH, which would swing the slight strategic advantage into your court, but that takes time, and I should be able to use that time to provoke some weakness while you are shuffling around. Obviously the game is fluid and anything can happen out of the setup, but if you set up that way as Gold I would feel slightly ahead as Silver as soon as I set up my pieces.
When you set up that way as Silver, the mainstream 99of9/chessandgo idea for Gold would be to centralize the E and advance the eastern H, starting with 2g E->d5 H->g3. It isn't obvious from your setup what you would plan to do about that, or why Gold should have anything to fear. Obviously your attacking chances are all in the west, but the gold E will be hovering and the gold M can easily cross, so only a full-out swarm of c3 seems to be threatening. The day such swarms can be telegraphed in advance and still work is the last day anyone can be a "home" player.
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| « Last Edit: Aug 7th, 2012, 3:40pm by Fritzlein » |
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browni3141
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #4 on: Aug 7th, 2012, 6:23pm » |
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on Aug 7th, 2012, 3:36pm, Fritzlein wrote:As Silver I would face your MH with my M, face your H with my HH, and generally track your E with my E. The strategic idea is that I am better able to pull rabbits than you are, so you have to do something aggressive to make it not a rabbit-pulling game. On the other hand, you don't have an obviously good advance of your M or of either H, so it makes it easier for me to punish your aggression when it comes.
Or you can re-align your M against my HH, which would swing the slight strategic advantage into your court, but that takes time, and I should be able to use that time to provoke some weakness while you are shuffling around. Obviously the game is fluid and anything can happen out of the setup, but if you set up that way as Gold I would feel slightly ahead as Silver as soon as I set up my pieces.
When you set up that way as Silver, the mainstream 99of9/chessandgo idea for Gold would be to centralize the E and advance the eastern H, starting with 2g E->d5 H->g3. It isn't obvious from your setup what you would plan to do about that, or why Gold should have anything to fear. Obviously your attacking chances are all in the west, but the gold E will be hovering and the gold M can easily cross, so only a full-out swarm of c3 seems to be threatening. The day such swarms can be telegraphed in advance and still work is the last day anyone can be a "home" player. |
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I think my setup is strongest against 99of9-like setups. The main point of it is to attack c6 and minimize forward steps by aligning my pieces to be closest to their most common squares. a6 for the a2 horse, b5 for the b2 camel, a5 for the a1 rabbit, d6 or possibly c5 for the d2 elephant, and the dog may come through the trap to c5 and the cat will replace it on c2. The east I've tried to setup defensively with the cat on the h-file so that silver can't easily ensure progress with a rabbit pull. It is a little harder to drag a cat back than a rabbit, and a cat is barely worth more. The rabbit behind the trap could be a bit of a nuisance eventually, but this is most likely (IMO) to be a problem later on, and early tempi are more important than late tempi. What I've just explained is what I would consider the optimal outcome from my setup, and I have achieved it against some strongish opponents.
Of course I have considered that silver doesn't have to play into my hands, and will probably try something other than 99of9 in an attempt to refute my ideas. My setup doesn't really have any potential downsides except for the flank camel. With the camel on a flank an unbalanced setup, which you proposed, makes sense. I have thought of this. What I usually like to do against and unbalanced setup is attack the camel side with dogs and a horse with my camel being on the HH side ready to create a second threat when it becomes strongest free piece. I will possibly also pull rabbits on either side, especially the opponent's camel side, to get my home traps involved. With that being my main plan against an unbalanced setup I am not starting very far from it. My camel is on the wrong wing, but that's it. I can either try to correct this misalignment, or I can forget about it and try a slightly different plan. I am more free to be aggressive with my camel on your camel side because a camel hostage for you is pretty far from optimal due to the imbalanced horses and your camel being on the wrong wing compared to an optimal camel hostage. If I get a camel hostage it will be slightly better because although my camel is also on the wrong wing, I have balanced horses, and will likely already have advanced pieces because of my attack. Also, since our camels are on the same side a camel attack doesn't award you strongest free piece, so I'm not necessarily in a hurry to get something. The best your horses can get by themselves is probably only a rabbit, and they have to worry a little bit about my camel which can switch wings if it feels it needs to. You do not have the same liberty of switching wings with the camel because I will very easily complete an elephant rotation.
Let me also say that I laugh at your statement about a rabbit-pulling game being unavailable to me. You clearly don't know what kind of a player I am  . I almost never pull rabbits as my main strategy. I believe it to be inferior and believe in the power of time and attack. The stronger I get the less appealing rabbit pulling becomes, and the more appealing attack becomes. Pulling rabbits as part of an attack is a bit different though, and I will do that.
Finally, I do not swarm, I attack. Sorry, I just hate that word "swarm". It sounds like mindlessly throwing pieces forward . I try to make every step of mine have a specific purpose when I can.
Edit: I believe you can now guess what my plans are as silver against 99of9. I won't do anything but ignore an eastern H advance the because the gains are small, and I am hunting bigger game in the west. If gold takes the time to move his camel to c3 then silver should have a theoretical advantage because the major pieces are all pretty similarly placed and gold has lost at least his first move's advantage worth of time.
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| « Last Edit: Aug 7th, 2012, 6:32pm by browni3141 » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #5 on: Aug 7th, 2012, 8:07pm » |
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on Aug 7th, 2012, 6:23pm, browni3141 wrote:| My camel is on the wrong wing, but that's it. I can either try to correct this misalignment[...] |
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You crossed with the camel in our Postal Mixer game; why didn't it work out? I rather felt that my pull of your rabbit, which you scorn as small game, led you to press too hard in attempting to get bigger game on the other wing, because you didn't have the viable option of patient defense and gradual positional improvement. I'm not saying that it is a disadvantage to attack, but in my experience it is an uncomfortable situation to be forced to attack.
Quote:| [...] or I can forget about it and try a slightly different plan. I am more free to be aggressive with my camel on your camel side because a camel hostage for you is pretty far from optimal due to the imbalanced horses and your camel being on the wrong wing compared to an optimal camel hostage. |
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Awesome, I look forward to our next Postal Mixer game in which you give me a sub-optimal camel hostage on the wing where both of our camels live. I'm quite proud of my collection of postal scalps from players (most notably (and repeatedly) Adanac) who gave me a sub-optimal camel hostage and thought it would be to their advantage rather than mine. Not that the camel hostage always works, as chessandgo is presently teaching me, but even an awkard camel hostage is not necessarily bad, as I am presently demonstrating (I hope) against Nombril. Also I refer you to the 2011 World Championships in which rabbits beat Adanac and chessandgo back-to-back after each of them willingly gave up a camel hostage they didn't think would hurt.
I'm certainly not saying your position is unplayable after your setup as Gold and my response as Silver. Neither side is committed to a single plan of action. The game can take many different courses, plenty of which I don't understand well, and tactics decide the outcome more often than strategy. Nevertheless, I remain so far from "very afraid" as to feel my position as Silver will be slightly more comfortable to play than yours as Gold.
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| « Last Edit: Aug 7th, 2012, 8:21pm by Fritzlein » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #6 on: Aug 7th, 2012, 8:16pm » |
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on Aug 7th, 2012, 6:23pm, browni3141 wrote:| Let me also say that I laugh at your statement about a rabbit-pulling game being unavailable to me. You clearly don't know what kind of a player I am . I almost never pull rabbits as my main strategy. |
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Ah, now I know what kind of player you are. You are the kind of player who believes he can always gain some sort of an advantage without pulling rabbits. I, on the other hand, believe I can shut down and punish any attack from anyone who refuses to pull rabbits. Yes, I include chessandgo and hanzack in this sweeping statement. If I could count on them to never pull rabbits, I could fend off anything either of them had to throw at me.
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browni3141
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #7 on: Aug 7th, 2012, 10:38pm » |
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on Aug 7th, 2012, 8:07pm, Fritzlein wrote:
You crossed with the camel in our Postal Mixer game; why didn't it work out? I rather felt that my pull of your rabbit, which you scorn as small game, led you to press too hard in attempting to get bigger game on the other wing, because you didn't have the viable option of patient defense and gradual positional improvement. I'm not saying that it is a disadvantage to attack, but in my experience it is an uncomfortable situation to be forced to attack. |
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I don't really feel like discussing why what I did in our postal didn't work. If you insist though then can we go over all of my other games that I played as an 1800? I didn't really know what I was doing for about the first seven moves. I was a completely different player then and all I knew to do was try and survive, not play for any subtle advantages. I probably could play just about every move better if we replayed our game. I was at a disadvantage when I started my attack, and I don't believe I even executed the attack well. I'm not saying that I would beat you if I got to start over. You are still a better player than me, at least for now. I just don't really feel there is much to gain looking at a part of the game where I had no idea what I was doing.
Quote:Awesome, I look forward to our next Postal Mixer game in which you give me a sub-optimal camel hostage on the wing where both of our camels live. I'm quite proud of my collection of postal scalps from players (most notably (and repeatedly) Adanac) who gave me a sub-optimal camel hostage and thought it would be to their advantage rather than mine. Not that the camel hostage always works, as chessandgo is presently teaching me, but even an awkard camel hostage is not necessarily bad, as I am presently demonstrating (I hope) against Nombril. Also I refer you to the 2011 World Championships in which rabbits beat Adanac and chessandgo back-to-back after each of them willingly gave up a camel hostage they didn't think would hurt.[\quote]
Realize that when I say I can give you a camel hostage I don't mean that I can certainly rush ahead, give you a quick camel hostage and expect to win no matter what. Obviously a sub-optimal camel hostage is different than a bad camel hostage. I simply mean that I have greater freedom to give a camel hostage because it will be advantageous more often than it would be in a more optimal setting. I'm sure you wouldn't argue that having more options is worse than having less options.
[quote]I'm certainly not saying your position is unplayable after your setup as Gold and my response as Silver. Neither side is committed to a single plan of action. The game can take many different courses, plenty of which I don't understand well, and tactics decide the outcome more often than strategy. Nevertheless, I remain so far from "very afraid" as to feel my position as Silver will be slightly more comfortable to play than yours as Gold. |
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I look forward to proving you wrong in the next WC, and in our next postal
Quote:| Ah, now I know what kind of player you are. You are the kind of player who believes he can always gain some sort of an advantage without pulling rabbits. I, on the other hand, believe I can shut down and punish any attack from anyone who refuses to pull rabbits. Yes, I include chessandgo and hanzack in this sweeping statement. If I could count on them to never pull rabbits, I could fend off anything either of them had to throw at me. |
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I already said I would pull rabbits as part of a larger attacking strategy. It's important to play with not only your opponent's home traps, but your own as well. It can be difficult or even impossible to successfully attack without using your home traps.
So, it's clear you believe that my setup is weak for gold, what do you think of it in the above example as silver?
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Fritzlein
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #8 on: Aug 8th, 2012, 11:37am » |
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on Aug 7th, 2012, 10:38pm, browni3141 wrote:| I just don't really feel there is much to gain looking at a part of the game where I had no idea what I was doing. |
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Ah, it is unfair of me to argue that your ideas are bad because of one bad position in one game you played when you were rated 400 points lower than you are now. But you seemed to be saying something quite different here in the forum than you did in chat. I was confused by the apparent contradiction.
In our game chat you expressed confidence as you played move 9g. I apologize for the snarky tone of my "why didn't it work out?" question, but there was some real (hopefully not offensive) curiosity behind it, namely as to whether you had changed your mind about the early position.
Now you have clarified:
Quote:| I was at a disadvantage when I started my attack [...] |
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This is the main point of my question. (Again, let me apologize for posing it in an insolent way.) You believe that you were in fact already a bit behind as of move 9g. This bears directly on our discussion as to the power of your opening setup, which is why I brought it into play. You said that against an unbalanced setup you could switch wings with your camel and be in good shape, better than the opponent who can't switch wings with the camel. In our game you switched wings with your camel but (you concede) you were at a disadvantage. How is that possible?
The explanation that leaps to my mind is that you were at a disadvantage because I had pulled a rabbit. But you also pooh-pooh my claim that one side's greater ability to pull a rabbit in the opening has any bearing on who has the better position after the setup phase.
So, if I can clarify my question without being offensive (and this has nothing to do with who played better at any stage of the game, only the position at 9g): Why do you say that you were at a disadvantage when you began your attack? How is Silver's position superior as of 9g? Am I wrong to relate these questions to the discussion of the superiority of your setup?
Quote:| I look forward to proving you wrong in the next WC, and in our next postal |
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I also look forward to you beating me! Admittedly, one part of me hated slipping from #1 to #2 in the world, and again hated slipping from #2 to #3. That part of me won't be any happier to tumble to #4 and thence #5. Another part of me, however, is thrilled to see new players take Arimaa to new heights, with a special delight in seeing them dominate the encroaching computers.
On the other hand, when you beat me in the 2013 World Championship and the 2013 Postal Mixer, I won't necessarily concede that you are correct strategically. Perhaps you still will be setting up badly and simply outplaying me from there. When you are a stronger player than me, your argument will come back to haunt you, as I will be able to say that I was right in principle but made mistakes in execution.
Quote:| I already said I would pull rabbits as part of a larger attacking strategy. It's important to play with not only your opponent's home traps, but your own as well. It can be difficult or even impossible to successfully attack without using your home traps. |
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Hmmm... In that case how are you radically different from me? I guarantee you that as I set up our pieces in our postal game, I was not thinking, "I intend to pull browni's rabbits, and if he stops me from pulling his rabbits I will fall back to some other plan." On the contrary, I try to play for strategic advantage, and take what the opponent is giving me. It is merely coincidence that most of my opponents choose to give me rabbit pulls rather than some other advantage.
To put it another way: I might value a rabbit pull more highly than you do. I might think your advanced rabbit is a net disadvantage to you in a position where you think your advanced rabbit is a net advantage to you. But that doesn't mean I set out in our game with the primary plan of pulling rabbits. I ended up pulling a rabbit as a natural (almost inevitable) consequence of the difference between your positional judgement and mine.
Quote:| So, it's clear you believe that my setup is weak for gold, what do you think of it in the above example as silver? |
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I don't think Gold has much to crow about, but neither does Silver. You speak easily of how Silver can switch camel from west to east if necessary, but then insist that Gold will lose time to switch camel from center to west. Yes, indeed, if one player can re-organize pieces with no loss of time while the other must lose time, the player with hyperspace abilities has the advantage. In the real game, however, I have a tiny preference for the Gold position. I like answering 99of9 with something asymmetrical to avoid simply conceding the first-move disadvantage, but it is clearer to me how the EHH/M imbalance keeps the pressure on, and less clear to me how the EMH/H imbalance keeps the pressure on.
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| « Last Edit: Aug 8th, 2012, 4:06pm by Fritzlein » |
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chessandgo
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #9 on: Aug 8th, 2012, 3:40pm » |
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This thread almost makes me want to laugh at Fritz' ideas, just to see if he apologizes for his insolence
on Aug 7th, 2012, 8:07pm, Fritzlein wrote:| Not that the camel hostage always works, as chessandgo is presently teaching me, |
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Oh really? I like how we both think we're being schooled at most points of most of our games. We should play together more often
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Fritzlein
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #10 on: Aug 8th, 2012, 4:05pm » |
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on Aug 8th, 2012, 3:40pm, chessandgo wrote:| Oh really? I like how we both think we're being schooled at most points of most of our games. We should play together more often |
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Wow. I shouldn't be surprised if we each think we are behind, since it has happened so many times before, but I am nonetheless surprised. Do you really think I am ahead?
I thought I was doing fine in the opening, slightly better in a sharp situation. 12g was when I first thought I was behind, as I regretted my overly-ambitious 11g. (How many times must I learn? rabbit pull good, camel hostage good, both together bad) By the time 15g came around, I hated my position so much that in retrospect I thought I should have sacrificed my dog on 12g in order to secure the camel hostage on h3. I'm not going to resign any games this tournament, but inwardly I gave up when my reserve ran out on 15g. I have played all moves 15g, 16g, 17g, 18g, and19g thinking exactly the same thing: "Well, this won't work, but there probably isn't any good move in the position, so I'm not going to waste time looking for salvation." I don't want to time out either, so I have moved faster.
Now I guess I should re-evaluate and start taking the game seriously again. Perhaps my most awkward of all awkward camel hostages has some value after all?
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| « Last Edit: Aug 8th, 2012, 4:45pm by Fritzlein » |
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Adanac
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #11 on: Aug 8th, 2012, 4:29pm » |
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Camel hostage or not, if you can win against Jean with your elephant standing on f2 for the rest of the game, I will be very, very impressed
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| « Last Edit: Aug 8th, 2012, 4:32pm by Adanac » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #12 on: Aug 8th, 2012, 4:47pm » |
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on Aug 8th, 2012, 4:29pm, Adanac wrote:| Camel hostage or not, if you can win against Jean with your elephant standing on f2 for the rest of the game, I will be very, very impressed |
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OK, thanks for that objective assessment. I am in deep voodoo, just as I thought.
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Adanac
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #13 on: Aug 8th, 2012, 4:59pm » |
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on Aug 8th, 2012, 4:47pm, Fritzlein wrote:
OK, thanks for that objective assessment. I am in deep voodoo, just as I thought. |
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That's why there's a 2-move delay for the spectators. For all I know you've turned the tables on 19g. 
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chessandgo
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #14 on: Aug 8th, 2012, 5:53pm » |
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I agree you were way ahead in the opening. On 10s I was already getting desperate, until I thought about the game move. Since then I have no idea what's going on.
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