Arimaa World Championship live commentary games

Vladan Majerech vs Karl Juhnke now in progress

http://bit.ly/e6h6Ry

Unfortunately I didn't understand the game by the time of the broadcast. But now I was looking around at the arimaa site and learned the rules. Of course I also read about the 10000$ challenge, which interests me as computer scientist. Are the computer programs becoming nearly as good as humans and won therefore 3 games (looking at your challenge I guess not)? Or is it possible that only 1 slight mistake changes the game? And the program could take advantage of such a mistake?

I've spoken with an Arimaa players some years ago (maybe 2 years?) at iggc. According to him computer programs were better than humans at the end of the game, when you've to bring one rabbit to goal. About earlier moves, he considered them much weaker than humans. I don't know if situation has changed.. :)

an Arimaa player, not players.. :)

Okay thanks. In this case probably the advantage gathered in the opening was not enough to win for the humans. Probably the computers are weak because it is hard to make opening books. But looking at this, I conclude it's just a matter of time until the bots win... how long will it take?

No the computers have not yet won the challenge. But they are getting better each year. Partly due to advances in hardware and partly due to the developers incorporating new knowledge into the programs. The Arimaa challenge was designed to encourage advances in AI software and not rely on super computers or special hardware to win. Thus, the programs must be able to run on general purpose computers which can be purchased within $1000 USD. The hardware that will be used in the 2011 challenge match (coming up in April) is a Intel Xeon Quad X3360 2.83GHz, (11320MHz total) with 4 GB RAM and 500 GB hard drive running the latest CentOS 64 bit operating system. I figure that by 2020 the hardware will get fast enough that without further advanced in software the computer will be able to win. So the challenge is good until 2020. However, the top Arimaa players tend to disagree with me and feel that humans might be able to stay ahead even longer.

2011 Arimaa World Championship round 8 game hanzack vs. rabbits with live commentary http://bit.ly/iiE4WI Both players in must win situation.

2011 Arimaa World Championship round 8 game Hippo vs chessandgo with live commentary http://bit.ly/gxwW9a Both players have a perfect record going into the game. Only one player can win.

2011 Arimaa World Championship round 8 game Adanac vs. Tuks with live commentary http://bit.ly/ghJNn3 Both players have no losses yet. Only one player can win.

2011 Arimaa World Championship round 8 game Fritzlein vs Nombril with live commentary http://bit.ly/ezYSIW Both players in must win situation, but only one player can win.

2011 Arimaa World Championship round 9 game chessandgo vs Adanac with live commentary by Karl Juhnke and Eric Momsen: http://bit.ly/g6ubn7

chessandgo (Jean Daligault) is 3-time and current Arimaa world champion. Adanac (Greg Magne) has placed 3rd in the last there championship tournaments. Both players have a perfect record going into the game; only one player can win.

I just read of this game and it looks very promising. I will try it.

I also found ver funny that many are comparing this with chess. I don't see the similarities except the board and the same amount of pieces. this is NOT a variant of chess

Yes, the way pieces move, how they capture and the goal of the game are all different. But some consider games that can be played with a chess set to be chess variants. I'm OK with it either way.

Arimaa World Championship round 10; quarter finals game Tuks vs chessandgo with live commentary http://bit.ly/gxwNH7 Do or die game for Tuks.

Arimaa World Championship round 10; quarter finals game Fritzlein vs Adanac with live commentary http://bit.ly/gdiZNW Do or die for both players.

adanac won

Yes, it was a bit of an upset since Greg (Adance) was about 100 points lower rated than Karl (Fritzlein). But Greg had been practicing quite a bit before the tournament and was in top form; sometimes even beating Jean (chessandgo; the current champion) in their practice games.

Round 11 will be Adanac vs chessandgo for 1st and 2nd place and Fritzlein vs Tuks for 3rd place.

You can find the game times on this page: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wc/2011/showGames.cgi

Final game of the 2011 Arimaa World Championship with live commentary. Greg Magne vs Jean Daligault http://bit.ly/dOmOBv