Untangling skill and luck in business, sports, and investing
The Succe$$ Equation

Simulation № 1

Simulate a Tennis Match

Type the probability that Player 1 wins a single point and run the simulation. We play 1,000 full matches — games with deuces, sets with tiebreaks, best of five — and count how often that tiny edge on each point becomes a win. Player 2's probability of winning a point is whatever is left over.

Parameters

Player 2 gets the remaining 49%.

Scoring is real tennis: games to four points, win by two; sets to six games with a tiebreak at 6–6; the match is best of five sets.

One point51%
One game
One set
The match
How the 1,000 matches ended
Player 1 wins Player 2 wins

A 51% point is roughly a coin flip — yet across a full match the better player wins far more often than 51% of the time. Long formats let skill surface; short ones leave the outcome to luck. That is why upsets live in early rounds.