"Fixing" matches

[DougHogg]

The point system which gives the winner their own score plus twice the loosers makes it desirable for your opponent to have a score close to yours but less so that you still win. If team A allows another team's stack to remain standing because team A is pretty sure of winning, that is part of what was intended by the game designers. However after talking to FIRST officials in Phoenix, I know that it was not intended that teams get together with their opponents ahead of time to agree not to touch each others stacks. They told me that the game designers were very surprised that this was occurring.

Unfortunately the current rules do reward that behaviour with high point scores. At the Arizona Regional, that behaviour caused bad feelings to be generated. One team told me that they were voting on whether to withdraw from the competition and go home. They didn't leave, but the fact that they even considered this, should be a wake-up call for all of us.

Our team spent a lot of time as the fourth seed trying to decide who not to pick because they had benefitted from these agreements. We also made it clear that we would not accept if chosen by such a team.

Team 68 showed great courage by publicly acknowledging in writing the error made by some of their team, and then doing something about it by writing a letter with an agreement for teams to sign and going around (with team members from 624 and 980) to talk to the other teams. As we told Team 68 at the regional, your team showed guts in what you did, and we would be proud to team with you any time.

Other teams who participated in match fixing started to realize that they had caused a bad effect on the competition, and I observed them trying to make up for the upset they caused. As far as I know, no more match fixing occurred on Sat.

Is it against the rules to talk to your opponent and make agreements? I haven't seen any such rule. However, the practice is harmful to the competition and to FIRST as a whole for many reasons, and therefore it is wrong.

1) Teams expect that they are coming to a competition and that their team will rise and fall on its merits and not be pushed down the ranks because others have rigged their matches to have vastly inflated scores.

2) Also look where such behavior would lead. If teams get huge scores by meeting and agreeing ahead of time with their opponents to leave stacks up, other teams would sooner or later be forced to do the same thing. At that point, the teams who started the process would be back where they started with no advantage. They could then agree to allow all the robots up onto the ramp to get an advantage. Once again all teams would be forced to do the same. Okay, they could agree to split the bins except for the last one and then fight over that one. Well at that point, you don't have a competition--it would be a theatrical performance with robot actors, and I for one would not bother to attend.

3) One of the things Dean said at the kickoff this year is that we do want to make our competitions more audience friendly so we can spread the benefits of FIRST to others. Well imagine an audience of millions of people watching a FIRST match and seeing all the robots avoiding each others stacks, with no robots guarding them. What would they think? Imagine if they then saw all the robots making space for the opposition on the top of the ramp. Would you want to watch a competition like that? It would be like the Giants agreeing with the Dodgers to throw soft pitches so the batters could all make more home runs and make it to the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately no one would come to watch such games, and the teams would eventually wind up in the hall of shame.

As to comparing this year's competition to the one in 2001, yes that was a cooperative match, but we left that behind in 2002. This year, we have a 2-on-2 competition. Here is the definition of "compete":

"To strive against another or others to attain a goal, such as an advantage or a victory."

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

As far is FIRST is concerned, I talked to Jason Morella personally on several occasions in Phoenix and he agreed with me that this behavior is bad for the competition. He also communicated the power that teams have to influence other teams. Among other things, he suggested that teams post on this forum about the practice. He said that FIRST does pay attention to what is said here.

Lastly I would like to praise Team 624 for their clear vision in seeing that this behavior is wrong (not against the rules as they stand but wrong because it is harmful to FIRST and therefore to all FIRST teams) and for doing something about it. You guys are heros and get my personal award for bravery, integrity and responsibility. Thank you for helping to save our regional and FIRST from becoming something fake.