Rules like this have been enforced.

Well sure, if you're going to be so obvious about it as to boot the ball into your own net.

No, it is not the same thing. Two teams are not allowed to agree to a score, but they are allowed to independently play not to lose. Games like soccer have simple rules, this is not a complicated issue.

"Hard to enforce" is not the same as "can't be enforced", so your addendum to your former irrelevant point is equally irrelevant.

Convention.

Some games its OK to agree a draw, others it isn’t.

When its wrong to agree a draw some times its explicit, sometimes its encoded into some fair play rule, or such like. Anyone playing at a high enough level is should know what is acceptable and what isn't. For instance agreeing a draw at chess is fine, but I have seen people thrown out of Go tournaments for doing it.

In a competition like the football world cup, how much money are the organisers going to loose, if one of the games does not take place as arranged? Apart from simple politeness I would expect there to be some sort of contractual obligation for a team to play all their games.

I didn't say they play not to lose. I said they play to draw.


It can't be enforced when properly executed. Your calling it "wrong" is irrelevant. See my basketball example.

Your examples are irrelevant to the question asked. The question is if it is wrong to agree to a draw.

It is, as it is against the rules of the game. Any remaining debate is just noise.

It's not irrelevant because agreement can be implicit.


So is is fouling in basketball wrong because it's against the rules of the game?

You are not allowed to agree on a result in soccer, and you are not allowed to throw a game. This is not a complex issue. The only possible answer to "is it wrong to agree to a draw?" is yes.


I don't know much about basketball, but if it is against the rules then yes it is wrong.

There have been other examples. Badminton in the Olympics comes to mind.

The rules say you can't do certain things to prevent a player from scoring, like making certain types of hard contacts with him. There are penalties assessed which result in free throws and even removal from the game if you accumulate enough fouls. But fouling is a fundamental part of strategy, as much as bluffing in poker, and it happens constantly. A team that didn't foul would certainly not go far. To say that it's "wrong" because it's against the rules would make you look absurd to anyone who has ever played or watched a game. Yet your whole argument rests entirely on the assertion that anything against the rules is "wrong". Therefore, your argument is necessarily either specious or absurd. That's not my opinion, but a matter of basic logic.

When scoring a goal is good to a much lessor degree than allowing a goal is bad (such as when you are up 1-0 with a few minutes to play) and BOTH teams are in this position as long as the game is tied, you will see a style of play that looks like collusion even if it isn't.

I can't wait for Germany and France to agree to a draw.

That aside, one thing is very obvious and clear: No one posting in this thread, so far, is drinking enough beer while watching the World Cup. A clear violation of the spirit of the game.

You are all Chumps and should be thoroughly ashamed.

No, you will very rarely see play that looks like collusion in these situations. This is because playing as individual teams denotes completely different strategy than teams with an agreement.

A team playing for a draw will play defensively, but will need to retain an opportunistic offense. If not, its defensive strategy becomes exploitable. Two teams agreeing to a draw can not retain an opportunistic offense, as it would ruin their agreement. In essense non-agreed match becomes a team version of the prisoner's dillemma.

And that is only strategy. If you look at the other costs of collusion, you may very likely end up with the teams playing hard to win.

That transgressions in sports have different magnitude is also irrelevant to the question "is this wrong". That only has bearing on the magnitude of punishment or "how wrong".

So the case is still simple. Agreeing to a draw in soccer is wrong.

Your logic is tautological by the way.

( i will offer an extended post just to talk about many interesting topics that emerge and i apologize for its length. My reasons are often selfish as i force myself to expose/explore my thoughts in the process.)


Yes i agree with the basketball example. But in basketball in fouling opponent you play with intention to win and recognize that foul is the best approach (sometimes the worse even) to get there. Some other times you even intentionally miss a free throw to waste more time and kill enough seconds making it impossible for opponent to launch a safer/more organized 2 or 3 point attack. You may not even try to stop them from shooting a 3 pointer with risky foul potential defense in fear of giving them a miracle outcome (if they need 4 points say etc 3p + foul). That is also locally interesting deviation from the usual approach. US football is also like that often near the end. But in all these cases you do not betray the spirit of the game of trying to win ultimately.

In soccer a penalty (a red card one) may be the best choice at say near the 90th minute if the alternative is a goal. You leave your team with 10 and the opponent shoots a penalty but there is still a 10-20% chance they will not be successful. At the 33d min the same red card penalty may be a bad strategy choice as you leave your team with a numerical disadvantage very early that may outweigh the whatever 10-20% chance the opponent doesn't score a goal at that penalty anyway. However even then, when it is done wrongly, it is selected with the naive spirit of trying to win, even if in reality is betrays that effort.


The issue here is not about trying to win the match. Its about not caring for winning the match in a blatantly obvious manner in order to improve overall probability to advance in knockout phase.


I do claim however that still your best strategy even then is to try to win because the opponent has something to gain by breaking the agreement in the last minute if an opening emerges. So how do you protect as Germany from a defection knowing that you are the best team and have like 50% chance to win the match, 30% to tie and only 20% to lose. In the last attack of the game you can face a real," they mean business" effort and see them score goal and now you no longer have time to recover. Your best defense against this instability is to play all the match trying to win because you deserve to.

If that were to happen would we then proclaim that the US dishonored the implied collusion in the end? Like failing a gentlemen's secret agreement. We probably would (honor between criminals), which is funny as we would have allowed ourselves to miss the true point of the game which is to do your best to win always, with all other choices flirting with forms of corruption.

There may be a situation however that is locally for example more stable. Lets say as David Sklansky suggested that Germany leads 1-0 and is about to win the match and Portugal has defeated Ghana 4-1 and that game ended just now but the current game has still 4 min to go due to substantially more extra time added. At that point the US must make sure it wont lose by more than 1 goal and it doesnt care to equalize all that much if it comes with risk. All it cares is to not see 2-0 happen. At the same time the German team doesnt really care either way so they may play without stress and the US will play with a focused effort to control the ball and delay as much as possible not caring for equalizing. But even in that case if they got the chance to advance the ball and score in some wild development that made it possible , they will go for it.

But imagine a league game where the current first team (only by a point) plays with one of the last ones and the first team needs to win to remain first and capture the championship for that year (last match of the year). At the same time the other team needs to win or tie or lose by no more than say 1 goal because if they did that, they defeat in goal differential another team that has tied them at the bottom and they are not relegated, the other team does instead. At this moment the score being 1-0 both teams are "happy" with the result. The leading team doesnt want to press things playing very aggressively and fast to score a second goal because if they did that they open the door for a counterattack by the other team to equalize. At the same time the weak team doesnt wish to risk either and doesnt mind losing as is now. This is a case where the game will naturally converge to a careful timid game that both teams are very defensive and they do not risk a lot in attacks leaving most players back or wasting as much time as possible exchanging the ball and not tackling each other all that hard. It can happen. It serves both and betrays of course the sport. Why? Because they both play against the other weak team that is relegated or the second team of the league, and which when the top team (or the other weak team) played against them last weekend they gave it their best and defeated it by eg a broad score. So now this differential treatment betrays the spirit of the game creating unfair advantage situations. It is a failure of the game to have rich enough structure that this situation cannot emerge as desirable.


Look there are unwritten rules that historically have been respected and make us better than the dark alternatives. You do not flirt with someone's wife unless you know they have some serious problems and he is failing to respect her etc. Its not fair play. You do not have sex with the mother of your friend if you can avoid it and there isnt something monumentally powerful happening (lol). You do not have sex with your students (same as above with rare exceptions that even then are still problematic to accept) etc.


If we open the door to implied collusion of that ultimate utilitarian form, here is what will happen for example; Some team B that has a big rich owner but unable to defeat its eternal competition A straightforwardly, will start rewarding other weaker teams that play their best against that major opponent A by offering them good terms in contracts with players they lend them or giving them financial incentives in other deals with their outside soccer friends (eg leasing of a stadium terms, security, supplies of goods and services, team doctors, facilities , etc or lending money terms or advertisement terms with say companies you, the rich guy or your group, own that are advertised by these teams in their matches, all kinds of side deals imaginable). He will further reward them if they play softer games vs his team (they tie or lose) than they do with all other teams. Right after such matches he signs all kinds of contracts that indirectly benefit the other smaller teams that cooperate etc.

Eventually you end up having a league that team B with its money is altering the nature of the fair play and the championship character. They have managed to make many of the little poor teams play their best against team A always and play very weak pathetic games vs B (their benefactor). Sure enough that collusion helps team B and the little teams that having better deals in their operation eventually improve their chances to make more money, buy better players, improve their record in European championships etc. So that collusion undermines the sport but serves those engaging in it.


Still in a utilitarian sense they are not doing anything wrong by colluding with B to play this dirty league. They improve their prospects as teams. They have however altered the nature of the game by making such "agreements". They create a league that the best team isnt the one that gets the championship each year. Money and their collusion efforts have corrupted the game.


The OP example here though is poor (to not ideal, but still decent enough to spark discussion) in the 2014 world cup because as i argued the US and Germany have both incentives to win. It sure is a valid thread material though in general or if you elevate advancing to the next ground as the only success US is defining for itself, regardless of getting eliminated eventually with eg higher chances that way (by the draw).

Our specific example is unstable as agreement to a last minute defection if one of the 2 teams stands to win something by finishing first, breaking the "agreement". That team is the US here.

In poker in the example of collusion to eliminate a small stack in some all in that many call without reraising etc if one of the big stacks later at turn has such a monster that only very few hands with tiny probability can defeat, a defection emerges as better strategy and that player can break the "deal" and bet the others out to secure their own equity better. So how do you defend against such defection? By not blindly accepting it all the way through the end as cooperation or accepting it up to a point.


In any case even in poker one can see that among very high skill players (eg future AI level) that say are forced to play forever a cash game (or repeated freezeouts) vs a top opponent that they lose money against over time, a collusion will naturally emerge that doesn't happen among humans (because partially they are not bright enough or are "principled" or even are too egomaniacs to not yield to what i will describe next as superior group strategy) but would emerge if you used very high intelligence robots.

Example; 9 pros play with A who is world class phenom say top in the planet. He over time wins money from all. Now the 9 if they play their regular game they lose eventually. All of them against him over time. However what if they implicitly each one converged to a mathematical strategy without telling each other (natural mathematical convergence of players with high enough intellect to spot it independently) to be soft with each other and play in such a cooperative way (even essentially communicating their hand strength with their actions) as to improve the chance one of them but not always the player in question acting in each hand, just one of their group whoever that turned out to be, realized a better EV vs the player A. In the end they split the profits or over time statistics takes care of that. Can you find such strategy that 9 always play against the tenth without making anything technically illegal (like communicating directly by other means) and who as a group now enjoy an edge they didnt have with a regular game? Certainly in a tournament format they could be soft towards each other when the other player is not involved, making it less likely that one of them will be eliminated easily. Force things so that each one needs to be eliminated by player A only and nobody else. That approach certainly puts A in some disadvantage. Other cases may emerge where say others really check a hand all the way to the river even with super top hands. Or they call an all in by player A often with multiple callers that then do not reraise each other. Or a big stack that has just won a big pot from A splits that stack to the others to improve the sum of their equity. Eg they start A=100,B=100,...,J=100 all 10 equal and at some point they are A=90, B=300, C=250, D=30,...J=30. (so in the team 2 have 30, 5 have 50 and 2 have 300, 250). Then the 300 and 250 guys spread their chips to the other players elevating eg J from 30 to 100 say over time and all the others similarly or giving some of their stack always to the players that have position on player A just before they play having that position advantage (eg they always help the future btn and CO and sb when A is BB to have decent stacks before that point). I can think all kinds of methods to take away equity from A like that if you know that the other have you back when you do something vulnerable as "gifting" chips with locally "bad"plays. This can all get so elaborate and covert to not raise suspicions easily and all 9 can converge to it on their own!

I submit this for example; Using usual icm software tools ;

In a 3 player game that pays 0.5,0.3,0.2 to the 3 first in a situation that is like A(top player)=90,B=300,C=50 then player A has say as utg 30.78% equity. If the big stack B instead gave some of its chips to C in the hand before (raising and folding etc) to convert them say from 90,300,50 to 90,270,80, the equity for A would be worse say 29.84% now. So if B,C cooperate and spread their stacks when needed they will have B in trouble eventually and potentially neutralize his post flop game skills. He still can win but not as much as before.


I am sure that even more efficiently say the 9 losers that joined forces this way would eventually neutralize player A that under regular game defeats them consistently over large periods of time.

So each time players in a long duration game realize some A at the table is better than everyone else, they all fall into that collusion universal strategy, deviating from their regular game, to neutralize A. Game over for A. They can then split the profit or let the statistics do that for them eventually without anyone ever being able to accuse them very convincingly of something illegal without intense mathematical efforts to expose their strategy (plus even then its not technically illegal to spontaneously without verbal agreement converge as a player to such strategy).

What is that strategy in general by the way like (i offered examples above in tournament format 3ways and with position adjustments) ? It is our mathematical intellectual obligation to find it further and present it in the theory forum for example. Would we be doing a disservice to poker or the principle of a fair game in choosing to do so?


You can always find cases that it serves you best locally to violate the spirit of the game. You do it because you are playing suddenly a different game. Just be honest however to care whether allowing such things to happen opens the world for a kind of society that is finally on the march of its own demise, where the quality of the sport itself is undermined and what it symbolizes generally in life is attacked.

Real life example? All teams in world cup recognize say that eg Brazil or Germany or Argentina , pick one of the 3, is the real top competitor. They then secretly come to an agreement to always play their best against eg Brazil and be completely passive against each other, giving only the stronger teams in each group or knockout phases the chance to advance and most importantly never injuring opponents or creating red or yellow card situations unless they were playing with eg Brazil (then full attack and dirty/risky tackling games to the top players if they cant win otherwise but never like that vs each other avoiding cards and injuries then). That way Brazil would meet only the top competitors in its path under the worse of conditions in health of its own players and without any red cards hurting their opponents, never facing surprise out of the blue lucky break teams/outsiders or teams that are very tired from their efforts or with players missing, having red cards in prior games etc, always fresh and complete, because they simply dont play tough the other opponents, you get the picture.

Havent we actually this way arrived at a world where the top team is penalized by all the others for being top? Isnt that basically like communism? For me this is one of the crimes of communism. To reject the right and drive of the individual to want to be their best and rise to the top with personal effort that makes a difference and be rewarded for it. This is the ultimate totalitarian state that punishes personal excellence. Unless we redefine it as the ultimate filtering of the best state because suddenly in order to really win now you have to defeat all the collusion strategies others rise against you, making you even tougher, even stronger, more lethal opponent. But is such cut throat world a better world? And is that always possible even or does eventually collusion neutralize any realistic edge one can have individually?

Is a world where all that are not top join forces to undermine the top competitor because other more honorable approaches are tougher, a world that ultimately embraces progress or one that settles to mediocrity? Is a school where all kids shun the top student or find ways to undermine his/her progress, and who did nothing to them to deserve any of this, a better school?

At the same time what if a top soccer European team eg Real Madrid or Barcelona consistently wins championships and monetary rewards because they are better funded, they can afford better skill players with rich contracts, they make more money as a result of these wins etc a self fulfilling cycle that leaves the other clubs in inferior position making less money unable to break even or compete at even level. Eventually such system is unfair in its base and then yes the proper solution is for all the weak to join forces to dethrone the leader and cut its financial edge on them. That is a revolution against the system that is already corrupt at its base by having a championship where how rich you are determines the chances to win in the end the title.

So you see its interesting how many different topics a thread like this can open. Is collusion inside an already corrupt system (ie modern capitalism or 19th century capitalism that created the monster of communism by its inability to care for the poor and unprotected properly) the ethical choice then? I can see it as being the ethical choice if the corruption of money culture has already altered the sport and given us an asymmetric championship that the big team enjoys all kinds of biases and edges against the others. We have violated the spirit of the game already so colluding will strike that situation at its root.


Ultimately sports should be about uplifting human spirit, about inspiring us to be the best, to be respecting our opponents and honoring them with our best efforts. It should be about the ancient concept of fair competition and celebration of the individual human spirit in its struggle to achieve greatness that motivates us all. Collusion is ultimately about accepting defeat, recognizing our failure to do what is really needed or an effort to undermine an already uninspiring system. You arrive at it under an ethical responsibility to always consider its effects on the things you value and who define who you are.

A healthy world celebrates both competition and cooperation and doesnt give in to its weaknesses but instead directly attacks them with cleaner means.


Personally i have problem with unethical systems and i endorse efforts to undermine them. Just as long then when you create an alternative system you make sure you are not a hypocrite and become the tyrant that you previously defeated.

Masque, you keep talking like the USA's current primary objective is to win the World Cup. Whether or not it should be, I think it is safe to say that it is rather to qualify from Group G. For reasons which you have stated, these are not quite the same thing.

If they qualify, it will be a major achievement, of which their country will likely be proud. If they don't, after having been in the position they were against Portugal, they will be the subject of ridicule, perhaps rightly so. It would be a defining moment of their careers, and would inflict emotional damage from which it would be difficult to recover. That is a scenario which, I suggest, they want to avoid at all costs.

lascardcharlie,

But only if you think like a champion you will become one and then the game changes forever. You know what did it for Greece in basketball? The 1987 European championship where they overcame the most amazing then monsters like Italy, Yugoslavia and Russia after finishing 4th in their first round (4/6 in 2 groups of 6 each passed to knockout rounds stage and made the final 8 etc)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroBasket_1987




A moment that can inspire a generation and in fact did exactly that. A rare thing to witness as a child and for a romantic idealist the way it always should be when a champion is born and misery dies forever or until you betray your heart again!

The entire tournament was nothing short of epic. It was as if you defeated the US dream team basically multiple times. Russia and Yugoslavia back then were like the US. (i think they had defeated the US on occasion back in Olympic events of that era).

Once this happened a sequence of wins by Greek teams in Europe became a trend and eventually championships were achieved on club level multiple times. Starting in 1995 until today a greek team has won the European championship 50% of the time!!!

Can you appreciate the enormous achievement this is? 50% of the time from a country of only 10 mil that didn't have any wins in any level club or national before 1987 and which nevertheless had a long history of basketball for a century. Yes a pivotal epic victory can do that for a sport. I think it did it for US women soccer once too.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroleague_Basketball

So if the US has any other objective in all this than winning it all, and any other team for that reason, then they are thinking too narrow, they are not worthy of the heart of a champion and they will be unable to change the sport in US forever and make it even 50% as significant as Basketball, US football or Baseball. If they want to change something they love back home they have to write their epic like a true champion does against all odds, in a way that screams pure destiny, born out of tremendous heroic team efforts of all involved.

Since i have observed the US efforts in soccer for many years i can objectively say that the US is in the path to one day perform a miracle. They have treated themselves a lot better than England or Italy or France in recent decades in terms of gradual improvement. They are currently a respectable team that of course is an outsider but plays as if they dont fear the opponent. And this is how you can defeat Germany and Brazil in its own country if you go for it. Germany of course (in soccer) historically (moreover the fact i "hate" Merkel and many of their newspapers and their nazi past lol ) is for me the ultimate champion with heart, the definition of the ancient Greek hero of Thermopylae that never stops the effort and dies trying and has a healthy (unhealthy you name it lol) dose of arrogance and narcissism to also get in trouble often lol. Hubris and glory at the same time. They never give up no matter what the situation. This is what i want from any team and then all is possible. To treat yourself like a fighter that will never give up and rise from the ashes time after time.

I have no illusions though. I will still of course assign the current US a 2-2.5% chance to do that and give Brazil or Germany 13% each. I will only give Greece at this point 0.2% to win it all that may be 0% in a few hours or 0.8%!

But a true champion will forever be able to turn the 0.2% to everything more than 0.2% of the time!!! That is the secret. To have probability fall in love with your efforts.

Just FYI "soccer" is an English term

So teams are expected to sacrifice actual championship equity (small though it may be) to satisfy some unwritten rule? How much equity would you expect them to sacrifice?

They will not collude in this fashion. They will collude in the "you are rational, you know they are rational" game theory sense.

Is USA coach truly a neutral observer ?

No he is biased against his country Germany where he played for years lol! And this is exactly what true professionals are all about. A German coach took Greece to 2004 Championship too. He (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Klinsmann) even went as far as claim that the system is rigged protecting Germany in terms of where (amazon adverse condition humidity etc) the teams played and how many days rest they had etc, when in fact all those things wererandomly chosen!

Fouling in basketball is not wrong at all. It is often correct strategy if your goal is to win the game. Agreeing to draw is sometimes correct strategy if your goal is to win a tournament. Correct is the opposite of wrong.


You've done nothing to make this case other than to repeat your mantra that it is wrong. The fact that something violates a rule does not imply that it is wrong. You are wrong that this is not philosophy or social science. If the OP merely wanted to know whether agreeing to a draw is against the rules, he would have consulted a rule book and not posted on a philosophy forum. Games do not exist in a vacuum. They are played by people who have different goals. If your goal is to win a tournament, then violating a rule is not always wrong. If your goal is to win in a particular style so that you can feel good about yourself or appear better to others, then violating a certain rule may be wrong. If you're a team owner who's goal is to make as much money as possible, then violating rules is not always wrong. If your goal is to advance what you feel is the true purpose of sports, then violating rules may or may not be wrong depending on how you define that purpose and many other complex factors. This is not a simple issue at all as masque de Z has so ineloquently demonstrated. His are examples of the types of arguments you need to make to support any position that something is wrong. "It's wrong" isn't an argument worthy of this philosophy forum nor of yourself. Do better.


The conclusion of my logic was that your statement is either specious or absurd. In order for that to be a logical tautology, it would have to be universally true that any statement you make by any interpretation is either specious or absurd. If that's what you're suggesting, then I won't argue with you.

I doubt that would be straightforward, however. I did just try to find out, and apparently collusion was not against the rules back in 1982. I don't know whether the rules have changed since then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Ge...80%930_Austria

Actually, I just thought that SMP needed a World Cup thread.

Indeed. Time for a nice glass of Italian wine, I think.

A very good analogy would be a Super Satellite that pays two WSOP buyins where there are four players left, two with tiny stacks and two with approximately equal giant stacks.