Should the Number One seed be Alloud to pick the Number Two seed?

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by SpaceBiz

Ok, more so in the game this year, but it seems the first seed alliances who select the second seed are winning every regional. Is it just me or does it seem like this is not really in the spirit of FIRST?

If the two best teams almost always win together, why let them do it every single time? It makes it really hard, or at least overwhelmingly unlikely, for the number 7 or 8 eliminations alliance to win, while one lucky team that gets picked by the number 1 alliance in the second round basically gets a free ticket to worlds?

A perfect example of this is 1114 and 2056 at the waterloo regional. Their elim alliance scored about double that of the seccond best alliance.

Think about that.

1114 and 2056 would have both possibly made the finals each in an alliance by themselves. And the rules allow them to be in the same alliance together.

I think the number one through four seeded teams should not be allowed to pick each other. Thoughts?

(This post in no way represents the views of team 2537 as a whole. It is only an opinion of one of its members)

No, this creates what is called a moral hazard essentially. It is when teams purposely do poorly and just well enough to seed exactly where they want to seed to pick who they want to pick.

Why do you personally see it as a problem if the top seeds want to pick each other?

[PVCpirate]

Originally Posted by SpaceBiz

Ok, more so in the game this year, but it seems the first seed alliances who select the second seed are winning every regional. Is it just me or does it seem like this is not really in the spirit of FIRST?

Statistics incoming.

[microbuns]

While it might be more fun for the spectators during elims - it just devalues qualifications too much. Often the gaps from 1-4 are bigger than 5-8 - the team picking first has less of a benefit from picking early, and still receive the same detractor or being at the end of the snake draft.

[BJT]

Originally Posted by SpaceBiz

I don't personally think the second best robot at the competition would tank it's performance just to get on an alliance with the number 1 seed. All teams this good I have encountered embrace gracious professionalism and cooperation in full, and I don't think a team this good would unanimously decide to ditch the spirit of FIRST to more likely get on the number one alliance. (Because again, the number one would also fully embrace the spirit of FIRST so no back door deals would be made)

The spirit of FIRST can mean a lot of things. One of them I think is good honest competition and being rewarded for being the best. Penalizing the top 4 or 8 teams for their success would cause a lot of messy unintended consequences no matter how many feel-good terms we use to describe it.

[BBray_T1296]

Yes.

Regionals/DCMPs should send the best robots they have to represent them at the world championship level.

While the serpentine draft goes against this principle, it does create situations in which the elimination matches are not always a complete blowout.

Teams like 1114 and 2056 didn't just get their 1st/2nd place seeds handed to them on a silver platter. They worked tirelessly throughout the 6 week build season and in the pits as well as on the field to earn their places. They are the 1%, not because they cheat, or because of a fluke, or an unfair advantage, but by honest, self-constructed success.

Tearing them down (or handicapping them) in an attempt to "level the playing field" completely unfair to them and un-GP.

FRC would be massively more fun if we could double the #5-8 alliance's elimination averages rather than half the #1-4's.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by SpaceBiz

Isn't picking from any of the 5 minus teams still a huge advantage? Plus extra strategic depth would be added to alliance selection.

I'm not sure I understand your point. Is it a problem if the top two robots win an event?

It's like saying in the NBA, your pointguard is wayyy too good. You're not allowed to have him anymore, we're gonna give him to a weaker team. Find another pointguard. That defeats the point of a competition...

We have the serpentine draft for a reason. If you assign the robot points in reverse order (say the #1 Seed = 24 points, #2 Seed = 23...etc), and theoretically each team picks the best robot they possibly can:

The #1 Alliance is capable of: 24 + 23 + 1 = 48 points
The #8 Alliance is capable of: 17 + 16 + 15 = 48 points

So they come out to be equal, which is what the serpentine draft does. Obviously that's not the case, as the number one and two robots are often much better than the others, but at places like CMP and IRI, this model plays a much more balancing effect. If we want Waterloo to truly be balanced, might as well tell those top performing teams like 1114 and 2056 to make worse robots - would be unfortunate to lose those feats of engineering though, wouldn't it?

[cmrnpizzo14]

Look at it this way:

There are 3 standout teams in a regional. Let's just use A, B, and C. Suppose A is dominating in their qualifying matches. B and C start off the competition the same way and it is a battle for first place. Oh no! B's robot breaks down, they have a bad match, now they are essentially a match behind A and C in the rankings. If A and C continue to perform, they have no chance at the number one seed they wanted.

Time for B to tank some matches. Show that they have potential but make sure that they seed outside of the top 4(or whatever it is) so that now whoever is the number one seed can pick them. Your method does do something for the excitement elims but it would lead to teams throwing away qualifying so that they can still win the regional.


If you want to look into it there was a actually a similar problem several years back with high level badminton. Teams were purposefully losing (quite obviously, a pro team can definitely serve it over the net) because it was actually to their advantage to lose.

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/sp...ches.html?_r=0

[SpaceBiz]

Silly me.

I forgot my main point (woke up at 5:20 for greater dc reigonal today)

There are about 55 regionals
There are now 600 spots at the championship
There were 400 last year, so 200 extra

Insted of giving them to random teams, give them to the 1 through 4 seeds. 55×4 minus the teams that are in 1 thru 4 that also win the competition is less than the 200 extra spots created by the new format.

They don't win the event, just a guaranteed spot at worlds, which they deserve.

[rich2202]

At Wisconsin, the #1 seed was declined by at least 3 teams. In the end, the #3 alliance won vs the #6 alliance in the finals.

[orangemoore]

Originally Posted by SpaceBiz

Silly me.

I forgot my main point (woke up at 5:20 for greater dc reigonal today)

There are about 55 regionals
There are now 600 spots at the championship
There were 400 last year, so 200 extra

Insted of giving them to random teams, give them to the 1 through 4 seeds. 55×4 minus the teams that are in 1 thru 4 that also win the competition is less than the 200 extra spots created by the new format.

They don't win the event, just a guaranteed spot at worlds, which they deserve.

199 Slots are for Pre-Qualified and District teams, so there are 401 spots left at the World Championship.

Currently 330 spots are filled with 6 teams qualifying from each regional

Assuming that the top 4 seeds get an additional automatic bid to the Championship that adds another 220 slots which brings the grand total to:

550/401 slots.

I think there might be a problem...

This does follow the worst possible case but I don't get how the top 4 seeds will qualify and how this will keep the competition competitive through eliminations.

[PVCpirate]

Here are some numbers, do with them what you will:

2015 Event Wins By Seed
1   42 wins   63%
2   11 wins   16%
3    3 wins    4%
4    2 wins    3%
5    4 wins    6%
6    5 wins    7%

67 total events, no 7 or 8 seed has won an event yet.

[AlecMataloni]

Originally Posted by SpaceBiz

Ok, more so in the game this year, but it seems the first seed alliances who select the second seed are winning every regional. Is it just me or does it seem like this is not really in the spirit of FIRST?

Yeah, because as we all know, creating the most competitive alliance we can in the First Robotics Competition isn't in the "spirit of FIRST", because last time I checked, the First Robotics Competition definitely isn't a Competition.

No, there's nothing wrong with this situation you've presented. The first seed has the right to invite anyone they want to join them. There's no logical reason why they should be forced to be less competitive.

"The Spirit of FIRST" is a slippery phrase that people on this forum like to throw around without really ever defining what it means. What exactly is the Spirit of FIRST defined as? If you can find any official definition of this, and point to the section where it addresses alliance selections, I'd love to see it.

[Jack_O]

I will admit, the #1 seed wins a lot this year (just check out Michigan). However, instead of viewing it as the two best teams pairing up and getting an automatic win, use it to your advantage. They earned those spots for a reason. That may be an insane robot, great drive team, awesome human player, or even just good strategic planning. Take notice of what they did, why they did it, and how it is impacting the event. Then try to figure out how to apply that same thing to your team. At least for me, I know I learned more at the events then during the build season. If more teams payed closer attention (not that they don't already) then who knows how much they can improve.

Forgive me if this doesn't make sense, I am running on about three hours of sleep for the third day in a row...

[SpaceBiz]

Ok, so don't do any wild card, and only give a ALMOST guarenteed spot to top THREE teams, giving you 495/401 spots.

With no wild card, and many teams qualifying in this category more than once, and the winner of the regional being the one or two seed on average once per regional, (one and two win every other time), you can get down to about 400.

[orangemoore]

Originally Posted by SpaceBiz

Ok, so don't do any wild card, and only give a ALMOST guarenteed spot to top THREE teams, giving you 495/401 spots.

With no wild card, and many teams qualifying in this category more than once, and the winner of the regional being the one or two seed on average once per regional, (one and two win every other time), you can get down to about 400.

What is Almost guaranteed?

So what will happen when more teams are in the districts next year or when more regionals are added. The whole idea of the wildcard system is to have a buffer of teams before the World Championship has hit the maximum number of teams.

You may want to think this idea through a little more.