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Unread 18-03-2003, 04:55
SWBaum SWBaum is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2003
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The "Fix" is Obvious

I'm a first-year mentor for Team 460. My views may not be the views of the team. But when I first heard about the "deal-making" at the Arizona regional last Friday, my reaction was, "Why does anyone need to talk about it? Isn't it obvious?" If our objective is to graciously and professionally have one of the 8 highest cumulative scores when qualifying is completed come Saturday afternoon, wouldn't we be advised to maximize our points in each and every match? And since stacks increase points, wouldn't it be appropriate to have one at the end? A tall one? On both sides of the ramp? Who needs to collude, cheat, fix, taint, violate the spirit of FIRST, _____________ [fill in the blank with your favorite derogatory characterization] to figure that out!?

What I suggested to our team before the start of the competition, and what I will continue to suggest, is that our strategy (as a general rule unless there are strong contrary indications) be cooperative (that is, let our opponents' stack stay up) until the other alliance shows us it doesn't understand the way the game we're playing is scored (and, I submit, played) by knocking ours down, in which event, we retaliate with all deliberate speed.

The qualifying rounds are not a boxing match, they're not a car race, they're not badminton, they're not a conflict between foreign countries. The game is what it is (which as has been pointed out above, bears a striking resemblance to the Prisoner's Dilemma in the qualifying rounds). (Check out http://www.brembs.net/ipd/ipd.html for more than you want to know.) The fact that an effective strategy to do well in this game (it's known as "tit for tat") is counterintuitive, that we find it necessary to scurry about making prearrangements with one another to have any chance to play it properly, and that some of us find such prearrangements "unsportsmanlike," only confirms that we're competitive human beings and not cooperative ants or bumblebees.

I assume we can all agree that winning the game is a legitimate objective. Let's further assume that in order to attain that objective, a team adopts a strategy that science has shown is appropriate, given the rules of the game (FIRST IS about science, isn't it?). We can't be too concerned if it's boring, and we can't get caught up in how it plays for TV, that's not our department. (And it should be noted, there still remains a lot of game to be played around the stacks and up the ramp; the game is still 2 on 2, with each alliance striving to beat the other by at least a point.) When all is said and done, the thing that some of us are finding compellingly offensive when prearranged is the very thing that should be done regardless, prearranged or not. If that be the case, prearrangement is entirely superfluous and innocuous. To reiterate the wise observation of a famous frequent contributor, "I don't know what the fuss is all about."

(Of course, a lot of good any of this did our team (which will come as no surprise to the Prisoner); at the end of qualifying, Team 460 was seeded 24th. Luckily, our esteemed alliance partner from West Covina, California, RAWC, had the extraordinary vision (where all others had missed their chance, our invitation and acceptance coming in the 24th slot) to appreciate our finer qualities, despite the standings. Proving once again, there's more to this game than meets the eye. The gloves come off in the elimination rounds, don't they?)

See you at Nationals. Be sure to stop by and say hi.