Saturday, 26 August 2023

Weddings, Shadows, Magpies and Manuscripts

I shall be taking a few days off starting with today to take advantage of the Bank Holiday Monday and after spending a few days in the Faversham area, will be attending a wedding in Bridport next Saturday before heading home via the New Forest. 

It seems that the older I get, the more my calendar is filled with special occasions. Funerals and internments are one, not very pleasant category, but with two sisters come nephews and nieces, as well as my own children and grandchildren, and so there are the more enjoyable occasions such as weddings. births and birthday celebrations. 

There's already one wedding planned for July next year, and as an amateur shadow chaser, I shall be taking time out next Spring to visit old friends in Arkansas and see the April 8th Total Solar Eclipse there. It'll be my third, and if you've not experienced one before, there is nothing like it. 

I shall also be climbing Ben Nevis next year to complete the highest points in England, Wales and Scotland. I'm not getting any younger, and it's now or never with some of these more physical bucket-list items. 

I've managed to get hold of a copy of the Billy Walters' book I mentioned in my last post - Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk, and at 25 pages in, it looks like a great read, and one that should be finished by the end of my trip. 

I'm something of a Walters fanboy, and I've added a couple of articles written about him here and here. He lives fairly close to my wife's parents' home, although on my latest visit to the area I walked by his cliff-top home and noticed it was for sale - at a mere $27million or so. And no, my in-laws house is not on the same street, unfortunately! 
The all-time total number of views for this blog is approaching 3 million, and with a bit of luck this milestone will be passed by my return.

Steve left a comment on that last post, writing:
Hi Cassini, I hope all is well. An enjoyable read, as usual!

If the premise is solely around home field advantage how does the picture look if we support all road teams ( either via spread or M/L )?

All the best and much appreciated.

Ps I’d be interested to hear more on the ‘sacred manuscript’.

Best regards
Steve
Well, as is usually the case, blindly following a basic strategy here doesn't work too well. I replied to Steve:
It would be nice if it was as simple as just backing all NFL Road Teams but there is a definite difference between games where the spread is more than one touchdown and extra point, and the closer games.

Where the spread is 8 or more points, since 2002 the record for the Road Team in regular season matches is 414 - 455 - 15, i.e. just 47.6% - when the spread is less than 8, the majority of matches, the win percentage is 51.8% and in the 'sweet spot' it's up to 54.7%.
It's taken me a lot longer to finish than I'd hoped, or indeed expected, but the 2023-24 version of the 'Sacred Manuscript' is now finally available

The American Football season starts today with the College version of the game, and the NFL opening game on 7th September, a Thursday night and while updating the document for these systems was a pleasure, this wasn't the case for all systems. The EPL Draw System had a losing season, the Bundeslayga for Home teams was a loser, as well as being rather a complicated system to apply, but the other football (soccer) systems were all profitable.

For the US sports, the NBA went south after 16 consecutive profitable seasons for one system, and 8 for the totals. A blip, or has the edge finally gone? 

Baseball went on hold after all the rule changes which have upset the markets, although the two systems effective around the All-Star Break were both profitable as were the NHL systems. 

Overall it was a good year, and while I'd like every system to be profitable, that's not exactly a realistic proposition. 

I've added a few more football (soccer) systems for this season, as well as explained how newly promoted teams to the EPL impact betting, and discuss whether the Big 6 - which also have an impact on profits - should now be a Big 7. 

Last season was too early in my opinion, with FFP rules slowing the ability of Newcastle United to join the others, but they arguably over-achieved and in qualifying for the Champions League, have accelerated their likely rate of progress. I think there's a case to be made for calling it a Big 7 now. 

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