Farbror the Guru

How to pick a winner against the spread? Well, The Guru is a firm believer in the contrarian approach. Any system based on underdogs must have some substance. Still, there is more to successful sports betting than bet underdogs on autopilot. Money Management is Key!

Mr. Eddie Getz has done a fine job compiling data that supports the advantages of his theorem but a grumpy old geezer as Mr. Guru is not all convinced. There is a fair amount of progressive betting in the suggested method and that is a wee bit hard to accept.

It is a bit confusing that Mr. Getz advice against Martingale Betting and still uses something similar himself. The author suggests two different stake plans with different level of risk but both of them are basically progressive. One argument for using the suggested stake plans seems to be some kind of statistical dependency between the outcomes. The author needs to develop the arguments that support this claim.

Is the book worth buying? Well, an experienced and well read sports bettor will find little new in the book. Similar ideas has been used and discussed for some time. I think it would be a good read for someone new to handicapping and interested is learning how to develop betting systems. Mr. Getz has done a fine job evaluating the system using historic data.

The Underdog Theorem has been successful over the last, say, 15 seasons. That sure sound impressive but the probability for a failed season might still be as high as 0.18 (this estimate is the upper 95% confidence limit given zero events in 15 tries)! Please note that failures using progressive betting tend to be very costly.

A quick look in the Guru’s database indicate that undefeated teams qualifying as “bet against” according to The Underdog Theorem are almost 50/50 (36-37-03, see below) to cover after doing so twice in a row. This is scary since it would call for almost a nine unit bet against the winning team next week using the aggressive staking plan suggested in the book.

The bottom line: The book has very little to offer the sophisticated sports bettor but the novice sports bettor might learn some. If for example any sports bettor learn not to use progressive betting then it is well spent reading money. The Underdog Theorem has a solid appeal. Thu Guru will probably start a very small and recreational “TV-bet fund” for the season we are eagerly waiting for.

Clarification: The bets suggested by The Underdog Theorem is only a subset of the quoted data. Mr. Getz says (in private communication) that the numbers are much more promising in the test data set (16-08-00).  

Before addressing progressive betting or martingale, first some background.

The Underdog Theorem is ultimately about a new idea. The book quite thoroughly explains the idea to the reader (showing 15 years of results), then the reader is free to use the idea as it stands, modify the idea if he thinks he can improve it, or reject it altogether. Whatever the reader’s final opinion of the book is, I hope to hear from him in the Forum on my Blog. I hope the Forum becomes a place to discuss everything having to do with the Underdog Theorem – people’s success using it, people’s doubts about it, people’s changes to it.

The idea is pretty simple. For the reasons laid out in the book, we know that certain outcomes will happen every year in the NFL and we can use this knowledge to inform our bets.

Last season, the Patriots memorably demonstrated how difficult it is to finish an NFL season undefeated. One of the outcomes we can predict each season is, as I say in the book, that “no team will go undefeated in the NFL for a very long time, if ever again”. Every year the NFL has many undefeated teams, most commonly they are teams with records like 2-0, 3-0, 4-0. As you’d expect, there are more 2-0 and 3-0 teams than there are 8-0 teams. With every passing week, an undefeated team usually loses its undefeated status. The Underdog Theorem positions the gambler to profit from this. (*There is more to the Underdog Theorem. It is not enough to just bet against every undefeated team, as explained in the book, there are other factors to consider, such as “Schedule Conflicts” and “High Risk” scenarios.) But betting against the undefeated team is part of the basic idea, and it’s an angle that has been overlooked by all sports fans. I say this because with every week that an undefeated team continues to win, everyone (fans, players, media) views this team as moving one week closer to an undefeated season. The Underdog Theorem sees that this undefeated team is actually moving one week closer to its first loss. Read more »

A new interesting sports betting book hit the shelves last spring. The author, Mr Eddie Getz has promised to tell us a little about the book. The Guru will of course write a review as soon as possible!

Grumpy old geezer looking for a Study Buddy

I have no clear picture of what this would be like but a few suggestions are:

• playing slow games using ICC on a regular basis
• discussing/analyzing games
• discussing chess books

My training regime looks as follows: “semi daily” 30-60 minutes training sessions mainly focused on Tactics 

My goal is to have increased my ICC rating to 1250 by the end of the year 

 Join farbror and edwaxx for semi-regular slow games, home brewed analysis and generic fun!

** Disclaimer ** there is an embarrassing discrepancy between my chess skills and my eagerness to improve my OTB game.

953 MIL 1.990
958 FLA 2.360
959 WAS 2.480
964 BAL 1.935
973 KAN 2.450

 
904 PHI 1.862
915 PIT 2.800
919 TEX 2.240
924 BAL 1.855
930 OAK 1.971

 
955 WAS 2.53
958 FLA 2.00
969 OAK 2.04
974 BAL 2.26
980 TAM 2.11

Note: These games were posted at another site before game time and I decided to post them here (after game time) as well in order to have all my baseball picks in this thread.

904 SFO 2.20
912 TAM 2.09
914 TEX 2.01

YTD: -2.18u

951 MIL 2.210
958 PIT 2.060
959 FLA 2.300
962 SFO 1.806
976 TEX 2.380
978 SEA 1.794
979 NYY 2.320