[computer-go] KGS Tournaments: Format

[Nick Wedd <nick@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Following the success of yesterday's event, we plan to hold regular
Computer Go tournaments on KGS.  The format of these events has yet to
be decided.  I hope that members of this mailing list will express their
views on what formats would be best.

FREQUENCY OF TOURNAMENTS
How often should such events be held?  I am thinking of about once a
month.  This will probably be to much for most programs, but the events
will be in a variety of formats (19x19 and 9x9, fast and slow time
limits), so most programs would probably not want to enter them all
anyway.
    A commitment to hold a KGS Computer Go Tournament once a month
imposes a duty on the organiser, but I think it is quite a light duty.
All that is necessary is that a responsible person is present at the end
of each round, to decide the result of any game where the programs
disagree.  There was no disagreement in any of yesterday's eleven games.
I lost my connection for more than a round, without it making any
difference to anything.
    Even the participating programmers do not have to be present, or
awake, for these events.  If they have a unmetered internet connection,
they can just set up their bot in advance and leave it running.

DAY OF THE WEEK
What day should events be?  Should it always be the same, or should it
be varied, to give more people a chance to participate?

TIME OF DAY
Preferences for this will depend on time zone.  Yesterday we ran from
20:00 to 22:00 GMT, making it convenient for Europeans and Americans,
but not for East Asians.  No East Asians took part.  We chose this time
to allow the presence of myself (living in Europe) and William Shubert
(US).  But I hope that in future we won't always need both to be
present, and we can use a time more welcoming to East Asian programmers.

BOARD SIZE
We used 9x9 board for the test tournament, so as not to waste too much
time if things went wrong.  In future I expect to hold mostly 19x19
events, but some 9x9 as well.  Is there any demand for 13x13?

TIME LIMITS
Similarly, we used fastish time limits for the test tournament.  I know
that different programs prefer a very wide range of time limits.  We
plan to cater for this by holding events with a range of time limits. An
event with slow time limits can be scheduled with one round per day.
    KGS implements three kinds of time limit:  Absolute time, Byo-yomi,
and Canadian.  If the rounds are to follow on from one another, and be
handled by an automated system, we have to use Absolute time.  But for
events with big gaps between the rounds, any of these systems could be
used.

PAIRING SYSTEM
KGS can handle three formats at present:  single elimination or
knock-out, double elimination, and Swiss.  I assume that round-robin or
all-play-all should be easy to implement, and it would be my preferred
format, except for the fact that the length of the tournament (which we
would like to be known in advance) depends on the number of entrants.
Meanwhile I tend to prefer Swiss.

Nick
-- 
Nick Wedd    nick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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