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edit: To clarify, this post was not about the upcoming MSL final, let alone making a prediction. I was just curious about whether Jaedong really does play better in bo5's or whether it only seemed that way at a glance.
I often see people talk about Jaedong's Bo5 record as if it is something particularly impressive, like he steps up his game another notch when he is in a best-of-5.
People like to make storylines like that. They do it all the time; in baseball, for instance, they talk about clutch hitters. They even do it, half-jokingly, with patently ridiculous correlations like the various curses you hear about (Kim Carrier, Sports Illustrated cover, the Bambino) that last until they don't. Even the more plausible ones, though, like "clutch hitting", don't usually stand up to statistical analysis. That's why I wonder whether Jaedong's supposed prowess in best-of-5's is actually a fact.
Fact: the longer a series goes, the more likely the better player is to win it. It's easier for the worse player to get lucky once in one game than to get lucky three times in five games. Jaedong, of course, is better than nearly every other player, so we'd expect his record in best-of-5's to be better than his record in best-of-1's, for no other reason than that.
Specifically, there are 32 possible outcomes for a 5 game series between X and Y. (2^5--each of the 5 games can go one of two ways). In 16 of them, X wins. It can be 5-0 (1), 4-1 (5), or 3-2 (10). Say that X has an x chance of winning each individual game and a y (=1-x) chance of losing. The odds of his winning the series 5-0 are 1 * x^5. The odds of his winning 4-1 are 5 * x^4(y). Winning 3-2: 10 * x^3(y^2). Add these up and you have the odds of his winning the series.
Jaedong's overall winning percentage according to TLPD is 68.29%. Using that as an approximation for his chance of winning any given game he plays, and substituting that for "x" above, we would expect Jaedong to win 81.36% of his Bo5's.
Anyway, it's just a thought. Maybe the Jaedong bo5 effect is a perception created by the natural tendency for any really good player to have a better series win-percentage than individual game win-percentage.
Here's the interesting thing, though: According to Liquipedia, Jaedong's overall best-of-five record is 17-3 (85%), which is quite a bit higher than the 81.36% than his overall record would predict. Add in the fact that we would expect his individual game-winning percentage to be lower in best-of-five's since he only faces those players who have been playing well enough to make it to the end of tournaments, and his series-winning percentage starts looking even more impressive. In fact, over the course of compiling that 17-3 series record, Jaedong won 71.6% of individual games in those series (which makes the 85% series-winning record unsurprising).
In short: it doesn't seem that Jaedong plays particularly clutch in deciding games of series or anything, but it does seem that when he is in best-of-5's, his overall gameplay is kicked up a notch.
Any thoughts?
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don't care much for this. but why are you conidering 5-0 if a best of 5 is defined by a player winning 3 out 5 matches?
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There's SLIIIGHT problem with your calculations. Odds of his winning the series 5-0 are 0, same for 4-1, same for losing 1-4 and losing 0-5.
BO5 = till one of the players has 3 wins
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Belgium9950 Posts
you can't consider 4-1 or 5-0 cause that can't happen.
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Braavos36400 Posts
Also, you only generally play Bo5s vs great opponents (semis and finals) of tournaments. His 68% win percentage includes everyone, from qualifiers to bo1 proleague games, etc.
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Thanks for crunching the numbers. The phenomenon that you mention --- where a player who's simply better than the field will have a very high Bo5 win percentage by the very nature of a Bo5 --- is sometimes overlooked. It seems like Jaedong really is the Bo5 master though --- as the games progress, his opponents get more and more demoralized and Jaedong himself plays better and better. Jaedong has incredible mental strength (see: Batoo finals) and that makes him especially dangerous.
edit: I see the math is a little wonky but I think the main point stands: Jaedong's success in Bo5's is greater than you'd expect from his normal win ratio, especially since Bo5's tend to be against a higher class of opponent than random proleague matches.
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there are 6 possibilities, not 32 wtf
winning 3-0, 3-1, 3-2 or losing 0-3, 1-3, 2-3
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On January 21 2010 00:52 qrs wrote:
In short: it doesn't seem that Jaedong plays particularly clutch in deciding games of series or anything, but it does seem that when he is in best-of-5's, his overall gameplay is kicked up a notch.
I also read the rest of the text, but this is contradicting yourself. Kicking your gameplay up a notch in best-of-5 games, is playing particularly clutch in deciding games.
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On January 21 2010 00:57 timmeh wrote:
don't care much for this. but why are you conidering 5-0 if a best of 5 is defined by a player winning 3 out 5 matches?
On January 21 2010 00:58 Kaniol wrote:
There's SLIIIGHT problem with your calculations. Odds of his winning the series 5-0 are 0, same for 4-1, same for losing 1-4 and losing 0-5.
BO5 = till one of the players has 3 wins
Right, should have clarified that, but my post was already getting so long that I didn't want to bloat it even further.
Technically you guys are right that those phantom games (say, the last two in a potential 5-0 victory) are not actually played, but it's just convenient to think of them that way. Otherwise, I would have to distinguish between winning the first 3 games, winning 3 of the first 4 or winning 3 of the first 5.
As far as the odds go, it boils down to the same thing. Think of it this way: if I have X chance of winning a series that is played until decided, would playing the extra matches (as in a showmatch) have any effect on my chance of winning the series?
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On January 21 2010 01:04 Wurzelbrumpft wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2010 00:52 qrs wrote:
In short: it doesn't seem that Jaedong plays particularly clutch in deciding games of series or anything, but it does seem that when he is in best-of-5's, his overall gameplay is kicked up a notch.
I also read the rest of the text, but this is contradicting yourself. Kicking your gameplay up a notch in best-of-5 games, is playing particularly clutch in deciding games.
You can say that he plays clutch in games of a bo5, compared to his usual play. I just meant that he doesn't play "clutcher" in deciding games of the series than in the series overall. IOW, it's not like, say, he plays like regular Jaedong until he is faced with losing the series and then he goes into overdrive. Just an observation.
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He usually drops game 1 for the hell of it and then turns up the heat in games 2-4 
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On January 21 2010 01:03 freelander wrote:
there are 6 possibilities, not 32 wtf
winning 3-0, 3-1, 3-2 or losing 0-3, 1-3, 2-3
Which will lower the % of BO5's that he will win. Which makes his BO5 record very impressive.
EDIT - having thought about it - maybe I took the wrong approach initially.
WWW
WWLW
WLWW
LWWW
WWLLW
WLWLW
LWWLW
WLLWW
LWLWW
LLWWW
Same number of ways to lose.
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calculation doesnt make sense since u included 4-1 and 5-0 in it.
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ohm, interesting
3-0 incoming
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United States47024 Posts
On January 21 2010 01:05 qrs wrote:
Right, should have clarified that, but my post was already getting so long that I didn't want to bloat it even further.
Technically you guys are right that those phantom games (say, the last two in a potential 5-0 victory) are not actually played, but it's just convenient to think of them that way. Otherwise, I would have to distinguish between winning the first 3 games, winning 3 of the first 4 or winning 3 of the first 5.
As far as the odds go, it boils down to the same thing. Think of it this way: if I have X chance of winning a series that is played until decided, would playing the extra matches (as in a showmatch) have any effect on my chances of winning the series?
The problem is this: you have 5 possible ways to win 4-1 and 10 possible ways to win 3-2.
I'm assuming your 5 possible 4-1s are:
LWWWW
WLWWW
WWLWW
WWWLW
WWWWL
You can't collapse the 4-1 group into 3-1 wins, because the latter 2 cases would technically be identical to 3-0 wins. Similarly, with 3-2s, your 10 possible combinations are:
LLWWW
LWLWW
LWWLW
LWWWL
WLLWW
WLWLW
WLWWL
WWLLW
WWLWL
WWWLL
While these are 3-2s with regard to the combination of 5 games, the bolded sets are actually resolved as 3-1s and the italicized one as a 3-0, because the losses are never reached. Your chance of winning a Bo5 overall is the same, but your chance of winning with a particular result is different.
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On January 21 2010 01:05 qrs wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2010 00:57 timmeh wrote:
don't care much for this. but why are you conidering 5-0 if a best of 5 is defined by a player winning 3 out 5 matches?
Show nested quote +On January 21 2010 00:58 Kaniol wrote:
There's SLIIIGHT problem with your calculations. Odds of his winning the series 5-0 are 0, same for 4-1, same for losing 1-4 and losing 0-5.
BO5 = till one of the players has 3 wins Right, should have clarified that, but my post was already getting so long that I didn't want to bloat it even further. Technically you guys are right that those phantom games (say, the last two in a potential 5-0 victory) are not actually played, but it's just convenient to think of them that way. Otherwise, I would have to distinguish between winning the first 3 games, winning 3 of the first 4 or winning 3 of the first 5. As far as the odds go, it boils down to the same thing. Think of it this way: if I have X chance of winning a series that is played until decided, would playing the extra matches (as in a showmatch) have any effect on my chance of winning the series?
No, but 4-1 could be 3-0 and then he drops the (nonexistent) 4th game.
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United States47024 Posts
On January 21 2010 01:14 Pokebunny wrote:
No, but 4-1 could be 3-0 and then he drops the (nonexistent) 4th game.
Strictly speaking, it's still a win, so it doesn't affect his overall likelihood of winning a Bo5, it just factors in when you're trying to analyze his chance of winning in 3/4/5 games.
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On January 21 2010 01:01 Hot_Bid wrote:
Also, you only generally play Bo5s vs great opponents (semis and finals) of tournaments. His 68% win percentage includes everyone, from qualifiers to bo1 proleague games, etc.
Right, I mentioned that at the end. Sorry if my OP is a bit schizoid: the fact is that I started writing it expecting to find that there was no significant Jaedong bo5 effect, but when I discovered that page of stats on Liquipedia, I had to change my mind.On January 21 2010 01:01 RaGe wrote:
you can't consider 4-1 or 5-0 cause that can't happen.
On January 21 2010 01:03 freelander wrote:
there are 6 possibilities, not 32 wtf
winning 3-0, 3-1, 3-2 or losing 0-3, 1-3, 2-3
OK, so many people are bringing this up that I see it was a terrible idea to gloss over it in the OP.
You're right, there are 6 actual possibilities. But here's what I meant: suppose you build a tree of possibilities:
G1
/\
1-0 0-1
/\ /\ etc. If you extend that to the bottom, there would be 32 leaves. It's just that we cut off the branches that don't make a difference. So, for instance 3-0 is the equivalent of 4 different outcomes, all of which result in the same player's victory. As far as odds go, though, if you want to count every possibility for a series win as being equally likely (which is how I was doing it), then you have to think of a 3-0 victory as four possibilities in one. If you prefer, you can say that there are only 6 outcomes, but some are more likely than others (3-2 is much more likely than 3-0). It boils down to exactly the same thing.
edit:On January 21 2010 01:13 TheYango wrote:
...While these are 3-2s with regard to the combination of 5 games, the bolded sets are actually resolved as 3-1s and the italicized one as a 3-0, because the losses are never reached. Your chance of winning a Bo5 overall is the same, but your chance of winning with a particular result is different. Exactly right. All I was interested in was the chance of winning a bo5 overall. Sorry for going at it in such an unclear way.
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On January 21 2010 01:05 qrs wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2010 00:57 timmeh wrote:
don't care much for this. but why are you conidering 5-0 if a best of 5 is defined by a player winning 3 out 5 matches?
Show nested quote +On January 21 2010 00:58 Kaniol wrote:
There's SLIIIGHT problem with your calculations. Odds of his winning the series 5-0 are 0, same for 4-1, same for losing 1-4 and losing 0-5.
BO5 = till one of the players has 3 wins Right, should have clarified that, but my post was already getting so long that I didn't want to bloat it even further. Technically you guys are right that those phantom games (say, the last two in a potential 5-0 victory) are not actually played, but it's just convenient to think of them that way. Otherwise, I would have to distinguish between winning the first 3 games, winning 3 of the first 4 or winning 3 of the first 5. As far as the odds go, it boils down to the same thing. Think of it this way: if I have X chance of winning a series that is played until decided, would playing the extra matches (as in a showmatch) have any effect on my chance of winning the series?
That makes complete sense to me now. I was initially confused with what you were saying.
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Calculation seems right. (even though considering 5-0, 4-1 scores might seem weird to most ppl)
This is an interesting read, but the conclusion is... not really shocking. The difference between his individual/series statistics might not be huge but considering the fact that series opponents are likely a tad better, it seems enough to say he plays particularily good in series.
What I'm wondering is, isn't this true for other S-Class players?
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EPT
