Tag: CPR

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Week 16 CPR: A Little Dose of Reality

I had to take a little dose of reality this week. I was very excited when, again, the crowd predicted 13 correct straight-up. This result tied for first among ESPN experts. But I looked back at Week 15, and again at these picks, and I realized that the crowd was mainly picking favorites, in some cases heavy favorites, and the favorites were winning. One miss the crowd made was on the Seahawks, who they favored in all 7 road games prior to Week 16, and had they continued that trend, would have correctly picked one of three underdogs to win outright. I’m guessing the crowd over-indexed on the blowout loss to the Rams and the Cowboys primetime win over the Raiders such that it swung them away from their previous disposition. (The crowd did predict Seattle to cover.)

In any case, there is no shame in picking the favorites. Those teams are favorites for a reason, and if accuracy were really that simple, more experts would have done so. Still, it means that I have to temper my excitement a bit.

There is one data point that still makes me happy, and that is that the crowd has predicted 158 correct winners which ties them for third among experts. One could point out that this is only two picks ahead of the ESPN Pick ’em Crowd and say, “So what’s so special about your crowd then?” To which I’d say, actually, that proves my point about crowd wisdom. When considering the straight-up results, the ESPN crowd and the CSS crowd both have the same goal: picking the winner. And this proves that the crowd wisdom is a more reliable predictor than most experts.

We are trying to identify value in the over/under and the spreads, and that can only be identified when we collect actual scores, and that is where we see the most value in the crowd wisdom.

No On-the-Money Predictions, but some Lone Predictors

While no one hit on any final scores this week, the crowd did nail a couple of team totals right on the money. The crowd predicted the Rams would score 27 and the Bears would score 20. They also nailed that the final spread of the Raiders-Eagles game would be 9. One lone predictor, user G.A., picked the 49ers over the Jaguars. G.A. also picked the Raiders to beat the Eagles outright which brought the predicted spread under the -10 and gave the crowd the Wahtzee.

CPR Week 16 Summary

  • Straight-up: 13-3 (81%)
  • Against the Spread: 7-9 (44%)
  • Over/Under: 8-7-1 (53%)

Overall

  • Straight-up: 158-78 (66%, +1%)
  • Against the Spread: 113-119-8 (48%, -1%)
  • Over/Under: 125-109-6 (53%, +0%)

7 predictors in Week 16, down 1 from Week 15. Thank you to those who keep returning. We cannot tell you how much we appreciate your support. Please tell your friends!

The Cynthia Frelund Experience

Sadly, no @cfrelund experience this week since the primetime games fell on the weekend. I’ll have a follow-up post reviewing the Thursday night and Monday game accuracy over the 2017 season.

The WotC (Wahtzee) GotW

For the third week in a row, I have to deny my impulse to highlight the Wahtzees in which the crowd threaded the needle of picking the favorite to win and the underdog to cover, essentially because the two games in question – Colts-Ravens and Raiders-Eagles – both had huge spreads, so threading the needle wasn’t much of a risk. In the case of the former, the crowd predicted a 12.5-point win for Baltimore and only hit the Wahtzee because of the 13.5-point spread.

This week’s Wahtzee goes to the Browns-Bears because the crowd nailed the Bears score exactly, and had a couple of bounces gone Cleveland’s way rather than Chicago’s, the score could very well have been around the predicted 20-13. Additionally, the over/under prediction was one of only a few best-bets for Week 16.

PREDICTION CROWD ACTUAL
Winner Bears Bears
Spread Bears by 6.6 (spread was Bears by 5.5) Bears by 17
Over/Under 33.4 (under 37) 23

The Wabby of the Week

There were two candidates for the Wearing-a-Barrel game this week. The crowd whiffed on both Lions-Bengals and Jaguars-49ers. While I’d certainly say that it was surprising that Detroit, a team with playoff hopes, would lose to a Cincinnati team that has been out of the chase for a while, the 49ers putting up 44 against Jaguars had to be the surprise of the week. If you had told me that San Francisco would have beaten the total of 42 by themselves against the Jacksonville defense, you’d have my house and I’d be wearing a barrel on Sunday.

PREDICTION CROWD ACTUAL
Winner Jaguars 49ers
Spread Jaguars by 6.14 (spread was Jaguars by 4.5) 49ers by 11
Over/Under 40.14 (under 42) 77

Week 16 Top Performers

User C.A. had a great week this week, coming in first across all three categories and picking 14 of 16 winners. Congrats to all the top performers, and thanks for your continued support!

STRAIGHT-UP AGAINST THE SPREAD OVER/UNDER
C.A. (14)
P.M. (13)
P.C. (11)		 G.A. (7)
B.C. (7)
C.A. (7)		 P.C. (11)
C.A. (11)
B.C. (7)
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Week 15 CPR: The Home Stretch

It’s hard not to get too excited when the crowd produces results as they did in Week 15. Once again, they did very well picking the winners, correctly selecting 13 out of 16 for an 81% accuracy. They also performed very well in the over/under, picking 12 of 16 correct for a 75% accuracy rate.

What’s really important about the Week 15 over/under results is that it ticked the crowd over the crucial 50% mark, moving the season-long average to 53% (117 correct, 5 pushes, 224 total games). This is a critical indicator of our theory since the best predictors aim for 55%, and with two more good weeks, our crowd will show that they are just as good.

Separately, the crowd predicted totals that were over 10% below or above the line set by Vegas, and they went 5-2 in those games. Over the season, the crowd is 48-34 in those games for a 59% accuracy rate which is stellar.

Three (!) On-the-Money Predictions and a few close calls!

There was something in the air this week. Users E.P. and C.A. both predicted the Ravens-Browns game right on the money. User D.K. predicted a 27-24 final between the Patriots and the Steelers for another on-the-money prediction as well.

But that’s not all. User P.C. predicted a 24-23 win for the 49ers over the Titans (the actual score was 25-23) and a 30-19 win for the Saints over the Jets (the actual score was 31-19). The latter is especially impressive given that a 19-point total is pretty uncommon. User M.R. predicted a 24-17 win for the Bills over the Dolphins (the actual score was 24-16) as well as a 21-10 victory for the Lions over the Bears (the actual score was 20-10).

CPR Week 15 Summary

  • Straight-up: 13-3 (81%)
  • Against the Spread: 6-9-1 (38%)
  • Over/Under: 12-4 (75%)

Overall

  • Straight-up: 146-78 (65%, +1%)
  • Against the Spread: 106-110-8 (49%, -1%)
  • Over/Under: 117-102-5 (53%, +2%)

8 predictors in Week 15, down 2 from Week 14. Thank you to those who keep returning. We cannot tell you how much we appreciate your support. Please tell your friends!

The Cynthia Frelund Experience

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@cfrelund‘s crowd went 2-for-3 on Monday night, hitting on both Atlanta and the under, but overestimating the size of the win by the Falcons. The spread result basically hinged on the Bucs scoring a touchdown in the final minutes rather than kicking a field goal, but that’s generally why we are interested in identifying big discrepancies between the crowd predicted spread and the lines since our expectation is that, by and large, those games will be safe from a backdoor cover.

The WotC GotW

Once again I have to deny my initial instinct to pick a game in which the crowd threaded the needle as they did in the Falcons-Bucs game. Additionally, the crowd hit the spread exactly on Jets-Saints game and only missed an on-the-money prediction by two points for each team. However, this week, the crowd was really on the Ravens-Browns game. Not only did they hit the total right on the money while making it a best bet, but they predicted a big win for the Ravens, and they came through nicely.

PREDICTION CROWD ACTUAL
Winner Ravens Ravens
Spread Ravens by 10 (spread was Ravens by 6.5) Ravens by 17
Over/Under 37.25 (under 42) 37

The Wabby of the Week

Week 15 was the second week this season in which the crowd hit at least one category for every game. Nice work crowd! Unfortunately, that makes finding the Wearing-a-Barrel game a little harder to identify. However, I think it’s safe to say that if you had given me the Seahawks and 34.5 points, you’d have my house and all my clothes on Monday.

PREDICTION CROWD ACTUAL
Winner Seahawks Rams
Spread Seahawks by 1 (spread was Seahawks by 11) Rams by 35
Over/Under 53.5 (over 47.5) 49

Week 15 Top Performers

User M.R. had an incredible week picking the over-under with 14 while also coming in first against the spread. Meanwhile, P.M. and P.C. both picked 13 of 16 straight-up. Nice work everyone! We had 8 total predictors this week, so thanks to everyone who continued to help us out!

STRAIGHT-UP AGAINST THE SPREAD OVER/UNDER
P.M. (13)
P.C. (13)
C.A. (12)		 M.R. (9)
P.M. (7)
P.C. (7)
E.P. (7)		 M.R. (14)
P.C. (10)
D.K. (10)
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Week 15, Game 1 – The Early Indicator

In Weeks 13 and 14, the crowd missed across all 3 categories, and I was reluctant to write up my recap because I kept hoping that somehow the results would change and the crowd would get at least one right somehow. Sadly, it never did.

In Week 15, though, the crowd got 2 of 3 correct, and yet I was stuck getting a write-up published. As it turns out, this ended up being somewhat of a benefit as I can look back at the week’s games in their entirety and try to draw a through-line.

In the Thursday game between the Broncos and the Colts, the crowd provided an early indication of what was to come. The crowd predicted a strong play on the under, accurately predicted Denver to win, and missed the spread. The game-winner was never really in doubt and neither was the spread winner while QB Brock Osweiler somehow turned in one of his best performances in the last two years, on the road no less. The over/under ended up being a little close for comfort, but the best bet came through.

With the remaining Week 15 games in the rearview mirror as well, the Thursday night game ended up being the early indicator for what was to come.

The Game 1 CPR – 2 for 3.

Correct: Straight-up; Over/Under; Incorrect: Against the Spread

The one key takeaway that I have learned over the last two weeks is that using the term “strong play” has better karma than best bet, so I’m going to stick with that going forward.

We only had 4 predictors on Thursday, and as I’ve mentioned before, it’s hard to know what the crowd wisdom truly said with such a small number, though I’ll gladly give credit to the crowd for being right. 🙂

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The Cynthia Frelund Experience

Technically spreaking, Cynthia Frelund’s crowd (@cfrelund) also got 2 of 3 right, predicting a final of Broncos 18.6-Colts 16.2, but of course, there are two important points.

  1. We round up or down, so the final predicted would be 19-16 which indicates that Denver would cover the spread.
  2. The crowd indicating that the spread had little value is important information by itself and anyone tailing the crowd would have known to stay away from the spread bet this week.

So in the end, with both those facts in mind, I’m giving Miss Frelund’s crowd the trifecta, which henceforth I’m calling the Wahtzee. (WotC, get it? Thank you, please be sure to tip your wait staff.)

-Chris

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Week 14 CPR: Bet Avoision

The primetime games in Week 14 indicated a trend that I thought was worth digging into a bit more. On both Thursday and Monday, the crowd predicted that the final total was very close to the over/under set by Vegas. When the crowd prediction is close to the line, that’s a signal to stay away from betting.

The crowd overall performed well with respect to the over/under, getting 10 of 16 correct. I reviewed it a little more closely, and of the predictions, the crowd diverged by over 10% from the line in 6 games, and the crowd went 5-1. Looking back over the season, the crowd has gone 44-32 in such games for an accuracy percentage of 58% which is just fine.

As I mentioned two weeks ago, the value in the Over/Under is a bit easier to spot than with respect to the spread, and it’s encouraging to see that the crowd can see such value over the course of the season.

Another On-the-Money from M.R.!

User M.R. predicted the Vikings-Panthers score on the nose, 31-24. This was no small feat given how stingy the Minnesota defense had been over the last few weeks. An interesting side note to this though was that the crowd seemed to be feeling a regression for both defenses as there were 3 predictions of a total of 55 or more. In any case, congratulations M.R.!

CPR Week 14 Summary

  • Straight-up: 7-9 (44%)
  • Against the Spread: 7-9 (44%)
  • Over/Under: 10-6 (62.5%)

Overall

  • Straight-up: 133-75 (64%, -2%)
  • Against the Spread: 100-108 (48%, +0%)
  • Over/Under: 104-104 (50%, +1%)

10 predictors in Week 14, up 2 from Week 13. Thanks so much to the folks who returned, and thank you to those who keep returning. We cannot tell you how much we appreciate your support. Please tell your friends!

The Cynthia Frelund Experience

2017-week14-mnf-cf

@cfrelund‘s crowd missed the mark along with ours on Monday. They predicted a pretty sizeable win by the Patriots, so they, along with all but a small percentage of predictors, were shocked by the Dolphins not only covering but winning outright. The one bright spot was that the crowd said stay away from the total, and that was wise as the Patriots were an inch away from flipping the total from under to over. It ended up being a push, but who needs the stress if the crowd tells you not to worry about it?

The WotC GotW

Followers of the blog will know that I love it when the crowd threads the needle by predicting the underdog to cover a smallish spread while still losing the game as in the Ravens-Steelers game. However, the game this week that the crowd really predicted well was the Eagles-Rams. Not only did the crowd predict the Eagles, who were originally underdogs, to win outright, but the came very close to predicting the final spread. A touchdown during the lateral drill as time expired moved the spread from 2 to 8. Additionally, they had a lot of confidence in the over, and that came through as well.

PREDICTION CROWD ACTUAL
Winner Eagles Eagles
Spread Eagles by 3.78 (spread was Eagles by 1) Eagles by 8
Over/Under 53.78 (over 47.5) 78

The Wabby of the Week

I think the selection of the Patriots-Dolphins game as the Wearing-a-Barrel game on Monday is a pretty easy one. The Patriots had been holding their opponents, albeit not a great set of teams, to very low totals for quite a while, including 16, 8, 17, and 3 in the last four weeks. Meanwhile, they have scored at least 23 points per game during that stretch. So if you had given me the Patriots AND 6.5 points, you’d have my house and all my clothes today.

PREDICTION CROWD ACTUAL
Winner Patriots Dolphins
Spread Patriots by 14.33 (spread was Patriots by 11) Dolphins by 7
Over/Under 49.67 (over 47) 47

Week 14 Top Performers

User M.R. placed either first or second in every category this week. Nice work M.R.! We had 10 total predictors this week, so thanks to everyone who continued to help us out!

STRAIGHT-UP AGAINST THE SPREAD OVER/UNDER
D.K. (10) E.P. (9) M.R. (9) @ChalkDogLines (9) M.R. (9) D.K. (8) G.A. (10) M.R. (10) C.A. (10)
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Week 14, Game 1 – The Good Beat

The crowds missed all 3 picks in the Thursday night game between the Saints and Falcons, but in a way, it was a result that shows how the crowd wisdom can provide value by showing where there is no value.

The crowd predictions, while wrong, pretty much said stay away from this game. The original spread favored the Saints by 2.5, and the total hovered around 52 all week. By Thursday, the spread moved to the Falcons, favoring them also by 2.5. Meanwhile, the crowd’s prediction for the game consistently predicted a close game both with respect to the spread and the over/under.

I heard one of the guys on the Sports Gambling Podcast this week say that, as you get better at betting, you don’t necessarily pick the winners better; you get better at picking games to stay away from.

And that is what the crowd indicated on Thursday. The gap between the crowd prediction for both the spread and the over/under never veered more than a point or two, so the smart move was to wait for better value on Sunday. So even though the crowd came up empty, the silver lining is that it was right that the game was going to be a coin flip, and yea, verily it came to pass.

The Game 1 CPR – 0 for 3.

Incorrect: Straight-up; Over/Under; Against the Spread

The one disheartening aspect is that this is the second Thursday night game in a row in which the crowd missed all three categories. As I mentioned last week, the crowd usually misses all three in one or two games a week, so while I shouldn’t panic, it is always a little harder to take when it’s on a primetime game.

2017-week14-tnf-cf

The Cynthia Frelund Experience

Cynthia Frelund’s crowd (@cfrelund) also missed across the board, but as I mentioned above, they predicted a razor-thin margin. While the Falcons ended up as the favorite, the gap was small enough with both the spread and the total that the crowd indicated that the wise move was to look elsewhere for value.

-Chris

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Week 13 CPR: Flipping the Script

In general, I believe that picking the winner of a game is easier than picking either the spread or the over/under. As I have mentioned at least a few times, the sportsbooks set the lines in order to hit the 50/50 mark of betting on either side, so they want the lines to feel like a coin flip, and this by and large bears out over the course of the season. On the other hand, the sportsbook puts the value on the winners much more in line with the probability of the teams actually winning the game. In other words, if you bet on the Patriots to beat the Bills on Sunday, you would win far less money than if you had put the same amount on the Bills. By contrast, if you had bet the Bills to cover, you would have earned around the same as if you had bet on the Patriots (sometimes the books change their take slightly to optimize).

The crowd has picked more correct game winners than against the spread in all but two weeks this season. They turned the trick again in Week 13, getting 10 right against the spread and 9 straight up.

On-the-Moneys

There were a few close predictions this week, but none that was within a point of the actual result. Users Paul and G.A. were the only prognosticators who predicted the underdog Jets to beat the Chiefs, and they both had the spread at 6, and that deserves a shoutout.

CPR Week 13 Summary

  • Straight-up: 9-7 (56%)
  • Against the Spread: 10-6 (62.5%)
  • Over/Under: 6-10 (37.5%)

Overall

  • Straight-up: 126-66 (66%,+0%)
  • Against the Spread: 93-99 (48%, +1%)
  • Over/Under: 94-98 (49%, -1%)

8 predictors in Week 13, down 1 from Week 12. Thank you to those who keep returning. We cannot tell you how much we appreciate your support. Please tell your friends!

The Cynthia Frelund Experience

2017-week13-mnf-cf

@cfrelund‘s crowd went 2 for 3 on Monday night, benefitting both from a pretty impressive comeback by the Steelers and a late line move for the total from 43 to 42.5. The crowd predicted a pretty comfortable win for Pittsburgh, so they certainly weren’t expecting the nailbiter that the game turned out to be. Given that the crowd predicted a spread of 9 against a line of 4.5, I would consider this a best bet that didn’t come through, unfortunately.

The WotC GotW

The Wisdom-of-the-Crowd Game of the Week had a few contenders this week. The crowd was expecting a low-scoring win by the Chargers with the Browns covering (a rare sight this season), and they expected a similar result in the Giants-Raiders with Oakland coming out on top. But the crowd was really in tune with the Rams-Cardinals matchup. Not only did they predict a big win by a big favorite, they were off by the final scores by 1 and 3 points in a pretty high-scoring game.

PREDICTION CROWD ACTUAL
Winner Rams Rams
Spread Rams by 12 (spread was Rams by 7) Rams by 16
Over/Under 49.71 48

The Wabby of the Week

The Wearing a Barrel game this week ended up being the Thursday night game between Washington and Dallas. The Cowboys had scored 7, 9, and 6 points the previous 3 weeks. If you had given me Washington and 23.5 points going into Game 1 of Week 13, I’d be signing my house over to you wearing a barrel on friday morning.

PREDICTION CROWD ACTUAL
Winner Washington Cowboys
Spread Washington by 6.17 (spread was Washington by 1.5) Cowboys by 24
Over/Under 40.17 (under 46.5) 52

Week 13 Top Performers

Four users tied for the straight-up lead this week, and 3 tied in the against-the-spread category. But user E.P. (who also tied for first in the straight-up category) nailed 10 correct in the over/under for the clear victory. Nice work E.P. and to all the experts!

STRAIGHT-UP AGAINST THE SPREAD OVER/UNDER
E.P. (11)
P.C. (11)
C.A. (11)		 @ChalkDogLines (8)
G.A. (8)
C.A. (8)		 E.P. (10)
M.R. (9)
P.C. (9)
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Week 13, Game 1 – Thanksgiving Hangover

The Thursday night game for Week 13 featured two teams who played on Thanksgiving, and I wonder if the crowd over-indexed the turkey day results in their predictions. The issue wasn’t that both crowds whiffed across the board; it’s that they predicted best-bets for both Washington -1 and under 46. Our crowd predicted Washington to win by 6 with a total score of 40, and Cynthia Frelund‘s crowd predicted Washington to win by 8 with a total score of 44 (the latter total would not qualify as a best bet).

On Thanksgiving, the Cowboys were beaten handily by the Chargers; Washington outlasted the Giants, but the game never seemed in much doubt. Since both games happened in isolation and one right after the other, it would make intuitive sense to me to conclude that the trend would continue.

Sadly for the crowds, the trend reversed itself quite dramatically.

The one caveat is that Washington experienced a confluence of bad luck events that contributed to the result. That fact doesn’t invalidate the results, of course, but it is a reminder that the wisdom of the crowd has the effect over a large number of games. I tweeted on Sunday that the crowd usually misses all 3 predictions for 1 or 2 games per week. In Week 12, the crowd missed all 3 in zero games; in Week 13, it missed on 3. So really, while I like to hope that the crowd will miss on 0 predictions for every game, the odds say that we should expect a week with more than two 0-fers for every week in which the crowd gets a prediction right on every game. The 0-fer games usually involve some outlier behavior, and Thursday night just happened to be one.

The Game 1 CPR – 0 for 3.

Incorrect: Straight-up; Over/Under; Against the Spread

I probably brought this result on the crowd since I was broadcasting their straight-up results through the season (still a respectable 116-61). Honestly, I was so hopeful that when the final result came through, it took me a while to process it (hence why this post is late). The crowd did just fine for the week, but I am always hopeful that Thursday will start the predictions off on the right foot.

2017-week13-tnf-cf

The Cynthia Frelund Experience

Cynthia Frelund’s crowd (@cfrelund) also missed across the board. They were pretty in sync with our crowd, predicting a 26-18 victory for Washington compared to our 24-17. Only 14 out of 100 selected the Cowboys to win outright. One user predicted a 34-17 victory which is quite remarkable given how much of an outlier it was.

-Chris

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Week 12 CPR: The Edge of Wisdom

The crowd went a very impressive 14 for 16 in picking winners in Week 12 for an 88% success rate. I was halfway through dancing on my roof after seeing that result when I looked at the spreads and had to stop. There were only 6 games this week in which the spread was less than 6 points. And while a large spread doesn’t guarantee victory, a quick scan shows that picking the favorite when the spread is 7 or more was correct in 41 out of 51 games (80% success), so 88% accuracy is not quite the feat I had originally thought. (Incidentally, the two incorrect picks were the Cowboys and the Chiefs.) Still, the crowd correctly picked the Cardinals (+6) upset over the Jaguars as well as the winner in 4 games in which the spread was less than 4 points, so it’s still a pretty impressive accomplishment that tied for first among the ESPN experts.

This got me thinking about the crowd and very large spreads. In Week 12, there were 5 games with spreads greater than 8 points. 4 out of the 5 favorites not only won outright but covered the spread as well. The question that sprang to mind is: can the crowd identify value for a spread that large?

The challenge, especially for games with very large spreads, is that a prediction in which the favorite wins by a narrow margin would be the equivalent of an upset by even a moderate underdog. Here’s what I mean. The Patriots were favored by 16.5 points in Week 12. If I predicted New England to win by 8, which is still a very comfortable margin, two people would have to predict the Patriots to win by 21 points to offset that. As far as the crowd wisdom is concerned, my 8-point Patriots win predictions would have had the same effect on the crowd score as picking the Bills, who were getting 8.5 points, to beat the Chiefs by 1.

Perhaps with a large crowd, we would see wins by big margins balance out narrower victories, but it seems as though predictions with very large spreads are pretty rare. For me, it would be hard to imagine a professional team losing by more than 20 simply because you just never know what can happen. Time will tell whether the crowd will be able to identify value for matchups with that kind of discrepancy.

We had 9 total predictors this week (up 2 from Week 10), including one new user (thanks J.P.!). Our plans for a postseason contest are coming together, so please tell your friends to add their wisdom in the coming weeks so that they can have a chance to win!

Another Near-Hit This Week!

J.P. was on fire this week. He hit the Titans-Colts spread on the nose and with a 21-17 prediction, missed each score by only a point each, and then he predicted a Raiders 21-13 victory over the Broncos, missing the actual score of 21-14 by just one. Nice job J.P.!

CPR Week 12 Summary

  • Straight-up: 14-2 (88%)
  • Against the Spread: 8-8 (50%)
  • Over/Under: 10-6 (63%)

Overall

  • Straight-up: 117-59 (66%, +2%)
  • Against the Spread: 83-93 (47%, +0%)
  • Over/Under: 88-88 (50%, +1%)

9 predictors in Week 12, up 2 from Week 11. Thank you to those who keep returning. We cannot tell you how much we appreciate your support. Please tell your friends!

The Cynthia Frelund Experience

2017-week12-mnf-cf

The Monday night game in Week 12 was a bit unusual for @cfrelund‘s crowd. The crowd predicted a 23-15 victory for the Ravens, just one point from the actual score. Pretty amazing! On the other hand, the spread favored the Ravens by 7.5, so the crowd was technically on the wrong side of the spread. However, as we’ve mentioned several times before, part of the value of the crowd wisdom is identifying lines to avoid in order to save money for the valuable bets. The crowd said to stay away from the line and they were pretty much right on the money on that.

The WotC Game of the Week

I was impressed with the crowd prediction in the Saints-Rams game because the predicted a close victory for the Rams with a total of 48 points. That total was over 10% less than the Vegas total of 54, indicating good value. The reason it’s not the WotC winner is because the crowd predicted a Saints cover. With only a 2.5-point spread, that is an extremely narrow window to thread the needle, and it came up empty. Given that this week’s selection predicted a fairly big underdog to win outright, Jaguars-Cardinals gets the nod this week.

PREDICTION CROWD ACTUAL
Winner Cardinals Cardinals
Spread Cardinals by 0.22 (spread was Jaguars by 6) Cardinals by 3
Over/Under 43.1 (over 37) 51

The Wabby of the Week

The crowd got at least one prediction right every game this week. Very impressive! Still, only one person predicted the Bills to beat the Chiefs, and if you had given me the Bills and 5.5 points in Kansas City after QB Nick Peterman threw 5 interceptions in the first half the previous week, I’d be wearing a barrel on Monday.

PREDICTION CROWD ACTUAL
Winner Chiefs Bills
Spread Chiefs by 7.12 (spread was Chiefs by 8.5) Bills by 6
Over/Under 41.57 (under 47) 26

Week 12 Top Performers

User J.P. finished first across all three categories, tying for first with an impressive 12, 10, and 11 picks. Nice work J.P.! Here are all of our top performers for Week 12. Congrats everyone and thanks again for your help!

STRAIGHT-UP AGAINST THE SPREAD OVER/UNDER
G.A. (12)
C.A. (12)
P.C. (12)
P.M. (12)
J.P. (12)		 B.C. (10)
J.P. (10)
E.P. (9)		 G.A. (11)
J.P. (11)
P.C. (9)
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Week 12, Thanksgiving – Thank you!

I saw a lot of e-mails in my inbox from my various mailing lists yesterday with “thank you” in the subject in some form or another, and while it feels a little cliche, I did want to take a moment to say thanks to everyone who has followed the blog, made any predictions,  or both. We really appreciate your support as we try to prove out our theory.

When it came to the games, the crowd performed pretty well. In both the early game and the later game, the crowd was dialed in, predicting relatively tight victories for both the Vikings and Redskins while still covering the spread. The crowd missed on the winner and the spread of the Chargers-Cowboys game, predicting a narrow Dallas victory in what turned out to be a rout by San Diego. So far this season, the crowd has lingered a game or two too long on some teams, and the crowd has expected either close losses or outright victories from the Cowboys since RB Ezekiel Elliott was suspended and LB Sean Lee was injured. The Cowboys have lost every game without either. It will be interesting to see if the crowd continues backing the Cowboys in Week 13.

Game 1 (Vikings-Lions) CPR – 2 for 3

Correct: Straight-up, Against the Spread; Incorrect: Over/Under

This game looked like it would be a blowout early in the third quarter. When the Vikings went ahead 27-10, the 3-point Vikings cover predicted by the crowd seemed all but in the bag, but the under prediction was hanging by a thread. As the Lions clawed their way back into the game, the under slipped away entirely.

2017-week12-tnf-game1-cf

The data showed an interesting trend. As game time drew near, the totals submitted trended towards the over while most early predictions were lower scoring. A few more predictions and the crowd may well have ended up on the right side of the total and hit the trifecta. (On a side note, it seems like betting the over would be the most comforting wager on the board because it’s the only one that can be cashed before the game goes final.)

Game 2 (Chargers-Cowboys) CPR – 1 for 3

Correct: Over/Under; Incorrect: Straight-up, Against the Spread

The Chargers-Cowboys game was a sort of mirror image to the Vikings-Lions as the last few predictions submitted all had Dallas winning by as little as 4 and as much as 10. As a result, the crowd prediction swung from favoring San Diego to favoring Dallas.

2017-week12-tnf-game2

Additionally, the initial spread in this game started out favoring the Cowboys by as much as 4.5 points. It dropped all the way down to favoring the Chargers by 1 indicating that the betting public and our crowd saw a lot of value in the early lines.

Game 3 (Giants-Washington) CPR – 3 for 3

Correct: Straight-up, Against the Spread, Over/Under;

The crowd hit a nice trifecta in the late game. Not only did the crowd get all 3 predictions correct, they also predicted a 9.3-point win for Washington and the final spread was 10. You could say that there was a fair bit of luck involved in the cover; the Giants turned the ball over on downs deep in their own territory with around 3 minutes remaining, and because Washington couldn’t convert a first down, they kicked a field goal to make the score 20-10. On the other hand, the Giants only touchdown was on an interception return by CB Janoris Jenkins that, while the pass was poorly thrown, was only made possible by a tip by WR Brandon Marshall. So the luck sort of evened out.

As for the data, there was only one prediction that had the Giants winning, and all of the other predictions favored Washington by at least 7. The crowd was really feeling an easy Washington victory and yea, verily it came to pass.

I’ve been (sort of) tracking the canary in the coal mine of the Thursday games, and I’ve been noticing a loose correlation. So with a 6-for-9 performance on Thursday, including 2 fairly astute predictions, I am hopeful that the crowd will be able to clear the 50% threshold across all 3 prediction pillars.

 

-Chris

Categories
Recap

Week 11 CPR: End of the Middle

 

Week 11 was the last week in which any teams have byes. From here on out, the crowd will have to reach 8 correct in order to hit 50%. As I noted last week, the crowd seems to have steadied across the 3 pillars. This week the crowd continued to do well straight up, predicting 10 correct and tying for second among the ESPN experts, but it fell below the 50% mark for both the spread and the total. Given that we are hoping to maintain a high-50s average correct, anything below 50% puts pressure on the remainder of the season.

There were three games of note with respect to the final results this week. First, the Buccaneers-Dolphins game was seconds away from a trifecta for the crowd. Tampa Bay scored a touchdown with no time remaining (similar to the Kansas City touchdown as time expired in Week 4) to flip the under to over. What was noteworthy as far as prognostication goes is that the crowd had the spread nearly right on the money, and it was only a fluke play that switched the result.

Another loss the crowd suffered was with respect to the spread in the Falcons-Seahawks game. The Seahawks were favored for most of the week, and our crowd predicted an Atlanta win outright. The late line move to Seahawks +1 meant that the crowd’s predicted spread of Falcons by 0.9 ended up being wrong by just a hair. Had the line moved down to even or as high as Seattle +0.5, the crowd would have broken even for the week.

On the win side, the crowd predicted a comfortable 7.7-point win for New Orleans over Washington. The spread favored the Saints by 7.5, so the crowd did not see a lot of value there. And while New Orleans ended up winning the game by a field goal, the crowd only got the spread prediction correct thanks to a big line move from Saints by 7.5 to Saints by 9.5. What’s noteworthy is that the betting crowd saw a lot of value in New Orleans which is why the sportsbooks moved the line further towards Washington to entice bettors to bet on Washington. Our crowd did not see any value, so if we had kept an eye on the line movement, it would have indicated a buy on Washington as the game neared kickoff.

In the latter two examples, as our crowd grows, we’ll aim to identify when the crowd is correct apart from just what the spread or total ends up being at kickoff.

We had 7 total predictors this week (down 4 from Week 10) and could still use help to build our crowd size. We are working through plans for a postseason contest, so please tell your friends to add their wisdom in the coming weeks so that they can have a chance to win!

Another Near-Hit This Week!

User R.M. was just one point away from an on-the-money prediction this week, predicting a final outcome of Saints 34, Washington 32 (actual 34-31). Surely he predicted a furious Saints comeback as well. Nice work!

User Mark had another noteworthy prediction this week. First, he predicted that the Ravens would defeat the Packers by 21 points (28-7) and the actual result was 23-0. As a general tendency, no user has ever predicted a shutout, and 7 points is about as low as you can predict, so Mark definitely saw something that proved out when the game was played.

CPR Week 11 Summary

  • Straight-up: 10-4 (71%)
  • Against the Spread: 6-7-1 (43%)
  • Over/Under: 6-8 (43%)

Overall

  • Straight-up: 103-57 (64%, +0%)
  • Against the Spread: 75-85 (47%, +0%)
  • Over/Under: 78-82 (49%,+0%)

7 predictors in Week 11, down 4 from Week 10. Thank you to those who keep returning. We cannot tell you how much we appreciate your support. Please tell yourfriends!

The Cynthia Frelund Experience

2017-week11-mnf-cf

@cfrelund’s crowd, while missing on the spread (which was basically a coin-flip at game time), got both the winner and the over/under correct. Additionally, it deserves mentioning that the crowd predicted a very close game and yea, verily, it came to pass. Additionally, the spread opened with the Seahawks favored by 3.5 points in which both our crowd and Ms. Frelund’s crowd saw a lot of value. That matched the betting trends as the sportsbooks moved the line over 4 points by kickoff.

The WotC Game of the Week

There were two trifectas this week: Washington-Saints and Patriots-Raiders. As I mentioned above, the crowd hit on the trifecta in New Orleans only because of a late line move, but they were pretty much right on the money in Mexico City. The crowd expected the Patriots to coast to victory while the Raiders would not be able to keep pace. It seems fitting that the game that put the Raiders’ postseason hopes on life support (6-0 down the stretch is the only way I can see them playing in January) is also the one that the crowd predicted most accurately.

PREDICTION CROWD ACTUAL
Winner Patriots Patriots
Spread Patriots by 10.9 (spread was Patriots by 6.5) Patriots by 25
Over/Under 50.8 (under 52) 41

The Wabby of the Week

The Giants pick up their second Wabby this season. Having just given up a win to a winless team in the previous week, I would have thought you were crazy to give me the Chiefs AND points going into Sunday, and on Monday I’d be wearing a barrel.

PREDICTION CROWD ACTUAL
Winner Chiefs Giants
Spread Chiefs by 11.7 Giants by 3
Over/Under 48.57 (over 44.5) 21

Week 11 Top Performers

Here are our top performers for Week 11. Congrats everyone and thanks again for your help!

STRAIGHT-UP AGAINST THE SPREAD OVER/UNDER
R.M. (11)
P.C. (11)
M.G. (9)		 G.A. (7)
P.C. (7)
M.G. (7)
R.M. (7)
M.R. (7)		 C.A. (8)
G.A. (7)
M.R. (6)