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-   -   Losing on Purpose to Gain Advantage (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94916)

gblake 09-05-2011 15:49

Re: Losing on Purpose to Gain Advantage
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson (Post 1060416)
... Since ranking is going to be imperfect, this argument is likewise imperfect; ...

Dang - I was all coiled up and ready to pounce, but you took the wind out of my sails.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson (Post 1060416)
... But I believe it's important not to try to manipulate rankings, and instead to play your best and let the rankings follow naturally from that.

Yes - That is a legitmate viewpoint (in case you need anyone's opinion about it - I doubt you did ;)).

I suppose the other primary approach is to tilt toward dealing with intentions before the system is announced; and then after it is announced, dealing with the actual implementation.

I hope that most folks would agree that there is room in FIRST for both approaches and that neither suffers from some great moral, ethical or logical flaw.

I think both groups use a perfectly reasonable set of ethics and create perfectly reasonable educational experiences for students who pay attention to which path is chosen, and why it is chosen; and who are (implicitly or explicitly) trained to understand that both paths exist.

Blake

pfreivald 09-05-2011 15:52

Re: Losing on Purpose to Gain Advantage
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery (Post 1060405)
That's not what I've taken away from his commenting in this thread. Else, he could have said similar things regarding his students making the decisions in regards to "throwing matches."

He may well want his students to learn to make decisions and live by them, but that's not really the focus of the discussion. My question was not in regards to what he hopes his students to get out of the season, it was in regards to his statements about giving an 100% effort to win each match.

No, see, you're trying to play a game of 'gotcha', and I'm not playing. I'm not refusing to play your gotcha game to annoy you, but I'm not terribly concerned if that's a side-effect.

As for the rest, I think Alan said it as well or better than I can.

Tristan Lall 09-05-2011 16:59

Re: Losing on Purpose to Gain Advantage
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson (Post 1060416)
Here it is: qualification matches are intended to rank robots according to their ability to play the game. Throwing a match undermines that intent. Your team is supposed to be seeded based on performance in the robot game, not on clever application of game theory.

The fact that qualifying matches are intended to rank robots is self-evident. But that's not the same as saying that they are exclusively intended to rank robots. I don't think it would be far-fetched to say that it would be reasonable for FIRST to intend that a portion of a team's ranking should reflect their strategic prowess, independent of on-field performance.

Moreover, what's to say a team should do what was intended? After all, from time to time, FIRST accepts (sometimes gracefully) the fact that mechanisms are occasionally designed to do things that weren't intended by the GDC. The fact that FIRST didn't rule against 71 in 2002 or 469 in 2010 indicates they're sometimes willing to countenance this, and the fact that FIRST severely restricted 68 in 2003 indicates that sometimes they're not. I think it's fair to assume the same applies to qualifying strategy: sometimes FIRST will permit a strategy that violates their intent, and sometimes they won't. But there's no a priori right answer, and insofar as we're looking to FIRST's intent for guidance on what's acceptable, we have to wait for their ruling.

So that's why I think the more interesting question avoids trying to read the GDC's minds, and instead asks whether there's actually anything universally wrong with not giving 100% every match, from the point of view of a rational, honourable team.

JesseK 09-05-2011 17:05

Re: Losing on Purpose to Gain Advantage
 
I should have said that in 2010 I was approached by our one of our alliance partners about our alliance intentionally losing. If all 3 agreed upon it, then we would have given 100% to our alliance strategy of seeding higher rather than 'going down in a blaze of glory' by getting annihilated by a far superior alliance. Such was the system in 2010, and I didn't realize until Atlanta that I'd made a mistake.

Other than that, I've only ever been approached about it once ... (Blake might remember it from a long time ago) to which I was almost kicked off the team for refusing, yet I stuck to my guns, we won the match, and things worked out in the end anyways.

Lil' Lavery 09-05-2011 17:50

Re: Losing on Purpose to Gain Advantage
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson (Post 1060416)
The answer is so obviously right in my view that it was hard for me to come up with a rational argument for it. Here it is: qualification matches are intended to rank robots according to their ability to play the game. Throwing a match undermines that intent. Your team is supposed to be seeded based on performance in the robot game, not on clever application of game theory.

Since ranking is going to be imperfect, this argument is likewise imperfect; the "best" robot isn't guaranteed to be ranked at the top. But I believe it's important not to try to manipulate rankings, and instead to play your best and let the rankings follow naturally from that.

See, I don't think I agree with this. And I'm going to turn to the 2011 game manual to back me up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Section 5. The Tournament
The purpose of the practice matches is to provide each TEAM a chance to run its ROBOT on the playing field prior to the start of the competition matches. The purpose of the qualification matches is to allow each TEAM to earn a seeding position that may qualify them for participation in the elimination matches. The purpose of the elimination matches is to determine the event Champions.

Note the usage of "TEAM" rather than robot. That's continued in the rest of Section 5. Why is game theory disallowed for a team to use? Game theory plays an awfully large role in strategy decisions. Should we prevent teams from strategizing with their alliance partners before each match as well, so we can simply see which robots execute the tasks the best?

More over, where is the line between acceptable and unacceptable?
Should a team be condemned if they decide to skip a match in order to fix their robot? Or should they put their semi-functional machine on the field and potentially end up hurting even more alliances later in the day when their robot still isn't 100% working? Should I give 10/10 of my alliance partners a robot working at 50% or give 5/10 of them a robot working at 100%? What if the latter case is 7/10? 9/10? And should I potentially deprive my team, and my potential elimination partners, of a chance at a 100% working machine because we kept fielding a partially functioning robot and didn't have time to fix our issues?

And interesting example happened in the elimination matches at Championship this year. Team 71 sat out Final match 2 on Curie. I don't know exactly why or what happened, but it seems like (with their alliance leading 1-0 in the series), they sat out match 2 in order to fix their robot for match 3. Presumably they, and likely both of their alliance partners, felt that 71 would do a better job once repaired than a back-up bot would do. Their alliance would eventually lose the finals, even with 71 back in match 3. 2826 and 103 (71's partners) would only lose by 6 points in match 2, which 71 sat out. Hindsight is 20/20, but did the blue alliance (or 71 specifically) do anything that you would perceive as "wrong" by not "trying their hardest" to win match 2? By not calling a back-up bot or fielding a partially functioning robot?

Alan Anderson 09-05-2011 22:07

Re: Losing on Purpose to Gain Advantage
 
"The purpose of the qualification matches is to allow each TEAM to earn a seeding position that may qualify them for participation in the elimination matches."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery (Post 1060472)
Note the usage of "TEAM" rather than robot. That's continued in the rest of Section 5.

I accept the correction without complaint. So my reasoning is based on the idea that qualification matches are intended to rank teams according to their ability to play the game. The other viewpoint is that qualification matches are an opportunity for a team to explicitly manipulate the seeding positions of the teams involved in order to participate in the elimination matches, right? I understand that viewpoint, but I reject it because of the words "qualify them for participation". I interpret that to mean "seed high" rather than to mean "get picked by a high seed".

Quote:

Why is game theory disallowed for a team to use? Game theory plays an awfully large role in strategy decisions. Should we prevent teams from strategizing with their alliance partners before each match as well, so we can simply see which robots execute the tasks the best?
Strategy for a match is fine with me. The word "alliance" is a good hint that teams are expected to work together during the match. What I have a problem with is "gaming the play" at the expense of playing the game. I strongly prefer using the rankings as a measure of performance rather than as an explicit goal.

Quote:

Hindsight is 20/20, but did the blue alliance (or 71 specifically) do anything that you would perceive as "wrong" by not "trying their hardest" to win match 2? By not calling a back-up bot or fielding a partially functioning robot?
Elimination matches do not participate in the seeding process and are outside the scope of my participation in this discussion.

pfreivald 09-05-2011 23:39

Re: Losing on Purpose to Gain Advantage
 
I think this quote (which I will attribute to 'anonymous', as it isn't mine but I can't find the source) sums up the situation quite nicely:

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Wayne C. 10-05-2011 14:19

Re: Losing on Purpose to Gain Advantage
 
Sadly I've seen this happen twice where our team was the "victim" and a partner simply stopped playing to lose the match. And our team was approached once by a lower ranked team with the "idea" of them deliberately throwing a match to guarantee our seeding and their partnership (we didn't go for it)

Oddly at least 2 of these teams were CA teams who supposedly were pillars of GP

For the record. Any time your team doesn't do it's best you not only harm your alliance partners but you cheapen yourself. I have no respect for these unscrupulous people

rsisk 10-05-2011 15:53

Re: Losing on Purpose to Gain Advantage
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by pfreivald (Post 1060571)
I think this quote (which I will attribute to 'anonymous', as it isn't mine but I can't find the source) sums up the situation quite nicely:

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

You can probably attribute that to each of our mothers :)


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