"Fixing" matches

[Amanda Morrison]

Originally posted by Gope
I saw alot of this happening in St.Louis, and it boiled me. But as far as I know there is no specific rule against such a thing...

After a personal experience with this in St. Lou, all I can really advise is to not judge a team based on a member's bad calls. i.e. just because a driver might want to fix the match, that doesn't mean the team decided to go with that strategy, or that the team even knows about it. Just hold your head up high, and do what you consider to be the right thing. Keep the spirit of FIRST in your heart and conscience at all times, and you'll go places without having to 'fix' your way there.

Originally posted by Gope
maybe someone can mention it to Dean?

Believe me, I am first in line! Someone, please, give him my number!

[Suneet]

Match fixing, where the two alliances have decided who is going to win to the match beforehand, is clearly unfair and unethical. Asking an alliance to lose a match but get a reasonably high score by cooperating is uncompetitive behavior.
That said, I wish to differentiate match fixing from the possibility of an agreement between matches that goes like this:

"We'll both have the human players make stacks of six (seven?). You don't knock over our stack, and we won't knock yours. You knock ours, and we'll knock yours. May the best alliance win."

This way, the outcome of the match is NOT determined beforehand, and both alliances have the advantage of a possibly very high score. Also, one always runs the risk of the other alliance breaking the pact, in which case one must knock over the opposing stack ASAP.

We have scored 292 with this arrangement (I was coaching). No one in the match was a stacker, so that's not a bad score.(though technically our robot can make a stack of 2 if needed) I hope no one thinks of such matches as "fixed". When no robot can stack, this is an excellent way for both alliances to take a shot at a good score, and the outcome is indeterminate every match.

<edit>

You know, we discussed the above arrangement with Jason Morrella at Sacramento, and though he wouldn't branded it as the most gracious and professional thing to do, he wouldn't brand it as non-gracious and professional, either. He was kinda neutral... But he certainly found it acceptable. (not illegal)

</edit>

[jzampier]

Our team leader tried something like this at Cleveland... although the flavor was somewhat different:

As i understood it... i wasn't actually involved in the conversations...
His suggestion was that each team play the match to the best of their abilities, but at the same time tried to maximize the score for everyone...

Now, some people got very pissed off at him because they see this as 'fixing' a match.

The way i took it, and i believe the way he intended was something long the lines of what first tried to accomplish last season w/ the scoring. That in order to help yourself, you must help your opponent.

For example, in one match, i believe the X-cats successfully defended the top of the ramp from an opponent bot, when both them and their team mate were on top and they clearly had a win. The smart move would have been to let the opponent on top, thereby increasing both scores, the winning team by 50pts.

I believe this is what my team leader was suggesting. That everyone play the game and try to win ( we do our thing, you do yours, and may the best team win ), but that it is advantageous to everyone to have a good scoring match.

In my opinion this is certainly not fixing a match. To me, fixing a match implies an agreement on a definate outcome, as in, someone takes a dive.... the agreement here is merely to allow each other to excel as much as possible.

Call me crazy, but isn't cooperation amongst opponents and allies one of the ideals of first?

[mtrawls]

Hmm... I knew I remembered it being there somewhere. It only took cycling through the first twenty-six pages to find it!

Anyway, this might be of interest to you:

Subject -- "rigging" the game
[Gabriel] If the two alliances decide before the beginning of a match how they will play the game and execute a strategy where the two alliances cooperate with each other to acheive a tie, are the two alliances violating the spirit of FIRST or the maxim of "gracious professionalism"?

[first]Yes

36F

http://jive.ilearning.com/thread.jsp...=360&trange=15

[David Lantz]

That clears up a lot of arguing.

[George]

Originally posted by amandabean
After a personal experience with this in St. Lou, all I can really advise is to not judge a team based on a member's bad calls. i.e. just because a driver might want to fix the match, that doesn't mean the team decided to go with that strategy, or that the team even knows about it. Just hold your head up high, and do what you consider to be the right thing. Keep the spirit of FIRST in your heart and conscience at all times, and you'll go places without having to 'fix' your way there.



Believe me, I am first in line! Someone, please, give him my number!

Pete Rose would LOVE this thinking!!
Please Everyone, bring this subject up at Drivers meetings,
Coaches meetings, In the pits, In all the forums, at the snack bar
everywhere!
in ALL other sports there are RULES against this
In life there are LAWS against this!
Geo.

[Dima]

As a person i know would say:

"In Vegas they whould break your legs for this!"

however as it so happens the number 1 seeded alliance got taken out by the number 8 alliance (whose picking team was seeded number 11 and moved up) at the AZ regional.

The teams that practice this strategy will loose in the long run because they have to play in the ELimination matches and they are not prepared to knock over stacks or do other things in order to win.

[IMDWalrus]

Fixing the matches just shouldn't be done. I haven't gone to my first regional yet (it starts this Thursday) and I hope that my team won't get involved with any score fixing.

One thing that could be done is that we could get a list of teams that were either involved in fixing or wanted to be and then have everyone blacklist them. It's not much, but without any kind of official action, it's one of the only things that we can do.

[Raul]

I cannot believe what I am reading here!

For those that think that any kind of agreement between opponents is OK, consider this scenario:

If you are the #1 seed who got there without any agreements with your opponents, would you like it if you lost the chance to choose first (something you had truly earned) because the #2 seed made and agreement with their opponent to keep the score high? Even if the #2 seed did not agree on the outcome (who wins and loses) it still hurts the #1 because the #2 seed artificially increased their opportunity to get higher points and the #1 seed had to earn their points the hard way.
Does the #1 seed deserve this treatment and lack of respect from the #2 seed?? Obviously not; therefore IT IS JUST PLAIN WRONG!

If FIRST came out and said that agreements are allowed (which they didn't), then the game would become a game of who can negotiate the best agreements instead of a robotic competition. Geez, is that what we want?

If you still don't agree, the fact that so many teams were doing a petition about this and blowing the whistle on those that are doing it should indicate to you that something MUST be wrong with it.

[Lauren Bendes]

As a proud member of Truck Town, I am extremely offended to think that some teams within the FIRST organization have come to the point of blatently fixing matches.

Yes, I do believe that to better your own score you must ensure that your opponet has close to the same point amount as you. (It is not appropriate in this game to beat a team 75 to 1.) But, I do not believe in making an agreement to do this from the beginning of each match.
I feel that a large part of what makes a team good is not only their robot, but is their teams ethics and drive to compete fairly. As the team that seeded second in the AZ due do a few teams in the surrounding standings participating in the fixing I was extremely disappointed that my team didnt have the chance to show our true potential. Many teams at the recent regional were oblivious to the fact that this was happening and many agreed, once a petition was raised, that they were in opposition to this fixing. These teams didnt have the opportunity to showcase their robots ability nor what their drivers could handle. Coming from a team where we have exceptionally experienced drivers I feel that part of what makes our team who they are is the drivers ability to make that split second decision in a match whether to score more boxes for the opponent or to let the opponent on the ramp to better their score.

I think that everyone has the right to their own decision about the manner, and I know that some teams do not view this as fixing a match, but I truly hope that these teams realize that this isnt what true competition and gracious professionalism are about.

~Lauren~
GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE!!!
GO TRUCK!

[Travis Covington]

While I was at the AZ regional I noticed this idea going around and some teams using it quite effectively.

I agree with not ‘fixing’ the match, but I also feel like a purely defensive strategy is boring and predictable.

Most of the matches I witnessed consisted of teams knocking HP stacks over and fighting for the ramp. This quickly became boring and never allowed teams that had stackers to do anything they designed their robots for. But I also don’t think that a match where a stack of 6 survived was fun to watch either (edit, unless they built it from scratch or added to a stack etc.. good job to those teams

Although, agreements to NOT knock stacks over seem unfair, it still doesn’t necessarily mean teams "fixed" the match.

These matches still had everything to do with who could get to the top and who could funnel more boxes into their scoring zone. So for the most part I don’t think that "fixing" the match would be fair, where teams would agree on every movement of the entire match and set the winner/loser.

Our team was tempted a few times to try and see if all 4 teams would agree to concentrate on the offensive side of the game, but realized this strategy wasn’t fair to the robots designed for defense, and never ended up doing it.

In the end we were not in a single match where the HP stacks survived (or someone tried to knock them over) we also must have witnessed at least 10 matches where 2 or more stacks of 6 survived.

I don’t think that 'fixing' the matches is fair, but I do think that teams should try and play a game that is a little more offensive, realizing that by knocking over the HP stacks you are hurting your own score. I think this should be done within the team and should not be suggested to opponents. If they feel the same way, then they will show you by not knocking them over.

Good luck to all teams in the upcoming events.

Travis

PS. Thanks to teams 606, and 460 for a great alliance!!!

[Koci]

I first would like to thank everyone at the AZ regional that signed team 68's petition, and posted ours in their pit.

We were approached twice during the regional to do this collusion, and both times flat out declined. I believe this practice is completely against the spirit of FIRST. One of the mentors from team 980 even went so far as to say it could be the death of FIRST, which I agree with. This activity causes the matches to be uninteresting to watch, and no longer allows for the teams that build the best robot to rise to the top during qualification rounds. Finals would have been much more interesting if the top 8 teams truly came from at least the best 15 robots there. I think the fact that the final match was between the 7th and 8th placed alliances says a lot, even though I would have rather the 5th placed alliance to win (thanks to teams 57 and 1212 for their great attempts: we were so close; I can't believe we lost that first match by ONE point).

The petition that was passed around by us, team 68, and team 980 caused this practice to cease. On Saturday, none of these fixed matches occurred again. I think we got the message around that we really don't want to tolerate it, and helped some of the other teams to realize what really was occurring.

I certainly hope that this anti-collusion sentiment continues to the next few regionals. I think its a good idea if someone starts a petition on the Thursday of each regional, just to make sure that it no longer happens. I know we will for the Lone Star Regional.

Edit: Oh, and to Travis from Team 968, you didn't like the 6-stack we built in the final match?

[Travis Covington]

Okay okay, I DID like the stack of 6 you built from scratch.

My reference was to the HP stacks of 6 that survived... it just hurt to see them get so many points by agreeing to not knock the stacks over...

Dont forget we were a stacker once too

TC

[AlbertW]

Our team is guilty of match-"fixing,"

We were approached by a few teams to agree not to knock down eachother's stacks. I didn't like the idea, but our driver agreed, and they got our alliance partner to. We were never actually betrayed during one of these agreements, though once our AI did accidentally kill their stack. They proceeded to knock ours down.

There was one agreement during one of the matches we weren't in in which one team, in the last few seconds, knocked down the opponent stack. The opponent got off the ramp, went and pushed over the other team's stack, and didn't get back up in time. (Though they DID take really long to knock it over... dunno why. They kept turning, and brushing the side of the stack - rotating it, but not tipping it)

[Alex1072]

Part of the problem is the game design this year promotes this kind of behavior. Since stacking is almost completly useless (with some rare exceptions), the game becomes extreamly boring and low scoring. I agree that rigging a match is not in the ideals of gracius professionalism, but I was under the impression that cooperating with the oposing team to achieve a higher score for everyone was the point of the way QPs are calculated the way they are.