(Seemingly) Irrational alliance selection decisions?

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

The craziest situation I ever witnessed for alliance selection was at the 2009 FLR where 610 was a 13th seed and turned down an invitation from 1765 who had their best weekend in their history that weekend. 610 was taking a huge gamble that the other alliances were going to pick one another and they'd settle in as an 8th seed but for that to happen they would have to hope that 340 would pick their little sister team 424 which they didn't and thus 610's day was done.

I believe the story goes that they thought they were ranked slightly higher than they actually were?

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

I believe the story goes that they thought they were ranked slightly higher than they actually were?

They may have been 12th.

[SpaceBiz]

I think there is a significant difference that needs to be clarified between irrational picks and bad picks. Team's make bad picks all of the time, but There was always at least some rationale behind any pick. That selection had to arrive on a picklist for some reason, whether or not it was a good reason. If a pick seems irrational, there might be a good reason behind it. If you have outstanding scouting you can find value in teams they themselves might not even know they had, let alone the general public.

I think the most important thing to look at is if they yielded a result you expected them to yield and this option was better than the other available teams. Essentially was the pick a bad pick. If you select a high variance team with high scoring potential and it doesn't come through, but you were aware of that risk beforehand, the pick is not particularly bad despite possibly ending with a bad result. If you select one team for some reason while leaving another more valuable team on the table, and this selection ends up hurting your potential performance, you have most likely made a bad pick.

Defining whether or not you think your pick was bad or not is important. Once you do, you can then look at the reasoning you had to pick that team and then find what flaws you may have had in that reasoning to yield the wrong result. If you find that you made a mistake, you will be less likely to make that same mistake in the future.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by TheBoulderite

Another seemingly irrational alliance selection this year was when 1425 selected 1538 on Hopper. Don't get me wrong, 1538 is a good team, but they could have gone with a team like 971, 1323, 4334, or 4587. Anyone from 1425 want to chime in and tell me why you made the choice to go with the Cows? I'm not saying it's the wrong choice, I'm just curious.

As mentioned, 1425 was declined by 971. 1538 had shown flashes of brilliance, so to have a good chance at advancing 1425 need 1538 to become consistent at that level. Unfortunately for them, it didn't happen. This year the rest of the draft pretty much went to form in our division with no real surprises.

We were the beneficiaries in 2013, 2014 and 2015 of seemingly irrational picking at champs. We had gamed out the scenarios in 2013, and even anticipated the declinations. In the end, the other teams should have looked at where us and 1983 (#2 seed), and then a rookie in #3 and realized that the field was going to get scorched no matter what. In 2014, we had a heated debate about whether to pick 1114 or 971, and then no one picked 971. We were shocked. In both years we were very fortunate to have 872 and 1641 available for 2nd picks.

In 2015, it looked like we got 1671 due to oversight, but in fact the other alliances were making selections to match their overall alliance. Maybe they should have rethought their strategies, but what they did was rational.

In general our 2nd pick comes from between 10th and 16th on our pick list of 24, but we've gotten as high at 6th a couple of times and that's when we go "huh"?

We've seen some real problems at regionals, so I watch for inexperienced teams that might end up at alliance captains and help them with their draft lists if they need it. As SVR this year, I told 5700 that they were going to be an alliance captain--they had no clue. We found them another another more experienced team to develop their draft list. I don't want to see a team looking at the ranking board trying to figure out their next pick.

[youngace89]

One factor which has not yet been discussed but played a major role in our decision making at the 10000 Lakes regional this year is the role of seeding and the bracket.

We were pretty sure going into the regional that we didn't have much of a chance of winning against the great palindrome of 2052, 525, and 2502, so, as usual, our goal was to make it to the finals and get a wildcard, like we had done the 2 previous years,

We ended up ranking 5th. Another captain was selected ahead of us, so we moved up to the 4th spot, and then 2846, who moved up to third, selected us. Had our goal been to win the regional, we probably would have declined them and picked 2502 or 2823, who were better high goal shooters. However, we knew that if we declined them, we would end up as the captains of the 4th alliance, and we would have to play the dominant 1st alliance with 2052 and 525 before we reached the finals.

So we accepted and ended up making it to the finals and getting a wildcard.
2502 and 2823 paired up to form an alliance which had a much better chance of beating 2052 and 525 than ours did, but they had to play them in the semifinals because of their seed in the bracket, so I would still rather have been in our position.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

...snip...

In general our 2nd pick comes from between 10th and 16th on our pick list of 24, but we've gotten as high at 6th a couple of times and that's when we go "huh"?
...snip...

Do you typically have a second list for 2nd pick? IE are you looking for different attributes that might elevate tem XYZ from say 20th as a first round to say 10-16th as a second round?

Als, are you talking Worlds or regionals.

Ususally the highest off my pick list that does not get picked up is around #20 or so.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by IKE

Do you typically have a second list for 2nd pick? IE are you looking for different attributes that might elevate tem XYZ from say 20th as a first round to say 10-16th as a second round?

Als, are you talking Worlds or regionals.

Ususally the highest off my pick list that does not get picked up is around #20 or so.

Yes, we have two different sets of criteria, and they are actually more distinct at Regionals than at Champs. Typically we assume that our 2nd pick will add little on offense in teleop to the other two bots, so we focus on auto, the end game and defense. In 2014, we added inbounding and dropped the end game. 2015 was entirely about the auto routine (except we totally lucked out with 1671).

So for comparison purposes, we often have a half dozen robots who might be offensive robots that don't make our first pick cut list and we have another set of 2nd pick bots that we prefer instead. We don't want to confuse our team captain by sending her (well, him this coming year) out with 2 lists if possible.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Yes, we have two different sets of criteria, and they are actually more distinct at Regionals than at Champs. Typically we assume that our 2nd pick will add little on offense in teleop to the other two bots, so we focus on auto, the end game and defense. In 2014, we added inbounding and dropped the end game. 2015 was entirely about the auto routine (except we totally lucked out with 1671).

So for comparison purposes, we often have a half dozen robots who might be offensive robots that don't make our first pick cut list and we have another set of 2nd pick bots that we prefer instead. We don't want to confuse our team captain by sending her (well, him this coming year) out with 2 lists if possible.

In games like Aim High, Overdrive, and Logomotion, I'd imagine that one would have even more diverse 2nd pick criteria, as those games required/strongly encouraged a 2+1 strategy (backbots, lap runners, and non-minibots respectively).

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

In games like Aim High, Overdrive, and Logomotion, I'd imagine that one would have even more diverse 2nd pick criteria, as those games required/strongly encouraged a 2+1 strategy (backbots, lap runners, and non-minibots respectively).

I'd argue that games like this year have more diverse pick criteria for the third robot, because you may want that robot to fill different roles.

Maybe you'd pick a third scoring robot so long as that robot is capable of scoring x balls, but after that point, you'd prefer a defensive robot.

Maybe you need to shut down a certain threat at the regional you know you're going to face at some point (a full court shooter or low release OW shooter).

Whereas in '06, '08, and '11, the criteria for third robots was very specific- auto, defense, and endgame, and rarely did teams select a third scoring robot for the third robot on a higher alliance.

[jajabinx124]

Originally Posted by youngace89

One factor which has not yet been discussed but played a major role in our decision making at the 10000 Lakes regional this year is the role of seeding and the bracket.

We were pretty sure going into the regional that we didn't have much of a chance of winning against the great palindrome of 2052, 525, and 2502, so, as usual, our goal was to make it to the finals and get a wildcard, like we had done the 2 previous years,

We ended up ranking 5th. Another captain was selected ahead of us, so we moved up to the 4th spot, and then 2846, who moved up to third, selected us. Had our goal been to win the regional, we probably would have declined them and picked 2502 or 2823, who were better high goal shooters. However, we knew that if we declined them, we would end up as the captains of the 4th alliance, and we would have to play the dominant 1st alliance with 2052 and 525 before we reached the finals.

So we accepted and ended up making it to the finals and getting a wildcard.
2502 and 2823 paired up to form an alliance which had a much better chance of beating 2052 and 525 than ours did, but they had to play them in the semifinals because of their seed in the bracket, so I would still rather have been in our position.

Yep seeding and the bracket can affect decisions as well. For a second I wondered why you guys accepted during alliance selections knowing 2502 and 2823 coulda been picked by you guys when I was on the field, but it was evident you guys didn't want to face us in the semis because of the seeding bracket.

Thank god 2015 didn't have a seeding bracket.. otherwise 2052, 4536, and 4198 would have had to play 525, 2502, and 3184 in the semi-finals..

[Captain_Kirch]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

All solid teams you listed, for sure.

However, 610 had the highest scoring average in our division by 7 points per our scouting data(greater than us, and all the teams in our division).

They were a great group to play with, and we'd definitely pick them again given the information available to us at the time.

in SF 2, all 3 teams missed in auto and performed on the lower end of our averages. This combined with a great performance from 2122, 3538 and 2052 cost us the bracket.

Needless to say scouting at champs was a little crazy for us with our <24 hour notice that we were needed there as a backup. We had two people in the stands for every match. Take everything a I say with a sleep deprivation fueled triple scouted grain of salt.

Our data showed that 610 just ahead of you at 3rd offense wise. Our Tator overlords 2122, and 225 we're 1 and 2. Let's ignore that though and look at numbers you didn't mention. Output and accuracy

Our data also showed that 225 scored an average of 4.2 high goals per match vs 610's 3.6. Both those teams hit about 75% The best high goaler on the field by my findings was 5895 though. 4,4 goals per match at 90% accuracy? yes please!

Sorry for the bad luck in auto. You guys had insane accuracy! On the other hand 610 missed 50% of their auto shots in quals according to our data, 2474 missed every single auto shot in quals, as did 319. The most accurate auto shooters in the field were 5895, you guys,525,225,3824, and somehow us, 1625(what did they put in our batteries man? Champs went way too well!)

The last thing to report from my findings, on the remark that you guys scored on the low end of your average. From my data, the sum of your quals averages was 135, low would be about 100, high would be about 210. Obviously your alliance had great synergy, and you did great in Quarters! 3538 played monster defense on 610, and it held your score down. Other teams had robots with faster lineups and better shooting position that may have eliminated this issue.

Listen, I'm not trying to rip apart your decisions or say anything bad about teams here. I'm trying to demonstrate how different analysis of this data could have shed light on these issues before they cost you the bracket. We all have 20/20 hindsight now, and It's time to look back as objectively as possible to see how we can all improve.

-All the best

P.S. Again, I completely understand how harsh this may come off, it's not my aim. I'm sorry.

[Dominick Ferone]

Originally Posted by jijiglobe

In my experience the bulk of "irrational" alliance selection decisions occur when teams don't really talk to their potential picks before alliance selections. I think one of the clearest examples I've seen of this was this year's New York City regional.

First of all, I believe that my team (694) was the strongest robot at the New York City regional, but we only managed to seed 8th given the fact that we spend almost two entire matches not moving. It's not irrational to not want to pick a team that had these kinds of issues, however, I was surprised by how few teams asked us what actually happened.

The second strongest robot at the regional almost definitely team 3419, who seeded third. Going into alliance selections, I personally think that the most rational picks for the first seed (team 375) would be first team 3419, knowing they would most likely reject, then to pick us, who would almost be forced to accept given our low seed.

The reason I think that this would be optimal is that that I predicted that team 375 would be either eliminated by us, or by team 3419 (I admit that some of this prediction was due to my own conceit).

The key is that all of this is only optimal given the fact that our dead matches were not for repeatable reasons, and even then, it's still very much arguable that this wouldn't be optimal, as we could have more issues in eliminations.

As it turns out, our two consecutive matches of non-action were due to

1. Forgetting to revert to competition code after pit testing
2. leaving our breaker switch loose

Both issues were fixed completely, and I think if team 375 had known this, they might have picked us. Instead, however, we were picked by the fourth alliance and went on to win the regional without a single loss in eliminations.

Disclaimer: I don't know that 375 didn't have this information, only that they didn't ask me for it, or ask anyone in the pit while I was there. In fact, we may have talked to members of their team about it, but it is sometimes difficult to find the right person to talk to when negotiating about alliance selections.

Basically, I think that a lot of teams fail to make "rational" decisions are acting perfectly rational based off of the information they had at the time.

I would like to build upon this with the NYC Regional.
By the end of the first day we won all but 2 matches, the first being us and another robot having technical problem.(which we found out was caused by a bad controller) The second match was something silly, besides the point. We went back to the hotel and examined out scouting data, and we looked over all the bots. The ones that were very similar we put in a maybe pile, while our biggest concerns were people who complimented us. We did lowbar and A defenses in under a second so we needed someone to take care of B and D.

Our top picks included 3419, 694 and 5016. We went up to 3419 with the intentions of creating one of the strongest alliances in our opinions, and they informed us they were watching us. Something that hurt our chances, was up until that point we were still trying to do vision tracking and not succeeding( 694 and 1796 were in the same boat). So we wanted to prove we could shoot high and relied on our vision, instead of mounting our flashlight like 694 had. So the scouting report shows we weren't very successful with high goals.

Once we saw 694 we had to pick them, and we were initially planning on grabbing a defense bot since we assumed 5016 would get grabbed. When we they were avaliable we changed our plan to full offensive attack. I know during alliance selections 694 was hesitant about this, but in the end it helped prevail.

That and that our scouting report had a feature that told us the most optimal defense to put against the opposing alliance based a grading of success.

[Bluman56]

Originally Posted by Dominick Ferone

I would like to build upon this with the NYC Regional.
By the end of the first day we won all but 2 matches, the first being us and another robot having technical problem.(which we found out was caused by a bad controller) The second match was something silly, besides the point. We went back to the hotel and examined out scouting data, and we looked over all the bots. The ones that were very similar we put in a maybe pile, while our biggest concerns were people who complimented us. We did lowbar and A defenses in under a second so we needed someone to take care of B and D.

Our top picks included 3419, 694 and 5016. We went up to 3419 with the intentions of creating one of the strongest alliances in our opinions, and they informed us they were watching us. Something that hurt our chances, was up until that point we were still trying to do vision tracking and not succeeding( 694 and 1796 were in the same boat). So we wanted to prove we could shoot high and relied on our vision, instead of mounting our flashlight like 694 had. So the scouting report shows we weren't very successful with high goals.

Once we saw 694 we had to pick them, and we were initially planning on grabbing a defense bot since we assumed 5016 would get grabbed. When we they were avaliable we changed our plan to full offensive attack. I know during alliance selections 694 was hesitant about this, but in the end it helped prevail.

That and that our scouting report had a feature that told us the most optimal defense to put against the opposing alliance based a grading of success.

If you come again next year, you'll likely see the same kind of irrational picking. Apart from a few (emphasis on few) teams, NYC historically has one of the worst scouting collectives of any regional. It's really fun to observe year after year. I don't know if it's just me but there seems to be a huge disconnect between many (of course not all) NYC teams and the rest of FIRST. I sometimes wonder about how many of our teams even know of the concept of districts?

I don't mean to sidetrack the thread, I just enjoy a little quip on the NYC regional every once in a while.

[fargus111111111]

Originally Posted by Zac

This is also important to notice while scouting. I saw several instances this past season where a robot would cross several defenses, and get the check marks on the scouting sheets, but in doing so that robot cut off an alliance member, then crashed into the other alliance member causing them to miss a shot. Performing well while causing your alliance partners to perform poorly isn't an easy thing to quantify on a scouting sheet, and often dent make its way into the notes section.

~Zac

This is a very difficult thing to quantify and even notice, but it is something that 343 started to take note of on our scouting sheet this year. We made a row on our scouting sheet that rated the "quality of driving" from "professional" to "very drunk and lost" as much as this is subject to objectivity, making it a row on the sheet drew some attention to it and if a robot was marked "very drunk and lost" they were lowered in our rankings, if they were marked above about halfway on the scale (which was a 1-10 iirc) we didn't pay much attention to that row. I think that even though the an actual number may not really be that helpful, just having a place to give the driving quality a grade makes scouters notice it more. Kind of on the same note I plan to suggest a table to replace this row for the 2017 season that has speed on the x axis and accuracy on the y so we can get a better, more complete, though still objective, answer to what we wanted to know, which was, "how good are this team's drivers?"

As far as seemingly irrational decisions, most of them are due to poor scouting, certainly sometimes a team ranks high on luck and thus are picked or, I have been in this situation, where a team is picked because they have an old team number, so they must be good, right, but I have seen a few (very few) that were the result of very good scouting and those alliances, though they seem to be a very rag-tag bunch manage to do very well because they work well together and complement each other.

[Dominick Ferone]

Originally Posted by Bluman56

If you come again next year, you'll likely see the same kind of irrational picking. Apart from a few (emphasis on few) teams, NYC historically has one of the worst scouting collectives of any regional. It's really fun to observe year after year. I don't know if it's just me but there seems to be a huge disconnect between many (of course not all) NYC teams and the rest of FIRST. I sometimes wonder about how many of our teams even know of the concept of districts?

I don't mean to sidetrack the thread, I just enjoy a little quip on the NYC regional every once in a while.

Oh I know, I've been to the NYC regional for 12,13,and now 16
2013, we were sure we wouldn't get picked and somehow we went to the semis, losing the first match due to field error and the second by a point with a weird alliance to say the least.