First off, thank you guys who regularly post in this forum. I usually don’t post in here much, but I always stop by to check out your guy’s threads, comments, thoughts and plays. Excellent work, very insightful and entertaining, as always.
I’m in the consulting field and have worked with one Ivy League University for the last six or seven years. I have gotten to know some of the guys there whose expertise falls within the field of statistics and programming. There are about eight guys who are huge sports fans, but are not gamblers.
They are always developing simulation type sports models based on statistics, usually in an attempt to settle some form of argument amongst themselves. I’m not really into these types of games, but I have tested a few to help them out as an outside party because they usually hook me up with work requests or data mining for my handicapping.
Two of the guys are avid Arsenal supporters and are always talking about the 2003-2004 campaign (amongst others) where the Gunners went without a defeat and Henry had a magnificent season scoring something like 30 goals. They developed a simulation for that season based on the argument from one of the Arsenal supporters that you could play that season a hundred times and Arsenal would still win the title every time (I’m in agreement with this).
They know I’m an avid Everton supporter and I remember the season quite well from the perspective of The Toffees. They were a pretty poor side that year that had a horrific time scoring goals, I believe they were something like 0-7-12 away from home and lost something like their last four or five matches of the season. They ended up finishing 17[SUP]th[/SUP] just avoiding relegation, finishing six points clear of the bottom three Leicester City, Leeds United and Wolverhampton.
These guys were telling me it was miraculous Everton stayed up that season, which seemed odd to me. I know they were bad, but I don’t remember thinking it was miraculous in any manner. These guys are certainly coming from stats and “on paper” perspective. They stated Leicester City was a far superior side and should have stayed up. I don’t remember much of that Leicester City side other than them having Paul Dickov and Marcus Bent. They claimed Leicester was superior to the three or four the teams that finished just ahead of them, Everton, Blackburn, Tottenham and Portsmouth, I believe. Man City was actually 16[SUP]th[/SUP], but they felt they were a much stronger side than where they finished.
I figured here would be as good a place as any to see if some of you staunch soccer supporters had an memory, thoughts or comments on the bottom of the table that season or their claims of the under appreciated Leicester side and/or Everton stunningly staying up?
This will likely lead to a bet of some sort between me and the stats crew where they will have me manage Everton through the simulation to see if I can keep them from being relegated and add another trial to their could Arsenal possibly fail to win the title question. Since these guys are all cheap bastards it likely be a steak lunch for the eight versus them creating some form of database/data mining for me for my American football handicapping usage. It’s not really any skin off anyone’s back, because I’ll expense that shit and these idiots could create a database of information for me in an hour that would take me a lifetime to create.
On a side note – I know what many of you may be thinking and I’ve tried. Some of the brightest statistical minds in the industry, of course I could use this to my gambling advantage. They have tried and have come to the conclusion that no sport can be beat over a large sample (1,000 bet blocks) simply based on statistics or statistical models (I agree with this as well). At least not to the point they felt it would be a worthwhile investment (not sure what that is). Mind you, this is an incredible cheap and conservative bunch, so who knows.
Sorry for the blast from the past.
I’ll post the results of the simulation, if the bet materializes, if anyone is interested.
Any thoughts or insight is greatly appreciated.
I’m in the consulting field and have worked with one Ivy League University for the last six or seven years. I have gotten to know some of the guys there whose expertise falls within the field of statistics and programming. There are about eight guys who are huge sports fans, but are not gamblers.
They are always developing simulation type sports models based on statistics, usually in an attempt to settle some form of argument amongst themselves. I’m not really into these types of games, but I have tested a few to help them out as an outside party because they usually hook me up with work requests or data mining for my handicapping.
Two of the guys are avid Arsenal supporters and are always talking about the 2003-2004 campaign (amongst others) where the Gunners went without a defeat and Henry had a magnificent season scoring something like 30 goals. They developed a simulation for that season based on the argument from one of the Arsenal supporters that you could play that season a hundred times and Arsenal would still win the title every time (I’m in agreement with this).
They know I’m an avid Everton supporter and I remember the season quite well from the perspective of The Toffees. They were a pretty poor side that year that had a horrific time scoring goals, I believe they were something like 0-7-12 away from home and lost something like their last four or five matches of the season. They ended up finishing 17[SUP]th[/SUP] just avoiding relegation, finishing six points clear of the bottom three Leicester City, Leeds United and Wolverhampton.
These guys were telling me it was miraculous Everton stayed up that season, which seemed odd to me. I know they were bad, but I don’t remember thinking it was miraculous in any manner. These guys are certainly coming from stats and “on paper” perspective. They stated Leicester City was a far superior side and should have stayed up. I don’t remember much of that Leicester City side other than them having Paul Dickov and Marcus Bent. They claimed Leicester was superior to the three or four the teams that finished just ahead of them, Everton, Blackburn, Tottenham and Portsmouth, I believe. Man City was actually 16[SUP]th[/SUP], but they felt they were a much stronger side than where they finished.
I figured here would be as good a place as any to see if some of you staunch soccer supporters had an memory, thoughts or comments on the bottom of the table that season or their claims of the under appreciated Leicester side and/or Everton stunningly staying up?
This will likely lead to a bet of some sort between me and the stats crew where they will have me manage Everton through the simulation to see if I can keep them from being relegated and add another trial to their could Arsenal possibly fail to win the title question. Since these guys are all cheap bastards it likely be a steak lunch for the eight versus them creating some form of database/data mining for me for my American football handicapping usage. It’s not really any skin off anyone’s back, because I’ll expense that shit and these idiots could create a database of information for me in an hour that would take me a lifetime to create.
On a side note – I know what many of you may be thinking and I’ve tried. Some of the brightest statistical minds in the industry, of course I could use this to my gambling advantage. They have tried and have come to the conclusion that no sport can be beat over a large sample (1,000 bet blocks) simply based on statistics or statistical models (I agree with this as well). At least not to the point they felt it would be a worthwhile investment (not sure what that is). Mind you, this is an incredible cheap and conservative bunch, so who knows.
Sorry for the blast from the past.
I’ll post the results of the simulation, if the bet materializes, if anyone is interested.
Any thoughts or insight is greatly appreciated.
