RoboRumble/PremierLeague

The world famous English football league - the Premier League - is probably one of the most prestigous competitions any sportsman of any sport can win. Here's how the ranking rules of the this league could be adapted to RoboRumble@Home (or any Robocode league where there's enough computing power to let all bots fight all other bots).

• Each pairing is either won, lost or tied
  • A win is everything above 50%, a loss anything below 50%, an exact 50% (very rare) is a tie.
• A win earns a bot 2 points.
• A tie earns it 1 point.
• Losing earns it nothing.
• A bot rating is calculated as the sum of the points it has collected.

Let's assume a league of 7 particpants and a Bot X having a details sheet looking somewhat like this:

Enemy	Battles fought	Score Share	Points
Bot A	7	55.7%	2
Bot B	3	60.2%	2
Bot C	2	27.8%	0
Bot D	5	89.5%	2
Bot E	3	50.0%	1
Bot F	8	48.5%	0

The number of pairings will be 6. Bot X collects 7 points so its total score is 7. Also, if there is a tie, the sum of the scores is used to decide the final ranking (it is the %wins appearing in the /PremierLeague results). In the example the % wins would be (55.7 + 60.2 + 27.8 + 89.5 + 50.0 + 48.5)/100.

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Chat:

Er... it's actually called "The Premiership"... I think premier league is used in other sports, and football in other countries, but not English football... -- Tango

It is? I wasn't aware. I thought "premiership" was a pet name for it. Well, as long as you know what I mean... =) -- PEZ

Nope, it's official name is the premiership. But Premier League is used in other places/sports with the same/similar scoring so it doesn't really matter. -- Tango

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What about using something like described on the IsTheBotBetterOrWorse page to say it's a tie (49% - 51%) is too short i think.--Synnalagma

One of the objectives of the PremierLeague is to make the ranking system SIMPLE. Using a pure statistical tool to decide the ties doesn't sound simple at all. My proposal would be just the opposite: ingore the ties. You get 3 points by beating a bot (%score > 50%) and no points if you tie or lose. -- Albert

Yeah, that would work. It would keep things even simpler. And as for the better-or-worse suggestion. I wouldn't like he PL to be yet another opaque ranking system to me. -- PEZ

On the subject of Premier League not used in English Football. What about this: https://www.premierleague.com/ I'm not alone at least. -- PEZ

Hmmm... indeed. But look at the logo, it says "Barclaycard Premiership". It looks like it is called both... -- Tango

Ok, to settle the discussion the name is impacted by the sponsors. It used to be called "The FA Carling Premier League" then about 2-3 years ago, the sponsorshhip deal with carling was lost, and it became known as "The FA Barclaycard Premiership" why the need for the change?? i have no idea... --Brainfade

Is that so? OK. I'll take your word for it, not being a football fan really. -- Tango

OK, I just thougth that since we have a delimited number of rounds we can have a fixed interval for tieds (We calculate it once) using the methods described there (I didn't meant Complicating the rating). -- Synnalagma

Then I misunderstood you. That would certainly work, but I still like Albert's idea of really making it "winner takes all" and think we should move in that direction instead. -- PEZ

It seems like the hockey mentality where it's 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and no points for a loss might make more sense than 3 points for a win and no points for ties or losses (and if the only points are for wins, why make it 3 points? That's bordering on Tennis scoring). -- Kawigi

I don't agree with your first point, but your second is a very good point. I suggest simply 1 point for a win, with a win being defined as more than 50%. If the score is EXACTLY 50% then give 1/2 a point each, but that should never actually happen. -- Tango

...which is what my first point was (awarding half as much in case of a tie). -- Kawigi

Why, if you don't win against a bot you could as well have 0 points. 3 points for a win and zero for other outcomes might be a bit weird though, so make it 1 point for the win instead. -- PEZ

Of course, if you go with the hockey mentality, then you should award a bot points for an overtime loss. Personally, I like the 3-1-0 pattern because it makes a win much more pronounced than a loss and doesn't completely punish a bot for losing by 1%. Also, it seems like more pro sports leagues use that system if they are scoring by points. -- Alcatraz

I've never looked especially vigilantly, but i've never actually seen a draw. I've seen instances where a bot got 50.0% of the score (yet the bot had no draws), but i just assumed that due to rounding errors. --Brainfade

It looks like this topic has been dead for quite some time, but I have some thoughts on rankings that I couldn't find a better place to put. I think of this game more like boxing, or MMA than other sports (as there is a complete battle, made up of rounds), though there is no possibility of knock-out... Although all I've really thought about was OneOnOne battles... but for those, it seems like you could "judge" each round, if the round was close (like 51%-49%), you could assign the 10-9 score, but if the round was decisive (like 60%-40%), you could assign a 10-8 score, or (this is a departure from boxing) if the round was a domination (like 75%-25%), you could even do a 10-7... but that would only account for a particular battle, not for overall ranking. And boxing is a terrible example for overall ranking, as that is where all the subjectivity and corruption comes into it. --BenHorner

• Hey, I think that's a kinda cool idea. PEZ used to point out similarities to boxing, as well, hence his bot names: Pugilist, Ali, and CassiusClay. Maybe save this idea for Robocode 2? We could have a few different types of scoring: Survivalist, Score (like current), Decision (like you describe here) - anything else? -- Voidious

Told me if I'm wrong, please. If there are broken links in the participants list that were available during some time, that means that there are bots that have more pairings? Why not to cut-and-paste all the currently unavailable bots as it's done in the participants page with the bots with file corruption? --Jab?

1. The only really unavailable bot (for me) is ary.Bronze. Both Shadow and Gaff are run exclusively by their authors. Most other bots (even with broken links) should be available in zip-file(s) on RoboRumble/StartingWithRoboRumble.
2. If a bot really is not available anymore in any form, it indeed should be deleted/moved from the participants page. -- GrubbmGait

Ok, thanks, now I have all the missing bots for the teamrumble. As I have read now, this issue will be solved in roborumble.org :) --Jab?

If you are running your client with Robocode version 1.5.4 or 1.6.0, you can manually download Shadow using the correct link. I'm only using a fake link to prevent people from submiting bad results. -- ABC