Throwing Matches at the Olympics

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Alex Cormier

But the big difference is that in the sport world. You are expected to win and the point of the games are to win.

In FRC that year, it didn't matter about the win, it mattered about the points more then W-L-T.

In the Olympics its more about G-S-B, not W-L-T. While not the same as FRC points, the end effect is pretty similar.

[Tristan Lall]

Writing in the Toronto Star, Cathal Kelly makes an interesting argument: that the moral imperatives present in amateur sport (like the Olympics) are different from those in professional sport.

Originally Posted by Cathal Kelly

Four teams, including the defending world champions, were tossed from the badminton competition for the sin of playing the long game instead of the short one.

Originally Posted by Cathal Kelly

Professional athletes owe you their best every night. That’s what they’re getting paid to do. Amateurs owe nothing to the crowd. This isn’t a circus. They’re not getting a cut of the gate.

Amateurs are here to represent their country and win medals. The national federations that pay their subsistence wage are their bosses. They don’t care how good you look. They don’t care how hard you tried. They care how much you win. Public sports funding isn’t charity. It’s an extension of a nation’s foreign policy objectives.

It's basically realpolitik in sports.

Does Kelly's thesis hold true for FRC, or are the backers of FRC teams genuinely interested in the short game, even at the expense of the long one?

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

are the backers of FRC teams genuinely interested in the short game, even at the expense of the long one?

If sponsors are only interested in blue banners and trophies, then they don't get it.

As a point of reference: At no point in 1114's outstanding Chairman's winning video do they show blue banners or competition-based trophies. They chose to highlight their Woodie Flowers winners, their Dean's List winners, their scholarship recipients, the relationships wrought and opportunities afforded through being a Simbot, big or little.

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by Taylor

If sponsors are only interested in blue banners and trophies, then they don't get it.

That's true, but there seems to be somewhat of a correlation between teams who rock the blue banners/trophies and sponsors.

However, there is the question of which came first...

- Sunny G.

[IKE]

IMO, this is a failure of the rules commitee. Any time you have to add a rule: "Don't do this because it is not in the spirit of the game.", you have failed at establishing a set of rules that prioritizes your goals. It is extremely difficult to establish a set of rules that do have these sort of statements in them. The Olympics is chalked full of them*. Many people fail at attempting difficult things though, but to put the blame on someone else for you failure is not gracious or professional.

This particular set of rules is a difficult one though. If your goal was to win a medal, and you knew that loosing a particular match would increase the odds of you winning a medal, then it would be very difficult to give it everything you have. Just knowing, in the back of your mind that loosing that match increases the odds of you winning a medal, would likely cause you to come up short at that impossible save, or that painful dive... As all amazing athletes give 110% when doing their best (math may not their be strong suite), is giving 105% or 100% or 99% any different than say 65%?

So, if giving 80% will get you kicked out of the tournament, what about 99%? Who is to judge whether or not you are playing up to your potential?

In distance cycling or running, would you ban the fastest person for holding back and drafting to make a final kick at the end for the win? That is considered strategy in those sports. Often the winning runner will let someone else lead 9km of a 10K, just to pass them in the last 1km. Thanks buddy for the draft!

Should swimmers give 110% during their qualifying heats only to exhaust themselves for other medal races? Again, we applaud the "smart play" of a swimmer conserving energy during a qualifier in order to improve their odds at a win in the medal race. Did they cheat the audience out of winning that heat by another 2 meters or 0.75 seconds?

My wreslting coach often would concede a #4 seed for us to get a #6 seed at tournaments (at wrestling tournaments, the coaches often seed the wrestlers before the event similar to NCAA basetball brackets). He did this because he believed in us that we were the #2 wrestler in that class. He would come away from the seed meetings and tell us: "I could have fought for you to get a #4 seed because you don't have as many wins as the #2 or #3 guys. If you were #4 you would have lost in the semis former state champion at the #1. Instead, I got you a #6, but you are going to make it to the finals. It isn't the easy road, but I know you can do it."

I personally feel the rules commitee owes these atheletes an apology for having conflicting constraints.

While I do agree that you should always try your "best", I have a great deal of empathy for those involved in this situation as your best is a combination of "your" and "best".

*Technically anti-doping rules would fall in this category. The reason I am OK with these are they are pretty clearly delineated what is allowed, and what isn't, and the Olympics tests for these substances. How do you test for a 99% effort?

**Personally, I probably would have tried my best in the match, and thus not made it on the podium, which would have made me upset if I truly believed I could have earned a silver or bronze had things gone differently. I would hold no ill will towards a team trying to advance, but would write a scathing commitee to the rules commitee in hopes of a future change. If change followed the next year, I would be proud of my actions. If no change occurred, I would question the values of the commitee.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by JonathanZur1836

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 this slightly oversimplifies a standard regular season/playoffs season for big sports like NBA, MLB, NHL etc.

From a pure numbers point of view, yeah it would make sense that the team who won the most games in the regular season statistically has the best chance of winning in the playoffs. However, the games are played by humans and not computers.

Take for example a star player missing half of the regular NBA season with an ankle issue. The team very well may lose significantly more games than they would have won with that player in the lineup. The team ends up near the #4 seed as they approach the playoffs and their star player rejoins the lineup.

Simultaneously, the team in the #5 seed has a tough schedule coming up to finish the regular season, and some of their starters are in need of some rest before the playoffs. Maybe they go out with their B+ lineup instead of their A lineup. They give their starters a few more minutes rest than they normally would.

The whole time they know the highest they can seed is #5, while the lowest they can seed is #7. Coincidentally, the #2 seed (which is who the #7 would play in the 1st round) has lost one of their key support players. Oh yeah, and the current #5 seed swept the season series against the #2.

For the #5 seed, it may make more sense to not really give 100% effort and win those last few regular season games. If they end up the #7, they realistically may have a better shot than they would if they were the #5 and had to face a reinvigorated #4 in the 1st round.

Just some food for thought.

-Brando

[billbo911]

I have a hard time saying that throwing a match to gain better seating is a negative. In fact, we see athlete's in MANY other sports not give their all in every match all the time.

If the ultimate goal in the Olympics is to win Gold, then you would expect to see this behavior.

Here are a couple examples. How often do we see swimmers and sprinters hold off on their best performance during prelims? They do just enough to get into the Semi's and conserve there energies for when they need them. It's common, almost expected.
So, where do you draw the line?

[JaneYoung]

There's a difference between swimming to conserve energy and still qualify for the finals and throwing a match.

Throwing a match is not the intent of the game. The teams were using that option in their qualifying strategy and they were warned to play the game as it was intended. They ignored the warnings and they were thrown out.

Swimming conservatively and advancing to the next race is not the same thing.

A lot hinges on that little word, intent.

Jane

[IKE]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

There's a difference between swimming to conserve energy and still qualify for the finals and throwing a match.

Throwing a match is not the intent of the game. The teams were using that option in their qualifying strategy and they were warned to play the game as it was intended. They ignored the warnings and they were thrown out.

Swimming conservatively and advancing to the next race is not the same thing.

A lot hinges on that little word, intent.

Jane

There is a lot of power in that little word "intent". How does one judge intent? In Freakanomics, they make an interesting discussion about this in the world of Sumo wrestling. Here is a neat little 2 minute video clip. Notice in the video, he states "almost without a doubt". Note that even with murder, "a reasonable doubt" would stop a conviction.

Make no mistake, there are often "incentives" associated with winning medals, even in the U.S.A.
In general these payouts are much less than many executive bonuses which is a very interesting thought (with regards to incentive systems possibly corrupting values), but are quite significant sums of money to an athlete likely to have a shelf life of 4-12 years.

*I am not promoting cheating, or the throwing of matches, I am just showing that without good constraints, it is not suprising that even the most pure get corrupted.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by IKE

There is a lot of power in that little word "intent". How does one judge intent? In Freakanomics, they make an interesting discussion about this in the world of Sumo wrestling. Here is a neat little 2 minute video clip. Notice in the video, he states "almost without a doubt". Note that even with murder, "a reasonable doubt" would stop a conviction.

Make no mistake, there are often "incentives" associated with winning medals, even in the U.S.A.
In general these payouts are much less than many executive bonuses which is a very interesting thought (with regards to incentive systems possibly corrupting values), but are quite significant sums of money to an athlete likely to have a shelf life of 4-12 years.

*I am not promoting cheating, or the throwing of matches, I am just showing that without good constraints, it is not suprising that even the most pure get corrupted.

Absolutely. Fighting corruption is nothing new to these games, sadly. What would be very sad would be for corruption to gain the upper hand and decimate them. It's already been said that these problems that have been brought to light will be addressed. It's also good for everyone involved to take a look at what they are creating, including those who implement incentive systems that possibly corrupt values.

Jane

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by 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.

In your example of a single year's NBA playoffs, you are right to say that there's an incentive to be the top seed or generally a higher seed. However, when a team wants to win NBA Championships, they cannot think only about the short term. A team that's good enough to be the 7th or 8th seed in the playoffs, but will likely be bounced in the first round, is much better off throwing their games, not making the playoffs, and getting a high draft pick.

It simply is not easy to make a set of rules that both encourages improvement from the worst teams (for the sake of parity) and doesn't incentivise being bad.

[BigJ]

The only ruleset I can think of that minimizes the incentive of intentional losses is that of elimination tournaments (be them single- or double-elimination or what have you), with seeding determined by past performances. I will explain in terms of double-elimination.

Sure, you may throw a game to drop to the losers bracket but there is no guarantee that it will be significantly easier. The person you "lost" to might drop down to loser's the next round, and even if they don't, you'll have to face them (or someone "better" by virtue of beating them) in the grand finals.

I watch a lot of fighting-game tournaments, and they all run double-elimination. They don't have a governing body or system for consistent seeding (except for the biggest tournament of the year, EVO) and matches are never "thrown" except for RARE circumstances, usually involving external incentives as mentioned before. And that's a whole other can of worms.

EDIT: I do actually have another example.

In Magic: the Gathering (a trading card game) Pro level events, competitors are cut to the Top 8 for eliminations after a number of Swiss rounds. However, 1 does not play 8 and so on, the top 8 are randomly matched up.

This would not be appropriate for FIRST or the Olympics. The M:tG events have on the order of hundreds of participants, so the top 8 can be seen as very very closely matched to each other as the top 3-5%, whereas even a division at championships only has 100 teams max so far, pitting the top 25% in eliminations.

HOWEVER, it is worth noting that intentional draws and forfeits are completely legal in the ruleset of Magic. This situation is mainly meant to reference the randomization of elimination seeds for tournaments with a small percentage of participants in eliminations and how the number of participants both in seeding and elimination should be taken into account when designing a rule system.

[Ekcrbe]

Originally Posted by Basel A

A team that's good enough to be the 7th or 8th seed in the playoffs, but will likely be bounced in the first round, is much better off throwing their games, not making the playoffs, and getting a high draft pick.

This is something that gets discussed every year across the Big 4 leagues, but usually with the lowest teams (and most often in the NFL, where there is no lottery and draft picks can have immediate impact). It's not usually a problem, because the worst teams probably wouldn't win their last games if they tried, or it gets passed off as resting their better players.

There is a saying about professional sports playoffs--especially the NHL--"Just get in." Exhibit A: 2011-12 Los Angeles Kings. They made the playoffs as the 8th seed in the West on the last day of the season, then won the Stanley Cup.

Two more notes to remember: Playoffs mean more games, and therefore more revenue and more paychecks for the players, so they wouldn't want to give that up. Also, being first out vs. last in the playoffs (and then losing 1st round) moves you up in the draft from 17-24th pick (depending on the tiebreaker used to determine order among similarly eliminated teams) to 16th (and a <1% chance at winning the lottery).

*Note: using NBA/NHL league size and playoff structure
**Also: Only the NBA lottery winner takes the 1st pick automatically. The NHL winner can only advance 3 positions (so the bottom 4 can possibly pick 1st). The NFL and MLB do not hold lotteries.

TL;DR version: DON'T SKIP THE PLAYOFFS. You're not better off to give up the last week.

Sorry, I had to clarify the draft process relating to finishing position in the Big 4 leagues.

[Akash Rastogi]

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympic...-question.html

Here's another relevant article, based on what happened in last night's basketball game against Nigeria.

Plenty of folks in FRC used to claim teams were demolishing others by purposely getting high scores. Thought it would be fun to hear commentary about this one as well.

Notable parts :

Krzyzewski nodded toward Nigeria coach Ayodele Bakare and decided to speak for him too. "Coach would think it humiliating if we didn't play hard."

"On the one side, it's terrible to get whupped like that," Nigeria's Koko Archibong said. "But on the other side, it was something impressive to be a part of – impressive to witness in person."



What if you were pretty much demolished by a team in any given match? Would you be upset or would you find it inspirational? Do you think the losing team's reaction would be based more on the conduct of the winning team after the match is over? How would you react if you had to face off against a Dream Team?

Great discussion so far, keep it coming.

.

[Ekcrbe]

I don't have any problem with a team scoring as much as possible while already leading, regardless of sport. Pertaining to basketball, I have two points:

1. You never know when a lead is safe
2. What else are you supposed to do, miss shots on purpose?

It's a competition. The goal is to do as well as you can.

I'm not sure about basketball, but for other Olympic sports at least, the first tiebreaker to determine group standings is point differential, so "running up the score" can actually help you.