The Hot Hand Fallacy

Realizing that many readers may not be familiar with the the language of basketball, let me inform you that the "hot hand" is when an individual player on a team has a streak of successful shot making. Meaning that individual player has the "hot hand" and the ball should keep being passed to her / him as they have had recent success and it should continue.

And now allow me to introduce you to the hard truth about the "hot hand", that being the hot hand fallacy, courtesy of The Decision Lab:

Summary

What it is

The hot-hand fallacy describes our tendency to believe that a successful streak is likely to lead to further success. For example, if a basketball player has made three consecutive shots, we may believe he has a greater chance of making the fourth than is actually likely. 

Why it happens

The hot-hand fallacy occurs because we believe that small samples of data are representative of larger samples of data, when in reality, this is not the case. We often look for patterns in sequences and find it hard to properly understand randomness and chance, causing us to make predictions based on reasoning that is illogical. 

Okay, so what's that got to do with watches? Well, I'm glad you asked!

The latest offering from DOXA has clearly struck a nerve in the hearts of DOXA fans. Unfortunately, probably not in the way that the guys and gals in Biel / Bienne were hoping it would.

Courtesy of DOXA

This is the SUB 300 Beta Sharkhunter. Or as described by the wordsmiths at DOXA:

Destined to defy dress codes, ready for any mission. The SUB 300 β Sharkhunter features a black ceramic case, 18K 3N gold bezel and crown – a tool watch engineering meets sleek urban flair.

I honestly don't know what "a tool watch engineering" actually means, but there you go.

As someone who used to work for Synchron (the company that had the rights to the DOXA SUB up until 2019), I have to be honest and say that it is not easy to be objective, but I'm going to try. DOXA is currently a bit of a one-trick pony. They make dive watches. Yes, several collections of dive watches (SUB), but that is basically it.  Orange, Yellow, Black and a few other sundry colors. The entry level price being around US $950. How well or not the current DOXA collections are selling is something that can't really be known by anyone other than DOXA themselves.

But let's get back to this little anomaly...

In fairness, I am not the ultimate demographic - that would be DOXA's CEO, a target market of one. But this is where we come back to the hot hand fallacy. In truth, I do not know how "hot" DOXA truly is, because that can only truly be gleaned from sales, not from praise-bloated press releases from a contracted PR firm. But let's say that the internal perception might be that everything DOXA HQ is putting out is solid gold. And if that is indeed the situation then the internal belief might be that design decision making paradigms are "solid state", i.e. that the shot-caller has the "hot hand" and should be given the ball to keep shooting. Whether or not that is, indeed the reality is something that is being vigorously discussed in several forums, but for our purposes it lands more on the "no press is bad press" category.

Now back to the watch itself. If this one is in your wheelhouse, it can be yours for just south of $7,000 US.

Here are the pertinents, straight from DOXA -

MOVEMENT 

Swiss mechanical automatic, self-winding, COSC certified Chronometer

Power reserve 38 hours

Frequency 28,800 vph (4.0 Hz)

Decorated by DOXA

CASE 

Black matt ceramic, chamber in titanium

Diameter 42.5 mm x 44.50 mm

Height 11.95 mm

Screw-down crown 18K 3N gold

Water resistance 30 ATM / 300 meters / 984 feet

Screw down case back in titanium

INDICATIONS 

Hours, minutes, seconds

Date

FEATURES 

Sapphire crystal

Unidirectional rotating bezel in 18K 3N gold with a ceramic bezel inlay (in feet)

BRACELET / STRAP 

FKM rubber strap, folding clasp in black PVD-coated, with wetsuit extension

Lug width 20.00 mm

DIAL 

Matte grained dial with black-on-black markings

MB WATCHES - Seven Deadly Sins - Vanity - PRIDE

Vanity or Pride is one of those "sticky" sins. On the one hand, you should want to be proud of yourself. On the other, lets face the facts, Pride is considered by many to be the BIGGY - the original of the seven deadly sins and from which the others arose.

In terms of what Mikael has offered in this series, this in many ways could be considered the BIGGY as well - Yellow Gold combined with black titanium, sapphire crystals front and back housing a hand-wound tourbillon! And PRIDE will grab ahold of you and not let go courtesy of a hand-sewn black alligator strap. It's okay to be a little proud!

Visit Mikael and MB WATCHES at: www.mb-watches.com