# How often does the winner of Game Six also win Game Seven? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 15, 2019, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-does-the-winner-of-game-six-also-win-game-seven/841827 "2019-10-15T23:14:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2019, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-does-the-winner-of-game-six-also-win-game-seven/841827/1 "2019-10-15T23:14:42Z")
With the MLB playoffs in full swing (though the question needn’t be specific to baseball), people love to talk about “momentum,” and I got to wondering whether it’s a real phenomenon. Specifically, in best-of-seven series that have gone the full distance, what percentage of game sevens have gone to the winner of game six? Anecdotally, it feels like the game six winner takes game seven more often than not. But we all love a good comeback, so maybe those are just the ones we remember, like the 2016 Cubs or the 1986 Mets. So I did a little digging. Since 1965, there have been 20 seven-game World Series, and 12 have been won by the game six winner. But that’s a small sample size, which takes into account only one round of playoffs in one sport, and I didn’t feel like manually looking up any more than that. Has anybody ever definitively catalogued the fate of game six winners in game sevens? My google-fu is weak here. I found stats regarding game seven home advantage in different sports, but that doesn’t answer my question. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2019, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-does-the-winner-of-game-six-also-win-game-seven/841827/2 "2019-10-16T02:17:32Z")
Remember in a best of seven series in baseball games six and seven are played in the same park so the same team gets home-field advantage (and more recently gets to ply by it’s rules DH or no DH) so it might also be interesting to know if the home team wins game 6 is it more likely to win game 7 than if it’s the visitors. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2019, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-does-the-winner-of-game-six-also-win-game-seven/841827/3 "2019-10-16T13:08:08Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > With the MLB playoffs in full swing (though the question needn’t be specific to baseball), people love to talk about “momentum,” and I got to wondering whether it’s a real phenomenon. Specifically, in best-of-seven series that have gone the full distance, what percentage of game sevens have gone to the winner of game six? > > Anecdotally, it feels like the game six winner takes game seven more often than not. But we all love a good comeback, so maybe those are just the ones we remember, like the 2016 Cubs or the 1986 Mets. > > So I did a little digging. Since 1965, there have been 20 seven-game World Series, and 12 have been won by the game six winner. But that’s a small sample size, which takes into account only one round of playoffs in one sport, and I didn’t feel like manually looking up any more than that. I did, and prior to 1965, Game 6 winners are 11-12 in Game 7 (including some examples in best-of-nine series, but excluding tie games.) In the ALCS Game 6 winners are 5-2 in Game 7; in the NLCS they’re 5-3. So the historical record is 33-25, suggesting but not proving an advantage. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2019, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-does-the-winner-of-game-six-also-win-game-seven/841827/4 "2019-10-16T21:31:57Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I did, and prior to 1965, Game 6 winners are 11-12 in Game 7 (including some examples in best-of-nine series, but excluding tie games.) > > In the ALCS Game 6 winners are 5-2 in Game 7; in the NLCS they’re 5-3. So the historical record is 33-25, suggesting but not proving an advantage. Don’t suppose you can look up NHL and NBA too? Lots more data there with so many more 7 game series. NBA would need the most controlling for home-team advantage, since it’s the biggest generic home-team advantage. IIRC, playoff formats have shifted over time, from top seed having games 6 and 7 at home to mostly only game 7. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-does-the-winner-of-game-six-also-win-game-seven/841827/5 "2019-10-17T18:44:41Z")
So what would this say about momentum? Wouldn’t the fact that any Game 6 winner who went on to win Game 7 had to have been down 2-3 to the other team? Wouldn’t the Game 6 loser be a data point for “momentum isn’t a thing”? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-does-the-winner-of-game-six-also-win-game-seven/841827/6 "2019-10-17T19:11:37Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Don’t suppose you can look up NHL and NBA too? Lots more data there with so many more 7 game series. I don’t know how to do that easily. ---
**Author:** ![journeyman\_southpaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5e9695/32.png) [@journeyman\_southpaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/journeyman_southpaw)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-does-the-winner-of-game-six-also-win-game-seven/841827/7 "2019-10-18T00:05:17Z")
The website [whowins.com](http://whowins.com) probably has everything you’re looking for, including [an all-time historical table](http://www.whowins.com/tables/up32.html) showing how often teams lose a series they were leading 3-2 (across all sports, it’s a little over 20% of the time, it turns out). ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-does-the-winner-of-game-six-also-win-game-seven/841827/8 "2019-10-18T18:15:58Z")
> [@journeyman\_southpaw](#): > > The website [whowins.com](http://whowins.com) probably has everything you’re looking for, including [an all-time historical table](http://www.whowins.com/tables/up32.html) showing how often teams lose a series they were leading 3-2 (across all sports, it’s a little over 20% of the time, it turns out). So I clicked on [WhoWins(tm) -- MLB, NBA, NHL Playoffs -- Leading, 3-games-2](http://www.whowins.com/tables/up32.html) which presented a table listing all the results of all series that went at least 6 games (one team led 3 games to 2). The first line of the table lists the overall results for the leading team, from all sports, in all rounds, and at all sites (home and visitor). The Game 6 result is 438-360 (.549). Which means that the team that trailed 3 games to 2 won 360 of the 798 Game 6’s, a percentage of .451. The overall series result is 637-161 (.798) for the team that led 3 games to 2. So if I’m reading this correctly, the team that trailed 3 games to 2 and won Game 6 also won 161 of the 360 Game 7’s. That is a percentage of .447. Am I correct in my conclusion? ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-does-the-winner-of-game-six-also-win-game-seven/841827/9 "2019-10-18T18:45:31Z")
> [@journeyman\_southpaw](#): > > The website [whowins.com](http://whowins.com) probably has everything you’re looking for, including [an all-time historical table](http://www.whowins.com/tables/up32.html) showing how often teams lose a series they were leading 3-2 (across all sports, it’s a little over 20% of the time, it turns out). Which is close to the 25% that they’d lose if every game was a 50/50 coin flip. But that doesn’t speak to momentum. Looking at the site, they have that when a team is leading 3-2, then win game six 55% of the time (which, without making any models seems pretty close to what we’d expect, given that we’d expect the team leading 3-2 to be slightly better on average). Doing some math with the numbers from the site we can calculate that the team that was ahead 3-2 but loses game six wins game seven 56% of the time. So, over all sports and all formats and home/away splits there’s no evidence of momentum from game six to game seven. (assuming that random web site has correct numbers). The home/away may be worth looking into, as there’s a pretty big split for teams starting the series at home and those starting away, but I don’t have time to do that now.