Havannah programs in Kanzawa

Hi folks,

who will participate in 15th Computer Olympiad (Kanzawa 2010)? (personally or with operator)

Thanks.

There may be a (new) entry from the University of Alberta. I'm only tangentially involved with this research though, so this is second-hand knowledge at best.

Some speculation:

Two of the top Havannah programmers are involved

also in other games:.

\* Richard Lorentz (Havannah bot Wanderer) is the title

holder in Amazons with his bot Invader.

\* Richard Pijl (Havannah bot Gambler) is also a

strong chess programmer ("The Baron"). He was participant

in Pamplona - and there he learned about Havannah.

Being involved in two games should increase the likelihood

that a person shows up in a Computer Olympiad.

Not to forget: F.Teytaud (co-author of a French Havannah

bot - rank 2 in Pamplona) might also find it normal to go

to the computer olympiad (together with the "French MCTS

connection").

Ingo.

PS: What about Leipzig bots? I do not know...

I will not be going to Japan. Whether Gambler participates or not is up to the organisation.

I'm not going to show up myself, but if I could hire an operator for a small fee we might consider participation. (of course if we manage to develop something decent in the next 4 months)

Somehow i'm more excited about the bet with Christian :-)

Yes, I'm glad I took the precaution of making it a base-10 match :)

Ingo is quite right. I have every intention of competing Wanderer and Invader at the Computer Olympiads -- in person.

About 6 months ago I believe Richard Pijl reported that Johan "The King" de Koning was experimenting with MCTS. And at the Pamplona Olympiads he showed an interest in Havannah. Combining these two tidbits I suspect there is a chance that he might make an appearance with an Havannah bot. Of course in his case we'll never really know until a few days before the event. :)

Just bumping this thread, and including

this link

Johannes,

where are the German and Leipzig competitors for Kanazawa?

Ingo.

RoF really is one week old. I'm sure it's way past

the Competition deadline now.

I didn't have time to start this earlier.

I am doing it now because that's the last chance before

teaching starts (in two weeks), and I will use parts of RoF code

as examples in lectures (not on games, but on programming).

Besides, I haven't done any real testing,

optimisation and parameter tuning for RoF.

I plan to use the data from ongoing LG games,

but probably I'll hand this over to some student (if I find one).

I'll make it open-source, so anyone can work with the code.

For the ICGA events: I understand that the programmer has to be

present - I don't have travel grants/funding for that

(at least not in this year - I'm already way over budget).

Trip to Jena is much easier ...

Hello Johannes,

> I'm sure it's way past the Competition deadline now.

In the past there was always much flexibility with the

deadlines. Especially, now "they" have an odd number of

Hav-participants, so they would likely be happy to get some

number 6.

> ... I will use parts of RoF code as examples in

> lectures (not on games, but on programming).

And you should warn the students "please, do not start

programming Havannah, it is to difficult for you".

That is the best way to make students interested.

> For the ICGA events: I understand that the programmer

> has to be present

That is the normal way, indeed. However, in Go they allow

programmers to be not in place. But in that case the program

has to run on a (normal) machine in Kanazawa, operated by

someone else.

Remote computing (in Go) is allowed only when at least one

member of the team is in Kanazawa.

> Trip to Jena is much easier ...

Likely, there will be another long night of sciences in Jena

in November 2011, including a Havannah tournament again

(for bots and boys).

Ingo.

PS: "boys" instead of "humans" is not really an additional

restriction. For women the game is too complicated.

Or women are too complicated for the game.

> Or women are too complicated for the game.

Hmm, I never saw it in this way, but maybe...

Ingo said: "Likely, there will be another long night of sciences in Jena

in November 2011, including a Havannah tournament again"

Nice, I'm looking forward to that.

LG readers may recall that Ingo held a similar event last year,

a Havannah-6 tournament with Mirko Rahn, Ed van Zon, Deep Fork and Gambler.

http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/havannah/443-jena-2009-tournament

Can we add a scientific program to the tournament

(some talks on game theory/programming,

on the afternoon before the tournament, or on the next day).

I think this would make it more attractive for people that come from afar.

For the tournament: I suggest to allow remote computers

(provided there is a stable net connection).

(I need a car to move my i7 machine - I'd rather go by train,

with my laptop PC in the rucksack.)