The Prediction of CUHC Results using Historical
Records and Educated Guesswork
The CUHC Media Team
4th February 2017
Abstract
Previous methods of predicting weekend results have not been scientifically rigorous, with mixed results. This week the CUHC Media Team acquired a Scientist,
and with nothing but the CUHC match reports and East Leagues website asked
them to generate the most likely set of outcomes this week.
1
Fixtures
The fixtures this weekend can be found in [1] and are summarised in Table 1.
Table 1: Fixtures for CUHC on 4th February 2017
2
Team
Table
Position
Opposition
MBlues
WBlues
Nomads
Wanderers
Squanderers
Bedouin
7
6
11
7
5
12
City of Peterborough 1
St Albans 2
Norwich Dragons 2
Havering 1
Norwich Dragons 1
Newmarket 1
Opposition Venue
Table
Position
2
H
4
A
9
H
9
A
1
H
2
A
Time
1330
1300
1200
1300
1030
1200
Womens Blues
We attempted to apply some pattern recognition to the league form of the Womens Blues
found in [2]. This simplifies to W W LW LDLW W DW W L. The pattern here is that the
result clearly follows on from the result of the previous week, with many repeat forms
found. If we look at 4 game streaks for example, any time two wins appear, they are
followed by a non-win, and then another win. This would imply this weeks result should
be a win for light blue. Alternatively, we can look at just a one week ”memory” in the
system. Losses so far have been followed by a win in 2 cases, and a draw in a 3rd. This
would imply that there is a 66% chance of victory, and a 33% chance of a draw. There is
no evidence to indicate a loss is possible.
1
3
Mens Blues
To predict the next results for the blues squad, we took the current data of Points against
Games from [3], and attempted to extrapolate from that, the results are shown in Figure
1a. The first interesting conclusion we draw from the data, is that we can say with
some level of certainty that the Blues will not lose points this weekend. Further research
reı̈nforces this hypothesis, revealing that cause of 100% of the clubs point losses in recent
history is not present at the moment (See Appendix 8.1).
Figure 1: Blues Prediction
(b) Fixed
(a) Original
Given the data in Figure 1a, we draw the conclusion that the blues will probably draw
the next game. This didn’t seem right, so we re-ran the model, ignoring the first three
games (equipment was calibrating perhaps?), added a constant, and got the objectivelybetter set of results shown in Figure 1b.
The result of this is an average points after next game of 16.043. Imposing the constraints that this must be either 14, 15 or 17, we can reasonably deduce that its most
likely to be a win, or possibly a draw.
4
Nomads
For the Nomads, we derived some simple formulae based on the assumption that since you
can either win or not-win, the chances of winning are roughly 50%. The chance therefore
of winning W games out of the total number of games G is given by a function f (W, G)
given in Equation 1.
f (W, G) =
G!
2G W !(G − W )!
(1)
We then looked at what the relative probabilities of the end states the Nomads can
reach within one game of their current state, and got the following results:
f (3, 15) = 0.013884
f (2, 15) = 0.00320
2
(2)
(3)
From this it is clear that the Nomads are roughly 4.33 times more likely to win their
game this weekend than for any other result to occur.
There are some obvious flaws with this approach. This assumes that a draw is unlikely
to happen, however if you take into account draws the Nomads will only be even more
likely to not lose, so we’re good there. It also assumes the nomads won’t be deducted
points, again a safe assumption (See Appendix 8.1).
5
Wanderers
For the Wanderers game against Havering 1s, we utilise a direct comparison of the two
teams. One of the simplest and most reliable metrics of team goodness is the number
of ”points” they accumulate in a season (indeed, this is the method used by leagues
themselves to determine the best and worst team within a set. See [4] Section 6). This is
an elegant method of team strength comparison, and reduces to Equation 4.
17 > 14
(4)
This indicates that the Wanderers are roughly 20 + 1.4% better than Havering, and
so a win is the likely outcome.
6
Bedouin
Some of my colleagues have pointed out an obvious flaw in the analysis of the previous
teams - they assume performance is constant throughout the season. This was rectified
for the Bedouin analysis, by restricting the input to the incredibly clever and complicated
algorithms to use only the most recent 1 week of data. The results were astounding: every
single test confirmed that the Beds would win this weekend against Newmarket 1s.
Editors note: We have recieved some complaints that the data time frame used
above may be insufficient. We re-ran the analysis using the previous 18 months of data,
and can confirm the same result is obtained. QED.
7
Squanderers
There is much literature around the links between how much fun you have and performance, such as [5]. The conclusion is overwhelmingly that teams and individuals that
have more fun, will outperform teams that don’t have as much fun. We can infer from
this that the Squanderers are incredibly likely to win, regardless of the opposition, as it’s
just not possible to have as much fun as the Squanderers [6].
Also [7].
3
8
8.1
Appendix
Stebbing is in France
References
[1] CUHC. (2016). The cuhc calendar, [Online]. Available: http://www.cuhc.co.uk/
calendar/.
[2] E. Leagues. (2017). East hockey womens leagues prem results, [Online]. Available:
http://www.east-hockey.com/leagues2/showdata/sqlresults/resultswomen.
asp?division=prem.
[3] ——, (2017). East hockey mens leagues prem a results, [Online]. Available: http:
/ / www . east - hockey . com / leagues2 / showdata / sqlresults / resultsmen . asp ?
division=prem%20A.
[4] ——, (2017). East hockey leagues rules complete, [Online]. Available: http://www.
east-hockey.com/leagues2/rulescomplete.html.
[5] D. S. Brown. (2017). The national institute for play, [Online]. Available: http://
www.nifplay.org/.
[6] G. Baz. (2017). General baz - the autobiography, [Online]. Available: https : / /
twitter.com/General_Baz.
[7] E. Gardner. (2013). Just watch the video, [Online]. Available: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=bvfQW-zBPhE.
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