(Seemingly) Irrational alliance selection decisions?

[D.Allred]

Originally Posted by BMSOTM

My questions for everyone:

• Why do teams behave (seemingly, to an outsider) irrationally during alliance selection?
• Has anyone noticed any patterns or common fallacies*?
• How frequently do teams make the "right pick" or something close to it? Is there a way to quantify/measure this?

*Aside from a lack of scouting data. I know from first-hand experience that it can cause problems for an alliance captain.

Why do teams behave irrationally?
Like others have stated, there might be a rational reason that doesn't align with your pick preferences. Scouting data alone or OPR results won't necessarily build a good alliance. Alliance "chemistry" and relationships are important as well.

Has anyone noticed any patterns or common fallacies (other than scouting)?
I have no data to support this, but I assume the average FRC team does not have an elimination alliance plan going into the regional. It's difficult to scout if you don't know what you want. Even if you do have an elimination strategy, it is not easy to form a balanced alliance to fit your desired strategy or adjust to evolving game play.

This gets more complicated when you suspect a team would be better off as a role player, but continue to pursue their original game plan. Objective scouting data doesn't help you make a decision if they would be a good fit. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

How frequently do teams make the "right pick" or something close to it? Is there a way to quantify/measure this?
I don't know of a statistical way to measure it, nor do I believe it would have meaning. To improve our scouting, we usually compare our pick list to actual alliances to see if we missed something in our scouting results. There have been several surprise "right picks." We usually rely on a few objective data points plus subjective comments to make a pick list. Sometimes the more subjective elements were key but not understood at the time.

David