RAWK goes into Meltdown 2010/2011

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Why are people confusing probability with luck? If you use probability as a measurement for what you coin 'luck' you're accepting the term of luck by placing it in science, which somewhat fecks it up.

That's what luck is, the chance of something happened. Look it up.
 
This thread hurts my brains. Is the existence of 'luck' actually really being discussed?

It's a metaphysical concept, really. Obviously luck exists as a concept which can positively or negatively affect a situation, Drogba hitting the post, lucky for us unlucky for them.

Easy.

I think hitting a post depends on the situation. If you hit the post from six yards out or a penalty, that's not luck, that's within the range you're expected to score in. If you hit it with a swerving screamer from 40 yards, that's unlucky in my book - A1Dan strongly disagrees, we discussed it a year or two ago. My view is that the difference between hitting the post and hitting an inch inside the post from that distance isn't within the player's control.
 
Weren't you just moaning about this thread being confusing? Because that post has pwopa baffled me.

No I said it made my brain hurt.

That's what luck is, the chance of something happened. Look it up.

That's about as simplistic as you can define it, but by defining it with probability you ultimately adhere to 'luck' existing, which is what this thread is about right?

Someone doesn't believe in luck and we're laughing at the scousers?

I need to stop drinking.
 
I think hitting a post depends on the situation. If you hit the post from six yards out or a penalty, that's not luck, that's within the range you're expected to score in. If you hit it with a swerving screamer from 40 yards, that's unlucky in my book - A1Dan strongly disagrees, we discussed it a year or two ago. My view is that the difference between hitting the post and hitting an inch inside the post from that distance isn't within the player's control.


Well of course it is - he could have aimed it bang in the middle of the goal. It's quite clearly within his control.
 
Well fair enough. I just simply don't agree at all. If the striker is hitting the post, he's missed the target. Why hasn't he shot just inside the post and scored? Poor finishing, if you ask me.

So you never see a great Arsenal move come to nothing without attaching blame to your players? You never think, "Ah, so unlucky"?

I agree that Liverpool's victory was unlikely, but it wasn't luck that Shevchenko missed that golden chance - it was purely poor play. I don't see how it's luck in the slightest.

His poor play was Pool's good luck. It was outside their control, and 99% of the time he puts that away.
 
I think hitting a post depends on the situation. If you hit the post from six yards out or a penalty, that's not luck, that's within the range you're expected to score in. If you hit it with a swerving screamer from 40 yards, that's unlucky in my book - A1Dan strongly disagrees, we discussed it a year or two ago. My view is that the difference between hitting the post and hitting an inch inside the post from that distance isn't within the player's control.

Ah yes, I agree but their really separate conditions which are acting upon what we define as 'luck' in the same sentence you say hitting the post from 40 yards out is unlucky, is also, in one respect, very lucky (simply by the fact you've got the ball anywhere close to the net.) Luck is an outside force that acts upon virtually everything with separate possible outcomes.

The probability of United winning the treble is enormous. But with 'luck' it becomes possible.
 
Well of course it is - he could have aimed it bang in the middle of the goal. It's quite clearly within his control.

It's not. The difference of a few inches over a 40 yard shot is not within the bounds of human control, the differences are too sleight and there are too many other variables such as the ball and the atmosphere. Don't go blaming a guy over a few inches, that's how I live my life.
 
Over the course of a season there hundreds of random incidents that could go down as good or bad luck. These will be evenly distributed amongst all the teams because they are, by their nature, random.

Note: Don't read spoiler unless you want to read boring statistical crap:
No. 38 games is a small number. Cup competitions contain even few games.

Also, games are not even in significance. The affects of each of the random instances of luck are not even. As a result the variance is huge.

Play around with a coin toss probability generator. My first five results for 38 coin tosses:

Number of flip: 38 Number of heads 22 Number of tails 16
Number of flip: 38 Number of heads 16 Number of tails 22
Number of flip: 38 Number of heads 17 Number of tails 21
Number of flip: 38 Number of heads 21 Number of tails 17
Number of flip: 38 Number of heads 17 Number of tails 21

Or, play tens of thousands of poker tournaments. You begin to see luck and chance very differently, trust me.
 
To simplify this, whichever one of you doesn't believe in luck I just want to say shut up - unless your height exceeds 6' 5" in which case.

Luck? Ha, what a load of bollocks.
 
Well of course it is - he could have aimed it bang in the middle of the goal. It's quite clearly within his control.

:confused: Then the keeper catches it. Have you ever watched a game of football? Most of the time players aim for the corner so the keeper can't get to it. I'm saying the difference between the circle of space in the corner and the adjacent one overlapping the post is too slight for a player to control with that kind of shot from that kind of distance.

I don't love this thread anymore.

You're right. This is the wrong thread to argue the toss in, and the right thread to re-post this in:

10puadz.jpg
 
So you never see a great Arsenal move come to nothing without attaching blame to your players? You never think, "Ah, so unlucky"?



His poor play was Pool's good luck. It was outside their control, and 99% of the time he puts that away.


No, I think "oh why didn't he stick it away?" It's never luck.

Your second point - it wasn't out of Liverpool's control. In fact, Dudek saved that effort, meaning it was very much in their control. Everything can be impacted - Liverpool should have stopped the cross coming in in the first place, but they didn't. That's not lucky for either side.

EDIT - and on your other point, obviously players aim for the corners, but you can still aim the ball into a tiny part of the goal - it just requires more skill. It's not luck.
 
What the feck...Alastair let's say Nasri hits a shot that is about to miss the net, but hits a homing Pigeon, killing the Pigeon in the process and deflecting into the net. Now, do you agree that that was a lucky goal (and consequently unlucky for the Pigeon) or do you just think that Pigeon really, really loves Arsenal and also happened to be fantastic (in avian terms, perhaps the best ever feathered footballer) who took one for the team...by heading the ball into the net, with it's skull - consequently making it's tiny avian skull explode into thousands of pieces.

Do you really believe that the bird was a suicidal football fanatic, or was it just lucky?
 
Alastair doesn't believe in teams being unlucky... except when Arsenal come up against an inspired keeper. ;)

Well, it depends. I don't buy the argument that if you have 65% possession in games, and lose, you've necessarily been the better team. It's about what you do with the ball. That said, if you come up against an inspired goalkeeper, like we did in Belgrade recently, you can say you're unlucky if you don't win the game.
 
What the feck...Alastair let's say Nasri hits a shot that is about to miss the net, but hits a homing Pigeon, killing the Pigeon in the process and deflecting into the net. Now, do you agree that that was a lucky goal (and consequently unlucky for the Pigeon) or do you just think that Pigeon really, really loves Arsenal and also happened to be fantastic (in avian terms, perhaps the best ever feathered footballer) who took one for the team...by heading the ball into the net, with it's skull - consequently making it's tiny avian skull explode into thousands of pieces.

Do you really believe that the bird was a suicidal football fanatic, or was it just lucky?

:lol: that would be quite lucky, and it's not really that different from the beach-ball, which actually, even more hilariously, happened.

Alastair doesn't believe in teams being unlucky... except when Arsenal come up against an inspired keeper. ;)
alastair said:
Well, it depends. I don't buy the argument that if you have 65% possession in games, and lose, you've necessarily been the better team. It's about what you do with the ball. That said, if you come up against an inspired goalkeeper, like we did in Belgrade recently, you can say you're unlucky if you don't win the game.

:lol: daft cnut
 
EDIT - and on your other point, obviously players aim for the corners, but you can still aim the ball into a tiny part of the goal - it just requires more skill. It's not luck.

That's bollocks.

If I play crossbar challenge, I can do the exact same motion every time and I might manage to hit the bar 1 in 50. There is no perceptible difference to me, the player, between the successful shot and the one which misses by an inch. It's not within my control. A really good player might make 5 in 50, but the same is true regarding sleight variations in end result.

Ultimately, the dimensions that affect the outcome in this case are smaller than the dimensions involved in human perception and muscular response. Even a machine built to kick a football at a crossbar - doing the exact same motion each time as accurately as it can manage it - would not always hit the crossbar as a very sleight variance would cause it to miss. (On top of external variables such as wind.)
 
What the feck...Alastair let's say Nasri hits a shot that is about to miss the net, but hits a homing Pigeon, killing the Pigeon in the process and deflecting into the net. Now, do you agree that that was a lucky goal (and consequently unlucky for the Pigeon) or do you just think that Pigeon really, really loves Arsenal and also happened to be fantastic (in avian terms, perhaps the best ever feathered footballer) who took one for the team...by heading the ball into the net, with it's skull - consequently making it's tiny avian skull explode into thousands of pieces.

Do you really believe that the bird was a suicidal football fanatic, or was it just lucky?


:lol:

Pigeons are abnormal in a footballing environment - hence that would be luck. It's not something that we played any part in. Obviously.
 
So luck does now exist. It took the life of a Pigeon, luckily it was merely a Pigeon... it could have escalated.


:lol: that would be quite lucky, and it's not really that different from the beach-ball, which actually, even more hilariously, happened.



:lol: daft cnut

How could I forget the Beachball!

Oh joy. :lol:
 
That's proper e-stalking that is. I'm going to take the fact that I don't bother rooting through four month old posts as consolation to looking like a retard in this argument.

Don't fret, I just suspected that it wouldn't be difficult to find an instance where you'd said Arsenal were unlucky.

Search Alastair posts for term 'unlucky'.

Hey presto.

You also said Wolves have been unlucky this season, but that post about an inspired keeper was funnier in the context of the current argument.
 
I just estalked alastair's other lucky/unlucky musings, before deciding it was too gimpy a way to spend my evening. There are tons of them, though in fairness most are about injuries and refereeing decisions.

They're all wrong in loads of other ways, too, not relevant to this discussion...

That's bollocks.

If I play crossbar challenge, I can do the exact same motion every time and I might manage to hit the bar 1 in 50. There is no perceptible difference to me, the player, between the successful shot and the one which misses by an inch. It's not within my control. A really good player might make 5 in 50, but the same is true regarding sleight variations in end result.

Ultimately, the dimensions that affect the outcome in this case are smaller than the dimensions involved in human perception and muscular response. Even a machine built to kick a football at a crossbar - doing the exact same motion each time as accurately as it can manage it - would not always hit the crossbar as a very sleight variance would cause it to miss. (On top of external variables such as wind.)

Man I wish you'd been there in the argument with Aidan, which might be a better place to discuss it than here if I can find it...
 
Don't fret, I just suspected that it wouldn't be difficult to find an instance where you'd said Arsenal were unlucky.

Search Alastair posts for term 'unlucky'.

Hey presto.

You also said Wolves have been unlucky this season, but that post about an inspired keeper was funnier in the context of the current argument.


Well fair enough :lol:

I'll learn not to use the word unlucky in such an off-hand manner in future.
 
Man I wish you'd been there in the argument with Aidan, which might be a better place to discuss it than here if I can find it...

It's just a slightly unusual application of engineering tolerance. The shot that hits the bar and the shot that just misses are both within the tolerance of the perfect execution of the machine (or player).
 
I don't think luck, by its very definition can "even itself out"...you can get lucky in one instance, and then unlucky in a seperate instance. You can't really start directly proportioning an extended series of instances which bare no direct measurement to each other, and then calculate somehow that they even out over a certain period of time.

It's not a mathematical or probability equation...it's luck. If I get hit on the head with an asteroid tomorrow, I'm fairly sure my luck doesn't even out if my dead body falls onto a £20 note.



:lol:

Never seen this before
 
By the way, that picture of Rafa, is that what he looked like when he first joined Liverpool? Christ.

He must have aged 15 years in the space of 5, and fed himself on a diet solely consisting of deep fried pies.

Has there ever been such a noticeable mental and physical deterioration in a manager?
 
Man I wish you'd been there in the argument with Aidan, which might be a better place to discuss it than here if I can find it...

The argument he's using is self-defeating though. If we accept that every time a ball is kicked luck plays a part in it finding it's target then are thousands and thousands of opportunity for "luck" to influence a game so it has to even out over a whole season.
 
The argument he's using is self-defeating though. If we accept that every time a ball is kicked luck plays a part in it finding it's target then are thousands and thousands of opportunity for "luck" to influence a game so it has to even out over a whole season.

That's not the case because the luck is contained within 38 discreet games.

And the events are not of equal magnitude either. Hitting the post from 40 yards is not as unlucky as losing your best player for 9 months to injury.
 
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