I think it’s funny that the people who most talk about luck and chance are the ones who least understand probability. And by funny, I mean tragically ironic and sad. I’m convinced that the majority can not wrap their tiny little minds around the concept of Expected Value. And because of that, they can’t separate the decision from the actual outcome.

The actual outcome of the cause-effect chain is completely irrelevant. Whenever a decision is made, there are an infinite amount of variables that are out of the person’s control. First and foremost on that list is random chance. You can never remove random chance from the equation. Thus, looking at the results instead of the decision is an exercise in futility.

The best decision is based on the accumulation of all of the obtainable knowledge and determining which one has the highest expected value. In the long run, this will net you the highest results. It boggles the mind, and pains the soul, to listen to people speak and realize they can’t understand expected values. People staying in on the off-chance that they’ll catch the flush when they only have 3 diamonds after the flop. “hey, you never know”. Fine, of course you don’t know. But more times than not, it’s not going to be worth the money you spent to find out.

This all ties in together when people will look at a result that was unexpected, and then rewrite their opinions regarding the original decision. “that was a smart decision, just look at how it turned out.” Stop talking. That was not a smart decision, he just got lucky.