Overconfidence at guessing (1 Viewer)

[smashingsilver]

yeah, that's not really true. if i'm in that kind of contest, i'd probably call blue all the time and wait for the other guys to screw up.

You should test that out. Find 11 other guys who all understand the point of the challenge and see how long it takes before you start itching to pick red.

i could be wrong, but i don't think i'd lose that often. the premise is that we have 12 guys playing in this contest, and that i'm the only one picking blue all the time. (if someone else is playing blue all the time, we'd be tied until someone took a chance on red -- but if you're smart, you're not the guy taking that chance.) it obviously depends on how many cards we're flipping over, but let's say we have 100 cards, 70 of which are blue, and 30 of which are blue. if we're flipping through the cards, i keep picking blue, and the other guys throw in a red here and there to try to beat the game, i think the odds of any of them beating my 70% are pretty low.

I don't argue what you're saying. But do you really believe this is what you're doing when you never sit your studs in fantasy football?

Two points to discuss. One, why would you think you're the only one who would be picking blue all the time? My point was that if all competitors are following the same strategy from the start, then the temptation to pick red late in the game to try to get the lead would be immense. If you're got the self-control not to do so, then you are among the minority. Two, I have to agree with FT...this really does not apply to the 'start your studs' strategy. This is more just an exercise in psychology. Maybe a better application would be trying to fill out a March Madness bracket. If you always pick the favorites you'll consistently do well but will probably never win a contest with thousands of competitors. Because of that, the temptation to try to pick a few upsets is hard to ignore. This is really just an analysis of typical human behaviour and less about how to win at FF.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Two, I have to agree with FT...this really does not apply to the 'start your studs' strategy.

This is not an "always start your studs" thread. This is an "it's easier to fool yourself than you might think, especially if you fancy yourself an expert" thread. I used starting lineup decisions as an example, but the capacity to succumb to certain types of biases applies to all predictions. (And FF is largely about predictions.)I very much recommend reading the entire New Yorker article -- not just the single paragraph I quoted.

 

[gorf]

i could be wrong, but i don't think i'd lose that often. the premise is that we have 12 guys playing in this contest, and that i'm the only one picking blue all the time. (if someone else is playing blue all the time, we'd be tied until someone took a chance on red -- but if you're smart, you're not the guy taking that chance.) it obviously depends on how many cards we're flipping over, but let's say we have 100 cards, 70 of which are blue, and 30 of which are blue. if we're flipping through the cards, i keep picking blue, and the other guys throw in a red here and there to try to beat the game, i think the odds of any of them beating my 70% are pretty low.

I don't argue what you're saying. But do you really believe this is what you're doing when you never sit your studs in fantasy football?

nope. i was just arguing about the cards. the FF analysis has more variables than simply blue/red.

 

[gorf]

i could be wrong, but i don't think i'd lose that often. the premise is that we have 12 guys playing in this contest, and that i'm the only one picking blue all the time. (if someone else is playing blue all the time, we'd be tied until someone took a chance on red -- but if you're smart, you're not the guy taking that chance.) it obviously depends on how many cards we're flipping over, but let's say we have 100 cards, 70 of which are blue, and 30 of which are blue. if we're flipping through the cards, i keep picking blue, and the other guys throw in a red here and there to try to beat the game, i think the odds of any of them beating my 70% are pretty low.

I don't argue what you're saying. But do you really believe this is what you're doing when you never sit your studs in fantasy football?

Two points to discuss. One, why would you think you're the only one who would be picking blue all the time? My point was that if all competitors are following the same strategy from the start, then the temptation to pick red late in the game to try to get the lead would be immense. If you're got the self-control not to do so, then you are among the minority.

i thought i addressed that. if someone else is picking blue all the time, i'm ok with that. and i'll just keep on picking blue. if the temptation is so great, i'll let the other guy make the low probability move.

Two, I have to agree with FT...this really does not apply to the 'start your studs' strategy. This is more just an exercise in psychology. Maybe a better application would be trying to fill out a March Madness bracket. If you always pick the favorites you'll consistently do well but will probably never win a contest with thousands of competitors. Because of that, the temptation to try to pick a few upsets is hard to ignore. This is really just an analysis of typical human behaviour and less about how to win at FF.

i agree in large part. interesting point about the march madness tournament. the difference between that and FF, though, is that in FF, you're normally only competing against 11 other guys, not thousands of other guys. as the sample size grows, the odds that someone beats the odds increase. at some point, it becomes more likely than not that someone out of the very large group hits correctly on some unlikely event (or combination of unlikely events). i'm saying that point, at least in the red/blue card game, is somewhere north of 12 players. i'm sure one of the stat heads around here could tell us where that point is, but well, i'm not that guy. at least not tonight.

 

[Michael Fox Fan]

Two, I have to agree with FT...this really does not apply to the 'start your studs' strategy.

This is not an "always start your studs" thread. This is an "it's easier to fool yourself than you might think, especially if you fancy yourself an expert" thread. I used starting lineup decisions as an example, but the capacity to succumb to certain types of biases applies to all predictions. (And FF is largely about predictions.)I very much recommend reading the entire New Yorker article -- not just the single paragraph I quoted.

It was a great article MT. Thx for sharing.

 

[FantasyTrader]

Two, I have to agree with FT...this really does not apply to the 'start your studs' strategy.

This is not an "always start your studs" thread. This is an "it's easier to fool yourself than you might think, especially if you fancy yourself an expert" thread. I used starting lineup decisions as an example, but the capacity to succumb to certain types of biases applies to all predictions. (And FF is largely about predictions.)I very much recommend reading the entire New Yorker article -- not just the single paragraph I quoted.

I think you may have misapplied this concept Maurile. If I'm up to speed on what Robyn Dawes was writing about (and I think I am), the study that was completed where "subjects were asked to predict the outcome of an event that had a random component but yet had base-rate predictability" has no correlation to WDIS decisions or FF in general for that matter. Taking your example for a moment and running with it, "(2) In any given week, you think that Vincent Jackson is 75% likely to outscore Ted Ginn in your fantasy league. Does that mean you should start Vincent Jackson 75% of the time and Ted Ginn 25% of the time?" That's not what we're doing in fantasy football.Now if I had to choose which 12 weeks I'm going to start Jackson in 2010 and which 4 weeks I'm going to start Ginn RIGHT NOW, before seeing their respective opponents, team injury reports, strength of schedule, weather, etc. then by all means - I'm on board with you. If I must lock in my weekly decision for the year before knowing all other variables - I start Jackson 16 weeks and Ginn never sees my lineup. But Jackson is not a consistent 75:25 favorite on a weekly basis. When we factor in all of the variables and plot it out on a weekly basis it would likely look something like 87:13, 67:33, 94:6, 45:55, etc. So I'm not blindly throwing a dart and it lands on Ginn for the matchup when Jackson is a 75:25 favorite to outscore Ginn. I'm waiting for the 45:55 day. I agree with others though, GREAT article! Fun to think about this stuff.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

I think you may have misapplied this concept Maurile. If I'm up to speed on what Robyn Dawes was writing about (and I think I am), the study that was completed where "subjects were asked to predict the outcome of an event that had a random component but yet had base-rate predictability" has no correlation to WDIS decisions or FF in general for that matter.

From your comments, I do think you understand what Dawes is writing about. But if by "correlation" you mean relevance, I disagree with your last point. There are plenty of ways to make errors in WDIS decisions, and the error Dawes identifies is one of them.

But Jackson is not a consistent 75:25 favorite on a weekly basis.

Indeed, nobody said he was. (I wrote that he was 75-25 in a given week; not in every single week including his bye.)

When we factor in all of the variables and plot it out on a weekly basis it would likely look something like 87:13, 67:33, 94:6, 45:55, etc.

Right. So consider the week when it's 87:13. Are you 87% likely to start Jackson, or 100% likely? You should be 100% likely. But if you're like the people in the experiments Dawes wrote about -- i.e., if you're like most people -- you might be only 87% likely to start Jackson that week. That's an error worth being aware of so that you can consciously guard against making it.

I agree with others though, GREAT article! Fun to think about this stuff.

Glad you liked it.