FRC Blogged - What Do You Think? The ‘Invite to Decline’ Strategy

[Chris is me]

As much as it bugs me, I really don't mind the presence of the serpentine anywhere but IRI. It gives the low seeds a fighting chance at regionals, and honestly at lower levels of play the captain and first pick usually are the teams with the biggest impact on the final score anyway. Yes, teams might decline because of it, but why have we decided that's a bad thing?

Pick your own backup would be kinda cool, but especially at smaller events teams have trouble making a list of 24 pickable robots as it is. Upping that to 32 is asking a lot of teams and scouts, plus it adds more "weak" robots to the Championship roster, which I don't think anyone wants.

[Kyler Hagler]

Yeah, the declining at TRR was a bit shocking to the audience. We as a team kinda expected to be declined because we aren't that well known. But hey, it ended up in our favor anyways.

[Mr. Lim]

A lot of people still aren't familiar with the most important aspect of the "Scorched Earth" strategy:

The fact that you save your top pick till the end, AFTER you've scorched everyone else...

To maximize the strategy, you need to "scorch" everyone else's alliance, but still build the best one you possibly can. You need to communicate with your top pick, and let them know you intend on breaking up everyone else, and hopefully you convince them that after having done so, you can now form an alliance capable of winning the event.

To illustrate, lets say you are a "weak" #1 ranked team.

Teams ranked #2-#9 are all very strong and ranked in order of strength. You also know all these teams would rather form their own alliances, than accept your invitation.

You need to pick #3-#9 and have them all decline, THEN pick #2 (your top pick) last.

That gets you the best team at the event on your alliance, and 3-9 are all unable to pair up.

In a lot of cases, this break-up is enough to make a #1 and #2 alliance the best possible at the event. An alliance of #1 and #2 might be better than the alternative #2 and #11 - and if so, it would probably be better than all the other possible alliances from #3-#9.

"Scorched Earth" is NOT just about screwing everyone else, it's more about giving yourself the best chance at winning by selectively picking, and taking full advantage of the #1 ranking you've earned.

What amazes me is that this doesn't happen more often - that there is a negative stigma attached to it - and that a lot of people are still VERY resistant to it - likely because they haven't had the ENTIRE process explained to them!

It's takes some communication, co-operation, a bit of trust between teams, and the ability to see a few steps beyond what's immediately in front of you.

I wouldn't take away the opportunity for this strategy to happen, because I personally think it's a pretty great and ingenious way to build some pretty important critical thinking, reasoning and relationship building skills.

Despite the poor optics of a decline, and the requisite booing that inevitably happens, I think the opportunity for co-opertition and learning that goes on behind the scenes is far more valuable.

[Nick Lawrence]

I wouldn't take away the opportunity for this strategy to happen, because I personally think it's a pretty great and ingenious way to build some pretty important critical thinking, reasoning and relationship building skills.

See attached.

-Nick

[Mr. Mike]

This strategy is a great exercise in critical thinking but what examples can we come up with in real life that matches this situation?

[D.Allred]

Originally Posted by Mr. Mike

This strategy is a great exercise in critical thinking but what examples can we come up with in real life that matches this situation?

Scorched earth strategy of a robot tournament doesn’t directly apply to my ‘real world’ experience. But I use this type of critical thinking everyday.

I have participated in technical qualification bids where my company competes against 6 to 8 other companies to win a long term agreement. You must understand your strengths and your competitors as they stack up the client’s requirements. Do you bid? Do you partner? Do you submit on your own strengths? 3, 2, 1, go!

FIRST has a recent example of this type bid where they requested proposals for the 2015 to 2019 FRC control system.

Competition is very real. Ethics is critical. Mentor wisely.

[Akash Rastogi]

Though not close to being the same type of situation, similar thought processes can be applied to game theory. Off the top of my head, similar styles of thinking are involved in the "Prisoner's dilemma"

I guess that's sort of "real world"

I just find it funny how many people think that this happens on purpose. Half the time "scorched Earth" happens is when an unexpected team ranks high and doesn't really know what to do so they pick down the rankings.

[rlowe61]

Originally Posted by KylerHagler

Yeah, the declining at TRR was a bit shocking to the audience. We as a team kinda expected to be declined because we aren't that well known. But hey, it ended up in our favor anyways.

This was the best example of preventing a powerhouse alliance I've seen. With 118 then 1477 declining that made for some pretty even alliances. though it was disappointing to see "Alamo" alliances reform.
I never had a chance to find out if that was the strategy, but it did work out for CRyptonite in the end.

Thanks.

[Mr. Rip]

Originally Posted by KylerHagler

Yeah, the declining at TRR was a bit shocking to the audience. We as a team kinda expected to be declined because we aren't that well known. But hey, it ended up in our favor anyways.

When we look at alliance selections, one of our concerns is the formation of an alliance we really don't want to play against. Such was the case at TRR when 3310 asked us if we would say yes if asked to join their alliance. If that had happened, we were pretty sure 624 and 118 would get together. We looked at what might happen if we did not accept and thought that gave us a better chance of winning TRR. We ended up with 359 just as we expected.

We told 3310 that we would decline their invitation but they asked us anyway. I found that a little surprising as it did not affect our ability to invite other teams and we were the second seeded alliance so no one else could ask us to join them. We knew 3310 had a good robot and drive team but an alliance between 118 and 624 was a little frightening.

I like the idea of asking teams if they want to accept or form their own alliance. This was definitely our thinking at the Bayou Regional where we thought we had a chance at a wild card slot if we met 118 in the finals and we were the alliance captain.

Scott Rippetoe
Texas Torque

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by srippetoe

When we look at alliance selections, one of our concerns is the formation of an alliance we really don't want to play against. Such was the case at TRR when 3310 asked us if we would say yes if asked to join their alliance. If that had happened, we were pretty sure 624 and 118 would get together. We looked at what might happen if we did not accept and thought that gave us a better chance of winning TRR. We ended up with 359 just as we expected.

We told 3310 that we would decline their invitation but they asked us anyway. I found that a little surprising as it did not affect our ability to invite other teams and we were the second seeded alliance so no one else could ask us to join them. We knew 3310 had a good robot and drive team but an alliance between 118 and 624 was a little frightening.

I like the idea of asking teams if they want to accept or form their own alliance. This was definitely our thinking at the Bayou Regional where we thought we had a chance at a wild card slot if we met 118 in the finals and we were the alliance captain.

Scott Rippetoe
Texas Torque

Geez Scott,
I thought you were returning the favor after picking you folks at IRI the week before?
For the record, The best and 3rd time was when you folks asked us to join your alliance at the Texas Roadhouse for some BBQ ribs, fries, loaded baked potato and chicken after the event. I'll never forget that one.

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by srippetoe

When we look at alliance selections, one of our concerns is the formation of an alliance we really don't want to play against. Such was the case at TRR when 3310 asked us if we would say yes if asked to join their alliance. If that had happened, we were pretty sure 624 and 118 would get together. We looked at what might happen if we did not accept and thought that gave us a better chance of winning TRR. We ended up with 359 just as we expected.

We told 3310 that we would decline their invitation but they asked us anyway. I found that a little surprising as it did not affect our ability to invite other teams and we were the second seeded alliance so no one else could ask us to join them. We knew 3310 had a good robot and drive team but an alliance between 118 and 624 was a little frightening.

I like the idea of asking teams if they want to accept or form their own alliance. This was definitely our thinking at the Bayou Regional where we thought we had a chance at a wild card slot if we met 118 in the finals and we were the alliance captain.

Scott Rippetoe
Texas Torque

We picked you first because we felt you were the best robot there.

We picked 118 because we felt they were the second best robot, however we were a little surprised 118 declined (as I imagine you guys were).

It is possible 118 only declined because 1477 declined first. They may have had the same mentality as you guys in thinking that 3310 and 118 might not be able to beat 1477&624 - especially considering the experience those teams have working with one another. By declining they could break up that alliance.

But I think that TRR is a good example of the cost-benefit of declining in alliance selection. It shows the system really works in its current state - All of the elimination matches at TRR were intense and fairly even.

[billylo]

I will keep this brief.

1. I like the current selection approach.

2. Like Frank, I am troubled by the need for teams who want the best chance of winning, resorting to select someone without intending to partner with them. This is not a behaviour that FIRST would like to promote.

To satisfy both needs, while maintaining the overall selection structure, I would like to hear your thoughts on a proposed adjustment to get rid of those awkward declines.

"The "Host your own party" card"

This 1 time only card can be used by the current team selecting its partners. Once used, all following team captains must "Host their own party" and be captains only.

This CARD essentially achieves the same effect, enabling the teams to enjoy their hard earned rights to break up the top teams, without going through awkward declines. As a bonus, it speeds up the process and remove the negative predicament of employing this strategy.

Thoughts?

[Pault]

Originally Posted by billylo

I will keep this brief.

1. I like the current selection approach.

2. Like Frank, I am troubled by the need for teams who want the best chance of winning, resorting to select someone without intending to partner with them. This is not a behaviour that FIRST would like to promote.

To satisfy both needs, while maintaining the overall selection structure, I would like to hear your thoughts on a proposed adjustment to get rid of those awkward declines.

"The "Host your own party" card"

This 1 time only card can be used by the current team selecting its partners. Once used, all following team captains must "Host their own party" and be captains only.

This CARD essentially achieves the same effect, enabling the teams to enjoy their hard earned rights to break up the top teams, without going through awkward declines. As a bonus, it speeds up the process and remove the negative predicament of employing this strategy.

Thoughts?

This wouldn't always be used, because as was mentioned before a lot of the time teams don't intend to use scorched earth, it just kind of ends up that way. And even if a team intentionally wants to use scorched earth, it could be to their advantage to pick a few teams first, in hopes that one would accept. Then, once they felt it was time, they would use the card and pick someone outside the top 8.

Anyways, I see no problem with scorched earth. I'm not going to list out my reasons why, because other people in this thread have already done that for me.

[Karthik]

I think it's neat the Frank sought out the community's opinion on this one. I also think it's neat that the community (at least the people vocal enough to post on ChiefDelphi) has pretty much come out an said they like the current system. Consensus is a good a thing. Of course, this is easy for me to say since I agree with the consensus that is being presented.

There's no reason for me to rehash why I think the current system works, since that's been taken care of quite eloquently by many of the above posters. But I do want to draw some attention to one major thing that can be improved. The current system works best when the best robots are ranked high. What can FRC do to ensure that the top robots end up being the top ranked teams?

Maximize the number of matches each team gets at an event.

There will always be randomness in FRC, because of the nature of the random alliances involved in qualification matches. The alliance system is central to FRC, and is not something that's going away. So to minimize the randomness it introduces, we need to play as many matches as possible. This is happening in the regions that have gone to districts, as well as Ontario, where teams are consistently getting 12 qualifying matches at events of 30-40 teams. This is great. Only getting 8 qualifying matches per team at the Championship in 2013 was simply unacceptable. The good news is that FIRST recognized this problem and is making efforts to fix it for 2014. Still, as FRC grows there will be a tendency to want to add teams to the Championship Event. This is fine, but FIRST needs to make sure that as they allow for growth of the event, they simultaneously allow for growth in the number of matches.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by billylo

I will keep this brief.

1. I like the current selection approach.

2. Like Frank, I am troubled by the need for teams who want the best chance of winning, resorting to select someone without intending to partner with them. This is not a behaviour that FIRST would like to promote.

To satisfy both needs, while maintaining the overall selection structure, I would like to hear your thoughts on a proposed adjustment to get rid of those awkward declines.

"The "Host your own party" card"

This 1 time only card can be used by the current team selecting its partners. Once used, all following team captains must "Host their own party" and be captains only.

This CARD essentially achieves the same effect, enabling the teams to enjoy their hard earned rights to break up the top teams, without going through awkward declines. As a bonus, it speeds up the process and remove the negative predicament of employing this strategy.

Thoughts?

My thought: We have enough trouble explaining alliance selection to the crowd as it is. A card only adds further complications for which we already have a fix (read: just do the invites).

And if you don't intend to partner with someone, don't pick them. Remember, scorched earth can tank if an unanticipated acceptance crops up