9th Seed not Getting Picked for Elims?

[jijiglobe]

Originally Posted by Nick Lawrence

One of the most famous ones I remember is 610 at FLR in 2009.

They were seeded 9th, and declined an invitation from an alliance. None of the top 8 picked each other after that, leaving 610 to sit out on Saturday afternoon.

Ouch.

-Nick

Did people deliberately not interpick within the top 8 to leave them out? As far as I can tell it wouldn't be very GP but it seems possible. Just wondering... I have heard of teams picking someone they know will reject them just to stop them from forming an alliance with someone else...

[kmusa]

We've seen it both ways.

In 2012, 639 was ranked 88th, got picked by 68 and 330, and we ended up as Newton finalists. Ours was definitely a niche robot.

This year, we finished 12th on Arch, ended up 9th after the inpicking, and didn't move on. I would describe it as a typical robot with an effective drive team.

Besides the existing comments on overall difficulty of scouting, and dependency on alliance partners during quals, the conclusion afterwards was that opting to maximize alliance performance meant not making use of our team's best capabilities. Unfortunate, but the team had a great time, and we'll just try harder the next time.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by jijiglobe

Did people deliberately not interpick within the top 8 to leave them out? As far as I can tell it wouldn't be very GP but it seems possible. Just wondering... I have heard of teams picking someone they know will reject them just to stop them from forming an alliance with someone else...

I don't believe so. Based on our scouting, we didn't anticipate any of the other alliance captains picking each other even before 610 declined.

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by jijiglobe

Did people deliberately not interpick within the top 8 to leave them out? As far as I can tell it wouldn't be very GP but it seems possible. Just wondering... I have heard of teams picking someone they know will reject them just to stop them from forming an alliance with someone else...

Originally Posted by pfreivald

I don't believe so. Based on our scouting, we didn't anticipate any of the other alliance captains picking each other even before 610 declined.

Even if it was the case, if 610 declined from 9th and the captains realized they would have a better shot at winning without 610 in the eliminations, it's just effective strategy. Nothing to do with "GP". Basically the exact same rationale as a "scorched earth" strategy.

[Mr. Lim]

Originally Posted by jijiglobe

Did people deliberately not interpick within the top 8 to leave them out? As far as I can tell it wouldn't be very GP but it seems possible. Just wondering... I have heard of teams picking someone they know will reject them just to stop them from forming an alliance with someone else...

No I don't think that was the case at all, although it's an intriguing question for the future.

I was a mentor on 188 during the 2009 FLR, and I remember alumnus Shankar Manoharan (now a strategy mentor for 2056) correctly predicting that 610 could not decline, or else they would be shut out from playing in the elimination rounds. This was before alliance selections even happened.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Nick Lawrence

One of the most famous ones I remember is 610 at FLR in 2009.

They were seeded 9th, and declined an invitation from an alliance. None of the top 8 picked each other after that, leaving 610 to sit out on Saturday afternoon.

For historical accuracy, 610 was not the #9 seed at FLR in 2009, rather they were the #12 seed. There was some miscommunication, and their representative thought they were in the #9-10 range, which made them more comfortable with their choice to decline. There was actually significant interpicking within the top 8, with the #11 seed moving up to be the #8 Alliance Captain. The picking went as follows:

#1 picked #3
#2 picked #13
#4 picked #12 (610, who declined) and then picked #24
#5 picked #7
#6 picked #15
#8 picked #9
#10 picked #19
#11 picked #14

I was the MC on the field for this scenario, and it was a very confusing 15 minutes.

[pfreivald]

Thanks for the clarification, Karthik!

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Additionally, this game presents an interesting difference from previous games. Previously, you could more or less figure out who would be picked based on a simple point differential - each alliance would take the first available team who can either score the most points or prevent the other alliance from scoring the most. This year, there was a lot more strategy involved, looking for robots who could fill specific roles - in bounder, trusser, assister, scorer. It didn't pay to get two robots that were the best in one of those roles.

There's two corollaries:
1) The seedings this year were much more often defined by the alliance partners a team had. A team at IER this year made the top 8 even though it was just a drive train.

2) Teams had to pick much more for specific roles on the field. We were a midfielder, but so was 868 in Newton who was second. We needed a front court robot and 1114 fit the bill. We could see that choice being made down through the first round of selections.

[JamesCH95]

I have heard:

'We thought you had already been picked.'

and

'We never thought you would be available when we were picking, so we crossed you off our list.'

Just goes to show you that teenagers put center-stage and forced to make a significant decision with only a few minutes consideration can make mistakes. Who'd a thunk it?

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

Just goes to show you that teenagers put center-stage and forced to make a significant decision with only a few minutes consideration can make mistakes. Who'd a thunk it?

I would say that was a case of poor planning or lack of attention to detail, not some issue with teenage abilities.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Monochron

I would say that was a case of poor planning or lack of attention to detail, not some issue with teenage abilities.

I would agree with this...

Too many teams get up there without a pick list, and we hear too many picks for teams that aren't at the event (I heard this even happened on one of the Champs divisions this year!), or have already been picked, etc.

It's all about planning and preparation. We have our scouting program up, it exports an exhaustive pick list (seriously... every team at an event is on our pick list), and our team representative just types the numbers into the spreadsheet in another column as they've been picked, and those teams are automatically removed from the list. A little prep goes a long way...

What really disturbs me is the "We never thought you would be available when we were picking, so we crossed you off our list." With our list, the only teams that are ever crossed off before selection starts are maybe one or two our drive team feels they can't work productively with. Being overbearing, treating the team dismissively, or being plain jerks is one sure way to ensure our team won't pick you, even if you have the best robot out there.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

I have heard:

'We thought you had already been picked.'

and

'We never thought you would be available when we were picking, so we crossed you off our list.'

Just goes to show you that teenagers put center-stage and forced to make a significant decision with only a few minutes consideration can make mistakes. Who'd a thunk it?

That sounds about right, since it seems about 10% of teams asked to join an alliance at any given event are not actually at that event.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

That sounds about right, since it seems about 10% of teams asked to join an alliance at any given event are not actually at that event.

Or are already picked.... or the #1 seed... etc...

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

Just goes to show you that teenagers put center-stage and forced to make a significant decision with only a few minutes consideration can make mistakes. Who'd a thunk it?

It's why we always made really long pick lists this season, and include teams that we don't think we'll get. It's just to make sure nobody good slips by us. Usually, this just resulted in us crossing off a lot of things and ending up with what we expected to get, but once in a while it's helpful (*cough*4085*cough*crossroads)

[daliberator]

Originally Posted by Boe

I just want to say that you guys did amazing at state and built a great bot that honestly more teams should have built something similar to.

I was the captain out on the field and made the call for the first alliance to pick 4778. You guys were next on our list but ultimately we went with stormbots because they had a consistent hot high goal auton and could truss or pass back to the hp depending on what our alliance needed.

Thank you so much! You have no idea how much that means coming from an awesome team like you guys. Your team had by far one of the most impressive machines there and I know a lot of our guys were oogleing at your bot between matches.