And system 32........

I’m starting to feel like I’m getting a bit drained with the footie as doing this, on top of working my ass off all day at work isn’t easy. I’m spending most of my lunch hour doing footie stuff and then another few hours in the evening. Part of the issue is that I’m like a dog with a bone at times and I should be pacing myself as it’s a long summer. At this rate, I'll be all set to go in a few weeks and I can't have my first bets until September! :(

It’s slightly more difficult at the moment as it feels like I’m updating 3 places at once. As well as keeping the blog ticking over, I’m keeping the TFA forum guys abreast of any developments with these new systems and plans for next season and I’ve also got a thread on the go in the SBC forum which is where these system 31-33 bets will be proofed first next season (as well as then appearing on the blog!).

I said in my last post that I was slightly disappointed with the results thrown up by system 31 but I also said it was the first step in the process. I can narrow down the number bets by stripping out the lowest value bets that appear on system 31 and this will give us a system which I've called system 32. This contains all the medium and high value bets thrown up by the ratings algorithm.

Well, the results for system 32 are much better and thankfully, I can start to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Here are the results:



The same observations apply to system 32 as well as system 31 but in summary, the system has achieved a return of around 20% for backing the teams to win and a return of around 14% for backing DNB during backfitting (the first 3 seasons is the best proxy I think). This is a good deal better than system 31 which is good news.

I don’t want to analyse the results too closely before finishing system 33 and posting that but the first really interesting observation I've spotted is the monthly results pattern in 2011. Under all my other systems, January, March and May were profitable last season but February and April were big losses. Feb and April were actually the two worst my systems have ever had due to the high number of draws I seemed to hit, so I was curious how these systems would cope with these months since they are fitted on DNB.

System 31 experienced a profit in Feb and a loss in April I noticed for DNB and traditional H/A betting.

Looking at System 32 now, it has a loss in Feb and a profit in April.

The key point is though, I still can't get away from the fact that February and April aren't good months. In one way, this is disappointing as I was hoping backfitting on DNB would turn a profit in both months but as I've said on the blog a few times now, I really believe February and April are freak months for football betting on these leagues. Hence, seeing these results on system 31 and 32 just reinforce this fact I think.

Anyway, that's another quick update and system 32 is now built. I'll finish system 33 tonight or tomorrow and post that too.

After that, I'll spend time pulling together all the statistics you'd ever want to know about each system and getting the results tracking into the same format I use for my other systems. Once this piece of work is done, I'll share more info on these 3 new systems.

Once I have a wee break, I'll then look at systems such as 8-33 etc. and I'll also think about whether or not it is worth looking at a system such as 6-21-31 which would mean backing teams only when they appear on 3 different algorithms! Having seen the results from backing teams that appear on 2 algorithms, I would think that backing a team that appears on 3 independent ratings algorithms would be very good but then again, there may not be enough bets!

I’m noticing that the readership of the blog is dwindling. I’m guessing this is due to the fact it’s summer and the season is over and most people were reading the blog for the bets each week but feel free to comment or ask questions etc. to try to give me something to feed off. It’s a lonely game writing to myself each time! It’s my 150th post on here too, so I deserve a comment for that if nothing else. :)

Introduction to System 31

I'm in a position now to share the first cut of results from the new rating algorithm. I have taken the very early decision to just ignore Premiership Aways going forward for this set of ratings. Anyone who reads the blog will know how difficult it has been to make money backing Premiership Aways over the past few seasons and quite simply, it is much more difficult for away teams to win away from home than it is at home in the Premiership.

You'll get a team away from home who is playing much better than the team at home they face and the bookies will price up the home team at 5/4 and the away team at 2/1 and no matter what way you look at it, the away team will represent value on nearly every set of ratings you can formulate. I paid close attention to Fink Tank in the second half of the season last season and they'd usually agree with my ratings and have the away team as value but ultimately, it is very difficult to get the away team to win.

Although these new ratings are looking at maximising the returns from Draw No Bet, I isolated the Premiership Aways for DNB using these new ratings and it was a similar trend to my other ratings. The very high value bets will break even if you are lucky but the weak value bets thrown up week in, week out are heavy loss makers. Teams like Stoke, Blackburn and newly promoted sides will always be taken on with my ratings as they are so bad away from home and usually get outplayed at home too by classier teams but at the end of the day, this is a results business and these teams somehow manage to win games at home! Keeps it simple if I just exclude these games from the outset.

You can see it simply by looking at the Premier League table last season and teams like Birmingham, Blackburn, Stoke, Bolton, Newcastle, West Brom, Fulham, Everton all lost 5 games or less at home. When you consider they have to play the top 6 at home, then you can see that they didn't lose too many to other teams of the same calibre as them. Away from home, they lost 10,12,13,12,9,10,7,7 respectively. Simply, if given the choice between two equal ability sides in the Premiership, even though the odds are 5/4 for the home team and 2/1 for the away team, you don't want to be backing the away side!

Over time, this trend may change and the odds for away sides may drift as people look to lay them and then it will look foolish to filter the bets this way.

Just so everyone is clear, for these ratings, value is defined where the odds I calculate for DNB is greater than the odds being offered for DNB. Seems like it's simple and very obvious but it's not! I first started doing it by looking at the odds for a win or draw against the odds I calculated for a win or draw but of course, that would be defining value for Double Chance and not DNB! Hence, it took a wee bit of time to get my head around defining value in the case of DNB and even now, it's still not crystal clear as it depends on the home/away probability and the draw probability but the home/away probability carries much more weight than the draw probability.

Common sense really as the stake you place on the draw is much smaller than the stake you place on the team to win with DNB! Hence, my first two sets of ratings can look at a game and define there is no value to back either team but my new ratings tell me that there is value in backing the home or away team and the draw! Simply, the win price may not be value on its own but by bringing in the draw, this creates additional value to turn it into a value bet for DNB.

Anyway, leave me to worry about trying to interpret my ratings. Blows my head thinking about it and it's me who's building them!

Below is the first set of results from the ratings.



A few observations before we move on:

1). Don't place too much emphasis on season 09/10 as 50% of the results from this season are included in the backfitting process
2). Seasons 06/07,07/08,08/09 and 10/11 give the best indication of the likely profitability of the ratings going forward
3). Season 10/11 has a higher number of draws than I would like to see in any season and therefore, 10/11 isn't the best indicator of future performance of this system either I suspect
4). Therefore, the first 3 seasons actually represent the likely profitability of these ratings
5). In summary, expected returns may be circa. 15% for traditional H/A betting and 9% for DNB betting

Overall, I'm slightly disappointed with the results during backtesting but then again, it isn't too surprising. Unlike my previous systems, the ratings here have been fitted on DNB and not traditional H/A betting in the earlier seasons and therefore, the 15% for traditional H/A betting was never the aim! The 9% is the aim.

How good is 9% for the ratings for DNB? Well, if you compare it to my systems last season, these systems had an ROI of around 9% for DNB (and traditional H/A betting!). However, last season was an exceptionally good season for DNB and therefore, the 9% last season was probably above expectations. The 9% I'm looking at here is looking at the 3 worst seasons for DNB.

The key thing to remember though is that 9% is only from backing all the teams that appear as value. The next stage of the project is to look at the bets and how much value is apparent within each bet. Clearly, the higher the value, the higher the return and therefore, filtering the bets by value should enable us to increase the returns.

All the value bets will appear on a system called system 31. What I'm going to do is develop systems 32 and 33 now and then spend time getting the results into the same format as my other systems. These results will always be kept separate though so as people don't forget these are untested in a live environment and don't mix them up with my other systems which have now have one season of results.

Once I have the new set of systems 31-33, we can then look at whether we can do something really cool and look at teams that appear on the 3 rating algorithms! We could also mix up the other systems with the systems 31-33 but all of this is for later this summer. Lots more work to do before we get to that stage!

I'll be back next time with an update of system 32 hopefully.

DNB Ratings Update

A quick update on where I'm at with the new ratings.

I've stumbled across a bit of an issue with the DNB ratings in the sense I can't seem to get something that fits the data from 2002 to 2007 and then fits the last few seasons. Part of it is due to the results in 06/07 and 07/08 as these results seemed to throw up the best results for traditional H/A betting but it isn't working when I'm trying to test these seasons with DNB.

I've looked at the results and one way around it is to exclude a few seasons from my backfitting completely and just have less backfitted results to work from. This keeps things from getting too narrowed and too backfitted in places and should help the results in more recent years make more sense.

I'm going to start again and backfit the early data again for DNB and exclude seasons 06/07 and 07/08 from my backfitting completely. However, I'll bring in season 09/10 into my backfitting by sampling 50% of the games in this season.

What should happen is that I'll end up with 4 seasons of backtested results now (instead of the 3 seasons I have with my current systems) and of course, I'll need to be careful when I interpret season 09/10 as it won't be a realistic return compared to the other seasons.

The other interesting observation I'm finding is that although I'm trying to maximise DNB returns, I still can't get anywhere near beating the traditional H/A returns. Simply, no matter what way I look at the data, backing the draw is loss making using my ratings. Again though, the purpose of DNB systems isn't to provide a better return, it's simply to try to smooth the journey hopefully.

Anyway, that's a very quick update of my last couple of days or so.

I should be in a position to have the first cut of ratings later this week and I'll share the results on here when this is done.

The blog is going to be a bit boring for the next wee while as it is basically me working away in the background doing the donkey work for next season! I'll try to provide updates of how my work is going though to keep this place ticking over.

Phew......

After a lot of work over the past 48 hours, I've finally finished the season reviews for all the systems. You can read the summaries here.... http://the-football-analyst.blogspot.com/p/system-reviews-201011.html

The two things that stand out this season is the performance of lower priced aways when they represent marginal value and the performance of low value aways in the Premiership. Both types of bets will be dropped next season. I'll keep backing Premiership Aways when they are deemed to be very high value and I'll keep backing lower priced aways when my ratings suggest they are high value bets. These types of bets don't happen often as it's hard to find value with low priced aways but after a bit of research, it's clear that when they come along, they are worth following.

As I said a while back, one reason for doing the system reviews for last season is so we can update our betting banks for each system. I've given this a bit of thought and I'm going to recommend slightly higher betting banks than I suggested for last season.

I usually go with twice the largest drop from the peak but for this season, I'm going to suggest 2.5 times the largest drop from the peak. I know that most people choose a betting bank that suits them anyway, regardless of what I say but I don't mind sacrificing a higher ROC (return on capital) to ensure I don't put my betting bank under pressure at any point in time.

The betting banks for this season are therefore:



As you will see, I've suggested betting banks for anyone wishing to use Draw No Bets this season. This isn't my preferred approach but after what happened this season, I wouldn't blame anyone who wants to follow this type of betting next season.

That's my first major piece of work completed then for next season which isn't bad considering it's still May! My next task is to build a new set of ratings which looks to maximise returns from Draw No Bets instead of the traditional Home and Away betting. I'll be back later in the week to update on how this is going......

I'm back.....

Just a quick post to say that I’m back looking at the football again. I’ve even started building my new set of systems based on Draw No Bet for next season!

As I said before I went away, my first task this summer is to carry out a review of all the systems from this season and decide which systems remain and which systems will be dropped. I’ll also be looking at ways to improve the ratings and the systems for next season.

At the same time, I’m going to building my new rating algorithm for next season. I’ve started it and I’ve actually run the first cut of data but it needs a fair bit of work. It seems to throw up far too many value bets now that I’m including draw coverage. If I went with the ratings as they are now, I’d be backing teams in about 50% of the games each weekend! Clearly a small flaw in there somewhere and I need to spend a helluva lot of time on this as there are no shortcuts.

With regards to next season, the Secret Betting Club has confirmed that they are happy for me to post my new system bets in their forum next season. Hence, the DNB bets will be proofed in their forum as well as on the blog and to the SBC themselves.

As discussed on the Q&A post a few weeks back, this means that these bets will be released to SBC members first and then posted on the blog at a later time. All I’m doing is giving a little bit of exclusivity to the SBC members for these bets as I’m a member of the SBC myself and I think members might like to track how these bets do next season.

Anyway, that will do for now. Keep an eye on the system reviews section as that is where I’ll be discussing the reviews for each of the systems this season. I’ll try to give updates on the blog of how things are going.

I'll be back.......

As I said last week, I’m taking a break from the blog for a week. I think it’s important to get some time away from this game and considering the amount of work I’ve got to do this summer on the footie in preparation for next season, it makes sense to take a break now, just as the season is drawing to a close.

I’m conscious of the fact the blog is growing and now has 5 parts to it and therefore, anyone who stumbles across the blog probably won’t have a clue what’s going on! Here’s a quick rundown of the blog:

The Home Page is just the daily blog where I’ve been posted up the system bets and results since the start of the season.

The 2010/11 Monthly Results is where I’ve been putting the monthly reviews as to how the systems have been performing on a monthly basis. This is basically the summation of the daily views on a monthly basis.

The Historical Results – 06/07-09/10 shows the backfitted and backtested system results back to 2006. Earlier backfitted results aren’t included on the blog for reasons discussed previously.

The 2010/11 Season Review is a very high level rundown of the past season. Is probably a good starting point for anyone who stumbles across this post!

I’ve added a new section today though and this is called System Reviews - 2010/11. This area will be used for a review of all the systems alive for the 2010/11 season. I’ll run through the performance of each system and decide which systems will be dropped for next season and highlight any additional filters I’ll be using from next season. I’ll also highlight the betting banks for next season for each system.

As a taster of the info that will be shown on the system review section, I’ve added some info about system 6 for this season. I have this for every system but it will take time to get it on the blog and of course, I’ll need to write what the information is telling us and how we can use it going forward!

As always, any questions, drop me a comment.

If anyone does comment, I’ll not post the comment until I get back from my break. Hence, you’re not being ignored if you ask a question or make an observation!

Goodbye 2010/11....Hello to 2011/12

The monthly review for May-11 is now up on the monthly review section of the blog. Overall, it was a decent month with a profit of 56pts (53% ROI) but as I say in the review, you need to keep things in perspective. It only recoups 53% of the loss made in April.

I think before I move onto next season and planning for that, I should just do a quick post on the season that I'm leaving behind. As I've said before, my season ended at the weekend although there is still one set of Premiership games to take place next season.

Due to the fact I've had the blog this season and I've written regular monthly reviews also, it isn't my intention to write a 'fantastic' season end review as there is no point. I'd just be repeating everything I've said throughout the season and it becomes repetitive to write, let alone read! Hence, I've kept it very short and created a new section on the blog where I've posted it.

The systems have ended with an 8.9% ROI this season which at the end of the day, isn't a disaster and is probably a fair reflection of the season. I wanted judged on system 8 this season if I had to pick one as it was the system I had most confidence in at the outset and it has ended the season with a 9% return. All of these bets have been proofed since day one this season.

Now that I've finished the monthly review for May and the season review, I can get started with building towards doing much better next season. The starting place for this is a review of all the systems from this season........