Luck or No Luck

Quote of the day:
“As someone jibed, the real danger to this congress, now that it’s officially a lame duck, is that Dick Cheney will shoot it.”
--Alan Abelson in today’s "Barron’s"

Quote of the day no. 2:
“We got lucky.”
--Steve Fisher, coach of San Diego State University men’s basketball.

Fisher was responding to his team’s win in the opening game of the season, against Murray State. With about one second to go, star player Brandon Heath sunk a running shot from just past half court. The Aztecs won 87-84.

“Luck” is the correct word to use. The New Oxford Dictionary defines it as “success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.” In the five years I’ve been following this team, there have been other times when it got lucky and many, many times when it got unlucky.

Sometimes luck is used as an excuse, which gave rise to the expression “Luck is the meeting of opportunity and preparation.” This is a clever saying but not universally true. We are all subject to the whims of chance, completely detached from any external opportunity or internal preparation.

The addictive TV show "Deal or No Deal" is an excellent study of luck. There is no possible preparation that will help the contestant choose which cases to open, and there is no special opportunity available for “smart” selection (the opportunity is the same for every player). It is totally random. Sometimes a player gets lucky and opens mostly cases with small amounts. Other times a player gets unlucky and opens mostly cases with large amounts.

If you haven’t seen the show, it is a very simple game which operates sort of like a slow-motion slot machine. There are 26 cases randomly assigned amounts of money ranging from 1 cent to one million dollars. The contestant chooses one case which is his or hers, and then has to choose which of the other cases to open.

Every once in a while the player stops and has to choose whether to accept a money offer from the show’s “banker,” or continue opening cases.

If it wasn’t for that choice, the program could be called "Luck or No Luck."