Fouls requiring multiple robots

FIRST General Forum
#74

The rule would be invoked only the very final match of the competition when there would be no other matches in which a yellow card might be issued to the winning alliance and therefore could be turned into a red card in a subsequent match. (For example, this would not be used in QFs and SFs because the winning alliance moves on with a yellow card.) In other words, there is a clear opportunity to strategically incur a yellow card with no consequences in the determinative match. I don’t see how a replay under that singular circumstance would turn into an extra hour of competition. It would be no different than having a replay due to a tie or a field fault. We’ve had replays when field faults happened very late in a match and one alliance clearly was on the way to winning.

Other sports have end-of-game rules where the change in circumstances as the end approaches. For example, football charges a time out to a team in the last 2 minutes to treat an injured player to prevent strategic “injuries.”

Leaving the final discretion to a head ref as to who “would have won” is a recipe for even more controversy. Refs are not in a position to judge the “winner” of a match, which is exactly what we want to avoid. Look at how the 2016 championship tie was broken by “judging” (and the other ties broken similarly in 2016 and 2017) as examples of why we do NOT want refs making such decisions.

The issue is not whether the “right” team wins the replay–it’s that the play is reset, and the slate is wiped clean. The winning team loses the surety of having a win, but it is not eliminated entirely by the penalty, which I think is consistent with the intent of issuing a yellow card rather than a red. I’m not sure why fans would view a win by the carded team would be as “stealing” the win–under the current rules the team would have incurred a strategic yellow card and gotten away with it. Last thing that you want to have happen is to ACTUALLY have the refs steal the event by directly making the win/lose decision.

I think at the core of the controversy here is whether yellow cards are being issued during the playoffs for consequential fouls that affect match outcomes, or for incidental occurrences that are not really central to match play. To answer that seems to be in part an empirical question in which we see what is the breakdown of yellow card rule violations during the playoffs. Someone probably can pull that off FRC’s API data. Nevertheless, FIRST must believe that these fouls are significant enough that incurring them twice leads to a match forfeit. If one doesn’t think that these should rise to that level, then one needs to propose a different type of foul, and we’re back to my original point that the objection appeared to be tied to the issue of yellow cards offenses rather than the resolution of what happens when a yellow card is issued.

#75

OK. Let me get this straight.

You want, for an exceptionally rare occurrence, an automatic replay should one ever occur again?

In perspective, this is the one time I’ve actually heard about this happening, ever. ONE. TIME. in my entire FRC career. Which, at last count, I’ve been an alumni for 10+ seasons and active on CD during most of that time, and that’s not counting time as a student before then–I’d have probably heard SOMETHING in that timeframe if that sort of thing happened. That puts the odds of something like this happening again at… several hundred if not several thousand to one? Heck, a TIE in that same match is more common! (2010 IRI and 2016 Einstein come to mind.)

Stop making mountains out of molehills. CA isn’t in districts (yet), Bag Day is still a thing, and you’re choosing to insist that because of a single match there should be an operational change to how FIRST calls matches because “it could happen again”?

Incidentally, the last time I can recall an F3 replay or similar event that wasn’t 2010, I recall hearing complaints about “the refs stole the event win from this alliance”. The Director of FRC (pre-Frank) stepped in to rectify the situation with extra CMP slots for the event.

#76

We’ve recognized for a long time this strategic hole in the rules. And while it may seem rare, it occurs in the most critical moment of the entire tournament during the deciding match. It seems like this moment deserves much more focus than any other single moment in the competition. Why object to such an easy fix then if you think that it will rarely happen? I made what was a simple equitable proposal, and then folks objected based on their perception of how yellow cards are applied. I didn’t make a big deal out of this–others did (but I wasn’t pushed into backing down.)

The only times I’ve heard “the ref stole the match” was when there was controversy about the actual call itself, not about whether there was a replay to rectify the situation. Leaving discretion to the ref to decide the outcome of a match is the recipe for controversy. In fact, the ref shouldn’t even be aware of the match score to be calling it in an unbiased way. Adding a requirement of score awareness and when a match might have turned on an event will make the use of discretion both complex and stressful.

#77

In the situation I’m referencing (SVR 2008), the REPLAY triggered the controversy. If the ref had simply corrected the ruling, and the score at issue, there would have been NO controversy, NO CD uproar[sub]TM[/sub], NO post on the FRC blog, and NO trip to Champs for the finalists. This was, I admit, before your time–ask 100 next time you’re at an event with them if they have anyone who was on/around the team in '08 and talk to that person(s).

I would suggest that leaving the ref without discretion to decide how to call a match is also an recipe for controversy. These are slightly different things, but there have been some cases where the situation may not have warranted a [insert large foul/card] but the ref had to give one because that’s the way the rule was. It’s been a while since that happened, mainly due to the escalating fouls (and fouls appropriate to the score) now, but back when I was a student, a mere brush in the wrong area could trigger pretty much an automatic loss.

#78

It sounds like the issue was an incorrect ruling, not the reliance on a replay, and that there was discretion allowed to the referee. If the rule explicitly calls for a replay and that is taken out of the hands of the referee, then there should be less controversy. We’ve already seen that the decisions at Chezy Champs and Roebling were inconsistent with each other, and there are MANY more examples of that across many years. Again, trying to correct this by requiring referees to make the correct call, rather than just staying “they make mistakes, so let’s solve this with a do-over instead” is a more equitable solution that reflects the imperfect nature of human judgement and decision making.

It doesn’t leave referees without discretion on calling a match, it just doesn’t allow a referee to arbitrarily escalate a yellow card to a red card in the very final match as a solution to a shortcoming in the rule that allows the winning team to escape any consequences. There is ABSOLUTELY no provision in the rules to allow for that circumstance–the escalation is ONLY allowed in which the circumstance is identical to ALL other matches where that foul is particularly egregious. NO foul call should be dependent on the type of match being played.

#79

I feel that you have not been fully reading my posts.

There was an incorrect ruling. The head referee, rather than taking the proper route of correcting the scores, called for a replay. This was not, to the best of my recollection, a rule call for a replay, it was the head referee making a call to replay rather than rescore. This is the plain and simple version.

Had the replay not happened, there would have been disappointment but people would have understood. But no, 20 minutes after the last match robots had to be hauled out of their crates and the other alliance won. People were quite upset. Headquarters had to weigh in.

I agree that if the rule specifically states “In this specific situation, this is what will happen”, people won’t be as upset. (Although… 2016 Einstein F3 did have a bunch of people saying that that shouldn’t have happened. Result, the one exception to the tiebreakers.) They’ll be somewhat annoyed (particularly if their team got the yellow) but the shouting should be down to “normal CD chatter” levels.

#80

I’m trying to understand your position. Let me try to sum it up to make sure we agree with what you’re suggesting. Your position is:
In the very narrow instance of finals matches where neither team will move on, there should be a new rule written to mandate a replay if the winning alliance is given a yellow card. The thought process here is this card is meaningless otherwise as the alliance still wins and there’s no change later for this card to escalate. As most cards given at this stage of an event are for actions on the field rather than the safety cards, you believe in this very rare circumstance we can settle this with that change. You don’t want to leave it up to HR discretion because you believe leaving it open to judgement brings error into things. You’d prefer see that decision taken out of the HR’s hands and instead codified so that it’ll be applied evenly across all events.

Does that sound about right? If so, let me point out why I’d still disagree with pretty much every point there.

First, I’m generally a huge advocate for taking things out of the HR’s hands. I prefer being able to point to a rule and saying “this is how it has to be handled. There isn’t a decision here.” You’re right, this IS more consistent. However, this doesn’t match what you actually desire. You cannot cite Champs in 2016 and 2017 as reason to validate your point. In fact, they show your idea to be inherently flawed. In 2016, a foul was called without the option for a referee decision. As a result, those 5 points pushed the game to a tie. With the way the game was scored, this pushed a tiebreaker in one’s team favor. Referees had absolutely zero decisions in this process. You’re mistaken in every aspect to suggest they did. Do you think ANYONE was excited to be a part of that? In 2017, we see something similar. Penalties were called because they had to be. There was a large number of them. As a result, the outcome was fundamentally altered. In both of these cases, the problem was the result of a rule without the ability to apply common sense to the situation. If we remove the decision from the equation, it’s just as likely to result in bad things as good. You’ve pointed to instances that show this.

You also mentioned referees shouldn’t know the score when making decisions. In most cases, I’d agree. In fact, I’ve been in huddles where an aggravated FTA comes in and pushes us to hurry it up because the outcome was a 100pt difference and we were debating 5-25 points. Why? We simply didn’t know the result. We didn’t have time to watch. I’ve also worked events where a card should have been applied to alliances during elims. Why weren’t the cards? The team that would have been awarded the card was just eliminated. In one case, an alliance should have received a second yellow card escalating to a red in the final match. If refs are completely unaware of scores, this results in the final match ending on a red card. If refs take a quick check to the score before determining to give the card or not, the event ends on the score. In either situation, the same alliance wins. Don’t you think it makes for a better event for spectators and teams to see it end without the card? That’s impossible if there’s never a check at score. It’s difficult to be respectful to all of the effort teams put into this if you never use common sense while taking a quick look at the scores.

I also fundamentally disagree with the premise this should only be applied in finals. If the same foul is given in a tough semis match, it’ll send the other alliance home and the winning alliance into finals with the yellow card. Can they do this again? No. But, that doesn’t change the fact one alliance’s event was ended by this. If we believe this is wrong, we shouldn’t limit it to finals under the flawed idea the yellow card carrying on matters. It certainly wouldn’t to the team eliminated in quarters/semis. They’re still eliminated by something that’s not exactly within the spirit of FIRST and the winning alliance only receives a wrist slap. As you want to point out the majority of cards given out in elims are for in game actions rather than safety, it’s important to point out most matches in elims don’t receive cards. As the probability the team will receive another card is slim, the idea of a card carrying on isn’t something that’s more important than the other alliance going home.

This isn’t about trying to make you be shy about your opinion or make you want to be quiet. It’s about pointing out the idea isn’t very good and would require nearly a separate game manual to handle all of the possible situations that could arise in order to fix the rule. Yellow cards are a terrible basis for a required replay, especially if they’re only considered in 1 (maybe 2) matches at an entire event. The cases you’ve provided show this to be the wrong path to take. If the events you think are a good example of why we SHOULD use this plan are examples of where this would cause more problems than help, doesn’t that make it rather clear this is the wrong path of action?

#81

This is a valid point, but why should a replay be dependent on the type of match being played then? I’d argue if the logic applies to fouls, it applies to replays as well, since both scenarios could dramatically change the outcome

#82

Because this is a unique circumstance in the rules, but it could occur during a match is the most important in determining the final outcome of the competition. Other sports have similar unique circumstance rules. For example, in football in the last 2 minutes, an “official injury timeout” becomes a team-specified time out to prevent teams from having players fake an injury to gain a time out late in the game. There are many other examples.

#83

So the problem appears not to be with the replay itself, but with the ref misinterpreting the rescoring rule. We can’t control for that. I’m not sure how that’s relevant to suggestion that I’m making to remove the burden from a referee of trying to decide if a yellow card was sufficient to impact the outcome of the match.

#84

Generally, you’re description is correct. However, it’s not that I “don’t want to leave it up to HR discretion because you believe leaving it open to judgement brings error into things.” It’s that we should limit judgements, correct or in error, in affecting the outcome of a match.

Let’s start with a fundamental premise: a yellow card is not a red card. The GDC intended that a first yellow card was a warning, and NOT so severe to be determinative of the outcome of a match.

A second point is that there is currently NO rule in place to deal with a first yellow card being awarded in the final match of the competition. Note that at Chezy Champs, the red card was awarded due to an interpretation that a blockade was actually two yellow cards, one for each robot. It was NOT an interpretation that a single yellow card should be elevated to a red card. There is not explicit provision for escalating a yellow card to a red card in the final match to compensate for the lack of an opportunity to incur another yellow card. That ALSO would require a new rule, which would certainly require a substantial amount of new verbage to describe under which circumstances such a yellow card should be elevated.

In contrast, I’m suggesting a very simple single line rule in a special circumstance.* Replay a final determinative match if a yellow card is incurred by the winning alliance. * No description of circumstances required. I don’t see why there would have to be a long rules section.

As for earlier playoff matches, as with the yellow card earlier in the competition, the threat of a future red card incents alliances to avoid getting a yellow card in the quarters in semis. They might lose outright in the finals if they get another yellow. It doesn’t matter how often it does or might occur. This rule proposal is not about getting justice for the losing alliance–it’s about providing the correct incentives to the winning alliance. Without this proposed rule, there is NO incentive to avoid getting a yellow card as the rules stand.

As someone pointed out earlier, the point of rules is to limit the amount of “common sense” required, especially since two people can disagree about what constitutes “common sense.” We are having that disagreement right now.

#85

I will point out that that first interpretation was incorrect. However, the direct confirmation of my immediately previous statement was not available to the CC refs–that is a fact, not an opinion. This was not the refs’ fault. I’m not 100% sure it was anybody’s fault in particular, but definitely wasn’t the refs’ fault.

If I’m not mistaken, T03 was also possibly invoked. 2nd/3rd/Nth hand information though, so I don’t recall for sure.

I think the proposal for replay in finals only is… let’s put it this way: It’s like instant replay, there isn’t a good way to do it cleanly without SOMEBODY kicking up a fuss. If I was asked to come up with something, I would probably make it every single yellow to the winning side in an elimination match (Match 3 of any series, possibly Match 2 under certain conditions) is a replay (and have the field computer handle the replay determination so the refs won’t have to worry about it other than applying cards correctly). You’re about providing a deterrent to using this in finals; I’m saying that it’s entirely possible that somebody exploits that loophole to get TO finals, and if somebody took a yellow to knock my team out when we had a reasonably fair chance at beating them I wouldn’t be terribly happy, so apply it to all the possible elimination matches.

For example… let’s just say that some third-bot somewhere applied relatively incidental damaging contact inside 1678’s frame perimeter early in QF 1-3 after managing to squeak out a win in one of the earlier matches (we’ll leave how up to imaginations). Let’s just say that the damage was an awful lot of pneumatics stuff (easy to fix if you can find all the problems, and have the parts, but takes a little time, and often disables key portions of the robot mid-match). That third-bot gets a foul and a yellow card, but wins the match. 1678 is OUT, in QFs, because they were unable to play to their full potential, and their opponent, who broke a rule to accomplish that, goes on. If that seems right to you, then carry on. But it sure doesn’t seem right to me–if I was on 1678, you bet I’d be wondering why the replay rule applied in finals but not earlier.

#86

But, inherently, by using a yellow card as a basis for replay, it DOES affect the outcome of that match. Not saying red cards are the right option here, in fact, I agree that they’re not, but I personally couldn’t justify a replay, for the same reasons.

With the system we currently have, an issue like this in finals is so rare, and so rarely fussed over, that I truly believe either of these “solutions” would cause a bigger issue than we have now.

#87

Since I was at CC and directly heard the referees interpretation of the ruling, I’m certain of what was said, no hearsay. And that was a change from the initial ruling that there was just one yellow card.

As for the hypothetical about a yellow in a QF, that already happens. However, the risk of incurring a subsequent yellow card that becomes a red card appears to be a fairly strong deterrent for incurring those types of fouls because we don’t see many of these types of fouls and they don’t appear to be concentrated in the determinative matches of the QFs and SFs. (But somebody could check the FRC data on that point.) However, in the very last determinative match, that deterrent evaporates. The proposed replay rule makes the deterrent equivalent in the very last match to that of the earlier playoff matches. Again, this is not intended to deliver a “fair” result to the losing side–it’s to maintain a deterrent that is in place in all of the previous matches.

#88

So we have a disagreement over the relative magnitude of the issue. There’s not a good way to resolve the qualitative difference between them. However, I’ll note that we have been involved in at least 3 red card matches during event finals since 2013, and each created substantial controversy. While in the first 2 cases, the matches were not determinative so wouldn’t have qualified for replay under this rule proposal, but having a replay option would have been more satisfying for all parties involved if that had been the case. So I can only speak from direct personal experience.

#89

sorry if this was already mentioned in the previous pages*

Quick fix for Beach Blitz was making the G12 violation a RED CARD in elims.
And wouldn’t you know, we had to use it.

QF4-1: https://youtu.be/HMqI0clmUKU?t=2m12s

Blue alliance had immobilized robot in one path, second playing blocking defense against red robot. Adds issue of an immobilized robot into the equation, but clearly a blockade for over 20s at end of match.

#90

It is worth noting that I have never been in this situation.

That being said, when it comes down to it, any determinative match is just a match. The consequence of that match may be different but the match itself isn’t. If you look at a playoff* match independently without considering which match in a given series it is, you shouldn’t be able to see where robots committed the same offense only to be punished differently**. A replay gives the losing alliance a noticeable advantage. If the ____ alliance wins the first match in a series, and then receives a yellow card in the 2nd match, while still winning that match, a replay would basically give the losing alliance a chance to improve their play or change their strategy. Yellow cards are meant to be a warning, and not to impact the outcome of a particular match.

  • I specify playoff because the GDC has already determined that certain rules are different between playoff and qualification matches

** excluding T03

#91

Ah, but as I’ve pointed out, due to differences in end-state conditions, the “last” match IS different from all other matches in the competition. That difference in the end-state creates an opportunity for a strategic action (taking a yellow card with no subsequent consequence) that is not available in any other match. That difference requires a difference in the rules. It may not be exactly the same outcome as for other matches, but it brings it closer.

#92

Moving this to a red cards requires another rule change though due to the now draconian penalty–a countdown warning for an alliance to avoid inadvertently creating a blockade and being instantly DQd.

#93

Wouldn’t a correct judgement be better than an incorrect non-judgement? You’ve cited two places where high profile non-judgement calls provided a worse overall experience. As that can be difficult to codify, sometimes it makes sense to allow for those judgements.

We’d agree on this point. But, this is also a general statement. As you’ve pointed out, we’re not discussing the general. We’re focusing on a single corner case. Here, we either believe the GDC intentionally allows for the strategy of blockading to ensure a win or we believe it was unintentional.

If we believe it’s intentional, there’s no need for a rule change.

If we believe it isn’t intentional, worrying about the idea of a yellow card not being meant to determine the outcome of a match isn’t really relevant to the conversation of this corner case. We’d agree they didn’t intend to create this loophole so we’d have to agree the “punishment” isn’t something they deemed correct. This can be addressed in a number of ways to include the one you’re suggesting.

Let’s ignore CC. Instead, let’s take a look at C01.

Egregious or exceptional violations. In addition to rule violations explicitly listed in this manual and witnessed by a REFEREE, the Head REFEREE may assign a YELLOW or RED CARD for egregious ROBOT actions or Team member behavior at the event. This includes violations of the event rules found on the FIRST® Robotics Competition Event Experience web page. Please see Section 10.7 YELLOW and RED CARDS for additional detail.

While I don’t believe this is the rule the refs at that event were citing, it applies. I think we’d both agree that something we’ve both discussed as a corner case is exceptional. In the case a team is specifically using a strategy aimed at breaking the game to ensure victory in a match where they wouldn’t see any future penalties, that CAN meet the definition used here. I suspect it’d take a single instance of this being called for clarification to happen and to have it called uniformly beyond that event. There is a rule to provide for the upgrade to a red card here.

It’s simple. Yet, it’s also not right. A match shouldn’t be replayed because a team member walked onto a purple field. If that happened and the result changed, that would be a far worse outcome than what we see now.

The correct incentive here is promoting “cooperatition” and a positive competitive environment. I think we’d disagree with the idea of incentive here. Incentive brings an inherently positive meaning. Rather, the rule provides disincentive for the behavior. It discourages the behavior rather than encouraging the neutral. Without the rule, there’s still the threat of C01. There’s plenty of incentive as the spirit of FIRST doesn’t go on hold for Finals 2. There just isn’t the disincentive penalizing going against the spirit of friendly competition.

No, we’re not. We both agree this isn’t something that should be allowed to determine the outcome of an event. We both share that same thought. We’re in a disagreement about how to address that. Looking at how to handle it is not a discussion of common sense. It’s looking for something that closes this loophole without creating something worse. I believe the black and white version you’re using is too far reaching and has potentially detrimental side effects. You believe leaving it up to interpretation is potentially detrimental. We don’t disagree on common sense. We disagree on which of these two is more detrimental.