News
Gomocup 2024 Announcement
Published by Kai Sun at Feb 19, 2024
Hello, all Gomocup fans!
We would like to inform you about some details of the coming Gomocup. Gomocup 2024 will take place from May 17th to May 19th, 2024. The submission deadline is May 10th, 2024, at 11:59 pm UTC.
In Gomocup 2024, all AIs are required to be compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10, including the corresponding server versions such as Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2022.
In addition to the classical freestyle, standard, renju, caro, and fastgame tournaments, we will introduce a new 15x15 freestyle tournament this year. The only difference between the 15x15 freestyle tournament and the classical freestyle tournament is the board size (i.e., the 15x15 freestyle tournament is played on a 15x15 board). The memory limit is determined to be 350MB. The default AI size limitation is 8MB. Participants who want to submit an AI larger than 8MB should submit a written explanation to [email protected] explaining the necessity and get approval. One author is allowed to submit only one AI. Time per move/per match will be 5s/120s for fastgame, 300s/1000s for final leagues, and 30s/180s for the rest. For details, you can refer to detail information. Gomocup 2024 will run on CPUs that support up to at least the following instruction sets: SSE4.1, SSE4.2, POPCNT, AVX, and AVX2. If your AI can leverage instruction sets newer than AVX2, you can submit two compilations to us: one compiled for instruction sets up to AVX2, and the other compiled for more advanced instruction sets. We will use the latter if it can be run on the Gomocup's computers.
Besides the tournaments above that run on the Gomocup's computers, we also plan to organize the unlimited tournament. The unlimited tournament has no limitation on AI size and allows participants to use any hardware (e.g., GPUs) that they have access to. Following Gomoku World Championships, the rule for this tournament is Swap2. No human intervention is allowed, and to enforce that, every participant in this tournament is required to submit to Gomocup the AI program along with a detailed document on how to set up the environment and run the AI so that we can, theoretically, check if games played in this tournament are reproducible. If you are interested in participating in the unlimited tournament, please send us an email ([email protected]) by May 10th, 2024, at 11:59 pm UTC. The format of the tournament and time per match will be settled based on the number of participants, and the other rules will remain the same as previous years.
We require every participant to make submissions via the Gomocup user site and sign a copyright statement. If you encounter any problems or bugs while using the system, feel free to send an email to [email protected].
Gomocup 2023 Announcement
Published by Kai Sun at Mar 19, 2023
Hello, all Gomocup fans!
We would like to inform you about some details of the coming Gomocup. Gomocup 2023 will take place from June 9th to June 11th, 2023. The submission deadline is June 2nd, 2023, at 11:59 pm UTC.
In Gomocup 2023, all AIs are required to be compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10, including the corresponding server versions such as Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2022.
In addition to the classical freestyle, standard, renju, and fastgame tournaments, we will introduce a new caro tournament this year. The caro tournament adopts the standard caro rule where the winner must have an unbroken row of exactly five stones that is not blocked at both ends (i.e., neither oxxxxxo nor xxxxxx is a win for x) on a 15x15 board. The tournament manager will send command "INFO rule 9" to inform the rule is standard caro. The memory limit is determined to be 350MB. The default AI size limitation is 8MB. Participants who want to submit an AI larger than 8MB should submit a written explanation to [email protected] explaining the necessity and get approval. One author is allowed to submit only one AI. Time per move/per match will be 5s/120s for fastgame, 300s/1000s for final leagues, and 30s/180s for the rest. For details, you can refer to detail information. Gomocup 2023 will run on CPUs that support up to at least the following instruction sets: SSE4.1, SSE4.2, POPCNT, AVX, and AVX2. If your AI can leverage instruction sets newer than AVX2, you can submit two compilations to us: one compiled for instruction sets up to AVX2, and the other compiled for more advanced instruction sets. We will use the latter if it can be run on the Gomocup's computers.
Besides the tournaments above that run on the Gomocup's computers, we also plan to continue organizing the unlimited tournament. The unlimited tournament has no limitation on AI size and allows participants to use any hardware (e.g., GPUs) that they have access to. Following Gomoku World Championships, the rule for this tournament is Swap2. No human intervention is allowed, and to enforce that, every participant in this tournament is required to submit to Gomocup the AI program along with a detailed document on how to set up the environment and run the AI so that we can, theoretically, check if games played in this tournament are reproducible. If you are interested in participating in the unlimited tournament, please send us an email ([email protected]) by June 2nd, 2023, at 11:59 pm UTC. The format of the tournament and time per match will be settled based on the number of participants, and the other rules will remain the same as previous years.
We require every participant to make submissions via the Gomocup user site and sign a copyright statement. If you encounter any problems or bugs while using the system, feel free to send an email to [email protected].
Gomocup 2022 Announcement
Published by Kai Sun at Feb 4, 2022
Hello, all Gomocup fans!
Spring 2022 is coming, and we would like to inform you about some details. Gomocup 2022 will take place from April 15th to April 17th, 2022. The submission deadline is April 8th, 2022, at 11:59 pm UTC.
In Gomocup 2022, all new AIs are required to be compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10 (including the corresponding server versions such as Windows Server 2016). We strongly encourage AIs to be compatible with Windows 7 and Windows 8 as well, but compatibility with them is not required.
Following the traditional settings of Gomocup, we will have freestyle, standard, renju, and fastgame tournaments in Gomocup 2022. The memory limit is determined to be 350MB. The default AI size limitation is 8MB. Participants who want to submit an AI larger than 8MB should submit a written explanation to [email protected] explaining the necessity and get approval before doing so. One author is not allowed to submit more than one AI. In particular, submitting different AIs for different rules is no longer allowed either (see note [1] for details). Time per move/per match will be 5s/120s for fastgame, 300s/1000s for final leagues, and 30s/180s for the rest. For details, you can refer to detail information. Gomocup 2022 will run on CPUs that support up to at least the following instruction sets: SSE4.1, SSE4.2, POPCNT, and AVX. If your AI can leverage instruction sets newer than AVX (e.g., AVX2), you can submit two compilations to us: one compiled for instruction sets up to AVX, and the other compiled for more advanced instruction sets. We will use the latter if it can be run on the tournament computers.
In addition to the traditional tournaments above, following the success of the previous two experimental tournaments where AIs were running on participants' computers, we plan to continue organizing a tournament of such kind and officially name it the "unlimited tournament". The unlimited tournament has no limitation on AI size and allows participants to use any hardware (e.g., GPUs) that they have access to. Following Gomoku World Championships, the rule for this tournament is Swap2. No human intervention is allowed, and to enforce that, besides submitting the AI program, every participant in this tournament is also required to submit to Gomocup a detailed document on how to set up the environment and run the AI so that we can, theoretically, check if games played in this tournament are reproducible. If you are interested in participating in the unlimited tournament, please send us an email ([email protected]) by April 8th, 2022, at 11:59 pm UTC. The format of the tournament and time per match will be settled based on the number of participants, and the other rules will remain the same as last year.
We require every participant to make submissions via the Gomocup user site and sign a copyright statement. If you encounter any problems or bugs while using the system, feel free to send an email to [email protected].
[1] In Gomocup 2016, we started to allow the AI author to submit different AIs for different rules because at that time some participants found it hard to make one AI support multiple rules under the hard AI size limitation (i.e., <2M). Over the past years, we have gradually increased and softened the AI size limitation, so the original reason for allowing the author to submit different AIs for different rules no longer holds. Please leverage the "INFO rule" in the protocol to make one AI support multiple rules.
Gomocup 2021 result
Published by Kai Sun at May 17, 2021
Gomocup 2021 took place during May 14th-16th. You can see the published results.
The game records of Gomocup 2021 have been merged into the Elo rating list.
You can download new AIs in the download page.
[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.
Gomocup 2021 Announcement
Published by Kai Sun at Feb 12, 2021
Hello, all Gomocup fans!
Spring 2021 is coming, and we would like to inform you about some details. Gomocup 2021 will take place from May 14th to May 16th, 2021. The submission deadline is May 8th, 2021, at 11:59 pm UTC.
In Gomocup 2021, only compatibility with Windows 10 (including the server versions of Windows based on Windows 10 such as Windows Server 2016) is mandatory, though we strongly encourage AIs to be compatible with Windows 7 and Windows 8 as well.
Following the traditional settings of Gomocup, we will have freestyle, standard, renju, and fastgame tournaments in Gomocup 2021. One author is not allowed to submit more than one AI for one rule but is allowed to submit different AIs for different rules. The memory limit is determined to 350MB. While the default AI size limitation is 8MB, some of you may have exceptional circumstances that would make this difficult. For this reason, we allow larger submissions only for special cases. This means that participants who want to submit an AI larger than 8MB must submit a written explanation to [email protected] explaining the necessity and get approval before doing so. Time per move/per match will be 5s/120s for fastgame, 300s/1000s for final leagues, and 30s/180s for the rest. For details, you can refer to detail information. Gomocup 2021 will run on CPUs that support up to at least the following instruction sets: SSE4.1, SSE4.2, and POPCNT.
In addition to the traditional tournaments above, we plan to continue organizing the experimental tournament where AIs will be running on participants' computers. This experimental tournament has no limitation on AI size and allows participants to use any hardware (e.g., GPUs) that they have access to. Following Gomoku World Championships, the rule for this tournament is Swap2. No human intervention is allowed, and to enforce that, besides submitting the AI program, every participant in this tournament is also required to submit to Gomocup a detailed document on how to set up the environment and run the AI so that we can, theoretically, check if games played in this tournament are reproducible. If you are interested in participating in this experimental tournament, please send us an email ([email protected]) at your earliest convenience. Depending on the number of potential participants, we will have more detailed rules (e.g., time) settled tentatively by April 17th. The protocol for the experimental tournament will remain the same as last year in the following.
* To deal with the opening stage of Swap2, we introduce an extra command "SWAP2BOARD" to the current Gomocup protocol, 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
We require every participant to make submissions via the Gomocup user site and sign a copyright statement. If you encounter any problems or bugs while using the system, feel free to send an email to [email protected].
Gomocup 2020 result
Published by Kai Sun at Apr 27, 2020
Gomocup 2020 took place during April 24th-26th. You can see the published results.
The game records of Gomocup 2020 have been merged into the Elo rating list.
You can download new AIs in the download page.
Gomocup 2020 Live
Published by Kai Sun at Apr 25, 2020
Gomocup 2020 is started. The detailed schedule will be maintained here. You are welcome to watch Gomocup 2020 Live, and participate in Gomocup Chat.
[Updated on 4/10] Experimental Tournament
Published by Kai Sun at Apr 1, 2020
Hello, all Gomocup fans!
Based on the information collected in the past few weeks, the detailed rules for the experimental tournament are as follows.
* 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.
* Please note that in Swap2, only exactly five stones in a row win (http://www.vcpr.cz/en/help-and-rules/gomoku-rules/).
* To deal with the opening stage of Swap2, we introduce an extra command "SWAP2BOARD" to the current Gomocup protocol, 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
* We provide participants with a special client that can (1) communicate with your AI based on the extended protocol and (2) send/receive moves via Gomocup's server. The client is available here.
Gomocup 2020 Announcement
Published by Kai Sun at Feb 11, 2020
Hello, all Gomocup fans!
Spring 2020 is coming, and we would like to inform you about some details. Gomocup 2020 will take place from April 24th to April 26th, 2020. This year we will have two deadlines: (1) The submission deadline is on April 17th, 2020, at 11:59 pm UTC. We will examine your submission on the tournament computers and let you know if we notice any issues with it (e.g., crash) by 11:59 pm April 19th UTC. (2) The revision deadline is on April 23rd, 2020, at 11:59 pm UTC. You are allowed to revise your submission before this deadline, but due to time constraints, revisions submitted after the submission deadline may NOT receive an examination.
The compatibility requirement of Gomocup 2020 will be the same as that of 2019. If you are new to Gomocup, we strongly recommend reading compatibility details.
Following the traditional settings of Gomocup, we will have freestyle, standard, renju, and fastgame tournaments in Gomocup 2020. One author is not allowed to submit more than one AI for one rule but is allowed to submit different AIs for different rules. The memory limit is determined to 350MB, and the AI size limitation is 8MB. Time per move/per match will be 5s/120s for fastgame, 300s/1000s for final leagues, and 30s/180s for the rest. For details, you can refer to detail information. Gomocup 2020 will run on CPUs that support up to at least the following instruction sets: SSE4.1, SSE4.2, and POPCNT.
In addition to traditional tournaments above, we plan to introduce a brand new experimental tournament to Gomocup 2020, where AIs will be running on participants' computers. This experimental tournament has no limitation on AI size and allows participants to use any hardware (e.g., GPUs) that they have access to. Following Gomoku World Championships, the rule for this tournament is Swap2. No human intervention is allowed, and to enforce that, besides submitting the AI program, every participant in this tournament is also required to submit to Gomocup a detailed document on how to set up the environment and run the AI, so that we can, theoretically, check if games played in this tournament are reproducible. If you are interested in participating in this new experimental tournament, please send us an email ([email protected]) at your earliest convenience. Depending on the number of potential participants, we will have more detailed rules (e.g., time, protocol) settled tentatively by April 1st.
We require every participant to make submissions via the Gomocup user site and sign a copyright statement (link). If you encounter any problems or bugs while using the system, feel free to send an email to us ([email protected]).