🚀 go-pugleaf

I have had a request about the Valentine tournament.  With Winter upon us
and little else to do (now that the inauguration is over and the SuperBowl
nearly past), someone may wish to revive the tournament.  Unfortunately,
I am not currently in a position to do so.

The basic idea is a tournament of Programmer Vs. Programmer rather than
Warrior Vs. Lots of other warriors.  To add some sense of fairness, it
should be a double-elimination tournament with winners' and losers'
brackets.  If you are wondering why it was called the Valentine tournament,
that is because it started Valentine's day 1992.

The whole idea of the Valentine Tournament was a fair exchange of programs
along with trying to get programmers to come up with unique solutions to
unique adversaries.  Outguessing one's opponent and luck were to be elements
in the mixture.  Toward this end, opponents' warriors were exchanged after
battles and upcoming opponents' warriors were also exchanged.  In this way,
programmers knew how their opponent competed in the last round.

The problem with this approach was twofold.  First, there were some ties,
and people were reluctant to battle repeatedly.  This was due mostly to the
second problem - people were reluctant to change warriors.  Most had one
champion warrior that they wanted to stick with no matter what.  Few would
alter their submissions more than to tweak a parameter here or there.

Another problem was turnaround time.  I wanted to give programmers time to
revise their warriors or invent new ones, so I set deadlines about a month
apart at first.  With all of the ties and whatnot, we did not get very far
along until it was summer and many were unavailable.  Now, I would only give
people a week at most.

How to run a Valentine Tournament:
----------------------------------
1. Announce Round 1 rules and entry deadline.  Each entrant submits one
        and only one warrior.
2. Pair off entrants.  Run battles.
3. Winners advance to the Winners' bracket, losers to the Losers' bracket.
        Ties do not advance.  It may be possible to run multiple battles
        per pair until there are no ties.
4. Post results.  Pair off winners.  Pair off losers.  Send entrants both
        their previous and upcoming opponents' Round 1 warriors.  Announce
        Round 2 rules and deadline.
5. Round 2 and subsequent rounds continue in a similar vein.  Winners in the
        Winners' bracket continue to advance.  Losers in the Winners'
        bracket move to the Losers' bracket.  Winners in the Losers' bracket
        continue in the Losers' bracket.  Losers in the Losers' bracket are
        out of the tournament.
6. Play continues until only two programmers remain - one in the Winners'
        bracket and one in the Losers' bracket.  They then battle for the
        championship.  Of course, the Losers' bracket programmer would need
        to win twice in a row to be victorious, whereas the Winners' bracket
        programmer only needs to win once.


If someone wants to pick up last year's tournament, here are the last
standings (after five rounds of play):

Winner's Bracket
----------------
Stefan Strack-----
   vs             > Stefan Strack--
Stefan Haenssgen--                  \
                        vs           > Stefan Strack-
Scott Adkins------                  /                \
   vs             > Scott Adkins---                   \
Nandor Sieben-----                                     \
                                                        > Stefan Strack
Arne Juul---------                                     /              /
   vs             > Adam Caldwell--                   /              /
Adam Caldwell-----                 \                 /              /
                        vs          > Adam Caldwell--              /
Fraser & Drummond-                 /                              /
   vs             > S. Halvorsen---                              /
S. Halvorsen------                                              /
                                                                >----------
Kevin Whyte-------                                              \
   vs             > Kevin Whyte----                              \
Werle & Beitzel---                 \                              \
                                    >------------------- Kevin Whyte
Peter Olcott------                 /
   vs             > James Jesensky-
James Jesensky----

William Shubert---
   vs             > William Shubert
John Wetmiller----                 \
                        vs          > Aleksey Baulin-
Stig Hemmer-------                 /                 \
   vs             > Aleksey Baulin-                   \
Aleksey Baulin----                                     \
                                                        >---------------
Vincent Li--------                                     /
   vs             > Vincent Li-----                   /
John & Mike Nidd--                 \                 /
                                    > Vincent Li-----
Jack Twilley------                 /
   vs             > Jack Twilley---
Ray Cromwell------


Loser's Bracket
---------------
Arne Juul---------
    vs            > Fraser---------
Fraser & Drummond-                 \
                                    > John Wetmiller-
John Wetmiller----                 /                 \
    vs            > John Wetmiller-                   \
Stig Hemmer-------                                     \
                                                        >-----------------
Stefan Haenssgen--                                     /
    vs            > Nandor Sieben--                   /
Nandor Sieben-----                 \                 /
                                    > Nandor Sieben--
S. Halvorsen------                 /
    vs            > Scott Adkins---
Scott Adkins------

Adam Caldwell-----
    vs            > Adam Caldwell--
William Shubert---                 \
                                    >----------------
Peter Olcott------                 /
                  >----------------
Jack Twilley------

Stephen Beitzel---
    vs            >----------------
John & Mike Nidd--                 \
                                    >----------------
Ray Cromwell------                 /
    vs            >----------------
James Jesensky----



Out of Contention
-----------------
Arne Juul
Stig Hemmer
Stefan Haenssgen
S. Halvorsen
Campbell Fraser and Scott Drummond
Scott Adkins
William Shubert

Sincerely,
Mark A. Durham
durham@cup.portal.com