gun j121 Batch 1: pre-register the 6-arm Pattern-panel tournament and the decision rules
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# Gun campaign — ledger
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**Goal (owner's mandate, 2026-09-26 overnight):** the movement campaign produced
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a replicated champion (`TR_MOVEMENT=strafe`, `docs/movement_campaign.md`) which a
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parallel job is shipping. *"Continue until you found an amazing movement. When
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found do the same over for a gun."* This file is the GUN campaign's single source
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of truth: later jobs **append** a `## Batch N` section and never edit an earlier
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one (a wrong earlier number gets a correction line, not a rewrite). This file is
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the gun successor to `docs/movement_campaign.md`; read that first, then this.
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---
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## 0. The question
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The shipped rack admits **`Pattern` only** (`onlyPattern`). That decision was
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taken because the virtual-fitness selector measured **negative value** at every
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rack size tested, and Pattern is the best single gun by the DrussGT hit-rate
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table (`docs/selector_negative_value.md`, `docs/gun_rack_analysis.md`, commit
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`e0666a5`). But every one of those measurements — like every pre-campaign
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movement claim — is **DrussGT-heavy**, and the movement campaign's standing
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lesson is that a one-opponent result is not a result.
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So Batch 1 asks the direct question, on a frozen 15-opponent panel:
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> **Does any rack gun, or any small gun configuration, beat the shipped
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> `Pattern` on damage/run AND round wins across 15 opponents — or is
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> `onlyPattern` CONFIRMED rather than merely assumed?**
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A **null is a successful outcome here**: it upgrades `onlyPattern` from an
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assumption to a measured verdict across the panel, which is itself valuable.
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---
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## 1. Protocol (identical to the movement campaign; the instrument is reused verbatim)
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`tools/ab/tournament_run.sh` + `tools/ab/tournament_analyze.py` +
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`tools/ab/panel_movement.txt` (frozen panel), reused **unchanged**. The unit of
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evidence is the **number of opponents**, not the number of runs.
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| Element | Rule |
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|---|---|
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| Subject | ONE frozen binary built from `git archive HEAD` (`tournament_run.sh` records commit + binary sha256 in `session.json`) |
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| Arms | env dicts only — **no per-arm rebuild, ever**; the arm file is a committed file (`tools/ab/arms_gun_b1.txt`) |
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| Panel | the **frozen** `tools/ab/panel_movement.txt` (15 opponents). Adding/removing an opponent starts a new batch number |
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| Pairing | per opponent: average the arm's runs, subtract the reference's average for that same opponent → one delta per opponent; then aggregate |
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| Isolation | per-run bot dir + classic data dir, ephemeral ports, own process group; cleanup only by this session's outdir |
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| Serialization | **one battle fleet at a time** via `--wait-arena`; never a broad `pkill robocode_shim` |
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| Liveness | every declared env token must appear verbatim in OUR bot's own raw-env report, else the run is excluded and named |
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| Never shipped | this is a measurement campaign: `git status` clean, shipped defaults untouched, `.gitignore` untouched |
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### Movement is PINNED in every arm: `TR_MOVEMENT=strafe`
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**Reason (hard rule).** A movement-default flip is landing from job j120 during
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this run, so the default engine can change underneath us. Every arm therefore
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sets **`TR_MOVEMENT=strafe` explicitly**. This (a) removes movement as a
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confound, (b) makes all arms share exactly one movement, so every delta is a pure
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**gun** delta, and (c) satisfies the analyzer's liveness rule for every arm
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(each declared token must appear verbatim; an *undeclared* leaked `TR_MOVEMENT`
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is fatal, but here every arm declares it). The reference arm is therefore the
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shipped **gun** rack under the pinned movement, not under the (mutable) default.
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---
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## 2. Pre-registered decision rules (fixed BEFORE Batch 1 ran)
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1. **Primary metrics:** **damage/run** and **ROUND WINS**. Secondary/explanation
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only: damage taken/run, incoming hit rate, mean distance. **Never hit rate
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alone** — that trap has inverted six verdicts in this project.
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2. **BETTER than the reference** iff one primary metric is up with a
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cross-opponent **sign test p < 0.05** while the other does **not** go down;
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the mirror image for **WORSE**. Anything else is **NOT DISTINGUISHABLE** (a
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real answer, not a failure). Both the strict reading (the other metric's mean
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delta `>= 0`) and the substantive reading (not *detectably* down: not
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significant **and** smaller than that metric's MDE) are printed.
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3. **A verdict must survive the between-opponent spread:** the pooled mean delta
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is reported with the SD across opponents, its SE, a 95% CI, and the **MDE**
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(α=0.05 two-sided, 80% power). An effect smaller than the MDE is reported as
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*not detectable* — never as *absent*, never as a win.
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4. **Somewhere to stop:** if no arm beats the shipped `pattern` by rule 2 in
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Batch 1 **and** no arm shows a `>= +MDE` damage gain with p<0.10, then the
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gun stage's first phase is closed with *"the shipped `onlyPattern` rack is the
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best gun configuration we have measured across the panel"* — that is a
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**successful** outcome, and the campaign moves to a named next axis rather
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than inventing more arms. See *What would make us stop*.
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5. **No promotion off a single metric, a single opponent, or a single run.**
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A change that wins damage by losing wins (or vice-versa) is not a win.
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6. Every batch is shot with a **pre-registered prediction** stated in its section
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*before* the battles finish; a prediction that turns out wrong is recorded as
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wrong.
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---
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## 3. Stage 0 — what we already know (given, not re-derived)
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| fact | value | source |
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|---|---|---|
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| shipped rack | `onlyPattern` (id 5), all other guns `off` | `common_libs/gun_harness/selector.nim` |
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| why | selector measured negative value at every rack size (16, lean8, lean6, pairPC/PK/PL) and 10/10 adversaries | `docs/selector_negative_value.md`, `docs/gun_rack_analysis.md` |
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| Pattern hit rate vs DrussGT | ~10.8% | given |
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| KNN / Linear / Circular / WallBounce / GF vs DrussGT | 5.6 / 3.0 / 2.9 / 2.7 / 2.1 % | given |
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| BitBrain when idle | == Pattern (30 runs/arm: 97/210 vs 97/210 wins) | `docs/bitbrain_vs_tmhorizon_ab.md` |
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| BitBrain across 32 legacy opponents | neutral: **-3.6 dmg/run**, +0.02 wins/run, p=0.53/0.91 | `docs/gauntlet_bitbrain_vs_pattern.md` |
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| lead **amplitude** | dead axis — full gain sweep {0, 0.25-1.0, 1.0, 1.25, 1.5, 2.0} run, nothing beats Pattern | `docs/bitbrain_campaign.md` |
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| offline prediction checks | **veto-only** — may kill a design, never select one | `docs/offline_harness_trust.md` |
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| spinner-specific claim | **UNTESTED**: no constant-turn spinner exists in the legacy roster (a note for a later job, not built here unless nearly free) | `docs/gauntlet_bitbrain_vs_pattern.md` |
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**Movement context (why the pin):** the movement champion is `TR_MOVEMENT=strafe`
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at its current defaults (range 325, tol 25, tilt 15/0.10); it replicated its win
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over the shipped `tfil` in four independent sessions (Batch 4: 52.6% vs 38.5%
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round-win rate). Movement is held constant at that champion for every gun arm.
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---
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## Batch 1 — does anything beat the shipped `Pattern`?
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**Design.** One frozen binary, six env-only arms, one frozen panel
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(`tools/ab/panel_movement.txt`, 15 opponents: 5 dodger, 3 pattern, 1
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wall-follower, 1 corner-camper, 1 spinner, 1 rammer, 1 brawler, 2 aggressive
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megas), **3 runs × 3 rounds per (opponent, arm) = 270 battles**. Arm file:
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`tools/ab/arms_gun_b1.txt`. Reference: `pattern`.
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| # | arm | env | what it isolates |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| 1 | `pattern` | `TR_MOVEMENT=strafe` | the arm to beat (shipped `onlyPattern` rack) |
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| 2 | `bitbrain` | `+ TR_RACK_PATTERN=off TR_RACK_BITBRAIN=both TR_BITBRAIN_GAINS=1.0,1.25,1.5,2.0 TR_BITBRAIN_MEM=decay` | BitBrain-only, learned gain (panel replication of the 32-opp gauntlet at the pinned-movement standard) |
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| 3 | `tmhorizon` | `+ TR_RACK_PATTERN=off TR_RACK_TMHORIZON=both` | TMHorizon-only corrector (predicted to lose; never panel-tested) |
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| 4 | `knn` | `+ TR_RACK_PATTERN=off TR_RACK_KNN=both` | best non-Pattern single gun (never panel-tested) |
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| 5 | `rack_pk` | `+ TR_RACK_KNN=both` | Pattern + KNN, **selector ON** (different-family hedge) |
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| 6 | `rack_pt` | `+ TR_RACK_TMHORIZON=both` | Pattern + TMHorizon, **selector ON** (corrector-family hedge) |
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*(`+` = the pinned `TR_MOVEMENT=strafe` is present in every arm; see §1.)*
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**Pre-registered prediction (written BEFORE the battles finished):**
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1. **No arm beats `pattern` on BOTH primaries**, and the point estimates sit
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inside the MDE. `onlyPattern` is confirmed across the panel.
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2. `bitbrain` is a **wash** vs `pattern` (replicating the 32-opponent gauntlet:
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±3.6 dmg/run, ≈0 wins) — the DrussGT-only gain-config penalty does not carry.
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3. `tmhorizon` is **WORSE** than `pattern` (its own offline work predicts it
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needs ~80% side accuracy and can reach ~60%); no damage win, no win win.
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4. `knn` is **WORSE** than `pattern` on damage (its DrussGT hit rate is roughly
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half Pattern's) and not better on wins.
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5. The two small racks **do not beat `pattern`**; `rack_pk` lands closer to
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Pattern than `knn`-alone does (the selector at least partially hedges back),
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but the selector's poor ranking keeps it below the reference.
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6. If any surprise exists, it is a **rack arm on damage without wins** — the
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`ring`-mover mirror-image trap — and it will not be read as a win.
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<!-- OUTCOME-ANCHOR -->
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---
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## What to try next
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*(Rewritten after Batch 1 — these are recommendations, not results. Filled in the
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results commit below.)*
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## What would make us stop
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* **Stop the first phase** once a batch's best arm cannot beat `pattern` beyond
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the MDE, or when a gun arm's damage gain is bought with a detectable win loss.
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At that point *"`onlyPattern` is the measured optimum of this rack"* is the
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conclusion, not a failure (§2 rule 4).
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* **Stop a single batch early** only for a contract violation (arena not free,
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liveness FAIL, non-zero exit rate) — never because the numbers look boring.
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* **Do not invent more arms on the same axis** once two consecutive batches fail
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to improve on `pattern` beyond the MDE; move to a *named* new axis instead
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(candidate list in "What to try next").
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---
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## How to run a batch (exact commands)
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```sh
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# 0. wait for the arena (j120's movement run may still be fighting)
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TOURNAMENT_NIMCACHE=/tmp/nc_j121 \
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tools/ab/tournament_run.sh \
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--arms tools/ab/arms_gun_b1.txt \
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--panel tools/ab/panel_movement.txt \
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--runs 3 --rounds 3 --conc 6 --wait-arena 45 \
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--reference pattern \
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--outdir /tmp/ab/j121_g1
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# 1. the paired per-opponent table, sign tests, MDE and the pre-registered verdict
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python3 tools/ab/tournament_analyze.py /tmp/ab/j121_g1 --reference pattern
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```
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`--reference` may be ANY arm of the session: re-analyzing an old session with a
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different reference is a free pairwise comparison with no battles.
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## Session log (outdirs are in `/tmp` and are NOT committed)
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| session | commit | battles | arms | verdict |
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|---|---|---:|---|---|
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| `/tmp/ab/j121_g1` | *(recorded at run time)* | 270 | pattern, bitbrain, tmhorizon, knn, rack_pk, rack_pt | *(Batch 1 outcome below)* |
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