Losing on Purpose to Gain Advantage

[pfreivald]

I reject the premise that because GP cannot be easily defined that it cannot be used as a guideline for delineating specific behaviors as acceptable/unacceptable.

[aldowyn]

My definition of "Gracious Professionalism" is being fair, courteous, and respectful to your competitors and teammates. What's under debate, as far as I'm concerned, is whether this kind of tactic is "fair", and I personally believe that its an unfair manipulation of the system. The simple fact that this is even something remotely possible does seem to signal an issue with said system, but nothing's perfect and as far as I can tell it's a pretty specific, out-there situation.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by aldowyn

... as far as I'm concerned, is whether this kind of tactic is "fair", and I personally believe that its an unfair manipulation of the system. ...

Unfair? In what sense is it unfair?

[aldowyn]

Hmm. Maybe I said that wrong. How about this: I don't believe that's the way the game was meant to be played. You could consider that just essential maneuvering, but I don't really have the mindset for that kind of thing, and it just seems like it's a loophole in the way the system works, and to use it is an exploitation. I'm not saying any other point of view is wrong, but that's how I, personally, see it.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by gblake

Unfair? In what sense is it unfair?

...if you have to ask...

No, really. If you have to ask this question, then there is a severe disconnect between what you understand about a "game" and a "tournament" and what I do. In a fair, reasonable, normal tournament, each party tries to win each game (that is, each *match*), and can expect their opponents to do the same.

This is what was wrong with 6v0 (which I am glad the GDC clarified), and I can only imagine that the reason the GDC hasn't clarified that throwing games isn't GP is because it's bleedingly freaking obvious.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

To quantify a thing is to destroy a thing?

Such an entertaining notion in an engineering competition.

Yeah, I understand that you can't make a comprehensive all-things-GP rubric, and I understand that dissecting a butterfly might teach you how it works, but it ruins the beauty...

But I don't buy the argument that GP is immune to definition or guidelines -- because if it is, it is completely subjective and thus meaningless.

In this case, yes.
The difference between GP and rules is that one is defined and one isn't. Certainly, playing by the rules is usually an aspect most people embrace when acting in a gracious and professional manner.

If FIRST wanted GP to be another defined metric, they'd just write rules governing how to act GP at a competition and through the season. But they don't because that's not the point of gracious professionalism. The point is to cover all the scenarios that are impossible to fathom ahead of time. As Woodie says, GP is acting like your grandmother is watching you all the time. It's about making the choice that would make your grandmother proud, regardless of whether there is a rule or not.
It's not about doing X in situation Y. GP isn't black and white. It's not a metric to evaluate someone's behavior.

Originally Posted by pfreivald

A. No it isn't.
B. No it isn't. It's openly accepted by some people =/= it's acceptable.

I know the rest of my post was no longer directly quoting you, but it certainly applied to your statements just as much as anyone's. Yet, you didn't give your reactions to that part. That's what I was most curious about.

So, if playing to win the match is something you do 100% of the time with 100% effort, you think that teams that showcase certain aspects of their robot are wrong?
What about the struggling team that attempts to score a game piece just to see their robot "work" once on the field?
Is the team who's presented with an opportunity to employ a "dirty" tactic (say, flipping another robot) to win a match and doesn't take that opportunity wrong?
And the team that refuses to use the "guaranteed red card" tactic to win a match?

I think there's a line where there are other motives can be placed above adding a W to your record. If you said all of those teams are wrong, we've likely reached an impasse. But, minimally, it does show that the statement you preached as irrefutable fact is not that, but a matter of opinion.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

I reject the premise that because GP cannot be easily defined that it cannot be used as a guideline for delineating specific behaviors as acceptable/unacceptable.

Gracious Professionalism can be defined quite concisely just by taking the words in isolation. It's relatively easy to classify whether a practice is gracious, and whether it is professional.

This thread makes clear that whether it is acceptable is a matter of opinion.

[pfreivald]

As I just said in a private message to Molten:

'GP is like Justice Stewart's definition of obscenity: "I'll know it when I see it."

I agreed with you that it to some extent defies complete codification, but I think I can phrase it thusly: Do the right thing, and if there's any ethical/moral doubt or rationalization behind an action, don't even think about it.'

[huberje]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

In a fair, reasonable, normal tournament, each party tries to win each game (that is, each *match*), and can expect their opponents to do the same.

Does one win matches in order to win the competition, simply to look better, or some other reason? While the answer probably varies among teams and individuals, if it is the former, why would it be unreasonable to lose a game to obtain an advantage later on? In fact, this reminds me of a tactic I heard quite often this year. While on a slightly smaller scale, giving up first place on the minibot to increase one's ranking score was a relatively common idea.

[pfreivald]

I may not have a perfect definition of GP, but it certainly isn't WAAC. I cannot envision a situation where all six teams would agree to hurt one's standings -- including the one whose standings are hurt -- and I'm not particularly interested in hypothetical situations that will never happen.

The fact of the matter is that the only reason to throw a game is to gain advantage at the expense of someone else. While one tries to win games for the same reason, trying to win games doesn't bring up issues of pride, honor, and integrity.

Edit: Alas it is bed time, and I shall not become this fellow http://xkcd.com/386/

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

The fact of the matter is that the only reason to throw a game is to gain advantage at the expense of someone else. While one tries to win games for the same reason, trying to win games doesn't bring up issues of pride, honor, and integrity.

Once again, I turn to my previous comments. I'll even define it further to include my own team.

In our second qualification match of Philadelphia, we were with two teams who hoped to be able to play offense and against some capable scoring machines. My team had struggled through practice day on Thursday and didn't exactly come out swinging in our first qualification match, only scoring one tube. Our alliance was probably best off if we dedicated our match to trying to stop 56.
Instead, we played offense. We wanted to see if our robot could execute the functions it was designed for. We wanted to build driver confidence and hope to build off of that match for later in the competition. We were hoping to get to work out some more kinks in our machine by seeing the functions executed on the real field.
1712 only scored one tube and our alliance lost the match 81-15.

By not executing the function that gave us the best chance to win, you could say that we "threw" the match. We didn't do it in order to gain advantage at the expense of another team.

Were we wrong?

[donnie99]

What I add to this thread is the idea to use the game to your advantage. During Breakaway in the Curie division at finals, Team 237 and our alliance partners were playing 469 and their partners during qualification matches. Because of the way the scoring was last year, we decided ton ask 469 if we could help them score to increase our points gained. I personally believe that this was alright because it matters to win, make memorable moments, make an impression on other teams that you will work together and for the benefit of everyone, and to play the way that best fits the way FIRST intended. Although the last part is questionable to different people, it allows for the flexibility that makes each robot and team unique. If this strategy achieves that goal, then go ahead, but remember, the number one alliance can have a bad match and end up losing, even if the best three teams in a regional are part of it.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Were we wrong?

I don't see what the situation you've presented has to do with deliberately losing a match to manipulate standings. You're comparing apples to aardvarks.

G'night!

[gblake]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

...if you have to ask...

No, really. If you have to ask this question, then there is a severe disconnect between what you understand about a "game" and a "tournament" and what I do. In a fair, reasonable, normal tournament, each party tries to win each game (that is, each *match*), and can expect their opponents to do the same.

This is what was wrong with 6v0 (which I am glad the GDC clarified), and I can only imagine that the reason the GDC hasn't clarified that throwing games isn't GP is because it's bleedingly freaking obvious.

I think the disconnect that occurs is most people's belief about what the word "fair" means in these sorts of conversations, and what is actually possible for it to mean. When I was introduced to that notion many years ago, I found it to be a powerful bit of information.

If you dig into the topic you will find there is pretty much no such thing as properly using a simple unadorned and naked "fair" to describe a situation, rule, etc. like the ones we are discussing.

A situation, rule, practice, whatever, can only be fair in some sense. And, no matter what that sense is, I have found that it is always relatively easy for a reasonable person to describe a reasonable sense in which the thing/concept is not fair.

Sometimes (often?) the sense in which fairness is being claimed can be taken from the context of the conversation; but in this situation, I couldn't puzzle it out. So I asked.

To be honest with you, to me at least, how much effort gets put into winning a game would seem to have little bearing on whether or not the game (the game rules) are fair.

Also if one party simply announces that they are not going to attempt to win, I hardly see how the other player(s) can shout "That's not fair!" In that case the audience might be disappointed that they won't be watching a battle of the titans for the next few minutes, but that doesn't seem to be a fairness subject either.

I remain unconvinced.

Blake

PS: Oh by the way, isn't it bleedingly obvious that publicly announcing that a team and its allies are purposefully and notoriously going carry out what they hope will be a tournament-winning strategy by ceding a match to the other alliance, is a very poor match for the phrase "throwing a match" - Sheesh! - Throwing a match is bad, but I don't think that we are discussing throwing a match. If we can't get past that, I doubt we will ever meet anywhere near the middle on this topic. Should we call it a day and move on?

[Molten]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Once again, I turn to my previous comments. I'll even define it further to include my own team.

In our second qualification match of Philadelphia, we were with two teams who hoped to be able to play offense and against some capable scoring machines. My team had struggled through practice day on Thursday and didn't exactly come out swinging in our first qualification match, only scoring one tube. Our alliance was probably best off if we dedicated our match to trying to stop 56.
Instead, we played offense. We wanted to see if our robot could execute the functions it was designed for. We wanted to build driver confidence and hope to build off of that match for later in the competition. We were hoping to get to work out some more kinks in our machine by seeing the functions executed on the real field.
1712 only scored one tube and our alliance lost the match 81-15.

By not executing the function that gave us the best chance to win, you could say that we "threw" the match. We didn't do it in order to gain advantage at the expense of another team.

Were we wrong?

I think more information is needed to accurately decide. Did you talk to the other teams first? If you communicated with both partners and explained the situation I think most teams would understand and allow you at least a turn to score. It depends on the agreement with the other teams. If I were one of the other teams I wouldn't have been thrilled about saying "sure take all the time you need" but I would have definitely said something along the lines of "try for the first 30 seconds and if it doesn't go well we'll take over". I've been in that boat. My first year, 1766 had a robot that only scored in one match. It was largely to my fault on missing a rule but the point is we had to completely redesign our robot and wanted to see it score. We were new and didn't discuss strategy with our alliance as much as we should have so I'm not really sure if the alliance would have approved. Given the fact that we didn't check or communicate with our team mates properly, we were wrong. If you tried communicating with your alliance and they said "no, we really don't think its a good idea" and you chose to go ahead with attempting to score, you were probably wrong.

Sean, I like the question. It really does show a bit of the gray line that is sometimes hard to bring into focus. In my opinion you did right by your students but wrong by your alliance. The question now is, which is more important to you? We've all been given a bad draw when it comes to alliances and know what that is like. We've also all been the barely functioning robot that gets stuck doing something other then what we worked so hard for. For me, teaching the students should always be the most important thing we do in FIRST. If this is your goal as well(which it might not be exactly), what is the most important thing to teach them? If you continue to try to score(as you did) you are teaching them to never give up and that their effort wasn't wasted. If you chose to do what was best for your team, you would have taught them that some things are more important then self-satisfaction and perhaps taught them humility. They are both valuable lessons to learn that I hope all teams get a chance to experience for themselves at some point.

Sorry I didn't give a yes or no, but I believe that was kind of the point.
Jason