| format | 30-round Swiss |
|---|---|
| board size | 9×9 |
| rules | Chinese |
| komi | 7 |
| time | 4 minutes plus 10/30s |
The first round started at 08:00 UTC.
There is a view that for 9×9 tournaments, the komi of 7½ specified by the Chinese rules is too high, and favours White. When this was discussed earlier in the year, some potential entrants preferred a komi of 7, while others favoured remaining with 7½. I took a vote, in which those in favour of changing to 7 won by three votes to one. So for this event, we used komi of 7.
This was awkward for some MC programs, which cannot eaasily allow for three possible game results. I expected to see at least ten jigo results – if programs can count and read well, they should often find that the best result they can achieve is jigo. And if they can't count, or more likely can't read well, they should obtain a random spread of results, which on a small board should still include a significant proportion of jigos. But that was not how things worked out.
Seventeen players registered. I tried to remove IdiotBot before the start of round 1, to make the numbers even; but I was too slow, so it was included in round 1.
In round 1, SimpleBot had a bye, while valkyria had an easy win against IdiotBot.
Also in round 1, EricaBot achieved a four-point win against Zen9; but then, instead of passing, made meaningless moves, slowly, inside Zen9's territory until it lost on time. Its author told me that he had its time setting wrong, he changed this after the game.
During round 3, StoneGrid stopped making moves, and lost on time.
After three rounds, there were three players with three wins each, Zen9, valkyria, and Fuego128t. Pachi2's operator realised that it had the wrong opening book loaded, it had been failing to start in the centre when Black. He restarted it without a book, but it continued to prefer e6 to e5 for its first move as Black.
In round 4, StoneGrid joined its game but made no moves. I waited until it had lost its game on time, and kicked it off the server. I did this in the hope that the kick would wake it up and make it play moves; a kick sometimes has this effect on a bot.
After round 4, Zen9 and Fuego128t were the only players on four wins.
In round 5, StoneGrid joined its game a few seconds late (it takes bot five minutes to reconnect after being kicked). However it still did not make any moves.
Zen9 beat Fuego128t, to become the only undefeated player.
|
|
|---|
| Fuego128t vs EricaBot |
| After move 65. |
In round 6, Gomorra3 beat Zen9. This was Zen9's first loss.
Also in round 6, Fuego128t and EricaBot reached the settled position shown to the right, with all the dame filled. If they had passed at this point, it would have been jigo. But both players played on, Fuego128t rather slowly despite being short of time, and EricaBot won on time after 22 more moves.
In round 7, sf9x9bot achieved a won game against SimpleBot, but the players disagreed about the status of some groups. In the clean-up phase, sf9x9bot passed throughout, allowing SimpleBot's dead stones to be counted as alive, and lost as a result.
After round 7, EricaBot was in the lead, being the only player with six wins.
|
|---|
| Fuego128t vs stv |
| Move 35. |
In round 9, stv played move 35 as shown in the diagram to the left, against Fuego128t. I believe that the upper left white group is now dead, as "bent four in the corner". Both players played as if they understood this.
Also in round 9, EricaBot and pachi2 achieved a jigo.
I observed that whenever oakfoam is black, it thinks for 25 seconds before deciding to start at e5.
In round 10 EricaBot and pachi2 were paired again. This time pachi2 won.
|
|---|
| valkyria vs Zen9 |
| Move 50. |
In its round 12 game with Zen9, valkyria played as shown to the right, building a group that is alive only in ko. It then converted this to a double ko, then killed the black group in the top right, winning the game. If this description sounds confused, I encourage you to look at the game record, which is linked to from the cross-table at the top if this page.
After round 12, valkyria was in the lead with 10 wins, pachi2 in second place with 9½, Zen9 third with 9, and EricaBot 4th with 8½.
Sometime in round 14, sf9x9bot stopped making moves. After it had lost on time in round 15 I kicked it in the hope of waking it up. This was probably effective in round 16, but it was drawn as White against StoneGrid, which had not moved since round 3, so it was impossible to tell.
After round 16, Zen9 and valkyria shared the lead with 12 points, EricaBot and pachi2 shared third place with 11½, and stv was in fifth place with 11.
In round 17 sf9x9bot played normally against oakfoam, but failed to play at all during the clean-up phase, and lost on time. I kicked the inactive StoneGrid again.
In round 18 StoneGrid returned from its kick but still did not make any moves. Sf9x9bot started its game with WeakBot50k, but stopped playing moves after move 15, and lost on time.
In round 19 The leaders, Zen9 and valkyria, each on 14 wins, played each other. Zen9 won. Oakfoam stopped playing in a won position against WeakBot50k, and lost on time.
|
|---|
| ManyFaces1 vs Zen9 |
| After successive passes. |
In round 21 Manyfaces1 and Zen9 both passed in the position shown to the left. ManyFaces1 claimed that its group in the upper right was alive; Zen9 claimed, correctly, that it was dead. But in the clean-up phase, Zen9 passed instead of killing it, so the game was scored as a win to ManyFaces1.
After round 23, Zen9 was in the lead with 18 wins, pachi2 was in second place woth 16½ wins, and Fuego128t, stv, and valkyria were tied for third place with 16 wins each.
|
|---|
| pachi2 vs AyaMC |
| After the last real move of the game. |
In round 24 pachi2 and AyaMC achieved a jigo, as shown to the right. They then made hopeless invasions of each other's territory for another 60 moves, with no effect on the result. I do not know if this behaviour was connected with the jigo – I guess that if one of them had been half a point ahead, only its opponent would have tried hopeless invasions.
In round 28, sf9x9bot fell asleep again. I woke it by kicking it.
In round 29, StoneGrid'd operator connected to KGS, and realised that StoneGrid had not made a move for four hours. He woke it up, and it started playing its game against ManyFaces1, but with only 1½ minutes left. It lost.
Players receive points for the 2011 Annual KGS Bot Championship as follows:
| Zen | 8 |
| pachi | 5 |
| Erica | 3 |
| Steenvreter | 2 |
| Valkyria | 1 |