Jai-Alai Question of the Week


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Re(2): #494 - Early game runouts and the 'class sandwich'

Posted on August 12, 2013 at 02:28:17 PM by Craig G

Hey Mink,

That is the right answer, for sure. (And I happen to have a big chunk of supporting data)

There are 2 main reasons, the second of which might be controversial, but still in my opinion correct.

First, as you say, the stars in the late games tend to have the higher win percentages, which in turn means higher percentage of points won, which then means greater likelihood of a runout. And, of course, while the too-good-for-the-competition early game stars can be promoted to middle or late games, there are no late-late games for promoting Goiko or Lopez. So they stay right there in the lates and dominate forever.

Second, instead of the usual Skiena-style rating where one number is used to express the strength of a player or team, IMO the underlying REALITY of quiniela-based jai-alai is better modeled in terms of QUANTUM handicapping, in which we think in terms of levels or states.

So with the conventional, somewhat static view, you might say that Goiko / Lopez / Erik / Diego win (for example) 62% of their points and then you would try to calculate a runout probability based on that.

But with a 'quantum' view, you allow for a player to be in different 'states', such as 'tired from the double performance yesterday', 'not warmed up yet', 'struggling with an injury', 'bouncing back with a vengeance', 'totally kick-ass' or whatever might match up with reality and have PREDICTIVE VALUE.

With this perspective, the stars such as Goiko / Lopez /Erik / Diego might be in the kick-ass state 20% of the time, and in THAT state their point-winning rate might be closer to 80% or so.

The whole point of this is that if we interpret their overall performance in terms of a mixture of states, then the occasions when they are in their very top gear will produce a higher yield of runouts than would a steady-state view.

Which simply means that an objective analysis of jai-alai reality would reveal a higher rate of runouts than expected by the conventional view.

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