[ View Thread ] [ Post Response ] [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ]

BGonline.org Forums

Refute this argument, please (I know someone will!)

Posted By: Daniel Murphy
Date: Monday, 12 September 2011, at 4:19 p.m.

In Response To: Refute this argument, please (I know someone will!) (Phil Simborg)

Most of your examples of "luck" are rather examples of what might better be called "fortune" but if you want to call them "luck" that's fine with me. The first example, however -- the one of the "luck of the draw" -- is no different from rolling consecutive double sixes. Yet one is "luck" and the other not?

What were the odds of that draw? What were the odds of that sequence of rolls? I don't see what distinction you are making between the two such that one is "luck" and the other is not, and I still don't see what's to be gained by refusing to use "luck" to describe those times when the odds are that something won't happen, but does.

And in fact both Tobias in his interview and you in your 2006 article "Luck vs. Skill in Backgammon" use "luck" in precisely that way. Tobias describes himself as "lucky" to hit a shot in a bearoff at DMP. You acknowledge that "as we all know, even at 10 to 1, every ten times the beginner can get lucky and win."

Apart from this dispute about a word, though, Phil, we agree about the right-minded attitude of the winning backgammon player with regard to luck -- those times when the odds go for or against you. In 1996 I wrote:

Backgammon is a particularly good example of a game which has a high element of luck, yet requires great skill to play on an expert level. What is the element of luck? The 21 possible combinations of numbers that may be thrown on each roll of the dice. The bad player's assessment of the luck factor stops there. The good player realizes that, *given* that element of luck, winning play lies in determining which among possible lines of play is most likely to succeed. Luck as such is uninteresting and irrelevant except as a short term randomizer of possible outcomes."

So when unlikely sequences of events occur, lucky or not, like you, I don't cry either.

Messages In This Thread

 

Post Response
Your Name:
Your E-Mail Address:
Subject:
Message:

If necessary, enter your password below:

Password:
 

 

[ View Thread ] [ Post Response ] [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ]

BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.