Quote:
Originally posted by Clanat
In a match I was driving in, I would have Gracious Professionalism first, winning second, and maximizing score third. Keep your priorities straight!
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I agree with these priorities, but I think they should read as follows:
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"