Winning a Match vs. Winning Strategically

[Abhishek R]

Play to win match by match. This brings back memories of the Co-opertition Bridge...something that did not go over too well with us last year. In 2012 Lone Star, we went undefeated throughout all the qualifications and had the most autonomous but still ended up not being first seed thanks to us not getting the Co-op points.

Summary: Try to win every match.

[FrankJ]

Last question. Do you think this sort of thing ever happens in professional sports as a strategy? Are they bad for doing this or are they trying to do their best i.e. set up their seeds so they have a better shot at the ultimate win? Legal issues? Bookies?

Do you call pro wrestling a sport?

Comes up in boxing. And is frowned upon.

Late season pro football where a team might be resting key players. Still the team is trying to win as a whole.

Happened in baseball (Black Sox scandal)

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by Hoover

Last question. Do you think this sort of thing ever happens in professional sports as a strategy? Are they bad for doing this or are they trying to do their best i.e. set up their seeds so they have a better shot at the ultimate win? Legal issues? Bookies?

Thought I'd point out that this was an issue examined by the book Freakonomics with sumo wrestling. It was an interesting read, I'd recommend it.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Why does trying your hardest to win every match outrank trying your hardest to win the event?

I hate that question. It's a perfectly good question, but I hate it. I hate it because I can't answer it. I know that the right thing to do is to play your best to win the game in each match, but I can't manage to come up with an adequate explanation for why I know that. I hate having a firm opinion but being unable to justify it.

It leaves me in a situation where the best outcome is for the opposing sides to agree to disagree. I have no way to convince someone to change his or her mind. Rational discussion in favor of my position is not possible, and that makes me feel small.

I maintain hope that someone with more insight than I have will give a solid, well-based explanation for why it's best to play the game harder than you play the meta-game. In the meantime, I'll still listen to the people who believe that winning the tournament justifies strategies that go against winning each match.

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by efoote868

Thought I'd point out that this was an issue examined by the book Freakonomics with sumo wrestling. It was an interesting read, I'd recommend it.

I've watch the HBO special and it included the sumo wrestling. You gotta love how the math reveals what they do.

I professional sports I am talking about the otherwise undetectable throwing. Other than finding it via Freakonomics Not some of the dumb fighter *KO's* I've seen where you can't even call it acting.

Lets try to stay on the legal side just to avoid that issue. The player resting happens all the time so in the earlier post that is a good analogy that is presently done in <emphasis> professional </emphasis> sports.

Oooooo... have I stepped over the line by using the word professional? Lets do a word count on that word (or variants) in this forum

Listen, I'd be a nimrod if I didn't think this kind of behavior doesn't happen by people that make the big bucks to make it happen.

Legal? Done in a legal way. Right? Now were just doing politics.

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I hate that question. It's a perfectly good question, but I hate it. I hate it because I can't answer it. I know that the right thing to do is to play your best to win the game in each match, but I can't manage to come up with an adequate explanation for why I know that. I hate having a firm opinion but being unable to justify it.

Lil' Lavery don't beat yourself up because its a conundrum.

Extrapolating, I don't think my previous posts of someone else does it so that makes it ok isn't going to fly very far.

So let me say this. What I've seen in my short time of FRC is that everyone is being encouraged trying to do their best in every area. Emphasis on every area. Its like the Kingdom of Geekdom.

Take the strategist. If he/she can think at a high enough level to consider the individual matches as variables or 'playing pieces' if you will then they have mastered a higher form of strategy.

I have convinced myself that my political stand is that this form of strategy is then justified.

You may disagree with me politically. But if you do call me a liberal, not a communist There's a difference

[rick.oliver]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Why does trying your hardest to win every match outrank trying your hardest to win the event?

For me personally, at the end of the day I will sleep better if I try my hardest to win every match. It is part of the value system instilled in me. It allows me to reduce the complex equation to a simple choice. And I know that my grandmother would be proud of me.

[connor.worley]

The tournament is more than the sum of your matches. That's all I have to say.

[Rewat]

FIRST speaks of gracious professionalism in the sense of helping other teams when they need parts and help, but it also comes with good sportsmanship. I've always frowned on scoring points for opponents (when qualifying was based off of it, but now is not in Michigan) and losing just so that you don't mess up someone's plans of being the first pick or second etc. Top spots are earned by honest wins, it takes away from competitions when teams make dives.

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

It leaves me in a situation where the best outcome is for the opposing sides to agree to disagree. I have no way to convince someone to change his or her mind. Rational discussion in favor of my position is not possible, and that makes me feel small.

First, I'm sorry to have seized on this one section of your excellent post. I know you were taking about something different... But well the way your presented your ideas brought something to the surface that has been in the back of my head for a while.

I find it interesting that this is how all legitimate arguments seem to end on CD. Both sides come up with compelling arguments that nevertheless fail to convince the other side. The consensus always seems to be that everyone should believe what they're going to believe... Which is really no consensus at all.

Can't the FRC community ever decide on something important? Yes, thus is the internet, home of poor grammar and inflammatory arguments, but it always frustrated me how we can have these awesome discussions and never seem to get anywhere.

[Randomness]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

First, I'm sorry to have seized on this one section of your excellent post. I know you were taking about something different... But well the way your presented your ideas brought something to the surface that has been in the back of my head for a while.

I find it interesting that this is how all legitimate arguments seem to end on CD. Both sides come up with compelling arguments that nevertheless fail to convince the other side. The consensus always seems to be that everyone should believe what they're going to believe... Which is really no consensus at all.

Can't the FRC community ever decide on something important? Yes, thus is the internet, home of poor grammar and inflammatory arguments, but it always frustrated me how we can have these awesome discussions and never seem to get anywhere.

Well you could say the exact same thing about politics, which I would say is a bit more important than FRC...

But back to the original question, I think that you can make a solid argument about why teams shouldn't throw matches: just go back to the point of FIRST. FIRST is about inspiring students and showing how awesome robotics is, and throwing matches accomplishes the opposite. So I don't think that teams should throw matches.

[Mastonevich]

3 vs 3 which results in an alliance selection process will always induce this conversation. The beauty of this is all of the life lessons learned with either of the options. The kids will have many of these same hard choices through out their lives.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

First, I'm sorry to have seized on this one section of your excellent post. I know you were taking about something different... But well the way your presented your ideas brought something to the surface that has been in the back of my head for a while.

I find it interesting that this is how all legitimate arguments seem to end on CD. Both sides come up with compelling arguments that nevertheless fail to convince the other side. The consensus always seems to be that everyone should believe what they're going to believe... Which is really no consensus at all.

Can't the FRC community ever decide on something important? Yes, thus is the internet, home of poor grammar and inflammatory arguments, but it always frustrated me how we can have these awesome discussions and never seem to get anywhere.

Thank you for posting this! Every time I read a serious discussion on this site, I always get a... weird feeling. Yes, I know this is the Internet, but it always feels to be like discussions here are far less... I don't know, productive than they should be, or something.
Some people bring up good points and have them ignored, while others make useless troll posts and get 10 replies. The same topics get brought up over, and over, and over again, with no one ever changing their mind, no new perspectives ever being brought forward, and the whole thing often ending badly. People's reputations go up and down based on whether they have the "right" or the "wrong" opinion or on "witty" one-liners, not based on the quality of their posts. And most topics end up in arguments over semantics or attacking/defending particular teams or people, rather than actually important issues. I don't know if it's the format, or the reputation system, or the moderation, or just how attached all of us are to FIRST and what we're talking about, but there's just something... weird going on here. Or maybe it's just me?

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Why does trying your hardest to win every match outrank trying your hardest to win the event?

Because trying your hardest to win every match requires no explanation to mom or sponsor or student.

Because the object of each match is to win.

Because it doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Because gaming the ranking/alliance selection system puts a negative impact on *someone* (say, the teams that won't rank as high because you decided to throw a match, whether they were in that match or not) that playing to win every time doesn't. (Yes, I know, this means that other other teams won't rank as high... but as long as everyone's playing to win every match, that's okay.)

[DampRobot]

Because I was the one in the situation, I think I should take a moment to explain the rational behind my decision.

The probably most important factor in my choice was that it would be hard to explain throwing the match. I still believe throwing the match might have been the right strategic choice, but making that decision would mean mentors getting on my tail and my teammates questioning me. Both would be bad for the team, and be painful for me to go through personally. Because other people wouldn't feel "right" about it, I would get a lot of flak about it, deserved or not.

Secondly, it would hurt us, and cause us to lose a match (duh). I knew that other teams considered us a threat, but I didn't know how much of a threat they considered us. I wasn't willing to drop us from, say, first pick on the fifth alliance to second pick on the seventh alliance because we needed to lose to gain a "strategic" advantage in elims. The risk wasn't really worth it. And also, it felt so good to be finally winning with a good robot that at that point that I wasn't willing to lose a match. Winning is fun, and losing would feel bad. And let me tell you, beating the legendary Pink, a NASA team, felt awesome.

Lastly, I knew that friends on other teams had a good opinion of our team up until that point, and I wanted to keep it. Michael Corsetto, your opinion means a lot to me, and I wouldn't want to slight you after all the support you've given to me and my team. Fairly or unfairly, if word got out that we threw the match, we would be looked down upon by the community, which might cause us not to be picked at all. Another case of "it wasn't worth the risk."

I usually try to make big decisions by considering if I would regret my choice later or not. In some ways, I've failed my own test. I still wonder if letting Pink seed second would have somehow opened up a slot for us in finals through the funky strategies of alliance selection, and Champs. On the other hand, I'm sure I would wonder what would have happened if I hadn't thrown the match had I made that choice.

In short, the best of all worlds is not to find yourself in this situation. Playing to win is the "easy" choice, and it might even be the right one. I'm not ready to condemn throwing matches as wrong in all situations though, even when it hurts alliance partners. Maybe in the situation I was in, it wasn't right to throw the match, but I'm not willing to say that the time will never come.