Neutral Nuisance

A unique scenario in the Europa Conference League last night as Olympiacos became the first team in European Competition spreadsheet history, i.e. since 2004, to overcome a three goal deficit from the First Leg.

It's not uncommon for a team with a comfortable lead from the First Leg to lose, but previously losses have never prevented the team from advancing.     

Maccabi Tel Aviv were handicapped by having to play their "Home" Leg in Serbia and after winning the First Leg 4:1 in Greece, they proceeded to lose 1:6 at "Home" in the Second Leg after extra time - the score was 1:4 after 90 minutes.

Backing the draw following a goalless First Leg is usually a bad idea, but the Viktoria Plzeň and Servette Second Leg also finished 0:0 and these results meant that the Rounds of 16 across all three tournaments resulted in a loss of 0.82 units although some subscribers may have skipped the Neutral venue game, a scenario I'm ashamed to admit the Sacred Manuscript author didn't consider.

After a rare visit to my Spam folder, I found a very pleasing email from someone who calls himself 'Anonymous fan.' My bad that the email was sent almost one month ago, but he wrote:

Hey Cassini,

Thank you for your work and your blog. I really appreciate everything you do. I have been messing around with killer sports since you introduced me to it and I have a lot of fun thinking about things that may matter for the sports I enjoy.

I think I may have found an intriguing one for NHL.

I won't reveal the find, which does look very interesting, but the most pleasing part of it is that this blog apparently does sometimes achieve one of its objectives, i.e. encouraging readers to explore ideas of their own.

I haven't talked about NHL much this season - the systems in the Sacred Manuscript are both boringly in small profit territory, the Basic by just 0.2% and the Premium by 2.5% - but Anonymous fan's discovery blows these numbers away with an ROI of 17.8% this season, and all time of 8.7% since 2006 and a total of more than 1,000 selections. 

Anonymous Fan explained his rationale and concluded his email with:

It seems to be steadily profitable year after year, present a solid number of plays, and the games that meet the criteria are typically quite enjoyable to watch. I am not very good at math or statistics though so maybe it is too small a sample? Either way I was curious to get your thoughts.

I ran the numbers through Joseph Buchdahl's "Testing Your Betting Model" spreadsheet:

and the 1-in-x probability came out to 8032. Very impressive, and with a selection last night I dipped my toes in the water and was rewarded with a winner.