Video matches

Hey.

Some time ago I suggested that someone made some videos of matches where they commentated on the moves to entertain the others and help players get into new games.

I did a video on a game of dots and boxes, which I hope you will watch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&v=cL7Y4AIqj50

I think it shows a nice match and illustrates the mechanics of the game. I hope someone will enjoy watching it, and I REALLY hope someone will take their time to make similar videos of their favorite game (which of course is allowed to be dots and boxes too :))

I think the video format with a commentator helps spicing the expirience up of watching other peoples' games. Do you agree?

i don't know what is going to think Richard about the user "LittlegolemTV"

but i loved watch your video, and I'm pretty sure, that kind of videos could bring more players to the site!

Could you imagine, videos of entires tournaments commented?

Thanks a lot for the comments guys

kpato: yeah you could imagine in every championship that at least the games between the highest rated players in the 1st division would result in a commentated video. It would be great for everyone trying to learn new games and it would surely attract a lot of new players to the site.

This is really great...

I would love to see a video about the chain rule... maybe giving the game backwards...

end game

explanation of double cross

some calculation why blue goes for odd and red for even.

((60 moves - 24 extra moves (boxes filled - 1) + doublecrosses (disappearing extra moves))

than an easy chain battle

It is a great idea for another video as the current video is aimed towards players who are already fairly familiar with the basic concepts.

However, it would be really great if someone else did a video on a nice match of their favorite game :) I am sure that a lot of people would like to see someone who knows about a games comment on a match.

Great idea! I enjoyed the video, showing some of the more advanced concepts of Dots and Boxes as they arise in a real game between top players. An introductory video would be great too, for new players.

Video is a nice way to get people interested quickly, and to promote Little Golem as the best place to play those games.

If i was to do a commented screen-capture video, could i give it to you to post under the same LittleGolemTV youtube account? It seems like a good place to put similar videos together.

I'm thinking i could do an introductory game of LoA, and then re-play some of the heavily analyzed LoA games that Mona has played in the past. Then maybe an easy Ewn intro, and a game with some deeper analysis.

Sure, I would love to post anything (remotely relevant) under the name.

I don't really think it is an issue that the youtube user has "LittleGolem" in its name. I am sure noone finds the videos offensive and they are a nice advertisement for the site.

I would love to see some video on LoA. Tried to get into it a while ago but it was quite hard to get into.

It was good, but there's room for even more. For example you mention that smoores wants to close the ring such that it doesn't form a rho shape with the long chain, but you don't explain why. Sure, the 1800+'s all know why, but do the 1600s, say?

There could be a community discussion on the fine points of a selected game, determining the content to be used for the video highlights...

Here's a related idea for the forum (not video):

A Canadian chess magazine used to have a feature called "Master's Forum". Four or five masters would write commentary on a game that they were given, without knowing who the participants were or what tournament the game came from. That was a very interesting way to see different viewpoints, and different ways of thinking about positions that arise in a real game.

Maybe some good players on the LG forum would be willing to analyze a game? A manager could choose the game, and merge the commentaries for a similar feature. (I can't volunteer right now, as i'm insanely busy, but maybe i could coordinate one in a few weeks).

There's nothing unusual about people asking for a post-mortem of their match. The most interesting one becomes self-selecting as it garners comments. Then again, by that stage there's little need to turn it into video form, apart from the change of medium itself.

Thank You Thinkkaman, it is a very nice vedio. For me it is a very good educational matrial, I'd love to see more vedios like this one!!

I am thinking of doing one on min shogi. Will try and find time for it next week. Of course, I am not as expirienced in that as I am in D&B (specifically because there is no monthly cup :( ) but it is a game that I enjoy a lot. Very fun, very fast paced.

It is long overdue, but I finally made another video. It is another dots and boxes match and can be seen at http://youtu.be/VSZ69gvaxns

It is not the videos getting the most popularity (ie. views) but I have the feeling that some of the people who watch it actually enjoy it a lot.

It is seemingly impossible to bump these days, but I will try anyway :) what is up with the clock anyway?

It seems that in one and half day (36h40m to be precise) we'll be back in bumpability! 8-)

As MarleysGhost pointed out in another thread, we're already back there: full bumpability restored!

Since no one seemed to notice (or no one cared), I'll just mentioned that I did another LGTV video. It can be found here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSZ69gvaxns

hope someone enjoys it and makes something similar for their favorite game (which of course may be D&B too). If you want me to post your video under the LGTV name so that they can all be found together, just give me the video and I will post it.

Unlike what this thread might suggest, a lot of people have actually shown interest in the project, which is of course very flattering. The first concrete contribution is FatPhil who did a video on another championship match from championship #28.
It can be found here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f663KWBcNWs
It is high quality stuff and more detailed than what I did in the other videos, so I can really recommend watching for anyone interested in the game.

Thanks Phil.

Another episode is done. This time it is about Minishogi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OlcWNUV5gA
I think it is an awesome match, thanks to the players.

Great stuff!

Blimey, minishogi looks like a pretty brutal game - thanks for the upload and the commentary!

What a great idea! thanks for this commented games. I'm waiting for more...

New episode done :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSuat4ZgmdU

New episode done. This technology makes it much easier to produce them just with screen captures and trmph.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzKCjpXSSrk

Nice job, Thnikkaman! I'm really glad that trmph.com turns out to be helpful. How did you make similar videos before?

Another thing I'm curious about: why do top dots-and-boxes players play to the end? The outcome is quite obvious many moves ago, even to a beginner.

Before I captured the images, used paint to cut them and a basic video editor and mic recorder to make the video.

It took very long time, first capturing the images and cutting them correctly in paint. Then I had to do the actual sound recording, and finally editing where I had to set when it should flip between the picture.

Needless to say, it took very long time and it was one of the reasons I didn't do them so often.

With trmph.com and a nice screen capture program I just have to record once and I can even use the mouse to comment on different regions. There is no editing work so it is really the ideal solutions. I would really like to do one on blokus too, but only if it is to be found on trmph.com which seems to require that Richard changes something about the text representation.

I am not sure why there is more of a tradition to play to the end. Maybe to help beginners who look at the games, maybe to hope the opponents passes out irl and forgets to respond so you get a win. I do not know, but the endgames are not that long (compared to for example GO)

Hey, pretty slow, but here is another one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id7LTIrGIkk

August monthly cup looks really exciting.

Many thanks for that!

I wonder what would have happened if the post-loony-move take-3 had been a take-1-and-double-cross instead.

It would have been fun to see, but if both players played optimally from that point, it would probably just have switched the roles.

I thank you Christian for your videos, they are fun to see.

I always feel frustrated that the analysis you provide is just your thoughts and is not based on any real analysis.

For example for the last one, a quick post-mortem analysis shows that a lot of mistakes were done after move 16, it would be nice to show how and why and pushing the different lines on trmph, I can provide you these lines if you don't want to compute them.

On move 17, there are many winning moves for 7ics like the waiting move a2.

On move 18, 18.g6 sacrificing the central square is Dryad only good move.

On move 19, sacrificing top square by 19.f9 is 7ics only good move, providing a long chain and keeping control.

On move 20, playing 20.b7 is Dryad only good move.

On move 21, sacrificing the central squares by 21.g6 was 7ics only winning move.

I like "quick post-mortem analysis..." :)

Thanks a lot caroll.
I do not have any software for dots so i assume computing means figuring out by hand. I completely admit that the videos are just my thoughts, since it is hard enough for me to find time for it in the first place.

If you would present some alternate lines for a (different) match, I would love to present them in a video.

The august cup should contain some good matches.

Long time no video. I would love to do some more, but since there seems to be a demand for more in depth analysis, I was wondering if someone would like to help select an interesting match and do some analysis.

Yes that would be nice.

I was thinking along the same lines for dots.ch.34.1.1, where some games should be quite interesting.

I'm ready to do some analysis with the help of the best players.

Some interesting games are the ones with:
- early preemptive sacifices like in 7ics against Geoff Cameron;
- positions where the player in control will lose because of the formation of quads and/or 6-loops that leads to losing finals,
- positions where the unplayed regions pair to identical nim values and either there is a long enough chain so that it holds or it appears to be a losing game despite the right nim value;
- ...

You can also just pick a game which is interesting to you.

Then we could write some analysis here, be corrected by the players of the game or others with insight, and you could then do a video showing the different ideas and how they would develop into different lines of play.

For me a game of dots is a difficult navigation between these rocks which usually hit me in the fog...

I would love to do the 7ics vs geoff since I think those are two big name players.

I think we should first ask the players if they object or if they would like to share their thoughts on the game.

It is also an interesting game as 1st player who should win according to Bill Frazer loses, and so must have made a suboptimal choice somewhere.

The game I'm referring to is http://www.trmph.com/dnb/game/ lg-1615321

I would be very surprised if 7ics has objections. I don't know geoff quite as well be I doubt he would object. Don't think he checks the forums often.

Yeah, interesting game. I want to know whether anything else was possible at 23. x-x-B5. Leaving an 8-chain can't be recovered from, was there another way to carve up the board.

William - what does the bot say?

At 23 he is toasted, as he is at 18 where taking the three boxes was the best option.

What I wonder is if he could do anything else at 11 than this early preemptive sacrifice, and I don't think there was a better option...

To explain a bit:

1st player has to change something on 5x5 (which is odd) so he is going for an even number of chains.

The risk of 10. c4 is to form a 6-loop by 12.h3 with a potential chain in the upper board. After the sacrifice, there are clearly two chains forming but not there yet, and second player will be able to threaten to form a third one.
So it will be quite expensive for 1st player to prevent the formation of this third chain.

An interesting variation occurs if the preemptive sacrifice is not done, and the 6-loop is not settled:
http://www.trmph.com/dnb/board#5,h7d3i8i6f5f3f7f9d7c4k8i4k6d9

can you find the right move with nim value 0, does this move allows victory for Geoff Cameron, as he will have to pay 4 of the 6-loop if he keeps control?

@z, any way to post images of D&B games like for hex? An to get the URL of a position coming from a variation of a LG game?

Spoiler:

Right move is i10 with possible continuation

http://www.trmph.com/dnb/board#5,h7d3i8i6f5f3f7f9d7c4k8i4k6d9i10j3c6d1b5b1c2e2g10i2d11j11b9e10c10f11h3a8
Don't select the above text

In case it's not obvious, what Carroll means is "do select the text above if you want to see the spoiler."

@Carroll, no and no. It's something I'd like to fix, though.

Well we need other players interacting and saying their thoughts about it...

I will not do all questions and answers.

It is the problem I faced for a long time, that best players don't want to explain their thoughts on D&B, one of the reasons why I stopped playing.

So if you want the site to live, express your thoughts, come on!

Welp, I'm not at all against commenting to the game, but I'm waiting for another thread in the Dots and Boxes forum. I'm not going to write an analysis in the general forum :o

Yes sorry about that if I annoyed people, I read the forum now through the Main Page and didn't realize that it was not D&B....

I hope you know how to start a new thread and don't wait for me ;)

Anxious to read you there!