Except they're what, like .800 when they hit a hr? That's like winning 80% of the hands you have AA. I have no problem with short term results reflecting long term expectation.

And as much of a data geek as I am, I think that mlb and some of the heavily derived and empirical metrics that are being used aren't necessarily super useful. I.E. They might not be as general as the nate silver wannabees would like them to be.

This has to be a level.

This. The gap between their current winning percentage (.570) and pythagorean winning percentage (.536) is about a four-win differential, and is the third largest gap in MLB (Yankees are first by far, and the Cardinals are just a hair above Baltimore). If you look at third-order win percentage their luck stands out even more: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/st...ndings_sort=d3.

That being said, this all seems very familiar...because the exact same discussion took place in 2012 (http://www.sbnation.com/2012/11/26/3...ucky-than-good). The Orioles' luck ran out in the LDS that season.

Anyway, I am enjoying your posting style, Duke, and have been subscribed for awhile. Keep up the grind!

Did the A's "luck run out" in the ALDS against Detroit that year? LOL, only on 2p2 can first place teams be deemed "not very good" even with a winning record against almost every other team in the AL. EMPIRICALLY DERIVED NON-MECHANISTIC STATISTICAL MODELS FTW, UNTIL THEY BECOME USELESS WHEN ENOUGH OUTLIERS SHOW THEIR LACK OF UTILITY!!!

Like I said, I'm the biggest data geek there is, but throwing spaghetti at the wall until something sticks fails eventually. The more esoteric a statistic is, the less likely it is to be globally valid. It's not even clear (to me) that these models apply at the team level, even if they work at the individual level. (And if you want to actually discuss some of the shortcomings of non-Euclidean multivariate statistics, we can do that elsewhere.)

/rant

I'm not going to get into arguments with all the youngsters on here who are enamored with these new-age stats but here's what matters on aug. 8:

East
Team W L Pct GB
Baltimore 65 49 .570 --
NY Yankees 60 54 .526 5.0
Toronto 61 55 .526 5.0
Tampa Bay 55 59 .482 10.0
Boston 50 64 .439 15.0

The number on the left is the only important statistic.

By the way, I am NOT an Orioles fan. So I don't care who wins the AL East.

19-session winning streak at Parx came to a sad ending last night...

-$440 in a little under 10 hours of grind time live.

Some stats from the 19-session winning streak at Parx...

June 14-August 7 with about 5.5 hours at 2/5 and the rest at 1/2:

110.88 hours, +$9,142 (+$82.45/hr) +39 buy-ins (+34.98 bb/hr)

Total stats are Parx are not much worse...

22 sessions, 127.19 hours, +$7,904 (+$62.14/hr) +33 buy-ins (+25.74 bb/hr)

hash tag barg

Back at it today... August is going well...

54.71 hours, +$977 (+$17.86/hr) +9.21 bb/hr

On pace for 212 hours of volume and $3800 of profit

Not disputing whether the Orioles are good, or in first place right now. They are the best team in a weak division this season. My comments were simply that they've won more than statistically expected to date, just like they did in 2012, and this is due to being "lucky". Seems like poker players would understand this concept. I think this was what Duke was claiming in his posts as well.

Your post sounds like something a major-league scout from the 1940's would say, but this "youngster" would wager that I've been a baseball fan and into baseball statistics significantly longer than you have. (the Reds swept the Yankees in the World Series the year I started following MLB).

Doubtful. I'm 51. Been going to games since the mid 60s at the old Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Went to Baltimore for a World Series game in 1971.

We used to have backyard sleepouts on summer nights. We spent the nights discussing baseball stats.

My first baseball memory was the 2001 world series

You can say I have seen a thing or two I'm baseball history

Mine was the 1993 World Series, and I don't want to talk about it.

It seems like you put a lot of faith into empirically derived correlations that I'm going to bet will be discarded by whatever new and flashy metric comes around in 5 years. Once a metric is developed that is mechanistic and incorporates bullpen efficiency, defensive quality, along with appropriate offensive metrics, I'll buy into it a bit more. How many outliers do we need before we realize a model is insufficient?

ETA: And no, adding terms to a model until you get a fit that you like doesn't count as "mechanistic." No invoking 3-rd order pythagorean wins doesn't count.

Also, ffffyyyyooouuuu Kent Tekulve and your sidearm delivery.

weren't you talking about taking a month off recently? whatever happened to that plan?
those are some great stats!

i had my best day of the year yesterday. pales in comparison to your record win so i won't bore you with the details.

Fair enough, point conceded. I'm a 45 year old youngster.

Nahhh.

I'm just a fan who enjoys statistics and seeing the development of advanced methods to measure performance. Used to love reading Bill James' abstract each year, but I don't have a bust of Voros McCracken on my mantle.

Just read almost every single post of all 125 pages of this. Don't know if I would call it inspiring, but I do know it seems like you would be much better off as far as your BR was concerned except for a couple bad decisions here and there like you have admitted. It's all relative though. I hope you can make it big, with some smart decision making I believe you can. Im actually planning to run up a 1k BR in the 2/2 games at Bestbet jax here in FL. Always 8-15 2/2 games going and most of the time no less that 5-8 2/5 500 cap games. On weekends we easily have 10-15 2/5 games. Im in a similar spot as I live with my pops and have a 8-5 job right now that helps with the BR. Wanna run it to 10k before shooting I to thw 2/5 games here.

Also, just to throw in my 2 cents about moneu saved vs should we bluff. A solid 2/5 5/10 beater who staryed were we did financially told me the other day he never bluffed because people just arent folding enough for it to be profitable. And make huge river value bets for the same reason. Just dont think you have to be tricky at these low of stakes to rake in the cash...seems like early on when you were first taking this on, you were playing tight and people where calling you the nit of the table, but you ran it up. Now it seems that since you have got better at the game and habe the ability to take non standard lines and be comfortable doing so you have gotten tricky in your game play evem though the games haven't changed. Imho no need to get into doing that until you are able to play against more competent comp in the 5/5 5/10 games.

I will keep reading and GL!!!!! Run it up!!!

I took like a few days off, played some online, crushed 25 and 50nl to get my confidence back, and then saw no reason to continue a month-long break.

Go ahead, this is a safe place to post your bargs
My close poker friends know that I barg about my $4.7k winning session at 5/5 at least three times a week.




Thanks man. GL. If you start a thread of your own, be sure to post the link in here. I have heard the games in JAX are very very good and its one of the most underrated poker spots. How true would you say this is?

Yeah id say it was a fantastuc place for games. I think it runs more games on yhe reg than any other place in FL if im not mistaken. Also there isnt a ton of poker history here so not a lot of long time regs who know what they are doing really. Im my opinion very soft games. Iys certainly a place to stop and play if you are in the area. Especially if you catch a weekend the are doing the 1000-500 high hands. So many people show up and just give money away. Have like 75 tables going of straight cash.

When I was there in April there was no 5T going and floor said it pretty much never ran. Is that still the case?

Best Bet in Jacksonville is a pretty nice room. They had 2/2, 2/5 and a table of 5/10 running when I played there spring of last year. Way more rednecks in Jacksonville compared to Miami.

Bestbet Jax is confirmed amazing. Just chock full of weak players. And on weekdays, as closing time approaches, many of the stuck players go BUCK WILD trying to win their money back.

The rake & lack of any comps leaves something to be desired, but the competition more than makes up for it. I can't say what runs or doesn't run at prime times, as I work weekend nights :/. There's plenty of 2/2 & 2/5 NL action to go 'round though.

sometimes 5/5 or 5/10 runs. I don't know the guys who play it yet so im not sure if its a planned thing or not. I do know weekends is when its runs most often like one would assume. The lack of comps and the rake like mentioned does suck, although the rake isn't a flat drop, its a percentage which sometimes helps in blind vs blind hands or if you decide to chop. very easy games though for sure.

I wish this concept was discussed more at length.

In my experience at my local room (where usually you play with a couple familiar faces at 2-5 each day, at least the weekdays I play), I have a reputation as a fairly nitty guy, especially for my age. Nicknames like "tightwad" and phrases like "tighter than a fish ass" have been used regularly. I've raised a couple limpers and a guy, as he was about to call my raise along with others, said "we're going to spot you Queens here" as he throws his chips in the pot

The thing is, perception/reputation doesn't mean action by your opponents. The reason your average 2/5 rec fish is a fish is because he doesn't care enough about the game to act on perception. An ABC style makes the money in multiway pots against these guys. There's no reason to be tricky and make intricate multi street bluffs, as these guys just call too frequently. There's no reason to induce bluffs against a rec fish, as all you're doing is pushing their frequencies toward more optimal.

Basically, raise for value preflop (and sometimes isolation with position). C-bet good textures heads up, play fairly straightforward multiway and on later streets. Bet/fold strong one pair hands. Doing those things well will make you a mint at your typical rec fish infested LLSNL game.

Yeah I mean I think like the above poster said. At these stakes its just not required to fancy your play. People playing in capped LL games are opening to wide and calling down too light, making -EV plays so often that bluffing unless you know EXACTLY that its going to work just doesn't need to happen often. for the same reason, putting in huge value bets on turn and river is profitable for sure. I mean are they going to get folds sometimes where otherwise they might have called? sure. but in the long term the fish who aren't paying attention don't really notice a bet of 250 vs. a bet of 180, they just aren't thinking like that.

Also, even if they know you are a nit, they usually are so bad that they don't even care and will call your raises anyway. I think that people who play capped games and working on a limited role should nit it up, bet street after street for value and just try and win most pots they enter. sure its boring, but until you can run up enough profit to move up in games and play uncapped games it seems to be most profitable. Again, it just goes back to the whole point of your opponents are making so many mistakes pre that when you do open you are getting called by worst 98% of the time. Therefore you can hit and bet bet bet for value and unless you run up against a lot of heat you are usually good. just my 2 Cents but I hoped that helped a little.

Agree that Duke needs to move up to where they respect his raises.

Somehow just now came across this thread - I am a $1/2 reg at Parx.

The above is just sick...