One way to get a quick handle on this issue is to imagine the
most extreme case - a player or team that loses every point one
performance, then wins every point the next. That player or team
would go 0 for 5 on off days and 5 for 5 on the on days. Winning
half of its games. And yet if you averaged the daily point winning
percentages over a season, it would be 50% or average.
While it's true that this extreme case is never going to happen,
it turns out that there is still a benefit from an on/off pattern
at every level of variance.
Here's a basic starting scenario: a player who is completely average
and consistently wins 50% of his points. If we rotate him evenly
thru all 8 posts, where all the other teams are equal strength,
he will end up winning exactly 1 out of every 8 games, which is
just what we would expect.
But what happens if he alternates with 40% one day and 60% the
next? The answer is that there is a big gain - he wins 16% more
games which is a 1 in 6.9 win ratio.
How about a player who dominates and wins 60% of his points? With
equally assigned post positions, we would find a 1 in 4.28 win
rate.
However, in an extreme case of a 40% / 80% alternation that improves
radically to 1 win per 3.16 games played. Almost 36% more wins.
The conclusion from this is that the Spectacular 7 scoring system
rewards surges disproportionately to penalizing
rests. At least in terms of the win rate.
What that implies is that if resting today (which could involve
going for high-risk kill shots ASAP) actually gives you more energy
tomorrow, then we have the same general ethical conflict of interest
as the dumping for place. IE: if the fronton puts you into a seemingly-neverending
"They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" scenario, then taking
it easy at times is a winning strategy. Providing of course, that
you've got the game to take advantage of the energy increase /
fatigue decrease.
May sound horrible, but the analysis supports it all the way.
