Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

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James Byrne
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by James Byrne » Tue Feb 14, 2012 5:31 am

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Last edited by James Byrne on Sun Jan 12, 2020 6:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

John Foley
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by John Foley » Tue Feb 14, 2012 8:55 am

Go for it Nottingham. You won in 1991. Surely the university can support an enthusiastic team especially given the chess outreach work that you do.

John Foley
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by John Foley » Tue Feb 14, 2012 9:01 am

Bobby Fischer’s incredible 20 game winning streak starting on December 2, 1970
http://tartajubow.blogspot.com/2011/08/ ... treak.html

Alex Holowczak
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by Alex Holowczak » Tue Feb 14, 2012 9:13 am

I've responded to James' PM - let's see how things go!

Ian Stephens
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by Ian Stephens » Thu Feb 16, 2012 10:39 pm

James Byrne wrote:
I think the worst thing about being on a losing streak is low confidence
Hi James,confidence does go when not winning, Just keep faith and believe in your own ability and know that wins will turn up. I ended my recent winless streak with 8 wins and 2 defeats, along the way taking equal 1st at the Frodsham Inter U-150. Happy days!
Ex-President of Liverpool Chess Club, now mere Tournament Controller and Chief bottle washer.

Ian Stephens
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by Ian Stephens » Thu Feb 16, 2012 10:44 pm

John Foley wrote:Bobby Fischer’s incredible 20 game winning streak starting on December 2, 1970

Yes that was some feat John!, I am in the process of emulating Bobby, I am up to 5 straight at the moment, what odds for another 16?
Ex-President of Liverpool Chess Club, now mere Tournament Controller and Chief bottle washer.

Michael Jones
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by Michael Jones » Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:25 pm

John Foley wrote:Go for it Nottingham. You won in 1991. Surely the university can support an enthusiastic team especially given the chess outreach work that you do.
Apparently Nottingham hosted the tournament in 2008. "Apparently" in this case means that information about it is scarce because no-one bothered to record it at the time; I was on a study abroad placement at the time, enquired after I got back as to whether a tournament had taken place and was told yes, Nottingham had hosted it, Warwick had sent a team but he couldn't remember who had won. If there's anyone out there who has more information I'd be interested to hear it!

Stewart Reuben
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by Stewart Reuben » Fri Feb 17, 2012 12:36 am

Assuming you have encounters where you have a 50% chance of winning, then winning 16 more in a row is 2 the power of 16 against. 2 to the power of 10 = 1024. 2 the power of 16 = 65,000/1 approximately. I have reduced the odds somewhat because the more the sequence continues, the more likely it will go on.
Clearly if you have lost 5 in a row, then the probability of losing 20 in a row increases.
Jonathan Mestel won his first 9 games in the British championship. When he lost the 10th it was highly likely he would fail to win the 11th.
If a roulette wheel comes up red 10 times, it is more likely it will do so the next time because the wheel may be biased.
If you have won 10 hands in a row at poker, you are MORE likely to win the next one. Not just bcause you are playing better than your opponents, but because several opponents will expect you to to be lucky.

Ian Stephens
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by Ian Stephens » Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:55 am

Stewart Reuben wrote:Assuming you have encounters where you have a 50% chance of winning, then winning 16 more in a row is 2 the power of 16 against. 2 to the power of 10 = 1024. 2 the power of 16 = 65,000/1 approximately.
Interesting Stewart, would you care to take my proverbial £1 wager?
Jonathan Mestel won his first 9 games in the British championship. When he lost the 10th it was highly likely he would fail to win the 11th.
Did Jonathan lose his 11th round game? It would be interesting to hear his account of this Tournament.
If a roulette wheel comes up red 10 times, it is more likely it will do so the next time because the wheel may be biased. If you have won 10 hands in a row at poker, you are MORE likely to win the next one. Not just bcause you are playing better than your opponents, but because several opponents will expect you to to be lucky.
I assume the Law of Averages would kick in at some point with the increase of wheel spins, and I guess a psychological effect would naturally occur in Card/Chess playing between humans?
Ex-President of Liverpool Chess Club, now mere Tournament Controller and Chief bottle washer.

John Sargent
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by John Sargent » Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:48 pm

Michael Jones wrote: Apparently Nottingham hosted the tournament in 2008.
This is true - I was playing in said tournament as part of a rather large Imperial posse that went up that year - I think we may have even had three teams! We came pretty close to the sharp end but didn't win if I recall. You're right, though - almost no information available on this that I could see!

I just looked through my past games without finding any huge streak sadly, but I do note a recent string of results - 14 games spanning the London Classic and various Hastings tournaments where White did not score a single win (9 Draws and 5 Black wins)!

Alex Holowczak
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by Alex Holowczak » Fri Feb 17, 2012 4:47 pm

Does anyone remember who the arbiter at the 2008 Inter-University event was?

John Sargent
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by John Sargent » Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:03 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:Does anyone remember who the arbiter at the 2008 Inter-University event was?
To avoid further hijacking of this thread I'll post any/all BUCA related stuff in the BUCA 2012 tournament thread in the Congress Diary forum. I think I have some stuff for you.

Ian Stephens
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by Ian Stephens » Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:44 pm

John Sargent wrote: To avoid further hijacking of this thread I'll post any/all BUCA related stuff in the BUCA 2012 tournament thread in the Congress Diary forum. I think I have some stuff for you.
Thats Ok John, I was never going to pay the ransom demand :lol:
Ex-President of Liverpool Chess Club, now mere Tournament Controller and Chief bottle washer.

Stewart Reuben
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by Stewart Reuben » Fri Feb 17, 2012 6:45 pm

Ian stephens >Did Jonathan lose his 11th round game? It would be interesting to hear his account of this Tournament.<

No he drew in round 11. Thus scoring 9/5/11. Julian Hodgson holds the record at 10/11 in the British, with 2 draws. There is absolutely no doubt his play was influenced in the last round, holding 9/10. He asked me whether 10/11 would be a record. I assured him this would be so. He responded, 'I might as well go for it then.'

By the way, Dan Harrington made money on roulette due to the wheels being biased at various casinos. Apparently the bias could start being detected after only 90 minutes play. The casinos had no idea what was going on. Unfortunately MIT hit on the same idea. They were unable to make it profitable, so they wrote a book on the subject. The casinos then changed their systems and it was also made illegal to use computers in American casinos.

Michael Jones
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Re: Winning, Losing or Drawing streaks

Post by Michael Jones » Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:04 pm

Stewart Reuben wrote:Assuming you have encounters where you have a 50% chance of winning, then winning 16 more in a row is 2 the power of 16 against. 2 to the power of 10 = 1024. 2 the power of 16 = 65,000/1 approximately. I have reduced the odds somewhat because the more the sequence continues, the more likely it will go on.
Clearly if you have lost 5 in a row, then the probability of losing 20 in a row increases.
Jonathan Mestel won his first 9 games in the British championship. When he lost the 10th it was highly likely he would fail to win the 11th.
If a roulette wheel comes up red 10 times, it is more likely it will do so the next time because the wheel may be biased.
If you have won 10 hands in a row at poker, you are MORE likely to win the next one. Not just bcause you are playing better than your opponents, but because several opponents will expect you to to be lucky.
Thus it is very unlikely that a particular player, starting from a particular time, will win 20 games in a row - but given the millions of chess games played each year, it is almost certain that someone, sometime will do so. It's the "law of very large numbers" - however unlikely something is to occur on one trial, given enough trials it will almost certainly occur eventually.