mmKALLL ★ wrote:

The basic idea of the infinite tournament is that every few weeks, you start a match with an opponent who has a similar score. It’s essentially an infinite swiss-style tournament, and a good way to get a steady stream of games.

To begin from the leftmost column: There is the list of players, with their rating and number of games played, as well as points from the games (2 per win, 1 per draw, 0 per loss). The next column has the score; a large number representing their current score in the tournament, and a smaller one representing their all-time best. What follows is a list of games, with each game telling the placement and score of the player in the tournament at the time of the match.

The infinite Toroidal-Go (11x11 sized board) results are recorded here: http://littlegolem.net/jsp/in/tournament.jsp?trnid=go19.in.TOROID

What does the [40 P  33 G] under my name mean?

I would assume that it means that you have played 33 games, and have 40 points from them; in other words, 20 wins. Looking at the table, it seems like this assumption is correct.

At what point is a winner declared in an infinite tournament? For instance, in Go 19x19 “sspring” is listed as the winner, but gamesorry has been in first place for every round showing… from rounds 1 - 40.

https://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/games/gamedetail.jsp?gtid=go19&page=in

I haven't stumbled upon that page before; I can only guess that such a “winner” was declared or is being declared based on an old system of counting the scores. It is worth noting though, that gamesorry's only loss has been against sspring. Either way, I find that very odd and personally only care about the current leaderboard's status.

Thank you, mmKALLL. You've taught me more about infinite tournaments than I ever knew!

The only thing I don't understand is matching “with an opponent who has a similar score”.    That seems a built-in mechanism to depress stronger players' scores.

At any rate, I'm surprised and humbled to be leading both the TZAAR and Catchup infinite tournaments.

The idea of swiss style tournaments is that the top players are clearly identified. It is similar to the Elo rating, where you get more points for winning against stronger opponents, less for winning against weaker ones. It is important to realize that a victory (under the current EMA system) awards the same amount of points in the Infinity tournament regardless of opponent, but since your pairings are against stronger opponents as your score increases, the points gained by the top players are “worth” more relative to points gained by weaker players.

Under these systems, from a given group of players with similar scores or ratings but not necessarily the same skill levels, the players with an underestimated rating will likely advance to a pool of stronger players while increasing their score. If it turns out that their victories were due to fluctuation and not actual greater playing strength, they will quickly drop back down when faced with players whose scores more accurately reflect their ability.

The point of many rating systems is that (in theory) it should not matter who you play against: the score will increase less if you have a high winning probability against a particular opponent. Thus, over the course of many games against players of any skill levels, each player's rating will (in theory) accurately reflect their actual playing capability. This is also the case in the Infinity tournament, where the strong players will inevitably gather more victories relative to weaker players. However, the games are more interesting due to the matches being against similarly skilled opponents, rather than random ones.

mmKALLL (or anyone):

• Do you know how the score is calculated? I notice that even as I keep winning, my score goes up and down.
• Why are “points” calculated and shown if they don't make a difference in the standings?

Rex Moore:

I think the current mechanism of the infinity tournament is: you always earn points when you win a game, and lose points when you lose a game. The more your points are, the harder you can earn the points and the easier you can lose points (regardless of the strength/points of your opponents). The unfinished games are treated as a draw, which make your points converge to around 1000 eventually (if you have infinite number of unfinished games). When a game finishes, all points in and after this round are adjusted accordingly.

One consequence is that if you have above 1000 points, a new game starting will lower your score. Just a bit if you are barely above 1000, quite significantly if you are close to 2000.

And as for the second question, it's nice to see how many games a player has played. Although perhaps a W/L/T list would be clearer; this way ties are properly distinguished at a glance.

It's never ending

Probably will be better to replace infinite tournaments with very simple ladder tournament style.

Richard, if you're seriously considering replacing the current method for Infinites, please let me know. I've got a few ideas for “rolling” brackets and have used one in the past - one of them ought to work.

Yes, I really considering replacing infinity tournament with ladder. Most simple ladder i found there: https://www.redhotpawn.com/help/index.php?help=ladders and it looks as suitable (with some changes). On LG is a lot of variants and this system allow you play one or max two games for variant.

I am favourable to replace Infinite tournament by a Ladder like in DGS.

The biggest thing I don't like about that format (implemented nakedly) is that it may allow for instant rematches and give weird results if the two players are not very close - you could see your ranking take a dive if you finish your games quickly. Would also be better if you can adapt it for two games per round…I love that the 5-player tournament is the norm here.

In my mind I keep going back to an idea where you operate a running, continuous tournament - if you have 14 players, two of them are playing for the championship, four are playing semifinals, and the other eight are playing quarterfinals. If you lose (or win the championship), the next round you start at the bottom; if you win, the next round you move up to the finals/semifinals/whatever. There's modifications needed to have it work right, might be better as small (think 3-player) pools, and might be better if the champion only gets knocked down to the semifinals. Basically a divisions system but with everyone getting promoted or relegated…nobody stays put.

Am I the only one that I really like the Infinite tournament implementation over a ladder one?

Maybe a matching system

Eothello.com has a matching system that creates a new game with similarly rated players but also with players you have played less

If you look at most players you will find they have played a variety of similar players

I don’t like ladders where you have to challenge other players (and have them accept or decline the challenge). I like ladders where everyone plays a game, and then moves up/down if they win/lose. Next round starts automatically when all games are finished.

How about two ladders, one for each colour

Match the highest with the highest in the other ladder, but not self, continue for unmatched players

When the system stabilises most players may find themselves around the same rung in both ladders

But others may be unbalanced which could help them identify a weakness in their game of one colour which ratings would not

I strongly prefer the current system to a system where it is the player's responsibility to issue challenges. So I agree with hypercube.

I only have a few comments for the current system where I think it could be better.

1) I would like to have around 3 or 4 simultaneous games. Currently I just have 2 ongoing games (in the toroidal Go infinity tournament)

2) it would be nice if there was a way the top player in an infinity tournament could be mentioned occasionally in the Recent Little Golem Champions section of the home page.

3) the page for a tournament is a bit “heavy” and is hard to read /understand. Maybe there could be a section explaining things.

I also don't want to have to challenge people - the advantage of the Infinity format is that you're just issued out games periodically.

Whatever you end up deciding, I think it's going to be very game dependent: some games last only a week or two, which is fine for some systems, but some games (like Go 37x37 and Einstein50) take years to complete. The infinity format is good for some of those longer games, though I'm not sure it's better than the Championship format.

Another strong vote for keeping infinity as it is. I only play infinity atm. I wouldn't enter a ladder.

I'm with ypercube ★ at 2020-08-08 and Rex Moore ★ at 2020-08-08and Malcolm Schonfield ★ at 2020-08-09and metzgerism at 2020-08-09 in that I like how the Infinite Toroidal-Go tournament keeps me in around 2 or 3 simultaneous games (automatically - no need to send invites - so I like it better than a ladder system). I also agree with all three of Malcolm Schonfield's points above except I think 2 or 3 simultaneous games is ideal. This allows players to send out invites or play in other tournaments if they want more games, but doesn't overwhelm players who either have less time for games or are playing in other tournaments (maybe even on other game servers, like OGS, DGS, or KGS).

Special thanks to Richard Malaschitz ★ for everything he does here… Hey Richard, BTW, can we have a 13x13 or 15x15 (see other threads for discussion on why 15x15 T-Go might be best) Toroidal Go game and Infinite Tournament or Ladder??? Please!!! :)

Thanks also to mmKALLL at 2016-05-09 for the information/answers… and BurstingBubbles at 2020-08-08 too! (Also Rex)

oh…. I just saw this: New Laddar format in the General forum  —> https://littlegolem.net/jsp/forum/topic2.jsp?forum=1&topic=3257 (where Richard Malaschitz ★ at 2020-09-04 gives new Ladder rules)

I believe there will be a switchover in the next round. At least 50% of all games have switched, but I'd bet 19x19 will still be a few weeks and 37x37 might be a couple years.

oh, maybe I better join the 37x37 in the next year then! lol :D

I joined the 37x37 Go tournament, I just made my first move in my first game against YperCube… Now how do I get my next two games going? Are the 37x37 Go Tournament games still automatically assigned (paired up) by LittleGolem? Or do I need to send an invite?

Yes, this is a ladder. You get games assigned automatically. I think you can have up to 3 games simultaneously.

this is how I learned I finally had a 37x37 game :)

Sighris, you only have one opponent in the 37x37. You (and I) are at the bottom of the ladder and have to play up to start having to play a challenge and a defense.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the final rolling tournament to switch from Infinity to Ladder, considering the individual Infinity rounds took more than a year each IIRC.

So, I was automatically / randomly paired up with you ypercube ★ after I joined the 37x37 tournament/ladder  (about a month after? - I had almost forgotten I had joined)? I recently (about a month or two ago) joined my first ladders on OGS; and there (on OGS) if I want a ladder game I need to find somebody above me and send them a challenge, or wait for somebody below me to challenge me.  So I'm was wondering how it works here on LG… Thanks for any additional info anybody can give… I see that out T-Go buddy/opponent Bernhard Herwig only has one game in the “Defense” column, same with 11 of the players under him… And I have no games in “Defense” column, so will I automatically get matched up with metzgerism and/or simpledeep 14.9k - who I guess joined the 37x37 tournament/ladder after I joined? - and Yes, ypercube ★ I noticed at the bottom of the position chart it has:

1. Max 1 challenge

2. Max 2 defense

3. Play with the same player after 14 days

4. Challenge up to CEIL(SQRT(order))

5. If challenger won game, overtake his opponent.

6. Can somebody explain #4 (above) to me?

7. 3 (and #1 and #2 to a lesser degree) made me think we had to send the “challenge” - but I'm pretty sure I never challenged you YperCube, so I'm guessing it is automatic as you wrote…. So then, how is a ladder different than what was being done in the infinite 11x11 T-Go tournament we were/are in?

oops, my HTML coding was bad… well, it seems good enough to get the points across I guess, “Max 1 challenge” is #1, “Max 2 defense” is #2, etc.

The difference between the previous, Infinity ladder - and as far as I understand - is that we now have max of 3 games going on.

And publicly defined rules about who what pairings are produced. Pairings are still automatic.

The main change though is that challengers - if they win their game - move above the challenged player, exactly like a common ladder system. In the previous Infinity system, these movements were more fluid (there was an infinity rating which moved up when you won a game and down when you lost a game).

Yeah, having multiple rating systems here can feel a little awkward. Replacing one of them with a simple rank ladder was a good step IMO…Ladder isn't perfect (no format is), but I do think it's better than Infinity. I know he's planning to replace ELO with Glicko, as well.

What's really nice about LG is that tournaments get emphasized, especially Championship… often times tournaments are a crapshoot by design, which is nice for newer/more casual players who don't play constantly - I can gear up and get excited for 8 games of a big tournament in most games, no problem. I like that there are different formats for all games…for someone who's really keen on tournament and league design, it's rare for me not to want to nitpick a place like this, and I don't really have much to nitpick here.

I did like Infinity system better than the new ladder system but perhaps I'm on the minority there.

On the second point, indeed, I agree. Planned tournaments (championships, monthly cups, rated, ladders) and user tournaments are one of golem's best features.

Re: old Infinity system vs the new ladder system, I do not have a strong preference as long as I get to have a few good games (THANKS Richard! either way) but I think getting to jump up above the opponent you just beat and everybody under them only because you won one game (against them) is less preferred (for me) than a slower changing rank based on multiple games. *shrug* I'm still having fun, and maybe after I win a game and get to jump up a few levels I'll be happy about that… I guess I better play carefully in my 37x37 game against ypercube ★ so that can happen in less than 10 years! lol

The Infinity system used non-ELO rank points to determine placement, which was basically what you're preferring, but not staggeringly different from the basic ELO ranking every game uses…basically it was an adjunct Swiss league, but with not much difference from simple games. Slow movement towards improved placement.

The Ladder is a championship belt. It's meant to be dynamic and a little chaotic, because site ELO already isn't. It offers you something a little different. The only difference with Infinity was a smaller pool.of players.