The thought of "luck"

I am going to right this in as close to a 3rd party perspective as I can but I apologize if anything opinionated gets in. It's not brought up that often but I was thinking towards what ends is there "luck" in games or "random" occurances. If you are dealing with 2 players of equal skill, there is bound to be a winner simply for the fact that they are pitted against each other in a way where there HAS to be a winner. Now as stated, them being of equal skill, how does one player go about winning over another of equal skill? Many would say "luck" would come into play, while others would say a better understanding of the situation per situation for as long as that match is fought is the reason. There could be a strong argument made for both but whose to say that one or the other is right? (it will be a bit technical for a while)

In the 1920's, Albert Einstein met with Werner Heisenberg and there was a conflict of ideals. I will not go into the conversation but it was Einstein's perception of reality v Heisenberg's uncertainty principal. Einstein (though his theories state otherwise) believed there to be for a lack of a better term "a reality" independent of what you can see, and as such, many things beyond the grasp of human conceptuality. No matter how much of a factor that actually plays on life remains to be seen by anyone, but regardless, we as humans try to assign a tag or label to said concepts whether we believe we grasp it or not. Heisenberg on the other hand believed things to be at "face value" in that what you see is what you get. He believed that what we have assigned to things is based off of accurate labelings in the past that led to where we are at any given point in time so we can whole heartidly trust what is in front of us. In far simpler terms, Einstein's principal left room for such concepts as "luck", "ethereal", and "souls" while Heisenberg believed that everything is as you see it even if you have to look harder to see what is really there.

Now, I mention this because this conversation represents in their entirety, the 2 sides that can be had of this arguement (bare in mind, I'm well aware that there is the grey area in between both of these concepts for liberties to be taken). On the one side, there is a certain amount of "luck" that can be had from anyone person that leads to them winning in situations where they are even overmatched (sometimes clearly so) and on the other, a nearly limitless number of factors existing that CAN influence any given situation but when time is taken to focus on each factor one by one, every single one of them can be grasped by the human psyche.

For my opinion: I believe there is a certain number of factors that are out of our grasp, not to say that they always will be, but to say that they may be at that given time, that influence our performance in every task we do (whether it be walking, reading, playing VF, learning a language, etc.) Never to say this is an excuse for anything because if we as humans wanted, we could have an excuse ("the gravitational pull from the earth through of my balance for a split second leading into a reversal of pace leading to you winning, REMATCH!!!") but just to let it be known that the concept is out there.

Part of this was inspired from my friend, Josh the Funk Doc's post at SRK here .

All feedback is welcome /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

I will go with Heisenberg here and say that luck plays a small, if any, part in VF. Now, some can argue that it was by luck that, say, a throw whiffed, but the engine is the engine is the engine. If you dig deep enough, there's always a technical explanation for what had happened. And if an explanation exists, one can logically conclude that the "unlucky" mishap could've been dealt with and avoided.

What happens when two players of EXACTLY the same skill, yomi, control, etc. are pitted against one another, using the same character? Let me tell you: double K.O.

Any time there's a real K.O. or R.O., it's because one person was better than the other for that match. It could be psychological, it could be yomi, it could be nerves, it could be because one character is stronger than the other, it could've come down to one ill-timed attack, but there's always a reason for a win. (Let's leave bugs aside for now).

What's interesting is that Chibita could lose to you or me in a given match. We can possibly outguess him enough times consecutively to actually win a match. Does this make us better than Chibita for that one match? I say yes, luck didn't play a part in it: we won for a reason.

Now the key question is, what are the chances of that actually happening over a series of matches? That's right, I believe VF is a game of probabilities. A superior player like Chibita will succumb to an opponent's "lucky" guessing a lot fewer times than me or you, and that's what makes him a superior player.

 

P.S. Just read the thread in SRK, and a poster pointed out what I consider the only form of luck that exists:

[ QUOTE ]
True luck is different. I meant to do a crouching Strong, But I scrubbed out and Jab by accident, which beat the crouching Fierce I didn't even know you were going to do. I'm playing a match, and the sticks are working fine until literally the last 2 seconds when my super won't come out. That's genuine luck, and I think that's not too big of a factor.

[/ QUOTE ]

I.e. doing something you didn't intend to do, and having a positive outcome as a result of it. That's luck.

 

The way I see it, is a lost is a lost whether it be by luck or not ? Doesn't matter you lost. Lennox Lewis got beat twice by ''lucky punches'' from random heavyweight scrubs. He said he lost because of luck, the federation still counted them as losses. Came rematch time he backed up his beliefs by beating those guys, but that still didn't erase the losses. Jordan made alot of crazy lucky shots, but some would argue that he created his own luck by putting himself in favorable situations, you can't take those shots away from him regardless of what you believe. And the same thing goes for VF or any other fighting game, unless both players decide to pick combot and one gets Jin and the other gets King or something. The only luck dependent games to me are casino games, the lotto and scratch off tickets.

 

Trying for P+G and only getting P. Messing up an evade cancel. Doing 23P instead of 3P. The P button breaks while you're playing. A bug flies in your eye. Choosing 2 out of 3 possible throw escapes, and picking the wrong ones. Any combo you've done it a hundred times, maybe a thousand times before, but you mess it up. Do you call that bad luck, or blame it on something else? How about rain starting up and a tornado hitting the arcade where you're playing, so you run away from the machine? Someone doing a driveby shooting on you as you're playing? Ultimately, you can boil any lost game down to, "You would not have lost if you weren't born," if you want to go deep enough. There are some things outside of your control. The human body is not a perfect machine. It does not always do things exactly the same way.