Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

Over the weekend I saw a team reveal that it may be strategically advantageous to take a G34 in eliminations, especially towards the end when defending robots tend to move to the opponent's courtyard.

Towards the end of one of our matches, our alliance partner parked in the opponent's secret passage, just waiting for boulders to be reintroduced into the field. The opposing alliance had well over the 6 boulders (at least 9 based on the penalty). The human player, not wanting to feed the balls back in just to be scored again, held onto the ball and intentionally did not put it back into play.

It seems that there may be a scenario where you could delay and possible prevent a capture (25 points) by holding onto those balls.

For the record, I don't know whether it was an intentional strategy or simply a reaction to the situation by the human player, but after reading through the rules it is clear that a human player doesn't necessarily receive a yellow card for impeding the flow of the match. It seems in this scenario they may be called for repeated violations, but it's not as clear as the robot rules around impeding the flow of the game.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

Although it may be advantageous and according to you, by rule, not worthy of a YC, it is absolutely not in the spirit of Gracious Professionalism. You are keeping a team from preforming at their best and, in my opinion, making the game much more boring.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

A good HP would feed the opponent one ball, and while they are scoring, clear a few more out to the neutral zone. The robot must leave the passage to go score, so there must be an opening. A defending robot on that side could also shoo the attacking robot out of the passage, lest they get a penalty for contact.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

The flaw in this logic is that G34 isn't a singular foul, it's a foul per boulder. Attempting to prevent a 25pt capture by taking (in this case) 15pts in fouls isn't the best strategy.

Just feed the boulders back into play and leave the defense to the robots.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

Punish them for taking the risk then - send an alliance robot to go hit them in the secret passage. Then when they run away, you also get access to a game piece or two for your troubles. If all three of your robots are busy in far away parts of the field in order to win the match, and you have an excessive number of balls off field, I find it hard to believe you're close to winning. In my opinion this is an essential part of the role of backcourt defender.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

I don't disagree at all. I also think the ref would be fully within their rights to call a YC, but it is not as cut and dry as if a robot impedes the flow of the match. I though it was curious as it has the same effect on the flow of the match.

I also have no desire to implement such a strategy. I simply saw a scenario occur that revealed a potential issue with the rules.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

It's not a Yellow Card.

Gracious Professionalism is something that you measure yourself by, not others.

Defense, by it's very nature, is attempting to keep a team from performing at their best. Penalty points and types (regular/technical) are there to have the game play in a specific manner. This strategy is just a strategic implementation of defense and a decision whether or not a penalty is worth taking.

Personally, in most cases, I don't believe this is a worthwhile strategy ... but it is something to be aware of.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

Uh, it's a net gain of 10 points. How is it not superior to take 15 points in penalties if it prevents them scoring 25 points?

It's just smart play. Clearly if the GDC intent was to prevent this the penalty would have been more severe.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

Not only this rule. I don't know the exact number and I don't have the manual on me or on my phone but the rule the states a robot can only carry one ball at a time. I see two a few scenarios where taking more then one could be advantageous.
1. Your running out of time need two balls to lower the tower and don't have time to go across the field twice.
2. You mistakingly pick up two balls your going to get the panalty anyway you might as well carry them across the field with you to score.
3. Your on there side playing Defense and there are two ball left when the 30 second bell rings and they need to still lower there tower you could take them and bring them across the field to prevent the tower capture.

Would these be possible advantages in curtain situation yes deffiently but should you do it. Is the age old question

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

Remember that several of the Boulder rules result in Technical fouls which increases the strength of the Tower, for a net of 0.

And sometimes more than one Boulder rule would apply, resulting in the Tower being stronger than when you started.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

The risk here is that there are two penalties regarding possession of more than one boulder, G38 and G41. You get one foul for each boulder controlled over one boulder with G38, but G41 will also give you a technical foul per boulder for moving more than 1 boulder into the courtyard during a crossing. This gives you a 10 point plus opposing tower strength increase of 1 penalty for each extra boulder you carry across the field and defenses with you.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

G41 actually creates issues with crossing the portcullis. On one occasion we had a boulder in our possession, and another was stuck in the portcullis. Naturally when we crossed the portcullis both boulders transitioned and we were rightfully flagged. We could have avoided the penalty by dropping the boulder in our possession.

On another occasion there were two boulders stuck in the portcullis, to avoid a penalty we actually crossed into the opponents courtyard and traversed the portcullis in the opposite direction just to push the boulders out.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

I was about to use 319 as an example of how to fix this then I saw your team number. 319 got around this problem in the semis and the finals be crossing something else, then opening the portcullis from the courtyard to get the Boulders back into the neutral zone. Took a few extra seconds but avoided the penalties. It was effective and smart.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

I completely forgot about g41 this idea came to me as a robot at the compitition I was at had two balls when the crossed the defenses into the courtyard and I think the ref might have missed it as they only got the fg38 foul not the g41 and they were able to score both and the ended up winning that round.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

Carrying multiple boulders over the defenses is definitely not worthwhile for this reason. Carrying multiple boulders out of the opponents SP can be worth the penalties in some situations.

The bottom line is that if you're going to intentionally break a rule, read the rules (and team updates!) very carefully to be sure that the strategic benefit sufficiently outweighs the penalty. Note especially that many foul rules have steeper penalties for fouls that are repeated or judged strategic in nature.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

While definitely not in the spirit of GP, this strategy is still viable and at the discretion of the referees with an extension of G25. However, the risk of contracting several G21 fouls is way too high for teams with poor, average, or just above average drivers to risk this strategy.

Re: Advantageous to Take a G34 Penalty
 

Intentional repeated violations of G34 could result in a Yellow Card. The better route to take would be for all the Human Players to go back to the Driver Station, start screaming directions to the driver, and "forget" to inbound Boulders.