Hypothetical Situation

[ric2006]

No matter the situation, you should never give up. We had a bad luck situation at nats. Against the #1 tewice. We could have given upl, giving 93 the #1 spot (they were undefeated) they were cosidering us as a 2nd round pick. We aren't really close as teams, btu we still played our best, knocking them to #5

[Ryan Albright]

Do not go easy on them. This is the same thing as throwing a match. Remember last year when there was alot of talk about "setting up matches" (sorry cant remeber the exact name we used last year) were the teams agreeed to leave each other's stacks alone and then just fight for the top. If you did this in any other sport you would be banned from that sport for life, it has happen in baseball many of times. IF they want to be in 1st place then they will win, but give them a run for their money

[Paul H]

This happened to us in Detroit. Now we weren't in 50th, we were in 12th or so, and Chief Delphi (47) was in the top 5 I think. We really wanted to pair up with them, they had a bot that perfectly complimented ours. We played them in qualifying. A friend of mine from the Juggernauts (1) came up to me and said "hey, are you gonna let them win?" I think others probably thought that was the case too. Well, we went out, played them, and beat them. We never play to lose, or even go easy. We play our best every match.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Absolutely and unequivocally, NO!
Here is a real world problem though (along the lines)...A team on Saturday morning has lost it's drive team. They are somewhere on the road but no one knows where. Team### asks for teams to put up a drive team until their drivers arrive. You are lucky enough to have a backup drive crew to drive for them only to find out that in their second match, they are against you. What do you do? What do you do?

[Joe Matt]

HECK NO! FIRST is still a competiton. Anything less than that is disrespectful for those who tired their hardest and won, and it's also disrespectful for the sister team (not only to mention opening the avenu of "Well, they just lost since they get helped by that team...")

We had a similar occurence during last year's Champs. We didn't do as well as VCU or Annapolis, and we moved are way up to 8th place by winning our last match by just a little. We picked our alliance partners and then lost in the quarter finals. Neddless to say, we found that another team we were very good friends with were going to pick us, and they ended up doing very well. Should we have thrown our last match to get them to pick us? No. It's disrespectful for our alliance parter, our opponents, and all the teams who won fair and square.

[jpsaul7usa]

No, only in one situation would that be acceptable.

In Atlanta (Newton) we were moving up into the 20s after a rough start and our ally 585 from AZ this year had been in the top 8 the entire competition. Our last match was against them and if we won we would finish in the mid 20s and they would definitely be bumped out of the top 8. A few people suggested we could make an agreement with them but that idea was shot down almost immediately. We wanted to prove ourselves and play our best, and also we thought that throwing a match would be very underhanded. The only reason why the idea came up is because we were desperate to recover from out tie and loss in our first two rounds because our on-the-spot rebuilt arm didn't quite reach the bar all the way. We didn't like the idea one bit. We ended up finishing 23rd in Newton and 585 22nd. Personally, I like that we finished together. It's too bad neither of us got to finals, but getting to Atlanta was plenty of fun in itself.

The only time I'd say you should throw a game is when you and your ally both have broken bots, are out of the competition, you both like the other two teams a lot, and want them to go to finals. Then you don't shoot, let their shooters score a ball, and let their drivers practice some fancy moves for elims.

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Absolutely and unequivocally, NO!
Here is a real world problem though (along the lines)...A team on Saturday morning has lost it's drive team. They are somewhere on the road but no one knows where. Team### asks for teams to put up a drive team until their drivers arrive. You are lucky enough to have a backup drive crew to drive for them only to find out that in their second match, they are against you. What do you do? What do you do?

Definately play to win. I feel it is wrong to play to lose, even if you alliance agrees/wants that. The point of the game is lost. It then turns into politics. We should definately avoid it. Moreover, whats the big deal? I mean if we play to lose, arent we losers?(Unless in a special situation, not this).

[Collin Fultz]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Absolutely and unequivocally, NO!
Here is a real world problem though (along the lines)...A team on Saturday morning has lost it's drive team. They are somewhere on the road but no one knows where. Team### asks for teams to put up a drive team until their drivers arrive. You are lucky enough to have a backup drive crew to drive for them only to find out that in their second match, they are against you. What do you do? What do you do?

answer to question #1: fight hard...always play to win

answer to question #2: hope that they get there before you have to play your second match (the one against them) and if they don't...hope that you designed your robot better than they did and hope that your "backup" operating crew shows why they are "backup" (and the hp missing some shots would help you out too)

[RiceRobotica]

If the teams were that close to eachother, then it would definately be a sticky situation. But, FIRST is the only sort of competition that I've seen where somebody can win and the opponents can be genuinely happy for them.

As strategist, I would plan to play the game and play it well. I'd tell my team to do their best. I'd play the strengths of my own robot and team to the weaknesses of the other. I'd hope for the best, but I don't think I could be disappointed either way.

I wouldn't be disappointed because, in the long run, it wouldn't matter who wins. We would still care about eachother as teams, no matter what. The teams would always hope for the other to continue on in the finals. It would pride in the work of a friend.

Both situations, no matter which was chosen, would be best because the teams are able to share in the excitement of it all.

[Ali Ahmed]

I would not go easy on them becuase if they were able to goet in &th place they must be preety good even though their alliance is not. For example, most of our matches were played with teams that were not very good and we still scored 100+ points. Every team should play to the best of their abilities.

[Pat Roche]

When our drive team goes out on the field we go out their to win...no matter who our alliance partner is and who is agianst us. Last year at Annapolis we went against(they were together) the two teams we won the regional with and beat them. In my mind picking a team that can beat you would be to your advantage...then you dont have to worry about them in the elims.

-Pat

[DarMagi]

I think you should not go easy on them, you played strong ever other match and lost by a close match, so why not play hard again and give your sister team a run for their money? Seriously, speaking from experience you get more fun out of earning something than it being handed to you. =]

[rufu5]

Collusion! Nash Equilibrium! MAN, I'm glad I had micro-economics this semester!

Well I'm going to have to hope over with phrontist on this one for the simple chance of an intelligent argument (because its no fun when nobody's arguing

So the higher ranked sister team has been doing great all day, is 1st seed, and comes into one of the last matches of the day with you. Their alliance is them, and two robots that have had some "problems" we all know how that goes) and your alliance consists of you and two other average to strong robots. They can almost, I mean ALMOST, beat all three of you by themselves, but it comes down to this:

dum dum ... dum dum (does that sound like a heart beat to you

if you go up onto the ramp, your alliance wins, if you go play "defense" they win (and you know they are going to pick you as their first pick, and their is a very strong chance you will win your division at nationals and have the best shot to win nationals)

so what do you do? huh?

ps. sorry i had to make this so hypothetical and far-fetched, but this is the only way i could stretch this to make you, the average FIRSTer, even consider it ... let the intelligent punditry resume!

[Max Lobovsky]

I don't mean to start another heated argument, but I'd like to just mention that this might be equated to collaboration between teams (on a large scale, think 254-60 scale). Sacrifices are made all the time in FIRST for the greater goal.

[George A.]

I hate reiterate what other people are saying, but if the team wants #1 bad enough then they will win. An example of this would be this past year at the Palmetto Regional. We (11) finished 5th overall and was picked by team 281 to ally with them. We accepted. Later on in the allaince selections the team that we mentored (1302) was picked by the number 8 seed. Next thing you know we are playing each other in the finals! They won the first match and we had to win the second. Things got screwy because one of their partners was broken so they decided to put in team 95, but they had already declared that it would be team 1302 and their other partner (i forget the #), but if we wanted to play by the rulebook verbatim then since the robots had already been introduced the match was considered started. We were left with 2 options. Play the game with 1302 and 95 and hope we won to force a third match, or force them to put in their disabled robot and basically guarantee ourselves the win. In the spirit of GP we chose the first option. We won the second match and by time that match was over their third partner was working. We then went onto the 3rd match and wound up winning. We could've gone easy on them and let them win, granted this is a little more extreme than the number one seed, but its the same principle. PLAY TO WIN!!!