Luck and variance is just what bad teams blame when they were clearly outmatched in WIM. It always simplier to blame than reflect upon inner strength and dedication or lack thereof. Winning the lottery is not luck. It's about picking numbers with the highest WIM. Meeting the girl of your dreams is not about being at the precise place at that precise time. It's about striving and challenging the borders of normality. The ball/puck/pigskin is afraid of players. It will go to the path of less resistence. It will go where the player with more WIM wants it to go. You always hear players talking about when you're working hard you'll get the bounces. That's not just made up bs. It's THE classic example of WIM.

Do you think that Cro-Magnons in pre-historic days relied on friggin' LUCK AND VARIANCE in the sport of hunting? NO. They didn't wait for a dumb sabre-tooth tiger to walk aimlessly into a pile of sharp sticks. They went out there with high WIM and got what they wanted. They went and took. They went and seized. They didn't go and chalk up a missed meal due to variance. They would ultimatley be brought back to the simple fundamental of them not having a high enough degree of WIM if that happened.

this thread needs odell.

every thread needs odell

This is really a brilliant post that should be carefully paid attention to.

Some people overrate skill in thin margin events; for example the constant chime around here about the Pats recent success, when luck and variance fell into place and they were not all that much better than many teams they played against.

Many people overrate luck and variance when skill clearly is the key factor in success like The University of Kentucky cheerleading squad. The UK squad has won the Universal Cheerleaders Association National College Cheerleading Championship an unprecedented eighteen times. UK's squad is the only team to win back to back championships twice, once in 1987 and 1988 and again in 1995 and 1996. Further, UK is the only squad ever to win three, four, five, six, seven and eight championships in a row. UK's eight year streak of championships was broken in 2003 when they finished runner up to Central Florida. They regained the title in January, 2004 and won their third straight in 2006.

Luck and variance have little effect when you are as skilled as the Uk cheer machine.

D+, you're capable of so much better

EDIT: Well not really, but you could have put some effort into it and trolled better.

+1

I am in a silly mood. It really was pretty bad post. I considered the delete button but figured somebody might appreciate a bit of luv for the UK cheer machine.

They all can't be 5 star posts. I am capable of so much better. But even great hitters like Gwynn had a few off days at the plate.

I don't think I was clear enough because you seemed to glean the wrong message from my post. People on 2p2 tends to attribute any deviation from expectation as good/bad luck. However some times teams or players don't reach expectation because of a deviation in the quality of their performance. When this happens 2p2ers will say things like "Well x would still be a favourite in a rematch", which is true, but being a favorite in the long run doesn't mean they deserve to win out of some cosmic sense of equity when they play worse than the other team.

I think there is an interesting thing to explore here and think the luck/variance vs skill factor in success is way to influenced around here by Cognitive dissonance and less by reality.

This is really seriously good stuff.

There is a skill component in consistant compared to erratic performance many people miss!

From critically acclaimed film Matchpoint (2005,) directed by Woody Allen;

The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward, or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose.

The film is basically about this exact question, and involves sports, so it's completely relevant to the discussion. Watch it. Have your questions answered

There is no sample size.
There is no variance.
There is no luck.

There is only RESULTS and WIM

Exactly.

Just look at what the views on variance in poker were before the poker boom....people were laughably wrong about what an adequate sample size is. The ability to play so many hands in a short period of time online let us see how wrong we were and gave us a true understanding of luck/variance. I'm inclined to believe that we've similarly underestimated how much luck/variance there is in sports(and many other things in life), but we'll probably never have an online poker equivalent to show everyone how wrong we are.

It is amazing to me how many average fans buy into results oriented bull****. For example, I've gotten into so many debates recently with fellow Redskins fans about McNabb. So many of them think "he just can't win the big game." I point out that he led his team to 21 points in the SB and ask them if the Eagles' D had held the Pats to 20 or less would McNabb then suddenly "be able to win the big game"....you would think that this would show them how silly their logic is, but many people just don't get it.

This might be the wrong forum to post this question, but in light of this discussion...

Why bother?

Assume Assani's right about the impact of variance in our day to day lives... what use is there in working hard and trying and becoming as good as you can if, in the end, it's really not up to us at all?

You could be correct that clutchness does indeed exist, but we would never have a big enough sample size to ever know for sure. I mean, if one NBA player takes 50 potential game winning shots in his career and only hits 10, is that really a big enough of a sample size to tell us that he isn't clutch? I would think you'd need a MASSIVE amount of more shots in those situations to be able to tell anything.

To maximize your expectation.


For example, if I lived my life 100 times, I may end up filthy rich 10 of those times if I work really hard. But I would only end up rich 1 of those times if I didn't work hard. Since I only have one trial of this life to live, I very well may never be rich no matter what I do. But I'd rather maximize the chances of me becoming rich.

I don't know if this is exactly correct. Poker sample size is a solved function, all you need to know is your winrate and standard deviation and you can calculate the confidence intervals exactly. The game today are almost certainly more difficult that they were even just five years ago, so the commonly accepted number today for how many hands you need to play before you can state your win rate with confidence may very well be significantly higher than was assumed back then, and both can still be correct.

Sometimes I wish I didn't understand variance and luck, because I enjoyed thinking about sports in a more simplistic way when I was younger.

When you're favorite sport is football, and you realize so many games are really just glorified coinflips, it sometimes makes the game less enjoyable from a non technical POV.

+100000

This post is:

I think refereeing is a big part of varience in sport. Think how often we have seen a game be won/lost due to a poor official mistake. Likewise a game official could make a brilliant call that another official may have missed.

Also the luck of the draw of which referee is chosen to run the game. Say a more physical team will benefit from a ref thats more inclined to let a game run than one which will call every slight infringment.

These are things the players and clubs have little control over, they can adjust to them but they can most certainly increase/decrease a teams edge.

Are you serious, 3000k posts and you come out with something this dumb.

Let give you some really solid advice which will help you have a fighting chance for a 3k post tally yourself.

All the guys and gals with the green letters in there handle or named Clark are all really really smart around here.

lol