Team strength MLP (part 1)

It is time to build and test my first predictive model with Tensorflow! As I am currently totally unexperienced in creating and optimizing neural networks, I will start with a very simple one, which just uses the predictive variables of the Poisson model. By doing this, I will be able to compare the resulting network with the Poisson model. I am excited to see, whether Tensorflow is able to outperform this statistical model with such a low number of predictive variables. In this series I will provide some basic information, how you are able to build a simple multilayer perceptron (MLP) with Tensorflow, supervise the training process with Tensorboard and use the trained neural network to predict the outcomes of the matches.

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BeatTheBookie goes Tensorflow

After gaining much experience over a complete season, it is time to set myself some new goals. Until now I just used or tested predictive models, which were invented or described by other people. Now I want to try something new. I would like to create my first own predictive model, which should of course provide a better performance as the current Poisson model. This is where Tensorflow comes into play.

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Retrospective for Bundesliga season 2017/18

The Bundesliga season 2017/18 has taken a dramatic end. The last never-relegated founding member Hamburger SV is on its way to the 2nd division. I am really happy about this, as there will be two thrilling derbies next season and St. Pauli will be able to defend there derby title.

But the end of this season does also mean something else: I am now using the Poisson model for one year in a productive way by populating picks, betting with some mini stacks and analysing the results. So it is time to do a retrospective and sum up all the experiences and all weaknesses discovered.

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Calculate odds for lay markets based on back markets

Some days ago I read an interesting article about how bookies arrange their margin to the possible outcomes. All bookies keep this of course secret as this offers them a specific range, where they can shorten or lengthen the odds depended on the amounts of placed bets. But I need this information, because I simulate my prediction models for back and lay markets, with just the odds of the back markets. This post will explain, how you should calculate the bookie margin, and how you should not do it.  I handled this topic a little bit naively during the development of my Poisson model, which causes some problems.

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Validate Model: GS & PPG match rating (part 3)

The first and the second part of this series explained some basic methods to optimise the regression models for the GS & PPG match rating. You have now a set of 3 different regression models (linear, polynomial and polynomial without outliers) for each predictive variable. These models now have to not only compete against each other, but also of course against the Bookie odds and the Poisson prediction model.

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Validate Model: GS & PPG match rating (part 2)

The first part of this series took a look at the GS match rating model. The post described, how you are able to identify a non-linear relationship between the predictor variables and the outcome variable. The same methods will now be applied to the PPG match rating model, so that we are able to compare the two different polynomial regression models. On top, I want to show, how you are able to figure out, whether outliers in your data have an influence on your regression model.

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Validate Model: GS & PPG match rating (part 1)

In the last post I described, how the features for the GS & PPG match rating models are calculated. Based on these features I will now describe, how you build and optimise a linear regression model with R. The first part will describe the optimisation of the linear regression model for the GS match rating model in detail. The second part will cover the PPG match rating model. The third and final part will compare the prediction performance of the different models.

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