[blml] The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep is sick

[Eric Landau]

On Oct 3, 2007, at 5:50 PM, Matthias Berghaus wrote:

> Herman De Wael schrieb:
>>
>> And I'm sure there is some pecking order which will tell you which it
>> more likely is.
>
> Herman, I wonder where you are playing. Maybe I should play there too,
> but it sounds too much like paradise.
> I do not want to comment on dWs vs. whatever, but I assure you that
> there are many situations where it is 50/50, and you are glad it is  
> not
> 33/33/33. I grant you that "no idea" is often abused, but you should
> realize that it happens, and more often than you think.

Herman is right that "there is some pecking order", but it doesn't  
"tell you" anything.

Probabilities are continuous, so Herman is quite right when he says  
that the chance that any given situation is *exactly* 50/50 is  
vanishingly small.

But the human brain isn't a computer.  It is beyond the ability of  
mere humans, at the table without any "aids to... calculation", to  
distinguish "exactly 50/50" from 50.1/49.9 or 51/49 or even 55/45.   
Or, for that matter, to distinguish 70/30 from 80/20.

The mere human at the table will react in one of three ways: (1) I am  
confident it is A; (2) I think it is A but it might be B; (3) It  
could be either A or B, I haven't a clue.  It's all well and good to  
go on in theory about 51/49 positions, but in real life this is what  
we have to work with.

Eric Landau
1107 Dale Drive
Silver Spring MD 20910
ehaa at starpower.net