TUF 18 Finale

[poopoo333]

Betting steep underdogs in professional sports is more profitable than in MMA for sure. Like..by a lot imo. That's assuming you aren't laying the chalk on the opposite side.

[Svino]

No no no, thats not what I'm saying. Like X said , lines are supposed to reflect a fighters actual chance to win, but when someone says there's "value" in taking Ben Rothwell
at +600 over Cain.....when his actual chance of winning is probably closer to +10000.....there's isnt any value . For there to be value Rothwell would have to win better than 1 in 6 times which it not realistic to think that he could do that. I'm just saying the many many times people say there's value in a line because "if those fighters fought ten times, he'd win 3 of them" when most fights the same guy would probably win 10 out of 10 fights. In the NFL the Pats may beat Buffalo on Sunday, but if they played 10 times the Bills really would win 3 times so there would be value in taking them at +600..........if any of that makes sense

The idea makes sense in principle, but what I am saying is that:

1) In the NFL, a +500 team wins a little less than 1 time in 6.
2) In MMA, a +500 fighter also wins a little less than 1 time in 6.

Both markets average out "correctly"; there isn't any consistent underperformance of MMA +500 fighters (or overperformance from them in the NFL). If anything, the only pattern I can see is that the extreme dogs might actually given too little respect, that is, the extreme dogs like Rothwell vs. Cain are better bets than one would think. I mean, I don't know about Rothwell at +600, but I certainly love him at the +10000 line you were suggesting. We've seen Cain go down to a big punch before; I'd bet Rothwell lands it well over one time in 100, and I obviously wouldn't bet $90 dollars to $1 on Cain.

Checking the tracker, this site's most successful bettors this year, Poopoo and Wiseman, are up a combined 160-some units while winning only about 40% of their straight bets. This means they are winning on the "value" of underdog lines that pay out more than they should. I can also say for myself that most of the money I have made on MMA has been on lines I thought had less than a 50% chance of hitting.

Of course, I don't doubt that people often think they're seeing value on big dogs and are wrong about it. I'm sure it happens to me frequently. But people are often wrong in all kinds of ways.

[Svino]

The theory (the Black Swan theory) is not meant for small relatively common occurrences like an underdog winning in MMA, but I think a lot of it is applicable.

I guess a true "Black Swan" should be something that you didn't even consider – an outcome totally off your radar, so to speak. I was the beneficiary of one of these when I bet "Bisping by decision" over Belcher and also "Ends within round 3" as a hedge. That both could hit had not occurred to me. The biggest Black Swan in MMA if not modern sports history has to be the draw line on the first McCall vs. DJ fight. I still can't believe that one.

It kind of puts me in the "no value unless they won" camp, because of the whole tendency to rationalize these things as if they could have been predicted. The fact is that no one could predicted Gus's wrestling in that fight. So to look at it now and say yeah, he should have been +170 is wrong IMO. Based on what we knew then, we all thought Jones had the wrestling out if the striking wasn't going well.

Yeah, I think you have to look at it from the "what could have been predicted" standpoint. I feel the same way about the wrestling; I don't think I could have gone in to the fight believing anything other than that Jones could get takedowns if he wanted them.

I do wonder if I should have known better about the striking though. I have had a policy of specifically not paying attention to reach in MMA. Not that I don't think reach helps, but I have always thought that it got taken into account already when you looked at striking effectiveness. The thinking is that a guy with a long reach who outstrikes a given opponent 2 to 1 is no better or worse than a guy with short reach who outstrikes the same opponent 2 to 1. But people who look at striking in a more sophisticated way than I do could probably have seen that coming. A long time ago, I thought I saw weaknesses in Jones' standup, like the fact that he didn't have much variety in his defense and tended to circle into his opponents' power, and that led me to do things like bet on Brandon Vera against him. After I saw what he did to Rua and Rampage, I gave up on the idea that I could analyze his striking in any way other than proven effectiveness.

[poopoo333]

Checking the tracker, this site's most successful bettors this year, Poopoo and Wiseman, are up a combined 160-some units while winning only about 40% of their straight bets. This means they are winning on the "value" of underdog lines that pay out more than they should.

Yeah, when I am really confident I tend to get reckless and bet a lot. I really need to start a spreadsheet and stick to it soon because I am curious to see the % of straight bets I do hit on just fighters...no props, no decision props, no SOTN KOTN FOTN props, etc.

[SPX]

Checking the tracker, this site's most successful bettors this year, Poopoo and Wiseman, are up a combined 160-some units while winning only about 40% of their straight bets. This means they are winning on the "value" of underdog lines that pay out more than they should. I can also say for myself that most of the money I have made on MMA has been on lines I thought had less than a 50% chance of hitting.

A couple of years ago I had a year where I was up as a whole, but actually down for the year on bets on favorites. My underdog bets had provided all of my profit and I was value betting rather than only betting dogs who I thought were going to win.

I actually have gotten away from betting dogs so much lately, probably to my own detriment because this year I have struggled to stay in the black and have mostly hovered close to even the whole time. I need to pull something out this last few months to make sure I end up in the +.