[Updated on 5/1] Experimental Tournament 2021
Published by Kai Sun at Apr 17, 2021
Hello, all Gomocup fans!
The detailed rules for the experimental tournament this year are as follows. Most of the rules will remain the same as the experimental tournament last year.
* The experimental tournament will be a double round-robin tournament where each AI faces every other AI once as the first player and once as the second player.
* Time per match will be 90 min. There is no additional time limitation per move.
* We will make sure each AI will play with at most one opponent at every moment.
* Pondering is allowed.
* Since there is no limitation on AI size, please send your submission by email ([email protected]) with a link to your AI for this experimental tournament if your AI is too large to upload on Gomocup user site.
* Please note that in Swap2, only exactly five stones in a row win (http://www.vcpr.cz/en/help-and-rules/gomoku-rules/).
The protocol for the experimental tournament will be the same as last year in the following. The protocol is an extension of the original Gomocup protocol. To deal with the opening stage of Swap2, we introduce an extra command "SWAP2BOARD", which is sent once or twice to the AI between command "START" and command "BOARD". Specifically, it has three cases, and we show examples for each of them.
Case 1. The manager asks for the first three stones.
The manager sends:
SWAP2BOARD
DONE
The AI answers:
7,7 8,7 9,9
Case 2. The manager sends the coordinates of the first three stones and asks for the choice of options.
The manager sends:
SWAP2BOARD
7,7
8,7
9,9
DONE
The AI answers:
SWAP - if the AI decides to swap (option 1)
8,8 - output the coordinate of the 4th move if the AI decides to stay with its color (option 2)
8,8 8,6 - output the coordinates of the 4th and 5th stones if the AI decides to put two stones and let the opponent choose the color (option 3)
Case 3. The manager sends the coordinates of the first five stones and asks for the choice of options.
The manager sends:
SWAP2BOARD
7,7
8,7
9,9
8,8
8,6
DONE
The AI answers:
SWAP - if the AI decides to swap (option 1)
6,8 - output the coordinate of the 6th move if the AI decides to stay with its color (option 2)
After the opening stage, the stones on the board will be treated as an opening for a traditional Gomocup Standard match, and the manager will communicate with the AI using the classical Gomocup protocol in the rest of the match. For example, following the above example in Case 3, assuming the AI chooses option 2, the manager will send the following messages to the other AI:
BOARD
7,7,1
8,7,2
9,9,1
8,8,2
8,6,1
6,8,2
DONE
As another example, following Case 2's example, assuming the AI chooses option 1, the manager will send the following messages to the other AI:
BOARD
7,7,2
8,7,1
9,9,2
DONE
All the other details of the protocol are the same as the original Gomocup protocol. In particular, please be aware that since the original protocol requires INFO time_left to be sent before every move when the time is limited (which is the case in the experimental tournament), now the command is also sent to the brain before command SWAP2BOARD in addition to commands TURN, BEGIN, and BOARD.
* We provide every participant with a special client that can connect your AI with the others remotely. The client is available here.