Hnefatafl Internet Championship

[Hagbard]

The timing system for the annual WTF tournament has so far ignored the issue of players' sleep at night. Parameters have been set so that, on average, the timing would accommodate everyone's sleep.

However, last year two players experienced two nights in a row without sleep because it turned out that, if one really wanted to, it was possible to exploit the timing.

A simple countermeasure against this could be:

1. Each player is assigned a time zone.
2. In each player's time zone, from 0:00 to 6:00 at night, the player's clock is always paused. Thus, players cannot time out during the night.

Instead of waiting until the WTF tournament is underway to see if this works, I want to ask the clever players now:
How could a player exploit this method?

[Luizz]

Well, I‘m not quite sure how the timing works exactly (or if and how the WTF timing differs. I have proposed my ideal timing solution in another post.

Under the assumption that player A gains only ~15 minutes per move – which is something I’ve encountered numerous times beforehand, for example my most recent game against Thorfin - then player B could play everyday at 6AM, and if player A does not react always within these 15 minutes, he will eventually run out of time. Also, assuming that player A sleeps a healthy 8 hours, there is always a 2 hours window in which player B could „win“ time against player A. In practice it’s probably even more like 3 hours.

I think this is probably a better system than the current one, however, it’s unnecessarily complicated and does not solve the inherent problems of the timing. If I were you, I‘d just give each player a 7 days time limit, and with each move they gain 12 hours to that limit (capped at 7 days). If the game is too long (>100 moves), make the cap at 1 days, but DONT change the 12 hours increase. That way, the night issue is solved, it’s much more simple and user friendly.

[Draganov]

In my opinion, the best solution is to implement the following things:
1) Give each player a reasonable time buffer (for example 10 days)
2) If a player used his time buffer up, then another fixed time (maybe 12 hours) is added after each of his moves. The player with used time buffer CANNOT have more than 12 hours per move. The time is not added to his previous time and he needs to play each of his moves until the end of the game in 12 hours.
3) In that case a player will always have the chance to respond in 12 hours. These 12 hours are protected and never be decreased neverless if the game length is 100 moves or less.

[Hagbard]

It is a bit early to plan, because the short summer should be enjoyed fully.
I just want to mention a few thoughts.

Three tournament lines will continue unchanged from last year:

1. Copenhagen Hnefatafl 11x11.

2. Historical Hnefatafl:
Saami Tablut-w 9x9 (round 1)
Tawlbwrdd Lewis cross-w 11x11 (round 2)
Historical Hnefatafl-w 13x13 (Dimetr 2) (round 3 and onwards)

3. Race games:
Daldøs 3x14 (round 1)
Saami Sáhkku 3x15 (round 2)

But as a fourth tournament line, Sea Tafl could be replaced with:

4. “Asgard games”:
Tyr 11x11
Thor-w 11x11
Odin 15x15

Registration starts August 1st.
Tournament starts September 15th.

[Hagbard]

Games, also of 100 moves, last with the present timing about 30 days.
The tournament usually takes three rounds.
That is in all about three months Sep. 15th - Dec. 15th.

The planned timer pause at night would add about 1/4 = 7 days to a long game, that is about three weeks added to the whole tournament.

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By the timing proposed by Luizz, a 100 moves game could last
2*7 days + 100/2 days = 64 days (instead of 37 days)

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By the timing proposed by Draganov, a 100 moves game could last
2*10 days + 100/2 days = 70 days (instead of 37 days)

[Luizz]

Okay, if you want to keep the max duration for a 100-move game low, then we could tweak the parameters of my proposal (or that of draganovs, our proposals are quite similar anyways).

So for example, let‘s reduce the 7 days to 4 days, and the 12 hours to 8 hours, and we get:

2*4 days + 100/3 days = ~41 days. Not much different from the current maximum, but still ensures a time buffer of 8 hours after every move – should be enough for a calm night

[Hagbard]

There's a wish for the Sea Battle line after all. Also, there's a wish to use only 13x13 at the Sea Battle.
We could have a separate Asgard Games tournament next winter after the WTF tournament.

The WTF tournament would then be:

1. Copenhagen Hnefatafl 11x11.

2. Historical Hnefatafl:
Saami Tablut-w 9x9 (round 1)
Tawlbwrdd Lewis cross-w 11x11 (round 2)
Historical Hnefatafl-w 13x13 (Dimetr 2) (round 3 and onwards)

3. Sea Battle Tafl:
Sea battle tafl 13x13 (Nielsen)

4. Race games:
Daldøs 3x14 (round 1)
Saami Sáhkku 3x15 (round 2)

Registration starts August 1st.
Tournament starts September 15th.

[Hagbard]

As for timing:
But then comes the cunning player, who makes sure that his opponent always sleeps during his 8 hour turn; and then the opponent only has the 4 days left of timing and will soon time out -

[Hagbard]

Alternative timing:

Night Pause - 8-hour pause per received move

To ensure that players can sleep without fear of timing out:

• Each player is entitled to up to 8 hours of night pause (from 23:00 to 07:00 local time) per received move.
• The night pause is calculated as the actual hours between 23:00 and 07:00 that occur during the player's thinking time on that move:
  • If the opponent moves before the night begins (e.g., 21:00), the player receives an 8-hour pause that night from 23:00–07:00.
  • If the opponent moves during the night (e.g., 03:00), the player receives 4 hours of pause that night (03:00–07:00) and up to 4 hours the next night (23:00–03:00), totalling up to 8 hours.
  • If the opponent moves after the night ends (e.g., 08:00), the player receives up to 8 hours of pause the next night from 23:00–07:00.
• Once the player has received 8 hours of pause for that move, the pause for that move is complete, and the clock continues normally.
• The pause applies per received move and does not accumulate across moves.

[Luizz]

As for timing:
But then comes the cunning player, who makes sure that his opponent always sleeps during his 8 hour turn; and then the opponent only has the 4 days left of timing and will soon time out -

I dont see what you mean. The players get 4 days as the maximum time limit, and each move grants them 8 hours. If you make a move right before you sleep, you loose a maximum of 8 hours, and your next move (in the morning) will fully restore your time limit. No problem here