Month 5 - Injustice in All Things

 Injustice tilt is a very difficult problem.

One of the things recommended in Jared's book is recognizing good variance. If each instance of bad luck is evidence of being unlucky, then each instance of good luck is evidence in the other direction. Brains naturally remember bad things more, so tracking it would theoretically help.

But, there's two things that immediately come to mind here.

First, theoretically, my placement records are already tracking my luck. If I have 20% firsts and 40% thirds in some sample, generally that's going to mean I've evidently suffered from bad luck. ... Right? I'll talk about it more later.

Second, what if I'm actually in a streak of bad luck? Tracking them would just make it more and more obvious of how bad my luck is. It's kind of a double-edged sword.

Injustice gets to me outside of mahjong as well. If I'm farming some monster for a drop in OSRS, and I don't look at the loot tracker, I just have some vague sense of how long it's taken. If I'm feeling annoyed and open the loot tracker, then see that I'm still below drop rate, that's pacifying, certainly. But if I see I'm nearing double the drop rate, it just makes me pout more.

When these stack up over multiple fields, it really starts to feel like you're cursed. I wanted to get home early so I could buy something that was coming out, and sent a message to my ride saying I'd be getting out of a meeting that was scheduled to go to 3 at 2:30.

But, I somehow missed the send button before putting my phone in my pocket. When I checked my phone after the meeting, the message was sitting there unsent. I ended up getting home a bit late and wasn't able to buy the thing I wanted (premade, anyway. I could still order a custom one, with multiple extra weeks between buying it and getting it). Unlucky.

Add that to going dry on some drop in OSRS, running bad in Mahjong, and so on, and then it's like, "Maybe it's just not my month."

Tracking good luck can definitely offset the cursed feeling. Sure, it took me a lot of extra attempts at Fishing Trawler and Rogue's Den to get the sets, but I also got a Tome of Water (1/1600) on my fourth Tempoross kill, and I got the Pharaoh's Scepter after like 12 runs of Pyramid Plunder at 66 Thieving (1/172). Those balance it out.

Sure, I missed the window to get that thing early. But, I'll get it eventually. And what about that time there was one I had my eye on, but really didn't like the colour, and then they released a special limited time version in a colour I loved, and was able to get? Balance. Justice.

Back to Mahjong, luck is a bit hard to track. You could start with a 1-shanten hand, a lucky occurrence. But, you could never reach tenpai, turning it into bad luck. And that bad luck feels worse than not getting tenpai when starting 3-shanten. It wouldn't really make sense to note down the 1-shanten start as a spot of good variance.

So, rather than track each individual instance of luck, I'll try to determine the cause of the final placement.

A second place could be lucky. I could be in 3rd or 4th, get a good hand in the late South rounds, and then end in 2nd. Or it could be unlucky. I could be 1st by 20k points and then someone else ippatsu tsumos a baiman. The same can be said of 3rds.

1sts are sort of inherently lucky, and 4ths are sort of inherently unlucky. But whether they were pure luck or a result of skill could be worth tracking. I could get 1st from making a good push or fold. I could get 4th from making a bad push or fold.

Some games might be hard to determine. There are a lot of rounds, and a lot of things happen. I'll just go with what feels right I guess.

For example, let's say there's a hand where you get tenpai. The correct play is to break tenpai and all 5 NAGAs agree on that. But, you call riichi, and get an ippatsu tsumo ura 2. Or maybe you chose the wrong wait and got rewarded. Is that a first as a result of good luck, or as a result of bad play? If I make a good push and deal in, is that fourth a result of good play?

For simplicity, I'll say that "Bad Play" can only result in going down in placement. So, the above scenario is "Good Luck." Mistakes would be tracked separately. Similarly, "Good Play" can only move you up placements. You won't get a fourth as a result of good play.

Luck is unavoidable, but I can at least strive to minimize the "Bad Play" numbers.

So, in the earlier case with 20% firsts and 40% thirds, is that demonstrably bad luck? Not quite. Maybe 20% of those thirds came from fourths that got turned around due to good luck. The only way to know is to be tracking it.

Were there 6 thirds that should have been firsts? Or 6 thirds that should have been fourths?

Now, onto the other problem: What if my luck is actually, demonstrably bad? The book also has a section on Running Bad Tilt, where your results are bad over a period of days, weeks, or months, and claims that if you resolve your underlying tilt the running bad tilt will also resolve itself.

But if I'm mitigating my injustice tilt by recognizing good variance, being unable to recognize sufficient good variance will lead to tilt still.

The other solution is to move away from results and towards your own play. The aforementioned tracking may help get that started. I'm probably going to be annoyed any time I have to enter a number into the "Bad Play" column. Perhaps that motivation will push me away from the results and sharpen my focus more.