CROQUAR-95 Competition

These pages are about International CROQUAR-95 competition that was held in November, 1995 in the Urals State Universuty.

Here you can find:

Rules of the competition
Participants List
The Winners Of Competition
Game protocols
Participanting programs
And more!

What is CROQUAR?

The name CROQUAR was made out of two words: ARithmetic CROquette. Basically it is a slightly modified Arithmetic Croquette game by Lewis Carrol. The rules of the game are pretty straightforward. However, the competition was not to play the game, but to write a program to do it. Participants had to write programs that played between each other. You can find most of the programs and competition results on this server.

Rules Of The Game

There are two players. Each player has a number, initially zero. Players take turns adding a positive integer from 1 to 8 to their own numbers until the number exceeds 100. The player, who managed to achieve this first, wins.

However, if it were all, that would not be appealing. To make the game interesting there are certain limitations:

Blocking
It is forbidden to repeat opponent's last move or the difference between nine and his last move. For example, immediately after your opponent moved 7 you cannot go either 7 or 2, these integers are blocked.
Hoops
What croquette game, even arithmetic, could do without hoops? The hoops are numbers 10, 20, 30, ... 100. The hoops have to be taken. To take the hoop a player must pass it so that the distace bettwen the hoop and player's position before it equals the distance between the hoop and players position after it. For example if you are on 17, you can take the hoop 20 by moving to 23, or from 18 to 22, or from 19 to 21, and so on.
There is an alternative way of taking hoops, so called two-step hoop taking. The first step is jumping right on a hoop. The second step is getting out. It is still required that the distances between the hoop and player's positions before and after were equal. For example, this sequence is correct: 7 - 10 - 13. Notice, however, that once you are on hoop, you don't have a choice of the next move. To get out you must use the same number that you used to jump in.
Once during the whole game a player is allowed to pass a hoop incorrectly. Nevertheless, in this case he is required to come back below the hoop on his next move and re-take the hoop. If a player attempts to pass a hoop incorrectly for the second time during the game, his opponent is immediately declared the winner. If a player is already on hoop, he cannot leave it incorrectly in any case.
Blocking In Hoops
Taking hoops in two steps in dangerous. When you are in a hoop you don't block your opponent. That means that he can choose any number from 1 to 8, regardless on your last move. In particular, your opponent may choose the number you need to leave the hoop. And then you will have to skip your move.
For example, say you were on 8 and went 2 getting on the hoop 10. Say, your opponent is on 7. He can go 2 either, getting at 9, and prevent you from leaving the hoop. You have to skip your move. Your opponent goes 2 again... And again. You definetely lost this game.
Fortunately there are not so many situations when your opponent can take his hoops correctly while still blocking you in yours. Usually he will have to let you out sooner or later.
Equal Opportunities
Both players have equal opportunities. That means that if the player who moved first took the last hoop, the second player is still allowed to make his move. Maybe he will take the hoop 100 too. Then draw will be declared.

That was the rules of Arithmetic Croquette. If you are interested in all the rules for writing and submitting programs for the competition, please refer to Official CROQUAR-95 Rules.

Participants List

Participants are listed in order of submitting their programs.

ORGKOMITET

Ekaterinburg, Russia
The Urals State Univerisity, MG-5
This was a program by organization committy. This program was considered off competition.
Truman Collins

Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
Mentor Graphics Corporation
Paul Filseth

San Jose, California, U.S.A
LSI Logic Corporation
Stas Vasiliev

Ekaterinburg, Russia
The Urals State University
Don Dodson

Glendale, Arizona, U.S.A.
AG Communication Systems
Robin Gyver

U.S.A.
David S. Dodson

Richardson, Texas, U.S.A.
Convex Computer Corporation
Vesa Timonen

Finland
Soeren Pingel Dalsgaard

Aarhus C, Denmark
Paul Colley

Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Queen's University, Ph.D student
Kharlamov

Ekaterinburg, Russia
The Urals State University, MT-205
Stanislav Skob

Ekaterinburg, Russia
The Urals State University, MT-205
Gladchenko

Ekaterinburg, Russia
The Urals State University
Ray Burns

Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A.
Computer Consultant
Peter Minarik

Bratislava, Slovakia
Comenius University
Edik Shifman

Ekaterinburg, Russia
SKB "Kontur"

Winners Of The Competition

The first place: Paul Colley, Canada. (32 points)
The second place: Paul Filseth, U.S.A. (31.5 points)
The third place: Ray Burns, U.S.A. (30 points)

Paul Colley sent us a very interesting paper describing how he wrote his program for the competition. You can find it here.

Participating Programs

Click on any name below to download the corresponding program, submitted for the competition. Note that some participants did not let us put their programs on Web, so they aren't here.

Send your comments to Sergey Gershtein