Torn - Page 9

On January 20 2010 21:02 MYM.Testie wrote:


I thought my post was completely harmless. I see why your douche-o-meter is named after you.

On January 21 2010 22:58 IdrA wrote:
go z
terran is too hard for you

On January 21 2010 23:18 FrozenArbiter wrote:

.....
Unbelievably wrong. Seriously, luck is a part of any game with imperfect information, and it's exacerbated in any mirror matchup.

On January 22 2010 18:21 enzym wrote:

except in starcraft there is a thing called scouting, and the better you do it (skill) the less "luck" can work against you. granted, you cant always scout your opponent in time right when the game starts, like on huge maps for example. but thats true for any matchup, not just zvz.
you can always choose your strats based on how well you can defend yourself against possible adversial openings using micro.

in starcraft you can minimize the risk. in poker you can never (ok i havent played poker, but i assume the games wont last long enough for the deck to run out) accurately predict the next card on the top.

i dont deny that luck can play a role on some maps. but thats neither limited to zvz, nor does that factor alone rule out a win. your scouting, the risk you take with your opening bo (not luck) and your micro all matter. plus we're talking about a bo5 here, not a bo1... so both players have plenty chances to reevaluate which opening would suit them best.

if luck decided games than there'd be no reason to talk about skill at all. maybe i didnt explain my thoughts very well earlier, so i tried to fix that here.

beyond that i dont see much point in arguing. show me a replay in which the worse player wins over a better one based purely on luck without the better player choosing a risky bo or screwing up otherwise, and how high the chances are of this working 3 times in a row to win a bo5.

i apologize if this looks like going a bit over the top, but to me everyone complaining about how zvz is dictated by luck is way over the top as well, and i at least try to bring forth some arguments.

edit: you said it yourself: luck is part of a game with imperfect information. thats absolutely true and i never said anything against it. but it is also not what we are discussing here. people say that luck decides games/matches and i say that it doesnt.

On January 22 2010 22:28 FrozenArbiter wrote:

Yes, but there is luck involved even with scouting. I don't play ZvZ, so I'll avoid using a ZvZ example, and go for PvP instead:
If player A chooses to open with 4 gate goon break and player B opens with fastest possible DT, is there not an element luck present here? A good % of the time, you will have no way to scout this happening.

People are going to take gambles (because they feel it's a calculated risk that gains them more than they lose, or because they are desperate) and sometimes they are going to pay off... Luck is present here.

ZvZ you can scout your opponent yes, but let's take a 4 player map - you start 5, opponent starts 1. If your opponent scouts down, and you scout left - is that not luck?


No, you can't predict the exact card that's to come, but you can certainly minimize your risk by other means - though not in the exact same way. If you play an extremely loose/aggressive style, you will have big swings (that is, you will have days where you lose a ton, and days where you win a ton) but as long as you play well, you will win in the long run.
If you play a more tight/aggressive style, you will have smaller wins and smaller losses, and they will be more constant. That is akin to playing a very snug/risk-free style in SC really.

So if you are on a limited bankroll, it's generally better to play a more TAG (tight aggressive) game, as it diminishes the risk of you going bust.

It's quite a bit different from the SC example tho, since in SC when you have an edge, you want to play "tighter" while in poker if you have an edge, you want to play looser (generally, you want to get in more situations where decisions need to be made and exploit your edge - but this isn't true if your opponent is playing too poorly - like if he's absolutely insanely aggressive or an extreme calling station, playing a bit more straightforward might be the best way to exploit his tendencies).


A bo5 is a pretty small sample when the skill difference isn't drastic.


It decides games, but only as one of many factors. It's certainly not the predominant one, in most cases (though I believe my two examples above, are predominantly luck based and you will find more of those in mirrors).


I guess it's a matter of definition - does luck decide games?

Yes, and no. Is it the biggest factor, most of the time? Certainly not. Is it a factor? Absolutely.

If you have a game between people of relatively similiar skill levels, then the variance is going to be big eitherway - and in a mirror matchup, it's going to be even bigger. There are more "oh fuck I'm dead" build vs build situations in mirrors than in say, PvT or TvZ.

If ret was playing against Jaedong I'd recommend he plays ZvZ and prays a lot.
If ret was playing against someone he's slightly better than, I'd recommend he plays TvZ (assuming his TvZ and ZvZ are approximately the same level).

There's just not as much variance to it, if you have a small edge over your opponent and just one game is decided by luck, well, that could change a 3-2 win to a 2-3 loss.