Introduction!

Context

Have you ever played an “aggressive” opponent in chess or perhaps been bluffed in a friendly poker match (I definitely have)? These pushy strategies are often the subject of discussion for being flashy or fast-paced. Moves like the “scholar’s mate” in chess are quite entertaining if done successfully. In fact, we watch all these games and sports for moments like these where one side makes an offensive in hopes of achieving their goal. But, do these strategies actually have an impact on the outcomes of these games? For games of probability like poker, many professionals agree that an aggressive play-style is generally superior to a passive one. But, can this carry over to more complex games that don’t necessarily depend on probability. Games like chess or even the popular online game Counter-Strike fit this description as an aggressive strategy isn’t merely a calculated statistical advantage, but rather a conscious decision of personal preference. My project delves into the world of online gaming, but can carry broader implications in areas of game theory and even psychology.

As of now, I’m only planning on looking into chess and Counter-Strike. Chess is obviously a timeless classic while CS is one of my personal favorites. However, these games might be able to be generalized into a broader category of strategy (Can it really?). Does a football team need to decide whether an aggressive play has statistically better odds of success? I understand that the better way of answering that question would to just do a study on football, but I want to generalize it as much as possible.

Personally, I’m choosing this as my research topic because I love playing games. However, opponents that play in a fast-paced or risky manner have managed to absolutely flatten me too many times.

Inquiry

Do aggressive play-styles in popular strategy games have a statistical correlation on a game’s overall success rate?

Please help me phrase this better.

Hypothesis

As much as I love seeing a flashy strategy work, I believe it offers no statistical advantage. The underlying psychology behind playing a certain way is too difficult to properly account for. Sometimes it will work and sometimes it won’t. The best I can do is observe if there is a trend in the specific games I analyze. Perhaps looking into more games can help me generalize my results. But, overall I believe that while we tend to remember these strategies more, they will have little to no impact on the outcome of a game.

Oral Defense: “How did your initial exploration of the scholarly conversation lead to your final
research question/project goal?”

I’m not sure which oral defense questions I can be answering as of now, but I’ll try my best (keep in mind this isn’t my final research question yet). There isn’t much scholarly work on this topic in general. There are plenty of articles on how poker plays aggressive, but none that can be generalized. And that’s fine as poker has its own set of rules that reward risky actions anyways. There are a few articles that analyze certain aggressive strategies in their respective fields, but they’re too specific. Is this a major gap because it’s a dumb question?