[JAlpert]

1) Sports analogies do not apply here. There isn't a single major sport (involving a ball, at least) in which your playoff seeding is entirely based on your opponent's score. This is because win/loss records usually suffice (i.e. there is no incentive for a basketball team to blow the other team out, because all that matters is the win). FIRST plays few games with many teams, resulting inevitably in lots of W/L ties. Thus, in FIRST, the tiebreaker is a key strategic element, where in most major sports, nobody cares about this rare event.

2) Every team is at this competition to win. Period. Teams do what they have to do to win. If it is possible, within the confines of match play, to advance your position by scoring for your opponent, it would be a brutal mistake not to do so. The system is there for you to use.

3) This topic comes up every year. In 2003, elimination rounds were set up such that the alliance with the highest point total at the end of two rounds won. The points an alliance received were a multiple of the loser's score (I believe the multiple was 1 for the loser, and 2 for the winner). The dominant strategy was to win the first round no matter what, collecting 2x your opponent's score, and then lose the second round as badly as possible. If you lost with a score of zero, you were in the best position possible, because neither alliance received any points in the second round, and your alliance won by default (because you won the first round). It was a terribly broken scoring system, but the teams that won used what they were given to the best of their ability. Teams complained it was "unsportsmanlike" to lose intentionally. Teams said FIRST didn't intend the game to be played that way. But the fact of the matter is, whether FIRST intended the game to be played in that manner or not, they set the game up that way. De-scoring that second match wasn't losing. It was winning within in the confines of the system. Just like scoring in your opponents goal isn't showing off. It's advancing your position (winning) in the confines of the system. And that is all that matters when you're out there playing a match.

Jeff