Monday, May 21, 2012
Major League Baseball Inter-league 2012
American League (AL) teams took 24 of 42 or 56% of matches in the 1st weekend of inter-league baseball. The AL will win more inter-league matches for the 9th consecutive year. The motto for most NL team managements: "If I only had a brain."
Saturday, April 28, 2012
NBA 2012 Conference Champ Round
For those of you participating in non-profit pools picking winners against the spread (ATS) including playoffs, stick with overdog favourites.
SA -5 over OK City (game 5)
BOSTON even over Miami (game 4)
Because home teams win the majority of matches, I consider the Celtics to be the favourite when the point spread is pick'em or even-steven.
So far this year, overdog favourites are 42-28-3 ATS or 59.6%. Overdogs have won 79.5% of all matches straight-up disregarding the point spread -- well above the 2-out-of-3 norm. About 1 in 5 matches has turned on points -- right in line with what we would expect.
Over the past 5 playoff seasons, I am 54.8% to the good ATS. But, a simple all-overdog strategy has been even better at 55.3%.
Why have overdog favourites been so dominant over an admittedly "too small to be statistically significant" sample size of about 400 matches over 5 years? I don't have a plausible theory beyond wondering whether the conscious of unconscious home team bias of referees is even stronger in the playoffs and that this tendency may not be fully factored into NBA playoff point spreads. Does anyone out there have historical records for NBA playoff overdogs and underdogs ATS going back further than 5 years or evidence on referees' home bias comparing regular season vs. playoff matches?
SA -5 over OK City (game 5)
BOSTON even over Miami (game 4)
Because home teams win the majority of matches, I consider the Celtics to be the favourite when the point spread is pick'em or even-steven.
So far this year, overdog favourites are 42-28-3 ATS or 59.6%. Overdogs have won 79.5% of all matches straight-up disregarding the point spread -- well above the 2-out-of-3 norm. About 1 in 5 matches has turned on points -- right in line with what we would expect.
Over the past 5 playoff seasons, I am 54.8% to the good ATS. But, a simple all-overdog strategy has been even better at 55.3%.
Why have overdog favourites been so dominant over an admittedly "too small to be statistically significant" sample size of about 400 matches over 5 years? I don't have a plausible theory beyond wondering whether the conscious of unconscious home team bias of referees is even stronger in the playoffs and that this tendency may not be fully factored into NBA playoff point spreads. Does anyone out there have historical records for NBA playoff overdogs and underdogs ATS going back further than 5 years or evidence on referees' home bias comparing regular season vs. playoff matches?
Monday, March 12, 2012
NCAA 2012 Men's BB Recap
For those of you playing in non-profit NCAA pools based on picking winners against the spread (ATS), I finished 31-35-1. The best I can spin this year is to take comfort in not being as bad as last year. Over 5 years since 2008, I am even-steven at 160-160-6.
I should admit that just by picking favourites in every NCAA tournament game for the past 5 years, you would have finished ahead of me every year and would be sporting a 170-150-6 or 53% record ATS since 2008.
For what it's worth, I was correct with my advice for the final to give the points taking Kentucky -6 over Kansas.
Lady G vs. President Obama
President Obama picks winners straight-up with no point line for each bracket and round.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/image/20120313-potus-picks-2012.jpg
He had a tough time in 2010 and 2011 with none of his final 4 picks coming through. This year he correctly picked Kentucky to reach the final, but his championship pick UNC only got as far as the elite 8. The Baracketer did get 6 of his elite 8 picks correct. Not too shabby. When he picks upsets in the early rounds, I can identify games where Lady Godiva and the Baracketer-in-Chief disagree. In Obama's first 4 years in office, I am 13-25 womano-a-mano against the Baracketer. I won 5-3 in 2009, but the President can boast that he defeated Lady G 6-2 in 2010, 10-2 in 2011 and 6-4 in 2012.
And, speaking of mano-a-womano, kudos to the President for also picking the women's NCAA brackets.
Lady G's System
I myself take no interest whatsoever in American college basketball, but toy boy fiancé Archibald can't get enough roundball. Every year he organizes a friendly, non-profit office pool for the NCAA men's tourney. Instead of picking bracket winners, the object of his pool is to pick winners against the point spread each and every day as the tournament unfolds. The winner of his winner-take-all pool is the contestant who picks the most winners against the spread over 64 matches. All matches are weighted equally starting with the play-in game to determine the 64th team.
To humour Archibald, I participate by relying on economists' studies showing that "heavy" underdogs win more than their fair share of college basketball games against the point spread, while "non-heavy" overdogs win slightly more than 50% (although this particular result is not statistically significant).
http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/print/179073423.html
I should admit that just by picking favourites in every NCAA tournament game for the past 5 years, you would have finished ahead of me every year and would be sporting a 170-150-6 or 53% record ATS since 2008.
For what it's worth, I was correct with my advice for the final to give the points taking Kentucky -6 over Kansas.
Lady G vs. President Obama
President Obama picks winners straight-up with no point line for each bracket and round.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/image/20120313-potus-picks-2012.jpg
He had a tough time in 2010 and 2011 with none of his final 4 picks coming through. This year he correctly picked Kentucky to reach the final, but his championship pick UNC only got as far as the elite 8. The Baracketer did get 6 of his elite 8 picks correct. Not too shabby. When he picks upsets in the early rounds, I can identify games where Lady Godiva and the Baracketer-in-Chief disagree. In Obama's first 4 years in office, I am 13-25 womano-a-mano against the Baracketer. I won 5-3 in 2009, but the President can boast that he defeated Lady G 6-2 in 2010, 10-2 in 2011 and 6-4 in 2012.
And, speaking of mano-a-womano, kudos to the President for also picking the women's NCAA brackets.
Lady G's System
I myself take no interest whatsoever in American college basketball, but toy boy fiancé Archibald can't get enough roundball. Every year he organizes a friendly, non-profit office pool for the NCAA men's tourney. Instead of picking bracket winners, the object of his pool is to pick winners against the point spread each and every day as the tournament unfolds. The winner of his winner-take-all pool is the contestant who picks the most winners against the spread over 64 matches. All matches are weighted equally starting with the play-in game to determine the 64th team.
To humour Archibald, I participate by relying on economists' studies showing that "heavy" underdogs win more than their fair share of college basketball games against the point spread, while "non-heavy" overdogs win slightly more than 50% (although this particular result is not statistically significant).
http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/print/179073423.html
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Super Bowl XLVI Recap
Getting the Super Bowl right picking
NY Giants +3 over New England
brought me back to 50% for the full year at 128-128-11. I finished a dreadful 7-14-1 with my efforts to identify "value overdogs". A plain-vanilla, all-underdog strategy finished well ahead of yours truly at 135-121-11 or 52.6%, just above the long-term average for all-underdogs.
I have been under 50% in the playoffs 8 of the past 9 years. I need to develop a consistent approach and stick to it.
One strange Super Sunday quirk is that the NFC team won the coin toss 14 years in a row until finally losing this year. The chances of calling a fair coin toss correctly 14 times in a row are less than 1 in 10,000.
Professor Steven Leavitt, author of the best-seller Freakanomics, argues that the Super Bowl is an unusually good day to pick the underdog. Underdogs are 22-22-2 in 46 Super Bowls so far. But, Professor Leavitt is confident that once we have a statistically significant sample of 1,000 or so Super Bowls, his prediction will be borne out -- provided bettors continue to overvalue overdogs for the next 950 years.
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/magazine/05sbgamble_92_94_.html?pagewanted=print"
NY Giants +3 over New England
brought me back to 50% for the full year at 128-128-11. I finished a dreadful 7-14-1 with my efforts to identify "value overdogs". A plain-vanilla, all-underdog strategy finished well ahead of yours truly at 135-121-11 or 52.6%, just above the long-term average for all-underdogs.
I have been under 50% in the playoffs 8 of the past 9 years. I need to develop a consistent approach and stick to it.
One strange Super Sunday quirk is that the NFC team won the coin toss 14 years in a row until finally losing this year. The chances of calling a fair coin toss correctly 14 times in a row are less than 1 in 10,000.
Professor Steven Leavitt, author of the best-seller Freakanomics, argues that the Super Bowl is an unusually good day to pick the underdog. Underdogs are 22-22-2 in 46 Super Bowls so far. But, Professor Leavitt is confident that once we have a statistically significant sample of 1,000 or so Super Bowls, his prediction will be borne out -- provided bettors continue to overvalue overdogs for the next 950 years.
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/magazine/05sbgamble_92_94_.html?pagewanted=print"
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