av84fun said:
It wasn't directed to your post, but after I read your last post and Bob's post I feel even more stupid
I'll go hit some balls, this thread isn't for me. lol
Modeling long races mathematically...results may surprise you!
- Thread starter Still_Learning
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It wasn't directed to your post, but after I read your last post and Bob's post I feel even more stupid
I'll go hit some balls, this thread isn't for me. lol
Your conclusion that one might as well flip a coin to decide who to bet on in future races to 100 is flawed. Your model takes as given that the players have a 50/50 chance of wining each game (in other words, that they are of exactly the same skill level). However, in betting on one player over the other, many of us are implicitly rejecting that premise and asserting that one player has a higher than 50/50 chance of wining each game.
In order for your conclusion to be valid, you would need to compare your model to historical betting patterns and match results, proving that there is no significant difference in betting by conscious choice and betting by coin flip.
In order for your conclusion to be valid, you would need to compare your model to historical betting patterns and match results, proving that there is no significant difference in betting by conscious choice and betting by coin flip.
In effect, he has a coin. Player A wins a game if heads comes up and B wins a game if tails comes up. Keep track of the scores until someone gets to 100 wins. Notice various things like swings and "blown leads".Roy Steffensen said:
Computers have random number generators that let you flip coins and count the flips very quickly. Random number generators themselves are an important computer science research topic.
Of course no one claims that Player A is dogging it in such a computer simulation when he has a lead of 15 with 18 games remaining and loses on the hill. That's just the way the coin flipped. It is human nature to think that when humans are playing, emotions and psychological factors are significant to the outcome. I think the studies mentioned above all tend to show that it's hard to tell a coin-flip history from a human player history, but when watching a match, that's not how people see it. Momentum. Choking. Heart. Much more comforting than pure chance.
Roy Steffensen said:It wasn't directed to your post, but after I read your last post and Bob's post I feel even more stupid
I'll go hit some balls, this thread isn't for me. lol
Nah...the math is not intuitive but the concept is. At even money odds, what would you bet someone who said a neutral party could flip a coin 100 times and the result would be 50/50.
At even money, you would end up owning the better's house.
(-:
Jim
av84fun said:
It's not a fallacy to say that in long races the best player wins. If one player is really better then they will win the majority of long races if not all of them against the weaker player.
However in the case of two evenly matched players the victories should swing in either direction as both players are subject to the same random swings in luck.
I will definitely lose 100 of 100 sets to 100 against Reyes. I will win 100 of 100 sets against all D players on Earth. I will win about half of the sets against people of my own skill level.
I think though to put this back into the real world we should say that long races means that the better player that day will win. Unlike the coin flip very real factors such as environment, physical condition, mental condition, and pressure come into play and affect the outcome. So whichever player is better able to capitalize on the chances that luck provides is the better player over a long race.
but what if tails jumps out with a big lead and heads starts to dog it a little... are the odds still 50/50?
Heads has always been a front-runner -- that's how he got his name. If you get ahead of him, he can't make a ball and doesn't know which way is up. Bet on tails if he gets any significant lead at all.branpureza said:
Little known fact: black is tails of the roulette wheel.
Bob Jewett said:
Well this certainly clears things up a bit for me... I've always bet on heads even when he was being beat by tails not knowing he was, by nature, a front-runner. I've tried to figure these odds out before but i could never make heads or tails of it. Thanks for shedding a little light on the subject.
Edges. I know someone who can probably flip edges if the bet is high enough.av84fun said:LOL...what is green?
When I was in High school my dad trained me to be the number one player on the team in my freshman year. At one point I complained that in tennis, I could win the vast majority of points and lose the match. (example one guy wins 2 sets where all the games went to deuce and wins 2 close tie breakers where the other guy only wins one set but wins ever game 40-love)
My dad replied, "The better player will always win the match because he will have won all the 'big' points and therefore has more nerve, guts and heart and is therefore the better player."
Perhaps in a close race to 100 when it's 92-92 the player with better nerves and more heart will make all the 'big' shots and win and therefore the better player will win since heart and guts is part of the formula to be a great player.
My dad replied, "The better player will always win the match because he will have won all the 'big' points and therefore has more nerve, guts and heart and is therefore the better player."
Perhaps in a close race to 100 when it's 92-92 the player with better nerves and more heart will make all the 'big' shots and win and therefore the better player will win since heart and guts is part of the formula to be a great player.
I've noticed that most guys call heads. If I was a cheater I would get a 2-sided tails quarter. Then if they were the type of guy that called tails before you flipped I would flip it off the table and when I went to pick it up I would switch for a real quarter.
I would get a small edge that would win me some money over time and then one day I would spend all that money I'd won on dental work when a bruiser caught me with the two-tailed quarter.
I would get a small edge that would win me some money over time and then one day I would spend all that money I'd won on dental work when a bruiser caught me with the two-tailed quarter.
bad info
Actually most people flip with pennies for several good reasons so you need a two headed penny. Most people call tails because a penny will land tails a higher percentage of the time so a two headed penny would be the right call. Of course I have a simpler solution than a two headed coin to bend the odds my way. Being an honest man I don't use it . . . . often!
Hu
Luxury said:
Actually most people flip with pennies for several good reasons so you need a two headed penny. Most people call tails because a penny will land tails a higher percentage of the time so a two headed penny would be the right call. Of course I have a simpler solution than a two headed coin to bend the odds my way. Being an honest man I don't use it . . . . often!
Hu
by Bob Jewett said:
branpureza said:
Finally, posts I can understand, although you made no mention of the planetary influence, which can't be discounted when figuring the odds "our" way.......up until now it was all just making my head hurt......
Joe
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I really dont think its fair to say that two equal players of SVB and Alex's caliber is a 50/50 every game. I think you have to factor in whos breaking. The break is a huge advantage for pro level players. Its kinda like roulette, its not quite 50/50 to bet red or black because there is the 00 factor (which is green). JMO.
Southpaw
Southpaw
Southpaw said:
Actually since we talking stats - AccuStats tracked this very notion that the break is an advantage and I believe - feel free to correct me - that they found that the breaker lost more than they won over a large number of matches.
I certainly believe that if both players are in peak condition then it's very close to 50/50 each game. Although between the two I'd give Alex the slight edge because he simply has six more years of experience playing top shelf pool and unlike Strickland he doesn't give up ever. I say Strickland because if I want to use the experience as an edge then of course Strickland has a lifetime more than Shane does.