Losing on Purpose to Gain Advantage

[George A.]

I think an interesting twist to this (that I don't think has been discussed yet) is what if you were the only one on the alliance for which the match counted and that your two partners were surrogates?

There are some instances where the teams don't break down neatly in the match schedule so there are some teams that play extra matches which don't affect their ranking.

So what if you wanted to "lose the battle to win the war" with absolutely NO negative impact on your partners?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by George A.

I think an interesting twist to this (that I don't think has been discussed yet) is what if you were the only one on the alliance for which the match counted and that your two partners were surrogates?

There are some instances where the teams don't break down neatly in the match schedule so there are some teams that play extra matches which don't affect their ranking.

So what if you wanted to "lose the battle to win the war" with absolutely NO negative impact on your partners?

Except that this is presumed to be right at the end of matches. Surrogate matches are #3 on your schedule if you have them.

In other words, not an applicable perspective.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Would you have let Rudy play?

I'm not sure what you mean. Please clarify.

---------------

And by the way, I want to make something absolutely clear: I'm not out to win any kind of argument here. I fully understand that not everyone will agree with my point of view. I understand that on some things, more people probably disagree than agree.

I'm not making any moral judgements and I'm not calling one viewpoint intrinsically superior to another. I'm merely stating my opinion on how the competition "should be".

[EricH]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

I'm not sure what you mean. Please clarify.

If you have not seen the movie "Rudy", starring Sean Astin, you will not get the reference.

Rudy is a player on the Notre Dame football team (how he got there is another story, and the main focus of the movie). He's not one of the regular players, but is given the chance to dress for his final game. On the final play, the coach puts him in.

The question is, Would YOU have put Rudy in?

[pfreivald]

Ah. I don't watch sports movies, though we have a story similar to that locally -- Jason MacAlwain(sp?)'s story is pretty spectacular: the autistic scorekeeper for his HS basketball team, he was put into his very last game and sank 10 3-pointers...

...and yet the answer to Sean re: Rudy can only be this:

It isn't my call. My kids make those decisions, not me.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

Ah. I don't watch sports movies, though we have a story similar to that locally -- Jason MacAlwain(sp?)'s story is pretty spectacular: the autistic scorekeeper for his HS basketball team, he was put into his very last game and sank 10 3-pointers...

...and yet the answer to Sean re: Rudy can only be this:

It isn't my call. My kids make those decisions, not me.

What a wonderful cop-out answer.

Would you agree with your kids' decision to "put in Rudy?" Even if it hurt your alliance's chances of winning the match?

[Molten]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

What a wonderful cop-out answer.

Would you agree with your kids' decision to "put in Rudy?" Even if it hurt your alliance's chances of winning the match?

I disagree. I think he answered the question perfectly. He believes in putting the students in charge of strategy. Your reason for asking the question originally was in determining what he hopes his students get out of the season. He seems to want them to learn how to think for themselves, make tough decisions, and live by them. That seems to be a part of it anyways. Though he didn't answer yes or no, he certainly answered in a fitting manner given the meaning behind the question.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Molten

I disagree. I think he answered the question perfectly. He believes in putting the students in charge of strategy. Your reason for asking the question originally was in determining what he hopes his students get out of the season. He seems to want them to learn how to think for themselves, make tough decisions, and live by them. That seems to be a part of it anyways. Though he didn't answer yes or no, he certainly answered in a fitting manner given the meaning behind the question.

That's not what I've taken away from his commenting in this thread. Else, he could have said similar things regarding his students making the decisions in regards to "throwing matches."

He may well want his students to learn to make decisions and live by them, but that's not really the focus of the discussion. My question was not in regards to what he hopes his students to get out of the season, it was in regards to his statements about giving an 100% effort to win each match.

[JesseK]

The issue with "letting the students decide" is that a handful of students make those decisions in Patrick's scenario. Well, pragmatically, I'm assuming they do since it's nearly impossible for every student to objectively give input to make that decision.

As a mentor, are you willing to let every students' experience hinge on the potentially bad decision of a small handful of students? This is the point where my team's leadership dictates the mentors will step in. Every student puts in too much time for the 'village idiot(s)' to muck things up.

As for whether to throw a match -- that's an intrinsic decision, tbh. Would I? I've been asked to before, yet refused. In hindsight, since that was 2010, I was the village idiot for not fully understanding the ranking system...

So it's not as cut-n-dry as you might think.

[Alan Anderson]

After mulling it over for a very long time, I figured out both my answer to the question and my reasoning for the answer.

The answer is an unapologetic no. I would never encourage a team to deliberately lose a match by giving less than full effort.

The answer is so obviously right in my view that it was hard for me to come up with a rational argument for it. Here it is: qualification matches are intended to rank robots according to their ability to play the game. Throwing a match undermines that intent. Your team is supposed to be seeded based on performance in the robot game, not on clever application of game theory.

Since ranking is going to be imperfect, this argument is likewise imperfect; the "best" robot isn't guaranteed to be ranked at the top. But I believe it's important not to try to manipulate rankings, and instead to play your best and let the rankings follow naturally from that.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

... Since ranking is going to be imperfect, this argument is likewise imperfect; ...

Dang - I was all coiled up and ready to pounce, but you took the wind out of my sails.

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

... But I believe it's important not to try to manipulate rankings, and instead to play your best and let the rankings follow naturally from that.

Yes - That is a legitmate viewpoint (in case you need anyone's opinion about it - I doubt you did ).

I suppose the other primary approach is to tilt toward dealing with intentions before the system is announced; and then after it is announced, dealing with the actual implementation.

I hope that most folks would agree that there is room in FIRST for both approaches and that neither suffers from some great moral, ethical or logical flaw.

I think both groups use a perfectly reasonable set of ethics and create perfectly reasonable educational experiences for students who pay attention to which path is chosen, and why it is chosen; and who are (implicitly or explicitly) trained to understand that both paths exist.

Blake

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

That's not what I've taken away from his commenting in this thread. Else, he could have said similar things regarding his students making the decisions in regards to "throwing matches."

He may well want his students to learn to make decisions and live by them, but that's not really the focus of the discussion. My question was not in regards to what he hopes his students to get out of the season, it was in regards to his statements about giving an 100% effort to win each match.

No, see, you're trying to play a game of 'gotcha', and I'm not playing. I'm not refusing to play your gotcha game to annoy you, but I'm not terribly concerned if that's a side-effect.

As for the rest, I think Alan said it as well or better than I can.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Here it is: qualification matches are intended to rank robots according to their ability to play the game. Throwing a match undermines that intent. Your team is supposed to be seeded based on performance in the robot game, not on clever application of game theory.

The fact that qualifying matches are intended to rank robots is self-evident. But that's not the same as saying that they are exclusively intended to rank robots. I don't think it would be far-fetched to say that it would be reasonable for FIRST to intend that a portion of a team's ranking should reflect their strategic prowess, independent of on-field performance.

Moreover, what's to say a team should do what was intended? After all, from time to time, FIRST accepts (sometimes gracefully) the fact that mechanisms are occasionally designed to do things that weren't intended by the GDC. The fact that FIRST didn't rule against 71 in 2002 or 469 in 2010 indicates they're sometimes willing to countenance this, and the fact that FIRST severely restricted 68 in 2003 indicates that sometimes they're not. I think it's fair to assume the same applies to qualifying strategy: sometimes FIRST will permit a strategy that violates their intent, and sometimes they won't. But there's no a priori right answer, and insofar as we're looking to FIRST's intent for guidance on what's acceptable, we have to wait for their ruling.

So that's why I think the more interesting question avoids trying to read the GDC's minds, and instead asks whether there's actually anything universally wrong with not giving 100% every match, from the point of view of a rational, honourable team.

[JesseK]

I should have said that in 2010 I was approached by our one of our alliance partners about our alliance intentionally losing. If all 3 agreed upon it, then we would have given 100% to our alliance strategy of seeding higher rather than 'going down in a blaze of glory' by getting annihilated by a far superior alliance. Such was the system in 2010, and I didn't realize until Atlanta that I'd made a mistake.

Other than that, I've only ever been approached about it once ... (Blake might remember it from a long time ago) to which I was almost kicked off the team for refusing, yet I stuck to my guns, we won the match, and things worked out in the end anyways.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

The answer is so obviously right in my view that it was hard for me to come up with a rational argument for it. Here it is: qualification matches are intended to rank robots according to their ability to play the game. Throwing a match undermines that intent. Your team is supposed to be seeded based on performance in the robot game, not on clever application of game theory.

Since ranking is going to be imperfect, this argument is likewise imperfect; the "best" robot isn't guaranteed to be ranked at the top. But I believe it's important not to try to manipulate rankings, and instead to play your best and let the rankings follow naturally from that.

See, I don't think I agree with this. And I'm going to turn to the 2011 game manual to back me up.

Originally Posted by Section 5. The Tournament

The purpose of the practice matches is to provide each TEAM a chance to run its ROBOT on the playing field prior to the start of the competition matches. The purpose of the qualification matches is to allow each TEAM to earn a seeding position that may qualify them for participation in the elimination matches. The purpose of the elimination matches is to determine the event Champions.

Note the usage of "TEAM" rather than robot. That's continued in the rest of Section 5. Why is game theory disallowed for a team to use? Game theory plays an awfully large role in strategy decisions. Should we prevent teams from strategizing with their alliance partners before each match as well, so we can simply see which robots execute the tasks the best?

More over, where is the line between acceptable and unacceptable?
Should a team be condemned if they decide to skip a match in order to fix their robot? Or should they put their semi-functional machine on the field and potentially end up hurting even more alliances later in the day when their robot still isn't 100% working? Should I give 10/10 of my alliance partners a robot working at 50% or give 5/10 of them a robot working at 100%? What if the latter case is 7/10? 9/10? And should I potentially deprive my team, and my potential elimination partners, of a chance at a 100% working machine because we kept fielding a partially functioning robot and didn't have time to fix our issues?

And interesting example happened in the elimination matches at Championship this year. Team 71 sat out Final match 2 on Curie. I don't know exactly why or what happened, but it seems like (with their alliance leading 1-0 in the series), they sat out match 2 in order to fix their robot for match 3. Presumably they, and likely both of their alliance partners, felt that 71 would do a better job once repaired than a back-up bot would do. Their alliance would eventually lose the finals, even with 71 back in match 3. 2826 and 103 (71's partners) would only lose by 6 points in match 2, which 71 sat out. Hindsight is 20/20, but did the blue alliance (or 71 specifically) do anything that you would perceive as "wrong" by not "trying their hardest" to win match 2? By not calling a back-up bot or fielding a partially functioning robot?