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BGonline.org Forums
Proposed quantitative definition of skill
Posted By: Maik Stiebler In Response To: Proposed quantitative definition of skill (Steve Mellen)
Date: Wednesday, 20 June 2012, at 5:50 a.m.
(PS: After writing down the following reply, I realized that I have probably missed your original point. I noticed that you do acknowledge that there are elements of luck in tennis. What are they? Are you thinking in the same direction as I do in the following?)
It might be argued that if you lose in rock-paper-scissors, it is because your move was, in the context of the game, worse than your opponent's. You blundered. There is no extraneous source of random chance.
Now nobody in their right mind would claim that rock-paper-scissors is a game of pure skill. But the same type of luck occurs in other games and sports. A nearly obvious example are penalty kicks in soccer. The goalie basically has to choose a corner of the goal to defend before the penalty taker has hit the ball. Due to physical limitations on the reaction time, choosing the defended corner when the ball is already on its trajectory is not likely to be a good strategy. On the other hand, the penalty taker also has to choose a corner, when, against a competent goalie, he has no way of knowing which corner the goalie chose. If goalie's and taker's choices agree, it's good for the goalie.
If one accepts that there is rock-paper-scissors-type luck in penalty kicks, one can go on to find some of it just about everywhere in sports. In short, it's not clear to me where you would draw the line between a blunder and an unlucky choice of action.
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