[AndrewN]

The FRC competitions are a little different:

During the qualifying matches you should consider that part of your ranking will come from the losing alliances score. If you are clearly winning it will help your alliance teams if you do back off and allow the opponents to accumulate some points. We are playing a multi-game strategy here.

During the final matches you should be playing as hard as possible even if this means that the opponents have no score. The losing score doesn't count toward moving to the next level.

GP is realizing that when each individual game is over we should all be helping each other to achieve the best results we can, even if that means helping the next match opponent get their robot back on the field.

Opinion on the original topic: I don't want my opponent to throw the match. I want to keep getting better until I can score against the tough teams. How will you know where the bar is if it's always getting lowered for you?