Certified Legendary Thread Race for the flag, in squiggly lines

[Roobs321]

Oh no, West Coast falling off the back of the finalist contenders pack, which is basically a death sentence. Really need some wins against reputable teams.

Port and North are definitely shaping as the young top 4 contenders. If we use 65/65 as premiership window frontier, then they are on the verge and well positioned. North's slight preferential move from attack to defence (prob based on a difficult draw to date) is promising, worth keeping an eye on.

Love your work FS!

 

[scotty13]

My sister has won her work tipping comp the last 3 years by doing one simple thing. Week 1, tipping whoever she wants, then from week2 onwards, which ever team is higher on the ladder, she tips. But if you ever manage to get an algorithm that tips at 90%... let me know... I want it!

Ha, don't tempt me... ahhh too late.

Here are some basic algorithms and their performance over the last 20 years!

RANDOM, which works like you would expect, gets about 50% right. Or slightly less (stupid draws).

MOMENTUM, tipping whoever won last week and tie-breaking on biggest winning margin, is right 57.7% of the time.

HOMER, always tipping the home team, is 60.1%.

PERCY, tipping the team with the best percentage, is 63.2%.

MOREWINS, tipping the team with the most wins and tie-breaking on home team, is 65.5%.

Any better than that requires more complicated algorithms!

ISTATE-90:12, the one I use for squiggles, is 67.2% accurate over the last 20 years. It's been quite a lot stronger over the last ten years (69.2%), though, and particularly the last five years (72.9%), which is why I use it.

ISTATEVH-91:12 is slightly more accurate (67.9% over 20 years, which is the third best algorithm over that time period, and 73.3% over the last 5 years, which is the best), but more complicated, so I decided the extra complexity wasn't worth it for squiggles. It verifies home ground advantage a little more rigorously and awards a small home ground advantage to home teams in neutral venues.

The algorithm I find most interesting though is SHOTS, which makes up its own scoring system. The idea is that although kicking a behind rather than a goal is worth a lot less to your score (one sixth as much, in fact), it's not necessarily that much of a stronger indicator as to who's a better team. It might just be that your kicking was a little off that day. So SHOTS-5:2:ISTATEVH:87:11 counts goals as if they were worth 5 points and behinds 2 points and runs those numbers through the ISTATEVH algorithm. And it does a pretty good job! That one is running at 72.4% accuracy over the last five years (my 5th best algorithm for that time period), and 67.9% over the last 20 years (2nd best).

In fact, my best algorithm over the last 20 years is SHOTS-3:3:ISTATEVH:91:12, which awards, yes, 3 points for a goal and 3 points for a behind. I like it because it implies that generating a lot of shots on goal is a very good indicator of team strength, regardless of how many shots are goals.

Sadly, SHOTS-3:3 isn't as good over the last five years, only tipping at 70.0% (26th overall).

 

[clogged]

Mr Squiggle Final Siren, what are the chances of having a season forecaster based on your squiggle algorithm? Would be interesting to see how it starts out and evolves round-by-round.

 

[Liam Boy]

Wow, North have absolutely bolted. Makes me happy.

edit: I think you should add a "year-by-year" graph that plots a team's journey over a number of years, it'd be interesting to see the journey of a young up and coming club.

Also, this could be a bit more difficult, but how about an individual player graph, weighted against their direct opponent?

 

[cryptor]

I find it amusing that our 2008 and 2013 premiership cups are sitting right next to the 2001 and 2003 Brisbane Lions premiership cups. Watch out if we start to hover around the 2002 cup come September

Hawks making a bee-line for the 2002 cup!

ALL THE PLANETS ARE ALIGNING!!!

 

[seysearles]

 

[casper_jbfc]

Mr Squiggle Final Siren, what are the chances of having a season forecaster based on your squiggle algorithm? Would be interesting to see how it starts out and evolves round-by-round.

I'm pretty sure that Roby has already accounted for squiggle algorithms in his power rankings....

 

[Synth Hawk]

Hi Final Siren, I basically get the premise of the chart, but I'm still curious about the percentages.

So, for example, you start 2013 with all teams at 50%. What is the algorithm that gets a team up to 70%?

 

[Final Siren]

My sister has won her work tipping comp the last 3 years by doing one simple thing. Week 1, tipping whoever she wants, then from week2 onwards, which ever team is higher on the ladder, she tips. But if you ever manage to get an algorithm that tips at 90%... let me know... I want it!

I will post that one from my private island in the Bahamas, for sure!

It's easy to reliably tip around 65% accuracy: you just use a really boring method like the above, and that will place you fairly high up in any tipping comp.

In many (most?) comps, you can finish at or near the top by looking up the odds just beforehand and tipping the favourite. Because the marketplace is a quantification of everyone's wisdom, and crowds are usually smarter than individuals.

But of course, your tips are supposed to be your tips: your personal insight into the footy. Tipping favourites all year long might win you the comp at work, but your lunch may start mysteriously disappearing from the fridge...

 

[Butane]

Final Siren, have you run an algorithm for ave games experience? Wonder if that hit rate would be closer to the mark than Shots or Home ground.

Do you mean tipping the team with average most experience? Because I've run that from 2007-2013 and it's about 59-60% from memory adding in points for home teams when interstate teams meet. Worse if you don't.

 

[Tas]

In many (most?) comps, you can finish at or near the top by looking up the odds just beforehand and tipping the favourite. Because the marketplace is a quantification of everyone's wisdom, and crowds are usually smarter than individuals.

 

[Seppo]

Do you mean tipping the team with average most experience? Because I've run that from 2007-2013 and it's about 59-60% from memory adding in points for home teams when interstate teams meet. Worse if you don't.

That's a worse % than i thought it would be!

 

[strategy]

I guess he had to come out of retirement sometime

 

[Butane]

That's a worse % than i thought it would be!

Some years better than others. For example in 2008 you would hardly have picked Hawthorn and in 2012 you would have picked the Bulldogs most weeks.

 

[SJ]

Some years better than others. For example in 2008 you would hardly have picked Hawthorn and in 2012 you would have picked the Bulldogs most weeks.

A better measure is probably the spread around a given age, with a lower number seemingly better.

 

[catstorm]

FS did you give Hawthorn home field advantage vs Geelong this week in your tips, the margin seems large considering the difference in attack should be mitigated by the difference in defense.

 

[catstorm]

5-8 in the tips this week so far, though the scores weren't terribly accurate as you would expect.

 

[Final Siren]

Round 5, 2014

Some moderate movement from all teams, with Collingwood perhaps taking the largest step.

West Coast enter unusual territory. In Rounds 1 and 2, they scored heavily against the Bulldogs (at home, 134 points) and Melbourne (away, 123 points). But those are two of the weakest defences in the league, so it didn't count for much. Since then, the Eagles have only managed to score 83 points against another weak defence (at home to St Kilda), 32 points (away to Geelong), and now 56 points (at home to Port Adelaide). As a result, they are rated very poorly offensively, even though defensively they sit around the same place as Hawthorn.

Play with squiggles

 

[Engimal]

Is that North sitting behind the Collingwood picture?

 

[KillaKanga]

Is that North sitting behind the Collingwood picture?

Yes it is.

 

[evo]

Rchmond have to go back to being a lot more offensive. It worked for us last season and is working for Port this one. Our list isnt suited to lock-down footy.

 

[Final Siren]

Round 6, 2014

WTF: Port Adelaide Edition

Port Adelaide finished 2011 with 3 wins, 19 losses, and a percentage of 64.5%. Late in the season they lost to Collingwood by 138 points and then to Hawthorn by 165 points, and only avoiding the wooden spoon by edging Melbourne in the final round. This allowed them to jump over the Gold Coast Suns in that club's first year in the AFL.

There was little draft relief in sight, with GWS's entry to take nine of the first 15 selections, pushing Port's first pick down to #6 and their second to #28.

Ahead of the 2012 season, BigFooty overwhelmingly tipped Port Adelaide to finish 17th. Only the existence of GWS was supposed to save them from the spoon.

Two years later, the Power beat Collingwood in an elimination final at the MCG. And six H&A rounds later, they're on top of the ladder. How did that happen?

Well, I don't know, but I have a squiggle. So maybe you can figure it out.

What I can say is that this kind of rapid improvement from that far back is pretty rare. The best equivalent I can find is St. Kilda 2002-2005, but that took twice as long, coming over four seasons.

And while many teams have surged in a season, they've either not come from as far back, or have been recovering from an obvious dip. For example, West Coast in 2011 made a prelim after finishing 16th the year before, but were top 4 only three years before that. In 2005, Adelaide went from 12th to a narrow prelim loss, but improving from 8 wins is very different to improving from 3. (The Crows also had a recent top 4 finish.)

Somehow Port have shifted from one of the very worst teams in the competition to one of the very best.

 

[baz_machine]

Maybe we under rated Matthew Primus as a coach?

 

[Final Siren]

Maybe we under rated Matthew Primus as a coach?

I think his problem was that Port's improvement all came at the start of the season. In the squiggle, Port begin 2012 in wooden spoon territory and move rightwards fairly quickly. Their high point is a win over Carlton 99-45 in Round 10. But things never get any better. And the longer the season wore on, the worse the results, with the low point being a 34-point loss to GWS. Primus was sacked after that.

 

[lamaros]

Maybe we under rated Matthew Primus as a coach?

I think you mean the reverse?