This was a thought that i had given that Nationals is going to be so competitive at the top.
Lets say your the number one seed but your not the best bot out there. Your good but not on the same level as say 1114, 233, 330… You go and talk to say 1114 and see if they want to be on an alliance before the selections, this is done all the time at regionals, I imagine its the same at nationals. Team 1114 says no they are looking to team up with a stronger team and wish to form their own alliance. Lets say they are the third Seed. Now we go to the selections and you have the first pick, is it un-GP to ask 1114 to join your alliance knowing they are going to say no, just so the second seed, say 330 who 1114 would pair themselves with, from picking them? Also what about doing this for all eight Alliance Captains?
Of corse you wouldn’t want to pick any team that you didn’t want to be on an alliance with but if this tactic is use properly then it could stop deadly alliance that you could beat from forming and thus give you a better chance.
Go look at Curie last year. 1114 was 5th or 6th, not 3rd, but that EXACT situation happened. There is also discussion of this elsewhere. It’s perfectly legal. GP or not…well, that’s up for interpretation. I think it’s a legitimate strategy and GP, but someone else might not.
this is a strategy that is often used to keep the seeded teams from forming an alliance within themselves.
It can be an effective strategy, although tough on the ego of the team making the selections who keeps being turned down.
There are going to be people post on both sides (right / wrong) of this topic, but is is a strategy often used to keep known “friendly” teams from partnering.
I think that at nationals, it’s more about forming strong alliances to move on…but then it’s more about your team moving onto the championships…so i guess it depends on what you want more, your division to prevail or your team to move on but not do so good…it all depends.
we actually thought talked about that as a good stategy (laughingly of course cause we would never intentionally do that), but I personally think that it is a good stategy and by no means un-GP.
If its okay for a team to reject an offer in order to form a better alliance then they obviously have winning set as their number one priority (which I think is great for them).
It should then be okay for that same team to set winning as their first priority as well (by doing whatever they can to make sure that their alliance has a shot at winning, including breaking up powerhouse teams).
It’s not GP, its not un-GP, its just a strategy.
I fear we’ll start having threads saying things like “Scoring points for your alliance is un-GP because it hurts the teams you’re playing against…”
Go watch the alliance pairings from the Midwest regional this year. It happened and I’d say it did a good job of leveling the playing field.
this was already talked about in a HEATED discussion because it ocurred at the great lakes regional some teams had very passionate awnsers on both ends but i personally think that you should first and foremost look to better the chances of your team winning out…but thats just me
Gracious professionalism is about giving it your all to win but treating each of your fellow competitors and teammates like there your brother. I agree with this move, if its in your best interest to win then go ahead. Do what you think is best to win. Give it your all to win. Even if its a typical top seed move.
Would you rather watch finals where each of the top teams had their own alliance and the matches were even or matches where there was one powerhouse alliance that could win any match?
'dats why you scout, so you have more then one choice. Some times the best bots break from being over played or pushed to far. Also its about the alliance being able to work together, three amazing teams is good but if everyone is looking out for number one then well it won’t be good.
Remeber there are 2 track balls and 3 to an alliance.
Does a team has an obligation to break-up a super-alliance in the selection process, giving their own alliance a better chance of winning their Division?
OR
Should a team’s loyalty extend beyond themselves to helping insure their Division wins the Championship?
Who can fault a team wanting to achieve their highest level of success at an event? Would you criticize a team for NOT breaking up a potential super-alliance given the opportunity?
What is the GP thing to do?
That’s a personal choice and it’s NOT GP to criticize that choice.
Never criticize, consructive criticism; what you can do better next time. Or what ’ i ’ think ’ you ’ can do better next time. (this is how my english teacher explain it i think its a little word that make criticism sound good)
This is a very valid and well used strategy known as alliance breaking. pick the team that you know the other powerhouse is going to pick, and get rid of the potential deadly alliance. Its a good way to even the playing ground.
Maybe, but I don’t think so. It’s related–the idea was to avoid getting picked by #1 as they went down the line keeping other strong teams from allying.
Well, it definitely happened at the Seattle Regional with us. Our team, Team 1983 - The Skunkworks was 3rd Seed. Team 1778 was 1st and 1318 2nd. We were talking to team 1778 before the alliance picking and telling them we were glad that they considered us but we would-due to our strategy-decline their offer in case they would chose us in the official picking! So they picked another team, not us. 1318 then tried to pick us, what we didn’t expect so we “respectfully declined!” Our strategy was to team up with team 2046, one of the teams we were working closely together with during build season. Well, we ended up with them and won the regional.
This story shows pretty much your scenario at regional level!
I really don’t think that we did not practice GP. We informed team 1778 before the official picking that we would decline in case they tried to pick us. We also were always polite while team 1318 asked us to join them. That is what I think most important.
Even if you decline-and I think there is nothing wrong with it-you should be very polite all the time. It depends very much on the way you handle your decisions! The gracious professionalism means, for me, to cooperate, to communicate and to be friendly and polite all the time, even though you are competitive.
I don’t like the whole idea of intentionally losing matches, though. Anyhow one can hardly prove that and on the other hand every team has the chance to get through by winning all their games…so until a team does not actually confess they did it, I would be very, very careful with this topic.
A similar situation happed at Great Lakes this year, there was some discussion in the Great Lakes Regional thread starts around page 10, and Paul Copioli explains the situation here
