sports where you can 100% outplay your opponent and lose?

[TheRover]

omg this thread made my head burn with rage. make it go away.

[TheHip41]

[ QUOTE ]
NASCAR - A car can completely dominate and get taken out in a wreck.

[/ QUOTE ]

he said sport

[NicksDad1970]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
NASCAR - A car can completely dominate and get taken out in a wreck.

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he said sport

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yes, he did

[SuperUberBob]

In every sport, you can outplay your opponent and still lose.

[Blarg]

Boxing and martial arts. All it takes is one lucky punch/kick/whatever. It doesn't happen too often, but it definitely happens.

[bpc009]

Obviously the answer is every sport. In any case the best answers are those sports where scoring is scarcest. Hence, soccer is 1, and hockey is close behind.

MicroBob, people just use "hit the crossbar" to imply they dominated possession and scoring chances, that they weren't close, but really really close.

Anyway, soccer and hockey are two sports where you have a high chance to lose even when you have dominated play. I think another way to look at OP's question would be to ask, in which sports are inferior competition most likely to win a match? Again soccer would be the best answer there.

For those of you that think tennis, I just think you must be looking at the game wrong. Skill wins out much more in tennis than most sports. At it's essence, the sport is about service games. You are expected to win your serve. If you can't you lose. Defend your castle, and attack your opponents. I think if there's a valid complaint about tennis, it's not that skill doesn't win out enough, it's that the skill of serving is too valuable.

[bpc009]

another answer: any game with Tim Donaghy officiating -zing!

[gusmahler]

[ QUOTE ]
What are you saying, gusmahler? I understand that apparently you mean something more than "rushes exist," but am not getting the mechanism by which this occurs (unless you're saying "I don't know the mechanism either, but there is evidence that shows it happens," which is possible, I guess.)

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Because you (and others in this thread) are equating bowling to something like foul shooting. In foul shooting, someone like Steve Nash, a 90% free throw shooter, will occassionally miss one or two or even three in a row. Or a 50% free throw shooter like Wilt might go 28 for 32. Those are what you would call rushes or "hot hand".

Bowling is different. Getting strikes is a function of reading the lanes, how they are breaking down, and determining where and how to roll the ball. So for a bowler with a 50% strike ratio, it's MORE likely that he will string strikes together than he will alternate strikes and spares, because he can base his future shots off of his successful shots (assuming a single lane and a professional bowler).

[Cortz]

i haven read the thread but playing soccer for the majority of my life i have to say that in soccer, most definitely more then just a few times the team getting outplayed (rather severely i might add) can still end up winning the game.

Say your dominating the whole game, you get unlucky you have the ball in the other teams half the whole game you hit the post,crossbar etc u jus cant score the goalie is also very good. Then the other team gets there only shot on goal in a counter attack and end up winning 1-0 in the championship of a tournament...(yes i have experienced this)

Soccer IMO is the leading sport in this category.

[El Diablo]

Bob,

"How is hitting the post in soccer any different than the zillion different crazy bounces the ball can take back and forth on the rim on just about any shot in basketball?"

"But I just don't see how such an 'unlucky' shot in soccer is any more unlucky than a shot clanking off the rim in basketball."

You answered your question yourself.

"In soccer there aren't going to be many scoring opportunities."

It's not that it's unluckier. It's that the unlucky event has a way greater probability of deciding the outcome of the game.