Optimizer 2003 Pro Football Edition

OVERVIEW

The Optimizer user interface consists of a series of tabbed screens that allow you to easily navigate through the program.

SEARCHING FOR STRUCTURE: The Optimizer searches for patterns in football data. You specify a situation, namely, a specification of factor values that identifies a set of games. Then you "get stats." In database terms, this is a query. The Optimizer quickly finds the games for the specified situation, displaying win-loss percentages, both straight up and versus the point spread, over-under percentages, and "z-values," statistics that measure the strengths of win-loss and over-under percentages. You can also do a random search, in which the Optimizer randomly searches for strong patterns, saving the best for later analysis. Or you can find optimal situations relative to point spread or over-under percentages. You can save powerful situations in a situations database and then see which saved situations apply to a particular game. You can also instruct the Optimizer to automatically search for new situations that apply to a particular game.

SPECIFY FACTOR VALUES: Start on the "get stats" tabbed screen. Click desired boxes to select values for specified factors. Leaving a box blank causes the Optimizer to ignore that factor. The home team (HOME) is selected as a default for "team," regular season games (REG) are selected as a default for "type", and the season "1993- current season" are selected as a default for the "season range". Factors include team, opponent, playing surface, season range, spread range, over-under range, results of selected team's and opponent's last game, 2 games back, and win % to date for both team and opponent. Under "opponent," you can select opponents in same division as the selected team (=DIV), same conference (=CONF), different division (<>DIV), and different conference (<>CONF). To select factors for the previous game, 2 games back, or win % to date, click the appropriate tabs. Note: Year denotes season. Thus, if you search for playoff games in 2002, you will get games that were actually played in January, 2003.

GET STATS: When you are finished selecting factor values or optimize boxes (see below), click on the "get stats" command button at the bottom of the get stats tabbed screen. The Optimizer then queries the games database, lists games that satisfy the specified conditions, and displays an array of statistics for those games. If "optimize" has been selected, the Optimizer displays the optimal situation for the appropriate factor(s) in the context of the other specified values. The best z-value (largest in the display) may be for home, away, or all games and is highlighted in red. When the Optimizer concludes a search, it displays the selected situation in the "situation" frame at the top of the screen. When you've finished this procedure, click "reset" and do it again.

LIST OF GAMES: In addition to win-loss statistics and over-under statistics, the Optimizer also displays a list of the games that satisfy the specified conditions, including dates, scores, point spreads, and over-under lines. To see the list of games for a particular situation, click on the "list of games" tab.

NOTE: Current season games will not show up on list of games unless a point spread for that game has been entered.

AVERAGES: Average points per game for the selected team and opponent in a given situation, along with average point differences and totals for that situation, are displayed below the list of games on the "list of games" tabbed screen.

OPTIMIZE: An "optimize" check box is beside each eligible factor value box (not all factors can be optimized). Clicking on an optimize box or boxes selects "optimize" for the associated factor. When you "get stats", the Optimizer then finds the strongest point spread record or the strongest over-under record for the optimized factor(s), expressed by z-value. You can optimize some factors and specify values for others. The Optimizer then finds optimal values for the optimized factors for situations in which the specified values are in effect. To unselect an optimized factor, re-click the selected optimize box.

Note: Do to the numerous combinations that must be compared in an optimization procedure, optimizing more than two factors at once can slow search time.

RANDOM SEARCH: Suppose you want the computer to search for good situations, unhampered by your preconceived notions. When you click random search, the Optimizer repeatedly searches through the database, looking for strong situations, saving the strongest for you to study later. You can leave a random search running as long as you like. In addition to saving good situations in the situations database, at the end of a random search, the strongest situation is displayed on the screen.

When you use random search you can also specify factor values. In this case, the Optimizer randomly searches through factors other than the ones you've selected. If you leave all factor settings blank, "random search" finds strong situations for the home team over the entire database from 1997 to the current season (1993 to the current season with the Optimizer8). For example, if you select Buffalo as team, and "= DIV" as opponent, the entire random search will be for situations in which Arizona played against teams in their division. If you leave the team setting blank, the Optimizer will search for good situations for the home team.

A check box located at the bottom of factor settings pages allows you to disable random searches for those pages. For example, if you don't want random searches to include factors describing the opponent's results for two games back, click the check box at the bottom of the "two back opp" page so that it is unchecked and reads "random off." If you also don't want random searches to include factors for the selected team's results two games back, click the check box at the bottom of the "two back team" page so it reads "random off." To restore these factors for random searches, simply click the boxes again and "random on" will appear.

The random search default settings have the "two back team" and "two back opp" pages turned off and the other pages turned on. The random search routine is set to automatically save all situations with z-values higher than or equal to 2. If you want "random search" to automatically save only situations with z-values higher than or equal to 2.5, 3.0, or 3.5, click the Edit menu at the top of the screen, click "Set random search z-value" and make the appropriate selection.

SAVING A GOOD SITUATION: The Optimizer allows you to maintain a database of good situations that you can use for future reference. If you uncover a good situation in the course of a search on the "get stats" tabbed screen, you can save the situation by clicking the "save situation" button at the bottom of the screen. You can only save situations in which the z-value is 2 or larger (see discussion of z-values).

FINDING SITUATIONS FOR A SELECTED GAME: This is one of the Optimizer's most powerful features!!

Click "situations for selected game" tab. Enter date range for this week's games (or any other range of games) and click "get games." All games played in selected date range will appear in grid. (Grid will remain blank if no games were played in the selected date range. Current season games will not show up unless a point spread has been entered.) Click on any game in grid to select that game. You now have two choices for finding situations that apply to your selected game:

Click "find previously saved situations" button to see a list of the situations that apply to the selected game that are already saved in your situations database. For each situation, you will see the "pick" for the game and corresponding "z-value," based on the situation stats. (The list remains blank if no saved situations apply to the selected game.)

Click "search for new situations" button to initiate a random search to find new situations that apply to the selected game. As the search progresses, new situations will pop up on the situations list. That's all there is to it! You can customize your search by going to the "get stats" page and setting factors as you see fit before initiating the search. For example, if you are analyzing a Jets-Dolphins game, you can go to the "get stats" page and select the Jets as "team" and then go back to the "situations for selected game" page and begin your search for new situations. In this case, the search will be limited to Jets games. If you leave the team factor blank, the search will find situations for the home team. NOTE: In case you have been using the "get stats" page and have forgotten to reset the factors, when you start a search for new situations, a prompt will appear asking if you want to reset the get stats factors. If you want to reset, click "yes." If you want to leave the selected factors as they are, click "no."

When either of the above searches is complete ("previously saved situations" or "new situations"), criteria for the situation with the best z-value will be displayed. To see a description and stats for any situation in the list, click on it. To see a list of games for this situation, click on the "list of games" tab.

VIEWING SAVED SITUATIONS: To gain access to the situations database, click the "situations database" tab. To view a saved situation for possible application to current games, use the scroll bar to scroll through the situations database. When you retrieve a saved situation, it is displayed in the "saved situation" frame at the top of the screen. Saved situations are ordered by z-value. Saved situations are displayed with all the relevant stats. To see a list of games and average points for a saved situation, click on the "list of games" tab. A counter in the "save and retrieve situations" frame displays the number of saved situations. To see saved situations for a particular team, select that team. To scroll through all saved situations, leave the team selection box blank.

To delete a saved situation from the situations database, click the "delete situation" button.

OPTIMIZE CRITERIA: When searching for optimal values, the Optimizer considers both point spread ("vs spr") and over-under ("ou") records. Within these categories, all games, home, and visitor records are separately examined for both versus spread and over-under results. The default for finding optimal values is "all," in which case the Optimizer finds the best record, measured by z-value, including both point spread and over-under results (see explanation of z-values). If you are looking only for point spread angles, go to the edit menu at the top of the screen, select "set optimize criterion," and choose "vs spr." If you are looking only for over-under angles, choose "ou" as your optimize criterion. Note: The "optimize criterion" only applies to searches for optimal strategies and to random searches, in which the Optimizer looks for the "best" situation.

PRINT RESULTS: To print the results of an Optimizer search, click on the File menu at the top of the page and click "Print search results."

GAMES DATABASE: The Optimizer database contains all pro football regular and post-season games from 1997 to the present, along with the schedule for the current season (The Optimizer8 database contains all games from 1993 to the present). The user-friendly "update" function makes it easy to update the database throughout the current season.

UPDATING THE GAMES DATABASE: To update or modify games for the current season, click on the Tools menu at the top of the page and then click "Update database." When you are on the update data page, specify a month if you desire, and then, from the list of games, click on the game you wish to update. You then add or modify values in the appropriate boxes in the "update data" box.

When you are finished updating a game, you can select another game and repeat the procedure. When you are finished your current updating session, click on the File menu at the top of the page and click "Return to stats page" to return to the stats page, or, to exit the program, click "Exit." The Optimizer will automatically update the database. You can change incorrect values, enter partial information, and update data as often as you like.

The current season schedule is already entered. You cannot modify dates or teams.

EXITING THE OPTIMIZER: To end your Optimizer session, click on the File menu at the top of the page and click "Exit."