Punter

Somehow I have managed to get these tips out, in between doing bits of my regular job. The week has not been too busy, just a case of managing expectations.  I will probably also have tomanage my expectations for these tips this week after nearly taking a clean sweep. In general though, I suspect it might have been a good week for most people, but that in it’s own right is an interesting thing. For tipping it’s not good if the computer behaves like a human, but a computer that behaves like a human, now thats something that should spark interest in anyone who knows what the turing test is

My best thought for this week is perhaps the Bulldogs, but I can help thinking that the Hawks might close the price gap later in the week (being the premiers), and there may be some better prices for the dogs on offer. The other interesting fact for this week is the Demons vs. the Eagles. Considering that not a lot seperates the teams on the ladder, the Eagles have an enormous percentage comparitivly.

Quote of the week:

“Before we work on artificial intelligence why don’t we do something about natural stupidity?”

Steve Polyak

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Magpies 56.33% $1.78 N/A Bombers 43.67% $2.29 N/A
Demons 18.12% $5.52 N/A Eagles 81.88% $1.22 N/A
Power 43.08% $2.32 N/A Lions 56.92% $1.76 N/A
Tigers 21.31% $4.69 N/A Crows 78.69% $1.27 N/A
Bulldogs 69.79% $1.43 N/A Hawks 30.21% $3.31 N/A
Swans 56.01% $1.79 N/A Kangaroos 43.99% $2.27 N/A
Saints 51.00% $1.96 N/A Cats 49.00% $2.04 N/A
Dockers 61.63% $1.62 N/A Blues 38.37% $2.61 N/A
Pre-Season: 5 correct tips from 15 games. 33% accuracy Premiership: 66 correct tips from 104 games. 63% accuracy Total: 71 correct tips from 119 games. 60% accuracy	4/9 44% 34/45 76% 38/54 70%	0/1 0% 21/34 62% 21/35 60%

Quote of the week:

“Study the past if you would define the future.”

Confucius

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Blues 24.48% $4.09 N/A Saints 75.52% $1.32 N/A
Bulldogs 56.95% $1.76 N/A Power 43.05% $2.32 N/A
Tigers 32.04% $3.12 N/A Eagles 67.96% $1.47 N/A
Hawks 53.38% $1.87 N/A Lions 46.62% $2.14 N/A
Crows 82.79% $1.21 N/A Kangaroos 17.21% $5.81 N/A
Bombers 62.33% $1.60 N/A Demons 37.67% $2.65 N/A
Swans 18.27% $5.47 N/A Magpies 81.73% $1.22 N/A
Dockers 7.76% $12.89 N/A Cats 92.24% $1.08 N/A
Pre-Season: 5 correct tips from 15 games. 33% accuracy Premiership: 53 correct tips from 88 games. 60% accuracy Total: 58 correct tips from 103 games. 56% accuracy	4/9 44% 25/35 71% 29/44 66%	0/1 0% 17/29 59% 17/30 57%

Finally things are back on track and we have some respectable looking tips, but of course no matter how nice the numbers look, it’s the results that count. No bookie’s odds to come at the moment, but hopefully I should have those streaming out in the next few weeks. I’m setting up a system to download a continual stream of the odds, so it may yield some interesting information about when odds shift, and perhaps why.

Quote of the week:

“We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act. ”

Charles Darwin

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Tigers 17.85% $5.60 N/A Bulldogs 82.15% $1.22 N/A
Kangaroos 28.58% $3.50 N/A Saints 71.42% $1.40 N/A
Lions 57.25% $1.75 N/A Blues 42.75% $2.34 N/A
Power 48.82% $2.05 N/A Dockers 51.18% $1.95 N/A
Bombers 38.33% $2.61 N/A Crows 61.67% $1.62 N/A
Hawks 41.33% $2.42 N/A Swans 58.67% $1.70 N/A
Eagles 23.26% $4.30 N/A Cats 76.74% $1.30 N/A
Demons 30.60% $3.27 N/A Magpies 69.40% $1.44 N/A
Pre-Season: 5 correct tips from 15 games. 33% accuracy Premiership: 48 correct tips from 80 games. 60% accuracy Total: 53 correct tips from 95 games. 56% accuracy	4/9 44% 21/31 68% 25/40 63%	0/1 0% 17/28 61% 17/29 59%

It’s taken a while, but I’m now capable of spitting out a few megre numbers. All I can say is that with a continual stream of work and other distractions, I can better appreciate the people who had to build the Bell Rock Lighthouse.There is still a bit of work to get my results formatted back into a better format, so for now the basic text version will have to do. Looking at the numbers, there doesn’t seem to anything that breask the status quo with the bookies. The only thing thatI can see is perhaps Adelaide, but otherwise not much there.

Carlton $1.77

West Coast $2.29

Wstn Bulldogs $1.98

Sydney $2.01

Nth Melbourne $2.42

Brisbane $1.70

Fremantle $1.65

Richmond $2.51

St. Kilda $1.20

Melbourne $5.96

Adelaide $2.32

Hawthorn $1.75

Essendon $3.23

Geelong $1.44

Collingwood $1.57

Port Adelaide $2.74

Hi all,

Just putting out a quick message to show that I am still breathing.

It has been a while since I’ve been back to put up any content, and to my horror, somehow I didn’t put up anything for th Grand Final last year!!!

I will be perhaps be a bit delayed in getting tips up this year. At the moment, I’m hoping about April, but I just have to see how it goes. My biggest issue is the co-location of my in-laws at my house at the moment, so we will just have to see how that ends….

Progress on improvements to Punter has stalled over the last few months with many a plan for a recent wedding (at least that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it). I have also been trying to bring myself up to speed on aspects of complex systems such as reading on Chaos theory and patterns within complex datasets. I’m now even more confident that the architecture within Punter is a sound decision based on a lot of reading I have done about natural systems.

Anyway, I will try and give an update when things get a little more back to normal.

 Cheers

Hoopa

Short & sharp is the order of the day this week. I had the flu last week, so even short & sharp wasn’t something I was too keen on. What can I say, not too many surprises from Punter at this end of the season, and despite clawing one back last week I’ve well and truly had my but kicked. For this week I think I’ll go with the Saints over the Hawks. I’d really like to see the Bulldogs in a grand final after so long, but something tells me that its going to be too big of a task to overcome Geelong.

Currently:
Punter: 8/11 (72.7%)
Me: 3/11 (27.3%)

My override for this week:
Saints to beat the Hawks

Quote of the week:
“Sooner or later, overconfidence meets reality and a correction occurs”
John Heil

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Cats:    66.683% $1.50 $1.10 Western Bulldogs:    33.317% $3.00 $7.00
Hawks:    53.083% $1.88 $1.33 Saints:    46.917% $2.13 $3.30
Finals: 3 correct tips from 6 games. 50.00% accuracy. Premiership: 110 correct tips from 176 games. 62.50% accuracy. Pre-Season: 10 correct tips from 15 games. 66.67% accuracy. Total: 123 correct tips from 197 games. 62.44% accuracy.	0/2 % 51/73 70% 4/7 57% 55/82 67%	3/3 100% 38/62 61% 3/4 75% 44/69 64%

Currently:
Punter: 8/10 (80%)
Me: 2/10 (20%)

My override for this week:
Saints to beat the Magpies

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Western Bulldogs:    55.385% $1.81 $1.75 Swans:    44.615% $2.24 $2.12
Saints:    35.631% $2.81 $2.12 Magpies:    64.369% $1.55 $1.75
Finals: 2 correct tips from 4 games. 50.00% accuracy. Premiership: 110 correct tips from 176 games. 62.50% accuracy. Pre-Season: 10 correct tips from 15 games. 66.67% accuracy. Total: 122 correct tips from 195 games. 62.56% accuracy.	0/1 % 51/73 70% 4/7 57% 55/81 68%	2/2 100% 38/62 61% 3/4 75% 43/68 63%

It’s that time of year again, Finals!!!. Hopefully we’ll get some good contests, even if the Eagles haven’t really had a hope of being in it since Round 1. For those not too savvy with AFL, I think good games are generally put into one of two categories, either a game where there is a nice close games with some pretty good skills on show, or, a game where Collingwood get the buried. Did that sound a little biased? Anyway….

A good close game would the opposite of my tipping ability, as I don’t have a hope of beating the computer. Rightly so the games look very close this week, which promises a good round of finals. Despite Punter going against the flow with the Kanagroos, I’m going to pick the Bulldogs this week to upset the Hawks. Hopefully that Coleman medal theory comes into it’s own, only time will tell.

Currently:
Punter: 7/9 (77.7%)
Me: 2/9 (22.3%)

My overrides this week:
Bulldogs to beat the Hawks

Quote of the week:
“Such is life”
Ned Kelly

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Hawks:    53.305% $1.88 $1.35 Western Bulldogs:    46.695% $2.14 $3.25
Crows:    60.948% $1.64 $1.63 Magpies:    39.052% $2.56 $2.30
Swans:    43.199% $2.31 $1.75 Kangaroos:    56.801% $1.76 $2.10
Cats:    57.970% $1.73 $1.14 Saints:    42.030% $2.38 $6.00
Finals: 0 correct tips from 0 games. 0% accuracy. Premiership: 110 correct tips from 176 games. 62.50% accuracy. Pre-Season: 10 correct tips from 15 games. 66.67% accuracy. Total: 120 correct tips from 191 games. 62.83% accuracy.	0/0 0% 51/73 70% 4/7 57% 55/80 69%	0/0 0% 38/62 61% 3/4 75% 41/66 62%

With all the hype around Buddy Franklin’s 100th goal on the weekend, it got me thinking to if the top goal kicker actually has any influence the premier. This was mainly triggered by the fact that Brendon Fevola nipping at Buddy’s heels, and Carlton aren’t exactly premiership material, so when would two so polar teams produce two key goal kickers, does there is perhaps no advantage to having a dominant forward position anymore in AFL football?

These are some quick numbers that I threw together on the past Coleman medalists, and the corresponding premiers. As you can see, there are only 4 occurrences in the last 20 years where a Coleman medalist has played in a premiership team. Premierships aside, the ladder position of the Coleman medalist’s team might also tell us something. Surely kicking more goals is a good thing, no? Apparently not, at least not in all cases. There are certainly quite a few 1 & 2’s, but finishing positions seem to run the gamut, right down to the wooden spoon, WTF? It is obviously not inconceivable that the wooden spooners would produce a Coleman medalist, but if that is the case, that suggests a seriously unbalanced team. Although it might go without saying, these numbers strongly suggest that a dominant keen forward may not be the only way to win through to a premiership.

On a slight aside, I also did a quick graph of the number of goals kicked by Coleman medalists (or would be Coleman Medalists as the medal was only introduced in 1955). This has not been adjusted to allow for the number of games played in each season, but it is still interesting to examine the goal kicking in AFL over time.