One piece of the puzzle

[ComptrBob]

Welcome to recordkeeping.

I'll be keeping track of various high profile touts and cappers here in the months to come. I track only free picks or those who are listed on websites that have a record for completeness at a minimum (hopefully I can/will assess their accuracy as well). Others are welcome to add content and/or comments, especially guys like JoeFlex who are willing to pay for tout's picks and/or tracking services.

I believe that long term records can and do reflect a capper's abilities. I think its interesting to know how the guys you see on TV, radio and other forums actually do. For those who don't, you should probably just ignore this room.

Generally, I have found most touts are reluctant to post or discuss their long term records, mostly because they suck. However, there are some touts that have very good, multi year runs.

We'll have to see how things go.

[daringly]

If you're tracking them, I have 2 suggestions to "add completeness".

1. Verify the line the bet is available when released. If they are a tout, it needs to be widely available, however you define that.

2. Track the closing average line at Pinnacle/Matchbook. If you track how a player does versus closers, this is much more predictive of future winning plays than is a past history of winning plays. It converges about 4 times as fast (meaning a guy who beats the closer no-vig by 2 cents with 100 plays is comparable to a guy hitting 53.5% over 400 plays).

[mikevegas]

I track only free picks or those who are listed on websites that have a record for completeness at a minimum (hopefully I can/will assess their accuracy as well).

Hi Bob and welcome.
You and this topic are great additions.

I need a little clarification, please.
I know you track the Sportsmemo guys but they are a pay site.
So do you track their record and reconcile their picks after the fact?

Also, if this is not too proprietary, do you hand scrape the info or do you use web quires/visual basic?

Two other points.

Several touts have life time losing records resulting in their notorious detractors, such as Heim or Jeff, unable to appreciate their value. However, if their life time record is 40% you can fade away at a 60% win rate. Also, several read local papers and cull through trivia which in itself can be useful for those who buy their product. For some subscribers the write-ups are worthwhile.

If a tout gets consistent line movement then that is value in itself.
Although I don't understand how a losing tout could get consistent line movement. I would be curious about that.

Thank you so much & I hope you have time to answer my 2 questions.

Dr. Mike

p.s. Jon, great idea!

[Prop Man]

Good luck. Sounds like a lot of hard work.

[mikevegas]

(meaning a guy who beats the closer no-vig by 2 cents with 100 plays is comparable to a guy hitting 53.5% over 400 plays).

Daringly,
I don't understand this.
2¢ = 102/202 = 50.5%

Thank you.

[ComptrBob]

If you're tracking them, I have 2 suggestions to "add completeness".

1. Verify the line the bet is available when released. If they are a tout, it needs to be widely available, however you define that.

2. Track the closing average line at Pinnacle/Matchbook. If you track how a player does versus closers, this is much more predictive of future winning plays than is a past history of winning plays. It converges about 4 times as fast (meaning a guy who beats the closer no-vig by 2 cents with 100 plays is comparable to a guy hitting 53.5% over 400 plays).

By "completeness", I mean a complete record of plays i.e. if the tout provides a record, he doesn't cherry pick or leave out a section of the record. Probably the most visible example of this is the Oklahoma Sports Monitor (OSM) where the website visitor is only given winning records and must pay for losing capper's records. Compiling a complete record on a capper using OSM requires paying their service fees. Even using the OSM, their methods don't always use "WA lines" rather they tend to use "best line available sometime near the pick's release".

I would say that your concerns are what I lump into "market accuracy" adjustments. Its very time consuming and difficult to compare the movement of the line from released to closing for each capper in each sport. I'll discuss this some more when I get time.

[ComptrBob]

I know you track the Sportsmemo guys but they are a pay site.
So do you track their record and reconcile their picks after the fact?

Also, if this is not too proprietary, do you hand scrape the info or do you use web quires/visual basic?

Two other points.

Several touts have life time losing records resulting in their notorious detractors, such as Heim or Jeff, unable to appreciate their value. However, if their life time record is 40% you can fade away at a 60% win rate. Also, several read local papers and cull through trivia which in itself can be useful for those who buy their product. For some subscribers the write-ups are worthwhile.

If a tout gets consistent line movement then that is value in itself.
Although I don't understand how a losing tout could get consistent line movement. I would be curious about that.

Thank you so much & I hope you have time to answer my 2 questions.


1. I copy and paste the Sportsmemo Recap page into Excel and then run an Excel macro based on a Visual Basic script to process the page into individual stats and overall records.

2. Very hard to find 40% cappers not in a short sample, but they can be valuable.

3. Predictable line movement is quite valuable. Obvious examples of large line moves from the past are Doc's B10 play of the year, Phil Steele's 5 star plays, Dr. Bob's picks at his height even Cokin's picks on the Sunday PM Stardust radio show and Culver posting on EOG and pounding K props at low limits on Pinnacle. All these have faded. Currently CBB totals and WNBA have large moves at low limits and if they don't go moribund, Arena Football moves. Losing touts seem to quickly lose their luster and move the market much less than when they are on short term winning streaks. We can discuss this later.

[PerpetualCzech]

Even using the OSM, their methods don't always use "WA lines" rather they tend to use "best line available sometime near the pick's release".

I always thought they used the closing line (I can't remember where I heard this from). Does that sound familiar?

[WarDekar]

Daringly,
I don't understand this.
2¢ = 102/202 = 50.5%

Thank you.

He said 2c on the median close.

[WarDekar]

By "completeness", I mean a complete record of plays i.e. if the tout provides a record, he doesn't cherry pick or leave out a section of the record. Probably the most visible example of this is the Oklahoma Sports Monitor (OSM) where the website visitor is only given winning records and must pay for losing capper's records. Compiling a complete record on a capper using OSM requires paying their service fees. Even using the OSM, their methods don't always use "WA lines" rather they tend to use "best line available sometime near the pick's release".

I would say that your concerns are what I lump into "market accuracy" adjustments. Its very time consuming and difficult to compare the movement of the line from released to closing for each capper in each sport. I'll discuss this some more when I get time.

It should be pretty easy to verify vs. their picked line and closing line for someone with your computer skills, at least assuming you have their picks records.

[ComptrBob]

I always thought they used the closing line (I can't remember where I heard this from). Does that sound familiar?

JoeFlex did a study of how OSM graded their plays. They did not use the closing line. Most of the time, it seemed that they used the best available line on the day of the game.

[WarDekar]

JoeFlex did a study of how OSM graded their plays. They did not use the closing line. Most of the time, it seemed that they used the best available line on the day of the game.

If only we could be so lucky in the real world....

[mikevegas]

He said 2c on the median close.

WarDekar,

Daringly said "beat the closer no-vig by 2¢."

What does that mean, please?
Thank you.

Bob, Thank you for your answer.

Mike

[ComptrBob]

It should be pretty easy to verify vs. their picked line and closing line for someone with your computer skills, at least assuming you have their picks records.

Yes, I have "their" (Sportsmemo plus others) picks records although not in a canonical database. AFAIK, if I did a general evaluation tool using some imported Pinny/Matchbook/other closing line as well as perhaps the WA line at the time of release, I'd have the industry state-of-the-art pick tracking tool. Good idea, but currently tracking is only a sideline hobby for me.

[WarDekar]

WarDekar,

Daringly said "beat the closer no-vig by 2¢."

What does that mean, please?
Thank you.

Bob, Thank you for your answer.

Mike

When he says 'no-vig' I take that to mean the median close, so if Pinny is -105/-105 the median close is +100, if it's -120/+110 the median close is -115 (not technically I guess, but close enough).

[WarDekar]

Yes, I have "their" (Sportsmemo plus others) picks records although not in a canonical database. AFAIK, if I did a general evaluation tool using some imported Pinny/Matchbook/other closing line as well as perhaps the WA line at the time of release, I'd have the industry state-of-the-art pick tracking tool. Good idea, but currently tracking is only a sideline hobby for me.

Are they at least in some sort of standard format (for each person/service)? Even if not it can't be too hard to write something up to parse it.

You have the difficult part done already of compiling accurate data. Maybe you should Open Source it and see what other people can do with it? It's a hobby, after all :)

[PerpetualCzech]

Even if not it can't be too hard to write something up to parse it.

Very tricky IMO. You need to take into account the size of the offers at MB. Not only would you need to come up with a fairly intricate algorithm comparing these sizes to Pinn limits, these offers are bouncing around all the time, so timing becomes very important.

BTW, anyone who could get around these problems and come up with a fair automated program that generates a WA line at any given second would have a killer app for the industry that would have monster value.

[WarDekar]

I meant to parse the picks from whatever services he has records for, and compare them to close.

Matchbook and what you're talking about is something completely different, but simply comparing the picks to a Pinny close should not be very difficult.

Plus with Matchbook we're talking about only a few years of any sizable market anyway, aren't we?

[kimlee]

I hope ComptrBob digs up JoeFlex's work at LVASports. I worked hard with Joe to compile Sports Monitor records. It is like picking Shakespeare out of a trillion monkeys. It is not enough to find a historically profitable tout. You need to show that touts with historical success have future success. I tried it, and they don't.

Remember monitoring is a business. The monitor (Ruth) has dozens, or perhaps hundreds of clients. There are missed phone calls, bounced e-mails, and various other hassles. And every tout complains if they feel ripped off by half a point. Ruth is not computerized. Historically they just took a rotation schedule, called around Vegas books, and recorded the highest and lowest line for each game. The did not have resources to time-stamp every pick from every tout. So yes, touts sometimes get retrospective benefit of line movements. In theory they could exploit this. But most of them have clients who want the picks early. Those clients would get angry if they saw Sports Monitor getting different picks than customers. Nevertheless, there is some unfair shopping benefit, so a coin-flipper would expect to hit 51%.

Daringly, I don't understand this.

Daringly was just saying that the fraction of customers who beat the spread by 2-cents is equivalent to the fraction who hit 53.5%+. If you have a friend who averages +102 on his bets when you are laying -110 then your friend is probably sharp.

A real-time line tracking system would be a lot more valuable for making bets than monitoring touts.

I would be interested in a measurement of the Fezzik vs. Gordon style of shopping. Fezzik grabs the last stale line after steam. Gordon releases picks a half point above the prevailing line and grabs it if it hits his limit.

[PerpetualCzech]

Ruth is not computerized. Historically they just took a rotation schedule, called around Vegas books, and recorded the highest and lowest line for each game. The did not have resources to time-stamp every pick from every tout.

This is crazy. How can this possibly be a legitimately recognized monitoring service?

[Stochastic Shibboleth]

This is crazy. How can this possibly be a legitimately recognized monitoring service?

Easy, there is no such animal!

[Wrecktangle]

Bob, I sent you an e-mail with a roll-up of my WNBA selections for this past year. Let me know if you have any Qs.

[Jeff Jones]

You do have to realize that Computer Bob can report performance from Touts he has access to. That's all.

There will be no Jim Feist stable or Wayne Root stable about how good they are performing.

But I watch the shows every week, and they never lose. It's amazing!

[Joeflex]

I did a lot of research into the OK Monitor. We were trying to discover the systematic policy and how this would affect its grading. But what we did not consider at the time, which is extremely significant, is how the everyday procedures involved in grading might affect things. What I have discovered since is basically that the OK Monitor is a haphazard mishmash of errors and incompetence.

I have talked to people who have been monitored. They say the mistakes are nonstop, that every week the grades are mess. The lines are incorrect, the weekly tabulations are incorrect. If a mistake is in your favor, you can let it go. If it hurts you, you have to contact Ruth and get it resolved. I know firsthand, and from others, that contacting Ruth is extremely difficult. This too will add to some inflation because I know that 4 emails and 4 phone calls may not be enough to get to Ruth. But someone like the Swami who has 6 services per sport in every sport, for the last 20 years, it seems reasonable to assume he would have an easier time getting a hold of Ruth than some new service who just started and is only tracking one sport.

One good example of further incompetence is Ruth's email. It is always going down. My sources say this happened once every couple of weeks, more than one would expect. So when that happens if your email got kicked back you can just forward it back later if it won or just pass on it if lost. She is just not technologically competent and this is now 2009 when presumably at its best. Everything will be anecdotal so tough to really pinpoint.

Joeflex