4th Annual OCTI Robot Tournament!

The 4th Annual Octi Robot Championship will take place at Yale University in December, 2003.  Robot competitors will play a round-robin tournament.  Competitions will be held for the following OCTI variants:

I.                     OCTI on a 6x7 board (see rules at http://www.octi.net/instructionfront.jpg): First Prize is $500

II.                   OCTI on a 9x9 board, playing to capture one enemy base (see rules at http://www.octi.net/aboutocti2/images/OCTIXinst1.gif): First Prize is $750

III.                  OCTI on a 9x9 board, playing to capture all three enemy bases (see rules at http://www.octi.net/aboutocti2/images/OCTIXinst2.gif): First Prize is $1000

Each game will be played under a two-hour time limit for each player. Robot-designers need not be in attendance in order to compete.  For the 9x9 games, basic rules apply (i.e., no wrap-around board, no super-prongs).

Entrants must indicate their intent to participate by November 30, 2003. Contact octimon@yahoo.com or visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/octiclub. There is no entrance fee.

Programmers may either create a graphical user interface or express moves using official OCTI notation, so that a human moderator can regulate games between computers. Games will be played at the Yale StatLab on PCs running Win98 or NT, although (reasonable) requests for other platforms and operating systems will be considered. All computer code must be transmitted to the tournament three days prior to the tournament, so that any operational difficulties can be worked out in advance.

A three-judge panel will run the programs, monitor game progress, adjudicate any rules disputes, and determine victory. 

OCTI is a simple, yet deep game of strategy designed to give humans an edge over computers. The basic premise of the game is that players build their pieces as they play. On each turn, a player must decide whether to move a piece, improve a piece, or add a new piece to the board. This simple framework creates an extraordinary array of strategic options and plays to "human" strengths: long-term planning and heuristic reasoning. GAMES MAGAZINE named OCTI "Best Abstract Strategy Game of the Year." For a description of the game and other reviews, visit www.octi.net .

 

(OCTI is a registered trademark of the Great American Trading Company, US Patent 6,182,967.)