Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

We (294) were with you in that match, so we're in the "lost with 92 points" club. I was 294's human player, and I missed a few shots into our hopper, so you can at least partially blame the loss on me. It was definitely one of the most frustrating losses of my high school career.

Looking back at our match results from Newton that year still kind of haunts me. Against 111 (L), against 25 (L), with 987 (L), with 968 (L).

Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

Thanks, you beat me to it...

Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

This is not true. Look at Newton 2006. Top robots that year: 25, 111, 254, 968, 987, 1503.

The only thing that was achieved was that no combination of 25/254/111/987 was able to be made. Wildstang ended up with an average partner instead of being picked by 987/25/254 and we ended up with 71 instead of 987/25/1503. 987 and 25 both ended up with their first pick being one of the top 5 bots in the division.

Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

Yes 25 and 987 wound up with some top 5 partners...just not each other:(

Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

I've lost a lot of sleep thinking about this situation. If there's enough interest and time, I'll probably talk about it in my seminar in St. Louis.

Short version, we probably should have declined from the 10th spot. It might have given us our best chance of winning the Championship. There was a very likely chain of events that could have created an 1114, 973 and 341 alliance from the 8 spot. It takes a LOT of courage to decline from the 10th spot, but in certain situations the decision can be mathematically justified.

Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

I think you have us getting picked way too early in that draft ;)

I love the alliance we ended up on, but that sounds like a great time too.

Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

Sure, but then 1771 could have used scorched earth and gone down the rest of the seeded teams, making it much harder for alliance captains to pick each other and leaving you still in unseeded land. So it would have been extremely gutsy of you to decline.

Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

We had you 6th or 7th on our picklist. I still don't understand how you ended up as the 23rd team to enter the elims. A travesty of scouting.

Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

Same thing with us. The only reason I can think of is that 973 basically did not have a working autonomous and the threat of us plus 111 triple uber tubing drove teams to value autonomous too much. Even then it was still stupid that they did not get picked before the draft got back to us...not that either of us are complaining.

Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

Opinion: a "victim" of a scorched earth strategy is completely justified in feeling upset at the circumstances that prevented them from winning an event. I would be feel upset and cheated, too, at least initially.

The victim is not really justified in being eternally angry at the top seeded team, though. They are just trying to give themselves the best chance to win the event. It is not incumbent on the top seed to conclude that they don't deserve to be the top seed and then proceed to choose a picking strategy that gives a lower seeded alliance the best chance to win. If I'm up there, I'm going to invite the powerhouses and hope they accept, and if they don't, I'm going to at least try to avoid facing two of them at the same time.

I would argue further that the alliance captain has a responsibility to its partners to give them them best possible chance of winning. If you pick Good Team D without exercising the option to prevent Powerhouses A, B, and C from allying themselves, you're not doing everything you can to help your allies win.

If we're talking specifically about the Championship, then there is the extra argument that scorched earth will reduce the division's chance to win it all. My reply to that is that a team has the right to do all it can to maximize their (likely once in a lifetime) chance of setting foot on Einstein. Once again, no team has a responsibility to recognize that they are less worthy and then make decisions that will make it easier for somebody else's alliance to win.

Any "victim" could have rectified the situation by.... Wait for it... Seeding higher ;). Obviously the schedule isn't under your control, but what you do with it somewhat is.

Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

Karthik,

If you had declined, we would have strategically picked within the top eight to "scorch", only picking teams we thought would decline. then we would have gone straight to 111. That would have actually been beneficial for us, even though we believed you the better bet because it would have split up any potential super alliances like 254/111. It would have forced 254 to pick deep. That would create several very strong alliances that had the potential to knock out some of the stiffer competition before we faced them.

It certainly would have made for some interesting matches.

Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

I thought about something related a couple weeks ago... if a VERY good team ends out outside of the top 8 somehow and declines someone, might teams in the top 8 intentionally avoid picking each other in order to leave that team out of eliminations? It would be quite an act of collusion, but that could be a strategy with some value. It also depends on the answer to the question asked earlier, about whether teams that declined can be backups...

Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

Assuming that 1114 declined and maybe ended up 9th, can an alliance who "loses" a teammate pick them up as a 4th robot per the rules?

That is also a strategy in itself.

Re: Disrupting Alliances
 

On a similar note, an interesting rule is:

Totally not GP to "lose" a teammate, but if you really needed a backup, you could end up with one of the most unbelievable alliances ever on Einstein...