I know what you´re gonna say, its just another chase system...

Hey Folks,

As you can see I havent contributed to this site very much although I have been around since late 2007. I was basically trying me own research and came up with something I would like to share here. I know ist a chase system and I know how people think about it and they have a fair point with it. I backtested it back to the 2004 season and it payed off very nicely in each and every season. Over the course of the last 5 seasons that the worst season still made 54,6 Units and I played it the first time last year and made 108,73 Units. Anyway, here it is:

The systems foundation is the fact that the MLB is very close and the best and worst teams are not that different (witch respect to the win%) when compared to other sports. Taking into account that the baseball season has the "special item" that the games are played in series (3 or 4 games at one place in a row) and that only in 10-15% of these series the home team looses all three or four games, made me suspicious (please excuse my english, I am from Germany and doing my best ;-)). When you delete Washington from this equation, the sweeping factor for home teams get reduced to something in between 6 and 8%.

Now lets get to the point: I divided the league in 3 groups with the best teams being in group 1, the middle in group 2 and the worst in group 3. What I basically do is chasing the 3 or 4 game series until the home team won a game. Here I have different approaches in respect to the teams that are playing (and then the group they are in).

I start the series with the first home game for every home team from group 1, regardless who they are facing. If they win the first game, I am done and leave the other 2 or 3 games of the series behind. I play 1 Unit on the home team, if they win I am done there, if they lose I am going to bet the amount to win 2 Units in the second game and so on.

With teams from group 2 its a little bit different, here it depends who is the visitor (and from which group). If a 2 team is playing at home and the visitor is from group 1, I wait for the result of the first game. If the home team wins, the series is over and I was just too carefull. If the home team loses, I will start with 1 Unit in the second game and then the same system occurs as above. When a team from group 2 hosts an opponent from group 2 or 3, I will start with the first game of the series since its not that likely they will lose all 3 to a not-premium-team.

When it comes to teams from group 3 I will only start with the first game when the visitor is from that group too, if not then I wait for the second game and depending on the result I will play it or not.

I hope you can follow my explainations here, I know ist a chase but it paid very well over and over in every season and since I use the statistic approach with the home sweeps, I dont see why it shouldnt stay like this. With teams from group 2 and 3 I am just beeing carefull with respect to the opponent, every once in a while you will see a home-sweep and the you lose less than with a start in the first game. I would really love to hear opinions from you guys!

Since I dont know much about baseball (they dont show it here in Germany, I barely know the players, I just did spend some time in the US and love the game) you can tell that my approach is more about statistics and research about trends within the game itself, not the players.

Looking forward to your comments, This year I will also start to post all my plays here so you can see the results (hopefully positive again ;-))

I seen people do the same. They picked 3 of the best team and played them the whole season to play and then faded the 3 worse.

What gets me is, how can you tell who is the best and who is the worse?

Chase systems are cool if you know your money management!

How do you make up the 3 groups?

Looks like a good plan, especially if youve got the numbers to prove it over the years.  Im willing to try it with you.

are you starting in april or may

First of all thanks for the comments and questions, I see that I didnt explain some points correctly...the split of the teams in 3 groups depends only on the standings...for the first 20 games of the season I will take the final standings of the last year, from the 21st game onwards I take the current standings...depending on the number of teams in each division I go 2-2-1, 2-1-1 or 2-2-2...with respect to group 1, 2 or 3...

I will start this right from the first day on, thats what I backtested and especially within the first and last couple of weeks of a season the whole concept seemed to be very profitable...I guess since the good teams are eighter not good enough prepared (in the beginning) or with their minds in the playoffs allready (in the last games)...anyhow, we will see how it works this year...

More comments are welcome...oh yeah, Skillsolon, moneymgmt is definaltey very very important, thats why I decided to skip the first games with teams not seeming to be that good with respect to the visitor...it makes a whole lot of a difference wether you lose 3 or 7 units with a whole sweep-series...

by the way, within the last year, the final games of the 3 or 4 games series went 16-2 for 88,9%!!! So if you want to be really really carefull than just wait for these games, I will highlight them for you guys...

Good luck for everyone and a lot of this season

Oh, one more thing...as of the static approach of the system obviously there is no way to control the number of games per day...I had days without a play and I had day with 5 games with the last game of a season and 8 games in total.

cheers

for better money management check this link out.  the units lost won't be so big on C bet.    https://platinumsportsinvesting.com/labourchere.aspx

As I read post #6, my understanding is that you populate your three groups not by their won/loss record, but by where they are in their division.  Is that correct?

Call, looks very interesting your system!

I think so I go to follow you. But I have one question plus one advice.

Question: Do you have some numbers that to permit prove the last year system's yield?

Advice: I believe that the best way to classify the teams in the 3 groups is according to win/loss record. Frecuently, there are strong divisions and weak divisions so, for example, the last place in strong division is better team that the third place in the weak division. For example, in the last season, Seattle Mariners was penultimate in its division but they would have been 2nd in the NL Central Division.

Let me know your comments about that!

 

but if u lose game 1 in group one and they are a 2-1 favorite then u have to bet 4 units on game 2 at possibly -180+ as u are betting very good teams at home.....sounds like a good way to get crushed in a weird week.....

 

if u win game 1 u win one unit but if u dont u chase and can lose 20 units.....sorry but this isnt the way....this system is good till its not and when it isnt u lose ur ass

 

home teams in group one will clearly determine your season

I know that this is the problem with allmost allof the chase systems and thats why I play heavy favorites only with run lines...my backtesting showed me that the results ar far better with using runlines (although some of the bets will be losers even when my team wins) compared to paying heavy favorites on the ML. Therefor I will use run lines in cases where the fav is higher than -175.

With respect to the money management discussed here before its the same thing,it doesnt occur here since I dont play with inflated fav-lines...

one thing that is a very good suggestion though is the usage of WL records instead of standings...obviously there wont be any difference in the order of teams from one division but there is definately a better comparison between the leagues and divisions...thanks for that suggestion...

Oh man,I cant wait for the season to start...lets all make some

GL to all of you

I just did spend some time in the US and love the game

The difficulty I've found when I've tried to backtest these kinds of systems is that the groups of team will change during the season.  Backtesting using end-of-season won/loss records or division positions may distort the findings.

I'm not hating;  this has the makings of profitable system.  I'm justing raising some points to consider that I've come across in my own personal backtesting.

This system seems like it has the ability to make money but what if you just played the system when teams played someone in their own group or lower groups (basically stay away from teams in groups 2 and 3 if they play a team from a higher group)? Then always sit out the first game of the series, if your team wins then you don't play the series but if your team loses you chase the next 2 games of the series (or next 3 depending on if it's a 4 game series or not)? I know it would result in alot less plays but wouldn't that raise the winning percentage of the system? 

One more thought, what if you took out any teams that were on a 4+ game road winning streak or teams on 4 game or more home losing streaks? This might again reduce the number of plays over the course of a season but it might prevent you from taking a few losses as well. If I got 30 series a year out of this system and used a good money management plan to keep it from killing me when I take a loss, I'd be happy with it. 

The outcome for the 3 different groups is about the same given the statistic fact that group 1 games tend to be winners very often with the first game but not so attractive lines.

Whats catching my eye though is the contribution of te single games with respect to game 1,2 or 3. The sum of games 1 made me only 14,24 Units last year, Games 2 of a series made 45,33 Units and the last games made 49,16 Units.

This is definately hard to backtest but I did so, believe me, took quite some time

But I can tell you that I did so and that my results for the season of 2009 are real (using bad lines at The Greek though) and back to 2004 I looked into each days Standings and made the picks accordingly.

 

I checked that too but have to say, the results dont improve moneywise...it is true that the win% goes up but you can imagin that the lines you play basically get worse so the total outcome does no get better. I figured that it is more profitable in terms of $ to play wth all groups as you make alot of money with the lower groups.

Its true that the chance of loosing is much higher with more games, my backtesting showed me that the systems usually (suprisingly) has not much of variance. Due to private reasons, I had to skip 4 weeks of last season, besides that, I only had 2 series that were complete losers (Sweeps) and therefor you can see that the more you play the more they pay

 

I hope it will be the same this year...but one thing is clear...its always better to stay away from a series if you feel uncomfortable, every $ you dont lose is a won $.

 

I see that you aim to minimise your risk which is a good approach, cancelling out these streak-teams could make sense, I havent checked that so far. I cant really give you any idea wether this is going to make a big difference but if I find the time I will test that.

 

But one thing in general is for sure: Check out all the teams home performance and delete the Nationals, you will barely find a team getting swept very often at home. At least I didnt find that

I am hapy to have some people here to discuss this idea, I hope we can get this threat active and make the system better over time!

 

Thanks guys, I will keep you updated as soon as the season kicks of.

Looks good, mind posting the detailed record and profit by year?

 

Not at all, but for right now I can only give you the number for the 2009 season since I am at work right now and all I have here is my excelsheet with the plays from last year

Total Units won were 108,73

1 Unit games went 178-132-0 for 14,24 Units

2 Unit Games went 61-29-0 for 45,33 Units

4 Unit Games went 16-2-0 for 49,16 Units

So all in all the system went 255-163 for 108,73 Units but as I stated before, I had a break of roughly 4 weeks in the middle of the season, we bought a house and I had a whole lot of work with it and no time to take care of my betting.

Right now I start to divide the groups for the first games in april, its obviously not too much work to do so

 

I will keep this tread going during the season to post all of my plays as well as the record for this year