Rules of the 2nd Lichess Bots Championship

Rules of the 2nd Lichess Bots Championship:

This is a double elimination tournament. You have to be a lichess BOT and post at lichess.org/forum/team-lichess-bots-championship/participants-of-the-2nd-lichess-bots-championship to participate. The bracket can be seen at challonge.com/qh7lnns1. Ajile is the arbiter.

Please only join the tournament if you're willing to complete it. Players are encouraged to contact their opponents and make arrangements that both players agree to (based on when they can play). If this doesn't work, the white player can use "Play with a friend" exactly 5 days after the round has started and send the link to both the black player and Ajile. Ajile will also send the link to the black player (without opening it). Each round has to be able to start exactly one week after the previous one, so the results have to be known before then (otherwise Ajile will choose the winner based on who did the most to make the match happen).

During each round the players do the following to determine who has won the match:
1. Play two standard 15+45 rated games (one with white and one with black), the first mentioned player starts with white. Post the results on the Lichess Bots Championship Forum.
2. If the result was 1-1, play two standard 5+15 rated games (one with white and one with black), the second mentioned player starts with white. Post the results on the Lichess Bots Championship Forum.
3. If the result was 1-1 again, play two standard 5+15 rated games (one with white and one with black), the first mentioned player starts with white. Post the results on the Lichess Bots Championship Forum.
4. If the result was 1-1 again, play two standard 1+3 rated games (one with white and one with black), the second mentioned player starts with white. Post the results on the Lichess Bots Championship Forum.
5. If the result was 1-1 again, play four standard 1+3 rated games (two with white and two with black), the second mentioned player starts with white. The first player to win a game has won the match. Post the results on the Lichess Bots Championship Forum.
6. If the result was 2-2, play one standard 1+3 casual game, the first mentioned player starts with white and has to win, otherwise black has won. Post the results on the Lichess Bots Championship Forum.

Tournament seeding is determined by (excluding ratings with question marks behind them):
1. If @PolyBOT participates, it is automatically #1 in the tournament seeding because of winning the 1st Lichess Bots Championship. If @AttackingOrDefending participates, it is automatically #2 in the tournament seeding because of being the runner-up of the 1st Lichess Bots Championship (if @PolyBOT participates, otherwise it is automatically #1).
2. The Classical rating of the lichess bots.
3. The highest of the Classical rating and the Correspondence rating of the lichess bots.
4. The Correspondence rating of the lichess bots.
5. The highest of the Classical rating, the Correspondence rating, and the Rapid rating of the lichess bots.
6. The Rapid rating of the lichess bots.
7. The highest of the Classical rating, the Correspondence rating, the Rapid rating, and the Blitz rating of the lichess bots.
8. The Blitz rating of the lichess bots.
9. The highest of all ratings of the lichess bots.
10. The names of the lichess bots (alphabetically).

Question:

After white makes the first move, how long should it wait (seconds) before aborting, when black didn't move and the clocks are still stopped?

Thanks

Drbeco / Xadreco

I see the games have started. There isn't really a rule regarding how long you should wait. When Lichess declares you the winner of the game, then it counts. So if you get rating points because your opponent left the game, that counts. If the game is aborted because your opponent didn't make any moves, that's not a win. If somehow you and your opponent couldn't play all the necessary games during the week, I will choose the winner based on who did the most to make the match happen.

As the tournament director, can you please make up some rule?

My bot was configured to wait 20 seconds for the first move, before aborting. There are a lot of users who abuse challenge/don't play/abort. Waiting 20 seconds is reasonable.

But sometimes, for example bots that play random chess, 30 seconds is better. I changed mine to 30 seconds a while ago.

Today, playing this tournament, I was asked to change it to 5 minutes. That is unacceptable for a bot running mostly without human intervention. It is too much waiting for a "first move".

Right now, I set it to 60 seconds. Since the tournament is 15+45, I guess 60 seconds is enough for a first move.

But if we need a "common standard", then it is in your authority to set it.

Thanks!

Beco

I think that 20 seconds will often be enough and 5 minutes is quite long to wait for the game to start if you have to wait every game, but I'm not going to put a limit on it. The problem is that we're dealing with many kinds of bots (some with human intervention and some without) and in the 1st Lichess Bots Championship I've seen that there are also many reasons why participants might not want to play or continue a match (or why they are delayed). I'm not sure if more rules would improve the tournament.

I really like the diversity of bots and that means that some bots will have more difficulty to get their matches started or finished. Each participant can contact its opponent to agree on a time and date (and other agreements that are allowed within the rules). Participants can also contact me if something isn't working (for example scheduling or starting a match) and I will try to find a fair solution. Other than that (and following the rules of the tournament), participants can make their own choices (for example: whether they want to wait 5 minutes or not) and I'll choose the winner based on who did the most to make the match happen if the match wasn't finished in a week. I do hope we all try to work together as much as possible to make the matches happen. It's always best when matches are decided with fun games that ended in a clear victory for one of the bots.

That's why I like the idea of lichess.org/forum/team-lichess-bots-championship/contact-information-to-play-matches. It allows for the diversity maintained by the minimum of rules, while establishing the conditions of the particularities of each BOT or opponent. It represents a space that can be used to define these particularities (approved by the tournament director), but unfortunately I do not see it being used.

In that case, would it be ok/wanted for me as the human to make the first move as to not have the game being aborted? And then let the engine play for the rest of the game?

On a side note, the time control is somewhat weird/unusual, my bot isn't the only one I have seen, where the time management does weird things.

Good idea.

All bot accounts can participate in the tournament (also ones that don't use an engine), so you're also allowed to make moves as a human with your bot account. So that seems to be a good solution.

I agree, the time control is unusual and that might cause bad time management. The time control might change in a future Lichess Bots Championship. The idea is that your bot always has enough time for each move (at least 45 seconds), but it also has downsides.

If you guys are using the official lichess-bot repo, you can use "!wait" command in chat to make the BOT wait another 60 seconds before aborting the game. @drbeco