Lets define a streak.
Universally in the context of league that's going to be a string of X consecutive games yea?
Now because its Consecutive, 1 is not a viable value to use. If you use 1 then there is nothing to follow it, its not a sting, its not "in unbroken or logical sequence." So. 2 games then becomes the lowest value you can have for a "streak". Reasonable logic right? We are working with # of games which are whole numbers. The number 1 is no good, does not meet the definition. But 2? That's the bare minimum. Now lets check reality. No one I have seen on the boards uses 2 games as streak markers Cuz its a really low fucking number. It just feels wrong right? Fits the definition but does not feel like it would be significant of anything yes?
So folks frequently use 3 games. Which... is the second lowest possible fucking number to use to match the definition of a streak. This is the next lowest value from 2 games. So tell me why does it magicaly become a good value in peoples heads?
Lets talk probability. We are looking at results of games. Win or loss are the only options.** On paper we can list every combination of possible results by a total # of played games. **
1 game. 2^1 = 2 possible results. W Or L. No streaks.
2 games 2^2= 4 possible results. WW. WL. LW. LL. 2 streaks @2. 50% of the possible results are a streak. 0@3 as you have not even played 3 matches yet.
3 games 2^3= 8 possible results. WWW. WWL. WLW.LWW.LLW.LWL.WLL.LLL. @2streak. 6/8=3/4=75% of the possible results are streaks. For 3 games that's 2/8 or 1/4. 25%.
4 games. 2^4 = 16 possible results. WWWW.WWWL.WWLW.WLWW. LWWW.WWLL.WLWL.WLLW. LWWL. LWLW.LLWW. LLLW.LLWL.LWLL.WLLL.LLLL
Now if we keep the 2 game thing then its only 2/16, but we also start to see double streak possibility here as well. Hell its just as likely to see 2 streaks, win 2 into loss 2, loss 2 into win 2. as it is to see 0 streaks wlwl or lwlw. both are represented as 2/16. So not only do you have 14/16=7/8=87.5% odds to see a streak... The odds of seeing a double streak are equal to the odds of seeing No streak.
Now if we did 4 games @ 3 for your streak value then you have 6/16=3/8=37.5% Not great but pretty close to 40%.
Make it 5 games?
you have 2^5= 32. 16/32 combinations include 3 game "streaks" so 50% odds.
Gets higher every time. Players don't do a good job accounting for their total # of games.
30 gets used as an arbitrary value in statistics a lot. 2^30 is 1,073,741,824 combinations.
50 Is a pretty reasonable # of games. That's 1,125,899,906,842,624 combinations.
2^100 for example has 1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376 combinations.
[sg-lux-2] But people think 3 games in a row becomes is a value of relevance despite having over 250+ games played. I just don't get it.