fixing of matches in Seattle

[Bob92]

I went to Seattle as a spectator and I had viewed that team 233 from Florida had continually gotten high scores. At the end of every match stacks had been left up in both zones giving the winner a high score. But after talking to teams about why they thought this always happened I found that they talked to the opposing alliance before every match. The only problem I have is that since they did this all of the time they became #1 seed not by being the best robot out there but by fixing their matches by high scores.

I just wanted to know if this happened at any other regionals.

-Bobby

[Dan-o]

This happened at most regionals except the Philadelphia regional, the Chesapeake regional (with the exception of one team) and most of the early season regionals.

I think that this proves that the fixing of matches gives FIRST a bad image when a spectator asks a question about this.

[Stephen Kowski]

They learned that at their first regional....Florida.....I really FIRST issues a statement against it soon.

[Iain]

Originally posted by Bob92
I just wanted to know if this happened at any other regionals.

It was the reason we dropped 3 places in the rankings in the 3rd day of the Peachtre regional.

One of the other teams in our last match - which we knew was gonna be tough because we wee up against two veteran bots - wanted to make such a deal. We almost said yes, but changed our mind at the last moment because we all agreed it would make things boring and unfair to the other teams. So we didn't, but still finished all of our matches seeded 3rd. We figured we'd stay there, as we had a 30 or so point lead over the 4th place team.

Of course, we were one of the first teams to finish all of our matches, and immediately after that it seemed as if ALL of the veteran teams started fixing the matches. Scores in the high 200s to low 300s popped up like weeds and our rankdropped like a rock.

To be fair, most of the teams who ended up above us did have very good robots. However, that begs the question of why they weren't ranked higher than us before...

[Raul]

As I said before (and will keep saying until everyone gets it):

Collusion = controversy among teams
NO Collusion = NO controversy among teams

Which does the FIRST community of teams prefer??

Which is the path that a Chairman's award winner would profess to follow?

[Ed Sparks]

We were asked repeatedly to participate in this at the Peachtree regional but declined every time. We still managed to be the #1 seed.

Most, if not all teams at the Lone Star regional, signed a letter that we each posted in our pits that basically said we would all play a fair game without collusion. This was a very cool thing and I applaud the folks that came up with this idea. I was disappointed that the FIRST folks, during the drivers meeting, basically said they didn't care if you participated in collusion.

[Wayne C.]

I think it is safe to say that there were no cases of collusion this past weekend at the J&J NJ Regional. A number of the senior teams have been talking about it and agreed not to tolerate it.

Quite frankly, if you saw the matches you would have seen a battle for every stack and robots working hard for every bonus.

Thats the way the game should be played!

If you don't allow it to happen the offending teams can't do it. Lets hope the Nationals go the same way.

WC

[Rich Kressly]

Kudos to Team 34 for their stance. I would like to add that the J&J Mid-Atlantic Regional was totally free of "match fixing." It was an awesome experience in NJ, seeing 44 quality teams and quality robots play the game the way it was meant to be played. Philadelphia was the same, and Chesapeake was limited to a few instances.

[David Brinza]

Our team witnessed collusion in Phoenix, decided it was not an appropriate "strategy" and would take a stand against it. On Saturday morning, Team 68 had distributed a letter for the participants to sign stating that they would not participate in collusions. There were no such collusions on Saturday in Arizona. When it was time to select alliance partners, we considered only those teams that signed the Team 68 letter.

In the SoCal regional, a red flyer was distributed for teams to post indicating that they would not participate in making arrangements with opponents prior to a match. I didn't see signs of collusion in any of the matches. For those who thought collusion was needed to generate high scores: there was a great match between teams 986/898 and 259/992 where 282 QPs were scored - legitimately!

Responses from FIRST officials have been along the lines of "we're going to let the teams work this out" rather than to legislate ethical behavior. Over the past few weeks, there were hundreds of posts and several polls in CD on the subject of collusion. Based on the matches I saw in LA, I believe the teams have spoken and we should expect to see only purely competitive matches in Houston.

[walesjd]

Originally posted by Bob92
I went to Seattle as a spectator and I had viewed that team 233 from Florida had continually gotten high scores. At the end of every match stacks had been left up in both zones giving the winner a high score. But after talking to teams about why they thought this always happened I found that they talked to the opposing alliance before every match. The only problem I have is that since they did this all of the time they became #1 seed not by being the best robot out there but by fixing their matches by high scores.

I just wanted to know if this happened at any other regionals.

-Bobby

Hey you guys, I'm one of the drivers from team 233 and I would like to clarify a few things. First, In a few matches we did have an agreement with the other team, in all of those either the stacks went down or we had to defend our stacks, sometimes accidents sometimes the others didn't want to play. The rest of the time we had a simple thing, we simply stated to our opposing alliances that we had no reason to hit the other teams stack as long as we had our stacks(some teams even when winning were killing all stacks and often people would hit them right away both of which meant low scores even when not needed so we hoped to get the idea accross). I would also like to say that in the highest match of the regional(324 qp's) an opposing team tried quite hard to knock out our stack while also clearing the zone, and we eventually pushed them over the ramp and then got on top. In the 2nd highest match of the regional we fought hard defending a stack kept it alive getting a score of 314qp's. We also did very well defending stacks and so could plan within each of our alliances to make sure we left up the opposing stacks so as never to get a low score(in one case we played 2 on 1 defense for the entire match to keep our stack alive and did still getting 154qps). I know this is a long reply but I couldn't let that opening statement stand, thanks.

Josh

[Jack Jones]

The question we need to answer here is whether Collusion is within the rules -I.E., LEGAL. If so, then all this debate is moot. If not, then all who participate(d) should suffer the appropriate consequences.

IMNSHO, the rules call for alliances of TWO for the seeding matches and THREE for the elimination matches. It follows that teams that take it upon themselves to form alliances other than those specified are operating outside the rules.

Jack J.

[Lindy]

Originally posted by David Brinza
For those who thought collusion was needed to generate high scores: there was a great match between teams 986/898 and 259/992 where 282 QPs were scored - legitimately!

Not to be overly picky, Mr. Brinza, but I believe that was team 968 there, not 986.

And yes, I didn’t see anything that could be construed as “collusion” during the SoCal regional. We posted that red flier in our pit as well. I actually found it fairly amusing that it actually existed and a team was passing it around… but it was also an almost sad commentary on the state of things when that sort of thing would be warranted, I believe.

Let’s hope that Nationals would be smooth and fair ride, as well, for all teams that participate (which won’t include us, unfortunately).

[walesjd]

In response to post 11, FIRST has chosen to leave it up to the teams thus it cannot be called illegal.

[Jack Jones]

Originally posted by walesjd
In response to post 11, FIRST has chosen to leave it up to the teams thus it cannot be called illegal.

OIC - most unfortunate stance. Was neither gracious nor professional. Another lesson for my son to learn by example:
"Talk is cheap / Action speaks louder than words"

My views do not necessarily reflect those of Chief Delphi

"I will say no more forever" - Chief Joseph

[157#1Driver]

what upsets me the most and seeing the Vet teams doing it. This is 157 10th year and we are discusted with some of the other Vet teams. They have been in FIRST long enough to know what FIRST is about. I'm happy to say that 157 will NEVER participate in collusion, and i have already said to others if anyone asks me to participate, I will let them know what I think of it.