Luckiest Player of the 2020 Tour Championship

There has been a lot of talk about Judd Trump getting disproportionately more flukes than other players, and I though it was time to see if that's true or not. So the idea of this thread is to catalogue all the flukes in the 2020 Tour Championship.

However, I won't be able to do this all on my lonesome so I've decided to make this, what I believe to be, the Island's first 'citizen science' project. If you want to take part, if you see a fluke in a match, come here and post it. To keep things simple I think we should just focus on fluked pots rather than fluked position. An example of which would be a player going for a pot, missing the clearly intended pot, and fluking an 'on' ball into a pocket. Equally the player could be playing safe, or getting out of a snooker and makes an unintentional legal pot.

In order to keep track of things I would like each fluke report to have the following information:

[Template]
Player: NAME
Frame Number: e.g. Frame 2
Score of fluker AFTER fluke:
Ball fluked: e.g. red
Any additional information you think relevant (e.g. the fluked pot was actually bad luck, and leaves them snookered). It might also be good to note if the fluke results in winning the frame (or match for that matter), or possibly noting the size of the break.

I'll try to do as much of this myself as I can, but I'd be grateful to anyone who wants to take part.

No matter how the tournament shapes up, we won't be able to really say whether or not Trump is a talentless hack who's fluked his way to the top of the snooker world - there just aren't enough frames played. But we will be able to say who is the luckiest player of the 2020 Tour Championship!

McManusFan wrote: whether or not Trump is a talentless hack who's fluked his way to the top

Of course he's not. He's a fantastic player. I just think his style of play makes him get more flukes than most. Not sure just one tournament can prove that, but an interesting idea none the less.

Holden Chinaski wrote:

McManusFan wrote: whether or not Trump is a talentless hack who's fluked his way to the top

Of course he's not. He's a fantastic player. I just think his style of play makes him get more flukes than most. Not sure just one tournament can prove that, but an interesting idea none the less.

I know, just having a bit of fun. You're right this one tournament won't prove much but you've got to start somewhere. If this goes well I could do something similar for the worlds, which obviously has a lot more frames, and players competing.

To be accurate you need a sample over several years.

Short-term luck has a psychological effect on some fans.

They convince themselves that a player is lucky, and with each stroke of luck claim "Ah you see he's lucky". Their reaction is obviously not the same when the player has less fortunate moves.

The same thing happens with some poker players. Their brains tinkle when they lose a hand with a 90% win probability, but don't realize that in the long run they only lose the hand 10% of the time.

Just mathematics vs emotions.

Great work MMF.
Work busy at the moment but more than happy to weigh in on evening sessions. Presumably the metric we are working towards is flukes per frame.

Judd would be on the Challenge Tour were it not for his flukes.

Sauce321 wrote:To be accurate you need a sample over several years.

I agree, but you've got to take the first sample somewhere. I'm certainly not going to claim this exercise will show anything other than who fluked the most balls in this specific tournament.

Badsnookerplayer wrote:Great work MMF.
Work busy at the moment but more than happy to weigh in on evening sessions. Presumably the metric we are working towards is flukes per frame.

Ta muchly BSP. Flukes/frame would certainly be a good general metric, I can't think of a better one myself although I'm open to suggestions.

Could be interesting to also note the impact of the fluke. Say from match winner down to single point??

Snookered, read the OP. This is covered.

Ace idea McNusFan!

Badsnookerplayer wrote:Judd would be on the Challenge Tour were it not for his flukes.

Don't be so stupid.

Badsnookerplayer wrote:Could be interesting to also note the impact of the fluke. Say from match winner down to single point??

That would be good, I'll add it to the additional information bit. I'm wary of making it too complicated though.

SnookerEd25 wrote:Some flukes can shoot you in the foot; say only the colours are on the table, you send the yellow somewhere into the baulk area and tuck your opponent nicely up tight behind the black. Then the yellow drops in to a baulk pocket leaving you shafted on the green.

Are we counting 'negative' flukes, should they occur?

I think the easiest thing to do with 'negative' flukes is just make a note of it in the fluke post, then I can compile two sets of stats: one with the negative flukes and one without.

I think what we should do is divide up the tournaments from the 2019-20 season between ourselves, watch the video coverage and produce Fluke Reports, and then aggregate up the data. We have about 5 months, as there will be no live snooker to watch.

Coincidence that all the snooker gets cancelled just as Judd was about to be unmasked as a fraud? I think not!

lhpirnie wrote:I think what we should do is divide up the tournaments from the 2019-20 season between ourselves, watch the video coverage and produce Fluke Reports, and then aggregate up the data. We have about 5 months, as there will be no live snooker to watch.

Even 1 season is pointless. The sample is way too small.

McManusFan wrote:Coincidence that all the snooker gets cancelled just as Judd was about to be unmasked as a fraud? I think not!

OUTRAGEOUS FLUKE!

SnookerFan wrote:Judd is so lucky, even The Crucible will get cancelled the year he'd have to face The Curse.

He really is the king of flukes.

Wildey wrote:More the player wins the more matches they play and more chance of having flukes. Persanalty I think Steve mifsud is the most flukey player. How is he on tour again and still there?

Definately true, that's why we'll be normalising the number of flukes against the number of frames. I doubt we'll really be able to say anything definitive, but I still think it would be potentially interesting to keep a record of flukes.

It's been hypothesised on here that Judd's style of play, hitting the balls hard, leads to an increased chance of a fluke. I think there may be something in this, as another player known for being lucky, Stuart Bingham, is also known for his cuepower. If this effect is large then it may well show up even in a small sample. It would also be interesting to see how players known for dropping balls in dead weight fair, ie Mark Williams and Marco Fu.

Hey MMF - I just thought.

We are only counting fluked pots right. But sometimes somebody flukes a snooker or gets a lucky nudge into prime position etc. Don't think it is possible to cover these? Do you agree?

Badsnookerplayer wrote:Hey MMF - I just thought.

We are only counting fluked pots right. But sometimes somebody flukes a snooker or gets a lucky nudge into prime position etc. Don't think it is possible to cover these? Do you agree?

Yes only fluked pots. I think fluked snookers might be possible to note down, but fluked position seems next to impossible to me. You'd have to include every time someone went into the pack of reds!

I think the focus should remain on solely fluked pots, with possibly an extention into unlucky pots, such as knocking in the pink when potting a red.

Here's something I'm not sure how to deal with, and that's when a red is potted as intended, but a second red is fluked on the same shot. Anyone got any thoughts?

Good response MMF.

I would not count the second red as it confers no advantage beyond 1 point.

Most other flukes imbue the player with extended table time

Badsnookerplayer wrote:Good response MMF.

I would not count the second red as it confers no advantage beyond 1 point.

Most other flukes imbue the player with extended table time

I agree.

McManusFan wrote:Here's something I'm not sure how to deal with, and that's when a red is potted as intended, but a second red is fluked on the same shot. Anyone got any thoughts?

I think they should count. It removes 8 points from the frame so the player gains an advantage from that. It could possibly even take the opponent to snookers required.

Iranu wrote:

McManusFan wrote:Here's something I'm not sure how to deal with, and that's when a red is potted as intended, but a second red is fluked on the same shot. Anyone got any thoughts?

I think they should count. It removes 8 points from the frame so the player gains an advantage from that. It could possibly even take the opponent to snookers required.

You do have a point there...

Iranu wrote:

McManusFan wrote:Here's something I'm not sure how to deal with, and that's when a red is potted as intended, but a second red is fluked on the same shot. Anyone got any thoughts?

I think they should count. It removes 8 points from the frame so the player gains an advantage from that. It could possibly even take the opponent to snookers required.

This is not quite correct because if they are behind it might act to their detriment. I take your point though

2nd red flukes should not be counted

Badsnookerplayer wrote:

Iranu wrote:

McManusFan wrote:Here's something I'm not sure how to deal with, and that's when a red is potted as intended, but a second red is fluked on the same shot. Anyone got any thoughts?

I think they should count. It removes 8 points from the frame so the player gains an advantage from that. It could possibly even take the opponent to snookers required.

This is not quite correct because if they are behind it might act to their detriment. I take your point though

True. Maybe only count them if the player’s ahead, or only if it takes them to snookers required?