> so advanced that it's just as readable to me as Greek
I used to feel this way about statistics.
The language and terms are hard to understand and many of the formulas are taught as "just memorize this" instead of building up from first principles.
But then I started using statistics to analyze something I cared a lot about (paintball) and I quickly realized it's like learning anything new:
- there is jargon
- and core concepts
- when you learn the above, it suddenly makes a lot more sense.
I gotta know what you use stats for regarding paintball. I haven't played in years but I loved playing back in the tipman 98 custom era (not sure if that's still a popular marker).
So I wrote a whole bunch about college paintball statistics here: https://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=3949120
Then I wrote some more about pro paintball stats in the below three Reddit posts:
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/paintball/comments/1h17f2m/intro_to...
2. https://www.reddit.com/r/paintball/comments/1jy5xqp/paintbal...
3. https://www.reddit.com/r/paintball/comments/1k6bzi7/paintbal...
Some highlights:
- I started with just pen, paper and a stopwatch (as a college coach)
- I assumed paintball would be more like football where it's hard to track individual effects
- Turns out it's a surprisingly simple and stable "state machine". e.g. the odds of winning with +1 body (e.g. 5v4, 4v3 etc) is, in college, about ~75%
- Paintball is one of those sports where "the weakest player determines the outcome". Why? b/c if 1 player gets out early, you are fighting out of a hole.
It also made me appreciate that as good a book as Moneyball is, reading it after you try to create analytics for your own sport makes it 3x as enjoyable/insightful.
One downside though:
I would watch games and I got so good at internalizing the stats per state of the game that it was like watching the world series of poker where I could see both player odds of getting eliminated and probability of winning over time charts as I watched the games. Made it harder to be the "come on guys! we can win this" coach when we were down on points + bodies.
Wow, a blast from the past to be sure. Was not but any means avid, but did own a tipman. And was always dazzled when someone showed up with an angel.
That era is now! (Still)
Paintball had a peak in the mid-2000s (I would say 2006) due to a combination of:
- Millenials who were kids of the baby boomers being in their late teens early 20s
- Disposable income due to the real estate bubble / positive consumer sentiment
It dropped off a lot after the 2008 GFC though.
BUT
A lot of those kids playing in the mid 2000s are now parents of ~10 year olds so apparently there is a bit of a resurgence going on.
This is a great suggestion, use complex hard stuff for doing fun stuff.