Punter

Luck is a funny ol’ thing isn’t it? Well from some extra reading I’ve been doing this week about chaos theory, perhaps there is no such things as luck. If an umpire screws up a decision, how does that ultimately effected the outcome of a match? A point should have been a goal, which means the ball doesn’t get bounced in the middle, but this also subtly means that players are in potentially different positions, they are also now that little bit more tired than they might have otherwise been. Only a little you might argue, but perhaps that little bit of fatigue is the point where injures start to occur? A player is injured? He misses some games, or the rest of the season? A teams fortunes change without that player? Coaches are sacked for less than loosing games. All from one bad decision from an umpire. Not something to dwell on too long, otherwise there is a severe risk of doing your head in…

Either way, I managed to nicely dance around a winner last week, but given some of the results it would require some brass balls to pick some of the winners. With Punter only getting 2 correct last week, you’d think there would be ample options, but even looking back now it would be very hard to make a hindsight call. On to this week.

Again this week I see two possibilities. Firstly I think the Lions are better than average chance after a fair showing last week, and I think the Western Derby could go topsy tuvey. I think I will definitely pick the Lions, but the Eagles, hmmm. Not exactly in what one would call red hot form (1 from about the last 8), but I just have a feeling about this game, so I’m gonna go with the Eagles as well.

Currently:
Punter: 2/2 (100%)
Me: 0/2 (0%)

My overrides this week:
Lions to beat the Kanagroos
Eagles to beat the Dockers

Quote of the week:
“CONSULTING: If you’re not a part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.”
Larry Kersten

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Magpies:    36.140% $2.77 $2.90 Hawks:    63.860% $1.57 $1.42
Bombers:    68.985% $1.45 $1.22 Demons:    31.015% $3.22 $4.35
Crows:    45.363% $2.20 $1.65 Blues:    54.637% $1.83 $2.25
Cats:    61.864% $1.62 $1.16 Tigers:    38.136% $2.62 $5.35
Kangaroos:    51.377% $1.95 $2.20 Lions:    48.623% $2.06 $1.68
Western Bulldogs:    53.219% $1.88 $1.48 Swans:    46.781% $2.14 $2.67
Saints:    63.681% $1.57 $1.15 Power:    36.319% $2.75 $5.50
Dockers:    74.790% $1.34 $1.55 Eagles:    25.210% $3.97 $2.47
Premiership: 84 correct tips from 136 games. 61.76% accuracy. Pre-Season: 10 correct tips from 15 games. 66.67% accuracy. Total: 94 correct tips from 151 games. 62.25% accuracy.	41/56 73% 4/7 57% 45/63 71%	26/49 53% 3/4 75% 29/53 55%

Well, it principle it was a good idea last week, but it seems that the system had other plans. Ok, so it wasn’t that bad, and given the results I didn’t really have much chance of picking a winner last week.

There are only a couple of options IMO this week. I would think that Lions are a better chance than they are shown as, and for some reason I would have picked the Dockers over the Power. Now the question that I have is, how much do I trust my judgment? I think the dockers are out as logic says that they are not likely winners at the best of times. That leaves the Lions. Now I could chicken out of this very easily and say I don’t know, but given the averages I know that Punter gets about three games wrong each week. I think with this info, I need to make a new rule that I must make at least one override each week. With that, the Lions it is.

Currently:
Punter: 1/1 (100%
Me: 0/1 (0%)

Quote of the week:
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
Albert Einstein

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Hawks: 50.284% $1.99 $3.15 Cats: 49.716% $2.01 $1.37
Bombers: 37.992% $2.63 $3.70 Magpies: 62.008% $1.61 $1.29
Eagles: 22.483% $4.45 $5.75 Saints: 77.517% $1.29 $1.14
Tigers: 57.010% $1.75 $1.63 Lions: 42.990% $2.33 $2.28
Swans: 53.247% $1.88 $1.44 Crows: 46.753% $2.14 $2.85
Power: 67.179% $1.49 $1.58 Dockers: 32.821% $3.05 $2.42
Demons: 16.548% $6.04 $4.75 Kangaroos: 83.452% $1.20 $1.19
Western Bulldogs: 66.754% $1.50 $1.28 Blues: 33.246% $3.01 $3.75
Premiership: 82 correct tips from 128 games. 64.06% accuracy. Pre-Season: 10 correct tips from 15 games. 66.67% accuracy. Total: 92 correct tips from 143 games. 64.34% accuracy.	40/53 75% 4/7 57% 44/60 73%	25/45 56% 3/4 75% 28/49 57%

This week I have have something little different to talk about. This is not so much a man Man vs. Machine scenario like that of the famous Kasparov vs. Deep Blue series, but more of a melding of Man & Machine. I’ve been reading about different ways that ‘expert’ knowledge & regression algorithms (formulas to predict outcomes, basically Punter is just a self learning regression algorithm). I’ve been reading about ways that expert knowledge can be added to results from regression algorithms to compliment the final result.

An interesting fact out of this was that more often that not, humans are over confident in their general predictions, and especially when experts were confronted with the fact that the algorithms might hold balance in the situation of a tie breaker decision. One approach taken to limit this human over confidence was to limit the number of times that a human could override the decision of the algorithm. 10% was a number stated in on place, but a sensible controlling factor was also put into place. If the incorrect number of overridden decisions exceeded 50%, then the number of overriding decisions should be reduced. Seems logical really, if the computer wins more often, then let it choose more often.

So, here is how this is going to work. Each week I’ll put up my tips, and then use the following rule set to possibly make some overriding decisions, and then look and see if the combined decisions improve the overall performance. This is not a replacement for the improvement of Punter, but instead might actually help identify trends to target the learning of Punter. For the 07 home & away season I’m averaging about 5 per week, so if I can even improve on 1 per week, that will be a big boost.

Rules:

• A maximum of 2 overrides can be made each week. That is 25% of the tips.
• At the end of the season, the performance will be reviewed, and we might adjust how many overrides can be made.

Now, I’d hardly call myself an expert tipper (or I wouldn’t build Punter, would I). The challenge that I have is if anyone reckons that can go one up on me using the rules above, then feel free to post you’re alternatives as comments to the tips page each week. Ok, now the tips.

My overrides for this week:

• Magpies will beat the Kangaroos

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Kangaroos:    53.785% $1.86 $2.75 Magpies:    46.215% $2.16 $1.46
Cats:    57.334% $1.74 $1.58 Western Bulldogs:    42.666% $2.34 $2.40
Tigers:    50.180% $1.99 $1.60 Bombers:    49.820% $2.01 $2.35
Lions:    58.228% $1.72 $1.10 Eagles:    41.772% $2.39 $7.50
Saints:    49.944% $2.00 $2.80 Hawks:    50.056% $2.00 $1.45
Blues:    28.260% $3.54 $2.35 Swans:    71.740% $1.39 $1.62
Power:    14.068% $7.11 $2.05 Crows:    85.932% $1.16 $1.78
Dockers:    67.032% $1.49 $1.44 Demons:    32.968% $3.03 $2.85
Premiership: 76 correct tips from 120 games. 63.33% accuracy. Pre-Season: 10 correct tips from 15 games. 66.67% accuracy. Total: 86 correct tips from 135 games. 63.70% accuracy.	39/51 76% 4/7 57% 43/58 74%	20/40 50% 3/4 75% 23/44 52%

How many idiots does it take to screw in a light bulb? As many as your budget allows for. They’ll all tell you they know how to do it, each will have a different approach, and none will actually have any idea what they are doing. Suffice to say I’ve had a long couple of weeks, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Let’s just hope it’s not that bloody train again. I’ve been doing some interesting reading around some of the data analysis techniques for data mining large datasets, and perhaps in the near future I might be able to employ some of the techniques to provide some more insight into the world of AFL. Very interesting stuff, especially when you take into account that when you buy something online, you could actually be part of one giant experiment…

Well the split round is over, and we’re back into a normal ol’ weekend of footy. My percentages didn’t budge too much over the last fortnight, but the Dons & the Pies did come good for me.

The forecast for this weekend:
Friday night will bring a tight arm wrestle, finally seeing the Saints getting and edge. This will continue onto Saturday afternoon until a strong hiding in the form of Geelong belting Freo all over the park. Saturday evening should return to some tight arm wrestles, before Sunday where there is a high likelihood that an severely undermanned Swans will be blown away by a far stronger Hawks unit. The rest of Sunday should be pretty clear sailing with the Bulldogs easily accounting for cellar dwelling Demons.

Quote of the week:
“The wise man questions the wisdom of others because he questions his own, the foolish man, because it is different from his own.”
Leo Stein

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Blues:    46.620% $2.15 $1.90 Saints:    53.380% $1.87 $2.00
Magpies:    56.906% $1.76 $1.37 Crows:    43.094% $2.32 $2.88
Cats:    85.754% $1.17 $1.07 Dockers:    14.246% $7.02 $11.00
Bombers:    46.116% $2.17 $2.38 Lions:    53.884% $1.86 $1.64
Power:    50.122% $2.00 $1.50 Kangaroos:    49.878% $2.00 $1.95
Hawks:    49.865% $2.01 $1.35 Swans:    50.135% $1.99 $2.10
Western Bulldogs:    71.571% $1.40 $1.06 Demons:    28.429% $3.52 $3.50
Eagles:    56.124% $1.78 $1.55 Tigers:    43.876% $2.28 $1.84
Premiership: 72 correct tips from 112 games. 64.29% accuracy. Pre-Season: 10 correct tips from 15 games. 66.67% accuracy. Total: 82 correct tips from 127 games. 64.57% accuracy.	37/49 76% 4/7 57% 41/56 73%	19/37 51% 3/4 75% 22/41 54%