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Topic: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup (Read 6176 times) |
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browni3141
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #15 on: Aug 8th, 2012, 10:37pm » |
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on Aug 8th, 2012, 11:37am, Fritzlein wrote:
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. |
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Fritzlein, look back at the game chat, please. I said "...Not because my position is so great..."
I'm pretty sure that means I disliked my position then.
Quote: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. |
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Okay, I was mostly at a disadvantage because I neglected my own development, and then pursued a wrong attack instead of simply letting you have the rabbit. Had I not neglected my development, then perhaps I could have begun attacking before you ever got the chance to pull a rabbit. Pieces don't belong at home. Your use of "pooh-pooh" makes me laugh.
Quote:| with a special delight in seeing them dominate the encroaching computers. |
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I'm not sure if computers are encroaching or not, but they are certainly nowhere near the level of top humans. I'm not even a "top" player (am I?), and I've gotten a 7-0 record against ziltoid, with most of the games being fairly easy. Engines will have to make some big breakthroughs I think before they can hope to get close to the best humans.
Quote:| 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. |
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Right, we don't really play at the level for one side to prove a setup is winning. However, after seeing some of my ideas in a real game do you think it's possible that you might think differently? There is a chance also that by the time the WC comes around I will have lost faith in my setup and will consider it unsound, and you will never meet it in a real game.
Quote:| 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. |
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I think the two camel switching situations are different enough. Isn't there a difference between trading tempi for better piece alignment and giving up tempi almost for free? I guess it depends on timing. If gold were to immediately reposition his camel to shadow mine, I would put gold at a disadvantage, but perhaps if gold does it at the right time it would be good. I would almost certainly not switch wings with my camel immediately. It would be a loss of tempo, because everything will be happening in the west and tempi are very important before either side has a clear advantage. I would most likely switch wings much later when I had strongest free piece, or anytime I can switch wings without loss of tempo due to a threat.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #16 on: Aug 9th, 2012, 1:52pm » |
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on Aug 8th, 2012, 10:37pm, browni3141 wrote:Fritzlein, look back at the game chat, please. I said "...Not because my position is so great..."
I'm pretty sure that means I disliked my position then. |
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I read it as at least neutral (you didn't say you were gaining confidence, "...in spite of my slightly weaker position...," or, "...although you are a bit ahead on the board..."), indeed it seemed possible you thought you were slightly ahead even though your position wasn't "so great" as to be winning. On the other hand, I might have been too influenced by your earlier comment asking me whether I thought I was making any progress during the opening. A couple of moves earlier you certainly didn't think you were at any disadvantage. But of course those intervening couple of moves (and intervening time for you to improve as a player) might have changed your opinion.
I'll take your word for it that you thought you were behind if you'll concede that the context (asking me whether I thought I was making progress and expressing confidence that you might win) could reasonably shade the interpretation of a neutral observer as to how you felt about your position.
Quote:| Okay, I was mostly at a disadvantage because I neglected my own development, and then pursued a wrong attack instead of simply letting you have the rabbit. Had I not neglected my development, then perhaps I could have begun attacking before you ever got the chance to pull a rabbit. Pieces don't belong at home. |
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It would have been interesting to see how you could have "developed" pieces more than you did without letting them become targets for my elephant. Not that it is impossible, of course; I am just curious how you would have done it in this context. Which piece do you not mind letting my elephant pull? A horse? On which wing are you happy to have a horse taken hostage? But in any case, if you had put pieces forward instead of keeping them at home, you wouldn't have any reason to call me a rabbit-puller. I take what my opponent is giving.
Quote:| However, after seeing some of my ideas in a real game do you think it's possible that you might think differently? |
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It is undoubtedly possible that I might think differently. During my time playing Arimaa I have been confident of many things that later were proved against me. There are still many things about which I am unsure, i.e. about which I wouldn't be too surprised to be wrong, and of course I could still be wrong about matters where my opinion is quite strong. If I were convinced that I couldn't be wrong, it wouldn't be very interesting to discuss with someone of a different opinion.
That said, you're still wrong.  (Philosophical side question: Is it possible for me to think that I'm wrong? Because as soon as I think my old opinion was wrong, I have a new opinion, thus I think I'm right about that new opinion, so by definition I always think I'm right, right?)
Quote:| I think the two camel switching situations are different enough. Isn't there a difference between trading tempi for better piece alignment and giving up tempi almost for free? I guess it depends on timing. If gold were to immediately reposition his camel to shadow mine, I would put gold at a disadvantage, but perhaps if gold does it at the right time it would be good. |
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I agree, the timing is important. If I have a central camel and decentralize it to attack an encroaching horse, it can cost my opponent as many tempi to retreat the horse as it cost me to cross. Or it can cost either of us more time than the other, depending on the situation. Gaining/losing time with judgments like this one are part of the ways that progress happens in positions in which casual observers think nothing is happening because the players are just shuffling pieces back and forth.
Quote:| I would almost certainly not switch wings with my camel immediately. It would be a loss of tempo, because everything will be happening in the west and tempi are very important before either side has a clear advantage. I would most likely switch wings much later when I had strongest free piece, or anytime I can switch wings without loss of tempo due to a threat. |
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That makes perfect sense, although it undermines your previous argument. If you wait to switch wings with your camel until you have the advantage, you have to somehow get the advantage with your camel still on the wing where it starts. If, instead, you wait to switch your camel until an enemy horse has advanced that you intend to threaten, you run the risk that the enemy elephant will be between your traps at the critical time, preventing a cross. Frankly, I think the best option with your gold setup and my unbalanced silver response of EHH/M is to cross with your camel immediately. But you agree with me that that is a significant loss of time, and thus you must think you have a better plan.
Again, the position is always still fluid after the setup, and either player can chose any number of plans. A willingness to advance a camel or horse or a rabbit each create a different type of situation, and all of them are different than anchoring the home corners and advancing nothing but the elephant. My current understanding of opening theory is that you'll get in trouble with any of these plans by sticking to only one idea come hell or high water, and that to get an advantage you have to be willing to switch gears between plans depending on what the situation demands. In that context, any advantage or disadvantage from the setup must be small, because the player who understands what the position calls for will adapt while the player who doesn't understand fails to adapt and squanders any advantage he might have initially had. It is only later when the position gels that single-mindedness is more fruitful.
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browni3141
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #17 on: Aug 9th, 2012, 10:10pm » |
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on Aug 9th, 2012, 1:52pm, Fritzlein wrote:
It would have been interesting to see how you could have "developed" pieces more than you did without letting them become targets for my elephant. Not that it is impossible, of course; I am just curious how you would have done it in this context. Which piece do you not mind letting my elephant pull? A horse? On which wing are you happy to have a horse taken hostage? But in any case, if you had put pieces forward instead of keeping them at home, you wouldn't have any reason to call me a rabbit-puller. I take what my opponent is giving.
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I don't really want a horse taken hostage on either wing, unless I know it is a bad one. My main plans are to attack the camel side primarily with dogs and the horse supporting. I would try to share control of c6 so that neither your elephant nor your camel can leave, and I will have my camel as strongest free piece. I wouldn't mind a dog hostage held by your camel, and I might even force you to take my dog hostage. A dog frame may be good for me also. I don't think it's much to worry about, my dogs are pretty free to roam in the west since you lack a horse to face them with. Even a horse hostage may not be so bad depending on the circumstances, but I would try to avoid it in general. If my horse is taken hostage you will just have too much control over your trap since I have nothing to face the nearby dogs. The most likely outcome, assuming my plan succeeds is that you will have to expose pieces/rabbits in order to hold your position, and threats in both c3 c6 and potential threats in the east will be too much to handle. I guess I don't mind pulling rabbits so much as long as I am attacking. What I don't like is when players insist on playing only in their home traps. Just as bad I suppose are players that insist on winning the game using only the opponent's traps.
I think a dog hostage is bad for you, and a horse hostage good, so I guess that answers your question. I'm not really sure about cats/rabbits. I would most likely be careful advancing my rabbits because I've been learning that they tend to limit your own possibilities if advanced too far too early. I'd be a little bit more careful with my cats but wouldn't really mind a hostage as long as I know I can prevent a frame. I'm not really sure if a cat frame would be better than a dog frame. I'm only talking about the west here.
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Boo
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #18 on: Aug 10th, 2012, 1:20am » |
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Quote:| I look forward to proving you wrong in the next WC, and in our next postal |
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Why wait so long?
After such a lengthy and exhaustive analysis of this opening position it is time for you to agree on a match of 6 games to verify your ideas in practice 
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Fritzlein
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #19 on: Aug 10th, 2012, 9:48am » |
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on Aug 9th, 2012, 10:10pm, browni3141 wrote:| My main plans are to attack the camel side primarily with dogs and the horse supporting. |
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That's an interesting plan and one that has not been much tested. Chessandgo has considered answering the EHH/M setup something like this for a while now, although his results have been inconclusive. It is admittedly awkward that no defending horse is available to deal with the attacking dog, yet even so it isn't a priori obvious that the defending elephant will be tied down leaving the attacker's camel free. On the contrary, a dog hostage or dog frame might leave the attacking elephant tied down and the defending elephant free. Jean, please weigh in if you have an opinion on how much I ought to fear an attack on my camel wing led by the opposing elephant and dog.
In any event, the ED(H) attack you propose can be carried out just as well by someone who has used the 99of9 setup, in fact better: to have maximum effect, your camel needs to be on the other side threatening my HH, and the 99of9 setup gets the camel to the correct position a few steps sooner than your setup. If you think your setup as Gold is powerful against the EHH/M setup as Silver, you must think the 99of9 setup as Gold is yet still better against it, right? Well, perhaps it is, in which case EHH/M will eventually be thrown in the dustbin of opening history. Time will tell.
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browni3141
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #20 on: Aug 10th, 2012, 12:09pm » |
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on Aug 10th, 2012, 1:20am, Boo wrote:
Why wait so long?
After such a lengthy and exhaustive analysis of this opening position it is time for you to agree on a match of 6 games to verify your ideas in practice
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I've actually done very little analysis of this setup and responses to it. My setup is the product of all of my acquired Arimaa knowledge, especially 99of9 and M/EHH games. Everything I talk about is what I've learned through playing those types of games, not through actual analysis of my setup.
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browni3141
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #21 on: Aug 10th, 2012, 12:24pm » |
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on Aug 10th, 2012, 9:48am, Fritzlein wrote:
That's an interesting plan and one that has not been much tested. Chessandgo has considered answering the EHH/M setup something like this for a while now, although his results have been inconclusive. It is admittedly awkward that no defending horse is available to deal with the attacking dog, yet even so it isn't a priori obvious that the defending elephant will be tied down leaving the attacker's camel free. On the contrary, a dog hostage or dog frame might leave the attacking elephant tied down and the defending elephant free. Jean, please weigh in if you have an opinion on how much I ought to fear an attack on my camel wing led by the opposing elephant and dog.
In any event, the ED(H) attack you propose can be carried out just as well by someone who has used the 99of9 setup, in fact better: to have maximum effect, your camel needs to be on the other side threatening my HH, and the 99of9 setup gets the camel to the correct position a few steps sooner than your setup. If you think your setup as Gold is powerful against the EHH/M setup as Silver, you must think the 99of9 setup as Gold is yet still better against it, right? Well, perhaps it is, in which case EHH/M will eventually be thrown in the dustbin of opening history. Time will tell. |
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I don't think this is necessarily true. The M->HH alignment isn't so important in the beginning, and who says I can't make use of my camel in the west? At the very least it makes it slightly less appealing to bring a horse over to meet my attacking dogs. A very small advantage my setup over 99of9 is that my dog is on e2 rather than f2. 99of9 cats behind the traps is even farther from optimal concerning only the dogs. The main ideas of my setup are against a b-file horse, then I tried to make it good against M/EHH also by keeping my dogs close to my camel side. I also have a cat one step closer to the west over 99of9 dogs behind traps, which I may pull rabbits with  .
I'm not necessarily trying to say my setup is better against M/EHH than 99of9, just that I don't think it's quite as clear as you seem to think it is. I actually do think it is better than 99of9 cats behind traps, but I'm not sure about all of the other 99of9 variants. Of course each setup has it's own unique downsides.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #22 on: Aug 10th, 2012, 9:20pm » |
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on Aug 10th, 2012, 12:24pm, browni3141 wrote:| [...]just that I don't think it's quite as clear as you seem to think it is[...] |
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My opinion is very clear, in that I have no doubt that I'd rather play the 99of9 setup than yours as Gold against a Silver who sets up with EHH/M. But as clear as my opinion is, I'm not very confident that I'm right. I don't have any experience attacking with that specific plan, and only a little experience defending against it, so I could very well be wrong. I look forward to seeing your results with that setup!
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browni3141
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #23 on: Aug 10th, 2012, 11:07pm » |
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on Aug 10th, 2012, 9:20pm, Fritzlein wrote:
My opinion is very clear, in that I have no doubt that I'd rather play the 99of9 setup than yours as Gold against a Silver who sets up with EHH/M. |
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Even if you're right, 99of9 will soon become unplayable because of my silver setup, and your opinion will become insignificant
Quote:| I look forward to seeing your results with that setup! |
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I don't have very many good HvH games using my setup, but I could try and scrounge some up. I have a postals against Alfons and Hippo where I am testing it out right now. I'm also testing it as silver against clyring in our blindfold chatroom postal!
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| « Last Edit: Aug 10th, 2012, 11:38pm by browni3141 » |
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chessandgo
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #24 on: Aug 11th, 2012, 4:13am » |
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on Aug 10th, 2012, 9:48am, Fritzlein wrote:
That's an interesting plan and one that has not been much tested. Chessandgo has considered answering the EHH/M setup something like this for a while now, although his results have been inconclusive. It is admittedly awkward that no defending horse is available to deal with the attacking dog, yet even so it isn't a priori obvious that the defending elephant will be tied down leaving the attacker's camel free. On the contrary, a dog hostage or dog frame might leave the attacking elephant tied down and the defending elephant free. Jean, please weigh in if you have an opinion on how much I ought to fear an attack on my camel wing led by the opposing elephant and dog. |
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The few games I seem to remember with a similar theme are:
- our 2010 WC game: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=135491&s=w with an E+H attack instead of E+D. It was more a matter of timing though, since you counterattacked in the east. The advantage of attacking with a Horse against the silver dogs is that we can always push the defending dogs later on, and avoid a frame on c6.
- My 2011 postal game against Hippo http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/opengamewin.cgi?gameid=198270&role =v&side=w (with an E+C attack instead of E+D, purely for time reasons, although I'll try to avoid attcking with a Cat in the future ^^)
I'd say that E+H/D attacking against the camel side is logical, the doability could be a matter of time, as in our WC game above.
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| « Last Edit: Aug 11th, 2012, 4:19am by chessandgo » |
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Hippo
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #25 on: Aug 11th, 2012, 3:27pm » |
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on Aug 11th, 2012, 4:13am, chessandgo wrote:
I am still not sure your attack was good, but my defense was better than against Boo ... . It seems to me it was even till my blunder ... .
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Fritzlein
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #26 on: Oct 6th, 2012, 12:10pm » |
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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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Ironically, I did end the game with my elephant standing on f2. OK, it wasn't literally there for the rest of the game, but for 29 out of the last 37 moves, including the finale.
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=246100
I remain convinced that I was behind from move 11s through the discussion here and beyond. It turns out, however, that there was more play remaining than I thought. This a great example of how an Arimaa position can hold tension, so that the player who is behind can come back if the player who is ahead plays inaccurately.
The camel hostage is dead. Long live the camel hostage!
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browni3141
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #27 on: Oct 6th, 2012, 12:59pm » |
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on Oct 6th, 2012, 12:10pm, Fritzlein wrote:
The camel hostage is dead. Long live the camel hostage! |
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When did it die? 
Even if the hostage giver achieves an elephant rotation it can often be difficult for the player with the "free" elephant to win.
I may be a fairly aggressive player, but I still don't like giving my camel hostage unless it is pretty clearly a disadvantage for my opponent to take it.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #28 on: Oct 6th, 2012, 3:10pm » |
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on Oct 6th, 2012, 12:59pm, browni3141 wrote:| When did it die? |
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Late 2005, depending on who you ask. Robinson, the 2006 World Champion, was one of the first strong players to intentionally give away camel hostages. Prolific postal player blue22 gave up his camel as a hostage almost every game for years. There were even a few high-level games in which one player offered a camel hostage and the other player refused to take it! As recently as the 2011 World Championship, chessandgo and Adanac intentionally gave up a camel hostage to rabbits in back-to-back rounds. Rabbits won both games, though, and perhaps these high-profile victories for the hostage-taker influenced popular sentiment and decreased the frequency of camel-led attacks.
I have built my entire Arimaa career around taking camel hostages, so I always feel like I have to defend the faith against the heretical masses. My general belief in the bedrock of Arimaa strategy made it especially painful that I lost to hanzack in the 2012 World Championship after giving up my camel for him to hold hostage. Grrr....
Quote:| 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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Quote:| Even if the hostage giver achieves an elephant rotation it can often be difficult for the player with the "free" elephant to win. I may be a fairly aggressive player, but I still don't like giving my camel hostage unless it is pretty clearly a disadvantage for my opponent to take it. |
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Hmmm, I wonder which of these two guys I will play next. The one who believes in his setup so much he will attack with his camel to justify it, or the one who thinks that even sub-optimal camel hostages can be advantageous to the hostage-taker?
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| « Last Edit: Oct 6th, 2012, 3:22pm by Fritzlein » |
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browni3141
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Re: Be Very Afraid! My New Setup
« Reply #29 on: Oct 6th, 2012, 4:24pm » |
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on Oct 6th, 2012, 3:10pm, Fritzlein wrote:
Late 2005, depending on who you ask. Robinson, the 2006 World Champion, was one of the first strong players to intentionally give away camel hostages. Prolific postal player blue22 gave up his camel as a hostage almost every game for years. There were even a few high-level games in which one player offered a camel hostage and the other player refused to take it! As recently as the 2011 World Championship, chessandgo and Adanac intentionally gave up a camel hostage to rabbits in back-to-back rounds. Rabbits won both games, though, and perhaps these high-profile victories for the hostage-taker influenced popular sentiment and decreased the frequency of camel-led attacks.
I have built my entire Arimaa career around taking camel hostages, so I always feel like I have to defend the faith against the heretical masses. My general belief in the bedrock of Arimaa strategy made it especially painful that I lost to hanzack in the 2012 World Championship after giving up my camel for him to hold hostage. Grrr....
Hmmm, I wonder which of these two guys I will play next. The one who believes in his setup so much he will attack with his camel to justify it, or the one who thinks that even sub-optimal camel hostages can be advantageous to the hostage-taker? |
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My opinions about Arimaa seem to change so fast. Your guess is as good as mine.
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