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"Fixing" matches
I just wanted to see what others think about team using the strategy of "fixing" matches so that they leave one another's stacks alone to get high QP points. I personally don't like. I think it is against the spirit of the competition and gracious professionalism. Yes it does happen in the real world (Enron comes to mind) but I think we are trying to make a better real world. I think it is more interesting and fun to let the two alliances fight it out and have to adapt and think on the fly and that it detracts from the robots on the field.
I am wondering what you think. Please explain why you do or do not like it. I am very interested hearing both sides. Thanks Shawn Team 60 |
We had an opponent try to do that to us last year. They said they would help us get 50 points if we agreed to let them win. We declined, and smoked them 50-20. Fixing matches is ridiculous. Let it play as it will. If you tie, you tie, but don't agree to it beforehand.
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Do you mean that the alliances will meet and decide not to touch each-other's stacks or something else? I think its wrong if they decide to score lots of points just so the winning team will have an insane amount of Q-points. However if a team is winning a match and decides to help their opponent score more points by moving or stacking bins then this is perfectly all right. I only think it is wrong if both teams decide ahead of time to "fix" the match.
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Fixing Matches? why that's untolerable!
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Big Problem
This was a big problem in the AZ Regional. We were approached several times to do it-- The #1 seed team, I won't say who but you can look it up, was more than 50 points ahead of my team, who was seeded SECOND! The majority of the teams there were disgusted with the obvious "gentleman's aggreements" made throughout the competition. We even started a petition going to try and come to a regional consensus that this is against the meaning and intentions of FIRST-- Suprisingly enough, the #1 seed refused to sign it. I think FIRST needs to crack down on this although there is no way to regulate it. :-( Any ideas? It's disappointing to see that there are teams and MENTORS who don't feel that fixing matching is immoral-- I thought FIRST was about GRACIOUS PROFESSIONALISM-- am I mistaken?
Alexis |
I think this is exactly what FIRST dosen't want to happen. It dosen't make the competition fair, and can make some matches very boring. I saw alot of this happening in St.Louis, and it boiled me. But as far as I know there is no specific rule against such a thing, maybe someone can mention it to Dean?
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FIXING the FIRST Game= ridiculous
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Get with it people- its only a game!! If stacking bins is more important than your self respect I suggest you go elsewhere. If you want a trophy that bad I'll give you one.... WC :mad: |
i think fixing matches is wrong and shouldnt happen it does take away from the fun i mean we didnt sitt ther for 6 weeks busting are buts to build a robot and then going to competiton to get out of this the easy way i want to see the robots at its full potentail but you know what first isnt all just buildign if you thinkg aobu tit its alot of poltics some for the good some for the bad
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in our regional (annapolis) there were 2 'fixed matches' in which teams agreed not to knock down stacks
the scores were like 160 something and 140 something the REAL matches, that were played in accordance to competitive gaming got up to 280 nuff said. |
I want a trophy!!
That said, this is not 2001's Co-Opertition. It is 2 on 2,not 4 together. If you want your stack to remain standing, defend yourself. :) Wetzel |
I considered the idea of cooperating between 4 teams to get higher points because I thought it was plain stupid for teams to keep knocking them down and with by points of 20-10. However, I realized, wait a second, this isn't going to work. No one is going to let someone win huge and keep true to their agreement. It's a good idea and would show one of FIRST's ideas of cooperation, but it's never going to happen and pointless to try.
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WC:D |
Re: Big Problem
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We had a bad regional as you could tell. We only managed to play in four matches. I saw a lot of the matches from the stands and a few were very confusing to me. It was with pleasure that I signed Team 68's petition. I hope we do not again encounter this problem in Los Angeles and Houston. Ken Loyd Team 64 |
I don't know any circumstance where having an agreement with the opposing team would be ethical. It might not be against the rules but what about the rules of "life".
I suspect that if FIRST had an inkling that match fixing was going on they would find a way to make it a point of disqualification. Best, Danimal Pit Boss Hartford, '01, '03 |
Our team was also approached at AZ. At first, I was for the idea since other teams were advancing in the standings due to this practice, but some members of my team who were thinking more clearly than me convinced me that it was not in the spirit of GP. We did the equivalent of signing the above mentioned "petition" by displaying a copy of it in our pit area and we never fixed a match..
I approached the FIRST Regional Director and asked him what FIRST's position is. He said that FIRST is enjoying seeing the moral dilemna that the scenario has created. He also reminded me that it is not doing the teams that fix matches any good because fixing will not work in the finals where QPs don't matter. Those teams who are highly ranked through fixing will be the first teams to be eliminated in the finals. I say that it's not cheating because there's no rule against it, but it's not right either. I hope that there are enough teams out there that understand the true meaning of GP and gamesmanship that the practice does not continue at other regionals or at the championships. |
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Match fixing, where the two alliances have decided who is going to win to the match beforehand, is clearly unfair and unethical. Asking an alliance to lose a match but get a reasonably high score by cooperating is uncompetitive behavior.
That said, I wish to differentiate match fixing from the possibility of an agreement between matches that goes like this: "We'll both have the human players make stacks of six (seven?). You don't knock over our stack, and we won't knock yours. You knock ours, and we'll knock yours. May the best alliance win." This way, the outcome of the match is NOT determined beforehand, and both alliances have the advantage of a possibly very high score. Also, one always runs the risk of the other alliance breaking the pact, in which case one must knock over the opposing stack ASAP. We have scored 292 with this arrangement (I was coaching). No one in the match was a stacker, so that's not a bad score.(though technically our robot can make a stack of 2 if needed) I hope no one thinks of such matches as "fixed". When no robot can stack, this is an excellent way for both alliances to take a shot at a good score, and the outcome is indeterminate every match. <edit> You know, we discussed the above arrangement with Jason Morrella at Sacramento, and though he wouldn't branded it as the most gracious and professional thing to do, he wouldn't brand it as non-gracious and professional, either. He was kinda neutral... But he certainly found it acceptable. (not illegal) </edit> |
Our team leader tried something like this at Cleveland... although the flavor was somewhat different:
As i understood it... i wasn't actually involved in the conversations... His suggestion was that each team play the match to the best of their abilities, but at the same time tried to maximize the score for everyone... Now, some people got very pissed off at him because they see this as 'fixing' a match. The way i took it, and i believe the way he intended was something long the lines of what first tried to accomplish last season w/ the scoring. That in order to help yourself, you must help your opponent. For example, in one match, i believe the X-cats successfully defended the top of the ramp from an opponent bot, when both them and their team mate were on top and they clearly had a win. The smart move would have been to let the opponent on top, thereby increasing both scores, the winning team by 50pts. I believe this is what my team leader was suggesting. That everyone play the game and try to win ( we do our thing, you do yours, and may the best team win ), but that it is advantageous to everyone to have a good scoring match. In my opinion this is certainly not fixing a match. To me, fixing a match implies an agreement on a definate outcome, as in, someone takes a dive.... the agreement here is merely to allow each other to excel as much as possible. Call me crazy, but isn't cooperation amongst opponents and allies one of the ideals of first? |
Hmm... I knew I remembered it being there somewhere. It only took cycling through the first twenty-six pages to find it!
Anyway, this might be of interest to you: Subject -- "rigging" the game [Gabriel] If the two alliances decide before the beginning of a match how they will play the game and execute a strategy where the two alliances cooperate with each other to acheive a tie, are the two alliances violating the spirit of FIRST or the maxim of "gracious professionalism"? [first]Yes 36F http://jive.ilearning.com/thread.jsp...=360&trange=15 |
That clears up a lot of arguing.
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Pete Rose would LOVE this thinking!! Please Everyone, bring this subject up at Drivers meetings, Coaches meetings, In the pits, In all the forums, at the snack bar everywhere! in ALL other sports there are RULES against this In life there are LAWS against this! Geo. |
As a person i know would say:
"In Vegas they whould break your legs for this!" however as it so happens the number 1 seeded alliance got taken out by the number 8 alliance (whose picking team was seeded number 11 and moved up) at the AZ regional. The teams that practice this strategy will loose in the long run because they have to play in the ELimination matches and they are not prepared to knock over stacks or do other things in order to win. |
Fixing the matches just shouldn't be done. I haven't gone to my first regional yet (it starts this Thursday) and I hope that my team won't get involved with any score fixing.
One thing that could be done is that we could get a list of teams that were either involved in fixing or wanted to be and then have everyone blacklist them. It's not much, but without any kind of official action, it's one of the only things that we can do. |
I cannot believe what I am reading here! :(
For those that think that any kind of agreement between opponents is OK, consider this scenario: If you are the #1 seed who got there without any agreements with your opponents, would you like it if you lost the chance to choose first (something you had truly earned) because the #2 seed made and agreement with their opponent to keep the score high? Even if the #2 seed did not agree on the outcome (who wins and loses) it still hurts the #1 because the #2 seed artificially increased their opportunity to get higher points and the #1 seed had to earn their points the hard way. Does the #1 seed deserve this treatment and lack of respect from the #2 seed?? Obviously not; therefore IT IS JUST PLAIN WRONG! If FIRST came out and said that agreements are allowed (which they didn't), then the game would become a game of who can negotiate the best agreements instead of a robotic competition. Geez, is that what we want? If you still don't agree, the fact that so many teams were doing a petition about this and blowing the whistle on those that are doing it should indicate to you that something MUST be wrong with it. |
As a proud member of Truck Town, I am extremely offended to think that some teams within the FIRST organization have come to the point of blatently fixing matches.
Yes, I do believe that to better your own score you must ensure that your opponet has close to the same point amount as you. (It is not appropriate in this game to beat a team 75 to 1.) But, I do not believe in making an agreement to do this from the beginning of each match. I feel that a large part of what makes a team good is not only their robot, but is their teams ethics and drive to compete fairly. As the team that seeded second in the AZ due do a few teams in the surrounding standings participating in the fixing I was extremely disappointed that my team didnt have the chance to show our true potential. Many teams at the recent regional were oblivious to the fact that this was happening and many agreed, once a petition was raised, that they were in opposition to this fixing. These teams didnt have the opportunity to showcase their robots ability nor what their drivers could handle. Coming from a team where we have exceptionally experienced drivers I feel that part of what makes our team who they are is the drivers ability to make that split second decision in a match whether to score more boxes for the opponent or to let the opponent on the ramp to better their score. I think that everyone has the right to their own decision about the manner, and I know that some teams do not view this as fixing a match, but I truly hope that these teams realize that this isnt what true competition and gracious professionalism are about. ~Lauren~ GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE!!! GO TRUCK! |
While I was at the AZ regional I noticed this idea going around and some teams using it quite effectively.
I agree with not ‘fixing’ the match, but I also feel like a purely defensive strategy is boring and predictable. Most of the matches I witnessed consisted of teams knocking HP stacks over and fighting for the ramp. This quickly became boring and never allowed teams that had stackers to do anything they designed their robots for. But I also don’t think that a match where a stack of 6 survived was fun to watch either (edit, unless they built it from scratch or added to a stack etc.. good job to those teams;) Although, agreements to NOT knock stacks over seem unfair, it still doesn’t necessarily mean teams "fixed" the match. These matches still had everything to do with who could get to the top and who could funnel more boxes into their scoring zone. So for the most part I don’t think that "fixing" the match would be fair, where teams would agree on every movement of the entire match and set the winner/loser. Our team was tempted a few times to try and see if all 4 teams would agree to concentrate on the offensive side of the game, but realized this strategy wasn’t fair to the robots designed for defense, and never ended up doing it. In the end we were not in a single match where the HP stacks survived (or someone tried to knock them over) we also must have witnessed at least 10 matches where 2 or more stacks of 6 survived. I don’t think that 'fixing' the matches is fair, but I do think that teams should try and play a game that is a little more offensive, realizing that by knocking over the HP stacks you are hurting your own score. I think this should be done within the team and should not be suggested to opponents. If they feel the same way, then they will show you by not knocking them over. Good luck to all teams in the upcoming events. Travis PS. Thanks to teams 606, and 460 for a great alliance!!! |
I first would like to thank everyone at the AZ regional that signed team 68's petition, and posted ours in their pit.
We were approached twice during the regional to do this collusion, and both times flat out declined. I believe this practice is completely against the spirit of FIRST. One of the mentors from team 980 even went so far as to say it could be the death of FIRST, which I agree with. This activity causes the matches to be uninteresting to watch, and no longer allows for the teams that build the best robot to rise to the top during qualification rounds. Finals would have been much more interesting if the top 8 teams truly came from at least the best 15 robots there. I think the fact that the final match was between the 7th and 8th placed alliances says a lot, even though I would have rather the 5th placed alliance to win (thanks to teams 57 and 1212 for their great attempts: we were so close; I can't believe we lost that first match by ONE point). The petition that was passed around by us, team 68, and team 980 caused this practice to cease. On Saturday, none of these fixed matches occurred again. I think we got the message around that we really don't want to tolerate it, and helped some of the other teams to realize what really was occurring. I certainly hope that this anti-collusion sentiment continues to the next few regionals. I think its a good idea if someone starts a petition on the Thursday of each regional, just to make sure that it no longer happens. I know we will for the Lone Star Regional. Edit: Oh, and to Travis from Team 968, you didn't like the 6-stack we built in the final match? |
Okay okay, I DID like the stack of 6 you built from scratch.
My reference was to the HP stacks of 6 that survived... it just hurt to see them get so many points by agreeing to not knock the stacks over... Dont forget we were a stacker once too :( TC |
Our team is guilty of match-"fixing,"
We were approached by a few teams to agree not to knock down eachother's stacks. I didn't like the idea, but our driver agreed, and they got our alliance partner to. We were never actually betrayed during one of these agreements, though once our AI did accidentally kill their stack. They proceeded to knock ours down. There was one agreement during one of the matches we weren't in in which one team, in the last few seconds, knocked down the opponent stack. The opponent got off the ramp, went and pushed over the other team's stack, and didn't get back up in time. (Though they DID take really long to knock it over... dunno why. They kept turning, and brushing the side of the stack - rotating it, but not tipping it) |
Part of the problem is the game design this year promotes this kind of behavior. Since stacking is almost completly useless (with some rare exceptions), the game becomes extreamly boring and low scoring. I agree that rigging a match is not in the ideals of gracius professionalism, but I was under the impression that cooperating with the oposing team to achieve a higher score for everyone was the point of the way QPs are calculated the way they are.
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Match fixing will only lead me to one thing: Justifyable sabotage. If any member of my team even thinks about match fixing, I'll hit them in the head with some pipe. Arrowsmith angry! Arrowsmith SMASH!
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Cheating seems fair to you all???
Ok, I want everyone to realize something here. Statistically, the highest averages for regional events were around 130, give or take 25 points. Now, if you look at the regional event which I recently attended (AZ) you can see a HUGE difference in qualification point averages.
Rank 1 173 Average Rank 2 135 Average Rank 3 133 Average Rank 4 121 Average That's a difference of nearly 40 points, over a span of 11 matches per team. Come on people, its obvious that certain teams used (at this regional and others) so called "gentleman agreements" to raise their scores. This is definitely not in the spirit of what F.I.R.S.T. is all about. As stated in a previous post on this forum, F.I.R.S.T. has declared this blatant act of cheating to be exactly what it is; cheating. Here is a scenario for everyone. Let’s say that I am a rookie team. I have, in my opinion, a wonderful robot. I worked very hard over 6 weeks with a group of students, parents, and teachers from my school, to make it all come together. When we get to our regional event, we lose our first match. We are upset, but we try again. Sadly, our team seeds dead last. In our 5th match of the first day of real competition, as our alliance and I are discussing how we can win, our opponents show up in our meeting. They say that they know how we can get at least 200 points. They claim that this is "working together", so we agree. The match ends, and we score 250 points. A somewhat mediocre alliance gets a significant amount of points, and a cheating team continues to manipulate the qualification points of every team. Does this concept show how strong, well built, and well run a team is? NO. It shows how far a team is willing to go to make themselves look like something that they are not. I strongly oppose “gentlemen’s agreements”, and think that it’s time for F.I.R.S.T. to know about it. I’m sure I will receive posts, emails, and IMs telling me that I am wrong. Sorry guys, it’s cheating, not “working together”, so just stop it. |
When I found out what had been done by our team I was upset. One of our junior made a bad call in one of our matches. Grant it, it didn't affect our game but still it was a mistake. I am glad we apologized for the game we did that in and I hope no one will make that call on any team in any matches.
I would also like to thank 624 and 980 for showing there support and walking around with us to get signatures. Also thanks to all the teams that signed other letter. |
Re: Cheating seems fair to you all???
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I forgot - when did FIRST become a relentless competition, with winning being the only goal in mind? Honestly, what is so bad about losing? What happened to saying 'good game' and respecting someone because they played fair and ending up winning against you? Where is the challenge, the excitement, the feeling of working incredibly hard? If you win based on the way you set things up with your alliance partners and your opponents, did you really, honestly win?
That's the only reason I can see for 'fixing' matches. You're fixing them to seed higher... to get into the top eight... to get to play in the finals... to win. There is a very big difference between talking with opponents, letting them know your game plan with your alliance partner, and playing a good match... and talking with your opponents and alliance partners and working out how to make yourselves score higher. And that honestly saddens me. FIRST isn't about winning, it's about teaching. It took the students on my team- who only wanted to learn about the aspects of engineering through this great program- to make me realize that. I hope that every mentor has a student to teach them that a great life lesson learned means more to a kid than any hunk of metal on a ribbon that FIRST could award. |
The game is as much a competition of strategies as it is of robots. There is never any one "best strategy."
If teams choose to use this as their strategy, find one that will beat them. |
[quote]Originally posted by srjjs
The game is as much a competition of strategies as it is of robots. [/QUOTE You missed the point completelly. This is not a "strategy", this is a very unfair way to run the game. Beating the people who do this is not the concern. Having the people who do this choosing alliances is. It's totally unfair. |
My Team 68 was approached once at the Arizona Regional. A Junior Advisor accepted, and yes it was wrong. We promise to all teams that this will not happen again from our team. I want to thank Team 624 and Team 980 for walking around with us for the petition,and would also like to thank those teams who signed our petition. Fixing of matches is cheating,and is taking away the meaning of F.I.R.S.T.
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1) It IS working together.
2) It is not against the rules (or any that I have read) 3) The game is designed in such a way you have to work with your opponent (to some extent) as your QP's depend on their score. I'm suprised at that Jive post, and would be very suprised to hear a Ref call it illegal as It is not against the spirit of FIRST to work together towards a common goal. Anyone remember the 2001 game? Greg |
"Fixing" in AZ
Opposing alliances making agreements to not attack tall (7+) human player stacks is clearly not consistent with the spirit of competition I've witnessed in other FIRST events. Within 30 seconds of the start of human play in the first match where this occurred, I felt something was very wrong. Upon seeing two immense undefended stacks on either end of the field with no attempts made to attack them throughout the game, I thought: "No way this isn't rigged!!" An outsider to FIRST would wonder whether this really was an exhibition, not a competition. Those 300+ point scores are highly tainted and the impact extends beyond the field in Phoenix.
The response by many FIRST participants to this occurrence was immediate and quite consistent: "We expected that it would take effective robots, good driving, good strategy and some luck to be winners; not some backroom, 'gentlemen's agreements' to pile up points." There were letters distributed by a couple of teams (68 and 624) expressing the inappropriate nature of these agreements between alliances. Most teams concurred with the letters and indicated that if approached, they would refuse to make such agreements. In the interest of FIRST, teams should work with their alliance partners to developed winning strategies - it is never appropriate to hold such discussions with opponents before a match. |
Does everyone here understand why you might not want to knock down a tall opponent's stack?
TO GET A HIGHER QP Thats how you seed high, by getting a HIGHER QP. Thats why you don't knock down your opponents stack: TO GET A HIGHER QP. Just because they got more points then you doesn't mean it was neccissarily fixed. It is possible the teams involved decided they wanted to get more points from a loss then they normally do from a win. This game is setup such that leaving a stack alone is good for both sides. You get 2X your opponents score for a reason - FIRST doesn't want you to crush your opponent. Common sense says stacks should remain standing EVEN IF YOUR TEAM IS LOSING. The only time I would allow my team to think about knocking down an opponents stack is after they knock down ours. Why on earth would you purposly lower your score by knocking down an opponents stack? Tainted points? I would call them intelligence points :rolleyes: Greg edit: whats more, if FIRST did make a rule against "fixing" the match, how could you ever hope to enforce such a rule? Would not knocking stacks over be considered illegal? |
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AND any team whose members/representatives are soliciting any pre-match arrangements with their opponent alliance members should be EXCUSED from the remainder of the competition. There is NO room for this type of behavior in FIRST. :mad: Additionally, I am very pleased to see that most of the posts in this thread are in favor of a competition the way it is meant to be - one team against another with each trying to win using their abilities and strategies. GP is all about what takes place outside the 2:10 of the match. Just my $.02. |
Consider this, you sorry pro-fixed match people..
Boxing matches.. Man R vs Man B.. Winner gets a nice some of money, people betting on it get a nice sum also. So Mr. Cashlove goes up to the Boxer in red trunks and says, hey, if you "accidently" "stay down" for "10 seconds" you will "get" "$375,000" (Quotes being winks). Red trunked boxer thinks hmmm.. the purse for this is about 400,000.. if I win, I get $400k and a W.. If I lose I get 375,000 and an L... So... low and behold.. the boxer in Red falls over third round and somehow can't get up until the bell rings. So for less effort put in by the man in Red, he still gets a large sum of money. While the Blue trunked boxer walks away with an easy win and a few extra bucks. --- Make sense in the FIRST format? Instead of a team being pummeled trying to win, they 'let' the other team win without putting up a fight. They still get better than what they would had they fought legitimately.. but the opponent doesn't have to work hard, gets an easy win, and all the glory.. Kamen said at kickoff.. this game won't be fair. It won't be fair because it involves humans. Teams will always try and weasel through loopholes and make "gentlemen's agreements." I lost respect for a very good team because of their "unsportsmanlike agreements," as they should be called. I don't intend on this being a flame, so I won't say a number, speak with me in private if you must know. Two veteran teams vs Two rookie teams. The veterans are in a close race with the other high rank teams for a qualifying spot. The leader of the pair is ranked in about 6th. They send a team leader over to the rookies and say "Push a goal to our side, then sit in your home zone, we'll do the rest and you will have about 50-60 points." The rookies.. having a few bad matches already and knowing they can't defeat the vet's agree and do the task. The veterans work together nicely in a 2 v 0 battle. They toss almost all of the field's balls into the goals and poke and prod the score til they feel it's just right. The final score was something along the lines of 65 - 60 vet's winning. Being that it was last year, the rookies got 60 pts, and the vets got 180. This skyrocketed them to 1st place where they remained. Their partner sat in 3rd or 4th at the end of the day. Tell me this now, how was that a fair match? This is not CoOpertition FIRST anymore, it's 2 v 2. not 2 v 0 or 4 v 0. By the veteran team making an offer to the rookies, they bettered themselves into an undefeatable position. (That comment is to whomever said "if they do that find a way to beat them). |
[quote]Originally posted by magnasmific
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My argument is this: I think this is COMPLETLY fair because 1. There is no rule against it 2. All teams are free to do it. This means that no one team really gets any advantage. It raises EVERYONE's scores. The best robots still have the highest scores. The debate in my mind is whether this strategy is in the spirit of FIRST. Just because something is fair, does not mean it is what we should be doing. I think it adds a diplomatic aspect to the whole game. Also, I would encourage teams who do this to consider wheither it is actuly in their advantage (no matter how you spin it, it is a zero-sum game). |
On another note (different angle, different post.. deal with it)...
My team will be attending one regional this year. One shot, one chance to do our best. We need to win or get an award to continue this season. What if we are supposed to be ranked 8th and the 10th place team says "Hey, let's fix this match so we can get into 7th seed!" and then does. We get bumped to 9th and then quite possibly not get picked for eliminations. (I've seen the 9th seed not be in elim's before). We, a team deserving to pick alliance partners because of our performance gets rejected because another team can make an agreement with their opponents |
We need to ask these questions of this competition but more importantly of LIFE... What is possible? Can we do it? How do we do it? And then most importantly SHOULD WE DO IT?
The students of my team are going to write and sign a letter stating that they will not participate in these "agreements" so please don't ask us. We will then give them out to every team in LA and to all the teams in our division in Houston. Shawn Team 60 |
In my opinion, "fixing" matches is a difficult strategy to deal with. I would expect the issue to be addressed at nationals to provide some clarity for everyone. However, this strategy can only work in qualifying rounds, so every robot that advances to the elimination rounds will have to fend for itself. Although I would be disappointed if an honest team were to miss out on the elimination rounds or a chance to head it's own alliance due to this strategy.
There is a clear line between "fixing" matches and encouraging smart play. For example, if teams were to encourage their opponents to allow 4 robots on the ramp when there is a clear winner of the "bin war" it is fair play in my opinion. This prevents a score below 50 for the loser and an extra 100 points is awarded to the winner. Although, I would disagree completely with this technique if one of the 4 robots was designed to play King of the Hill because their strength is then removed from play. Therefore if ALL 4 teams had NO stacking capabilities (rare occurance) I would regretfully catagorize this as smart play as well. Although chances are if you have no stacking capabilities you are good at knocking them over, so again it may still be taking a particular team's strength out of play. Good Luck to Everyone! -Thanks 157 and 782 for being excellent alliance partners, I had a ton of fun with you guys. -Thanks BUZZ, Aces High and team 177 for being great opponents, you guys all have awesome robots and most importantly, great attitudes. |
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How are you going to tell who's cheating and who's not? Assuming no opposing alliances are working together, it can STILL happen that each alliance has both of their extremely tall stacks standing. You can't assume they have been working together just based on that. A lot of honest teams could get in trouble if FIRST tried to enforce such a rule. Basically, my point is that you (or at least the FIRST judges) can't ever reliably figure out who's really cheating at all. |
St. Louis taught me that leaving each other's stacks alone shouldn't take any agreements. It's just plain good strategy for Qualifying Rounds. If your opponents need to be convinced to maximize their potential score, then they haven't studied the mechanics of the game and don't deserve to get a 'stacks up'-score.
These pre-match agreements need to end. Aside from the ethics of the situation, there are so many ways for them to go wrong (intentionally or otherwise). In the best case, a team or teams get points they didn't earn. In the worst case, relationships between teams are damaged, and we all begin to lose faith in one another. -Joel |
Well if FIRST really wanted to have people be honest, maybe they would make some type of honor code, which would be signed, that said "I will not fix a match and abide by GP during competition" or something like that. I know that at least at my school has an honor code that we sign on every test that says that we will not give or take help from others, and it works pretty well, but every once in a while someone will cheat anyways.
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My guess is that >95% of the teams would not choose to enter diplomacy over playing a square match.
If the stacks are negotiation pawns now, then what comes next? the ramp!!! |
Joel - I agree completely, excellent point.
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OUR alliance made the decision whether an opposing alliance stack should be allowed to stand or we should attack it based on our overall game strategy and scouting info on our opponents (i.e. could they defend the stack when their robot got into their scoring zone). We understood the basics of the game and scored well (after 6 matches, our QP average was 171 pt's).
All points were earned fair and square. |
"Fixing" Matches and this game
Here are my two cents...
First off, I think there are two different arguements going on here, one on predetermining the winner of a match, and the other about stack agreements. I feel these are two completely different things. Blatently predetermining the winner of a match eliminates all effort on behalf of one side or the other, and thus violates the spirit of FIRST. Making an agreement about stacks is a completely different subject. In this game, stacks are extremely vulnerable. In the entire Annapolis regional, I saw a stack successfully defended about 5 times (out of over 100 matches i watched). Thus, if one side takes out the stack, almost every time the other side will be able to take out the stacks as well. Thus, the winner without the stacks would have been the winner with the stacks, because the winner in virtually every match is determined by the number of bins on the floor, or the robots on the ramp. Take this example, which was a typical scene at the regional: Human Players on each side put stacks of 4 (most common strategy). After autonomous mode, Blue has 12 bins in their scoring position, while red has 15. 12*4=48, 15*4=60. In order to win, blue takes out reds stacks. In response, red takes out blues. Their scores are reduced to 16 and 19. Attacking the stacks was completely pointless, because blue still lost. All they did was lower both of their scores. As you can see, the stacks have no weight on who wins a match most of the time, and as such, is a lose-lose strategy. Lose-Lose situations are avoided in the real world. Companies do not sabatoge each others business (99% of the time), but make their products better so the consumer will buy their services instead of the competetors. In this case, the world as a whole wins, because one company makes better products, and forces its competitors to follow suit, and having the consumer have the best products possible. Furthermore, if the real world did not have a desire to avoid severe lose-lose situations, no one would be reading this right now, because we would have had a nuclear war between the US and USSR years ago, the ultimate lose-lose situation. Mutually Assured Distruction policy was based on this principle, and obviously it worked. As a project that attempts to have as much of a real world flavor as possible, FIRST is all about not having lose-lose situations. Thus, "Stack Attack," is truely a strange game. The only winning move is not to play by how its name implies. (I hope everyone saw the quote from "War Games") |
A simple fix for this would be to go back to the old way of not knowing who your opponents are until 5 minutes before the match.
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I agree that it is a smart thing to do to let opponent's stacks stand, but making an agreement to not knock down an opponent's stack is wrong. There are specific reasons people design their robots the way they do. Many stackers came from a desire to get more qualification points than they would get as a non-stacking robot. To make an agreement to not knock down stacks is in effect giving your robot another ability: the ability to stack and thus increase the qualifying score. Teams that do have the capability to stack are short-changed, since they don't have the benefits of being a pusher-type robot, but they lose the advantage of having a stacker.
Leaving the other team's stacks is often a smart thing to do, but if you are going to win by knocking over an opponents stack, do it! Your team will score a lot more points by winning with a few points than by losing with a lot. In a match I was driving in, I would have Gracious Professionalism first, winning second, and maximizing score third. Keep your priorities straight! |
This is what I am getting from this. People who are in favor of this particular tactic (which I am not) are saying that it is a strategy.
This is not true. Strategy and pre-match agrements are two completely different things. An example : You make an agreement with a team to keep their boxes up, as long as they are going to lost to you, in order to raise your QPs. You get seeded frist without any REAL trouble (unless there's an awesome team that can score high without this using STRATEGY). This is not an example of strategy because it is already pre-ordained. You are simply weasling your way into the top spot Strategy is created right on the spot. When I was in AZ watching matches (I was scouting) I took notice in the fact that some teams would give other teams boxes for points. They did it the STRATEGIC way, right on the spot WITHOUT any pre-match talks. One other thing that i would like to comment on. NOWHERE in the manual does it mention fixing of matches. If the game was created for this purpose, then it would have been in the manual. This was OBVIOUSLY not the intention of FIRST, otherwise, such behavior would have ben addressed sooner. That's just my bit. Amanda |
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Professionalism first, winning Overall second , and maximizing score third. Assuming stacking agreements are not against the spirit of FIRST (at the moment appears to be a big assumption): If you feel not knocking down a stack and taking a lose will increase your chances of doing better in the following rounds, I think it is a good strategy. If teams trust that you won't knock down their stacks, even at a lost to your self, they will have incentive not to knock down ur stacks when they are losing. If you have a competitive robot that wins more then it loses, it helps you in the long run to maintain trust. This whole situation is similiar to a Prisoner's Dillema. It is a classic problem from game theory that goes as follows: Two prisonner's are being held and are told: If you don't confess, and your friend does, you get 10 years, your friend gets 2. If you both confess you both get 5 years. If you both don't confess you both get 3 years. Each prisonner has an inncentive to cheat his friend and only get 2 years. This generally leads to both players confessing even though they are both better off denying the charges. This situation I see happening with FIRST is that teams are trusting each other enough to achieve the best effect for both teams involved, even though each individual team can do better by backing out on the agreement. I think this is the definition of Gracius proffesionalism, and cooperative competition. Both of which are values of FIRST. my ".02" |
Jerk Box
At the nationals 3 years ago one of our team members was being talked to another teams scout. they had a well made scouting form on the bottom was a check box with nothing next to it, when asked what the box was for they said.
"Oh thats the jerk box" Since then one of our team goals is "Stay out of the jerk box" Team !! 236 !! TECHNO TICKS !!!! (doing pretty good this year) |
The point system which gives the winner their own score plus twice the loosers makes it desirable for your opponent to have a score close to yours but less so that you still win. If team A allows another team's stack to remain standing because team A is pretty sure of winning, that is part of what was intended by the game designers. However after talking to FIRST officials in Phoenix, I know that it was not intended that teams get together with their opponents ahead of time to agree not to touch each others stacks. They told me that the game designers were very surprised that this was occurring.
Unfortunately the current rules do reward that behaviour with high point scores. At the Arizona Regional, that behaviour caused bad feelings to be generated. One team told me that they were voting on whether to withdraw from the competition and go home. They didn't leave, but the fact that they even considered this, should be a wake-up call for all of us. Our team spent a lot of time as the fourth seed trying to decide who not to pick because they had benefitted from these agreements. We also made it clear that we would not accept if chosen by such a team. Team 68 showed great courage by publicly acknowledging in writing the error made by some of their team, and then doing something about it by writing a letter with an agreement for teams to sign and going around (with team members from 624 and 980) to talk to the other teams. As we told Team 68 at the regional, your team showed guts in what you did, and we would be proud to team with you any time. Other teams who participated in match fixing started to realize that they had caused a bad effect on the competition, and I observed them trying to make up for the upset they caused. As far as I know, no more match fixing occurred on Sat. Is it against the rules to talk to your opponent and make agreements? I haven't seen any such rule. However, the practice is harmful to the competition and to FIRST as a whole for many reasons, and therefore it is wrong. 1) Teams expect that they are coming to a competition and that their team will rise and fall on its merits and not be pushed down the ranks because others have rigged their matches to have vastly inflated scores. 2) Also look where such behavior would lead. If teams get huge scores by meeting and agreeing ahead of time with their opponents to leave stacks up, other teams would sooner or later be forced to do the same thing. At that point, the teams who started the process would be back where they started with no advantage. They could then agree to allow all the robots up onto the ramp to get an advantage. Once again all teams would be forced to do the same. Okay, they could agree to split the bins except for the last one and then fight over that one. Well at that point, you don't have a competition--it would be a theatrical performance with robot actors, and I for one would not bother to attend. 3) One of the things Dean said at the kickoff this year is that we do want to make our competitions more audience friendly so we can spread the benefits of FIRST to others. Well imagine an audience of millions of people watching a FIRST match and seeing all the robots avoiding each others stacks, with no robots guarding them. What would they think? Imagine if they then saw all the robots making space for the opposition on the top of the ramp. Would you want to watch a competition like that? It would be like the Giants agreeing with the Dodgers to throw soft pitches so the batters could all make more home runs and make it to the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately no one would come to watch such games, and the teams would eventually wind up in the hall of shame. As to comparing this year's competition to the one in 2001, yes that was a cooperative match, but we left that behind in 2002. This year, we have a 2-on-2 competition. Here is the definition of "compete": "To strive against another or others to attain a goal, such as an advantage or a victory." Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition As far is FIRST is concerned, I talked to Jason Morella personally on several occasions in Phoenix and he agreed with me that this behavior is bad for the competition. He also communicated the power that teams have to influence other teams. Among other things, he suggested that teams post on this forum about the practice. He said that FIRST does pay attention to what is said here. Lastly I would like to praise Team 624 for their clear vision in seeing that this behavior is wrong (not against the rules as they stand but wrong because it is harmful to FIRST and therefore to all FIRST teams) and for doing something about it. You guys are heros and get my personal award for bravery, integrity and responsibility. Thank you for helping to save our regional and FIRST from becoming something fake. |
why r we calling this "FIXING"
You know what fixing means? Fixing means you make sure certain partner of yours loses in qualifying matches to help my ranking, and I'll pick u as my alliance partner. That's what fixing is, and I COMPLETELY agree that it is against the FIRST spirit.
But just making an agreement of leaving each other's stacks alone and competing for the rest of the boxes is not. Maybe I'm not from a 6 or 7 year old team, but I've been in this competition for long enough to realize what FIRST spirit is, I think. Making an agreement is just a strategy that maintains the sense of uncertainty and competetiveness in the competition. And again, why would FIRST make your score your score + 2 X loser's score if they didn't want the cooperation? Making agreements is just taking that cooperation to another level. |
Here are some suggested strategies for dealing with this issue:
1) Probably the easiest to implement, if somebody "makes you an offer" then target ALL of their stacks, even though it makes you lose QP's. A few rounds of this and they'll get the point. 2) Send around a petition similar to the one from the AZ regional and post the teams that agree or not. One note of caution, make sure it is someone who can speak for the team that signs the petition. Been there, done that. It isn't that difficult. 3) More difficult but still doable. Agree that teams who have signed the above petition will not select teams that have not as alliance partners in the finals. 4) The most difficult would be to agree to refuse to be the alliance partner of a team that refused to sign and live by the agreement. I wonder what FIRST would do if all the other teams declined an alliance with the #1 seed? Declare them the winner? Talk about an empty victory, winning because nobody was willing to play WITH you. But it would certainly send a message. One final note; there is a wide difference of opinion on this issue. There are reasonable arguments on both sides of it. Just because somebody disagrees with your position does not make them a "bad person or a bad team". They just see things a little differently. The reason you would not want to be on an alliance with them is that obviously your values are incompatible. That doesn't mean they should be shunned or belittled. The on-going discussion is forcing people to think about their ethical structure and whether this fits within it or not. Teams are having to make a hard ethical choice, and I belive this is a good thing. So does FIRST, that's why they are "enjoying the discussion". Some times you learn the most from unexpected situations like this one. |
Personally i think that team 68 got screwed out of being #1 seed
and that was not cool at all |
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i don't think we can start discussing ways of stooping this untill we all decide that it defies FIRST spirit and is wrong
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i think the only way of stopping it IS to convince everyone that it violates the spirit of FIRST and is wrong.
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To be honest, when we were approached in St. Lou, I was upset. I had never been in that situation before, and I did not know how to react. I was upset and angered that someone approached us with only the intent to win, especially when our team wasn't even MOVING at that point. I was incredulous as to how someone could have the audacity to approach our driver (a rookie) while we were all elbow deep in robot parts. But I was wrong to judge, and I will admit that. That team that approached us ended up being good opponents and rightfully going on to the eliminations. After competition was over, one of their mentors emailed me several times and apologized for that mentor's behavior. I realized that the team had nothing to do with one person's willingness to cheat the system. So please- DON'T judge or hold it against a team because of one member's actions! Quote:
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Engineers or Lawyers?
Who are we mentoring here, students who want to make a difference as scientists and engineers, or students who want to be laywers splitting ethical hairs over what is "legal" and "illegal"? Maybe "Fixing" isn't the proper term, but "Collusion" is.
DEFINITION: Collusion--to act together secretly to achieve a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose; conspire. If you agree with your partner to allow the opponents stacks to stand to increase your potential QP's that is not collusion. As soon as you begin to talk with your opponent about mutually allowing each others stacks to stand you cross the line and are guilty of collusion. You have conspired to inflate the scores of both teams regardless of who is the winner. If "Gracious Professionalism" is defined as that behavior which would make your grandmother proud, how can you tell her your robot achieved its' high ranking using secret deceitful agreements? Inherent to any legitimate competition is a requirement to make every possible attempt to defeat your opponent. Agreements to limit the competition to a smaller subset of options reduces the legitimacy of their results. Perhaps the teams who are so proud of developing this strategy should include it in their Chairman's Award submissions in the future. We'll let FIRST decide which team behavior is considered as a role model. |
I don't really care if we win our lose because of these agreements. I just think the game becomes really boring without them. The bins (the non-stacked ones), at Sacramento, were playing a very small role in the game. The stacks were all but pointless. All that teams got from stacking (that I saw) was some wows from the croud, and very rarely an extra 20 QP points. Considering getting to the ramp is 25 points this is not much. Also, I still maintain that it would not change rankings, just increase overall QPs, and make the games more interesting.
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On the subject of Stacking
Stacking bots do have a place in the seeding matches but almost never in the finals @the UTC scrimmage we saw this.
But our Bot can stack pretty quickley and in the semi finals our bot and our alliance partner tipped over (thefirst time we ever tipped) in the second round we still won because our drivers made a three high stack in the final 20 seconds, the other alliance HAD to knock it over but couldn't get to the top in time. WIN!! Team 236 Techno Ticks !!!! (doing ok this year) |
Consider yourselves WARNED!
the fair playing teams who are posting here on chief delphi their dislike (that would be to kind of a word to use for some of the opinions expressed here) about this kind of strategy are not doing anything really drastic (is that the word?) YET! However for teams that have used this collusion method and are going to a second regional consider this: Say you robot breaks and you need a spare drill motor and the only team with a replacement motor is VERY much against your strategy. How are you going to feel asking them for help after practically backstabbing them in the back? Are they going to give you this help? I can see very clear of what will happen at the next regional events: Team that play fair (lets just call it that for now) make a list of all the teams that don't and when ever in a match with teams that don't play fair do every possible thing to have those teams get a score of 0 sure it will hurt the fair playing teams but the drive of REVENGE on the non fair playing team might be so great that they are willing to go to the extremes. BTW there is always next year! Some teams hold a grudge against other teams for a very long time. So even if you play fair next year teams might not pick you for elimination rounds at all because of your actions this year |
I am making it very clear in this post, that I do not support teams making agreements before matches, unless the community can be convinced that this is fair to everyone. Even though this is not likly, I still intend to voice my opinion because I think it is a shame that an interseting aspect of the game is so under-valued.
Team #1072 has never suggested these agreements, and in the future WILL NOT agree to them. When we agreed to them in the past we did not encounter any critism from anyone; we were under the impression that it was in the "cooperative competitive" spirit of FIRST, and no one told us otherwise or even implied that it was unfair. |
This happened at the Arizona regionals.The team that requested such a proposal also happened to make it to finals :mad:
That team also included the son of Microchip's President... -Justin Team 1223 Driver, Programmer, source of humor |
Re: Engineers or Lawyers?
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a little clarification....
having been very involved in discussing this situation with MANY coaches on many teams, and ALSO having been quoted a few times in this thread, let me clarify a couple of things....
1. I found one earlier post to be quite important, at least in terms of helping to define the discussion. What everyone is discussing on this thread falls under the definition of "collusion" - not "fixing" or "cheating". I completely understand the views of all the people who are really against agreements - but it seems the emotion involved is causing people to use words which may imply that those who disagree with them are bad people, which is just ridiculous. These agreements are helping teams seed higher, there is no doubt about that, and I very much understand the debate. But "fixing" a match would be fixing who wins or loses and "cheating" would be breaking a rule. Just my opinion - but I think the discussion should be about what teams feel about "collusion" or "agreements", not "fixing or cheating". 2. One of the absolute best parts of being involved with FIRST is getting to meet and know so many impressive people on so many teams. I try to go out of my way at events I help organize to listen to and discuss any issue, suggestion, compliment, or complaint. In this debate, I think all those who wanted to discuss their point with me will readily admit that I went out of my way to present both points of view and try to remain objective. I feel it's important that I clarify a few things attributed to me or FIRST which may have been taken out of context: (sorry Mike Soukup - I've tried to keep long posts to a minimum this year, but don't think I can do so here) :) clarifications: - I went out of my way to say to each mentor I spoke to that I could not and would not make an "official" judgement on behalf of FIRST about "agreements", that I was giving my opinion since they were asking for it - I DID tell a number of mentors that this was a decision for teams to make, not FIRST. Some disagreed, most agreed - regardless, that was my opinion. - I NEVER said I found these agreements "acceptable", I said there was no actual rule against it. - I DID say that teams should calmly and respectfully share the same concerns and views they were telling me with the teams they were complaining about. I did say that speaking as a "teacher", not FIRST - I thought it was a great opportunity for students and teams to solve an issue without FIRST - that they could solve it with discussion, diplomacy, and consensus instead of anger and resentment. This has been an issue at some events while not even coming up at some others. The teams in Arizona decided to address it a certain way, and on Saturday it didn't seem to be an issue. - I NEVER said I or FIRST "condoned" the practice of agreements. I said we would not make a judgement either way. I did point out that FIRST could not police this even if we wanted to, so it really was a decision totally up to the teams. - I DID say that the practice of making these agreements is mainly a qualifying round issue, and would not ever come into play in the playoffs. One other observation I made, is that the teams at Sacramento and Phoenix who seeded high partly by making these agreements, and thus were the focus of most of the debate, won most of their matches and also won the majority of the matches in which no agreements were made/stacks were all knocked down. Granted, that has nothing to do with the debate over "is it right or wrong", but those teams would have made the playoffs either way (IMHO). - I DID say that if I was still coaching a team, I personally wouldn't make one of these agreements. I also said that it's up to each team and I thought some people were getting a little too angry and emotional about these agreements. I DID say that while I would not do it, I wouldn't consider those who did to be "bad" teams or people - I thought those statements were clearly based on emotion and going a bit far. I also said that this is not, in my opinion, as black and white as most are making it out to be on both sides. - I DID say that while I myself see valid arguments on boths sides of the "agreement" issue, that I would be MUCH more troubled by petty and ungracious behavior such as: teams purposely trying to damage another teams robot, teams agreeing who would win or lose a match, teams "tricking or deceiving" other teams, teams saying they'll get revenge on teams who make decisions they don't agree with or hold a grudge/not help teams for years to come because they seeded ahead of them, teams cheating and breaking rules, and so on. - I DID say that I totally understood why many teams have a problem with "agreements", but that I wouldn't go so far as to brand it as "fixing" or "cheating" unless those teams were agreeing on who would win or were directly breaking a rule. - I DID say that if any of the teams who were making these agreements to seed high actually won an event (which I don't think they have yet), that they would have still had to demonstrate that their robot and alliance outplayed the other playoff robots without any agreements being made. My "point" was that while this practice may help some teams seed higher, it would not help them IN the playoffs. (yes, I know one could argue it may/may not have helped them get "into" the playoffs - I'm saying they still have to outplay the playoff teams to advance further) - I NEVER said I was "enjoying" what was going on, those in Sacramento and Phoenix know I was not (kind of felt like the character in the Airplane movies who had all the people with hammers, bats, boxing gloves, and other weapons lined up in the aisle waiting to "speak" to them. :) ). I said that it is an issue which is up to teams to analyze and decide how they want to play the game. I said that the debate at hand is a real life decision making process which is a great excercise for students to experience and work through now - since they will face many such decisions after high school. I said that I knew some in FIRST felt this was a unique opportunity for teams and that this discussion in and of itself (albeit hard and/or awkward) was great for students & teams to work out for themselves. One coach told me "while he disagreed with teams who were making the agreements, the only way he'd actually lose respect for a team is if they made an agreement/promise and broke it - that those teams should question their values" (it had happened to his team in Phoenix, which probably helped sour them on the concept). His point was that making the agreement was "one heck of a life lesson for his team, and that making the agreement had actually hurt them" the interesting point was that on Saturday he told me he "was glad FIRST left this decision about agreements up to the teams", that "watching his students discuss both sides of the debate amongst themselves and other teams, and then decide how they wanted to play" would be one of his proudest memories of the last couple years he had been in FIRST. - I did say that "if EVERY team and EVERY match had these agreements, it would be bad for the competition in my opinion". This was slightly taken out of context in an earlier post. - None of this was a total shock to FIRST. Those who wrote the rules went over any and every aspect to the game they could think of - and they did discuss this exact scenario. FIRST was and is aware of this debate. As always, FIRST provides a game and rules, and the teams ultimately determine how they will end up playing the game. As many have pointed out, FIRST is about WAY more than just robots and winning. - I know some of the mentors were frustrated because they really wanted me (in Arizona or Sacramento) or FIRST to take a side. Instead, I tried to present each side the other point of view and encourage the teams to work together to at least discuss the issue. I hope each of those mentors know that I really appreciated their coming forward with their concerns and thank them for their dedication to not only their students but the overall quality of the FIRST community. Sorry about the length - but since this issue is clearly very important to a number of people, I felt obligated to clarify my position/thoughts expressed at two of the events which experienced this debate. Good luck to everyone in week 3. Jason |
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Disregarding the above post and back to the topic of this thread, I should point out that 95% of the mentors who discussed this issue with me had very well thought out arguments, and while most of them were quite worked up/fervent, they remained respectful and rational during the discussion (I can use percentages here, because I have now had over 20 mentors approach me about this - I will be setting up a "discuss stack agreements" booth at all future events, much like Lucy's "therapy" booth in Peanuts/Charlie Brown comic strips) Since some of the debate seems to focus on particular teams doing something wrong - there seems to be one VERY important fact I think has been conveniently overlooked: It takes FOUR teams to make an agreement. And if it happened in 5 or 10 matches at an event, then anywhere from 20-30 teams (assuming there are a number of repeat teams) made such agreements. As many teams have acknowledged, they are very much against agreements, but they themselves actually made such an agreement at least once. I watched at least 10 teams in Arizona make these agreements, and many have posted VERY adament messages in this thread about how "clearly" wrong and unfair this is. This is a decision for ALL teams to make, not just a couple. And since so many teams struggled with it, I think it's clear that there are at least some valid points on both sides. Last....What was most important to me, while some may or may not agree, I DID say the following to each mentor I spoke with about this the past 2 weeks: 1. Their teams should make whatever decision they feel is right for them. 2. While they might be disappointed in decisions other teams make, and while both sides might have very valid points, I thought emotions were creating a little more of a "the sky is falling" panic than may be warranted. 3. I felt the teams might be surprised that they could handle this issue in person at events and on forums such as Chief Delphi. 4. Having spoke to teams on both extremes of this debate, I can say with absolute certainty that EVERY team involved is a quality team and all the people on those teams are good, dedicated, quality people. 5. If all the teams at any given event agree not to agree, fabulous. If not, so be it - there are bigger things in the world to be really upset about. Sometimes you have to agree to disagree, and each team should consider their participation a success as long as they leave each competition proud of their effort, their decisions, and how they represented their team. |
In both the New Hampshire and Hartford Regionals, you could count on one hand the number of stacks that remained at the end of a match over the full three days. It was never even considered an option, and now I know why some of the Regional matches posted such high points. Teams may be trying to inflate their teams potential for Nationals, and it will probably backfire. What you do on and off the field will be apparent to all the good teams that scout your performance. Let us not lose sight of why we participate in FIRST. The larger we get, the easier it is for some not to get the true message.
.:o Hodge, Teacher - Mentor Team 175 - BUZZ |
We have already had someone reference the page in the rules that outlines that alliances of this nature, while not clearly a violation of the rulse, are in violation of the "spirit" of FIRST.
I have read time and again how hard it is to have a stack survive a match and I have observed this to be true. It is kind of sad because at the Hartford Regional there was one 6-stack all weekend long that survived a match and now I am wondering if it was legit. I did not see the match and none of my friends complained. Did anyone see that match? Does anyone know if it looked like an alliance was in the works? Best, Danimal Pit Boss Hartford, '01, '03 |
Re: a little clarification....
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In a normal match, a team is lucky to get a multiplier above 4. With these agreements, the mulipliers can be huge because human players can stack high stacks and not worry about them falling. People are upset because we are all not playing the same game. If half of a 40 team regional bloats and the other half doesn't, then theres a good chance that the top 20 teams will be the bloated teams. You say this doesn't affect the finals, but it does. Say Team X is the best team at the regional and chooses Team Y based on Team Y's High QP. Team X may now lose, because of their choice in partners. You can say it's Team X's responsibility to make the best choice, but the agreements now confuse the matter even more. So then should we all just agree to follow suit? That wouldn't be fair to the bots who's main function is stacking. If all teams just left the other team's stacks alone. The human players can just simply make a big stack in the beginning, then let it stand. There's no need to make any more stacks. These agreements remove the stacking element from the game. All teams will be doing is hitting the wall, pushing bins back and forth, and playing King of the Hill. Thank you for your comments, but you seem to be playing this off as a non-issue or just a minor annoyance. No the sky ISNT falling, but this is a bigger problem than you or FIRST seems to think it is. |
Our strategy has always been to not nock down stacks unless we are loosing, so this isn't a new idea, but the fixing of matches has been seen by us. We were approached by a team at VCU to tie a match 114-114. We didn't accept. At Annapolis we were approached by a team to do this again. This team was a top 8 seed team and wanted to do this strategy with us. So this is a big problem that needs to be fixed by FIRST.
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let me say this....agreements wouldn't be unfair to me....but they'll be unfair to anyone that makes one with us. ANY team that approaches me or my team and asks for an agreement...will pay. We will screw your score up so bad....the match will likely turn out to be close to 0-0. Agreements suck!
Look at any porfessional sport...teams don't agree to let other teams win...they go for the kill. Sooooooo....here's an idea....if someone approaches you on an agreement....agree to it. Then show them what gracious professionalism is all about, and do the oposite of what they agreed to .....after all, what can they complain about, the fact that they're trying to cheat? |
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yea, we happen to be the team that was picked by the number one alliance and ended up losing in the first round due to a human error... we were also approached during a match, but we were confident enough in our capabilities that we did fairly well without our partner's help... it just makes one wonder about the whole elimination points versus actually winning and losing... like we won one and lost one in the finals, yet still got "beat." i do not agree with this practice, becuase it's not truly winning. You just had a good match. |
Spirit of First
Many folks posting here seem to use the phase:
'Violation of the Spirit of First.' I ask? Do you really know what you are saying? or is it just for effect? Before one can say something is a violation, its usually required to have reached an agreement on what the baseline is. Therefore, since the 'spirit of FIRST' is open to interpetation, does it not also follow that anything which may or may not be a violation thereof is also open to interpetation? I will stipulate that part of FIRSTs goal is to create discussion, as we see here... to offer consideration of ethical dilemas and other gray-area situations which will be seen later in life. Therefore, I would feel it is vital to discuss this issue, without drawing the conclusions which people seem to be drawing here. Oh, and in response to the 'revenge' post... if FIRST ever gets to the point where people are maliciously hold vendettas we certainly need to reassess what FIRST is trying to accomplish. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be seaching for another team/engineering project if things ended up in that direction. |
JZ,
On the USFIRST.ORG forum the question was asked... Quote:
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I guess what I don't understand is how what you say and what FIRST says can be reconciled. It seems to me that whatever a "Violation of the Spirit of First" actually means, FIRST considers "rigging" or "fixing" or "collusion" as discussed here to be in opposition to its "spirit. We certainly could open another thread to discuss what the spirit of FIRST means but FIRST seems to have made it pretty clear that it does NOT mean two alliances cooperating with each other to produce an anticipated outcome. Best, Danimal |
My team was approached during the Annapolis regional to "cooperate" during a match. The deal was that we would leave each others stacks, and play strictly defensive strategy. We woudl get as many bins in scoring posistion as possible and everyone would try for the ramp. We all agreed with no-one objecting. My team was forced to pull-out before the match due to a mentor angrily disagreeing with us. The opposing alliance won the match and if we had kept the agreement it might not have been so. The risks for winning vs. losing are the same. The drive team on my team had looked at it at that time as working with other teams, and spreading the word of FIRST through cooperation.
We made sure that they other alliance knew that we weren't going to do it. I fully disagree with any team holding instances of agreement against other teams. I find it appaling that members of the FIRST community would think to "blacklist" other teams. I feel it is wrong for teams to hold this against other teams because they might be doing it for reasons that aren't as anti-first as some of you might think. I am still torn on the subject of whether or not this should be done. At the time we did not think it had any malicious side-effects but as I have read this thread I realize that there are some. I think that determing who shall win a match is ENTIRELY wrong. I think it is better to maximize points than to realize that your going to lose and knock over your own stack to bring down the opposition's points. It has been done before and I have not seen such huge discussion over it. I think since reading this thread I would not participate in such agreements anymore since obviously a large portion of the teams competing do not think that this is acceptable strategy. But I would NOT sign a petition which woudl end up punishing teams that did not sign it. Such petitions and blacklisting has occured in history and is one of the BAD POINTS of our nations history. To each his own. |
Wow, I have seen a lot of opinions that have made me think - which is a good thing.
I think I can speak for my team when I say that we will not accept any agreements. Of course, we will leave the opponents stack standing if we feel it is the proper action to take while the match is in progress. Being the coach I want to have the option to decide whether it should remain standing or not. If we make an agreement, we remove that option or face the wrath of not holding to our agreement. Sorry, I do not want our team to be put in that predicament. Those who say that it does not benefit us to knock down the opponents stack is not considering that in some cases one team is capable of defending a stack and does not need an agreement to keep it standing. And in the case where the opponent gets more bins on their side, maybe the only way to win is to have a stack that is higher than theirs. So, in summary, we just want to keep our options open throughout a match and be allowed to decide. Otherwise, it will NOT feel like a competition. Lastly, I have faith in the FIRST community to eventually do what is best for everyone. We will not hold grudges against anyone just because they do not agree with us. I hope you all feel the same way. |
It's not the rigging that damages me, or the gained points or the pushing down of those who are really good and the rise of those who are rigging it, it's the slaughter of the FIRST spirit of Gracious Professionalism.
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Petition.
Will all teams who disagree with this practice, please sign our petition?
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=19301 My team believes that this is the only way to stop this practice. It will be impossible for F.I.R.S.T. to determine who is doing this, and who isnt, so a petition is the best answer. |
First of all, I was not at any regional this weekend, so I won't comment on what happened, only one observation based on what other people have posted. I have many other thoughts on this issue that I would be happy to discuss in person or via PM or AIM, however, I don't want to add more fuel to the fire.
A lot of people have been referring directly and indirectly to team 698, the #1 seed at Arizona. Every single one of those posts has been negative. However, looking through the thread recapping the Arizona regional I find that the same team that is being derided in this thread won team 294's gracious professionalism award, as voted by other teams. |
It seems to me that this practice of entering into agreements about how the game should be played is not indicative of the disruption of gracious professionalism. I don't like that it's something teams have considered, and if I held any weight with my team, it's something I would encourage them to avoid doing, however.
I think it's something much worse than disrespect for the tenets of gracious professionalism that is making this such a hot issue. It's outright laziness that leads to these agreements. Teams that purport to be supporting the spirit of FIRST by 'cooperating' before a match are desperately clawing for a life raft of dignity. It's been my experience that people with true conviction and belief that they're doing the good, right, just thing don't need to clamor for explanation, yet many, many teams seem are bastardizing the message of FIRST so that it can serve their own interests. These agreements are nothing more than thinly veiled attempts at overcoming a team's inadequacies. They did not effectively use their build time to develop a consistant, reliable strategy for controlling and maintaining the score throughout a match, and by their failure to do so, they've jeopardized their ability to successfully play the game. By trumpeting the spirit of 'cooperation,' they hope to salvage any chance they may have of winning and they undermine the real effort put forth by other teams to build elegant, well-rounded, effective machines. It's insulting and degrading, and it emasculates the innovative spirit that used to be so pervasive throughout FIRST. FIRST is about incentive. There's incentive to build a good stacking machine. There's incentive to help other teams have working machines, and there's incentive to develop a strategy that doesn't utterly decimate the opposing alliance. These types of agreements destroy that incentive by making the benefits and disadvantages of the system irrelevant. No longer is there any real reason to develop a clever mechanism or strategy because the lack thereof can be easily overcome by 'cooperating' before a match. It circumvents all efforts to make sure FIRST isn't about winning by bastardizing and perverting the notion of cooperation and using it to make winning paramount. That, above all else, upsets me most. To see teams trying to augment their inadequacy and supplement their ability by entering into certain truces or agreements rather than effectively use their time to develop innovative, exciting ways of doing so on their own is disheartening. To see teams attempt to manipulate the ideals and spirit of FIRST as justification of their lazy, weak, tired methods is completely disgusting. I think they should all be ashamed of themselves. |
Here's a question, what about 'Coopertition FIRST' game? Could Stack Attack at heart be this game? Instead of having an alliance on 4, there are 2 and the teams must work to get points, but only one will win. Could this be what Stack Attack really is? No Zone Zeal, but a true meaning of a coopertition?
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I doubt I was the first person to suggest this idea of "collusion" but I'm beginning to feel responsible for the debate and anxiety that suggestion has caused. I would like to justify my position on this issue as well as the position of my team.
The original idea was for teams to agree to tie, but that was clearly almost impossible to do, so the concept became something like this: Each alliance builds a stack of four, each alliance takes half of the stacks on the ramp, each alliance gets 2 robots on the ramp. At the very least the loser would get 200 points, a VERY high score even for a winner, and the winner would get 600+ points, which is downright insane. All four teams would benefit. The best analogy here is not to a boxer "taking a dive" but to the practice of "drafting" in NASCAR See this link. Clearly it would be bad for the competition and for the teams to use this in every match. Competition inspires innovation, and competition is a hell of a lot more fun to watch than "cooperation" I was surprised at the overwhelmingly negative reaction to this idea. I had even (brielfy) entertained the fantasy that FIRST intended to teach us a lesson about cooperation by making cooperation an essential point of this years game. I hadn't really thought that cooperating would be such a bad thing, so I asked FIRST, their answer was quick and brutal, yes, "collusion" violates the principle of Gracious Professionalism and the "spirit of FIRST" That decision having been made I abandoned the idea of "collusion" in FIRST as anything more than an interesting thought experiment. In FIRST, if not always in life, the result is not as important as how you played the game. Nobody on my team (782) was willing to sacrifice our reputation, much less our pride in the way we played, for points. We didn't use this strategy once in the New England regional and we came our the #1 seed, with two absolutely amazing alliance partners (236 & 157) we ended up winning the regional and it was a hell of a lot of fun. If we had decided to use the "collusion" strategy we may well have had to sacrifice everything sweet about that outcome. I'm sorry to hear what happened in AZ, if either myself, or my team is responsible I am deeply sorry. |
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Love Jason Morrella and Chris from Beach Bots take on all this. As always, FIRST reflects life. I've certainly been in a position like 698, being slammed for something while having accomplished a lot of good things that are ignored - whether at work or other accomplishments in years past. Often what happened when I was being slammed unfairly for many many months, I weathered the storm, and my behavior during the storm helped the people who were nearly swayed by the "sky is falling people", and the sky is falling people went away or lost their credibility, and my accomplishments didn't. Hang in there 698. When we knew on Friday that your team won cuz it was the only team nominated 3 times for a variety of gracious professionalism incidents, I was casually getting to know members of your team. I was always very impressed. Our team is so looking forward to spending more time with you in LA. Rock on! |
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We usually didn't stack during the matches because it was extremely easy for them to be knocked down. However, during that match one of our opponents broke down, and the other was being held up by our partner. The decision was made during the middle of the match that the opposition would most likely be unable to outrun our alliance partner (who were quite adept at blocking), so we booted up our stacker. It might be important to point out that we made that stack of six by putting two premade human player stacks on top of each other, so that it took a great deal less time then if we had attempted to do it the old fashion way. Also, our robot was a able of protecting the stack internally (well, actually the stack is external but it is still protected by small latching mechanisms), so even if they were able to try to knock it down making a stack might still have been a viable strategy. If anyone asks a member of teams 905 or 178 (our opponents), they will verify that no agreement was made. |
I think we need to step back and relax. Yea someone got the better of us especially us veteran teams. I have to say we got snookered in to one of these deals and paid the price. I was furious with my drive crew and totally lit my pit up when I came out of the stands and that was when one of my students told me that they had been asked to strike a deal in the match. Even our engineer that was in the driving station was unaware of the what was going on and was telling our driver to get the stack out of there. I am sure the students thought if this worked that it would be for the best but they came out on the short side and it was't pretty.
After calming down I am not near as sore and I think we have to play the game to expect this stuff. I even went as far to think what a real life lesson this has been. I mean come on this is something that happens everyday in the real world and don';t we always tell our grant people and sponsors how we are participating in this real world event and preparing engineers for the future. What happened, we got backed doored or we got a trick play used on us by a 2nd year team, lets get past it. I can say that our team knows that we will not be participating in these deals and a few students learned the hard way in the end I am glad it happened and we are making plans to deal with it in the future. I would also say it is time to quit dragging 698 through the mud. Nice team and nice people. I have to say when we were told they were going to draft us with the first pick we were going to turn it down due to all of this but we decided as a team that we would accept the honor and play with them, forget the differences and play the game the way it should be. |
"The Fix" History Lesson remberd
1930"s
Germany, Russia, Japan, Italy agree to "NEW" world boundaries Look what that "agreement" got us! In the "big picture" Is this the type of agreements we are teaching? Is the Enron model the type of FIRST Scoring we want? Ask The hard Questions.... and Answer them! Always REMEMBER this is the next generation we are Teaching!! I for one do not want to define "is" for the rest of my life, Wrong is Wrong........ No defining needed. Geo. |
Re: On the subject of Stacking
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Anyway. No matter what choice of words you choose for the actions being talked about in this thread, if you come to any sort of agreement with opponents before a match has begun, you are rigging the match.. even if it is something as simple as agreeing to allow 4 robots on the ramp. [BTW: If you agree to let 4 robots on the ramp, no matter what, and your opponent will lose if they allow you on the ramp, they will not let you on..] Lets just all go away from this with the mindset of playing each match as its dealt, and taking the result as something determined by fate. Try to run away from fate, and you'll find yourself on a treadmill: alot of wasted enery for an unchanged result. There are way too many words in this thread.. and I am not speaking of the length of posts, but the "nothing" some of them contain. But oh well, life. :) Oh, reaching a simple agreement for one match renders you just as guilty as someone who does it for every match. So ensure, before you post in this thread, that your words are not hypocritical. |
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Stabbed in the back or not, Gracious Professionalism is what would make that team give their extra drill motor - willingly, not begrudgingly - to even the most vicious and bitter teams. Holding grudges and getting revenge are going to get you nowhere. Some of these teams change from year to year anyway, thereby defeating the purpose entirely. Please rethink your 'revenge' tactics, and instead maybe pull a mentor or driver over and explain your opinions. You can always say yes to someone, even when you know it's wrong. It's saying no and sticking with it that gets a bit tricky. |
I have yet to see a regional in person this season, still I have a few thoughts on the topic fixing matches and collusion.
- Many people are making it seem as though agreements such as this have never occurred in FIRST before. Just thinking back to last year I remember at least three matches which were fixed. I'm not talking about collusion, the winners of these matches was clearly predetermined. Gadget referred an occurrence of this earlier in the thread. I was surprised that there wasn't more of an outcry when this happened. - For those who say that collusion is not that big of a deal, consider this. A team who colludes their way into the first seed may not have the best robot, but now they have the opportunity to select the best robot with their first draft pick. As we have all seen in the past there are certain robots which can carry an alliance all the way to the top. So even if the number one seed is weak, they now have an excellent chance at winning. - It is clear that the only way that colluding can be stopped is by the teams themselves. There is no practical setup by which FIRST can stop this behavior. - That being said, I don't think it will stop completely. Just from monitoring the opinions given on this board, it seems that there are still many teams that are willing to engage in this type of behavior. At nationals, it would only take 10 of 80 teams in one division to partake in collusion for it to have a large effect. - Please don't rush to judgment in the upcoming weeks. Just because you see large stacks survive, it doesn't mean that collusion occurred. There are many situations when not attacking the stacks is in an alliance's best interests. (Aside: I think way to many teams attack the stacks to early. Wait about a minute and see how the match plays out, it may turn out that you don't need to take them down. By waiting, you can drastically increase your score) - Lastly, it's very important to remember that teams how do choose to collude are not bad teams or bad people. They have made a strategic call. Many may not agree with it (myself included), but they have not violated any written rules. By plotting revenge or blacklisting them you to are not acting very GP. IMHO, part of gracious professionalism is teaching rather punishing. By setting a good example, you may encourage these teams to follow you. |
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