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Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy

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Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy

#81

Post by djtango »

chillfox wrote: post #35
bjackman wrote: post #29

I think this is very true, I've found the same thing in e.g: - Simracing: getting faster doesn't make you win races. Getting more consistent does. - Squash: getting stronger and faster doesn't make you win games, getting less exhausted does, because you make less mistakes. These are surely not true when you're at a high level, but for most people it's the right focus. The corresponding insight for building software i…

"These are surely not true when you're at a high level" I don't know what you mean by high level, but I suspect that avoiding mistakes continues to be very important regardless of level in most things. I play Marvel Snap in the top 1000 and at that level most of the games comes down to whoever makes a mistake first loses.

Watch any top tennis game and unforced errors and %age first serves often tells the story of the match

Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy

#83

Post by dinkleberg »

sakras wrote: post #33

A famous Super Smash Bros player, when asked for advice, would always respond with "Don't get hit". Seems this principle of not blundering has wide-reaching applications!

I’ve been discovering this is also very true for Elden Ring. Most of my deaths in the game are from being greedy and wanting to get in one more hit, but winning tough fights is almost all about avoiding getting hit.

And I agree, I think the idea of avoiding losing is better than “trying to win” in many cases. Like with health and fitness, it would be very hard to identify what the right action to “win” would be (what does win even mean?). But it is much easier to do the things that keep you from losing. Don’t eat poorly, don’t be inactive all the time, and so on. The avoidance approach won’t have you reaching the Olympic level, but you’ll be doing a lot better than most.

Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy

#84

Post by GuB-42 »

janalsncm wrote: post #57

> the player who committed more blunders lost 86% of the time In some sense this is almost tautological. While finding an exact definition for a chess blunder isn't straightforward, here is one example from the Lichess UI: https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/blob/b527746b179cdde6438... Basically, if you make a move which decreases your winning probability more than 14% over the best move, that's a blunder. But winnin…

Maybe a better analogy would be card counting in Blackjack.

To be profitable (if it can be), card counting works with extremely tight margins, like a fraction of a percent per hand. It only turns a profit averaged out over many hands.

But if you make a basic strategy blunder, you can lose the statistical benefits of maybe hundreds of perfectly played hands. That's why it may be better to play a simple strategy perfectly, than a more advanced but error prone strategy.

That's also the reason why casinos love wannabe card counters. Their strategy may work in theory, but because of mistakes, the end result is worse for the player than playing basic strategy.

Note about basic strategy: it is the optimal way of playing blackjack assuming each card draw is independent (so, no card counting), it is simple, and widely available and accepted in casinos. The player is at a loss (of course), but reasonably so. If you can play basic strategy consistently, you are better off than the vast majority of players.

Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy

#85

Post by blowski »

koonsolo wrote: post #56

Once he started talking about chess, I knew it was going to be a limited view on things. There are 2 kinds of games: those that punish mistakes very badly, and those that reward exploited opportunities very richly. I was never good at games like chess because of this exact same reason: I don't cover all my bases and lose from a stupid oversight. However, I'm pretty good at poker, because I know how to exploit an oppo…

I don’t understand your distinction between types of games. In Chess, your stupid mistake creates an opportunity your opponent can exploit. The failure to exploit an opportunity is itself a mistake.

I guess in Poker there is an element of luck of the deal - is that the kind of opportunity you’re talking about?

Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy

#86

Post by rileymat2 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #84
janalsncm wrote: post #57

> the player who committed more blunders lost 86% of the time In some sense this is almost tautological. While finding an exact definition for a chess blunder isn't straightforward, here is one example from the Lichess UI: https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/blob/b527746b179cdde6438... Basically, if you make a move which decreases your winning probability more than 14% over the best move, that's a blunder. But winnin…

Maybe a better analogy would be card counting in Blackjack. To be profitable (if it can be), card counting works with extremely tight margins, like a fraction of a percent per hand. It only turns a profit averaged out over many hands. But if you make a basic strategy blunder, you can lose the statistical benefits of maybe hundreds of perfectly played hands. That's why it may be better to play a simple strategy perfec…

I feel ignorant, I thought with card counting you were still pretty much playing the simple strategy but altering bet sizes as your expectations of winning increased?

Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy

#87

Post by chiyc »

rileymat2 wrote: post #86
GuB-42 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a better analogy would be card counting in Blackjack. To be profitable (if it can be), card counting works with extremely tight margins, like a fraction of a percent per hand. It only turns a profit averaged out over many hands. But if you make a basic strategy blunder, you can lose the statistical benefits of maybe hundreds of perfectly played hands. That's why it may be better to play a simple strategy perfec…

I feel ignorant, I thought with card counting you were still pretty much playing the simple strategy but altering bet sizes as your expectations of winning increased?

It can also involve deviations in strategy based on the count, particularly with borderline hands.

Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy

#88

Post by smatija »

salamo wrote: post #52
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #44

A better way to read this is "80% of a not losing strategy". The author agrees with this but buries the lede at the very end of the piece: "Is this a fail-safe path? Of course not. Even in chess. The rest of the game does matter." I also think his framing is somewhat misleading, since the default mindset (Despite his hedging) is that you will win (Or have higher chances) if you don't blunder. The problem is that winn…

> The problem is that winning in startups is often a tail event, which means reducing blunders doesn't have much impact on the overall probability. Maybe you could compare it to playing chess against a much higher rated player. In that sense, minimizing your weaknesses is still useful. And looking at the "blunders" the author lists we can definitely say that making these errors is worse than not making them. One plac…

When playing against much better player there are two possible strategies in practice:

1. try to simpifly position as much as possible and hope for a draw (and inevitably lose the endgame due to playing too passively);

2. complicate position so much that neither you nor your opponent can calculate or understand it, then hope that your opponent will mess up before you will.

Take from that what you will.

Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy

#89

Post by Certhas »

janalsncm wrote: post #57

> the player who committed more blunders lost 86% of the time In some sense this is almost tautological. While finding an exact definition for a chess blunder isn't straightforward, here is one example from the Lichess UI: https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/blob/b527746b179cdde6438... Basically, if you make a move which decreases your winning probability more than 14% over the best move, that's a blunder. But winnin…

It's not tautological, though. Your position can gradually deteriorate until it is not salvageable anymore. In that situation we say that the opponent outplayed you.

The fact that the switches in probability occur suddenly is highly relevant. One reason for this could be, that you are able to avoid this type of mistake 90% of the time. So during 9 out of ten moves, nothing changes. Then it does. So in this model, avoiding blunders means honing your skills to be able to apply all aspects of your mistake knowledge all the time. In another game, that is less blunder driven, it might be better to focus on getting more things right most of the time, rather than getting fewer things right all of the time.

At this level, chess is a tactics game. Not a strategy game.

Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy

#90

Post by passion__desire »

philbo wrote: post #23

It seems to me that the main difference between chess and startups is that in chess you only have one opponent. The more opponents you have, the more likelihood that not blundering on its own is not sufficient.

I read a blogpost long time ago which said he made more money on working on startups which he sold during the bubble economy rather than bust. All boats rise during high tide. It is better to sell your boat during high tides.
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