Team settings

Team Settings

This dialog is somehow the most touchy part of the whole software. It is the one part that makes the difference, anyway to any other such software (does it exist?), but also to make your account unique, special, necessary, most wanted. You want to have your own settings — although by now you may not know it yet that you do so.

If there were just this one settings of the teams that were „right“ and would produce all the proper prices (probabilities in their reciprocals), then we would just need this one copy of the data. The ones with these proper settings. But: where would you, dear user, go with your own expertise? If it would be a fact, that FC Köln were better than Mainz and Union Berlin were better than Freiburg and Gladbach were better than Frankfurt: that would be fine. But we do not know. Or not even do we not know, we would most likely have a discussion on every single of these decisions. Dortmund better than Leipzig? Augsburg better than Bochum? Hertha better than Stuttgart? We can argue and discuss — many would see it differently and have their own opinion, which they would like to introduce here. Not only introduce: trust it, live with it, make money with it. As you would try or you have done already or still do: bet against friends on Kicktipp or in the football manager game (this one still running?).

So you would like to have it individual. The problem you may face: how to introduce your expertise usefully? What do all those figures I can see there mean and how would I adjust them properly, first of all to my liking, but secondly also to start winning?

Well, this is what we try to explain here and what you can do in the end in this dialog. But you may need a little bit of time until you eventually know exactly how to do it. Be assured: you will like it.

There are these two columns that mainly drive the settings and the compilation. The first one is the strength, the second one are the total goals to be expected for this team. Yes, it is two of them (in the first place). Because just a single one would not quite do. So you need to understand, that the strength is the quotient of the goals expected to score divided by the goals expected to concede. So how do we know then, how many goals we expect a team to score and how many we expect them to concede?

The first approximation is always given by pure facts. How many DID they score and how many DID they concede? If you take the average of a team per game, then you already have an approximation of these two values. Well, if it only were that simple…

You may pretty soon and pretty well understand, that AFTER a campaign is over, we come closest to evaluate the teams properly with this kind of approximation. Why „closest“? Well, for two reasons: a) every team played every other teams twice, so there is full justice to these results, and b) we have the maximum information, for there is the maximum number of games played. The campaign is over. There will never be more games played than at this moment.

But why not simply take these values then over to the next years campaign? Well, here we encounter a couple of (well-known, but never addressed like that) problems. We can best asses the teams at that point. Sure and absolutely right. But: there is a break. Usually of about two months or so. After a long break many things change, Just for the cause of the break.

Then there are teams that are unhappy with the results they had. It is not just teams, it is the whole clubs sometimes. So what do they do? They trade some players and trade maybe the coaches. They change their approach, because the last one was not so successful. They change whatever they think can help to make them better. They all try. But some can’t stop losing their best players, others, the ones with the more money, try to upgrade their players or buy those top players from other clubs. Also a change is this: all the results are being removed from the table. So they start from scratch. They either forget about bad results or they „forget“ how they made those excellent results. It is just that everyone knows and would understand: we start anew. Things are different now.

So this is where the new campaign should start, also in those team settings. The results from the past may matter slightly, but they should not be overrated and also should be overwritten. So right at the point we have the perfect settings — at the end of the last campaign — we should forget about them again?! Yes, this is true. But we should not say:“ Sadly this is true“. It is were we can start to be better than others. Because definitely no one else really „knows better“. This is the market competition that we face and this is the prices the bookies offer in the first place, for the first match day: maybe based on those past results, maybe also adjusted a bit, but not any better than we would know. As soon as we know, how to use the team settings dialog properly.

So there are those two major values responsible for the calculations. Those will be displayed in two different shades of red.

 So here you see the ranking of the English Premier League on October 1st with the authors individual settings. Strength and Goal sum exp represent the next two values: the strength is the quotient of these two, the sum is the sum of the two.

The ranking is based on the quotient. The higher this value is, the better the relationship between goals scored and goals conceded, which defines the strength in the first place. If you want to have an approximation of this strength you can always divide the actual goals scored by the goals conceded. Of course it is just an approximation. As explained earlier, if one whole campaign is finished, than we know best what these values should be set to. But, sadly, as we found out already: those can not so easily be carried forward to the next campaign.

To work with those settings here, you can either double click on one of these two values and enter your own value right away, or you just click on it and use the arrow buttons, up or down, to make the strength higher or lower. Same applies to the Goal sum exp.

So the only thing you needed to know to adjust those settings to your liking would be: why would I do this? And, if I knew why I would wish to adjust: by how much would I need to adjust?

Well, there is another way to find this out. You always see the market evaluation of a certain upcoming fixture. In case your prices are very much going along for this fixture, then most likely your settings are fine. Market is pretty strong, and if you have agreement: why would you adjust? You still may do, of course, for the two possible reasons: the one is, you simply have a different view on this one game or, the other one, you would wich to have some indications. Not even such a bad reason. But, just to make sure: if you „provoke“ deviations, than even more it would be your turn to prove you know well what you are doing. The games will be played and either you „win“ your indications or you go down on them. Then the answer could well be: „Maybe I better had not adjusted?“

The promise would be: with time going by and making some experience with the betting and with the settings you may become better in this area as well.

There is one more promise to be made: whenever a new campaign starts you should always work all the settings over. But: there is an assisting function in the making, called „smart init“. In this it should be possible to adjust some settings according to certain recommendations, but still with the chance to introduce your own expertise. This chance is always on to improve a certain strength or a certain goal sum expected. Because there is virtually no chance at all that any settings would be „perfect“. You will have yours and you will more and more learn to identify with them. And in case you don’t: just change them. Then you will feel a lot better. An indication you do not like? Simply adjust this one team or both of them. Always this direction you think: if you dislike an indication there may always be these possibilities: you like the one team more that you ought to bet against or you dislike the team more that you ought to bet on. So just change them until you are happy. You can also do this via the expand button when compiling the fixtures. But this will be explained in the respective section.