Something I have been thinking about the last few weeks. I'll post a few of my thoughts and hopefully it will generate some discussion. It may be a complete mindfark so don't say I didn't warn you.

Tournament play.

Givens:
I am playing a 10 seated SNG.
I am all 10 players.
I have a ROI of 30%

That means that all the players have a 30% EV from their buyin.

10*30% = 300% which in turn is 3 buyins.

I am proposing that the excess of the EV buyins above the total of all buyins, is the luck factor for the game. This means that in my setup, luck factor is reducing the total EV for everyone by 3 buyins. So, each player's EV is reduced by the average luck factor present in the tourney. In the example, each is reduced by .3 and therefore, everyone has an expected value of 1 buyin from the game. This is not rocket science as everyone has the same ROI they are just going to trade money, this is intuitive.

I propose that luck is a constant. It is a factor to be applied to each game, and will reduce/increase the amount of your ROI in each game. I am sayign that luck is sometihng that can be calculated and is dependant upon the expectations of each player in the game.

However, I think that over a long period of time, luck is reduced to nil. But how can a constant go to zero over a time period. It can't!

So I thought that maybe luck is a constant and does not go to zero over a lifetime. I propose that it is always goign to affect your outcome, and the only thing that affects your results are the expectations of the otehr playrs in the game.

Now if we change the expected ROI of each player in the game, how does this impact our luck constant, and how does it impact our ROI?

How does all this apply to MTTs.

I have done more thinking into this, but I am looking for some discussion, and some different angles of thought before I go any farther.

I am no mathematician (heck I can hardly spell it) but I think that within a single equation a constant has to remain, as its name suggests, constant. In your example, the distance is a variable as it changes with your speed and the amount of time. If the distance were a constant, then you could only change the speed and time, so you would be walking in a circle around the point if distance were indeed a constant.

I am open to thinking that luck is variable, but I am going to take a lot of convincing since thinking about it, and partly cause i'm thick headed.

well if then luck is definitely not a constant as it changes over time. It would have to be a variable.

Damn you and your silly logic, and your quoting me, and confusing me, I forgot what I was trying to say originally.

OK I am saying that luck is a constant. That it is always there. That it will always affect you and that theoretically it could be measured. However, while it is a constant, that constant is determined by your opponents. Such as was in my example, if 1 player had an ROI of 0% then the total ROI would be 270 and each player would have .27reduction in their ROI for a luck constant. I know that seems variable, but it is a constant dependant on the inputs. Such like a freezing point. They vary with the type of fluid, but the freezing point for each liquid is a constant.

How about the rest of the post, any merit, contradictions, outright errors.

if each player is you, then they all should have the same expectation. Also, you are trying to determine things in math that I don't think can be accuarately measured if at all. Also....my head hurts.

...while getting my Masters degree in Math, i hated theory...if it works, why try to prove it, i said
i just memorized the proofs and got my sheepskin and drove my car and watched my tv, even though i didn't know how they worked or could prove them...
But...
luck IS a constant...and it DOES vary...one could say it's a constant variable...luck plays a big factor, but does APPROACH zero...but never gets there...you're both right...sort of... over anyone's lifetime, skill will approach maybe 99%, and luck will approach maybe 1%...that's over a long lifetime...maybe Doyle's.
I realize this may be a tongue in cheek post, but if it is not entirely, spend more time fine tuning your game and forget the theory.
Now MY head hurts.