Quote:
Originally Posted by thaskalos
There is an important distinction that has to be made here.
When a quarterback throws a bad interception, he may very well have made a bad mistake...but the horseplayer who loses a race, or even a string of races, often has made no mistake at all.
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This is sharp. You know what comes to mind initially??
Modern scientific statistical analysis in sports, such as sabermetrics in baseball.
One thing that causes a rift between the "old school" fans, and the new-school sabermetricians, is the tendency to 'normalize' across players and time, and to define actual ability in terms of season or career long stats that have already been compiled. = The end result leading to the inevitable conclusion that there are NO STREAKS in baseball(and no crying), and naturally that the apparent "streaks" seem to be in fact completely correlated to the player's season/career long avgs.
Old school fans know
, of course that streaks exist (and clutch hitting!!!
), focus is lost, the track changes, self control wanes, etc...
Very important to know yourself, and to distinguish between expected consecutive losses, incomplete information, and "slumps".
Quote:
Originally Posted by thaskalos
We often lose at the track not because of mistakes...but because we possess incomplete information about the horses we are betting on.
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You're on a roll.