The 3rd set of systems to review
this Summer is the Misc Systems. As the name suggests, these systems are a
bunch of misfits and were cobbled together at the start of the second season of
the service to see if I could improve up on the returns on the other systems at
the time, the Est Systems and the 3 New Systems (31-33). To recap, the systems
are made up of:
6-32 – any bet that appears on system 6 and 32
21-31 – any bet that appears on system 21 and
31
6-21-31 – any bet that appears on system 6,21
and 31
The rationale for the 3 systems above was quite
simple. It was another method to try to filter the bets on the higher turnover
systems. Ideally, we would reduce the turnover, increase the ROI and we would
have another system that could be followed.
The final 3 systems were a little bit
different. These systems were based on a method known as a ‘Similar Game
Method’ and simply involved building rules looking for particular types of
bets. For example, backing the teams in 21st-24th place
in League One every season when they play away from home is a profitable
strategy. There are a whole host of rules I have built which are based on
historical results which are profitable. When the bets were thrown up using
these rules, the bets were then cross referred with either system 21, system
6-21 or system 31 and this created 3 new systems.
TOX – SGM bets which appeared on system 21
STOY – SGM bets which appeared on system 6-21
STOZ – SGM bets which appeared on system 31
If anyone looks closely, there will be the odd
bet that appears on TOX for example that isn’t on system 21. It will be a bet
where system 21 had it as value but the bet was dropped due to an odds
restriction. Hence, it isn’t on 21 but is on TOX.
Again, the purpose of these 3 systems was to
provide another slightly different method to cross refer the bets but of
course, the correlation to systems 21,6-21 and 31 was basically 100%.
Over the first 3 seasons these 6 Misc systems
were live, the results were:
As you can see above, 5 of the 6 Misc systems
were actually very profitable over the first 3 seasons and although the results
weren’t as impressive as some of my other systems, they were still very good. I
took some additional comfort from the methods used to create these systems and
for example, for one of the SGM systems to lose, they needed the underlying
rules to lose as well as the system it was cross referred with losing. Hence,
it sort of felt like these systems were a little protected from a downturn,
more so than some other systems. Likewise, for systems 21-31 or 6-21-31 to lose
badly, it needed two or three algorithms to perform badly. Given I had never
had a losing algorithm over a season, surely I couldn’t hit 2 or 3 algorithms
losing at once?
It’s always nice setting the scene, showing the
thought that went into things and then boom, a season like last season comes
along and the results for the 6 systems were:
I’ll start with the positives first. Systems
21-31 and 6-21-31 didn’t have a losing season even though systems 21 and 31 had
a nightmare season. This shows the strength of cross referring systems and
although these systems didn’t perform as well as the individual systems did
during the good seasons, during a downturn, the cross referral of the systems
has helped reduce losses. Therefore, the rationale for cross referring the
systems was correct and therefore, in a season of few positives, anyone
following these 2 systems did OK.
Ignoring that positive (says it all that just
better than break-even over a season for a system in a positive!), we have the
performance of the other 4 systems. I’ll deal with system 6-32 first.
A loss of 12.4pts isn’t a disaster but being
honest, the system wasn’t doing that great coming into the season. Over 4
seasons now, the system has generated a profit of 8.3pts at an ROI of 0.9%.
That’s nothing and put it down as one of the worst performing systems since
inception of the service. This service will now be retired and we won’t see
6-32 in future. It isn’t any better than system 6 or system 32, so no point
having it!
Right, the 3 SGM systems.
I’ll start with STOY. A loss of 13.3pts at an
ROI of -3.7%. A poor season but given the previous results, it isn’t a
disaster. The overall returns for the 4 seasons now stand at 68.4pts at an ROI
of 5.6%. Hence, the system lost about 16% of the profits it had made previously
which although disappointing, isn’t a disaster.
Unfortunately, the other two systems were a
complete and utter disaster. TOX lost 28.7pts at an ROI of -7.2% and STOZ lost
41.8pts at an ROI of -7.9%.
TOX is cross referred with system 21 and we
know system 21 lost 1.5% last season, so the SGM system rules made things much
worse. The same is true for STOZ as we know that system 31 lost 2.6% and
therefore, the SGM rules have had a nightmare.
I don’t have time at this moment in time to run
through all the rules and check the individual P&Ls but I think it’s
probably not too surprising. We already know last season wasn’t like the
previous 4 seasons in terms of the results for my ratings and given my ratings
are based on historical results, it all points to last season’s results being a
little bit different from previous seasons. Of course, one issue with using a
SGM approach is that if something changes and the historical results aren’t an
indicator of future results, then an SGM approach will really suffer. Probably
more so than my ratings as my ratings are much smarter than just applying basic
rules based on historical trends and results.
Being honest, I had never really thought about
this until I spent time looking at the SGM results but in a way, I quite like
the fact these systems have bombed massively last season now. Yes, it’s cost me
a small fortune (I followed STOY) but it sort of helps me understand why my
ratings struggled so badly last season. It’s impossible for me to exactly
pinpoint where it went wrong last season (we know it wasn’t the underlying
results as the number of Aways/Wins/Draws was in tolerance) but clearly, something
happened last season that hasn’t happened previously.
I guess the question for all of us and what we
want to know is will next season follow last season and we’ll lose again or
will it revert back to the long-term trend?
I’m not really ripping into the systems here as
although they created massive losses and performed miserably, I sort of
understand why. Systems and ratings are only as good as the data they are based
on and if something material changes in the data, the systems and ratings will
fall into a hole.
I will obviously rebuild the SGM rules which
will hopefully help the performance of these systems in future but I now have
my own reservations with these systems now. If we can’t be confident that the
past will help predict the future, then the first systems that will fail are
the SGM systems I suspect. After last season, I would be worried about
following these systems blindly in future although if we see last season as a
blip, then there are no worries.
This review is fairly short but anyone who
wants to play around with the performance by league etc. can do so in the
spreadsheet I provided.
Here’s the updated results for all 6 systems
after 4 live seasons of results:
Summer
actions – System 6-32 is now retired. I will rebuild the
SGM rules for the 3 SGM systems but apart from this, I think it’s a case of
waiting to see what happens next season. I wouldn’t touch 21-31 or 6-21-31. I
think both these systems are now two of the strongest systems I have as they
have never had a losing season even though last season was a disaster! If they
can get through last season without a loss, I suspect they can get through any
season without a loss!
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