Battle of the Bots is an algorithm competition organized by Coders for Causes at the University of Western Australia. Teams of up to four members build AI agents to compete in the card game Big Two, vying for cash prizes ($2,000 / $1,000 / $500).
Competition Format
The competition runs in two phases:
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Prototyping Phase — Teams submit Python algorithm files and test them against other teams in pseudo-random matchmaking. Submissions can be updated freely, with downloadable log files for debugging and strategy refinement.
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Competition Phase — Final submissions enter a Swiss-style tournament of 20 rounds. Teams of similar scores are matched, earning points (3 for 1st, 2 for 2nd, 1 for 3rd). Final rankings use the Median-Buchholz tiebreak system.
Result
Ranked 1st out of 26 teams. Built a reinforcement learning-based poker agent using self-play training and strategy optimization.