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Own-goal football (2022)

generalist.academy

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Re: Own-goal football (2022)

#121

Post by Kuiper »

This brings to mind one of my favorite TV shows, One Outs. It's about the strategies that a clever and "unsportsmanlike" player brings to a baseball team, exploiting the rules while violating the spirit of the game.

As one example: in order for a baseball game to be considered valid, both teams must play 5 innings. If the weather is bad and teams are unable to continue due to rain, a wants their runners to be declared "out" so that the inning can end faster. There's a real-time rules-gaming arms race as both teams test the bounds of what's legally permissible, driven by incentives that lead to a very unusual game of baseball.

Re: Own-goal football (2022)

#122

Post by dylan604 »

smcl wrote: post #116
dylan604 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then why not 1-0 scores?

It's a good question but I don't think there's any good answer other than "1-0 or 2-0 doesn't feel like punishment enough". Interesingly, for two-legged cup competitions a forfeit likely won't result in a 3-0 loss, but a disqualification instead. So if you're winning 4-0 or 5-0 and can't be bothered showing up for the return fixture, you can't just forfeit and win 4-3 or 5-3 on aggregate, you have to fulfil the fixtu…

I've officiated games where the weather was lousy (our leagues are pretty fair weathered) and one team was heading for state championship and the opposing team was just getting slaughtered (double digit to nil at half). League rules say if the game was abandoned in the first half, the game must be replayed. NOBODY wanted that (plus there was no room left in schedule), so as agreed by both teams immediately after bringing the first half to an end, the teams switched sides, the second half was started and immediately abandoned due to inclement weather. Since it was in the second half, the score stood as final.

Re: Own-goal football (2022)

#123

Post by smcl »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #120
smcl wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the greater worry is that the gap in quality and finances between any second tier and the NBA or NFL would be so enormous that you're virtually guaranteed to bankrupt any relegated team (decreased TV money, sponsorship, merch, gate receipts) and to completely crush any newly promoted team. That is unless you dumped a huge amount of capital into building or subsidising the second tier for a few seasons at leas…

Where I think the American system breaks down is that the value of teams is in the branding and the exclusive status. Just being in the league means the franchise is worth single digit billion dollars, and that floor will hold no matter how long a team is bad. It can't happen because that floor is useful to the owners, I imagine if by some miracle it did the NFL would split into two leagues. There's a bunch of non NF…

Yeah if finishing bottom caused you to be relegated rather than rewarding you with better draft prospects it'd definitely cause a more exciting end-season for lower-ranked teams. I don't think a single team has ever wanted to finish poorly in any league I've known about here.

Though on the flipside failure is punished and that punishment can be brutal. Teams can enter death spirals on being relegated - important players may have release clauses on their contracts stipulating that they can leave on relegation, and the reduced budget from playing at a lower level could make recruiting replacements harder. Some teams handle it well, while others enter multi-year collapses. So while Norwich City appear to be quite happy bouncing between the top two English leagues, back in 2017 Sunderland were relegated from the English premier league to the Championship and the next season were relegated to League One where they got stuck for a couple of seasons (there's a Netflix series that happened to start around this time called "Sunderland 'til I die" which covers this period, it's really interesting and actually a couple of my friends briefly appear in it by coincidence).

Re: Own-goal football (2022)

#124

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

7373737373 wrote: post #11

One other weird thing: When a soccer player who is not a goalkeeper prevents a goal by catching the ball with their hands, they "just" get a red card and the attacking team a penalty, even if they would have certainly scored otherwise. Luis Suarez successfully used this in the 2010 World Cup quarter-finals in the Uruguay vs Ghana game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM-29hy-Qyw - Ghana missed the penalty, which led…

> > Skimming through the laws of the game (https://downloads.theifab.com/downloads/laws-of-the-game-202...) I do wonder whether a trainer and up to 4 other players (because a team which can field less than 7 players forfeits the game) climbing on the crossbar until it breaks could be advantageous in some situation as well since If it cannot be repaired the match must be abandoned.

Most of these rules are there, but if somebody were to try and obviously abuse them (for example damaging the crossbar or the net) they'd be disqualified due to common sense.

For example, back in 1991 during the Quarter Final of the European Club Cup Marseille was winning 1-0 against AC Milan, they had the victory in their pocket but in stoppage time a blackout hit Marseille's Velodrome stadium and lights went out. After a few minutes the electricity returned but stadium lights would need 15-20 minutes to be ready again.

AC Milan board stormed onto the pitch and took the occasion to forcefully send their players in the locker-room and de-facto retire the team hoping to somehow avoid defeat and have some ground to protest for a repetition of the match. Their claim is that during the blackout TV crews and fans descended onto the pitch and there would be grounds for a disqualification of Marseille or at least a replay.

UEFA didn't like that at all and instead banned the club board and the whole A.C. Milan squad from European competition for 2 years.

http://tdifh.blogspot.com/2012/03/20-march-1991-night-lights...

Re: Own-goal football (2022)

#125

Post by merlincorey »

thazework wrote: post #50
gfunk911 wrote: post #33

In the NHL, you get 2 points for winning, 0 points for losing in regulation, and 1 point for losing in overtime. The obvious result (to everyone but the creators of the rule I guess) is that, if a game is tied near the end of regulation, it is best for both sides if the game goes to overtime. There are 2 points available for a game decided in regulation, but 3 if decided in overtime. I assume both teams would sit qui…

Unless there is a scenerio where one team really doesn't want the other to get even a point? Speaking of NHL and weird rules iirc there's an emergency goalie that can be pulled out of the crowd to fill in for either team.

Here's a Youtube video about an emergency goalie helping win a game a few years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlBsR1WIT0U

> Feb 22, 2020 Zamboni driver for the Toronto Marlies and emergency backup goalie David Ayres makes his NHL debut at 42 years of age, stopping 8 of 10 shots to give the Carolina Hurricanes a 6-3 win, all while stealing the show in Toronto.

Re: Own-goal football (2022)

#126

Post by NikolaNovak »

Buttons840 wrote: post #101
munificent wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The meta-game of game design: how do you design a game whose mechanics lead to incentives that align with your intentions is a fascinating area. It also has deep connections to policy design in politics. In the political arena, it gets so much more complex because you have disagreement on intentions and people deliberately obfuscating their intentions. So you've got people arguing over legislation who are trying to a…

A closely related question is: Should playing the fun way, and playing the optimal way be the same thing? I used to think think the answer was yes, but Spelunky 2 made me doubt; in Spelunky using a bomb or a rope is rarely optimal, but it can make things simpler and more fun. I think it's a well designed game, so the fact that optimal play and fun play are different is making me think.

It took me a decade to realize my best friend and I play friendly games differently. It was most obvious in magic the gathering - he would consistently optimize the same deck week after week, whereas I'd be bringing new decks with new and fairly general mechanics all the time. Similarly, he only ever played one character in smash bros or overwatch whereas I would heavily rotate.

Ultimately his goal was win percentage and optimal play - mastery of specific thing. I was going for fun and interesting wins and variety, and didn't care if I lost 90% of the time of that one win was AWESOME :-)

(Possibly relatedly - he brave a very very good Java specialist fter a decade of specific experience. I became a syaadmim then architect them ops manager type generalist :).

Re: Own-goal football (2022)

#127

Post by emmelaich »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #52
munificent wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The meta-game of game design: how do you design a game whose mechanics lead to incentives that align with your intentions is a fascinating area. It also has deep connections to policy design in politics. In the political arena, it gets so much more complex because you have disagreement on intentions and people deliberately obfuscating their intentions. So you've got people arguing over legislation who are trying to a…

For games at least, attempting to be highly prescriptive in the rules risks strangling the game. Basketball was designed to be played without dribbling. By the time players started single-handed dribbling it was pretty clear what's the more interesting, exciting game to watch and play

That's how its close cousin netball is played.

Re: Own-goal football (2022)

#128

Post by emmelaich »

smcl wrote: post #48
dylan604 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for those wondering why 3-0, it's based on tournament points scoring. you get 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, a point for each goal (maximum of 3 points for goals) per game, and an additional point for the shutout. so, each game in tournament scoring is worth 7 points. after all of those points are added, goal differentials can come into consideration for tie breakers.

Unless you're talking about some extremely niche tournament, that's not how it works at all, in football at least. In the majority of league systems you get 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and that's it . If you are level on points with another team in your group after all games are played then there will be strictly defined rules for that tournament to separate the teams, often a combination of the following…

It's absolutely the case for football / soccer "carnivals" in Australia to have modified scoring to ensure a decision.

In an individual game, the number of penalty corners is also considered if goals are even.

Also (I think) number of offsides.

Re: Own-goal football (2022)

#129

Post by kristjansson »

kenjackson wrote: post #69
furyofantares wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also interesting is how lots of rules have standard penalties - and this turns them into potential strategic components rather than something you aren't allowed to do. It's not cheating to break these rules, it's considered part of the game.

I've always felt basketball is the worst with this of the major sports. It is a standard strategy to foul at the end of games when losing (or even if winning by 3 in the final seconds). The punishment for fouling is to allow the fouled player to get free throws, but free throws are a skill and not all players are skilled at it. So if you can foul the right person you can often change the probability of the game. A si…

Late game basketball fouls are good meta though. The strategic trade - a great chance at scoring, in exchange for the time the offense would have taken - is reasonable, and avoids the wasted last two-three minutes of American football. A team that’s down, but in contact isn’t totally dominated by the clock, but has the length of the game isn’t totally unbounded like baseball or tennis

Re: Own-goal football (2022)

#130

Post by sbierwagen »

divan wrote: post #24
munificent wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The meta-game of game design: how do you design a game whose mechanics lead to incentives that align with your intentions is a fascinating area. It also has deep connections to policy design in politics. In the political arena, it gets so much more complex because you have disagreement on intentions and people deliberately obfuscating their intentions. So you've got people arguing over legislation who are trying to a…

Right. Do you have any good recommendations to read on this matter? Here are a couple of good papers on how metrics distort systems and what can be done to mitigate this. [1] [2]. And then a new post by Cedric Chin on practical examples of mitigating Goodhart's law in Amazon. Really good read: [3] But generally, I feel like not many people or organizations care about this. The non-profit sports world is conservative…

Spiritually related: examples of RL algorithms exploiting glitches in the physics engine (clipping into the ground to shoot forward at incredible speed) or gaming the goal state: (Agent that's supposed to learn how to walk instead evolving a body with a single long leg that just falls forward-- getting a high speed score with low complexity penalty) https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.03453 https://www.deepmind.com/blog/specification-gaming-the-flip-...
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