In reading the referenced thread, I realized that it is probably unclear just what the rules were in 1999.
That was the first year of alliances. The top eight seeds picked their alliance partners but were not allowed to pick among themselves. Teams that were picked by one of the top eight had the option of declining an offer and waiting for a better one.
This resulted in a lot of deal-making and from what I understand in some cases there were qualifying matches that were apparently “thrown” so that a team would stay out of the top eight and be available for picking by another team. I don’t recall seeing any of that, but I spent alot of time in the pit helping other teams so I might have missed it.
We ran into this possibility in the San Jose regional that year. It was the BeachBot’s second year and we finally had a machine that was doing well. We were around the 3rd or fourth seed and were looking for who we were going to pick. Team 60, Kingman, looked very promising to us. They had some troubles early on but they were now fixed and were steadily climbing the rankings. But they were still ranked about 10 or 11 and better yet few of the other teams had picked up on them. They didn’t have a potential partner yet.
They were in one of the last qualifing matches along with the number one or two seed and a couple of middle to low ranked teams. If Kingman and the high ranked team (I seem to recall it being 254 but it might not have been) were on different alliances, then there was no problem. They would fight it out, probably get a slightly better than average score, and not much would change. But if they were paired together, then there was a good possibility for a real blowout. At this time you knew who was in the match with you, but only found out who your partner was when you were in the que to go out on the field.
When we realized what the possibilities were, there was some hurried discussion between the leaders of our two teams about what should be done. They ultimately made what I felt to be the only defensible choice. Kingman would go out and do their best no matter what. As it turned out, they were paired with the high ranked team and won the match. As I recall, it was the highest scoring match of the competition, but even if it wasn’t they scored enough points to move into the top eight.
Because it was so late, we were pretty well screwed. Not only was our planned partner no longer available, but most of the other top teams were already committed to alliances. To pair with us, they would have to break their word to another team. I think we had to go down to our fourth pick or so before we found somebody who would accept and we were eliminated in the first round. I still think if we had been paired with Kingman we would have come out on top.
On the bright side, that was the beginning of our friendship with Kingman. It was also the beginning of a running joke, because it was three years before we would be able to play WITH them in a match. Even though we went to all the same competitions, even in the off-season. We played together several times, but always on opposite alliances.
Changing the rules to allow picking among the top seeds and eliminating a team’s ability to “wait for a better offer” were defintely steps in the right direction. Yes there are some problems, but they are much easier to live with than what we had before. As my Uncle is wont to say “You never solve a problem, you just exchange one set of problems for a new one. The only question is whether the new set is easier to live with than the old”
The problems Patrickrd mentioned are lapses in judgement by the teams involved. It is assumed that any student sent out to represent a team for alliance picking knows the rules. To send out someone who doesn’t is folly and not FIRST’s problem. In the case of Patrikrd’s team, they made an unwise choice, it was not the fault of the rules nor were they ignorant of the posibility they would have to go as number 4 alliance if they turned down number 1. Could these teams have done better if they made different choices? Probably, but that doesn’t mean we should go changing the rules to moderate the consequenses of foolishness.
It might do you more harm than good.
It might do you more harm than good.