THE PLAYER ANALYST

Pool Displays > The Player Analyst

The Player Analyst is a new concept in handicapping. Rather than focus on how the NFL teams and divisions are doing, the Player Analyst focuses on how you are doing. You will be able to instantly see what your strengths and weaknesses are when making your weekly pool selections.

Handicappers are creatures of habit. We tend to pick teams a certain way and unless we have proof right in front of our eyes of what we are doing wrong, we go on making the same mistakes. Some of us constantly give too much importance to the home field advantage, or NFL Conferences, or thinking Favorites will always cover ( this is my big fault ). Whatever you are doing wrong, the Player Analyst will point it out to you. You can go on making the same mistakes, but at least now you cannot say you werent aware.

The Essentials: Whether your pool uses point spreads or not when determing pool standings, if you want to get the most out of the Player Analyst, then enter point spreads in the program. The reason for this is simple: When pools do not use point spreads when determining winners, players usually wind up picking the favorites. The Player Analyst cannot give your Favorite/Underdog records unless it knows who the favorites and underdogs were.

If your pool uses point spreads to determine Player standings: Your favorite and underdog won-loss records will be determined by whether the favorite or underdog covered the spread.

If your pool does not use point spreads to determine Player standings: Your favorite and underdog won-loss records will be determined by whether the favorite or underdog won the game.

If a game is a pick ( no favorite or underdog ), then this game will not show up in your favorite-underdog records.

Printing: The printouts offered are more complete than what I could fit on a screen display. If you are going to send the output to a text file or to the clipboard to printed later, you need to do the following so the printout will fit on one page. Import the text into a word processor such as Microsoft Word. SELECT the entire text, and change the font to Courier New, Size 8. The printout should then fit on one page. The clipboard printout only shows the With Games Involving and the When Betting On categories. The printout and the text file also add the When Betting Against category.

The Handicapping Categories:

The right side of the screen gives nine categories showing your record when picking teams in these categories. If your pool uses point spreads, then your won-loss record depends on whether your team covered the point spread. Once again, the Favorite-Underdog categories will show nothing unless you have entered NFL point spreads into the program.

A nice feature of the Player Analyst is it also shows you how many times you have picked games in each of the categories. This will surely tell you if you tend to overbet favorites, underdogs, home teams, away teams, conferences, divisions etc. If you are overbetting a category and doing good, thats OK, but if you are doing bad, then its time to change.

 Have you ever heard yourself saying something like, When I pick them, they lose, and when I don't pick them, they win. Thats what these lists will show. They give your record on every NFL team and division, including when you bet on them and bet against them. Heres a simple example: The Giants are playing the Redskins. You pick the Giants and they lose. Your NY Giants record is credited with a loss, AND your Redskin record is also credited with a loss. These two lists give a more accurate record of how you are picking games than the next two lists.

 These two lists will only show the records of the NFL teams and divisions that you have bet on. Going back to the previous example, these boxes will give you a loss for your NY Giants record, but will give nothing for the Redskins. This way you can now see only the won-loss records of the teams and divisions you have bet on. By going back and forth between these lists and the previous two lists, you will easily be able to spot what teams and divisions you are doing good betting on, but are doing bad when betting against.

Note: The Player Analyst makes a comprehensive printout. All three categories are included in the printout ( In Games Involving, When Betting On, and When Betting Against ). You should definitely be making printouts to study your handicapping habits.

The Start and End Week Buttons: Use these often to check your record during different parts of the season. NFL teams play on emotion, and during different parts of the season, some teams ( and divisions ), usually get really hot or really cold. Without the Player Analyst, it would be almost impossible to keep track of your handicapping record against these teams and divisions during these periods. When zeroing in on a section of the NFL season, you will be able to spot when you are missing the ups and downs of these teams and divisions.

Using the NFL Analyzer and Player Analyst Together: Now we start playing for keeps. I purposely set up the NFL Analyzer and Player Analyst to work together. Here's how you should be using them. Start playing your won-loss percentages in the Player Analyst against the NFL Analyzer percentages for the same categories. What I mean by this is do not be too concerned with your won-loss record for your NFC and AFC categories. I know this sounds insane, but hear me out. I will give you some examples: In 1996, the AFC Road teams and AFC Underdogs started out terrible against the point spread. If your won-loss percentage for these categories were just 10% better than the NFL Analyzer percentages for these categories, you were ahead of the game. Mind you, you would still have a losing record for these categories during the early part of the season, but the odds are other members of your pool did only as good as the percentages in the NFL Analyzer. The opposite is also true: If the NFL Analyzer shows a category with a high winning percentage ( say 65% ) and you are only batting 60% in this category, then are you really doing good in this category? The answer is NO. The goal is always to score higher in your Player Analyst categories than the NFL Teams and Divisions score in their NFL Analyzer categories. Do this, and you will be at the top of your pool standings. Just as I told you to cut the season up in the Player Analyst display, you should also be doing the same in the NFL Analyzer. Be the first one to spot trends in the NFL.