Overview: The 2008 Arimaa Computer World Championship tournament will determine the best computer Arimaa player. The winner will be declared the 2008 Arimaa Computer World Champion and receive a prize of $200 USD. All contestents will also receive $15 USD for each game won. The top two finishers will compete for the right to play in the Arimaa Challenge match. Only the 8 top rated programs will be selected to play in the tournament.Schedule:
Registration ends: 6PM EST Friday Feb 1, 2008
Linux account provided: Feb 3, 2008
Program uploaded: Feb 23, 2008
Ratings fixed: Mar 1, 2008
Tournament begins: Mar 2, 2008
Tournament ends: Mar 15, 2008Registration: Interested developers should register as soon as possible to identify themselves and the name of the bot they will be registering. There is a registration fee of $10 USD. Only one bot is allowed per developer or development team. All developers will be given an account on a Linux system and must port their bot to this account and make sure it can play in the Arimaa gameroom.
Selection: Only a limited number of programs will be selected to participate in the tournament. The selection process is designed to make it easy for anyone to participate as long as they have a reliable Internet connection. The participants should use the bot interface to have their program login to the Arimaa gameroom and play rated games against other players (programs and humans) to establish the rating of their program. The participants must run their programs on standard off-the-shelf hardware and OS similar to that which is used in the challenge match. The 8 highest rated programs will be chosen for the tournament such that each program is from a different developer or development team. Although there is no requirement for the program to play any games in the Arimaa gameroom, it is benificial for the program to increase the rating as much as possible before the tournament. During the 3 months before the start of the tournament any rated games played by the program should use a time control with a time-per-move between one and three minutes.
Setup: Participants in the tournament will be provided with accounts on a Linux computers to port and setup their programs before the tournament games begin. Once the programs have been submitted for the tournament, they may not be modified manually, but can modify themselves if it is an automated process. The programs will be played against each other under the control of the tournament coordinator. The games will be played in the Arimaa gameroom. Each program will run on it's own computer and both computers will have the exact same hardware and OS configuration.
Tournament format: Floating Triple Elimination
The tournament coordinator runs a program which is used to pair the players, assign a bye in rounds with odd number of players and to select the color of each player. The pairing algorithm attempts to best meet the following constraints:
- Everyone plays until they have lost three times. At the end of each round, any player who has lost for the third time is eliminated.
- If an odd number of players remain, the bye must go to some player among the players with the fewest byes so far.
- Minimize the number of pairings occuring for the Nth time. ...
- Minimize the number of pairings occuring for the fourth time.
- Minimize the number of pairings occuring for the third time.
- Minimize the number of pairings occuring for the second time.
- Give the bye to the player with the fewest losses.
- Give the bye to the player with the highest rating.
- Pair players with a similar number of losses against each other.
- Maximize the sum of the squares of the differences in rank among remaining players.
- All games are played according to the Arimaa Match Rules.
This tournament format is designed only to clearly recognize a first place winner. Recognition of second and third place will be done based on number of games won. Highest pre-tournament ratings will be used to break ties for third place. In case of ties for second place addition games will be played to break the tie. A two-way tie for second will be broken by a one-game playoff. A three-way tie for second will be broken by first pairing the two players eliminated in the second-to-last round and the winner playing the last eliminated player. In these tie breaker games the colors are assigned so that a player plays the color they have played a fewer number of times. If this is equal then the player with the lower rating selects the color. If this is equal the player who was eliminated in the second-to-last round selects the color.
Time controls: All games will be played with a time control of: 2m/2m/100/10m/8h.
Breaking draws: Draws are not allowed and will be broken according to the Arimaa Match Rules.
Hardware and OS. The hardware and OS that will be used in the championship tournament and challenge match will be specified shortly before the tournament begins. The hardware will typically be a standard general purpose computer that can be purchased within $1000 USD (not including tax, shipping and handling :-). The OS used for the Arimaa challenge will be the most current version of the Linux OS.
Program Requirements All programs submitted for the tournament must:
- provide a README file which explains the options that are available for the program and how they are to be entered.
- use the Arimaa bot interface.
- be statically compiled and linked executables that can run on the provided Linux system.
Be sure to use the -static option of the linker.- provide an option to specify a hardware independent play strength such as the number of nodes to evaluate before stopping, or the number of plys to search, etc. When this option is used the program should not look at the time control. This option will not be used in the championship or challenge match, but will be used after these events when the program is made available for others to play against in the Arimaa gameroom. The purpose of this is so that the program will play the same strength independent of the hardware or system load.
Publication: The intent of the Arimaa computer championship and challenge match is to help advance research in areas of AI. Thus, it is recommended that the participants (especially those with programs in the championship tournament) submit an article to the ICGA technical journal describing their research and results. Also the programs submitted for the championship tournament will be made available for others to play against in the public Arimaa gameroom after the challenge match is over. Thus the programs and players participating in the following year can be improved against the best programs of the previous year. Participants who submit programs that are limited after some time, some games or limited in any manner will not be allowed to participate in following years and must return any prize awarded. Organizations or individuals who are not comfortable with these conditions should not participate.
Notes:
- The tournament coordinator will carry out the tournament in compliance with the stated rules and does not make any decisions that will effect the course of the tournament. A player may serve as the coordinator.
- The tournament director will serve as the arbitrator in case of disputes. Should a dispute arise about the outcome of a game, the director will review the game and decide if the game should be replayed.
- The director will also make the final decision on matters of pairing and color assignment. However, the pairings and color assignments are done as much as possible using a program and the need for intervention should be rare.
- All decisions made by the director shall be considered final and binding by all parties.
- Omar and Aamir Syed reserve the rights to modify the championship tournament details in the future to resolve any logistical problems that may arise.
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