RT Ford
Well-known member
Only if it's intentional. The randomness is the unintentional collisions of the balls and rails.
Luck vs Skill Percentage - What Do You Think?
- Thread starter BarTableMan
- Start date
RT Ford
Well-known member
Your thought process while playing can, indeed, affect your success or failure at the table. It shouldn't matter what the other player does. If he gets lucky, so be it. A great player ignores what's happening around him and stays 'in the moment'.
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
What randomizes the outcome is where in their range of misses they actually end up. If a moderately skilled player takes on a shot, they will have a certain dispersion to their cueball paths/spins/speeds. So while the balls will always behave in accordance with how the ball was actually hit, there is randomness in terms of where that hit occurred relative to what was intended. The results can be favorable or not and that comes down to luck. Sure a player can choose to shoot shots in ways that give them more favorable results and let them get 'lucky' more often, but whenever we are dealing with shots where the player didn't execute what he intended, we are dealing with luck, whether it be positive or negative.
I was playing a very good player 8ball on 1 of those Joy Chinese 8ball tables. He broke 3 games,made at least 1 solid in each and had a shot on the solids to select as his group. All 3 breaks left most of the stripes along the rails. I asked him right after the 3rd break what/how was he racking to cause that. He looked at the table and laughed " that is just your bad luck".
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
I wouldn't tell you either.
RT Ford
Well-known member
Well, at least you were playing an honest man.
... but the player had infinite options, most without the unintended collisions. We don't plan most car wrecks never-the-less we are responsible for them because they are the result of our actions.
When we look at most activities, we blame bad luck when we fail but give little credit to luck when we succeed.
Gonna do some rambling about luck and glass ceilings from here. Those not interested are forewarned.
Let's take three people. One, player A, thinks there is a touch of luck in pool, maybe two percent. Not enough to worry about good or bad.
Player B thinks pool is twenty percent luck, and player C thinks that pool is a full thirty percent luck.
Player A is basing his play on 100% skill, no glass ceiling. Player B will practice and play very hard to try to reach 80% skilled shots. No sense trying to get better than that when the game is, his opinion, twenty percent luck. Player C may work diligently to get to seventy percent skilled shots, no sense beating his head against a brick wall up there in the luck zone. He has built his glass ceiling at seventy percent. Never a threat to win, he isn't even a likely threat to beat player B. Player B has built his glass ceiling at eighty percent. He will work hard until he gets to what he thinks is the luck zone. No need to work on those shots too hard.
We can create glass ceilings for ourselves for a lot of reasons and they can do more harm than we realize. "Nobody can beat Buddy, or Johnny, or whoever won the last big event. Once again somebody has built themselves a glass ceiling. They are hoping for a top finish around fourth, the catch being that these people with glass ceilings that can't beat the top competitors in their minds rarely beat the others that are sincerely trying for first place either and at a big event they fade to fourteenth or fortieth, the dreaded "Did Not Cash".
Hu
As a big fish in a little pond I often heard I was the best or the luckiest somebody had ever seen in the last few years I played daily. I had put in thousands of hours trying to master spot shape and generally played spot shape within an inch. Made me the luckiest guy for a hundred miles around!
One sneaky old road player scouted me for three days. He decided he didn't like the risks and talked instead. When he commented on my skills I naturally tried to pass it off as getting the rolls. I never forgot what he said because he was one of the few that busted me. "The first night I thought it was luck. The second night I thought it might be luck. Nobody in the world gets as lucky as you three nights in a row!" Crap! Got me. Not that I admitted it of course.
A young Danny Medina was another that busted me. With him I think it was almost intuitive. Kindred spirits and we were so evenly matched we could have probably played to a thousand and the loser had over 975. Playing him remains the most fun I ever had on a pool table.
Anyway, decades later I will admit my luck wasn't luck at all. Makes me very suspicious about luck in pool.
Hu
RT Ford
Well-known member
Baloney.
RT Ford
Well-known member
Thank you.
Hitting the target ball a majority of the time is skill, making it, anytime, is luck.
^^^This is what it boils down to.
We are responsible for the outcomes that some perceive as luck (good or bad) because of our prior actions. "Luck" is relative to the style of play vs the beholder. "Luck" is subjective opinion and not objective fact.
RT Ford
Well-known member
I've often been told that I'm a man of great perspicacity.
RT Ford
Well-known member
What if a 'lucky' outcome has nothing to do with 'our prior actions'?
Can you give me an example...?
I was in my '57 Chevy late model on dirt, yeah been awhile. I was in first place in the prelim coming out of turn four headed for the checkered. Another driver got down in the muddy infield coming out of turn four trying to get under me in the half of a straightaway before the checkered flag when he hadn't been able to pass in a full straightaway for twelve laps.
Totally predictably, his front end washed out in the mud and he hit me in the left rear. I could catch the spin he caused but I would be stopped up against the wall watching the entire field or most of it pass by under me. In an eyeblink I turned hard left and floored the throttle! The normal move would have been to turn the steering wheel right to catch the spin. Instead I tightened and stretched the spin, spinning past the checkered flag, still in first place.
Some thought it was luck, some saw which way the front wheels were pointed and knew it was only a very little luck, the car did exactly what I had in mind! There was some controversy however the rules stated the finish line ran from the top of the track to the bottom of the track, you had to be on the track to finish. I was on the track and the rules said nothing about going straight. Also, my driving put butts in the grandstands.
Despite some unhappy people I got paid for first. Luck to get across the finish line first? I don't think so. The car did exactly what I was trying to make it do. Luck to get paid properly? No, I had rulebook in hand and it said nothing about going straight when you crossed the finish line.
Many times in pool and in other activities a smidgen of luck or at least no bad luck is a factor in a win. However, it usually takes skill to get in the position to be lucky.
Hu
RT Ford
Well-known member
Something that we have no control over.
1. I hit an approach shot and my beautiful shot is stopped by a bunker rake that a someone threw down on the fairway approaching the green instead of back into the bunker. I have no idea the rake is there because I'm too far away to see it. I know that my ball would have stopped near the cup because of it's speed and direction. That's bad luck for me.
2. You're strolling through the neighborhood, trying to find your pusher. Some dumb kid blindly fires a stolen 9mm a couple of blocks away, strikes you in the head and kills you. That was bad luck also. Very bad luck.
You hit the shot, so you had complete control over where the ball went.
Curious what a "pusher" is. I'm not familiar with the term.
However, are you sure it wasn't extremely lucky...? Maybe the dumb kid was hoping to hit someone..? Should he not get some credit for managing to lead the unseen target correctly...?
"Luck" is a word to describe the perception of random chance.
boogieman
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ping.
Extremely old jargon for a dealer. The only reason I know is because there is a song about it on the soundtrack to Easy Rider.
RT Ford
Well-known member
Normally, I don't engage in conversations with people that don't listen to what I'm telling them (it's extremely rude), but in this case, I'm going to make an exception. After this, I'll no longer converse with you. First, you stated ' You hit the shot, so you had complete control over where the ball went.'. Your statement completely disregards the location of the rake, which I had absolutely no control over. Second, you stated 'Maybe the dumb kid was hoping to hit someone? Should he not get some credit for managing to lead the unseen target correctly...?'. I stated that he fired the weapon 'blindly'. The bullet that struck you was entirely by chance, as I told you, it was bad luck; very bad luck. You read what I write but you don't pay attention to what I'm saying. Therefore, I'm finished with you. It's impossible to have an intelligent conversation with someone that doesn't listen to what you're telling him. Farewell.