IdahoEv's BotBasher Challenge of the Month - May, 2006

What's the Value of the Elephant, Part I

Winner!

Arimanator is declared both first and second place winner; at the end of the month no other players had scores on the leaderboard.

The prize money for this bash is not yet disbursed as of January 2006; I haven't seen Arimanator on the Arimaa site in a very long itme. Arimanator, if you are around please contact me so I can get you your prize money.

Introduction

Last month, we studied whether or not having four steps per turn was essential to Arimaa tactics as it applies to fighting bots. The hypothesis was that 4-step moves like flips are essential for executing hostages and the like.

The hypothesis was resoundingly proven false, with Bomb2005CC beaten in 26 turns by Swynndla and Bomb2005Blitz destroyed in an astonishing 16 turns by OLTI.

So the answer to "What's the value of a step?" is ... "not much".

This month, we study whether or not it is possible to make effective offensive attacks without employing the elephant. The goal is to expand our repertoire of thinking about offense: find ways to make attacks without elephant support. You could play a defensive nickel-and-dime game, but since you're competing for speed you'll probably need to do better than that to win.

The Challenge:

Defeat the bot(s) quickly without advancing your elephant past the fourth rank and without blockading the opposing elephant. You may not move your elephant to the fifth rank, even temporarily.

Each botladder bot is worth the number of points specified in the list below. I will update the list periodically with the winners as described in the threads.

The player who achieves the fastest win against any particular bot will receive the points for that bot. Winning the overall challenge will be achieved by accumulating the largest number of points before June 1st.

The winner is the player who has accumulated the most points from the list below by 23:59 PDT on June 1, 2006. The winner will receive $10 US (IdahoEv's money). Second place will receive $5. Anyone else who wants to contribute to the prize fund is welcome.

Rules

• You may never move your elephant further forward than the fourth rank. (row 5 for gold, row 4 for silver)
• Games must played against a bot from the list below.
• All games must be played at that bot's preferred time settings, or 2/2/100/10/5 for non-ladder bots.
• Your win must be posted in the challenge thread on the forum, with game #, your color, and the # of turns.
• Only wins by goal or immobilization will be considered.
• Evan Dorn may amend these rules at any time in order to clarify the rules or preserve the original intent of the contest.
• Unrated games are allowed except against any 'GnoBot2006' bot. Games vs. Gnobby2006 must be rated to be consided.
• You must have at least one rabbit alive when you win, in order to prevent abuse of a bug in Clueless2006.
• Games must be numbered above 30368 in the database. (Official start of competition).

Anti-Blockade Rules

Since the point of this challenge is to see what clever players can do attacking with MHHDDCCRRRRRRRR, you may not blockade the opposing elephant. These rules are meant to make bait-and-tackle a non-viable strategy.

• If the opposing phant is on your 1st or 2nd rank, you must leave it two adjacent vacant non-trap squares at all times.
• If the bot moves its' phant so as to violate the above rule, you must recreate a legal position with your next move.
• If people find a way to effectively blockade the enemy phant anyhow, I will amend these rules. So play a non-blockade game.

Tiebreakers

In case of a tie (same turn count on a bot), the tiebreakers will be (in order):

1. Silver win beats Gold win. (i.e. winning on 36b is better than winning on 36w, but worse than winning on 35w). (Rules amendment added 16:05 PST 2004-04-20)
2. Earliest game (determined by game end time)

Official Bot Points List / Leaderboard

The rating for a bot, for purpose of this challenge, is the rating listed below. Only the bots listed below will be considered in the competition.

(This list is those bots which were available to play on May 1, 2006, 6:15 a.m. PDT, and which had RU < 100 at that time).