Olympians D'Qed for intentionally losing

DoOmEr4LiFe said:

Throw them out of the tournament. There, done. There is nothing wrong with how it is set up.

Nope. They were only caught in this instance because they were doing it so blatantly. If they were more careful with how they were playing, I bet they could have easily have quite effectively gamed the system without anyone realising.

The problem is absolutely with the setup. It encourages players to game the system instead of playing their best. I personally don't really blame them for doing it - it's in their own best interests to do so. The tournament should be set up so that it doesn't provide an incentive to players to do this.

fraggle said:

I bet they could have easily have quite effectively gamed the system without anyone realising.

+1 on entire post cept this. They were caught because BOTH teams were trying to do it. Two teams trying to lose at once will cause game to grind to a halt. If one team was actually playing, the losing team just needed to play a little worse and it would seem like a normal game.

fraggle said:

The problem is absolutely with the setup. It encourages players to game the system instead of playing their best. I personally don't really blame them for doing it - it's in their own best interests to do so. The tournament should be set up so that it doesn't provide an incentive to players to do this.

Evidently, they are doing something wildly different than straight round robin (which is what I thought they were doing). Traditional round robin tourneys encourage you to win in group play because the top team plays the bottom team in the follow up elimination round. If you are capable of winning every game in round robin and then ensure yourself of playing the weakest team in the opposing bracket if there is one, there is an incentive to winning. If you throw games that means another team gets a better chance at playing the weaker opposition and you open yourself to tougher competition in opening elimination rounds.

I assumed they were doing it the way I thought because most every team sport in the Olympics is, from water polo to soccer to volleyball and so on.

I thought the Olympics would use it this way, and if they are than there is nothing wrong with the set up. If they are doing something different, which I admittedly didn't bother to look up whether they or not than yeah, they went with a faulty system.

It works so well that all major professional sports call their group stage play the "regular season".

It should be noted that the Korean coach tried to wing it so that they didn't have to play against the other Korean team unless they both made the finals. They should worry about the team across the table from them, not the other Korean team, until it becomes a time they are one in the same.

Just fuck the system over by making losers having a chance at bronze at best. (Maybe silver, who knows). Or who knows, set up a point system where wins are worth more.

Catoptromancy said:
They were caught because BOTH teams were trying to do it. Two teams trying to lose at once will cause game to grind to a halt. If one team was actually playing, the losing team just needed to play a little worse and it would seem like a normal game.

Not necessarily, but at least they can argue that more easily. The Spanish basketball team lost rather suspiciously against Brazil and thus avoided meeting the US before medals rounds. They were winning but lost the last quarter badly, losing the game. I don't buy their claims that they didn't throw the game, and we had to face the US for a real fight to get to the medals, so I'm rooting for LeBron, Anthony and the gang to stomp them this Sunday ;)

Stupidest.

Catoptromancy said:

Point of game is to win. If losing on purpose is a legitimate strategy for winning then game is flawed.

I always HATE it when people start playing the metagame instead of the game itself. It's always flawed tournament rules that encourage it, too.

I know this personally because I've been in plenty of (lazier non-sports) tournaments and the like where this has happened.