At one point, they talked about the variance in performance and the role that luck can play in winning or losing. They felt like they didn’t have as good an intuition about how variable the games were and one of the hosts, Eric Bradlow, said that he’d try and look into it and have an answer for next week’s episode.

The discussion reminded me of a chapter in one of my favorite books, The Success Equation by Michael Mauboussin. The book goes into nice detail about the role of skill and luck in sports, investing, and life. On page 78, Mauboussin provides the following equation: