Independent Trials are a Model for Disaster

David A. Jackson

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, 1993, vol. 42, issue 1, 211-220

Abstract: A connection is made between heavy defeats, or disasters, in sport and the failure of a series of backups leading to a disaster in the wider context. The relationship between ranks, ratings and odds for the elite players in a sport is examined. A model which states that ‘failure on a trial increases the odds for a failure on the next trial by a constant factor’ provides an excellent fit to data from the 1987 Wimbledon and US Open tennis tournaments. There is an increase in the probability of disaster relative to an independent trials model, which is most dramatic for low initial failure rates.

Date: 1993
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