I have been studying strategies and scenarios which lead to ties. I believe that the tiebreaker for of “Most Robots in Scoring Position” is not possible.
Here is my logic: In order to have a tie where one team would have more robots in scoring position than another, one of the teams has to have either more balls or more goals in scoring position. Thus those tiebreakers would be invoked before they ever needed to see who had more robots in scoring position.
Am I missing something?
Raul,
I think you are right.
It seems to me that for all their complexity, FIRST never really thinks through all of their tie breakers before they publish them.
For my money, I think that FIRST should just eliminate tie breakers entirely.
We have not had tie breakers for years at the Chief Delphi Invitational and it works great.
A tie is a tie – In seeding rounds, both alliances get 2X their score. In elimination rounds, a tie remains a tie and the match is replayed. It will not add that much time to the tourney. If teams do get into in infinite tie loop, then apply an easy to use tie breaker but only after 3 or more ties – this is not a very likely event.
Bottom line: FIRST should eliminate the tie breakers.
Joe J.
*Originally posted by Joe Johnson *
**Raul,I think you are right.
It seems to me that for all their complexity, FIRST never really thinks through all of their tie breakers before they publish them.
For my money, I think that FIRST should just eliminate tie breakers entirely.
We have not had tie breakers for years at the Chief Delphi Invitational and it works great.
A tie is a tie – In seeding rounds, both alliances get 2X their score. In elimination rounds, a tie remains a tie and the match is replayed. It will not add that much time to the tourney. If teams do get into in infinite tie loop, then apply an easy to use tie breaker but only after 3 or more ties – this is not a very likely event.
Bottom line: FIRST should eliminate the tie breakers.
Joe J. **
A tie during seeding matches may adversely affect your rank, for the win might push you up a rank or two. It may not be the most likely of events, but when it happens, there has to be a winner and a loser, so that ranking goes on unhindered.
with no tie breaker whats to stop teams from agreeing before hand to only score a certain amount of points so they both get the 2X modifyer? If this were to be done it would have to be done so the tied teams just get their score.
*Originally posted by GregT *
**with no tie breaker whats to stop teams from agreeing before hand to only score a certain amount of points so they both get the 2X modifyer? If this were to be done it would have to be done so the tied teams just get their score. **
I’m guessing that you really wouldn’t be able to see that much cooperation between teams before a match. If anything, the greed inside all of us I think would be enough for at least one team to nudge an extra goal over a line. 
~Tom Fairchild~
Raul,
Yep, tie-breaker for robots will get skipped over given the right conditions. The conditions could include a tie in balls XOR goals, but not both.
KA-108 
*Originally posted by Joe Johnson *
For my money, I think that FIRST should just eliminate tie breakers entirely.Bottom line: FIRST should eliminate the tie breakers.
Joe J.
There were several (about 5-6) QP matches in NJ Regional 2000 that went 5-levels deep… i think it was “Closest to Center of Ramp.” Also that year a couple Elim matches went 3-levels deep…“Most Black Balls” or “Most total balls”.
Keep the TB’s for now. Maybe some year we’ll have a game that scores itself (position of goals and/or robots is tracked electronically and auto-updates the score board) and if, at the end of 2:00, the score is tied, the game continues in “overtime” until someone scores next. Sort of like sudden-death in (playoff) hockey or (playoff) football. Only problem will be tracking Penalties on the fly… hmmm…
KA-108 
*Originally posted by Raul *
**I have been studying strategies and scenarios which lead to ties. I believe that the tiebreaker for of “Most Robots in Scoring Position” is not possible.Here is my logic: In order to have a tie where one team would have more robots in scoring position than another, one of the teams has to have either more balls or more goals in scoring position. Thus those tiebreakers would be invoked before they ever needed to see who had more robots in scoring position.
Am I missing something? **
Score 40 40
Oh, wait. No that won’t work either. Fewest Penalties is first TB. Also no way to deduct 10 pts (only -1, -4 and -9)
Yep. Your’re right Raul.
KA-108
Actually, I believe there are two scenarios that will make this tie breaker valid. The first one can happen when, first, no penalties. Second, ball count equal. Third goal count equal. Fourth when Red team has one robot in the red robot zone and one robot in the blue robot zone. Blue team has not robots in robot scoring zones. The score would still be tied, but the Red team would win because it had two robots in scoring position. The second scenario would be when one Red team robot was in both the Blue and Red scoring zone (WOW what an accomplishment and it was NOT an entanglement issue). No other robots in a robot scoring zone. The score would still be tied, but Red would again win, because of the MYSTICAL robot in both scoring zones at the same time. I think these scenarios meet the requirements and the fourth tiebraker just becomes as valid as the others, although not very likely. Of course, ties are not all that common, but they sure do happen. I can remember twice in our local invitational in 2000 when we had to resort to the last tiebraker to settle a match.
*Originally posted by natalie *
**I can remember twice in our local invitational in 2000 when we had to resort to the last tiebraker to settle a match. **
I actually remember that all too well…gave the scoring system(and the referees) a good workout that day!
The rule does not say “#4) the alliance with the most of ITS robots in scoring position” but rather “#4) The alliance with the most robots in scoring position”
I believe that this is intended to imply that you should count the number of robots that are in each alliance’s robot scoring zone and the alliance with the highest number wins the tiebreaker. But as Raul-the-magnificent so clearly points out, this condition will never break a tie because the earlier tie breakers would have already broken the tie if the number of robots is unequal (so that either you never get to tie breaker number 4 or if you do, the number of robots in each alliance’s robot scoring zone is equal so it does not break the tie after all! The rule might as well be written as “we didn’t like the number 4 so we decided to skip tie breaker number 4 and proceed right to tie breaker number 5, though we knew we would get a lot of questions if we didn’t have SOMETHING in the number 4 slot so we have written a tie breaker that will never actually be used to break a tie in order to placate the all the small minded ‘linear thinkers’ in the FIRST community” 
Anyway, the point is pretty moot. I cannot imagine a team actually COUNTING on this tie breaker as a means of winning a match (even if my interpretation is wrong and it really matters how many of my alliance’s robots are in scoring position).
Even if I am wrong and a team CAN cut the score so fine that they really need to have this tie breaker to plan their strategy, I suppose that FIRST will clarify it soon enough for all concerned.
Joe J.
Sometimes (me included) I think we ought to have been lawyers… nah! bad idea. 
Almost wish the rules could be disclosed a week before kickoff to a very small group of us “outsiders” that could ‘stress-test’ the rules for these types of ambiguities.
your thoughts?
KA-108
This tiebreaker wording is. at best. confusing. The wording does not say the alliance with most of its robots in scoring position, nor does it say the alliance with the most robots in its scoring position. The former interpretation would lead to a valid tiebreaker, while the later interpretation would be an irrelevant tiebreaker. It would be my guess and that is exactly what it is. a guess, that the referees will use the first interpretation if the need arrises in the tiebreakers. I am in total agreement with Joe on doing away with the tiebreakers in the games. By eliminating the tiebreakers, the games would run more smoothly. No delays in the scoring, therefore, speeding up the process. without any sacrifice in the quality of the competition. The 2X score in the event of a tie still leaves incentive for both alliances to win the game. Anytime we can speed up the flow, without sacrificing the quality of the competition, it has the potential of allowing more games to be played. We all want to play the game as often as we can. I think we can all agree with that.