Correct scores and Poisson distributions

[Guest adam74]

I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on this article: 'Knowing the Score' by Frederick Steiner It was initially featured in issue one of Inside Edge magazine. The next post is a message I posted on the Inside Edge forum, containing some of my own thoughts about the system.

[Guest adam74]

'Knowing the Score' by Frederick Steiner I loved this article. I think I must have been a bit of maths-geek myself in a previous life, and this method of predicting correct scores really appeals to me. I do have a few questions/queries though. [Any chance of a response from Mr Steiner himself? :) ] 1. ManU to lose 2-1 in Stuttgart at 16/1? How often do such relative 'certainties' come about? I've run this process through for this week's games on Tuesday and Wednesday, and found ten possibilities, and the one with the lowest odds was still as long as 40/1. [Wigan almost did me proud, giving themselves plenty of time to notch a fourth against Cardiff. Surely their disallowed goal in the 25th minutes was NEVER offside!!!] 2. "The events should be...independent of each other." An 'event' is a goal, right? But a game's goals aren't independent of one another. If one team scores, the chances of them scoring another or of the other team replying must alter - tactical changes will ensue, and the players' mentality will be different. 3. "[The events] should be equally likely to occur in each period." But around 55% of goals are scored in the second half, more goals are scored in the last ten minutes of the first half than in the first ten minutes, and considerably fewer goals are scored in the first ten minutes of a game than in any other ten-minute period. Maybe I'm being a little pedantic on this point. 4. Finally, I'd be interested to know how many bets of this kind Mr Steiner has on average each week? Does he bet with level stakes, or use some sort of fixed-profits staking system? [i'm guessing the former.] And has he found more success in one league/division/competition than any other? Thanks very much.