The fairness of long and short ABBA-sequences: A basketball free-throw field experiment

摘要

Sequential tournaments in the ABBA-format are supposed to be fair. In a basketball free-throw field experiment with a low scoring rate, we find a second-mover advantage in short ABBA-games with four attempts each and no first- or second-mover advantage with ten attempts each. Analyzing the shot success of single moves, we argue that player B perceives a psychological advantage in short sequential competitions with a low expected success rate. In our long ABBA-sequence, insignificant second-mover advantages on shot level balance each other out on game level. We control for psychological traits of our subjects: Locus of control has a negative effect on performance in our experiment.