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  1. #1
    Originally Posted by redietz View Post
    A sample of 40 to 50 plays doesn't tell you much of anything, except perhaps the style of the handicapper and what he's trying to accomplish. If Argentino goes 15-5 down the stretch, he'll hit the 60% he said he'd hit.

    Since it's a game of opinion, I try to not directly apply probability to the task. "The math" doesn't say, necessarily, that Argentino will lose. He may have insights or abilities beyond the formulas used to determine the spreads. The one spot wherein math does apply, however, is in the macro-betting. In other words, the parlays. The parlays, as mickey pointed out, are a bad bet oddswise even if you have an advantage over the oddsmakers themselves. In other words, if you are indeed brighter than the formulas used to determine spreads, there is no incentive to bet parlays.

    I said this a couple of times regarding parlays when the endeavor began. Betting parlays without a good reason smacks of hubris, as does the proclamation that someone will hit 60%. Betting parlays also suggests a lack of discipline and a need to have some semi-progressive big payday looming out there in never-never land. The potential for the quick bailout. In reality, there are no quick bailouts.

    Interestingly, the Wise Guys contestants are doing remarkably well this season. They had a stellar weekend again. I'm 17-11 and 10-4 with best bets, and I'm nowhere close to the leaders. They are killing it.

    It's tough when reality is there keeping your stats for you. No voodoo to help. No avoidance of record-keeping. Your public record is inescapable. I've been doing this for 40 years. It ain't easy.
    RE, would love to hear your thoughts on why the WG top guys have such good records this season? I’m taking variances and wrong lines out of the equation just on history. Not expecting any release of confidential information, but this season is out side what you should see. Always going to be a few who have above expectations on results, just as you will have quality handicappers with bad records. But this year is heavy on the topside.

    The contrarian in me says they are coming back to Earth soon.

  2. #2
    Originally Posted by The Boz View Post
    Originally Posted by redietz View Post
    A sample of 40 to 50 plays doesn't tell you much of anything, except perhaps the style of the handicapper and what he's trying to accomplish. If Argentino goes 15-5 down the stretch, he'll hit the 60% he said he'd hit.

    Since it's a game of opinion, I try to not directly apply probability to the task. "The math" doesn't say, necessarily, that Argentino will lose. He may have insights or abilities beyond the formulas used to determine the spreads. The one spot wherein math does apply, however, is in the macro-betting. In other words, the parlays. The parlays, as mickey pointed out, are a bad bet oddswise even if you have an advantage over the oddsmakers themselves. In other words, if you are indeed brighter than the formulas used to determine spreads, there is no incentive to bet parlays.

    I said this a couple of times regarding parlays when the endeavor began. Betting parlays without a good reason smacks of hubris, as does the proclamation that someone will hit 60%. Betting parlays also suggests a lack of discipline and a need to have some semi-progressive big payday looming out there in never-never land. The potential for the quick bailout. In reality, there are no quick bailouts.

    Interestingly, the Wise Guys contestants are doing remarkably well this season. They had a stellar weekend again. I'm 17-11 and 10-4 with best bets, and I'm nowhere close to the leaders. They are killing it.

    It's tough when reality is there keeping your stats for you. No voodoo to help. No avoidance of record-keeping. Your public record is inescapable. I've been doing this for 40 years. It ain't easy.
    RE, would love to hear your thoughts on why the WG top guys have such good records this season? I’m taking variances and wrong lines out of the equation just on history. Not expecting any release of confidential information, but this season is out side what you should see. Always going to be a few who have above expectations on results, just as you will have quality handicappers with bad records. But this year is heavy on the topside.

    The contrarian in me says they are coming back to Earth soon.

    Thanks for asking this question, Boz. I'll be debating this next week with the guys, so I'll get started now. From my perspective, the key element has always been that usually when the bulk of the professional handicappers do real well, I do poorly. And vice versa. Now what makes this year different is that I did fine, but from my point of view, it was a difficult "did fine." I got off to a good, rolling start, then lost three weeks in a row (and lost six Wise Guys games in a row -- had never happened), then won a bit each week until last week, when I lost. Then this week I won.

    I think the top professionals have done real well in the NFL. Many of the big line moves on toss-up NFL games have turned out to be correct. Even though I rarely bet these games, I notice this because in no-spread contests, I tend to stick with the opening favorite regardless of how much money comes in. That has not served me well this season. So games like Carolina/Cleveland yesterday -- tons of money on Cleveland, and Cleveland won. Lots of Lions money, also, and they won (I actually had them as a Wise Guys play). Then, a surprising bunch of Wise Guys Bears backers last night, and they won. I think just one guy (out of 50) had the Rams.

    I'm going to throw this out there as a preliminary theory, mainly because it's a pretty obvious statement. The people making the lines are relying on simplistic power ratings and algorithms. As opposed to 50 years ago, when Bob Martin "made the line" or later when Roxy ran a roundtable with some power ratings, this stuff today is pure numbers. The hot terms are "metrics" or "analytics," right?

    Well, them thar analytics ain't all they be cracked up to be. I suspect they could use a healthy dose of some Jed Clampett "cogitatin'" to go with all the "cipherin'."

    In other words, when you get a California boy playing QB against a killer defense, and it's under 30 degrees, if your analytics don't have some way of adding temperature and lack of experience with that kind of temperature into the mix of figuring what the line should be, people will beat your analytics. And I think that's what's happened. Eyeballs are beating analytics. I think the powers that be have gone way too far to the simplistic metrics.

    Give me some feedback on these ideas, and we'll continue this tomorrow. I have a 9 PM deadline for the Wise Guys, and since there are just a couple of college games, I'll be flipping coins, which takes some time. If you're gonna throw darts, best to toss down some cuba libres with beer chasers first. If it's cold, Yuengling chasers. If warm, Coronas. Nine inches of snow here, so it'll be Yuengling.

  3. #3
    Originally Posted by redietz View Post
    I think the powers that be have gone way too far to the simplistic metrics.
    Another possibility is the revolution in deep learning algorithms. So the linemakers might be using simplistic stuff, but others ("smart money") making the wagers may be using AI/deep learning to create far superior models. These can be unsupervised algorithms meaning that people just collect all the metrics they can (such as "Is NFL pro QB from California" coded as 0 or 1, "Did NFL pro QB play his whole college career in California" coded as 0 or 1 for the model, etc.) and then the unsupervised algorithm generates the vastly superior models from these thousands of metrics collected by humans (or rather the collecting bins are created by humans and computers populate the created metrics). So the smart money may be outsourcing physics/math crews to make the models and the physics/math crews might be putting down some action themselves.

  4. #4
    Originally Posted by tableplay View Post
    Originally Posted by redietz View Post
    I think the powers that be have gone way too far to the simplistic metrics.
    Another possibility is the revolution in deep learning algorithms. So the linemakers might be using simplistic stuff, but others ("smart money") making the wagers may be using AI/deep learning to create far superior models. These can be unsupervised algorithms meaning that people just collect all the metrics they can (such as "Is NFL pro QB from California" coded as 0 or 1, "Did NFL pro QB play his whole college career in California" coded as 0 or 1 for the model, etc.) and then the unsupervised algorithm generates the vastly superior models from these thousands of metrics collected by humans (or rather the collecting bins are created by humans and computers populate the created metrics). So the smart money may be outsourcing physics/math crews to make the models and the physics/math crews might be putting down some action themselves.
    I have a friend (albeit a bigoted friend) that has a very simple system that he has done well with. He fades the black QB's. When they are both black he goes by "blackness", so that he would fade Cam or Jameis over Wilson or Mahomes.

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