Thursday, 1 September 2016

Clueless Egotistical Obdurate

Yesterday's post resulted in the third highest daily number of hits this year (972), with many shepherded over from James' Betfair Pro Trader Blog and a post of his own about the very same Big Pairs blog.

It appears I am a little late to the party on this, as James has written about the Big Pairs blog before, but quite independently, and better late than never, we have reached the same conclusion.

James' post is (as always) worth a read. I wasn't aware that Big Pair claimed to be a CEO, which in this case appears to be an acronym for Clueless Egotistical Obdurate. As James suggests, it's hard to imagine a 'real' CEO writing some of the nonsense that's out there, nor being as naïve as to spend an hour a day searching for 'patterns' and waxing lyrical about his retirement plans and saving money which sounds more like the words of a naïve twenty-something year old who's just been promoted to Head of the Post Room.


James commented:

And yet his followers can't get enough of it on his blog and Twitter account.
Maybe they just like seeing losers crash and burn.
I guess people read what they want to see... "Trading is easy.
Anyone can do it. Yes, I'm losing but in the future I won't be and I will be fabulously rich."
That is the kind of blog that the majority of readers want to see. A bit of truth on blogs like yours and mine and they don't want to know.
Bossman Megarain, I have to say a far more exciting name than either James or Cassini, also had a comment, writing:
Good stuff .. Nice to see you maintaining the quality of output etc.

Have enjoyed many of this years blog posts .. people, dont say thanks enuf .. so, thanks.
I'm not sure that was a comment on the Big Pairs post so much as on 2016's 89 posts, but the kind words are appreciated, especially since Megarain appears to have run out of patience, per his post of 26.August:
Advantage gamblers need many disciplines .. one of which, is definitely self-control.
Self-control can form the realm of discipline of ones bank-roll, the avoidance of tilt .. and, in the general way, u go about helping others.
Writing a blog .. u get many novice gamblers, who ask 'stupid' questions. Stupid is probably wrong .. lets say, basic questions -
They should have researched, and gone about trying to use my time, by asking a better question.
I am tired .. as is Bob Dancer .. if u dont know, do some google searches .. and have had enough of just plain giving.
Its taken me 15 yrs to learn these skills .. I refuse to donate them, any longer.
I have to say I don't get many questions, presumably because I explain everything with such preciseness and clarity.

Going back a little, and Fizzer had a comment on my baseball observations, as he often does, and always worth reading they are too. He wrote: 
Yes you have made me a believer in MLB Shorts (or whatever title you have for them - you usually come up with better names!).
I think the reason the Texas Rangers have not been on the list much this year is because, unlike the Cubs where every baseball watcher has had them as the clear No1 rated team all year, there are a lot of people who are not convinced by the Rangers (me included), hence the better odds.
Doesn't mean I'm right of course but I have the Cubs clear top rated and also have the Nats, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Dodgers and others well ahead of the Rangers.
What the Rangers have been outstanding at is winning close games.
In fact last night they beat the Mariners 8-7 and that was the 30th game they have won this season by 1 run. In contrast they have only lost 8 by a 1-run margin. That ratio is exceptional. A .789 winning percentage in one-run contests would top the modern era single-season record (since 1900), which was set by the 2012 Orioles, who went 29-9 in such games (.763).

Those narrow wins, along with some heavy defeats along the way, doesn't push up their ratings much so, up until recently, you can see why the odds have been more generous on the Rangers.
Having said that, their rating is improving. They made good acquisitions at the trade deadline at the end of July, notably catcher Jonathan Lucroy, and, in addition to Cole Hamels being an elite Starting Pitcher all year, Yu Darvish has had more success with the help of more run support and the Rangers have won the last 5 games that he has started.
Given all that I'd agree that shorter odds are likely on the Rangers going forward. For me, unlikely to be value in following the Rangers in September.
Fizzer has looked far more deeply into the reason why the Texas Rangers have the second best record to date, yet haven't been market darlings until the past few days. [I'm a CEO, so I only have an hour a day for these things]. 

His findings are, as always, perfectly logical, and with the Rangers ability (luck?) at beating the odds in close games almost 80% of the time certain to regress to the mean at some point, Fizzer's thinking is that the value (if any) is more likely to be on the lay side in September. 

This assumes that the market hasn't noticed that the Rangers have been riding their luck, but given that they have been 1.5 or less on just three occasions so far this season, it appears the market has this one about right. 

Top analysis from Fizzer though, and it will be interesting to follow their results in September.

Here is an article on the topic that (coincidentally) was published yesterday afternoon on Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight site - The Texas Rangers Are Making (Unsustainable) History In One-Run GamesFizzer should apply for a job there.  

They have an easy schedule (on paper) with six games v Houston Astros (.534), four v Seattle Mariners (.511) and the remaining 18 games all against sub .500 teams - Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (.444), Oakland Athletics (.429), Milwaukee Brewers (.429) and Tampa Bay Rays (.424). 
The final comment received was also baseball related, with SportsPicksSystem writing:

Do you know Sports Data Query Language (SDQL)? It's great to check systems past performance. The one you play can be queried by line < -300. As you can see it's pretty risky since 2004, it's down by 39.65 units. You can also get the performance by season (line < -300 and season). The last 3 seasons have been profitable.
You can to check by yourself
http://sportsdatabase.com/mlb/query?output=default&su=1&sdql=line+%3C+-300+and+season&submit=++S+D+Q+L+%21++
BTW Nice blog
Two compliments in one day! Blimey - I must buy a lottery ticket. 

Thanks to Fizzer, I do have familiarity with SDQL, and I am well aware that for many years baseball was the darling child of the reverse favourite-longshot bias fan club, but since 2012 the numbers suggests things have changed as I have discussed before. Here are the returns from backing the 1.5 or shorter favourites over the past five seasons:
Contrast this with the previous five seasons 2007-2011:
That is a huge swing in P&L, to go from an average loss of 21.29 points a season (2007-11) to a profit of 19.62 (2012-16 - although this season is still in progress).

And another winner for the 75%+ club last night as the Cleveland Indians made their debut appearance in that range and beat the Minnesota Twins 8-4. 
A perfect August following on from a perfect July. 

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