System Integrity?

[ploben]

Well, that's another reason I like the individuality we are finding possible in this. If you choose to play this as a system chase, and you choose the picks to play each day, then you only have yourself to blame if it fails. The flip side of that is you can give yourself a little bit of credit if it succeeds. You're not just blindly following picks posted on a message board, voiding yourself of all responsibility. You actually have some control here if you want it. I think that makes this "system" not only potentially less risky, but infinitely more fun.

Following any advice/system/individual without doing any research is just plain silly. Be that as it may, (some) systems are profitable because of the rigorus following and lack of tweeking, thus back-tested is possible and you can easily see if a system is worth it or not.

Take today...about 4 or 5 different teams are going to be bet on. SOme people like to follow the highest opening line, the highest line during the day, and some are looking at the big favs today and passing on a few (like BOS and ATL) and moving on to a fav. that might put up the runs (due to recent performance, pitching matchup etc.)

I would encourage everyone to take their knowledge of this "system" and use it to the best of it's ability...that is to look for the heavy favs with good RLs and run with it. Research how a team how done at a certain park against the certain pitcher. It makes it tough to have uniform record for this "system" but one can start a record in their signature and track picks on a spreadsheet and have the info available if needed.

The only person responisble for what happenes to your betting money is YOURSELF.

[ploben]

Plus, after this month you will start to see a bit of seperation from the teams. The 4 or 5 teams hanging around -150 will fade and you will see clear cut board favs.

[jellobiafra]

Plus, after this month you will start to see a bit of seperation from the teams. The 4 or 5 teams hanging around -150 will fade and you will see clear cut board favs.

That's true. In addition, the back-testing of last season was for the months of May through August. April was not included. We're flying a little bit blind here already.

[G's pks]

Again the problem here... one person should be running the thread. One person (person running thread) should be posting pick bolded with odds... and keeping a daily record.. This like most of the systems used in nba threads already turning into a circus...

[jellobiafra]

Again the problem here... one person should be running the thread. One person (person running thread) should be posting pick bolded with odds... and keeping a daily record.. This like most of the systems used in nba threads already turning into a circus...

Well, I think what we've decided this morning is that there's too much volatility in the lines (at least this early in the season) to really have a clear cut pick every day. We're all relatively intelligent people who have made the reasoned decision to play this the way we each shall choose to play it. Thanks for the lesson, though. Sorry if we've disappointed you.

[ploben]

I agree with jello and really with other MLB systems out there...you have to wait till May to get the bats going and get teams rolling. Early indication of this? The Red Sox will not continue to play .300 ball, the Yankees pitching will not suck (as much), and KC will find itself knocked on it's own ass in the AL Central.

[netinfo]

For simplicity sake, and for the purpose of testing the system, I think this should be followed:

jellobiafra's picks should be the only ones "officially" posted on this thread. I agree that it should be in bold, and with a running total/record. Others can post and play what they want, but for an "official" testing of this system for 2009, jello's daily picks should be it.

As far as the variances among books, I'm not sure what this system calls for in situations where one book has the highest favored team, and another book has a different highest favored team. Does this system call for a consistent usage of one book, in order for the chase to hold, or does it call for a multiple usage of books? In any case, for an official testing of this system, this question of one book versus multiple books has to be decided. If multiple books are going to be used, then the official daily picks should also list the particular book that was used each day.

As far as the time frame, a decision needs to be made as to when the daily picks are going to be chosen. Whichever time frame (overnight, morning, afternoon, right before game) is chosen, there has to be a consistent usage of it. For example, if overnight is chosen, then each daily pick needs to reflect the overnight odds on that pick.

I recommend jellobiafra to make these decisions above for the official testing. If jello does not want to, then someone else can step up if you like. One thing for sure, it's not going to be me!

netinfo

[jellobiafra]

Sorry netinfo. I appreciate the vote of confidence, but it's not going to be me either. I've said before, I'm going my own way with this and using a variation of the system to meet my needs in a pick (i.e. (+) run line odds and a belief that it's a solid choice). I think if someone is going to take over the record keeping for this, it should start May 1st. I think there are just too many question marks this early in the season. I wish you all luck in this and any other endeavors. I'm now resigning from this thread for the time being.

[netinfo]

No problem jello, thanks for the contribution you've made on this thread.

Take care,

netinfo

[brooks85]

As of now I am using the odds on SBR live odds. Whatever line has the highest opener is my pick. Im on Stl -1.5 for the B bet.

[brooks85]

And when there is a ML tie, ill will take whatever team has better odds on the RL. If that is a tie, I will cross that bridge when I come to it. I was thinking, not sure if this would hurt or help, but maybe just skip that day, wait for a clear ML favorite the next day.

[BettorBob]

This is a very interesting thread. I backtested bsebal7's original description of the system, with the following adjustments:

1. I ran all the regular season games from 1999-2008 as if they were one big long season (with over 24,000 games). That way I don't have to stop betting 6 games before the end of each season.

2. I started a new series every day, regardless of whether I was currently chasing other losses. Of course, this means that I am frequently placing multiple bets in a day, and it is possible that more than one of those bets could be on the same team.

The purpose of these changes was simply to get as much available data as possible. I didn't want to skip opening a new series if there was already one in play, as this would drastically reduce the sample size for the results. I just wanted a percentage of the series that will end up losing all 6 bets. The data I'm using came from covers.com.

Anyway, the system's overall record betting the -1.5 runline was 1754-60. The breakdown was as follows:

920 series were won after 1 game.
407 series were won after 2 games.
209 series were won after 3 games.
113 series were won after 4 games.
70 series were won after 5 games.
35 series were won after 6 games.
60 series were not won.

Covers.com only shows the moneyline data, so I can't calculate the juice on the runline to figure out how bad the drawdown would be. But it's fair to say that you will lose a 6-game series around 3-4% of the time.

[ploben]

920 series were won after 1 game.
407 series were won after 2 games.
209 series were won after 3 games.
113 series were won after 4 games.
70 series were won after 5 games.
35 series were won after 6 games.
60 series were not won.

Covers.com only shows the moneyline data, so I can't calculate the juice on the runline to figure out how bad the drawdown would be. But it's fair to say that you will lose a 6-game series around 3-4% of the time.

This is excelent work buddy.

Over 9 seasons it only loses 3.307%. If you lost the same percentage for each year it averages out to 0.3675%.

[brooks85]

Awesome work. Starting a new chase everyday sounds appealing. See how things work out over the next couple months.

[jellobiafra]

2. I started a new series every day, regardless of whether I was currently chasing other losses. Of course, this means that I am frequently placing multiple bets in a day, and it is possible that more than one of those bets could be on the same team.

How is it possible for any of those bets to be on any other team? If you are using the biggest favorite of the day....there's only one biggest favorite a day? I'm confused.

[BettorBob]

This is excelent work buddy.

Over 9 seasons it only loses 3.307%. If you lost the same percentage for each year it averages out to 0.3675%.

Ummm I don't think that's how percentages work. You seem to simply be dividing 3.307% by 9 (should be 10 since we're doing 1999-2008).

In any given season you will win about 175 times and lose about 6 times. The system loses 3.3% of the time on average regardless of how many seasons you're talking about.

[BettorBob]

How is it possible for any of those bets to be on any other team? If you are using the biggest favorite of the day....there's only one biggest favorite a day? I'm confused.

Okay, here's an example. Say that on Monday, the across-the-board favorite is Mets -220. They lose. On Tuesday, the Mets are down to -190 so the across-the-board favorite is Cubs -200. So on Tuesday, we would have to open a new series with the Cubs, and chase our Monday loss with the Mets. (Hopefully they're not playing each other!)

[jellobiafra]

Well that's great data Bob, but it's not really the same system we have been discussing. Not that I don't like your twist on it, or the results. But the way we've been doing this is just chasing the biggest favorite on a daily basis - not one team until they hit.

Your new approach might be something to consider.

[BettorBob]

Well that's great data Bob, but it's not really the same system we have been discussing. Not that I don't like your twist on it, or the results. But the way we've been doing this is just chasing the biggest favorite on a daily basis - not one team until they hit.

Your new approach might be something to consider.

Oh I see... I guess I misinterpreted the original post. Upon reading the phrase "continue to play them for 6 days...", I was under the impression that a single team would be chased. (In theory, my plan should provide better results... if requested, I'll write up a long, boring detailed post as to why this is.)

Anyway, I'll redo my backtest and see what I come up with.

[jellobiafra]

Oh I see... I guess I misinterpreted the original post. I was under the impression that one team would be chased until they won. (In theory, my plan should provide better results... if requested, I'll write up a long, boring detailed post as to why this is.)

Anyway, I'll redo my backtest and see what I come up with.

I like where you're going with this. Please don't be discouraged at all. For all I know you may have just re-invented the wheel.

Can you give me the cliff's notes on why in theory this way should provide better results?

[jellobiafra]

Runline Chase: play the biggest favorite on the board daily, on the runline and continue to play them for 6 days or until a Win is achieved. Once a win is achieved the Chase is over and a new one starts the next day, so only one play per day here. In other words, the biggest favorite on the board must win by 2 or more runs, once every 6 days.

There is room for ambiguity there. The first sentence would lead one to your interpretation, the second sentence would lead one to the interpretation we've been applying so far. I don't really know. I'm definitely interested in hearing you out on this.

[BettorBob]

Okay, I re-ran my backtest with the clarified rules. The record this time was 925-13.

484 series were won after 1 game.
224 series were won after 2 games.
116 series were won after 3 games.
62 series were won after 4 games.
26 series were won after 5 games.
13 series were won after 6 games.
13 series were not won.

So here we have a 1.39% loss rate. Which looks better on paper, but it really isn't, since the odds on the runline aren't deflating. (I'll post a somewhat longer explanation about that here in a few.) Unfortunately, I don't have any runline stats, just the moneylines from covers.com.

[ploben]

Right..brain fart on the % math...don't know what I was thinking...long day

[BettorBob]

Okay, so here's my little diatribe on why chasing losses on one team only might, in certain situations, be profitable.

Let's say we're a bookie and we're taking bets on a coin flip. The coin is perfectly fair. Since we're a bookie, we want to attract equal action on both sides (that is, we want our total liability to be as close to even as possible, regardless of who wins). So before the first flip, we set our odds to look like this:

Heads -110
Tails -110

Now obviously, even though the coin is perfectly fair, it's perfectly normal to see streaks one way or the other. That's just the nature of random. Similarly, there's a lot of randomness in any sporting event, especially baseball. One lucky pitch could be the difference between a strikeout and a game-winning homer.

Anyway, Heads wins the game. No doubt the announcers have been talking nonstop about all the things that Heads did right and Tails did wrong, and of course all our bettors watched this exciting game of coin flip from start to finish and soaked in all this insightful info. They probably made several of their own observations as well. And Lily Allen performed the national anthem.

So now Heads is 1 and 0 for the season. Good start. So now it's time for Game 2. Since Heads has just proven itself in its most recent outing vs. Tails, we're expecting Heads to get a bit more action:

Heads -115
Tails -105

Heads wins again. Heads is now 2-0 and Tails is 0-2. Poor Tails. They just can't catch a break. Heads, on the other hand, is clearly gaining some momentum and shows no signs of stopping. The geniuses on Best Damn Sports Show Period are predicting that the Heads are easily going to make the playoffs this year. So now we can definitely expect even more action on Heads for Game 3:

Heads -125
Tails +105

Okay, that should be enough of an example to show how the odds on our two "teams" will move based on their recent performance. You'd see some really big moves if Heads record went up to, say, 4-1, even though this could very easily happen simply due to chance. (I just flipped a half-dollar 5 times, and got Tails, Heads, Tails, Tails, Tails.)

So what I'm saying is, the lines at the bookie are easily beatable if the only reason they're moving is random chance. In our coin flip example, none of our bettors will be right more than 50% of the time consistently, but if the clever ones only bet when the odds are positive, they are guaranteed to win in the long run.

This is because they know how coins work, and they know there's exactly a 50% chance of each side winning. But in sports, obviously, it's not always 50-50. If two baseball teams play each other, one side likely has an advantage.

So if we want to make money, all we need to do is calculate the exact chance of each baseball team winning, and when the payout crosses that threshold, we start betting. Except we can't do that, because we don't know the exact chance of either team winning the game.

So here's where we get back to chasing...

In the coin flip example above, we didn't need to know that the chances of Tails winning were exactly 50%. If we had just started betting on Tails, and chasing our losses, then eventually the line on Tails would drop past the threshold and our future bets would be +EV, even if we didn't know precisely when this occurred.

But it's very important to note that this only works because the events in the chase series are related. The odds on Tails keep dropping because Tails keeps losing. This is why it's important that we only follow one team in the chase -- if we chase a loss on the Braves by betting on the Yankees, we're not helping ourselves because neither the odds nor the chance of the Yankees winning is affected by the Braves losing. We are guaranteed to go broke with this strategy.

Of course, there are many other factors in baseball, just like any other sport. Nothing is as simple as I've just made it out to be. Maybe the team we started betting on was overvalued from the beginning. Maybe there was an injury. Maybe they just plain suck. We can't know everything about a baseball game the way we can about a coin flip. Which is why this, or any chase system, should never be blindly followed. Welcome to handicapping.

[jellobiafra]

So Bob, just to be clear, the first set of data you provided were the results if you had chased the same team at -1.5 runs for up to 6 games? Does that mean even if for one or more games during the streak they weren't the favorite you would go reverse run line? Or did you even incur that? I'm thinking it would be rare but probable to occur occasionally. If your numbers show they win by 2 at some point, underdog or not, then it would obviously be wise to bet them on the reverse run as a dog and cut your ante significantly.

I'm also wondering if you used have tested this using the -1 model and what those numbers look like.... if you pushed on games that your team won by 1 run instead of at least 2. Thanks.

[whatisit]

This seems very interesting...jello when are you going to start this? In May?

[BettorBob]

So Bob, just to be clear, the first set of data you provided were the results if you had chased the same team at -1.5 runs for up to 6 games? Does that mean even if for one or more games during the streak they weren't the favorite you would go reverse run line? Or did you even incur that? I'm thinking it would be rare but probable to occur occasionally. If your numbers show they win by 2 at some point, underdog or not, then it would obviously be wise to bet them on the reverse run as a dog and cut your ante significantly.

I'm also wondering if you used have tested this using the -1 model and what those numbers look like.... if you pushed on games that your team won by 1 run instead of at least 2. Thanks.

I took the -1.5 in all cases. Tomorrow I'll give the -1 line a shot and see what sort of record we end up with. I still wish we had a source of runline data to test this against, since that's a crucial part of the equation... can anyone help us out with that?

[cpscincy]

looks like it will be the cubies tomorrow. i would love to take the braves with lowe on the mound....what r your thoughts?

[dchecks]

This system was a lot better when everybody was on the same page day in and day out. It is no longer a a system thread but just another thread with everybody picking thier fav's for the day. The pick is the CUBS if we are going by the system.... If you like other teams great, but the system pick is the CUBS. I will be on the CUBS today....... Good luck to all!!

[ploben]

It is definatly the Cubbies today but no RL has been posted.

Unless you took KC it seems the majority of people might be on their C bet today...Mets falling to SD, then yesterday most of the teams mentioned on the thread fell, except KC, so today will be chase day 3.

[ploben]

If the RL for the Cubs never comes through then I think the Mets would be the play.

[do5000]

last night was a loser for almost everybody.
let's hope the cubs win this afternoon so we can all get back on track!

i'm sure the line will be out soon for the rockies/cubs, but if not, i'll take the mets.

i'd suggest the option of starting another threaed ONLY for posting stats or backtesting different versions of the system.

[sportsbetwin]

Okay, I re-ran my backtest with the clarified rules. The record this time was 925-13.

484 series were won after 1 game.
224 series were won after 2 games.
116 series were won after 3 games.
62 series were won after 4 games.
26 series were won after 5 games.
13 series were won after 6 games.
13 series were not won.

.

That is a 51.6% straight win rate.

This should mean that the heavy fav should still be a small fav on the 1.5 run line (averaged). It would be great to know what that average is over those years.

[ploben]

Alright boys and girls...looks like there will be a little chalk today. Bookmaker posted a -105 Cubs RL

[ploben]

Now it looks like it's at +105 RL for CHC. Either way, they are the clear "board fav" today and the RL is getting hammered, 97%.