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BGonline.org Forums
Definition of luck-to-skill ratio
Posted By: Steve Mellen In Response To: Definition of luck-to-skill ratio (Tom Keith)
Date: Thursday, 6 August 2009, at 3:11 p.m.
The problem I have with these numbers is that they assume if the game were all skill, the better player would win 100% of the time, and if it were all luck, the results would be 50-50. I certainly don't disagree with the latter assumption, but if we think about a game like chess that is all or almost all skill-based, the higher-rated player certainly doesn't win every game.
In chess, the Elo numbers measure the skill differential between the two players. In backgammon, Elo is measuring something different, because the luck factor is already baked in.
I guess one of my own assumptions is that whatever the skill-luck ratio may be in backgammon, it's a feature of the game that remains constant regardless of who is playing. So if we employ a methodology that finds the skill-luck ratio to be different depending on whether the players are 150 Elo points apart or 300, there ought to be something wrong with our methodology.
Let's talk about chess again for a moment. The reason Garry Kasparov would beat me every single time is obviously that chess is a game of skill. But if I play against a player of exactly my ability, and the results are 50-50, that doesn't mean chess is now a game of luck! You could say, "I was lucky that my opponent didn't play his best," but I think that's really a description of skill rather than luck.
I'm not trying to be critical here but simply trying to think through the solution. Maybe it's all in how we define our terms, but it seems like there ought to be only one correct answer to the poll question, regardless of who is playing.
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