Alliance selection strategy

VEX V5 General Discussion General Forum
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There was another recent thread discussing some issue with alliance selection. Rather than clutter that thread with more discussion I though it would be worth starting another where we could talk about alliance selection strategies in more detail.

I really enjoy alliance selection and the various techniques and games we use to place ourselves in the best position to advance to the finals. Obviously it’s advantageous to be in position 1, you get to make the first move, but what other decisions do you use to determine how to put together a winning alliance and perhaps to place the teams from your club or school also in a good position. For example, if we have two teams as alliance captains we try to make sure they don’t play each other in the quarter finals, ideally they would meet in the finals. Do teams from the same club/school stick together and select each other? What part does team politics play, do you pick a team that picked you at the last competition, or last year? Do you bluff, tell several teams you are interested in making an alliance? Do you use the “scorched earth” strategy? Do you pick a team with a team member you would like to meet?

As a coach we do try and present our students with all the options but ultimately give them the final decision. When coaching less experienced students I do give them specific instructions such as “if you are invited then accept”. I have seen students fall apart when trying to choose in front of a large audience and I have also seen inspired choices, one such choice happened yesterday when my team in the #1 spot chose the 14th seeded team as their first pick (it almost worked out).

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One example,

We have two teams. It is fun to get to be allied together, but that isn’t always the best choice. At a recent competition one of my teams was ranked first and the other was 7th or so. Had the 1st place team picked their comrades in 7th places, we PROBABLY would have won the tournament, but it wasn’t a sure thing. So my 1st place team kindly told my 7th place team that they would be picking the 2nd place robot.

Basically, they knew that going against the 2nd place robot put them in a position that they would have to battle for the win. But allying with them almost guaranteed a win. In the end, they chose the safe bet. (and won…they had to beat their fellow classmates in the semi-finals)

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The exact same thing happened to my team. Unfortunately they did not quite see things the same way. Situations like that always suck because it’s really a lose lose situation; either you please everyone by picking your other team, but potentially lose, or you pick the better team and guarantee a win, but get everyone on the other team ticked off at you. :confused:

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In my opinion you should always try to pick the alliance that you will be most likely to win with and disregard any politics. If you pick a worse robot over a better robot than I think it is not in the spirit of the games because the better robot deserved to be picked but now is disadvantaged. That being said I think the above mentioned scorched earth strategy is perfectly valid but in my opinion lying to other teams about your alliance choice to throw them off in underhanded.

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I guess a lot depends on the club’s culture.

For example, my club has that - “One win, all win” culture, or sometimes we called it - One team, many robots.

But things only get tricky in competitions that only have 1 division, whereby all brother/sister teams will be playing against each other.
There is no issue during Worlds (all teams are spread across 5 divisions).

For competitions that we have teams in the same division, our mantra is always to form the strongest alliance for the best robot, and that means sometimes, we may or may not choose a robot that’s from our own club.

But of course, if possible, we will also try to link up or “collapse” the seeded teams so that some of our non-top 8 teams can be pushed up.
The collapsing of seeded teams also helped to ensure our own teams dont meet up each other in QF.

But all these are ideal cases - there are so many times that we need to kick each other out of the eliminations :frowning:

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For us, it’s about competition and relationships. We have 2 teams, we were 1&2 in our first two tournaments and I asked the kids not to pick each other. It was really about getting to know other teams and helping everyone get to State. I also ask them to pick the host school over others, for 2 and 3rd alliance spots, if there is little difference in the remaining teams since they put forth the effort to offer the tournament, lot’s of work.
We were 2&3 over the weekend for the first time and I told them only to pick each other if 1 picked 4, since that would have made competitive sense.

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As a middle school, we have 6 teams. Our school goal is to try to get all the teams to the regional championship. We do help our students try to actively use Alliance Selection to have the best chances of winning and we encourage them to work as a school. Top seed teams will select the best partner they can.

If one of our teams is #1 Alliance captain, they will pick the #2 seed. Generally it is the best choice. If that team declines, they will move onto #3. The motive isn’t usually to break up a potential alliance so much as it is to make the best alliance possible. That being said, if we felt breaking potential alliance would increase the overall chances for our entire school to have more robots have a shot at the tournament championship, we’ll encourage our teams to do it.

For example if we had teams that were #1 & #2 going into Alliance selection and we thought our chances were 50-50 if we allowed #3 & #4 to form an alliance, we’d suggest to our team that instead #1 pick #3 and #2 pick #4 and then both pick another team from our school if any were left for the 2nd round of picking. Our intent is not to upset anyone, it’s to maximize how many of our teams get to Regionals.

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At a recent MS tournament the two teams I coach placed 5th and 29th during qualifications. I told the 5th place team that since they didn’t have an intake they should really pick a team that has an intake. They instead choose their “brother” team ranked 29th. This 29th team has a lift, but NO intake. It’s cross-court shooter that can sometimes BOUNCE a ball into the low goal. For their second pick they choose a team that they thought was the last shooting robot available… it couldn’t shoot and it couldn’t intake either, but it was somewhat small for a possible lift.

I thought this would end up being an excellent learning opportunity for the teams to learn how NOT to choose alliance partners. I thought this alliance would lose at least in the semi-finals, they ended up winning the whole tournament. They defeated a really powerful 1st ranked alliance in the semi-finals, and then an excellent 2nd ranked alliance in the finals. My plan for a “teachable moment” backfired.

As a mentor I learned the lesson of the fact that you can lead a team to a good alliance selection, but you can’t make them pick. Sit back and enjoy them competing, and enjoy watching them do whatever they do.

Looking back at the alliance selection for the tournament, it’s interesting to note that the 11th place qualifying team didn’t get selected for the elimination rounds. That had to stink for a team that did reasonably well during the qualification rounds.

“Alliance Rank”, “Captain Team Rank”, “Team Rank Pick #1”, “Team Rank Pick #2”
A1, 1, 2, 13
A2, 3, 19, 20
A3, 4, 12, 10
A4, 5, 29, 15
A5, 6, 16, 26
A6, 7, 22, 18
A7, 8, 25, 28
A8, 9, 21, 14

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I think the alliances are good, but I just hate it when sportsmanship flies out the window. If done right it can be fun at the local level for sure, but student driven decisions and sportsmanship should rule the day.