Snooker: Celebrating 40 years at the Crucible
In 2017, Snooker celebrated 40 years at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. It moved to this venue in 1997, which is now recognised at the start of the modern era of the same. In this article, we look at some of snooker’s history, along with some of its major characters and a few of its […]
The unintended conseuqences of sports rules: Olympic examples sought
Liam Lenten and I recently published an article in the European Journal of Operational Research entitled “When Sports Rules Go Awry“. The essence of the article is to look at examples when sports rules had unintended consequences. For example, there are cases when it is beneficial for a team to score an own goal in […]
Time to switch to Java for a football prediction project
I have decided that it was time to switch to Java for a football prediction project that I have been planning for some time. I want to do the project justice so I thought I would start from the most basic decision. What programming language should I use? The Problem with C++ For the past […]
Football fixture forecasting. Are you any good?
Football fixture forecasting is something I have expressed an interest in recently. Actually, this blog contains a forecasting category, that you might be interested in. In my last post, I mentioned a crowdfunding project that I am trying to get off the ground. This prroject aims to investigate football fixture forecasting, utilising methodologies such as Artificial […]
Crowdfunding: A new model to fund research?
A few weeks ago I came across something called crowdfunding. I have known about crowdsourcing for a while, but crowdfunding had escapsed me. I am not sure it is a good idea but I thought I would try it out (see my project here, it develops my project for football prediction or, for more general […]
Using ELO ratings for match result prediction in association football
I occasionally comment on a scientific paper that is of interest to me. This time, it was: Lars Magnus Hvattuma and Halvard Arntzenb (20010) Using ELO ratings for match result prediction in association football, International Journal of Forecasting, 26(3), 460-470 (doi). This paper falls into the broader categories of Football, Forecasting and Sport, which I have […]
Odds-setters as forecasters: The case of English Football
I sometimes comment on a scientific paper that has caught my eye. This time, it was (comments on other papers are also available): David Forrest, John Goddard and Robert Simmons (2005) Odds-setters as forecasters: The case of English football, International Journal of Forecasting, 21(3), 551-564 (doi). This paper falls into the broader categories of Football, […]
A compound framework for sports results prediction: A football case study
The latest paper that caught my attention, that I thought I would comment on is (other publications I have commented are can be seen here). Byungho Min, Jinhyuck Kim, Chongyoun Choe, Hyeonsang Eom and R.I. (Bob) McKay (2008) A compound framework for sports results prediction: A football case study, Knowledge Based Systems, 21(7), 551-562 (doi). […]
Sports Forecasting: A Comparison of the Forecast Accuracy of Prediction Markets, Betting Odds and Tipsters
In some of my posts I comment on a scientific paper that has caught my eye. There is no particular reason for the papers that I choose, they are just of interest to me. In this post, the paper that caught my eye was (comments on other papers can be seen here). Martin Spann and […]
PATAT 2010: Multi-objective Sports (Football) Scheduling
At the recent PATAT (8th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling) conference I was fortunate enough to be invited to give a plenary presentation. My talk focussed on sports scheduling. Indeed, the title was “Scheduling Football (Soccer) Fixtures: Progress Made to Date and Future Challenges“. I focussed on the conflicting objectives […]