The Cat-and-Mouse Game of the Modern Penalty Kick
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Re: The Cat-and-Mouse Game of the Modern Penalty Kick
#32The book Soccernomics [0], has a whole chapter dedicated to both the psychology and game theory of penalty kicks. Long story short: - Let's simplify to the options being: you kick either left or right - The goalie has to pick which side BEFORE you kick b/c by the time you kick, it's too late for the goalie to react - Your basic strategies are: always left, always right, alternate left/right or try to be as random as…
Re: The Cat-and-Mouse Game of the Modern Penalty Kick
#33Re: The Cat-and-Mouse Game of the Modern Penalty Kick
#34I'm a big fan of the "The Lasso Special" :) (such a good show).
Re: The Cat-and-Mouse Game of the Modern Penalty Kick
#35As a tip, if you are watching a YouTube video, you can use "." and "," to go backwards and forwards by one frame when paused. It lets you see to what degree the goalkeeper is anticipating vs. reacting.
The other issue with the article is that it focuses on successful attempts -- it would be very interesting to see what the unsuccessful attempts look like as well to get a feel for how close to a randomized decision matrix the process is.
Re: The Cat-and-Mouse Game of the Modern Penalty Kick
#36The book Soccernomics [0], has a whole chapter dedicated to both the psychology and game theory of penalty kicks. Long story short: - Let's simplify to the options being: you kick either left or right - The goalie has to pick which side BEFORE you kick b/c by the time you kick, it's too late for the goalie to react - Your basic strategies are: always left, always right, alternate left/right or try to be as random as…
Shannon's Mind Reading Machine used three bits worth of address space to model humans for a very similar game: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23475069
(At less elite levels, paradiddles are a great low-budget pseudorandom. At more elite levels, using outside signals for an entropy pool has been attested.)
Re: The Cat-and-Mouse Game of the Modern Penalty Kick
#37The book Soccernomics [0], has a whole chapter dedicated to both the psychology and game theory of penalty kicks. Long story short: - Let's simplify to the options being: you kick either left or right - The goalie has to pick which side BEFORE you kick b/c by the time you kick, it's too late for the goalie to react - Your basic strategies are: always left, always right, alternate left/right or try to be as random as…
And the new-style kick being touted is also a meta game -- trying to telegraph a still-likely-to-succeed-on-power-alone kick and changing it up for a less powerful less reliable kick to the opposite side.
If the telegraphed kick were less of a threat (that is, if the anticipated speed of the kick were slower) then the goaltender would not have to commit as much. The subtleties here are interesting, though the article is missing a discussion of failed attempts at the Paneka and the Tielemans-style kick.
Re: The Cat-and-Mouse Game of the Modern Penalty Kick
#38The book Soccernomics [0], has a whole chapter dedicated to both the psychology and game theory of penalty kicks. Long story short: - Let's simplify to the options being: you kick either left or right - The goalie has to pick which side BEFORE you kick b/c by the time you kick, it's too late for the goalie to react - Your basic strategies are: always left, always right, alternate left/right or try to be as random as…
I think this is a simplification that in some ways is ignoring the main point of this article -- the Paneka kick described in the article is a kick up the middle; relying on exactly that sort of decision process by the goalkeeper. And the new-style kick being touted is also a meta game -- trying to telegraph a still-likely-to-succeed-on-power-alone kick and changing it up for a less powerful less reliable kick to the…
Re: The Cat-and-Mouse Game of the Modern Penalty Kick
#39Re: The Cat-and-Mouse Game of the Modern Penalty Kick
#40They should make a rule that you have to play barefoot for the next five minutes if you're caught acting.