Punter

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.

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%

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%