mini dots double round robin starts July 15

click on “tournaments” then look in the far right column for “user tournaments”

As the shark has a perfect database for 4x4 dots and boxes, I will not be entering it into this tournament. However, I will be entering as William Fraser and wonder what the rules are regarding outside resources. (Cross-posted from the Nimstring Calculator thread.)

It seems obvious to me that we are allowed to use books such as Winning Ways.

It seems equally obvious that we are not allowed to use programs.

As a specific request for a ruling, are we allowed to use David Wilson's opening book:

http://wilson.engr.wisc.edu/boxes/result/4x4.html and the six pages that are linked from there.

I suppose that Ray Garrison's opinion should be final with respect to this tournament (unless there is already a policy or Richard Malaschitz wishes to set one), but perhaps we could have a conversation, first.

bill

I didn't know that 4x4 has been solved :) is it possible to play against the bot still? like invitation unranked game or something?

Sure. I'll accept invitations from anyone to play (unrated) games.

Okay, I posted an add in the unrated waiting room.

Actually, someone pointed out on another thread (“4x4….7x7”) that 5x4 has been solved and proven a draw. Here is the abstract with a link to the whole PDF:

http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/AAAI/AAAI12/paper/view/5126

They didn't publish their strategy, so far as I know (it is probably too large to conveniently publish).

Uh, oh!

I just saw a banner ad for the tournament, which indicates that it starts July 19th!