I was interested in how you would do if you had continuously bet against the favourite in each match for the GSL since the round of 32. Before anyone posts anything about the value of such statistcs let me just stop you and say there is no real value, it’s just for fun. For it to become statistically significant we would need to run it over the last 2 GSL’s and probably lots more to come.
Premise: Start with 160 Dollars, bet starting amount of dollars divided by number of matches each round on the players predicted to lose.
Round of 32: 160/16 matches = 10 dollars per match
Better than betting on the favourite but still far from great, money back essentially, to keep it easy we put .6 dollars back in.
Round of 8: 160/4 matches = 40 dollars per match
XLBet.com Odds (From LR thread): IMNesTea 1.47 : 2.55 TSL.Rain - 102 TSL.FruitDealer 1.63 : 2.20 HongUnPrime.WE -88 MarineKingPrime.WE 2.25 : 1.60 oGsMC - 0 TLAF-Liquid`Jinro 1.65 : 2.15 choyafOu – 0 Result Ro8 102+88 = 190 Pretty decent, we’re making 30 dollars and are significantly beating only playing the favourite. Since 190 is a nice round number we let the full amount ride to the next round.
Round of 4 190/2 matches = 90 dollars per match:
XLBet.com Odds (From LR thread): Rain 2.30 vs. 1.57 HongUn – 207 oGsMC 1.30 vs. 3.30 LiquidJinro - ??
Results: positive but good or fantastic depends on Jinro.
Conclusions: It is hard to make an exact estimate as to whether it is a good strategy or not. Betting against the favourite definitely has been better this round (for every step) than betting on the favourite but whether that holds true long term or not is harder to say. Overall my feelings are that SC2 favours betting on the lesser player more than SC1 due to the fact that mechanics are less important and strategy is more important (relatively speaking of course).
On December 10 2010 01:58 HopLight wrote: Conclusions: It is hard to make an exact estimate as to whether it is a good strategy or not. Betting against the favourite definitely has been better this round (for every step) than betting on the favourite but whether that holds true long term or not is harder to say. Overall my feelings are that SC2 favours betting on the lesser player more than SC1 due to the fact that mechanics are less important and strategy is more important (relatively speaking of course).
How can you make a conclusion that starcraft 2 favours the lesser players more then starcraft 1 off of these statistics? You do realize that the odds are designed so that you win more money by betting on the player less likely to win because you're more likely to lose all of your money. Thus you came out with even money in the early rounds despite picking the loser more often.
Its like rolling a die infinte times where everytime it lands on 1-5 you pay me one dollar but everytime its a six I pay you five dollars, it doesn't tell us anything.
On December 10 2010 01:58 HopLight wrote: Overall my feelings are that SC2 favours betting on the lesser player more than SC1 due to the fact that mechanics are less important and strategy is more important (relatively speaking of course).
Or that randomness has a bigger impact ? Or that reputation are too easily given ?
On December 10 2010 01:58 HopLight wrote: Conclusions: It is hard to make an exact estimate as to whether it is a good strategy or not. Betting against the favourite definitely has been better this round (for every step) than betting on the favourite but whether that holds true long term or not is harder to say. Overall my feelings are that SC2 favours betting on the lesser player more than SC1 due to the fact that mechanics are less important and strategy is more important (relatively speaking of course).
How can you make a conclusion that starcraft 2 favours the lesser players more then starcraft 1 off of these statistics? You do realize that the odds are designed so that you win more money by betting on the player less likely to win because you're more likely to lose all of your money. Thus you came out with even money in the early rounds despite picking the loser more often.
Its like rolling a die infinte times where everytime it lands on 1-5 you pay me one dollar but everytime its a six I pay you five dollars, it doesn't tell us anything.
There are lots of different skills you can have, mechanics, strategical sense, intuition etc. My view is that mechanics is slightly more favoured in SC1 than SC2 which instead favours strategical play and intuitive thinking slightly more (again like I said relatively speaking, good mechanics gets you far in SC2 as well). This does not by any way mean that SC2 players are less skilled or any of that crap. With strategic play being more favoured the players with slightly worse mechanics has a higher chance of winning IMO.
Also in you example you are forgetting about the house edge, if you can make even money or more on any strategy consistently then you have a pretty decent strategy since the house edge is about 5-10%. So its like you die example except there is one roll where the house wins, if we roll an infinite time and I get my money back it should be a decent strategy since I'm keeping even with the house. Anyways, its statistics for fun make what you will of them.
Who sets the line for XLBet? I can't imagine trying to set a line for a 3 month old tournament in a 6 month old game with players you've barely heard of...
On December 10 2010 03:08 Chill wrote: Who sets the line for XLBet? I can't imagine trying to set a line for a 3 month old tournament in a 6 month old game with players you've barely heard of...
I don't know but my guess is that they are mostly rolling i.e. are adjusted by how people bet. Compared to say PlayXP they tend to have much worse odds on foreigners (i.e. foreigners are predicted as more likely to win) which indicates that a lot of XLBet players like to bet on their favourite foreigner.
I completely agree that its pretty hard to set the bets though which is why the house edge is pretty high and why there are no good bonuses.
On December 10 2010 03:08 Chill wrote: Who sets the line for XLBet? I can't imagine trying to set a line for a 3 month old tournament in a 6 month old game with players you've barely heard of...
I'm interested to know this as well.
OP - def. not beatable in the long run as their level of vig is just too high, meaning that even if their lines are a bit off it's still perfectly fine for them, only ones that i've thought are odd is that foxer/leenock and foxer/iron should have been closer.
On December 10 2010 03:38 hifriend wrote: So XLBet is a legit site then? I was thinking about putting down a 100 or so on the final to make it exciting.
I recall them being around for quite long already, so I'd imagine it's legit.
On December 10 2010 03:08 Chill wrote: Who sets the line for XLBet? I can't imagine trying to set a line for a 3 month old tournament in a 6 month old game with players you've barely heard of...
Maybe they don't need to benefit from the odds right now, if people win a bit more now they'll probably have more people betting on sc2 when the game is a bit more figured out ?
I would guess that the reason is that in a fair number of these matchups one player is known and the other isn't, so most of the bets go for the known player. The disparity in bets does not match up with the actual likelihood of the favored/known player winning.
So part of it is that the players' skills aren't known that well yet, and part of it is that it's not hard for some unknown to jump in and upset a favorite.
EPT
