Question

So, should I go for it? (writing out the question below)

Answer 1

do it

Answer 2

I need to know If I should Participate in an 8 ball pool Tournament.

Here is the given info:

Entry fee for Tournament: $3,000
I have: $3,025
Rounds in Tournament: 3
Total players competing in Tournament: 8
Winning prize: $18,000
Runner-up Prize: Gets to keep his Entry fee

My Info:
Matches won: 1031 of 1965
Win percentage: 52.4%
Tournaments won: 58 of 562
Current Win Streak: 3
Balls Potted: 10628
Total Time Played: 4 Days 17 Hours
Total Winnings: $182,400
Rank: Expert


So, should I?

Answer 3

do it

Answer 4

Well, I'll do it... And tell you if I won or not.. (ಠ_ಠ)

Answer 5

this isn't really a math question at all

Answer 6

not based on the info given, no, I agree with @Agent46

Answer 7

Practical Maths? Probability? o.O

What do you guys do here then?

Answer 8

there is not enough information to give a prediction <- answer to your math question
if we had your probability of success, or that of your opponents...

Answer 9

huh...

Well.. I lost anyways, thanks though...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Answer 10

Well, based on expected value alone, it is a winners bet.
The problem though, expected value is only reliable for multiple trial bets.

Answer 11

Oh, i see... You needed the Opponents info too?

Answer 12

There is no expected value, because we have no info on the opponents. Past alone isn't enough, what if he's playing a bunch of chimps in this game?
You'd have to say that you have the same odds of winning this one as you have had for each match you've ever played, which you cannot do.

Answer 13

if you had each opponents relative win/loss streak, and made some assumptions about who they had played in the past and how difficult their and your opponents had been, you would have a problem that, though expressible, is probably very hard to solve

Answer 14

Actually, nevermind what I said, expected value says it's a suckers bet.
I'm using \[
(58/562) \times 18000 + (1-(58/562))\times -3000 \approx -832.74
\]

Answer 15

\(\color{blue}{\text{Originally Posted by}}\) @TuringTest
if you had each opponents relative win/loss streak, and made some assumptions about who they had played in the past and how difficult their and your opponents had been, you would have a problem that, though expressible, is probably very hard to solve
\(\color{blue}{\text{End of Quote}}\)
Probability is all about dealing with unknown values by treating them as random variables then using statistics to analyze potential outcomes. The more random variables you have, the less reliable analysis you can make, but you can still make analysis. To me, what you are saying is like if we don't know that whether the coin lands on heads or tails, we can't really make a decision.

Answer 16

No, I'm trying to say it's like not knowing the fairness of the coin. We'd have to assume it's a "fair" game, or at lest make some assumptions first. If you want to say he has 52% chance of winning you are assuming that all the games are the same. I just don't think that is a valid assumption here.

Answer 17

Keep fighting! NOBODY Get's a Medal. (ಠ_ಠ)

Answer 18

But we can't really know the fairness of a coin in real life, only theoretically. We can only flip it a finite number of times and come up with a prediction.

Answer 19

Nothing wrong with arguing opposing views.

Answer 20

Agreed, but in problems they usually specify "a fair coin is tossed" to avoid exactly this ambiguity.
And this is far from a fight, it's a socratic exchange of perspectives

Answer 21

In probability theory, we allow ourselves to make perfect probabilistic predictions. In practical life, we can never do this.

I will say there are points where you simply don't have enough data to come up with any sort of reliable analysis. Is this one of those cases? Maybe so. I'm not sure.

Answer 22

I guess I'll secede that you can make a prediction based on this, and there is an inherent element of uncertainty when trying to fit reality, which has only one outcome, into such a theoretical framework. Especially when it has so many parameters, clearly all we can ever do is approximate. I guess overall I just think that trying to draw a conclusion from *this* data set involves too many assumptions for me to trust.

Answer 23

Hmmm, on second thought, I think the best analysis here would be a binomial distribution with his win percentage as success probability. It's not perfect, but it is the optimal given the data.

Answer 24

there's not enough data to even analyze

Answer 25

just go do it
you think you're an expert, go join

Answer 26

if you want to test probability, apply your knowledge to tonight's Super Bowl game
all the stats are on nfl's depth chart website