[BunnyGo]

Phil, on 2012-August-01, 14:50, said:

Now, just don't throw this one out there and not support it!

A bridge trick is to a bridge hand as a match is to a tournament. The former is a microcosm of the latter.

Let me turn this around a little. What if the Laws of Bridge said, "not using one's best efforts to win a match trick". Wouldn't we have a silly little game? No hold-ups, no Bath Coups, no rectifying the count.

Just win tricks as quickly as you can.

I think your analogy is flawed. There are no bridge competitions I know of that are one hand long. We compete over matches too, and I'm happy to debate whether throwing one intentionally in a round robin for seeding rights is ethical (because I do not know what the answer should be, so debating would be interesting).

[Phil]

BunnyGo, on 2012-August-01, 15:00, said:

I think your analogy is flawed. There are no bridge competitions I know of that are one hand long.

Perhaps, but this does not invalidate the premise, it supports it. Put it this way, over the course of a match, there are hundreds of opportunities to lose tricks.

Quote

We compete over matches too, and I'm happy to debate whether throwing one intentionally in a round robin for seeding rights is ethical (because I do not know what the answer should be, so debating would be interesting).

Here's a real life bridge example and this is why they did away with three way matches in major team events.

In a three way, you will frequently have two pretty good teams (1 and 2) and one weak team (3) with two survivors. To make matters worse, sometimes the two survivors would play each other in the next round without a carryover.

At halftime (say each match is 32 boards), here are the scores:

1 v 2: 100 to 10
1 v 3: 30 to 25
2 v 3: 50 to 40

If a team loses both matches, it automatically loses. If a team wins both matches it automatically advances. If each team is 1-1, then the two teams with the highest IMP differential advance.

Clearly, 1 would prefer 3 as its 2nd round opponent, or just put 2 out of the tournament altogether. By intentionally losing to 3 by more than a margin that 2 beats 3, 3 gets in, as long as 1 continues to beat up 2.

Solutions?

- Don't have teams compare at halftime. Just play through 32 boards.
- Have a significant carry-over for the next round. This also disincentivizes dumping.
- Don't have 3 ways

[BunnyGo]

On a related note, the 4 teams that qualified through this (these teams had a combined 2 wins in the qualifying stages) were then seeded against each other in the quarter-finals (I don't know why). Thus guaranteeing a medal to a team that won at most 1 match in the round-robin phase, and only had to beat 2 teams that did the same to win the medal (1 in the QF, and one in the bronze medal match).

[dwar0123]

Phil, on 2012-August-01, 15:16, said:

Perhaps, but this does not invalidate the premise, it supports it. Put it this way, over the course of a match, there are hundreds of opportunities to lose tricks.

No, not even close.

Badminton and bridge are competitive games centered around winning their respective games.

Bridge is not a game centered around winning tricks as they become available, nonsensical example.

A tournament is a series of competitive games with the goal of finding the best players of that game during the tournament.

Losing a trick to insure a contract is totally inline with the competitive spirit of doing your best to win your game.
Losing a match to improve your chances in the overall tournament is fundamentally different. You are violating the goal of game(to win the game) to further your goal in the tournament. The tournament is a structure that serves the game, not the other way around.

Your analogy is flawed, period. Maybe you can come up with a better one, whatever, don't care, I personally feel it violates the spirit of the Olympics. As it has been pointed out, it indeed violates the rules as well, punishment was handed out and I approve.

Maybe you feel that its the fault of the tournament setup(I certainty agree that the setup leaves something to be desired), your welcome to feel that, to some extent our opinions are subjective and while I strongly disagree with you, I am not going to be able to construct a mathematical proof demonstrating your error with respect to the idea that you should do what ever you can to win a tournament.

I can, to my satisfaction, prove that your analogy is flawed.

[TimG]

Phil, on 2012-August-01, 14:37, said:

Everything I have read on the Badminton Federation's website indicates that the "not using one's best efforts to win a match" appears to be an attempt to avoid throwing a match because people are gambling on it, and because of past bribes and payoffs, not because a team is trying to win a medal in the process. Honestly, I don't think the federation ever considered the ramifications of sportsmanlike dumping.

Furthermore, "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport" actually mean? There's a significant split in the blogosphere about whether or not what they did was OK, so what is so clear about this offense?

I wonder if there were people betting on these matches. Sports betting is legal in the UK, isn't it?

[BunnyGo]

TimG, on 2012-August-01, 18:07, said:

I wonder if there were people betting on these matches. Sports betting is legal in the UK, isn't it?

I'd be surprised if there weren't betting in vegas too.

[Phil]

To me (but I guess not to everyone) its a simple hierarchy. Winning the tournament is more important than winning a match, which is more important than winning a set, which is turn is more important than winning a point.

This model is translatable to bridge, badminton, bowling, tennis, volleyball. It might not be applicable to certain team sports like bicycling, although the road race brings forth some interesting dynamics.

Frankly I don't know where 'doing your best' fits in, but it sounds like a well-meaning bromide we like to tell our kids and then tell ourselves we are good parents.

I think everyone agrees that the rules are poorly constructed to spawn irrational behavior. Its what people do after this realization that makes them different.

If anyone wants to construct a mathematical model that is based on platitudes then they are welcome to.

[1eyedjack]

I think that issues surrounding gambling are irrelevant.

The punters are presumably no less aware than the players if it is in the interests of the players to throw a match. If it is in their interests to throw a match and the punters gamble on their winning it, then that just makes them unsophisticated punters, deserving of their fate. If a system could be devised in which I could gamble on the result of an individual trick in a bridge game, and I saw Granovetter about to play to a trick where ducking rectifies the count, I would count myself stupid to gamble on his winning the trick, however I rate him as a player.

The gambling fraternity get upset, and with more justification, if rules are broken and not enforced, or if there is relevant information affecting the odds that is available to some gamblers but not to others, or in the extreme where participants collude with punters

If rules are broken and not enforced, then there is all sorts of fall-out, of which certain gamblers losing their shirts is just one effect, and frankly to my mind (personal opinion, I know), one of the least significant.

[Zelandakh]

Dwar, Phil's point is that Olympic badminton is a sport centered around winning a medal, not around winning matches. Therefore, in his anaolgy a bridge match relates to a badminton tournament and a bridge trick relates to a badminton match. There are certainly better examples but the anaolgy is not false just because you are unable to change the scale in your mind. As another example, in the last London Olympics, 1948, a British rower deliberately lost one of his heats in order to maximise the chance of winning gold. When he did in fact win the gold medal, his tactics were widely praised. This is in an era of "fair play" and "British sportsmanship".

One thing seems clear so far - the Olympics are not going to plan and almost every day mired in controversy. Not only the badminton, also the fencing (this was worse than the famous 1 second basketball final), the gymnastics (0.7 difference, what is that?) and the swimming (how difficult is it to make a starting device that works?). Plus the question-marks about empty seats and security. Maybe there is more too; I have only managed to see a tiny amount of sport and almost every time there seems to be a problem!

[dwar0123]

Zelandakh, on 2012-August-02, 01:49, said:

Dwar, Phil's point is that Olympic badminton is a sport centered around winning a medal, not around winning matches. Therefore, in his anaolgy a bridge match relates to a badminton tournament and a bridge trick relates to a badminton match. There are certainly better examples but the anaolgy is not false just because you are unable to change the scale in your mind. As another example, in the last London Olympics, 1948, a British rower deliberately lost one of his heats in order to maximise the chance of winning gold. When he did in fact win the gold medal, his tactics were widely praised. This is in an era of "fair play" and "British sportsmanship".

Hogwash, my mind has no problem changing the scale. Scale isn't the problem here, the problem is that it is just a flawed analogy.

For one, you are trying to compare playing bridge well with playing badminton really really badly. If am honestly floored that intelligent people can not see how these two things are fundamentally different.

No one would ever accuse someone taking a safety play as "not using one’s best efforts to win a match"
No one would ever accuse someone taking a safety play of "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport"

That I can't convince you of this difference after so many attempts speaks volumes about my failure to communicate and your inability to get over your cognitive dissonance.

Whatever you may think of doing such things to further advance your chances at winning, shrug.

But that analogy is stupid and does nothing to clarify the different opinions surrounding the controversy.

[Cyberyeti]

Zelandakh, on 2012-August-02, 01:49, said:

Dwar, Phil's point is that Olympic badminton is a sport centered around winning a medal, not around winning matches. Therefore, in his anaolgy a bridge match relates to a badminton tournament and a bridge trick relates to a badminton match. There are certainly better examples but the anaolgy is not false just because you are unable to change the scale in your mind. As another example, in the last London Olympics, 1948, a British rower deliberately lost one of his heats in order to maximise the chance of winning gold. When he did in fact win the gold medal, his tactics were widely praised. This is in an era of "fair play" and "British sportsmanship".

One thing seems clear so far - the Olympics are not going to plan and almost every day mired in controversy. Not only the badminton, also the fencing (this was worse than the famous 1 second basketball final), the gymnastics (0.7 difference, what is that?) and the swimming (how difficult is it to make a starting device that works?). Plus the question-marks about empty seats and security. Maybe there is more too; I have only managed to see a tiny amount of sport and almost every time there seems to be a problem!

It has been quoted in the British press that badminton has a specific rule stating that you have to try to win every match, and that is the rule broken along with the one that penalises you for bringing the game into disrepute.

The problem is not the gambling (and yes sports betting is OK here) but the paying spectators demanding refunds having not seen the evening of top class badminton they'd paid for.

[cherdano]

Can anyone explain why it was advantageous for FOUR pairs to dump a match? Did they use no seeding/horrible seeding/seeding controlled by a non-Asian seeding committee/...?

[Cyberyeti]

cherdano, on 2012-August-02, 03:57, said:

Can anyone explain why it was advantageous for FOUR pairs to dump a match? Did they use no seeding/horrible seeding/seeding controlled by a non-Asian seeding committee/...?

The other very good Chinese pair unexpectedly lost putting them in the half of the draw with the winners of the two matches in question, all four pairs were trying to get into the other half of the draw.

[TimG]

Phil, on 2012-August-01, 21:25, said:

To me (but I guess not to everyone) its a simple hierarchy. Winning the tournament is more important than winning a match, which is more important than winning a set, which is turn is more important than winning a point.

The rules (that have been cited in this thread) refer to a pair doing their best to win a match, not to doing their best to win the event. You and I may have a simple hierarchy based upon winning a tournament being first priority, but these pairs were playing under rules which did not follow that hierarchy.

Most of us can agree that CoC should be written such that dumping a match will not increase a pair's chance of winning an event. But, I think we can also agree that pairs playing under what we consider to be flawed CoC must still follow the rules (or be subject to the penalties proscribed).

[TimG]

BunnyGo, on 2012-August-01, 18:23, said:

I'd be surprised if there weren't betting in vegas too.

I'm curious to know whether the line on these matches changed significantly after the other strong Chinese pair unexpectedly lost a match. I guess where both pairs had incentive to lose the line might not change much. But, still curious.

[cherdano]

TimG, on 2012-August-02, 08:36, said:

But, I think we can also agree that pairs playing under what we consider to be flawed CoC must still follow the rules (or be subject to the penalties proscribed).

Do you think the rules for such a violation of their "players' code of conduct" exactly spells out penalties for violations? What I found was just a single sentence mentioning that you have to give your best effort to win.

This is really what stinks about this situation in my view: there is no precedent, and the rule is unclear, so the committee deciding about the penalties has to make up things on the spot. I am not sure I know a single person on this planet who wouldn't be influenced in such a situation by whether he can empathize with the athletes (e.g. whether he will look at this from the athletes' perspective at all). You don't think a European disciplinary committee member would look at this with different eyes if the athletes are European?

[cherdano]

Btw, to give a comparison: There was a Judo team that refused to practice on the same mat as the Judo team from one specific nation. I am fairly sure there is some code of conduct rule that can be read to prohibit such behavior. I am also sure that anyone will find this more repulsive than throwing a round-robin match. But instead of ejecting the team, the official put up a screen so the two nations could practice on the two sides.

[TimG]

cherdano, on 2012-August-02, 10:23, said:

You don't think a European disciplinary committee member would look at this with different eyes if the athletes are European?

I don't, but maybe that just means I am naive.

[cherdano]

TimG, on 2012-August-02, 11:43, said:

I don't, but maybe that just means I am naive.

I bet you also think that US supreme court judges decide cases on their legal merit alone, and remain completely unbiased when the effect of a decision would align with their political convictions?
I guess you also think that a criminal defendant has the same chances of success, regardless of the demographic breakdown of the jury?

After the contentious decision in the semifinal between a German and Korean fencer, the German coach and a German judge involved in the decision were interviewed together on German TV. The German judge didn't deem it necessary to hide that he is good friends with the coach. Needless to say, he thought their decision was extremely obvious, no big deal at all.

[MickyB]

jeffford76, on 2012-August-01, 14:37, said:

As long as the format is flawed, people will dump matches. The next ones just won't be so obvious about it.

Yes, this situation only became obvious because it was in the interests of both pairs to lose.