Fig. 6

Data support advantageous timing over position hypothesis. Schematic of expected value and distribution of final change points as a function of win rate according to an advantageous position (H1) or timing hypothesis (H2). Red curves indicate the participant’s expected value of the final move at each time. Blue distributions indicate the distributions of these final change points. a According to H1, higher-scoring participants are those who create better shot opportunites for themselves in the mid- and late-game, increasing their overall expected value. b According to H2, all participants experience roughly equal expected values during the trial, but higher-scoring participants are better at timing their final moves to exploit fleeting opportunities. c, d Observed results for the highest- and lowest-scoring participants against both of the human opponents (c) and the computer opponent (d). The results are consistent with H2 but not H1, implying that strategic timing is more important than positional advantage in task success