How would you handle it?

[buddy]

If, in college sports, you had a handicapping theory that was flawless.

Never lost....Worked every time.

A sampling of 50 games showed 50-0.

The problem is...the theory did not reveal many games. In college football around 2 per week.

Keeping records and tracking college football with this theory would be relatively easy because the games are played weekly.

And the same theory applied to college basketball.

But college basketball has many more teams and the frequency of play is much greater.

It would be virtually impossible to do this alone in college basketball.

Volume and frequency would be overwhelming.

Use of a database is not nearly fast enough to filter out the no-plays and indentify the plays.

To pull it off, you would need to gather a team.

A syndicate, so to speak.

Do you think you could persuade a team of handicappers to accept your way of handicapping?

Even if you showed someone a sampling of 50-0, how many do you think would say, "I'm convinced. Count me in. You're the spokesman. Tell me what to do?"

Or, do you think, most would say, "Hey, that sure looks good on paper, but let me tell you about my theory?"

How would you handle it?

Or would you even try?

 

[bear]

Buddy,
If someone said they could show 50-0....than it might as well be 1000-0.....Very suspicious............

 

[yyz]

I think you can always find data, providing you dig deep enough, to support a theory that goes even 100-0.

The information would be so useless, that you could not count on it.

I don't know what you have in mind, so I can't speak on that, but I am certainly curious!

 

[marine]

buddy-
It can be done.
3 years ago while at college a small group of 4 of us fine tuned a college basketball system that ended up hitting ~70% on the season.
Unfortunately, it took quite a lot of manpower to do it all. We went thru the numbers on each and every game, every freakin night for the whole season. it SUCKED!
But, the four of us were all math majors there. Once we fine tuned and tweaked it it became almost routine and we set up a rotation on who would do it each day. Basically do it one night and take the next 3 nights off and someone else did it. It worked out well because the system was so precise and left no room for marginal judgement calls.
If you can get a group dedicated to it, it can be done!

I just remember getting boned with the saturday slate of cards... UGH! it took like 3 frickin hours out of our morning hangover recouperation time!

 

[yak merchant]

Don't know about 50-0 because all sports are played by error prone humans. But you can find value by analyzing numbers. And when you say that a database is not nearly fast enough that is where you lose me. So your saying crunching numbers by hand is faster? I don't get it. Seems like analyzing data with the computer is the only way.

 

[buddy]

the theory is based on logic and probability (what handicapping theory isn't?)

you need handwritten entries and a set of symbols that acts as a conversion chart.

all things being equal, there are 6 ways you can "cover" in betting college football/basketball.

1. road dog win/cover
2. HOME dog win/cover
3. road FAV win/cover
4. HOME FAV win/cover
5. road dog lose/cover
6. home dog lose/cover

Consequently, there are 6 ways you can do the opposite.

1. road dog lose/no cover
2. HOME dog lose/no cover
3. road FAV win/no cover
4. HOME FAV win/no cover
5. road FAV lose/no cover
6. HOME FAV lose/no cover

 

[yak merchant]

If your symbols and entries follow logic that never changes it can be done in a computer. And I'd be willing to guess alot faster.

 

[buddy]

the entries are based on the final score, but the symbols depend on how a team performs against the closing line.

for example, if a team is a road dog, they can either:

1. win/cover
2. lose/cover
3. lose/no cover
4. push

A Home FAV also has four possible outcomes, but one of them is different.

1. win/cover
2. win/no cover
3. lose/no cover
4. push



[This message has been edited by buddy (edited 11-22-2001).]

 

[bmc]

There's an outfit called sengent (.com) that deploys networked computing applications.
Their first one was market analysis for individual stock selections.
You download a client that runs in the background and their server sends it jobs to do.
The client performs the requested tasks and reports results back to the server.
I think they had several thousand individuals participating.
I set up a system to do nothing but sit there and crunch 24x7 and wound up winning $50 for having the most "task points" one particular week.
I'm sure a lot of others did the same, because I never got in the top 10 for total cumulative points.
They have a project going now to find potential vaccines/cures for anthrax and smallpox.
Something like that would be super, but it's awfully involved from a thechnical viewpoint.

 

[buddy]

bmc,

That site looks excellent, but I am a computer moron.

Do you know how to set up an application?

get my email from Jack and let me know.

Thanks, buddy

 

[Skinar]

Buddy, I'm a math major, a programmer, and a half-assed database analyst with 30 years of experience. IF (and this is critical), your method has a set of rules that can be defined, and those rules operate on a set of numbers that is also definable, THEN this process can be automated. IF there are decisions to be made that are purely subjective, then I doubt seriously if the method is really any more or less valid than any other successful handicapping system.

On the other hand, if you really did have a system that produces in excess of 60% winners on a consistent basis, you have a goldmine.

To answer your original question about finding the right people to form your group, I think it's possible. Personally, I'm intrigued. Skeptical, but intrigued.

 

[buddy]

Skinar,

get my email from Jack.

I will be in touch with you.

buddy

 

[buddy]

Skinar,

I am not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but I can tell you this...

THERE ARE NO RULES THAT ARE PURELY SUBJECTIVE.

This is a mathematical equation. Similar to an algebraic word problem.

 

[goofy]

awright, gotta hear the theory. jack can you send buddy my email or send me his.

goof