Quote Originally Posted by dj_destroyer:
Chase systems are fatalistic, same with martys and labbys. What is surprising is how well-versed in sports investment you sound, yet here you are using a chase system.
All I can say is at least it's dynamic and money management is of up-most concern... that and you really do sound like you know what you're talking about.
As a personal criticism though... why not give the dogs more of a chance instead of laying the heavy units on heavy juice? I feel like you're too scared to start chasing and too scared to pick dogs... But if you had done both and chased the dogs in all those series, they would have at least cleared a game and got you profit.
Just remember, no matter how well something has done in the past, it means nothing for the future.
Well...I guess it is a matter of opinion, but I firmly believe that a chase system CAN work if you play it right. A books worst nightmare would be if you could program a robot to play a particular system, walk away and then come back at the end of the season to collect your money. That's why the patient and the disciplined can win millions of dollars off of games like roulette and blackjack (using chase systems btw), yet it remains a multi-billion dollar industry for the casinos. Humans fail much more often than a system does.
Having said that, chasing is not the best thing for everyone and it's not necessarily the best way to profit in sports gambling. There are some people that are just great handicappers. I am not...but I am DAMN good with numbers so I like systems. MLB has a ton of games so we can use statistics to gain a significant edge. You state that the past has nothing to do with the future, but you are exactly wrong. It has quite a bit to do with it, especially the recent past...
that's the entire basis of why odds exist! Why do you think the Cards are -250 favorites today? Well, there are a ton of reasons (Carpenter, Cards bats, etc.), but all of them are based on "recent" past performance. Does it mean that the Cards will win today...of course not. If you want to profit in sports gambling, you deal with probabilities...whether you use numbers to come up with that or you use your personal intricate knowledge of players on a team, you are still using the past to try and predict the future. That's what statistics are all about. They are a powerful tool and they can be used to predict things with a VERY high degree of certainty. Here is an example:
In 2008, there were 593 three game series and 28.67% of those ended in sweeps. In 2009, there were 583 three game series and 28.94% of those ended in sweeps. Do you think it is a coincidence that these numbers are so close? If so, I'd love to bet you or anyone 1000 dollars that when we get to the end of 2010, between 28.3% and 29.3% of three game series will have ended in sweeps. Now, in 10 years, that number may shift up or down a few percentage points, but there are too many games and the rules are too consistent for there to be major movement from one year to the next. It's not impossible...it is just extremely unlikely. When something is extremely unlikely, I like to bet against it. Sometimes I'll win, and sometimes, I'll lose...that is the nature of the game...but if my system predicts a team to win at least 1 out of 3 games and does so correctly 97.5% of the time, then we can use that information to turn a profit. The bottom line is that the "recent" past can be used pretty well as a predictive model. That is what this system does.
Anyway, you make a good point that this system is throwing out some serious heavy favorites. Since the system is based on how teams perform, you're naturally going to be taking favored teams...just as a "home team" system will naturally play a lot favorites. It's not that I don't want to give dogs a chance or that I'm scared to play them...if the system gives me a dog, I definitely play it (i.e. Detroit last Friday and Saturday).
There is no handicapping involved here...stats go in and plays come out. Whatever they are, we play them and use good unit management and some situational analysis to try and profit. Believe me, I wish we were getting more dogs or small favorites. I tried to design I unit management technique that allows us to play some big favorites without too much worry, but admittedly we are getting many more than I expected. On top of that, we went through a stretch where these favorites were losing, and it has wreaked havoc. I think we weathered the storm as best we could, but I also think that we need to improve and better prepare for the worse case scenario. There is a learning process to all this, so I'll do the best I can to stay prepared.
Leprechaun
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