[HUARGH]

Originally Posted by Fat Arizona

As for WIFOM, that is completely different. It seems to be the fad to suggest prediction is no better than guessing. If that's the case you must explain why there are Rock Paper Scissors championships and not "Coin Flip" championships.

I don't think you know what you are talking about. By chance I happen to be a dual-race ex-GM league sc2 player (p/z) and had to write a huge essay on rock/paper/scissors and the mechanics/psychology behind it a few years ago. In sc2, most professional players plan their builds before the event itself, it is why you saw HongUnPrime (I think it was HongUn?) go DTs in 4 games of the GSL finals against IMNesTea. Multiple players have admitted or hinted (with DeMusliM literally saying it) that they simply plan out their builds beforehand and stick to them no matter what in the mirror match-ups and occasionally non-mirror match-ups. There are always exceptions, but they are rarely there (one exception would be in a dreamhack final where WhiteRa played against MC, the last game being Shakuras Plateau - they had already played 4 games against each other and WhiteRa did the exact same build every game prior to that which had a glaring weakness to proxy gates, which MC did). Another example would be if you play many ZvTs against the same Terran and notice that he skimps on defense around 8-9 mins you could opt for a baneling bust.

In Rock/Paper/Scissors, people have many 'builds' pre-set. I remember speaking to a Canadian repeat champion, and he explained a lot about 'newbie tendencies' and identifying which people were in the tournament for the kicks and laughs and who were really serious about it. When he thought he was playing against a newbie, he would use stereotypes such as that women would usually open with scissors, guys would usually open with rock. There are many more like these (off the top of my head: when you beat someone they will usually try to throw that same move back at you, so countering your last winning move is also effective and if someone repeats their sequence you'll usually want to play the move that draws or wins you the game assuming they won't repeat themselves 3 times). In fact, it should technically be 0.33 draw 0.33 lose 0.33 win, but when people can see the opponent moving they will subconsciously mimic (mirror neurons, same reason yawning is contagious) their opponent, resulting in slightly more draws (this disappears when you blindfold them). You can google a lot of information about this stuff.

Predicting the subtle patterns of an opponent is so different from guessing, it's practically an insult to suggest it.

It is rather an insult to suggest that the guy losing the guess got outplayed. I'm not saying that a good player can't have a prediction-advantage over a bad player (and even that can be misleading as total newbies are often unpredictable), but eventually you hit a skill cap when it comes to predicting, there are only so many rules and possibilities to account for. Even when you make a prediction that would be right in 80% of the cases, it may still be wrong. This doesn't matter as much in poker as you play countless of hands in a relatively short time span, but in pokemon where you usually do not play the same team and/or opponent that many times there really is no way of telling who is the superior guesser or predicter, but it is possible to point at someone and say 'he has more luck'.

Anyone that has seen high level RTS bo7s for instance knows that build orders are not selected at random, they are chosen with consideration of the opponent and previous games. Yes sometimes these predictions fail, but that is because the other player is equally good at bluffing, not because they are acting randomly.

But in games where build orders matter a lot (i.e. PvP, ZvZ, TvT), they actually are chosen at random in the pro community, rendering your point invalid. The underlined point would debunk your own argument if it somehow was valid anyway - if the other person is of equal skill, he will know that the enemy will know of his tendencies. You just get WIFOM. There is no fucking skill involved past a certain level, it is just luck. Once again - yes, you can rape newbies by (over)predicting, but it's just 50/50 at a higher level.

Of course, a human could run an RNG to make decisions for them in WIFOMs, but that by definition will not produce an advantage, only equality, thus it would be pointless.

Thus it would be 50/50.

Actually worse than pointless, because after getting in the habit of flipping a coin to decide WIFOMs, sooner or later that player would overlook a third option or a reason why the situation was not really a WIFOM. It would just be a bad habit.

Not a mistake you necessarily have to make, totally unrelated.