A small talk on chance
- Brampton Booster
- Dec 18, 2013
- Comment
“In 9/10 games I got gradelocked”
“He’s been double critting every game so far!”
“Sixth damage heal? Again?”
It is human nature to pick on the small stuff. Don’t think someone is “lucky” or “unlucky” based on the amount of jaw dropping sacking. Think about it:
- You play a game with someone in a tournament (best of three swiss with 8 players).
- You got grade locked 14 times and came in dead last.
Barring mechanical factors (insufficient randomization, bad ratios), getting grade locked that often still plausible. Assuming that everyone 2-0 each other, there are 8 games played per round, and 7 rounds. That’s 56 games total. So, if we take the tourney distribution we get 14/56 or 25%. But wait! For every game you have two players, so you need to multiply two to each game. We now get a value of 14/112 or 12.5%. Considering that the average probability of grade lock is at 18% without searchers this tourney result is actually better off then most.
Let me talk for a moment about Standard distribution. As the number of games approaches infinity (or a large number like 500) then we get around 20% to get grade locked. The odds just so happens that 12.5% fits within our margin of error.
It would also be nonsensical to say you were the only one that got grade locked, so in this hypothetical tournament I’d bet a couple of other players would be grade locked.
You can go on and say, well, if there are 5 tourneys going around in your state at the same time, and there are x number of states, y number of countries, (z number of planets) then you’ll see that your grade lock problem is very VERY microscopic. At the macroscopic level it is a blip in probability.
It isn’t only against other players. How many games have you been playing since you went into vanguard? Bet you don’t keep track of that, but you can safely assume many. now which games do you remember?
- ones when you get critted every turn
- ones where you crit every turn
- those sixth damage heals
- winning after being grade locked
- top calling a perfect field
- etc.
What don’t you remember? The 80% of games you play that were routine. Ones in which nothing particularly exciting happens. Maybe you went away on autopilot, or you were churning through your 500 games. And the need to multiply by two to account for how your opponent did as well. So the only thing to take away from this is not to beat yourself up when you feel the odds are against you* when playing vanguard. Tomorrow will come.
*Unlike Casino games. There are strictly created to make sure you lose on average.