Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0 (Post 1601030)

I also took a whack at reviewing alliance selection results from this year. The way I did it was to say that a pick made sense if there was some way in which to rank teams in which the one that they chose was in the top five of those still available. I found a ton of picks that I just could not account for.

I thought I'd see a couple alliances per event that was just doing pure OPR based picking or pure rank, but it turned out that for the events that I was looking at those weren't the case at all. And a lot of them didn't make any more sense after looking at scouting data. But I did find that there was a positive correlation between alliances that made picks that I could figure out and advancing further in the tournament.

It seemed that many captains picked so badly that they would have increased their odds of winning the tournament if they had just been picking based on rank. I can only conclude that are large number of picks are often made for reasons other than maximizing the odds of winning the tournament.

And I think there are sometimes good reasons for trying to do something other maximize odds of winning, like the one that jajabinx124 cited with the wildcard system. And similarly to the wildcard system, in the district system how far you advance in the tournament matters, not just winning or losing the event.

I'm not sure how common this sort of strategy is however. For example, during the PNW championship I knew exactly how many points my team had to get to give us a 100% chance of making worlds, but talking with some other teams in attendance it seemed like a lot of folks didn't really grasp the point system well enough to figure out how well they had to do to get invited to worlds, let alone what that would imply strategically.

One extra note I will give is that it was easier to predict selections as the level of play increased. For example, while some in the audience and even the MC found the alliance selection on Hopper surprising it really shouldn't have been a surprise to any of those involved.

Originally Posted by TDav540 (Post 1601033)

It all depends on your goals. Some teams want to make semis, some finals, some win. Some just want to make the playoffs and have a good time.

Originally Posted by Koko Ed (Post 1601060)

The craziest situation I ever witnessed for alliance selection was at the 2009 FLR where 610 was a 13th seed and turned down an invitation from 1765 who had their best weekend in their history that weekend. 610 was taking a huge gamble that the other alliances were going to pick one another and they'd settle in as an 8th seed but for that to happen they would have to hope that 340 would pick their little sister team 424 which they didn't and thus 610's day was done.

Originally Posted by OccamzRazor (Post 1601061)

Hey did anyone watch Curie division picks? 100% upset brackets this year in 2016. Every alliance selection made me cringe until the 7th or 8th seed. (which hilariously enough were division finals)

Originally Posted by Zac (Post 1601013)

One of my favorite alliances to be on from this past year was at the Boston regional. 1768 was with the alliance captain 1058, as well as 5563 (they actually came in as a backup robot early in the eliminations, and were an absolute jackpot). I have never felt so comfortable on an alliance. 1058 did what the were doing best and made sure to get boulders in the low goal for the guaranteed tower strength, this simultaneously gave the rest of the alliance a huge sense of relief. All of a sudden there was so much less stress to score X number of boulders, 1058 has that covered. This meant less stress for the other drivers. 5563 was absolutely awesome, and knocked down the defenses while being simultaneously invisible most of the time, they were cautious in when they crossed as to not disrupt any shots that were being taken, and they always stayed close to the defenses to allow for easy driving around for the rest of the alliance. 5563 also allowed for 1058 and 1768 to climb on the outside positions of the tower, and would then drive up the batter at the last second to avoid bumping either robot during the critical "get the hooks on" phase. It was fantastic. Each robot on the alliance allowed the others to play to their strengths.
~Zac

Originally Posted by TheBoulderite (Post 1601059)

Another seemingly irrational alliance selection this year was when 1425 selected 1538 on Hopper. Don't get me wrong, 1538 is a good team, but they could have gone with a team like 971, 1323, 4334, or 4587. Anyone from 1425 want to chime in and tell me why you made the choice to go with the Cows? I'm not saying it's the wrong choice, I'm just curious.

Originally Posted by AdamHeard (Post 1601029)

in SF 2, all 3 teams missed in auto and performed on the lower end of our averages. This combined with a great performance from 2122, 3538 and 2052 cost us the bracket.

Originally Posted by Maximillian (Post 1601073)

1425 selected 971 initially and 971 declined.

Originally Posted by TheBoulderite (Post 1601063)

Curie was an anomaly this year. Some of the better-known teams like 3310, 1983, and 2848 weren't as strong at Curie as I thought they would be. However, they were good enough to be selected for eliminations, and the captains thought they could win with them. I didn't cringe, I was curious to hear the strategy behind making those selections.

Originally Posted by BMSOTM (Post 1601005)

My questions for everyone:

• Why do teams behave (seemingly, to an outsider) irrationally during alliance selection?
• Has anyone noticed any patterns or common fallacies*?
• How frequently do teams make the "right pick" or something close to it? Is there a way to quantify/measure this?

*Aside from a lack of scouting data. I know from first-hand experience that it can cause problems for an alliance captain.