How can I make a chances question not opinion-based? [duplicate]

Question

Perhaps this is different for sports / gaming SE sites, but I notice similar questions on say Law SE or Academia SE eg

• Asking the chances of a particular legal strategy: Would it be / have been unhelpful for Hans Niemann to bring up Magnus Carlsen's own cheating?

• Asking about the chances of a particular academic strategy: Is doing two PhDs a good path?

• Asking about chances of admission: How can an undergrad from a country with little 'international' research improve his chances of being a "good fit" for a top PhD program?

Also, IMHO, there are some kind opinion-based questions...yeah like soft questions maybe

1. Does chess improve our intelligence?

2. Does playing gambits improve your tactical skills?

3. Does playing correspondence chess improve your game?

4. Should I switch to a different opening?

5. And then this question which is indeed close, but I'm not really sure is too different from the above Should I switch to a different opening?

Question: Given that I have a feeling my question isn't opinion-based or that I can somehow make my question not opinion-based. Or not really?

2022 WFRCC - Wesley So's chances and time control conversion

• Why it might not be opinion based: You could answer something like

1

'Don't put too much weight on those 4 chess960 tournaments. More weight should be given to that Hikaru's peak rapid rating is only 1 point higher than Wesley So's. (Then again Magnus' peak rapid is at least 60 points higher than both Hikaru and Wesley So sooooo....) At lower time controls like fast rapid, chess is not that much different from chess960.'

The thing is the weighting of the chess960 tournaments vs the weighting of the peak rapid chess ratings is ... objective I believe. Subjective would be like 'Is fast rapid chess960 more fun than slow rapid chess960?' But I believe experience of following chess or chess960 should mean that people can decide which data is more important and even how much more important.

2

You could also answer that 25-for-30 + 5min+5sec increment is not so far from 45-for-40 + 15min+0sec increment based on some historical precedent eg when the rapid WCC changed in 2012 from 25min to 15min, this was a 40% drop.

• But if it is opinion-based, then maybe a different question I could ask is...oh say

If I were (working for or actually) an evil overlord of FIDE and wanted more sponsorship for chess960, then would I actually get more sponsorship with Magnus or Hikaru as champion, and are they more likely to win if I lower the time controls from 45 to 25 given Wesley So didn't do so well (again, palindrome acronym WSDDSW) ?

?

Answer 1

Don't focus so much on the specific close reason but more on the fact that the questions are being closed.

Ultimately, the linked question is not very good. It's way too long and doesn't get to the point succinctly.

If the question was instead something like this:

Would So benefit more than other players from a longer time control for the FRC world championship?

With perhaps one or two sentences giving his blitz and standard ratings, the question would have a much higher likelihood of success.

Asking a question shouldn't be a place to share your research - if you already have an answer or know all of the information, then a blog post or maybe a community wiki post would be better.