You keep referring to your sig...
It is actually a great example of where so many of the analytics guys go off the rails - overconfidence.
The example is a pure random event - a coin flip. It has a 50% probability of either outcome. A grade 7 student could tell you that those odds are in your favour and that you should keep betting because the stats will eventually take care of you.
I will ignore the fact that some people seem to think this is wisdom, and move on to the more important issue: Corsi is nothing like a coin flip. Even though teams will oscillate around 50%, does not mean that being above 50% puts you in the driver's seat.
There are far too many other variables involved.
Even though the analytics supporters know that, they still talk like they have 'additional knowledge' and an inside track on understanding the game. Instead of talking about the analytics as one (incomplete) piece of information within the conversation, they immediately dismiss anyone who questions them as troglodytes.
When you use Corsi to determine which teams are better, you are NOT getting better than 50% odds on a coin flip. But the analytics crew act like they are. And that pisses people off.
If anyone would like a great read on the science of human nature and predictions, there is a great book by Daniel Gardner called 'Future Babble'. It does a great job of discussing why we feel the need to predict the unpredictable, and the various traps that the experts fall into when doing so. Overconfidence is, not surprisingly, one of the biggest.
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