HOT or NOT - week 8/20 (Dubai) [raw:+4; posted:+0.8]

It’s high time for great come back of “Hot or Not” project. A few first weeks of 2019 were brutal in many respects for me and among other projects I couldn’t find time for HoN. Additionally my WTA predictive model (in fact system of models) got complicated and adding
a new element produce many new relations and it takes more and more time to put all the pieces together in one cohesive whole.

Let’s quickly move on to the lists, because in a moment starts the second round in Dubai. As usually I am late with these lists, but I hope I will improve at this point this year... Hot or Not project is based on more intuitive approach comparing to the rest of my modeling work, I would say it’s more loose especially at the first stage where I start just with the impressions the players left me with in the last few weeks. Then I mix it up with other relevant information (injuries, shifts in coaching staff, private stuff, travelling schedule, etc) and in the end I apply some statistical layers on it to come up with my predictions.

So who should be hot (or not) this week. My list are as follow:

Hot list: Halep; Mertens ; Brady; Mugu; Kontaveit; Kenin; Rybakina; Pliskova

Not list: Svitolina, Sevastova,

Not list, if QF: Strycova, Martic

Comparing to the last year there is one novum this week (and I don’t exclude it will be other in forthcoming weeks) – a variation of “not” list, which should be read as: Strycova and Martic are problematic this week but not necessarily in the first rounds. I am willing to bet against them but only IF they reach quarterfinals. 

How to use my lists ? For me HoN is an implementation of the concept of bets series (package of bets), I have always had an intuition that betting on series of matches can be more effective then betting on one particular match in which variance is higher. The last year’s try with GDGD project confirmed my guessing. For example if I pick Halep to my “hot list” I will bet on her a few consecutive bets, hopefully she will reach the final and will cover most of HDP along the way😊. Some may ask why not outright bets – well, I don’t like this kind of bets, handicaps on games give me more flexibility (eg. I can omit some matches) and lastly there are countless variations in which player can be “ATS-positive” (positive record against the spread) but never reach the final. And don’t forget the “not list” where I basically bet that given players will not cover HDP and probably will exit the tournament at early rounds. So personally I will record all the matches that picked players are involved in and I will check how they went against the spread. This should give me even more assurance that this method and the process behind works.

But I am aware that for potential followers this all-encompassing approach may be hard. At some points it can also be unclear, eg. when players from the lists play each other. In the upcoming weekly wrap-ups you will also see that some matches were excluded – it will come from avoiding some match-ups or avoiding collisions with my main predictive model. So for potential followers I came up with simple solutions – selected HoN predictions will be posted on my twitter account (@voy_tennis) and on blogabet. These picks will also be marked in the final table, in which you will be able to see that these picks arise form the lists and are a subset of all picks coming form HoN method.