Aikido Final Results
Results are in. We finished strong!
Our final result was 78-66-3. We were +16.9 units and we held 11.7%.
Our line movement got less good as we neared the end, finishing at -161 cents, or -1.1 cents/game. Rounding errors abound but I’m sure that’s close. Ideally of course we’d use percentages. Right now I don’t care enough to do that.
The spreadsheet with the results can be found here. You are encouraged to audit it and point out errors.
Here are some quick observations.
We won on both sides and totals.
Our sides had tiny positive line movement, +0.11 cents/game, while going 37-39 but +4.4 units thanks to taking underdogs, for a hold of 5.8%. That actually seems like it might be mostly accurate, between the edge from runlines and the edge the program gives us, and using our judgment.
Our totals had better than random line movement, -2.4 cents/game versus about -6.5 for random, but definitely not what I’d like to see. The results on the other hand were outstanding. We went 41-27-3, +12.4 units, +18.3% hold. Most of our winnings came on overs, and we were reasonably split between overs and unders.
We showed a clear bias of betting under larger numbres, and over smaller numbers, at most ballparks. Only 4 times did we go under 8 or less, one of which was a seven inning game, and only once did we go under 7 or 7.5. We went under 9.5 or more 12 times, interestingly all of them 9.5 or 10. We went Over 9.5 or more 10 times, 3 of which were Coors Field specials - we always went over there, which indicates a likely bias. We went over 8 or less 7 times. Most extreme though was at 8.5. We went over 12 times, and went under only 2 times.
I think this likely reflects the market messing up its math, more than anything, and us taking advantage.
For sides, we bet no team more than 6 times out of 76 wagers, but only because I was looking out for that problem and biasing our decisions on the margin. The program on its own would have done more, especially down the stretch, and especially once we were taking underdog runlines.
The underdog runlines were taken 14 times. Of those 14, we won 3 of the games because we bought the extra run. That’s slightly above the rate I would predict, and isn’t much evidence of anything, but felt like it was worth noting. We also won another 7 games outright, so these games did very, very well for us, and would have done so on the moneyline as well.
It is worth noting that my bets on Mets games had strong results in both line movement and results. I do think I brought useful insight, and felt like I could have brought more. I avoided some poor bets, got some really good ones, and ‘got got’ at least once and arguably twice. It’s been a very frustrating season, and by the time you read this we’ll probably be ready to see all of you next year.
There’s more things one could say, and I hope to have a general conclusions post about the market up either here or at my main blog. If I post it elsewhere, I’ll email you all out the link. My basic conclusion is that baseball markets are absolutely something you can beat with relatively basic strategy, provided you also do the work. You need to do the work. Shop around, be patient, keep your discipline and play the long game. Watch out for traps. But if you do that, you can definitely win.
I may run the program for some of the playoffs, but I don’t want to add that to its tallies either way. This last week of the season is weird, and definitely to be avoided for those of us using strategies like this, aside from the few games both teams clearly need. Even then, it’s scary.