Mach Five

On NBC's Poker After Dark, Phil Hellmuth rags on some band called "Dextrous Midnight Runners" (never heard of them either) and compares himself to U2.

Ok, so in tonight's Red Sox-Twins game Boston has a 6-5 lead in the top of the 9th, with Jonathan Papelbon in to close. Since Papelbon had apparently left his split-finger fastball in the bullpen, he throws about 48 straight fastballs to Nick Punto, and Punto fouls them all off. On pitch 49, Punto dumps a soft line drive into center field. Coco Crisp gets not such a good break on the ball, charges in, dives for the ball, and the ball lands in front of him and trickles by, giving Punto second base for free. The next guy bunts Punto over, giving the Twins a man on 3rd with one out.

Fortunately for the Red Sox, Papelbon strikes out the next chump and completes the inning for the save. Shortly after the game, it is reported by some guy on SoSH (actually, I'm 99.9% sure that it's the guy who writes this personal poker blog) that

Dave McCarty compared coco's dive to being pot committed in poker. He says once you get past a certain point you can't play it safe so you might as well take the chance.

I think we need to take up a collection to buy Covelli a copy of Professional No Limit Volume 1. Dude needs to make a commitment plan earlier in the hand.

After I saw a replay it seemed to my that Coco's last-ditch dive for the ball was pretty strong; it didn't look like he was of two minds split between diving and playing it safe. However, there's another side to his decision-making process to consider.

One of the first concepts introduced in Professional No-Limit Hold 'Em Volume 1 is the REM process, meaning Range-Equity-Maximize. The idea is that anytime you have a decision to make, you want to assess the Range of possible hands your opponent(s) have and the Equity (expected profit) resulting from your possible moves. You then want to choose the move (checking/betting/calling/raising/folding) that Maximizes your Equity in the hand.

Let's look at Coco's REM analysis. The Range of possibilities is as follows: if he pulls up short, the Twins have a man on first with no one out. If he dives and makes the catch, the Twins have no one on base and one out. If he dives and doesn't make the catch, the ball probably gets by him for a double, as it did tonight, and the Twins have a man on second with no outs.

The Equity of the various outcomes can only be calculated approximately, but on Fangraphs one can obtain figures for expected win percentage based on a given situation in the game. After poking around a few sample games, we can obtain win expectation values as follows (I think Fangraphs always assumes that each batter and pitcher is league-average): 71.7% (man on first, 0 outs), 90.5% (no one on, 1 out), 63.6% (man on second, 0 out).

So if Coco estimates that his probability of making the catch is x, then diving for the ball Maximizes the Red Sox win equity if

x(0.905) + (1-x)(0.636) > 0.717

or if

x > 0.301

Coco has to have a 30% chance of making that catch for diving to be correct. Now if we assume that there's some chance of the hit not getting past him for a double if he dives, then that tips the scales in favor of diving. Furthermore, Papelbon is an elite strikeout closer, so relatively speaking, having a man on second base with 0 out isn't quite as disastrous as it is for most pitchers. Of course, Papelbon increases the win expectancy in each situation, but I suspect the man-on-2nd, 0-out situation gets increased the most.

On the other hand some of the Red Sox win equity comes from the game going into extra innings, which imposes additional costs upon the Sox bullpen. If instead of using win expectancies, we decide we want to finish the game in the top of the 9th, then we want to consider the probabilities that the Twins do not score in the inning. According to Baseball Prospectus, they are 58.3% (man on first, 0 outs), 83.5% (no one on, 1 out), 37.5% (man on second, 0 out). Using this criterion, Coco's break-even requirement for catching the ball is 45%, which is a stiffer threshold. Again, this all assumes league-average batters and pitchers; with Papelbon on the mound I think the requirement would be lower.

All in all though, I think Coco's decision to dive for the ball is more sound than it seemed at the time.

So, in Group A of the Euro 2008 soccer tournament, Portugal currently sit in the catbird seat with 6 points. Czech Republic and Turkey are tied with 3 points, and Switzerland are in the basement with 0 points (2 losses).

The last round of games feature Portugal v. Switzerland and Czech Republic v. Turkey. Top two teams in the group advance to the playoffs.

There is no provision for extra time/penalty shootouts in group play, so if Czech Republic and Turkey play to a draw, they'll finish tied for 2nd place in the standings. Fortunately, UEFA/FIFA have a tiebreaker procedure in place. In order, the criteria are:

• Heads-up record (or total points in games between the tied teams, if more than two teams are tied)
  
• goal difference in matches between tied teams
  
• goals scored in matches between tied teams
  
• If two or more teams are still tied after the first three steps, repeat them using only matches between the teams still tied
  
• goal difference in all group matches
  
• goals scored in all group matches
  
• fair play conduct score
  
• coin flip
  

Well, Czech Republic and Turkey both have scored 2 goals and allowed 3. If they tie their last game, they'll be tied all the way down to the "fair play conduct" score. If by some act of God that score is tied, then they flip a coin.

UEFA and FIFA could probably learn a thing or two about organizing tournaments from the Ultimate Players' Association. I'm thinking 11-man ro-sham-bo between the teams on the pitch to settle the score.

EDIT: According to section 7.08 of the UEFA manual, if it's just a heads-up tie, penalty kicks are used. This is several orders of magnitude worse than a 11-man rosham.

See, the thing is that going last in the bidding round is supposed to be an advantage.

The Supreme Court has refused to hear Major League Baseball's appeal of a lower court decision that baseball statistics can be used freely without their permission.

Not sure why MLB wanted to kill off a fantasy-sports industry that has probably increased interest in their product significantly over the last decade or so, but that's Bud Selig for you.

I guess this fella has never been chip leader in a MTT before.



FWIW, the guy is a regional manager for Domino's Pizza and is the son of a US Congressman.