Ordered by Wins

Congratulations to Betfair Pro Trader on passing the 600k page views today.

James suggests that:

By the time it gets to 1.5M Green All Under will be pushing 3M.

At the current 2017 rate of 787 hits per day, I make it 4.99 years before I reach that milestone, but this year's hit rate is far above that of 2016, when a mere 436 hits a day were received. 

I must be doing something right! 

On the topic of my last post regarding the VIX trader, James commented:

I read the article too, which is probably why I used it as an example in my tweet.

50 cent could be a bot and part of an algo-trading firm. It could well be a profitable bot as we don't know what the other half of the hedge is. A losing algo would have long been terminated.

Interesting that although one side of the hedge has been recognised in the markets, the other side hasn't been, perhaps it is because it is spread more thinly across multiple markets, but then the financial markets are far deeper than say the 2:15 at Ripon so even large sums of money are insignificant in the whole scheme of things.

Some of you may recall the Betfair trader who started laying the draw in Rugby matches back in 2008 - it was a strategy that was soon identified, and given that he was playing with fire, a lot of people were watching to see when he would get burned, as he inevitably did.

On my ties in baseball post, James commented:

I would have thought that wins in a football league is perfectly fine. I struggle to remember the last league champion that didn't win the most games.

If teams have an equal win count then they should be ordered by the combined results between them.

Looking back at the last five EPL seasons, the last four were won by teams winning the most games. The one before those four was tied between Man City and Man United with 28 wins each.

However, taking City's 1-0 and 6-1 victories over United gives them the edge. They also won by goal difference using the current system.

Well think again James. While ordering by wins is usually fine at the top of the table, it is certainly not always the case.  

In 1983-84, four teams all had 22 wins (Liverpool, Southampton, Nottingham Forest and Queens Park Rangers) while seasons such as 1911-12, 1952-53, 1954-55, 1971-72 and 1985-86 also get complicated with three teams all winning the same number of games. 

For those interested, and who could possibly not love this stuff? : 

In 1911-12 Blackburn Rovers would have kept their title after winning the tie-break against Everton and Bolton Wanderers.

In 1952-53, champions Arsenal would have lost out to second placed Preston North End or fourth placed West Bromwich Albion.

1954-55 would have seen sixth placed Aston Villa crowned champions over fifth placed Manchester United and first placed Chelsea.

1971-72 would have seen the title go to Leeds United rather than Derby County, with Liverpool also level on wins. 

In 1985-86, Liverpool, Everton and West Ham United all won 26 games, with Liverpool winning a mini-league of the three clubs.

In 1924-25, Huddersfield Tow were champions despite two other teams (West Bromwich Albion and Bolton Wanderers) winning more matches. In 1927-28, Huddersfield Town won more games than Everton, but placed second. 

After the Second World War, Liverpool were crowned champions in 1947, yet won the same number of games as third placed Wolverhampton Wanderers who would have won the league based on the head-to-head results.

Burnley would have lost out to Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1960 and Derby County (for the second time) would have lost their 1974-75 title to Ipswich Town.

Queens Park Rangers would have won their only title in 1975-76, and in the Premier League era, Arsenal would have won the league in 1998-99 at the expense of Manchester United.

When time permits, I'll try to remember to take a look at the bottom of the table as well as at some of the lower divisions. I'm sure most of you can't wait.