Throwing Matches at the Olympics

[JonathanZur1836]

Regardless of what the technicalities are in the rules or rankings, I don't think that there should be a situation, in FRC or the Olympics, where losing actually gives you a better chance of winning in the end. To me, that defeats the purpose of sport and competition (not because winning is essential, but simply because of the idea of losing on purpose), especially in leagues like FRC or the Olympics, where the winners should win fair and square.

Take the NBA playoffs for instance, the way it works is that the top 8 teams from each conference move onto the playoffs; the 1st place team plays the 8th place team in the first round, the 2nd plays the 7th, and so on. At least from the point of view of statistics, the better your record, the higher your chance of winning. It is a simple system in which winning is always advantageous, and "throwing a game" always works against you in the end.

I think that ranking systems in games like Breakaway are too complicated, so complicated in fact that finding loopholes in them are easy. I think that simple is the way to go in terms of rankings.