In message <[email protected]>,
[email protected] writes
One factor is that there seems to be a narrow range between too few
entrants and too many. For any given contest, the potential pool
includes an elite few who have a chance at first place and maybe a
couple who have a new or newly improved bot. There is a larger group,
back in the pack, whose last breakthrough was a while ago. For many of
us in that last group, it would be easy enough to enter, but hard to
know if that would help or hinder.
My view is that more entrants, including weaker entrants, help. I used
to encourage Aloril to enter his deliberately weak bots, not only to
fill out the numbers, but to provide suitable opponents for first time
entrants.
I see a purpose of these events as providing a training ground for more
significant events. Some programmers concentrate too much on trying to
get the bot to play well, rather than on doing basic things right. A
bot that plays badly but beats IdiotBot shouldn't be too hard to achieve
- so if a bot plays well but loses to IdiotBot, it is doing something
wrong which really ought to be fixed.
Nick
--
Nick Wedd [email protected]
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