1st Seeds Win

[Norman J]

Apparently the number 1 seed has never won the West Michigan District event. Granted, FiM has only been around for 3 years.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by JABot67

What I've noticed is this: In the past couple seasons, two good robots could hold up an alliance and win a match. The third one could play some very effective D (and some finals matches have been decided by how good the third robot is at playing defense) but especially in the quarters and semis the overall firepower of the top two robots in the top two alliances is too much for the others.

This perhaps is a side effect of FIRST's decision to design really offense-oriented games since 2007. That year was crazy: an alliance could score 256 points in one match and 0 the next, all depending on how much defense was played against them. Rack 'n Roll was, in my opinion, the only game where three good robots could beat two great robots and one not so great robot, which resulted in a lot of 8 over 1 upsets. This phenomenon was augmented by the fact that since defense could shut down many offensive teams, the best teams often would not seed first. Even when they did, they often lost if the regional or division was stacked enough to provide power to the #8 alliance.

Look at the TBA results for GLR and West Michigan... more wins for blue than red in the elims. Oh look... 1114 and 67 lost in the semis due to amazing defense and the fact that 57's robot could not provide the defense necessary to stop the opponents from scoring. In 2007, none of the #1 alliances at Champs escaped the divisions and reached Einstein. The #8 alliance of 190, 987, and 177 won in the finals. This could be interpreted as proving my point that 2007 was the only recent year where the #8 alliance could be the best alliance at an event.

However, back then there was this huge discussion about how overpowered defense was in FIRST and how boring it was to watch robots bump into each other instead of score. There were also instances where teams played defense that was too rough and complaints about how the serpentine draft gives an advantage to the #8 alliance and should be done away with. Perhaps as a result, FIRST has designed games in recent years to be based on offense, so the good teams can seed high in qualifications and be less hindered by defense in the elims. These offense-powered games in recent years have given the #1 alliance more of a chance to dominate a competition.

This analysis is quite interesting about 2007.
I made a similar one back after that season, but for different reasons.
In 2007, I noticed that a lot of the lower seeds were winning due in large part that they had 1st pickings of the "ramp" bots that gave a relatively large bonus for winning matches. With proper defense and pinpoint scoring to block the multiplier on certain pegs of the rack, they could come back and beat you on the bonus.
The bonus back then was much more difficult than this year.
This season, your bonus is independent of an alliance partner and could be done entirely by yourself. Everyone can technically have the same type of 1 to 1.x sec minibot. The formula to creating one is out there and can be done independently of your robot between regionals. You would not (nearly impossible for most) be able to go from a non-bonus bot to one all of a sudden in your next tournament.

IMO, that game gave every alliance the best chance to win a regional. You had to be very, very careful on who you picked in trying to beat out the other alliances.

[Billfred]

Looking at the data for #1 alliances going back to the Palmetto Regional's inception:

2004 (343/1402/665): Out in quarterfinals (three matches), #2 won
2005 (1251/25/301): Finalists (three matches), #2 won
2006 (68/180/1028): Semifinalists (two matches), #6 won
2007 (1251/1758/1626): Finalists (three matches), #2 won
2008 (343/342/393/804): Finalists (four matches), #7 won
2009 (3025/2815/1379): Finalists (two matches), #3 won
2010 (343/1261/1398): Champions (three matches)
2011 (180/2363/2815): Champions (three matches)

2005 was the start of 3v3 play, and 2006 was the start of the serpentine draft. Take from this what you will.

[The Lucas]

Here is some previous years threads with data:
My 2009 prediction & results of 50% Alliance #1
2008 with some '07 & '06 data
2006

The Philadelphia Regional is an interesting case as far as #1 seed vs the field. Last year I successfully predicted that the #1 seed would win Philly due to the new seeding algorithm (also contains my 09 spreadsheet). This a major streak breaker because before 2010, no #1 seed had won Philly since 2001. Philly tends to have a large similar top tier of offensive robots and lots of defensive bots that causes a lot of upsets during quals and elims.

I don't have the % of #1 Alliance champions in 2010, but I suspect it was higher than usual. The scheduling algorithm (as much as I disliked it) did a good job of seeding the top robots high regardless of schedule difficulty. This year with a return to WLT system, I have been more interested in the how OPR correlates to event winner. The team with the highest OPR during the quals almost always wins the event even if they are not in the #1 alliance (won all the Week 1 events). In Chesapeake where the top team didn't win (one of the few cases), the alliance with the highest combined OPR did win.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by SamMullen

This is really the first year that I've actually paid attention to who wins regionals other than what I attended personally, and so I was wondering:

This year it seems like almost always the first or second seeded alliance wins the regional. I think I've seen only a couple of exceptions to that so far. Is that the normal thing, or have other years had more of a variation in which alliances win?

No, it's not always like this.

This year, especially in many of the weaker regionals, you've seen only a bare handful of robots that can deploy minibots consistently. With the minibot race consisting of more than half the score of a normal match, putting two teams together who can both deploy minibots is an advantage that is nearly impossible to overcome.

As the season progresses the games will begin to rely more on hanging because more robots will have minibots. I would expect Michigan State Championship to be that way, however I would expect the National Championship to be slightly less so since so many teams attend because they can pay the fee without having to qualify based on robot quality (not that there's anything wrong with that system - I'm just saying).

[Shmee]

As people have stated, statistically, it does make sense for the #1 seed to win the regional most of the time.

2009 was our craziest year. At Peachtree, we were ranked like 43 out of 48 teams, were picked by the #8 seed 2655 (I think they were originally ranked #13, but my memory is foggy), and went on to win the regional along with 832. That was ridiculous.

A few weeks later (also 09), we were picked by the #3 seed at Palmetto and won with them. The #3 seed (1771) was actually the #1 seed we had beaten earlier at Peachtree, while the #1 seed at Palmetto was a rookie team with box on wheels that could only deliver the super moon-rock thing (supercell? I can't remember the official name) and was rejected five or six times during first-round alliance selections.

On the flip side, the two regionals we've attended so far this year (Alamo and Peachtree), the #1 seeded alliance has won both.

[MagiChau]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

I would expect Michigan State Championship to be that way, however I would expect the National Championship to be slightly less so since so many teams attend because they can pay the fee without having to qualify based on robot quality (not that there's anything wrong with that system - I'm just saying).

Divisions are pretty big. Would be pretty hard making a division without more than 2-4 power houses.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by MagiChau

Divisions are pretty big. Would be pretty hard making a division without more than 2-4 power houses.

Yep, you're right on that count. Plus, with the 3 weeks between our state champ and the worlds, I'm sure a whole lot of teams will be working to get minibots going.

I hope I'm wrong. I'd love to see a whole series of upsets at Nationals.

[Peyton Yeung]

Originally Posted by JABot67

What I've noticed is this: In the past couple seasons, two good robots could hold up an alliance and win a match. The third one could play some very effective D (and some finals matches have been decided by how good the third robot is at playing defense) but especially in the quarters and semis the overall firepower of the top two robots in the top two alliances is too much for the others.

This perhaps is a side effect of FIRST's decision to design really offense-oriented games since 2007. That year was crazy: an alliance could score 256 points in one match and 0 the next, all depending on how much defense was played against them. Rack 'n Roll was, in my opinion, the only game where three good robots could beat two great robots and one not so great robot, which resulted in a lot of 8 over 1 upsets. This phenomenon was augmented by the fact that since defense could shut down many offensive teams, the best teams often would not seed first. Even when they did, they often lost if the regional or division was stacked enough to provide power to the #8 alliance.

Look at the TBA results for GLR and West Michigan... more wins for blue than red in the elims. Oh look... 1114 and 67 lost in the semis due to amazing defense and the fact that 57's robot could not provide the defense necessary to stop the opponents from scoring. In 2007, none of the #1 alliances at Champs escaped the divisions and reached Einstein. The #8 alliance of 190, 987, and 177 won in the finals. This could be interpreted as proving my point that 2007 was the only recent year where the #8 alliance could be the best alliance at an event.

However, back then there was this huge discussion about how overpowered defense was in FIRST and how boring it was to watch robots bump into each other instead of score. There were also instances where teams played defense that was too rough and complaints about how the serpentine draft gives an advantage to the #8 alliance and should be done away with. Perhaps as a result, FIRST has designed games in recent years to be based on offense, so the good teams can seed high in qualifications and be less hindered by defense in the elims. These offense-powered games in recent years have given the #1 alliance more of a chance to dominate a competition.

I think that in this game defense as well as minibots are one of the greatest factors in who wins elimination matches. For example at our past regional (Midwest) The number 1 seed alliance chose the second seed alliance and dominated the competition. The only alliance to beat them once was our alliance (the # 4 alliance) and that was due mostly by our bots ability to completely shut down wildstang's minbot from reaching the tower in the first match. Sadly we lost the next 2 matches to that alliance because they adapted to our defense and won the minibot races.

Also in our first regional this year (Boilermaker) the number 1 seeded team chose the number 2 seeded team and they completely shut destroyed every other alliance because no one could stop them from scoring or deploying their minibots (the fastest at the event).

[ttldomination]

I think this is partially due to the fact that we've seen this game not too long ago.

Teams that had people around in 2007 REALLY knew what to expect. They designed their robots to be faster, stronger, more agile, and smarter than how they were in '07. Which is why I think we see this large gap between the teams that really can and the ones that are able to.

- Sunny

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Basel A

This isn't always true. It ONLY makes sense if the ranking system is an accurate measure of robot performance, which it never is. W-T-L systems, or even any systems, don't take into account robot improvement, lucky or unlucky qualification pairings, or a number of other factors..

Hence why he said statistically...

[548swimmer]

Originally Posted by Basel A

This isn't always true. It ONLY makes sense if the ranking system is an accurate measure of robot performance, which it never is. W-T-L systems, or even any systems, don't take into account robot improvement, lucky or unlucky qualification pairings, or a number of other factors..

I completely agree. Our team has a sort of "Saturday magic" that comes from ironing out all of the kinks during Friday and Saturday morning. It has worked quite well, resulting in a district victory and a second place (great set of finals matches 2337).

[Thomas DeSilva]

Originally Posted by SamMullen

This year at the Autodesk Portland regional, the Eighth seed beat the first seed after 3 ridiculously close matches, before losing to the fourth seed Alliance, which went on to win the regional. It was an amazing match to watch.

We really should have called our timeout so 2046 could have checked their arm. D:

But yeah, from what I've seen, this year's seed rankings have been slightly more reflective of a team's merit (which may not have anything to do with this year's game, because it seems that teams with minibots automatically seed high), and so it would make sense for the top-seed alliance to win.

[SamMullen]

Originally Posted by Thomas DeSilva

We really should have called our timeout so 2046 could have checked their arm. D:

But yeah, from what I've seen, this year's seed rankings have been slightly more reflective of a team's merit (which may not have anything to do with this year's game, because it seems that teams with minibots automatically seed high), and so it would make sense for the top-seed alliance to win.

I'd wondered what happened there. That sucks, their arm breaking during finals. Even with everyone working though, it was still a very close match. Every team there was good, and I think all of them had minibots, which like you said, was a real determining factor in the quals.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by JABot67

Look at the TBA results for GLR and West Michigan... more wins for blue than red in the elims. Oh look... 1114 and 67 lost in the semis due to amazing defense and the fact that 57's robot could not provide the defense necessary to stop the opponents from scoring. In 2007, none of the #1 alliances at Champs escaped the divisions and reached Einstein. The #8 alliance of 190, 987, and 177 won in the finals. This could be interpreted as proving my point that 2007 was the only recent year where the #8 alliance could be the best alliance at an event.

*polite cough* I hate to break it to you, but 2007 GLR is a better example of luck playing into the finals than anything else. 57 got bitten by the banebot curse Thursday and Friday and didn't have working ramps till Saturday morning. At which point the worked flawlessly for the rest of the regional. 1114 took notice and we were a stellar darkhorse 3rd pick for defnese and ramps. Ask 118 if we could play defense at Lone Star. Anyways, we were flustered at having such a huge chance at a win and a bit disorganized. We ended up playing semi 1 with a nearly dead battery, which left us a twitching mess. Diagnosing that took me a lot longer than it should have, cause who would figure that? So we finally figured it out and by then they wanted us on the field. We put on a battery strap and sent the robot out without a rear bumper because we didn't want to "waste" a timeout. Turned out the bumper was doing most of the battery securing, and when someone rammed us, physics sent the battery flying out the back of the robot and we were dead a second match. I count that as one the single most embarrassing moment of my FIRST career, because we honestly would have owned that regional if I'd just asked for that timeout or monitored battery charging a little more closely.

On the other hand, man is that an instructive story to tell at workshops.