Punter

All good things have to come to an end, and as such we are at the end of the 2008 home & away season. As goes the saying “it’s all relative”, and I suppose good is only defined by the fact your team doesn’t get flogged week in and week out. When all is said & done, the year in general hasn’t been too bad.

I’m afraid I can’t say the same for the poor, overconfident, humans over the past few weeks. To point out the stupidly obvious, I could have purposely stupid decisions to make the computer look better, but you’ll have to just trust me that I suck at tipping football games. So much so that I have managed a meager 25% hit rate so far. I will bravely continue on into the finals, but I would need a small miracle at this rate just to break even.

Without further a do, the tips for the last round of the 2008 home & away, and then launch into another finals campaign. This round looks to be one of the hardest I’ve seen in a while. On really little more than a hunch, I’m going to say that the Bulldogs will win over the Crows. My rationale??? I just think so. I really don’t have anything much better than that at the moment.

Currently:
Punter: 6/8 (75%)
Me: 2/8 (25%)

My overrides this week:
Bulldogs to beat the Crows

Quote of the week:
“The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.”
Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Dockers:    46.794% $2.14 $2.65 Magpies:    53.206% $1.88 $1.48
Kangaroos:    56.231% $1.78 $1.19 Power:    43.769% $2.28 $4.75
Cats:    74.961% $1.33 $1.01 Eagles:    25.039% $3.99 $15.00
Crows:    61.940% $1.61 $1.82 Western Bulldogs:    38.060% $2.63 $2.00
Blues:    46.666% $2.14 $2.95 Hawks:    53.334% $1.87 $1.40
Swans:    67.139% $1.49 $1.48 Lions:    32.861% $3.04 $2.65
Demons:    23.040% $4.34 $4.75 Tigers:    76.960% $1.30 $1.19
Bombers:    28.646% $3.49 $6.25 Saints:    71.354% $1.40 $1.12
Premiership: 106 correct tips from 168 games. 63.10% accuracy. Pre-Season: 10 correct tips from 15 games. 66.67% accuracy. Total: 116 correct tips from 183 games. 63.39% accuracy.	49/69 71% 4/7 57% 53/76 70%	36/60 60% 3/4 75% 39/64 61%

Welcome to the special Saturday edition of Punter this week….mainly because I forgot to get my tips out by last night. I’ve been distracted for most of the week with trying to get an XML parser to work in some c++ code. Thankfully I won that battle, but it was real fight finding a good XML parser. I wasn’t losing too much sleep as the fact the Bulldogs won last night didn’t come as any great surprise, then I just saw the Punter results…

Now if I had of done these last night the Dogs would be an obvious override, but given that game is over, I’m just going to have to pick another one. I’m looking at either the Crows over the Saints, or Swans over the Magpies. I’m tempted to go with the Crows again, but I’m not sure if they’re capable of three in a row, so I’m going to go with Swans.

Currently:
Punter: 5/7 (71.4%)
Me: 2/7 (28.6%)

My overrides this week:
Swans to beat the Magpies

Reference of the week:
Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? (Paper)
Edward Lorenz

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Western Bulldogs:    45.418% $2.20 $1.12 Bombers:    54.582% $1.83 $6.25
Tigers:    61.576% $1.62 $1.35 Dockers:    38.424% $2.60 $3.20
Power:    57.788% $1.73 $1.37 Demons:    42.212% $2.37 $3.10
Lions:    82.124% $1.22 $1.45 Blues:    17.876% $5.59 $2.75
Magpies:    56.647% $1.77 $1.74 Swans:    43.352% $2.31 $2.10
Cats:    62.028% $1.61 $1.15 Kangaroos:    37.972% $2.63 $5.25
Saints:    59.236% $1.69 $1.75 Crows:    40.764% $2.45 $2.08
Eagles:    45.682% $2.19 $6.25 Hawks:    54.318% $1.84 $1.12
Premiership: 100 correct tips from 160 games. 62.50% accuracy. Pre-Season: 10 correct tips from 15 games. 66.67% accuracy. Total: 110 correct tips from 175 games. 62.86% accuracy.	48/67 72% 4/7 57% 52/74 70%	32/56 57% 3/4 75% 35/60 58%

Not much to say this week. Things started to look up last weekend, but ideas of the Bulldogs being a safe bet bit me in the ass big time. I think I’m going to run with a good thing. Seems the system thinks the Crows are under dogs, but I think they have a better than 50% chance.

Currently:
Punter: 5/6 (83.3%)
Me: 1/6 (16.7%)

My overrides this week:
Crows to beat the Bombers

Quote of the week:
“Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.”
Peter Drucker

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Power:    27.228% $3.67 $2.90 Magpies:    72.772% $1.37 $1.42
Bombers:    57.691% $1.73 $2.13 Crows:    42.309% $2.36 $1.72
Demons:    12.524% $7.98 $1.91 Eagles:    87.476% $1.14 $1.91
Lions:    38.661% $2.59 $2.10 Western Bulldogs:    61.339% $1.63 $1.75
Swans:    29.634% $3.37 $4.35 Cats:    70.366% $1.42 $1.22
Tigers:    28.399% $3.52 $4.25 Hawks:    71.601% $1.40 $1.23
Blues:    41.183% $2.43 $2.20 Kangaroos:    58.817% $1.70 $1.68
Dockers:    46.200% $2.16 $1.60 Saints:    53.800% $1.86 $2.35
Premiership: 96 correct tips from 152 games. 63.16% accuracy. Pre-Season: 10 correct tips from 15 games. 66.67% accuracy. Total: 106 correct tips from 167 games. 63.47% accuracy.	46/63 73% 4/7 57% 50/70 71%	32/55 58% 3/4 75% 35/59 59%

I write this post with much haste this week as I have my girlfriend breathing down my neck to help her with a problem with some Java code. Ah, if only when some people had good ideas, they didn’t take their time to shut their mouth first and we may not be plagued with things such as Java. In principle a good idea, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a thing that has going to be ‘the next big thing’ for such a long period of time, and still has not delivered on many of it’s promises. Anyhow, enough diverting from my woeful performance last weekend…

It’s official, I suck at tipping football games. My computer is conclusively beating the crap out of me after a few rounds, and if this continues on, I’ll be lucky if I can pick one game a year when I go to revise the ratios. Fair enough the computer is probably not as good as it seems, that would actually require to provide it some form of competition (i.e. not me) to fairly compare it to. In my defense, the Lions have dropped the ball for me over the last couple of weeks at the last second. I won’t make that mistake again this week …. I hope.

I think this first one is a fairly safe bet. I can’t see the Kangaroos getting up over the Bulldogs. Then I spy the Crows. A close game by Punter standards, but a gut feeling from me says Crows. I must say this messes with the head, as you wonder why th computer came up with the numbers and if there is some subtle facto that you are overlooking. Not worth dwelling on unless you want a headache. On that note, I’m also going to pick the Crows too.

Currently:
Punter: 4/4 (100%)
Me: 0/4 (0%)

My overrides this week:
Bulldogs to beat the Kanagroos
Crows to beat the Tigers

Quote of the week:
“Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.”
Anonymous

Probability Punter Bookie	Gold	Silver
Demons:    14.295% $7.00 $13.00 Cats:    85.705% $1.17 $1.03
Blues:    62.456% $1.60 $1.24 Power:    37.544% $2.66 $4.10
Hawks:    62.632% $1.60 $1.21 Lions:    37.368% $2.68 $4.50
Magpies:    35.895% $2.79 $2.30 Saints:    64.105% $1.56 $1.63
Swans:    64.717% $1.55 $1.45 Dockers:    35.283% $2.83 $2.77
Kangaroos:    61.179% $1.63 $2.30 Western Bulldogs:    38.821% $2.58 $1.62
Crows:    49.799% $2.01 $1.63 Tigers:    50.201% $1.99 $2.30
Eagles:    25.101% $3.98 $2.60 Bombers:    74.899% $1.34 $1.50
Premiership: 91 correct tips from 144 games. 63.19% accuracy. Pre-Season: 10 correct tips from 15 games. 66.67% accuracy. Total: 101 correct tips from 159 games. 63.52% accuracy.	44/59 75% 4/7 57% 48/66 73%	29/52 56% 3/4 75% 32/56 57%