PNW Exhibition Match Concerns

[michael.nord]

After qualification matches concluded for the day at PNW District Championships, it was decided that there would be an exhibition match between the current top 6 seeded teams at the event. I thought it would be very cool of course to see this head-to-head match up between the best teams because it usually doesn't happen in randomly generated qualification matches. As much as I wanted to see this match, I thought it would be unfair of course to the other 57 teams competing at the event. The other teams did not receive this luxury of practicing an additional match. The match played was obviously not counted to the additional scores of the current top 6 teams. I also thought the teams received an additional benefit of being able to practice together and see which 'dummy' alliances worked well, and which didn't which could carry over into alliance selection tomorrow. I addressed my concern to Kevin Ross, the FRC PNW District Chairman, prior to the match and was told that everyone at the event had played close to over 48 matches and that one additional match wouldn't effect anything. I agreed the practice wouldn't effect other teams severely other than they got to practice together directly. That's to say I have never played with #### team in qualifications but got to practice with them during this exhibition match and we worked well together thus forming a bond that could be passed through to alliance selections. This exhibition match did not occur last year at the PNW District Championships and wondered why it occurred this year.

I just wanted to voice my concern as I thought I was cheated along with the other teams that did not get to practice with a potential alliance pick.

Here is a link to the exhibition match that was played.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI3siLZ6br0