In terms of the Wisdom of Crowds picks, after two negative events, we’re back in the positive, thanks to a 7 fold parlay coming off at +540.  This event was full of favorite winners. 11 of 12 fights in fact; the most since we started our system, making a parlay win all the more likely.

On individual fights we went 10-2 on predictions but unfortunately the big one didn’t come off. For the first time in a few events the system spat out a big bet on an underdog (Chris Clements). I had personally identified him as a live underdog, so I tentatively OK with the pick despite thinking that Taleb would more than likely win a decision. As it happens, that’s exactly what did happen and we took a big hit of -13.25 units from that fight. Getting another 9 fights right on bets only managed to claw half of that back and it was left to the parlay to save the day.

So how could we improve things?

– The system works on perceived value and doesn’t care whether something is high risk or not. That is both a strength and a weakness. Normally people would put a small bet on Clements if they thought he’d win…. but we put a whopping great bet on. In reality, when it’s a pickem fight with a lot better odds than pickem, that’s the right thing to do. Sometimes you’ll lose big but sometimes you’ll win REALLY big.

– WIth regards Clements vs Taleb in particular, I had made some changes to the equation that probably wouldn’t have seen us bet on Chris Clements but when I ran them, it absolutely decimated our profits from past events. I am confident it would be a better overall equation but that’s just my personal hunch and when the past results went from +240 to +100 units or something crazy like that, I felt it needed more data and just left the equations as they were for a bit longer.

A quick summary of my own predictions:

I personally went 3-0 on straight betting picks.

– Taleb would not win inside the distance.
– Cote to win.
– Laprice to win.

Taleb vs Clements basically went exactly like I expected. If anything Clements looked a bit worse. Cote vs Riggs was more competitive than i expected, as was the Laprice vs Barberena fight. I have no idea why Laprice gassed like he did and did not see that coming at all. I could see him dropping down to 145lbs as I can only assume he was struggling with his larger opponent’s size advantage.

In parlays, I was going for a 5 fold. 4 fights to go the decision and Bec Rawlings on the next event. 3 of 4 fights went to a decision and unfortunately I did what I tell people never to do when it comes to MMA betting – I added a fight into the parlay based on other people’s opinions (Kaufman vs Davis). I know virtually nothing about these two but everyone was saying it would be a decision. Sigh. All mine came off, this one didn’t. Never mind, I won’t do it again! 🙂