[computer-go] Future KGS bot tournaments
Erik van der Werf erikvanderw...@gmail.com writes I like events with many (fast) rounds such as the one yesterday. So do I - they are certainly more interesting for me. I had been tending to avoid them, in the belief that most programmers, particularly of UCT-based programs, preferred slow games. But in view of what you, a successful UCT programmer, say, I shall hold more fast events in future. I know that SlugGo and Go++ prefer slow time limits - if they start to show interest in these events, I will hold slow tournaments again. I may hold another week-long tournament if there is interest - five rounds, twelve hours each sudden death. dhillism...@netscape.net 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. In my view, more is always better, for many reasons. We get to see more bots perform, we see how bots perform against unfamiliar strategies, we don't get repeat games between the same opponents, if there's an odd number of players the byes are not too significant. I can't think of any convincing reason for preferring small numbers. I assure you, if antbot wants to play in these events, it will be very welcome. Steve Uurtamo and Jason House agree. Jason House jason.james.ho...@gmail.com writes In the past, I've entered bots and indicated that I would not be offended if my bot was removed. Don has made use of such offers from Aloril in the past. Maybe you could make a similar offer? You have made this offer in the past. I never took it up, because I had the same offer from Aloril. Such offers are useful, as they let me ensure that numbers are even, and avoid byes. Given the choice, I preferred to remove his artificially stupid IdiotBot and retain your HouseBot. Now that Aloril is less active in computer Go, I will be grateful to have one of your bots enter on the same basis. David Fotland fotl...@smart-games.com writes I prefer full size boards, since that's a more difficult problem, and games at 19x19 give me more to work with. Short time limits are fine. Perhaps 19x19 with 15 or 20 minutes each? After all, that's a good time limit for games against people. Sounds good to me. The next event will probably be 19x19, 18 minutes each. Christian Nentwich christ...@modeltwozero.com writes I am hoping that I can join this at some point, at the lower end of the field to start with :) Is it possible to set a bar at these tournaments? In human McMahon tournaments, that very successfully allows a top tier of competition while guaranteeing at least some fun for everybody else. A bar makes sense in a McMahon tournament, where the number of players exceeds 2^(number of rounds). But these events aren't McMahon, they are Swiss. Also they never have that many players; and now that we have decided on faster and more rounds, they aren't going to. The tournament formats supported by KGS are: Single elimination Double elimination I don't like elimination tournaments. Someone who has set up his bot to play wants to see it play, not to see it eliminated. Swiss as used for all these events McMahon McMahon involves the server using the entrants' ratings. But many bots don't have ratings. KGS admins are reluctant to allow bots to play as rated bots. Round Robin I haven't been using Round Robin because it means the length of the event depends on the number of players. I am not willing to make an open-ended commitment of my time. So these events will continue to be Swiss, unless someone makes a strong case for a change. After the first few rounds, the Swiss system achieves the same effect as McMahon: the strong players are paired against each other, as are the weaker players. (In fact, when there are fewer players than rounds, all the players end up playing all possible opponents anyway. This happens with both Swiss and McMahon). To summarise - time limits will generally be faster than formerly. Lots of entrants, lots of weak entrants, are strongly encouraged. There is nothing wrong with entering a bot that loses all its games. I was very pleased to see Rango play on Sunday, and hope it will compete again. Nick -- Nick Weddn...@maproom.co.uk ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Future KGS bot tournaments
Actually, MCTS-programmers should be happy with any timeconstraints that does not make the program run out of memory, since a proper MCTS-program should scale nicely no matter the time constraint. Maybe an ultrafast tournament with a tenth of a second would favor Valkyria on small boards but we do not want to play that fast... I think all programmers should participate whatever strength their programs have. -Magnus ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Future KGS bot tournaments
On Jun 2, 2009, at 6:07 AM, Nick Wedd n...@maproom.co.uk wrote: Erik van der Werf erikvanderw...@gmail.com writes I like events with many (fast) rounds such as the one yesterday. So do I - they are certainly more interesting for me. I had been tending to avoid them, in the belief that most programmers, particularly of UCT-based programs, preferred slow games. But in view of what you, a successful UCT programmer, say, I shall hold more fast events in future. I know that SlugGo and Go++ prefer slow time limits - if they start to show interest in these events, I will hold slow tournaments again. I may hold another week-long tournament if there is interest - five rounds, twelve hours each sudden death. dhillism...@netscape.net 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. In my view, more is always better, for many reasons. We get to see more bots perform, we see how bots perform against unfamiliar strategies, we don't get repeat games between the same opponents, if there's an odd number of players the byes are not too significant. I can't think of any convincing reason for preferring small numbers. I assure you, if antbot wants to play in these events, it will be very welcome. Steve Uurtamo and Jason House agree. Jason House jason.james.ho...@gmail.com writes In the past, I've entered bots and indicated that I would not be offended if my bot was removed. Don has made use of such offers from Aloril in the past. Maybe you could make a similar offer? You have made this offer in the past. I never took it up, because I had the same offer from Aloril. Such offers are useful, as they let me ensure that numbers are even, and avoid byes. Given the choice, I preferred to remove his artificially stupid IdiotBot and retain your HouseBot. Now that Aloril is less active in computer Go, I will be grateful to have one of your bots enter on the same basis. I don't mind entering hb04 along with one of the my modern implementations because it uses almost no load (it's a pattern player). In the same category of pattern players, Remi's pattern player may make a good low end bot. It'd probably beat hb04. Maybe Don Dailey's anchor bot from CGOS would be good too? It has tunable strength. PS: sorry about getting your name wrong :( David Fotland fotl...@smart-games.com writes I prefer full size boards, since that's a more difficult problem, and games at 19x19 give me more to work with. Short time limits are fine. Perhaps 19x19 with 15 or 20 minutes each? After all, that's a good time limit for games against people. Sounds good to me. The next event will probably be 19x19, 18 minutes each. Christian Nentwich christ...@modeltwozero.com writes I am hoping that I can join this at some point, at the lower end of the field to start with :) Is it possible to set a bar at these tournaments? In human McMahon tournaments, that very successfully allows a top tier of competition while guaranteeing at least some fun for everybody else. A bar makes sense in a McMahon tournament, where the number of players exceeds 2^(number of rounds). But these events aren't McMahon, they are Swiss. Also they never have that many players; and now that we have decided on faster and more rounds, they aren't going to. The tournament formats supported by KGS are: Single elimination Double elimination I don't like elimination tournaments. Someone who has set up his bot to play wants to see it play, not to see it eliminated. Swiss as used for all these events McMahon McMahon involves the server using the entrants' ratings. But many bots don't have ratings. KGS admins are reluctant to allow bots to play as rated bots. Round Robin I haven't been using Round Robin because it means the length of the event depends on the number of players. I am not willing to make an open-ended commitment of my time. So these events will continue to be Swiss, unless someone makes a strong case for a change. After the first few rounds, the Swiss system achieves the same effect as McMahon: the strong players are paired against each other, as are the weaker players. (In fact, when there are fewer players than rounds, all the players end up playing all possible opponents anyway. This happens with both Swiss and McMahon). To summarise - time limits will generally be faster than formerly. Lots of entrants, lots of weak entrants, are strongly encouraged. There is nothing wrong with entering a bot that loses all its games. I was very pleased to see Rango play on Sunday,
