TY - JOUR
T1 - The basketball shootout
T2 - strategy and winning probabilities
AU - Gerchak, Yigal
AU - Henig, Mordechai
N1 - Funding Information:
Research into optimal strategies in sports competitions, like weight-rifting and pole-vaulting \[2,3\], has focussed primarily on each athlete aiming at maximizing his/her individual absolute achievement, or its utility. Lilien \[3\],a lso proposed a method to incorporate the abilities of other contestants into the 'utility" * This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through Grant A5698. Useful comments by E. tlenig, B. O'Neil and a referee are acknowledged.
PY - 1986/11
Y1 - 1986/11
N2 - The Continental Basketball Association staged a shootout in which each contestant attempted one shot from a distance of his/her choice. The player scoring from the greatest distance won a large prize. The order of shooters was determined by a lottery and each player knew for where previous contestants had shot and whether they were successful. We drive a simple formula for the optimal strategy assuming equal abilities. The shooting order is shown to have a large influence on the winning probability.
AB - The Continental Basketball Association staged a shootout in which each contestant attempted one shot from a distance of his/her choice. The player scoring from the greatest distance won a large prize. The order of shooters was determined by a lottery and each player knew for where previous contestants had shot and whether they were successful. We drive a simple formula for the optimal strategy assuming equal abilities. The shooting order is shown to have a large influence on the winning probability.
KW - dynamic programming
KW - sports strategies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0022805907&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/0167-6377(86)90015-5
DO - 10.1016/0167-6377(86)90015-5
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AN - SCOPUS:0022805907
SN - 0167-6377
VL - 5
SP - 241
EP - 244
JO - Operations Research Letters
JF - Operations Research Letters
IS - 5
ER -