hey everyone.  earlier today, i began wondering why everyone uses the word random so much.  i found out that people are actually quite predictable and it bothers us to be thought of that way.  Saying we're random is a way for people to feel like they are free of the normal restaints that we all have and to feel better about themselves.  how does this relate to games?  well after seeing that people are usually more predictable than we like to admit, i noticed that when i play gears of war, i often predict what another player will do.  i never really thought about it much before, but if i knew what the other player/s are going to do and was right, i would almost always win.  about 3/4 the time i don't predict at all and i just play w/o thinking, but my best matches are when i call it right on what they will do.  my question to you all is whether or not prediction plays a big role in the way you play games.

When you predict your reaction time is a lot faster. You anticipate moves and react to them accordingly...

Something you may have heard of is beginner's luck. It happens because skilled players tend to predict and anticipate other players moves. At a certain skill level, players predict other players to also behave as a skilled player might. In certain cases a skilled player expects a skilled move, and a beginner does something a beginner would do which fools the skilled player and earns the beginner a win or a kill.

Summary... thinking is better than not thinking. But it's fun sometimes to turn the brain off and smash, shoot, blow stuff up, etc.