Certified Legendary Thread Race for the flag, in squiggly lines

[Andre]

Thanks for following Squiggle 2014; you guys have made it lots of fun!

Final Siren any chance of running the squiggle from the start of the 2014 season so we can see the 2015 starting points of teams?

 

[TennisPlayerAndy]

The Hawks showed that aggressive, attacking football, when played well, is impossible to stop.

It's for this very reason Lyon won't coach a flag.

 

[Crankyhawk]

Like Geelong under Thompson, Hawthorn have a ridiculous number of medium forwards and midfielders who can turn difficult opportunities into goals.

Something Freo lacks almost entirely and Sydney didn't have enough of.

My theory is that to win the premiership, you want to have a deep spread of goal kickers who can average around 1 goal per game.

This I think is why port are quite ominous for the future.

 

[The Speaker]

This I think is why port are quite ominous for the future.

They are my early tip for 2015.

 

[Suntory Boss Coffee]

Will Hawthorn's starting squiggle position be really far away from everyone due to having two 'dominant' years in a row?

 

[Final Siren]

Will Hawthorn's starting squiggle position be really far away from everyone due to having two 'dominant' years in a row?

It only uses one year of past data, so no. Unless I fiddle with things, this is how 2015 will start:

Compared to conventional wisdom, a few teams look overrated due to some dead rubbers at the end of the season (Adelaide, West Coast) while Collingwood look underrated due to an injury-plagued late-season implosion. Port also look underrated (despite being nicely placed) because the squiggle isn't aware of their long-term trend, which if continued into 2015 would make them scary-awesome.

 

[PattoMan99]

My principal critique of the Swans this season & their supposedly 'superior' defence so far as the squiggle is concerned; is that they only played most other top 4 sides at home & only after these sides had 3x6 day breaks....That combined with playing GWSx2 served to inflate their defence as somewhat better than what it actually was....All along, my position was that the Swans 'Draw' was an arbitrary anomoly which rendered an inaccurate indicator of the actual state of affairs between these 2 sides...When it came to the 'crunch' they were found wanting!

You do realize the way squiggle works, Sydney's defensive score is actually DEFLATED for their games against the weaker sides?

 

[Billy ray]

It only uses one year of past data, so no. Unless I fiddle with things, this is how 2015 will start:

Compared to conventional wisdom, a few teams look overrated due to some dead rubbers at the end of the season (Adelaide, West Coast) while Collingwood look underrated due to an injury-plagued late-season implosion. Port also look underrated (despite being nicely placed) because the squiggle isn't aware of their long-term trend, which if continued into 2015 would make them scary-awesome.

Sydney all by their lonesome there for 2005,
Question, IF west coast had of won 2005 by say a point, where would the cup be for 2005? Closer to the main pack?

 

[cryptor]

It only uses one year of past data, so no.

What's the reasoning for resetting to just use the past years data at the start of a new season?

Why not just a rolling 2 year window? ie. After round 1 2015 is played you drop round 1 2013 data from the set. The only problem that jumps out at me (and it might be why you don't do it) is depending on when/if teams play finals from year to year they might end up continuing to move once their season is finished.

 

[Final Siren]

Sydney all by their lonesome there for 2005,
Question, IF west coast had of won 2005 by say a point, where would the cup be for 2005? Closer to the main pack?

You can see it here - the Eagles would have been the worst-positioned premier of the last 20 years, lower even than Geelong 2009 and Adelaide 1997.

The squiggle liked St Kilda best in 2005, who despite winning fewer games during the Home & Away season did so with a superior percentage (4th: St Kilda 14-8 133.3%, 2nd: West Coast 17-5 124.0%) and finished much more strongly. It's actually amazing how the Eagles fell away as the Saints ascended: the Eagles were four games clear on top of the ladder after Round 16. Then they went 2-4 over the next 6 weeks, losing to Sydney (3rd), the Bulldogs (9th) by a lot, Geelong (6th) by even more, then Adelaide - in the process giving up the minor premiership.

So the gloss was already off the Eagles by the end of the home & away season, and their first final, a 4-point win over Sydney at Subiaco, didn't do much to restore it.

Compare to the Saints! Starting in Round 16, they pounded Richmond (12th) by 11 goals, Collingwood (15th) by 12 goals, Melbourne (7th) by 14 goals, Geelong (6th) by 7 goals, and the Kangaroos (5th) by 4 goals. They just fell short against Freo (10th) in Perth, then finished off the season with a 23-goal win over Brisbane (11th). In the first week of the finals, they toppled minor premier Adelaide (in Adelaide) to earn the week's break, and that seemed to answer the question of whether they could carry this form into games against top opposition.

St Kilda faced Sydney at the MCG in the prelim. The Swans were only there after some divine intervention in the form of Nick Davis had arrived to deliver one of those ridiculously improbable comebacks that make footy so interesting. It was a close game and St Kilda led at three quarter time. But Sydney again sprinkled their magic fairy dust and kept the Saints goalless in the last quarter while kicking seven themselves - for the second week in a row almost doubling their score in the final quarter. So that was it for the Saints.

 

[Pessimistic]

It only uses one year of past data, so no. Unless I fiddle with things, this is how 2015 will start:

Compared to conventional wisdom, a few teams look overrated due to some dead rubbers at the end of the season (Adelaide, West Coast) while Collingwood look underrated due to an injury-plagued late-season implosion. Port also look underrated (despite being nicely placed) because the squiggle isn't aware of their long-term trend, which if continued into 2015 would make them scary-awesome.

My dabbling with vectors would have had, in 2014, a certain victory of hawthorn over port adelaide had that eventuated, whereas the vector positioning of haw v sydney was 50-50. Maybe the PF and GF dynamics are significantly different

 

[Hawkk]

You can see it here - the Eagles would have been the worst-positioned premier of the last 20 years, lower even than Geelong 2009 and Adelaide 1997.

The squiggle liked St Kilda best in 2005, who despite winning fewer games during the Home & Away season did so with a superior percentage (4th: St Kilda 14-8 133.3%, 2nd: West Coast 17-5 124.0%) and finished much more strongly. It's actually amazing how the Eagles fell away as the Saints ascended: the Eagles were four games clear on top of the ladder after Round 16. Then they went 2-4 over the next 6 weeks, losing to Sydney (3rd), the Bulldogs (9th) by a lot, Geelong (6th) by even more, then Adelaide - in the process giving up the minor premiership.

So the gloss was already off the Eagles by the end of the home & away season, and their first final, a 4-point win over Sydney at Subiaco, didn't do much to restore it.

Compare to the Saints! Starting in Round 16, they pounded Richmond (12th) by 11 goals, Collingwood (15th) by 12 goals, Melbourne (7th) by 14 goals, Geelong (6th) by 7 goals, and the Kangaroos (5th) by 4 goals. They just fell short against Freo (10th) in Perth, then finished off the season with a 23-goal win over Brisbane (11th). In the first week of the finals, they toppled minor premier Adelaide (in Adelaide) to earn the week's break, and that seemed to answer the question of whether they could carry this form into games against top opposition.

St Kilda faced Sydney at the MCG in the prelim. The Swans were only there after some divine intervention in the form of Nick Davis had arrived to deliver one of those ridiculously improbable comebacks that make footy so interesting. It was a close game and St Kilda led at three quarter time. But Sydney again sprinkled their magic fairy dust and kept the Saints goalless in the last quarter while kicking seven themselves - for the second week in a row almost doubling their score in the final quarter. So that was it for the Saints.

2005 was the last truly great finals series, I thoroughly enjoyed it...

 

[Final Siren]

2005 was the last truly great finals series, I thoroughly enjoyed it...

It was amazing. Almost every game had something! It even conspired to deliver a showdown final between Adelaide (1st) and Port Adelaide (8th), after the Crows lost and the Power stunned the Roos.

 

[clogged]

St Kilda faced Sydney at the MCG in the prelim. The Swans were only there after some divine intervention in the form of Nick Davis had arrived to deliver one of those ridiculously improbable comebacks that make footy so interesting. It was a close game and St Kilda led at three quarter time. But Sydney again sprinkled their magic fairy dust and kept the Saints goalless in the last quarter while kicking seven themselves - for the second week in a row almost doubling their score in the final quarter. So that was it for the Saints.

Swans did to St Kilda what Brisbane did to them two years earlier.

 

[Hawkk]

It only uses one year of past data, so no. Unless I fiddle with things, this is how 2015 will start:

Compared to conventional wisdom, a few teams look overrated due to some dead rubbers at the end of the season (Adelaide, West Coast) while Collingwood look underrated due to an injury-plagued late-season implosion. Port also look underrated (despite being nicely placed) because the squiggle isn't aware of their long-term trend, which if continued into 2015 would make them scary-awesome.

Based on this, will the Hawks commence 2015 in a nigh on identical position to their commencing positions in 2013 and 2014? Wouldn't we be a bit higher given our finishing 2014 squiggle was stronger than 2013?

 

[Andre]

It only uses one year of past data, so no. Unless I fiddle with things, this is how 2015 will start:

Compared to conventional wisdom, a few teams look overrated due to some dead rubbers at the end of the season (Adelaide, West Coast) while Collingwood look underrated due to an injury-plagued late-season implosion. Port also look underrated (despite being nicely placed) because the squiggle isn't aware of their long-term trend, which if continued into 2015 would make them scary-awesome.

The Squiggle looks as expected. Hawks are rightly favourites and all the rest of us are hoping father time catches up with at least a couple of their multitude of over 30 players hard in 2015.

And you can see why Port is chasing Ryder so hard, our defense is only behind the defensive mindset based Swans and Dockers, but we need that extra tall in attack to convert the Inside 50's (2nd after Sydney by 0.1 per game) to more goals. We had 28.1 scoring shots per game, but only 14.5 goals. A 52% conversion rate compared to the Hawks at 59%. Too many wide leads and/or shallow leads to escape tall backs as we lacked an extra tall that could contest.

Take player ages and trading aside looks like Hawks rightly as favourite, Port and Swans 2 and 3 (pick your own order), Freo. 4th, then Adelaide, North, Cats, Eagles and Richmond to contest the remaining spots. Players aging and trades will happen though, so looking forward to the 2015 squiggle.

 

[Dirty Bird]

Final Siren - NFL squiggle?
I know you said the low scoring nature of EPL made that hard, but what about NFL?

 

[gothecrows]

The squiggle liked St Kilda best in 2005, who despite winning fewer games during the Home & Away season did so with a superior percentage (4th: St Kilda 14-8 133.3%, 2nd: West Coast 17-5 124.0%) and finished much more strongly.

Didn't it like Adelaide best? Looks to me as though St Kilda is sitting on about 70 offense, 67 defense (137 total), while Adelaide is on about 62 offense, 83 defense (145 total).
Or did you mean at the end of the home & away season?

 

[Final Siren]

What's the reasoning for resetting to just use the past years data at the start of a new season?

Why not just a rolling 2 year window? ie. After round 1 2015 is played you drop round 1 2013 data from the set. The only problem that jumps out at me (and it might be why you don't do it) is depending on when/if teams play finals from year to year they might end up continuing to move once their season is finished.

The reason for using one year's data is the same reason as for all the numbers I use: I ran simulations and this turned out to be most accurate at prediction.

A rolling window is MUCH more complicated, even ignoring the fact that not every team plays every round. What it would mean is that teams would move on the chart not just based on the match they just played but also on a match they played a year ago (or whenever) dropping out of consideration. That's a bit harder to wrap your head around, and it also requires a metric crap-ton more calculation, since every team's position would need to be scrapped and regenerated from scratch with a new starting point before every game.

Beyond 30 games or so, it seems unlikely that the extra data makes any difference, since it only affects a team's position by a small amount.

As an example, ISTATE-91:12 (the original algorithm) gets 149 tips right in 2014 under the current system, where it starts with one year's data and adds to it from there, finishing with two full seasons' data. With a rolling window, it goes like this:

Rolling window (# of games)|Correct tips \ 38-55 | 147 \ 35-37 | 148 \ 32-34|149 \ 22-31|148 \ 21|147 \ 20|149 \ 19|148 \ 16-18|147 \ 15|144 \ 14|139 \ 12-13|137 \ 11|135 \ 10|133 \ 8-9|132 \ 7|129 \ 6|126 \ 5|128 \ 4|126 \ 3|129 \ 2|124 \ 1|120 \ 0|119

 

[Final Siren]

Didn't it like Adelaide best? Looks to me as though St Kilda is sitting on about 70 offense, 67 defense (137 total), while Adelaide is on about 62 offense, 83 defense (145 total).
Or did you mean at the end of the home & away season?

Sorry, yes, I mean in the sense that St Kilda charted in an excellent position, definitely closer to flag-winning positions of the last 20 years than any other team in 2005. Adelaide was indeed ahead in raw scores, but was way out in West Coast 1994 territory, which historically has not been fertile land for flag farmers.

 

[RW]

I don't think anyone questioned the Hawks' flag credentials, the fact that their squiggle sat in the 'sweet spot' for pretty much the whole year tells you that they were a very worthy premier.

The squiggle would not have seen a 10 goal margin coming given the form line going in to the grand final, it's not the squiggle's fault we played so poorly on the big day, and as we know, tipping is not what it's designed for.

Conclusion: All hail the squiggle!

 

[djboonie]

I don't think anyone questioned the Hawks' flag credentials, the fact that their squiggle sat in the 'sweet spot' for pretty much the whole year tells you that they were a very worthy premier.

The squiggle would not have seen a 10 goal margin coming given the form line going in to the grand final, it's not the squiggle's fault we played so poorly on the big day, and as we know, tipping is not what it's designed for.

Conclusion: All hail the squiggle!

It's a 2 horse race on the day, and considering the attitudes of the media and punters (and general public) Hawks ended up being rated as under dogs. (which invariably can provide extra motivation for some teams)

Interestingly guys like Adam White (RSN) really didn't understand why the market moved the way it did, however the sentiment of "you are only as good as your last game" seemed to be the over-riding influence over the minds of many people, including myself.

Question : Hypothetically, if the siren rang at the 15 minute mark of the Hawk vs Port prelim (hawks 28 points up), what do you think the representative 'sentiments' and odds would have been through grand final week?

IMO I think Sydney would have still started favs, however I think that the odds would have been a lot longer, say Sydney 1.72-5

 

[The Swans Blog]

St Kilda faced Sydney at the MCG in the prelim. The Swans were only there after some divine intervention in the form of Nick Davis had arrived to deliver one of those ridiculously improbable comebacks that make footy so interesting. It was a close game and St Kilda led at three quarter time. But Sydney again sprinkled their magic fairy dust and kept the Saints goalless in the last quarter while kicking seven themselves - for the second week in a row almost doubling their score in the final quarter. So that was it for the Saints.

Not only that, we did it in a purple patch over 10-15 minutes. I've never seen the game, but I was at home, watching the old AFL HTML feed (wish that was still around!). I remember I had internet connection problems, so I missed out on about 35~40 minutes of updates, and I was stressing out bad because the Saints were running over the top of us in the 3rd. When I finally got it up and running again, the match was almost over and we were up by 5 goals. I almost shit a tonne of bricks. I had a look at the score and it was 7 goals in a row to us.

This is after the match at Subiaco we should have won, save for the umpires getting the Eagles over the line with 2 howlers, after which I completely obliterated my TV remote in disgust. Then the extraordinarily painful and tedious first 3 quarters of the semi final against the Cats, where I swear I didn't have any fingernails left. I'm sure I woke the neighbourhood when Nick Davis put through the goal.

At least we got justice in the grand final

How much did squiggles suggest we would win by?

 

[SJ]

Not only that, we did it in a purple patch over 10-15 minutes. I've never seen the game, but I was at home, watching the old AFL HTML feed (wish that was still around!). I remember I had internet connection problems, so I missed out on about 35~40 minutes of updates, and I was stressing out bad because the Saints were running over the top of us in the 3rd. When I finally got it up and running again, the match was almost over and we were up by 5 goals. I almost shit a tonne of bricks. I had a look at the score and it was 7 goals in a row to us.

This is after the match at Subiaco we should have won, save for the umpires getting the Eagles over the line with 2 howlers, after which I completely obliterated my TV remote in disgust. Then the extraordinarily painful and tedious first 3 quarters of the semi final against the Cats, where I swear I didn't have any fingernails left. I'm sure I woke the neighbourhood when Nick Davis put through the goal.

At least we got justice in the grand final

How much did squiggles suggest we would win by?

I've always said Sydney's 2005 premiership must be the most miraculous we've seen.

Behind in the last quarter of all four matches.

Lost in the west by a kick.
Behind with three seconds left at the SCG (Davis kicks the last four goals of the game to win - has that ever happened before or will it ever happen again?!).
Behind in the last quarter against the form team who has had a week off - kicks seven goals in the last to win.
Behind in the last quarter (I believe? cannot specifically remember) and won the flag by less than a kick with West Coast surging forward at the siren.

 

[Paul Kersey]

I've always said Sydney's 2005 premiership must be the most miraculous we've seen.

Behind in the last quarter of all four matches.

Lost in the west by a kick.
Behind with three seconds left at the SCG (Davis kicks the last four goals of the game to win - has that ever happened before or will it ever happen again?!).
Behind in the last quarter against the form team who has had a week off - kicks seven goals in the last to win.
Behind in the last quarter (I believe? cannot specifically remember) and won the flag by less than a kick with West Coast surging forward at the siren.

Barry Hall playing.