Quote:
Originally Posted by pfreivald
I just wish FIRST would put out a statement that it is in the spirit of gracious professionalism to try to win every *match*. I can see why they wouldn't -- because gracious professionalism encompasses good sportsmanship, so this shouldn't even be a discussion we're having on a yearly (or more often) basis -- but I wish they would.
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I hope they don't. There's really no need to enumerate the things that are FIRST-approved-graciously-professional.
If FIRST wants to bless or condemn a particular strategy, that's fine—there's a rulebook for that. But by conflating strategy with gracious professionalism, they'd just be blurring the line between personal conduct and gameplay.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pfreivald
So I'm going to say something that some people will immediately try to rationalize as not true, too black-and-white, naive, or what-have you:
Every team should try as hard as they can to win every match. To do otherwise is to shortchange your alliance partners, your sponsors, the spectators, and yourselves.
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How's this for a simple, concrete counterexample: you're in the first match of a best-of-three elimination, and losing badly to a strong opposing alliance—let's say you're down by 50 with only one fast, reliable minibot: yours. You could compete as hard as possible for the rest of the match, and try to win—in what will almost certainly be a futile effort, and which will expose your robot to the ordinary perils of a match. Or you can bide your time until match two. Let's say you elect to play hard, and try to release your minibot in this nearly-unwinnable match, and accidentally drop it and it breaks.
It died for nothing.
Isn't it possible that you've actually done everyone a great disservice by playing hard to the bitter end? Your obstinacy may have swung match 2 in your opponents' favour, and now the spectators are even less likely to have the benefit of a closely-fought second match. Will your partners have a lower opinion of you, because you made a strategic error that substantially increases the likelihood of elimination? Would your sponsors have noticed (or cared about) the fact that you played it safe during one match?
That's not to say there aren't situations finding yourself down on points, you should actually play harder—like switching to interference when down a few tubes, to give your alliance a chance to win the minibot race. But that doesn't make playing hard a universal imperative; only a good idea a lot of the time, and a bad idea some of the time.
It's like running out a ground ball in baseball. Most of the time it's a good idea, because it puts pressure on the defence to make a mistake. But if you're going to pitch the next half-inning, maybe it's not such a good idea, because of the effect it will have on your stamina. Another good example is football: sometimes you'll run down the clock instead of trying for more yards. Why add risk when you're ahead at the end of the half? If we're concerned about sportsmanship, those are examples of acceptable conduct, even when not trying one's hardest.