[TBA Blog] Schedule Strengths (2 of 3): Historical Schedule Strengths

[Starke]

Schedule Strengths (2 of 3): Historical Schedule Strengths
By Caleb Sykes

Background

In my most recent post, I investigated what would be the best generally applicable “Strength of Schedule” metric. I settled on something I’m calling “Average Rank Difference” which is just the sum of all opponent “ranks” minus the sum of all partner “ranks” plus a few adjustments to normalize between events. Now, what we decide to use for ranks could be anything, but it has to be something you have available before the event starts, so you can’t use each team’s seeding rank at the end of the event you are analyzing for example. Possible options could be: Team number, previous events/years winning record, previous district points, previous event ranks, Elo, OPR, etc… For the analysis in this article, I’m going to be using Elo since I have it readily available, and I think it’s generally better suited for questions like this than any of the alternatives.

Check out the rest of the article here: https://blog.thebluealliance.com/2019/02/12/schedule-strengths-2-of-3-historical-schedule-strengths/

[Caleb_Sykes]

In a shocking revelation, this article uncovers that it’s better to have more matches than fewer matches.

[AquaMorph]

One thing I have wondered about why FIRST has not tried with scheduling is that one generates half the schedule with the way it is currently done. Then one takes the rankings and uses it to generate a schedule that is used to sort out the rankings further. This is how debate tournaments are run and it leads to better matches later on with more accurate rankings without the need for more matches.

[Caleb_Sykes]

Relevant thoughts: Stupid Match Algorithm Tricks, 2018

[AquaMorph]

Yeah I would love to see something like this tried out. I’m curious if games that had rank points associated with tasks in the game had rankings there were more influenced by schedule than years where robot performance alone determined rankings. Since a lot of the rank points required having above average alliance partners to be able to accomplish.