Winboard Forum

Hi all ,

we are currently discussing what to do after the new versions tournaments and we are not quite sure how to proceed. Should anyway be something what helps us to improve our rating list and at the same time gives a maximum of fun to the testers. So advice and help from all here would be welcome.

Some proposals from my side:

1. CEGT Team Championship (by nations)

There are different approaches. First to line up the teams with four best engines by nations or continents (already known) what would look like follows:

a) Germany (Shredder, List, Spike, SOS - average ELO 2647)

b) France (Fruit, Chess Tiger, Pharaon, AnMon - av. ELO 2631)

c) Netherlands (Fritz, Chessmaster, ProDeo, The Baron - 2627)

d) Asia/Africa (Junior, Ktulu, Scorpio, Movei or Petir - 2610)

e) Mixed European (Hiarcs, Deep Sjeng, GLC, Delfi - 2593)

f) Scandinavia (Gandalf, Ruffian, Glaurung, Knight Dreamer - 2573)

g) America (Slow Chess, Zappa, Thinker, Naum - 2566)

h) Eastern Europe (Pseudo, SmarThink, Patriot, Ufim - 2539)

This could for example be done that way that board one from every team plays ten games against board 1 from another one, board 2 ten against board 2 from another, so that every match would include 40 games. Each team has to face of course all others and points would be accumulated.

As this is nothing new here a second proposal:


2. CEGT Team Championship (by choice)

This should be a league where each round takes place in a different country ( just to give Uschi the opportunity to add nice pictures and photos).

The teams are not formed by nationality, but engine authors and people who read and write in Winboard Forum or we (the CEGT testers) can compose a team consisting of four engines. The people founding the team have to give a nice name to it.

There are some restrictions however: The medium strength of the team is limited to 2600 ELO on average according to the CEGT rating list, so someone picking Fruit 2.1 would have to add weaker engines to balance this. In other words: team strenght cannot be higher than 4 x 2600 (average) = 10400 ELO points. 8 teams should be formed.

How many points can be gained? A team winning by a score of 4:0 will gain 4 points, the losing team zero. A team winning by 2,5:1,5 will gain 2,5 points and the losing team 1,5 points and so on. All points will go the the total crosstable and will be added from country to country. There will be four team matches in each country and four matching other teams in the next. This is easy to manage with pairing schedules.

Possible additions:

a) Betting

team captains can bet on the outcome of all matches and will receive one additional point for their team for every correct guess

b) Fans

people interested in the tournament can choose their favourite team and will receive the amount of points the team gets, plus correct bets, plus quiz points (see below). So we will have a person winning the world journey (this would either be one of the team captains or a fan)

c) Quiz

Uschi and I could give one or two questions concerning each country or a famous chess tournament that was held in this country. Correct answers will give an additional point. Okay, here we have very few hope that someone would participate.

So I would say that we give a few days (until Sunday) to people who like to participate by forming teams. If there is no interest we will just perform a team championship by nations (continents).


Other possible tournaments that should come later:

3. Pick your opponents

This tournament proposal is designed to give more games to the authors interested in our tournaments. Each author can pick an opponent of his choice and has to run a ten games match against this engine. There are tables indicating how many points have to be gained according to Elo difference to have a positive result. For example here:

http://www.beepworld.de/members38/heinz ... terschach/

and here under ELO-Gewinnerwartung

So an author of an engine with 2600 ELO picking as opponent one with 2650 ELO would need 4,5 points out of ten to be better than winning expectation and will then receive another match against another engine of his choice. As soon as less points are gained than should be, the next author can start by picking his first opponent. As generally few authors are responding we could also give the opportunity to the readers to pick their favourite engines and matches for them.


4. Automated Pyramid

Here an engine has to play two games each against four engines ranked immeditely above in our rating list. All the defeated and those getting only a draw result of 1:1 will be situated in the Pyramid below afterwards. This will be done starting from the bottom of the list. For all engines this will be done once, until a new cycle of the Pyremid starts.

More proposals and especially interested team captains are welcome.

Best Regards
Heinz

a little question:
i think, WildCat is stronger than Ufim. why You choose Ufim as 4th table on Eastern Europe team?

Hi Mihail ,

the following is from the combined CEGT + AEGT rating list with 40/40 (2Ghz).

Code: Select all


 71 Ufim 6.00                      : 2496   21  21   696    40.2 %   2565   33.3 %
 72 GLC 3.00.3.4                   : 2494   32  32   298    52.5 %   2476   36.6 %
 73 WildCat 4                      : 2493   21  21   734    50.1 %   2493   27.1 %



So not much difference between those two.

For Ufim we want to have around 1000 games in the CEGT rating list and for WildCat we are just waiting for a new version to include it, as WildCat 4 is already a bit old and as soon as we would start with it I bet there would be a new release one week later .

Best Regards
Heinz

Hi Heinz!

Heinz van Kempen wrote:Hi Mihail ,

the following is from the combined CEGT + AEGT rating list with 40/40 (2Ghz).

Code: Select all


 71 Ufim 6.00                      : 2496   21  21   696    40.2 %   2565   33.3 %
 72 GLC 3.00.3.4                   : 2494   32  32   298    52.5 %   2476   36.6 %
 73 WildCat 4                      : 2493   21  21   734    50.1 %   2493   27.1 %



mmm... need more test! from this rating i can see that Ufim taked only 40% of points, WildCat taked 50%, from this i can take that Ufim played with strongest engines as WildCat.

Heinz van Kempen wrote:So not much difference between those two.

For Ufim we want to have around 1000 games in the CEGT rating list and for WildCat we are just waiting for a new version to include it, as WildCat 4 is already a bit old and as soon as we would start with it I bet there would be a new release one week later .

Best Regards
Heinz

ok, i'll ask Igor Korshunov when will be new version of WildCat
Best Regards, Mihail

Hi Mihail ,

yes, Ufim in CEGT (additionally) had to face much stronger opposition than WildCat in AEGT.

It still has to be demonstrated that engines get higher ELO when having to face stronger opposition. It can happen, it can also happen viceversa. Fruit versions for example seem to perform relatively better against weaker opposition.

Michael Koppel sent to me a bundle of around 50 Excel sheets in order to fill in the data for each engine version in CEGT to do such statistics. But this seems to be real work (otherwise he would do it on his own ), so maybe something for long winter evenings.

Another proposal by the way came from Uri to give statistics by openings. With ChessBase it is quite easy to do this regarding Encyclopedia categories A to E, but this would not tell a lot, as for example in B Ruy Lopez, Petroff, Sicilian and other half-open systems are included. And when we split all those the amount of games again would not be sufficient to give decent data.

Best Regards
Heinz

Another variant on the team matches, to make things more even for the weaker countries:

Take the average rating of the lowest ranked team with 4 engines.
Then, add an engine to the other teams until:
- the average rating of a team is no more than 5 points above the set target
- there are no more engines to add
Maybe an interesting addition: If the ranking is still high compared to the target ranking, 1 interesting, previously unranked engine from that country/area/continent can be added

Play a knockout-tournament where in each match, an engine in one team plays all engines in the other team.

Richard.

Hi Richard ,

seems also a fine proposal, especially matching an engine from one team against all other engines from another.

Personally I do not like the idea of national teams too much and I would prefer some guys to combine a team with their favourite engines. Authors of engines can of course include their own one.

We need at least a few doing this despite of the lack of feedback here and could give the others by choice from CEGT testers, although for me it would be hardly possible to restrict all my favourite engines to a team of four.

Best Regards
Heinz

I would like to have also blitz rating list by dividing the time that you give to engine by 20 but still have x minutes/40 moves.

I think that it may be also possible to include more beta version in the blitz test.

I read that programmer of spike used fast time control in testing against many opponent but not everybody have computer time for that target and it will be a good idea to test some version at 2 minutes/40 moves adopted to PIV and only if it performs better than previous version to test it also at 40 minutes/40 moves.

Hi Uri ,

so far we have Michael Koppel?s Blitz rating list as comparison with more than 1000 games for many engines, but regrettably not for Movei up to now. This games are 6+4 on Athlon 2700+ and 7+4 on Athlon 2400+.

http://www.miko42.de/turniere/blitzturn ... liste.html

I suppose difference to a Blitz time control x in y will not be too big.

An own CEGT Blitz rating list would be possible either when we find more testers or when we have included all stronger engines, what will be by the end of the year, I guess. Anyway the most important part will always be the 40/40 to whatever CPU adapted in the future. On the other hand Blitz games do not take so much time and a big tournament could be played within two months.

Best Regards
Heinz

Hi all,

here is another creation of the "Heinz&Uschi-Think-Tank".

Digging into our realm of fantasy we created the following form of contest.

Have fun


Fantasy Party Tournament

Fantasy Team Tournament

This is based on an idea from Uschi and Heinz to combine role playing elements with an engine tournament.
This is only a rough scheme up to now. Please feel free to give proposals and ideas what could be improved, added or removed.

All games will be with CEGT time control 40/40 (adapted to 2 Ghz) and all games will count for the rating list.

Four or six teams with four engines each will be formed by CEGT testers.
Other readers who want to participate can also still compose a team.
Average strength of the teams should not exceed 2600 ELO in the CEGT list.

There are four characters in each team (party), one will be given by the team leader to any of the engines he or she has in the team. No character can be chosen twice.

1. Sorcerer
2. Warrior
3. Monk (Cleric)
4. Thief

When the teams will be matched against each other there will be rewards according to the results(team matches will be done that way that teams playing against each other for the second, third, fourth time will get other opponents from the adversary team each time).


Sorcerer

A sorcerer winning against an opponent can gain 50 spell points when winning by a score of 2,5:1,5, 100 spell points by winning by a score of 3:1.In case of 3,5:0,5 150 spell points and finally for a victory 4:0 he will be rewarded with 200 spell points.

Those spell points according to the decision of team leader can be used in a different way.
For example members of his own team can he healed, which means that a loss for this engine does not count and the game will be repeated. Members of other teams can be paralized or poisoned so that they cannot participate in the next match between the teams.

Or spell points can simply be accumulated for the final quest (showdown). See below.
This will be done that way so that team members (or the sorcerer himself) can be promoted in rank (which might cost 250 spell points) which is important for the final showdown and will also give 0,5 points for a party member in case of a result 2:2 if the party member (engine) is ranked higher than the opponent.

A sorcerer accumulating 2000 spell points will be called Arch Mage one of the necessary titles to be allowed to challenge the Evil Gods for the showdown.


Warrior

Similarly, the Warrior gains from 50 to 200 hitpoints according to the result of a victory. Again those points can be used to knock out other team members for the next match (relatively cheap) or to kick out a member from the strongest adversary team from all matches (will cost a lot of hitpoints). These hitpoints can also be accumulated for the final quest (showdown).
See below.

This will be done that way so that team members of the party (or the warrior himself) can be promoted in rank (what might cost 250 hitpoints) what is important for the final showdown and will also give 0,5 points for a party member in case of a result 2:2 if the party member (engine) is ranked higher than the opponent.

A warrior accumulating 2000 hitpoints will be called Knight, another of the necessary titles to challenge the Evil Gods.


Monk (Cleric)

This character can also win spell points but only half the amount the sorcerer gets for the same result.
But additionally the monk will be rewarded with amulets, magic brews and plants that could be used to heal a team member and convert even a defeat to a win or this magic gifts can be sold in shops for spell points or hitpoints, that are given to Sorcerer and/or Warrior then.


Thief

This character can also win hitpoints, but only half the amount a Warrior would receive for the same result.
A thief winning twice (has not to be in a row) by a score of 4:0 can add an engine from the pool of engines (all in CEGT list being not already in another team) to the party with an unlimited maximum of ELO.

A thief winning twice by a score of 3,5:0,5 can add an engine from the pool with a maximum of 2600 ELO.
The choice will be done of course by the team captain.
Those engines will still not participate in the team matches if the team leader decides not to replace one member from the party by the new one, or in case of a dead engine not resurrected, but all additional team members can help with matches in the final quest against the Evil Gods.


Additional rules:


?Dead? engines

An engine losing three times in a row or two times in a row by 0:4 is dead. A sorcerer can resurrect it (what would cost around 500 spell points) or it can be replaced by an engine that was gained from the pool.
If both things are not possible (either because not enough spell points are availabe from Sorcerer and Monk combined or because no additonal party member was robbed from the pool) the team will be completed with the weakest engines from the pool of CEGT engines.


Special conflicts:

There will be special hunts for crystals, magic labyrinths, races at the King?s court giving additional bonuses to the teams.


Final Quest (showdown):

A team captain who believes that his team is strong enough and who has an Arch Mage and a Knight in his party can decide at any time to participate in the Final Quest against the Evil Gods.
(Winning the showdown will finish the Fantasy Team Tournament and the team captain has won with his engines).
Additonally 250 points from the matches are necessary for the challenge.


The Evil Gods are the following engines:

Shredder, Fritz, Junior and Hiarcs.

A team defeating them will need 20,5 points out of 40 games (ten games each against one of them from the regular party members).
All additional (robbed) party members (engines) can now participate. The reserve players will play 2 games each additionally. So here more than 40 games can be played and 20,5 points would still be sufficient to win.

Sorcerers can use their spell points now and Warriors their hitpoints now again to promote themselves or other team members. For each two ranks a loss does not count and a game from this engine against one of the Evil Gods can be repeated.

Losing against the Evil Gods

Each member of a party losing against the Evil Gods will lose four ranks. The team can start anew than to collect new energy (hitpoints and spellpoints).


Winning against the Evil Gods

The team captain and his engines have won when scoring 20,5 points from the games granted against the Evil Gods.
The fantasy team tournament will be over.

http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn/


Participants are heartily welcome

Imaginative Regards,

Uschi

Hi Uschi,
this is a great idea, I love role-playing stuff!
Since the "City GP" tournament I think some sort of "visualization" would be really nice to have, and even more so in a fantasy world, so we can follow the adventures of our heroes on a map!

P.S. In case the occasional non-CEGT game is allowed there could be some devious spells:
- "Teleport" -> before the game starts, opponent must remove a pawn.
- "Enchanted Door" -> select any ECO opening up to x moves;
- "Illiteracy" -> opponent can't use opening book;
- "Timewarp" -> opponent starts with 75% of its time on clock;
- "Timetwister" -> opponent starts with 50% of its time;
And of course:
- "Counterspell" -> undoes any of the above effects!

Hi Alessandro,

thanks for your fine suggestions.

When we started to look for imaginative ideas for engine-tournaments, creating Mystic Chess at the beginning,including special handicaps was one of our thoughts, too.
(BTW Mystic Chess isn?t dead, a sort of accident happened, paralysing the realm of the Crimson Queen...but you will read soon, that a rescuing knight in shining armor is near *g*)

We will gladly try to include your ideas, and look for even more interesting effects to inspirit our Fantasy Party. (As a matter of course, all Special-Effect-Games wont be included into the CEGT-list).

I hope I can manage to create some nice form of visualization, I?ll try my best.

Do you want to participate with a team,too, Alessandro?

Best Regards,

Uschi

Hi all ,

just to add that this tournament will start after the first cycles for the Automated Pyramid by Charles, Rainer and me and when some CEGT members will be back from holidays (so around mid August).

Charles was the first one to choose a team. Here are his party members:

Sorcerer - Ktulu 7.0a
Warrior - AnMon5.53
Monk - Thinker 4.7a
Thief - Spike 0.9a


So Charles probably esteems that Sorcerer and Thief are the most important party members. We will see if he is correct .

A second tournament will be added additionally to the Fantasy Party called Civilization after the famous strategy game by Sid Meier. Here empires will be build containing the most important cities from the countries the engines of a team procced from and the empire will win that first has one million inhabitants. For each win a team can build a city. This will be a bigger city with more inhabitants if it had been a win by a bigger margin.

Additionally each city can contain diverse buildings like a palace, a fabric, university, etc.. Those buildings will be gained as soon as the specialists from the team win a match by a certain margin. So additionally to the one million inhabitants each empire need one city with a palace, three with an university, five cities with a fabric and so on. The building already constructed will give advantages to the team possessing them.

A team under certain conditions can also challenge another one in order to conquer an already existing city and rename it in case of success and add it to the own empire. But here in case of a loss an own city has to be given as tribute. Anyway maybe this will be the last ressource when a team is about to win.

Here we are also still collecting ideas. Consider them as experimental tournaments that will be improved when having gained some experience.

Best Regards
CEGT team

Hi all ,

Chris also chose his party now but still has to tell which character he assigns to the engines:

Fruit 2.1
Zappa 1.0
Delfi 4.5
Green Light Chess 3.01.2.2

Each team captain of course will also have to choose a nice fantasy name for his team, like also the regions, cities, places, monsters, etc. will have fantasy names.

By the way you do not have to be acquainted with role playing stuff in order to participate, because detailed descriptions will be given before each quest (or series of quests) and we will also tell about the decisions that can be made.

The game instructions will be updated with more ideas from the readers here or from us. A German translation will also be available soon.

http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn/fantasy.htm


There will be maps and an overview of spells that can be casted according to the rank of sorcerer and cleric and when having the required amount of spell points. The proposals from Alessandro will be integrated.
There will also be an overview for artefacts (magic items) and how team leaders can use them to gain advantages for their party.

Uschi will be the game coordinator. She will give an introduction either tomorrow or after her shorter holidays.

Roughly the whole story starts in the court of the King who is looking for a brave party challenging the Evil Gods who are threatening his empire. To decide for a promising team there will be a race a la Ben Hur (what is of course a knockout from all engines to decide in preliminary and in final the fastest and strongest, what will be honoured by a gift from the princess (magic item) and spellpoints or hitpoints). The first real quest will then be to conquer four crystals (water, fire, earth, air) that are hidden in different locations and guarded by monsters and other creatures (strong engines not participating in the teams). Some spells will be needed to gain access to this locations and every team leader can decide the location where he wants to send his party to. Conquering one or more of the crystals by defeating the guards will give spell points, hitpoints, items and the crystals themselves (two of them are needed to challenge the Evil Gods and if less are conquered initially they have to be robbed later from the other parties by challenging them for fights).

After the Crystal Quests there will be a teleport (portals are in every region) to another region with new quests. To perform this teleport the sorcerer has to be rank 2 and it will cost him 200 spell points. So if spell points are less, fights against robbers (against other engines not in the teams) will be needed beforehand.

Well, Uschi will be able to explain all this much better, as soon as she will be back.

Best Regards
Heinz

Uschi wrote:Do you want to participate with a team,too, Alessandro?

Hi Uschi,
thanks for the offer! Unfortunately I think I would do a terrible player, so it's better if I stay sit in the "audience", which I can do professionaly with just a little beer and some chips!
For fantasy games, another interesting (IMHO) idea that would give some more strategic control to players would be that of developing a "trading" cards game like Magic the Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh (with chess engines in place of "creatures" or "monsters" of course!). There are many interesting cards that spring to mind, but on the other side designing a good playing mechanism would probably be quite a challenge...

Hi Alessandro,

I really have big doubts in your excuse seeing all your great ideas for more fantasy-tournaments. More over you should consider the big advance of being a fighter in middle of the arena - you would have a big beer instead of the small one and fish and chips instead of moldy chips .

To prod you all to participate in the Fantasy Party: As Heinz already told it?s not necessary at all to have experience in role-playing game.The team captains just have to take some decisions, where to go, which items, skills, spells to use a.s.o. All instructions and descriptions are given before of course.

So come on and hurl yourself into this fanciful world leading a team of brave fighters

Thanks, too, for your new idea, Alessandro, concerning another variation of tournament. Although I get collywobbles thinking of all the trading cards of Magic the Gathering, which spread all over my sons? room, I think it?s a nice idea to convert this game into an engine-tournament. I will take private lessons by my son for learning all rules, spells, monsters and attacks here *g*.

Keep on inspiring us with your ideas, Alessandro, and think of the deliciousness of a big, cool beer while reconsidering your participation .

Best Regards,

Uschi