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P2-Black, Wins from which one? Only Skill? or, Skill + Luck?
Posted:
Mar 16, 2009, 1:56 AM
P2-Black, Wins from which one when its 2 equal skill level players over 1900 points each competing? Only Skill? or, Skill + Luck?
Lets see what peoples opinions are. i think its Skill + Luck.
Nosovs seems to think its only skill involved for a P2 win. i strongly disagree with him.
heres a post from another thread that nosovs wrote. OK , if you really think that luck is important in the Pente turn base Tournament, NO PROBLEM. I think that P2 player chosing openning create situation where his opponent have to make mistake. It is not luck , it is calculation ability, can he find win or not, especcially in position which occur first time ( novelty). I see in database that you probably don't know correct move and play this position
and heres a comment from me;
white wins from skill alone.
black wins from combination of skill and luck. luck meaning that the opponant playing white has to make error when searching for the winning position. you set a trap,...and cross your fingers that they walk into it. all the skill in the world of a black means nothing if the opponent doesn't walk into the trap. calculate all you want, but in the end its crossing your fingers that they don't see the trickery. the smoke and mirrors as karl might say. nosovs if i beat your black does it mean your black wasn't good enough skill level? no it just means you didn't get lucky that time.
you simply cant force a black win no matter how much skill is involved,..if the opponant is equall the set will split every time with white wins, unless one player makes a human error due to many varying reasons that can occur. black hoping for human error is hoping for a lucky turn out,...you set a trap,..maybe they see it,..maybe they dont. somedays a pente masters head is more clear than other days.
any other opinions on this topic?
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Re: P2-Black, Wins from which one? Only Skill? or, Skill + Luck?
Posted:
Mar 16, 2009, 2:27 AM
A flawless white game will always end in a white victory. A black victory requires an error on the part of white. Typically this error is brought on by a calculated, sneaky, slimy, underhanded tactic by black. You're both right, you're just labelling it differently. Frankly I'm not one to believe so much in luck as I do hard work, and I'd have to say that the reason Nosovs boasts an 88% win ratio opposed to my 47% has far less to do with luck than it does with skill. It's not anything that I could get too adamant about tho.
"One man's misfortune is another man's luck." -Balthasar Gracian (1601-1658)
Re: P2-Black, Wins from which one? Only Skill? or, Skill + Luck?
Posted:
Mar 16, 2009, 5:08 AM
And apparently I am devoid of either quality lol.....-10 streak Ouch! Gawd the relearning curve has always been brutal for me........Thx to everyone that has been kind enough to give me games!
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Re: P2-Black, Wins from which one? Only Skill? or, Skill + Luck?
Posted:
May 5, 2009, 5:10 PM
in computer vs computer yes i suppose.
but, in human err, or the lack there of, does luck, or the lack there of play a role? i think human err can be as random as dice if not more. but can we prove that one way or the other? i dont think so. does luck even exist? or choice, or fate, ext....
in other words,..yes you can prove that calculation is real, but can you prove luck isn't real when speaking of human err?
and yes in computer vs computer if played perfectly black should always lose.
what about the humans that can't calculate far enough on their own, but happen to run across a solution in a data base that someone else made. the coincidence that the solution they needed happened to be there was luck or calculation? obviously not by calculation.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Re: P2-Black, Wins from which one? Only Skill? or, Skill + Luck?
Posted:
May 6, 2009, 4:51 AM
For what it's worth (and I recognize that it isn't worth very much) I agree with Zoey in that there is luck involved. For example, say you are at a position where there are two decent moves for black. They are both beatable, but the white move needed is rather obscure.
It may be that 30% of players have seen one of the black moves, lets call it move A and remember how to beat it, and different 30% have seen the other black move, move B, and remember how to beat it.
You do not know what one of the two your opponent knows,so you do now know if you should do move A or move B.
If your opponent knows the one you picked, but not the other you are unlucky, if your opponent knows the other one, but not the one you picked, you are lucky. A black line might lose to one player, but beat a different player of equal or greater talent depending on the persons background knowledge. So this "luck" is really a label for your opponents limited knowledge, but because no one is all knowing it is reasonable to call it luck.
Of course the ability to find a move that only 20%, or 10% of pente players can beat instead of 30% or 40% is much more important, but luck still does play a role. I would say it almost all skill, but luck definitely has an effect, even if it is a small one.
Re: P2-Black, Wins from which one? Only Skill? or, Skill + Luck?
Posted:
May 6, 2009, 2:17 PM
To take skanadron's line of argument to the logical extreme, skill becomes irrelevant, and the game of Pente devolves to being one of *pure* luck.
* Luck that a skilful player forgot their skill at a crucial time; * Luck that a particular line emerged that *you* are skilful enough to play to advantage; * Luck that your opponent simply isn't as skilful as you, period.
Luck is a matter of chance, an outcome which is random within the range of a certain bound. Good luck is when the random outcome is in your favour; bad luck is the opposite.
Yet you are equating luck as an absence of skill. The 30% of players who recognise the hypothetical play and how to counter it are the more skilful ones. Hence the win or loss is dependent on a factor of skill. It is not random, it is simply a presence or absence of skill. It is not luck.
Re: P2-Black, Wins from which one? Only Skill? or, Skill + Luck?
Posted:
May 6, 2009, 5:43 PM
i think you need to go back and re-read skanadron's post more carefully.
here is the thing that separates pente from a lot of other board games: at the higher levels of play, the number of possible variations of many top openings dwindles to a very manageable number, such that if you were to take the time and study on the database, you could find the best responses to a number of the best 4th, 5th, 6th moves and so on, because unlike in chess, where after the first 5 moves the number of possible strong positions starts to branch out exponentially, in pente things rapidly become very constrained due to the fact of white's sizeable advantage. this is just something you learn over time.
now, it is very likely that most people when they are studying their openings don't grant an equal portion of time to studying every single, say, 5th move to the same amount of detail. in fact, they will probably study what they consider to be the "best" 5th moves and then work their asses off to come up with clever responses.
now what happens if they play the game and I, their opponent, who am unfamiliar with the opening, examine the board after the first 4 moves, and come to the same conclusion as my opponent, that X is the best 5th move. Now the other player has a whole arsenal of prepared answers to trap with, while I'm just ad-libbing it as best as i can. I'd say he has the advantage.
however, what if by random chance I play one of the 5ths that my opponent hasn't studied to death, but is still a decent line? It's probably a weaker move than the top 5th, but because my opponent isn't prepared for it, he'll have a lot harder time coming up with answers because he hasn't studied every possible move down to the end.
You could argue about how much skill has to do with studying lines and making moves based on probability, but I think it's impossible to deny that pure chance plays at least a supporting role in the above scenario, which is a very common one in top-level play.
The 30% of players who recognise the hypothetical play and how to counter it are the more skilful ones.
No, because in skanadron's hypothetical situation there are 30% who recognize the other play but not this one, so it cancels out exactly. Imagine everyone's skillset as a massive Venn Diagram. If we can play lines which are within our circle and don't overlap with our opponent's, we have a slight advantage. HOWEVER, unless we've played our opponent six thousand times, we have an imperfect idea of what their skillset is, so we just use educated guesses.
It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
