Skill or Chance?

Postby ANDREWLAITURI » Sun Jun 18, 2006 2:01 pm

I've been following this discussion with a great deal of interest and after alot of thinking and weighing both sides of the arguement here are my thoughts on it.

My own feelings are that, in a deadheat horserace, skill wins by a nose. As a result of this discussion I did some looking at my old teams and came to a startling discovery. The championship teams that I have had all resulted from teams that 1. DIDN'T get most of their draftpicks which forced me to chuck out the original design and start from scratch and make modifications on the fly. 2. These teams I micromanaged to death BECAUSE of the fact that I had a lousy draft. 3. When I did have to adjust these particular teams I had a clear plan thought out to address the needs. What this all adds up to is that as, a GM I needed to know what needed to be changed and how to effectively do it, and as a manager, I needed to know how to change things up to best utilize the roster at home and on the road. I have been guilty of making very bad choices in both departments which never resulted in a lucky championship.

I have also been around since the inception of Strat online and, having never played Strat in either the boardgame version or computer version, I had to learn from scratch and by making numerous mistakes and the repeated errors in judgement that Lucky mentioned above.

What it boils down to, for me anyways, is that my winning percentage has been slowly rising with each additional year of Strat that I have played (with the exception of 05 in which I was largely away from the game and made major bonehead moves with my first few teams back.) and not the dropping off which the 'Chance' camp uses as its arguement.

Now let's look at real life here for a minute, to quote Ozzie Guillen "A manager is only as good as the players he has to work with."
According to a baseball article I read once and after listening to numerous interviews leads to the fact that even a baseball genius manager only adds 4-5 wins to the season total by moves he personally made.

I'd point out Lucky's personal evidence as further proof of skill winning out. Of the teams that he personally micromanages he has shown much greater success than those teams which, although wellcrafted, he made no real effort to make adjustments to after the initial rosters were set and the managerial settings were made. You'd think that, if the 'chance' quotient were the ruling factor, that at least one or more of those un-monitored teams would have 'lucked' themselves into the postseason?!

Let me also point out that the 'newbies' today are not as wet behind the ears as in years previous. The newbie advice thread was a tool that simply wasn't available to us original newbies which resulted in numerous losses caused by repeated mistakes until we finally learned from experience. So the playing field has indeed been leveled resulting in much tougher competition and lower winning percentages.

Well those are my initial thoughts anyways.
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Postby cummings2 » Sun Jun 18, 2006 8:09 pm

May be simplistic but to some extent I believe that the skill is in turning the odds on your favor, in other words:

The [i:38993bc4cf]skill[/i:38993bc4cf] is in getting to increase the [i:38993bc4cf]chance[/i:38993bc4cf] of the rolls going your way.

But at the end of the day it's still an aleatory result. You can position your players and team in the most perfect way guaranteeing 90% chance of success, that would be master skill (almost impossible as well)...but even then there's still a chance of failing...that would be terrible luck (chance)

So, in a few words. In my book it's skill. Without a doubt. If it weren't skill I could just quickdraft any team, any time, play it anywhere, let HAL do the linueps for me, don't worry about BP settings or manager tendencies...and I would have a record close to .500. Now whereas I applaud and agree with the spirit of experments [i:38993bc4cf]that[/i:38993bc4cf] I won't do.

If on the other hand I were to do that and fall flat on my face then [u:38993bc4cf]obviously[/u:38993bc4cf] there would be an element missing. Such an element would be knowledge, skill, experience, whatever you want to call it. So [b:38993bc4cf]if the element that determines a greater extent of winning or loosing [u:38993bc4cf][i:38993bc4cf]is[/i:38993bc4cf][/u:38993bc4cf] skill then in my book the answer to skill or chance [u:38993bc4cf]has[/u:38993bc4cf] to be [i:38993bc4cf][size=18:38993bc4cf]skill[/size:38993bc4cf][/i:38993bc4cf][/b:38993bc4cf]
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Postby ANDREWLAITURI » Sun Jun 18, 2006 8:53 pm

Any game involving dice involves a percentage of luck BUT in my mind, the percentage of luck is overcome or at least offset by skill.
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Postby J-Pav » Sun Jun 18, 2006 11:07 pm

I don't particularly like playing the bad guy, and I was gonna let this thing burn itself out right about here, but...

Food for thought...(at least in the form of replies to some of the above...)

For [b:2b4cee8651]Tyber[/b:2b4cee8651]:

[color=darkblue:2b4cee8651]According to a baseball article I read once and after listening to numerous interviews leads to the fact that even a baseball genius manager only adds 4-5 wins to the season total by moves he personally made. [/color:2b4cee8651]

This doesn't really address the losses, though. It sort of assumes that it all works out in the end to five net wins, I guess. The only way to know would be lots of sims. But I'm skeptical to believe that on average it all necessarily works in the micromanagers favor.

[color=darkblue:2b4cee8651]I'd point out Lucky's personal evidence as further proof of skill winning out. Of the teams that he personally micromanages he has shown much greater success than those teams which, although wellcrafted, he made no real effort to make adjustments to after the initial rosters were set and the managerial settings were made. You'd think that, if the 'chance' quotient were the ruling factor, that at least one or more of those un-monitored teams would have 'lucked' themselves into the postseason?! [/color:2b4cee8651]

This is a hard one because I like Marc and I respect his contributions (both past and present) to this game and forum. And our tendencies to play the devil's advocate against each other has led to several enjoyable discussions (I hope for all of us).

A. Two tour teams against less well known competition hardly constitutes evidence.

B. One of his unmonitored beta teams won a CHAMPS title, if that's what is required to refute your theory.

Now, just to jump ahead to his defense, he has often micromanaged teams to success in the past (i.e., not just these two teams), so I would give him the benefit of the doubt, even though it's early in the season. On the flip side, several managers I know, myself included, run autopilot teams (due largely to the number of teams we play). In the past, I can not point to teams that would've fared better with micro-management. I found that when I did so, the bad seemed to even out the good, so I let HAL take the blame and took myself out of the equation. In the end, it may have netted a few more wins, but I didn't really care because the races were much less close.

The argument may be that "we're now competing for an ever diminishing slice of pie, so the opportunity to improve your team by four or five wins is now more important" is an absolutely valid point. But how do you [i:2b4cee8651]prove[/i:2b4cee8651] that any manager is doing just that when he could in fact be costing his team 4-5 wins??

"Because Marc says it, so it must be true" will be much more valid in February don't you think? And I have no doubt he's hell bent on showing the way, so I'm rooting for him.

Then again, if more people learn to micromanage and those 4-5 wins are cancelled out among competitors...[i:2b4cee8651]then[/i:2b4cee8651] are we left with chance??

For [b:2b4cee8651]Cummings[/b:2b4cee8651]:

[color=darkblue:2b4cee8651]The skill is in getting to increase the chance of the rolls going your way.[/color:2b4cee8651]

This is stating the obvious, but I agree.

[color=darkblue:2b4cee8651]But at the end of the day it's still an aleatory result. You can position your players and team in the most perfect way guaranteeing 90% chance of success, that would be master skill (almost impossible as well)...but even then there's still a chance of failing...that would be terrible luck (chance) [/color:2b4cee8651]

Yes. I've had perfect draft/perfect teams lose. I've had less than perfect teams win (again, as I'm sure we've all experienced). In the end, you need a season of results to decide. In 2005, six players had double-digit CHAMPS teams. If you had played against me in 2005, you would know I had a one in four chance in any league I participated in of winning it all. [b:2b4cee8651]PBTR[/b:2b4cee8651] and [b:2b4cee8651]cristano[/b:2b4cee8651] were close to one in three. They could have been outliers, except the three of us, not to mention [b:2b4cee8651]Bigmahon[/b:2b4cee8651], [b:2b4cee8651]Altec[/b:2b4cee8651] and [b:2b4cee8651]etdefender[/b:2b4cee8651] have all been around winning leagues for more than one season. That translates into the statistical unlikelihood that the six of us were just very lucky. One in three or one in four is way beyond the realm of one in twelve (pure chance).

What will it look like at year end this year? Right now the teams who have already won two CHAMPS are averaging having played twelve teams (with some teams obviously still running). Will two in twelve hold up? Are we gonna see it more like one in twelve in a few more months???

[color=darkblue:2b4cee8651]So, in a few words. In my book it's skill. Without a doubt. If it weren't skill I could just quickdraft any team, any time, play it anywhere, let HAL do the linueps for me, don't worry about BP settings or manager tendencies...and I would have a record close to .500. Now whereas I applaud and agree with the spirit of experments that I won't do. [/color:2b4cee8651]

Is it skill? Is the evidence because that's just how it is in your book? If a manager ran nothing but quickdraft teams and finished .500 with eight CHAMPS teams out of 96, does that prove the chance argument?

[color=darkblue:2b4cee8651]So if the element that determines a greater extent of winning or losing is skill then in my book the answer to skill or chance has to be skill[/color:2b4cee8651]

If you flip a coin 100 times and get 52 heads, are you a skillful coin flipper of heads results (the skillful managers are playing at about a .520 clip, with or without excuses)? If you play in a twelve man league of coin flippers, but four guys are flipping unfair coins (which yield them more losses), are the other eight then more skilled than a league of guys where all twelve are flipping fair coins? (This goes back to an earlier point that the level of your competition may be be the biggest impact on any managers level of success this year. Four poor players, however you might define it, will boost the other eight. While it might be coin flips to win, it is definitely not coin flips to lose, i.e., salary dumps, lefties in Minute Maid, all 5s on defense, etc).

Where's that [b:2b4cee8651]Ez[/b:2b4cee8651] guy who posted earlier, we need some basic stats knowledge here, now that [b:2b4cee8651]Penn[/b:2b4cee8651] is gone.

To conclude:

1. Nobody has convincingly (not to mention mathematically or statistically) argued so far where the skill is.

However,

2. It's too early to tell.

3. I still hope to find an edge, so I can argue the point myself and shed this sour grapes, evil doomsayer reputation I'm developing for myself.

4. I wish all well who also seek to find the grail. Please report back here in March 2007!

:D

P.S. Wouldn't it be great if some [i:2b4cee8651]other[/i:2b4cee8651] players joined the discussion?
Oh, for some of that "Old Guard" banter...
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Postby cummings2 » Sun Jun 18, 2006 11:24 pm

[i:f4698b5c68]If you flip a coin 100 times and get 52 heads, are you a skillful coin flipper of heads results (the skillful managers are playing at about a .520 clip, with or without excuses)?[/i:f4698b5c68]

No arguments against this. This is why I like reading yer posts...and beating yer teams :P

As far as teams/playoffs/champs stats, the only thing I can do is post my current stats, I dn't want to prove anything through this...maybe they'll even slant towards the "chance" side:

10 teams have finished their season:

Record: 828-792 (.511 W.pct) Avg. Season: 82.8-79.2

Playoff teams: 5
Champs:2
Finalists:4

Autoleague teams:0
"Themed" teams that restrict player pool:4

Two teams are about to finish their reg. seasons and both are playing at .510s

So...well, guess my stats lean towards the chance side.
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Postby J-Pav » Sun Jun 18, 2006 11:49 pm

What is it you seek?

[i:03dfe0a207]I seek the grail.[/i:03dfe0a207]

What is your favorite color?

[i:03dfe0a207]Red. No, blue. AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH.[/i:03dfe0a207]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

[color=darkblue:03dfe0a207]This is why I like reading yer posts...and beating yer teams[/color:03dfe0a207]

This must have been in 2005, before I was relegated to Old Guard status by the [i:03dfe0a207]nouveau elite[/i:03dfe0a207]. Your record against me in 2006 is 0-0.

[color=darkblue:03dfe0a207]
10 teams have finished their season:

Record: 828-792 (.511 W.pct) Avg. Season: 82.8-79.2

Playoff teams: 5
Champs:2
Finalists:4

Autoleague teams:0
"Themed" teams that restrict player pool:4

Two teams are about to finish their reg. seasons and both are playing at .510s

So...well, guess my stats lean towards the chance side.[/color:03dfe0a207]

[b:03dfe0a207]Cummings[/b:03dfe0a207], you're off to a fantastic start and I hope you keep it up. But statistically, this is about as relevant as your 4th place team in tour league three, right there below Mr. Groundhog.

Neither stat proves anything.
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Postby cummings2 » Sun Jun 18, 2006 11:57 pm

:lol: :lol: :lol:

You see J, that's my skill: I lure teams into the failed assumption that I'll tank in that season and the Wapoom I take 'em by storm :wink:

Man-o-man am I having a head-scratcher with that 4th place team.

[i:6afb3b15c9]Cummings, you're off to a fantastic start and I hope you keep it up[/i:6afb3b15c9]

Thanks J. Kidding aside, all best of luck to you as well...or should I say all best of skill to you :wink: (you'll need it for tomorrow's game in our league :D )

[i:6afb3b15c9]right there below Mr. Groundhog. [/i:6afb3b15c9]

Ahmmm...Mr. Groundhog is two levels above me :oops:

Anyhoo, back to the topic, as I said I really didn't intend to prove anything with those stats, just following up on what I think is a very valid way of seeing results (the wa you posted in the previous post re: PBTR, Cristiano, Big, Altec and Et.
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Postby cummings2 » Mon Jun 19, 2006 12:01 am

Wait a tic.

Something's come to mind: I wasn't around before last year's set, but is there a difference in the parks ratings? -honest question here, no kidding (I guess I should go to berce as check it out for myself)

My logic right now being that if in general the ballpark ratings have a tendency to be less "extreme" the stats would have a tendency to even out, wouldn't it?
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Postby J-Pav » Mon Jun 19, 2006 12:08 am

[color=darkblue:34c2dfcf49]Thanks J. Kidding aside, all best of luck to you as well...or should I say all best of skill to you (you'll need it for tomorrow's game in our league) [/color:34c2dfcf49]

No, I already knew I got swept. Again. So did one of my other teams. Again. HAL hates me because I'm bashing his game, suggesting it all might be meaningless (there's probably a [i:34c2dfcf49]Slaugtherhouse Five[/i:34c2dfcf49] quote to be had here) and mentioning that players are leaving, so I'm now starting a conspiracy theory.

If I post nicely and my teams perk up...
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Postby MARCPELLETIER » Mon Jun 19, 2006 1:34 am

[quote:0b147eb332]To conclude:

1. Nobody has convincingly (not to mention mathematically or statistically) argued so far where the skill is.
[/quote:0b147eb332]

For what is worth

Tour teams in 2005
Montreal Poutine lost Semi-Finals Tour Event 1, League... 1st 89-73 -
Montreal Poutines missed playoffs Tour Event 3 / Leagu... 2nd 82-80 2.0
Québec Poutine lost Finals SOM Tour Event #2 Le... 1st 90-72 -
montreal poutine lost Finals SOM Players Tour Event #4... 1st 87-75 -
Montreal Grosse Poutine lost Finals TOUR 5 LG #3 AUCTION 1st 90-72 -
Montréal Poutine lost Finals Event 6, League 2 1st 90-72 -
Poutine Montreal missed playoffs Tour Event 7 League ... 3rd 84-78 15.0
Montreal Final_poutine lost Finals 2005 Tour Championsh... 1st 88-74 -

Tour teams in 2006
poutine québec CHAMPS 06 Tour Rd 1 League ... 1st 90-72 -
Quebec Poutine regular season 2006 Tour Ev 2 Lg 2 1st 83-64 -

Total: 873-732 (.544)

probability that this occured by chance, given that we expected a .500 record:
2-Tail : p-value = 0.013
Last edited by MARCPELLETIER on Mon Jun 19, 2006 1:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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