Tuesday, February 7, 4:00 pm ET
It is very important to us to be transparent and honest about our picks. I always try to recap each football weekend. With the addition of the TrendFinder database, which tracks all performance for all of our information (against published lines in every sport), the blog will focus more on topics beyond performance. Our performance is now as transparent as it can possibly get. We will still do our best to note areas of strength, while acknowledging areas of weakness - honing in on what this means to subscribers as it applies and touching on other, "big picture" topics in the process.

This blog will discuss the launch of the NHL Predictalator Picks (free for the rest of the season) and review the NFL Playoffs, including Super Bowl Live and Props. This will likely be the last of the "shotgun" blogs that cover multiple topics. In future days and weeks, I intend to publish blogs that focus on one topic only, meaning that we may have several in some weeks (and potentially none in others).

As a reminder, at midnight ET each day, we make all of our previous day's subscriber content available for free for registered users. Performance is also tracked in the TrendFinder Database (updated every morning from the previous day). We're never going to hide anything. So even though we have to swap out articles in the archive to focus on new ones, articles never go away. Just make sure to use the correct week and date in the URL - or ask us for the link...

NFL Playoffs Recap:
With an accurate prediction of an outright win by the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, the Predictalator extended its streak of Super Bowl wins to an undefeated three against-the-spread Super Bowl victories and a new streak (after starting 13-0 ATS in NFL Playoffs) of five straight accurate NFL Playoff ATS predictions. For this postseason, ATS picks finished 8-3 (73%), and all playable picks are 13-7 (65% ATS and O/U). Since we launched PredictionMachine.com the week before Super Bowl XLIV, our NFL Playoff picks are 20-3 ATS (87%), with all three losses coming in games with "weak" opinions ("normal" or better ATS opinions are 12-0). Utilizing our (relatively conservative) play value recommendations and the published confidence, a normal $50 player would be up almost exactly $1500 in just 23 games (essentially doubling the original bankroll). Fortunately, even better aggregate results could be found by playing "Paul's Picks" or all playable NFL picks over the course of the 2011-12 season, but there is definitely something to be said about this specific part of the season. The formula that includes full season's worth of player and team data, easy access to injury information and the influx of wagers from the exploitable and bias public has historically led to the best performances by this type of technology (as is also the case during the NCAA tournament). Based on this history and the confidence that our subscribers have in our technology this time of the year, one would expect that these profit expectations represent the low/conservative end of our actual users' experiences.

Personally, I am entering the final week of one of my favorite three week stretches on the calendar. From preparing the Super Bowl content, including the fun prop stuff (which fortunately did well), and our annual company meetings to prepare for the rest of year two weeks ago, to the chaos of Super Bowl week (this year spent in Indianapolis - which embraced the Super Bowl more than I have ever seen or could have expected) and the game itself, and then to juxtapose that against a week like this where I/we can breathe a little and focus on looking forward and improving every part of the site. We have already received some helpful feedback on several items including the live, in-game running Super Bowl and props content and would love to hear more about specific ways to improve the site (unless we are consistently hitting well above our published confidence "get better at picking games" is always tops on our list, but we could still benefit from situational feedback from experiences using our information or from information found in the TrendFinder database). As we devote some time to review all of our features in an effort, as is always our main focus, improve/optimize, the user experience on the site, please do not hesitate to contact us with feedback.

Super Bowl Live:
Yeah, this is one of the coolest things that I have been a part of. If you have not seen it yet, check out the Super Bowl Live chart and projections from Sunday's game. This was updating in real-time after every play (simulating the rest of the game 50,000 times to generate live win probabilities and average projected scores). You can read more about this in last week's blog.

While I have already tweeted about some of the notable percentage swings from the game and have collaborated on a Wall Street Journal article, the most notable piece of information from this analysis is that, based on feedback from multiple sources utilizing this information at sports books (operated by Cantor Gaming) that allow live, in-game running wagers, the Patriots never had value relative to the price on the money-line in the Super Bowl. Even though there is a stretch throughout the majority of the third quarter where we projected the Patriots to win more often than not, it was never with enough confidence to justify playing. That being said, the money-line Play Value Calculator recommendation was not on the Giants for all 60 minutes, often projecting a "no pick," and this conversation could be very different had a Patriot caught the Hail Mary at the end of the game, but it is great to note the significant value that we found in the ultimate winning side throughout the game and at halftime (the halftime line was New England -2, while we had the Giants out-scoring the Patriots by 0.5 points in the second half).

Here are some other interesting notes from simulating the Super Bowl live:

• Had Ahmad Bradshaw taken a knee at the 1 yard line instead of falling into the end zone, it would have increased the Giants' win probability for the game by 2.6% (98.1% as opposed to 95.5%).
• On the flip side to that, had the Patriots decided to let the Giants score on first and goal (the previous play) instead of calling a timeout and then doing that on second down, the extra time and timeout would have increased New England's chances of winning the game from the 4.5% to 10.3% - more than doubling their chances to win.
• Our projected success rate of the final Hail Mary was 15.1%.
• While the New England Patriots regressed from being more than 80% likely to win the game with 5:15 left to slight underdogs with 3:37 remaining and to having less than a 20% chance to win at the two minute warning, no individual play (in the entire game) changed the win probability greater than 20% on its own.
• Mario Manningham's 38 yard reception to open the Giants' final drive, though, was the most important play of the game. Not only did it cause a net 15%+ change in win probability, the projected most likely winner changed (from New England to New York) for the final time on this play.
• The five-yard penalty for having 12 men on the field with 17 seconds left on the Patriots' final drive resulted in a net 0.7% (or 1 in 143) gain in win probability for the Patriots. In other words, the time off the clock meant almost exactly the same as the five yards.

Our current plan is to publish live results of at least one college basketball game each day during the NCAA tournament, including both Final Four games and the National Championship, with more marquee games to come in other sports going forward.

Super Bowl Props:
While our most notable strong prop opinions - Eli Manning UNDER rush yards (3.5), Tom Brady UNDER pass TDs (2.5), Lawrence Tynes OVER FGM (1.5), Chad Ochocinco OVER receptions (0.5) and receiving yards (9.5) and Longest TD UNDER (49.5) - were all successful, some very unfortunate circumstances plagued the others. We essentially liked the OVER in every prop associated with the Giants' tight ends. Neither completed the game. Travis Beckum tore his ACL on the second play of the Giants' third drive of the game. Jake Ballard barely made it to the fourth quarter. There is nothing we can do about in-game injuries like that. The Giants were forced to run a 2-0 formation with two running backs and three receivers on almost every play in the fourth quarter. They had not practiced that formation in more than a year. While it worked out well for the Giants, those injuries really hurt our overall prop performance. In fact, ignoring all props related to tight ends (on the field), all playable props went 33-26 (56%) and +$410 for a normal $50 player. I know that it does not work like that. Aaron Hernandez reached around our projected yards, but never as a running back. And Rob Gronkowski was clearly more banged-up than we had expected. Including the tight ends, all playable prop picks were 34-33 (51%) and not profitable.

This is a classic situation in this business where some people won and some people lost with the information. We hit four of our top five value plays (just losing the play on whether there would be a safety - there were 13 safeties in 256 games all season, yet there has been a safety in three Giants' Super Bowls?), yet hit just five of the top ten. Somehow, the Giants scored 21 points, yet had just two TDs and did not get more than seven points out of their kicker, Lawrence Tynes. Travis Beckum and Aaron Hernandez accounted for the other losses in that group. Of the fun stuff, playable off-field recommendations went 5-2 and +$101 (assuming Kelly Clarkson national anthem paid OVER 1:34, which it appears was the case in more offshore books than not - this was only a $9 wager for a $50 player either way).

NHL Picks
Straight-up/money-line, over/under and puck-line projections for every regular season NHL game will launch next Monday, February 13 for free to all registered users who subscribe to the free picks in the Shop. In testing, we have been able to find consistent value in O/U for hockey, while money- line plays have been barely profitable and puck-line plays, like run-lines in MLB, provide stronger value than the money-line, yet are highly volatile from day to day. NHL teams are already available in the Customizable Predictalator, though they will not be updated for injuries, starting goaltenders, etc. until the picks start next Monday. Due to the unique nature of hockey, which focuses on value through the money-line like baseball, we will not be adding NHL picks to the Play Analyzer, TrendFinder, Team Schedules or League Schedules. This information for money-line sports will be available initially for the start of this baseball season and then for next year's complete hockey season.

Vegas Weekend:
Based on feedback, we have also added a new package option to the Shop that grants access to all information on the site all day Saturday and Sunday every weekend throughout the year.

Blog Topics:
With the football season complete and the TrendFinder handling all performance reporting, I will have far more time to delve deep into money-management, sports analysis and general sports (or non-sports, space-based solar power anyone?) related topics in the blog. I have several topics that I deem important that I intend to get into soon. More importantly, I would love to hear from you. If you have a topic that you would like to see me discuss/breakdown/analyze/ramble on about, please do not hesitate to contact us with your ideas or questions.

NBA ATS Performance by Team:
Actual, real-life ATS, O/U and SU performance by team can be found on each team's schedule page. However, as we continue to leverage the TrendFinder database to find opportunities to improve our engines, we spend a considerable amount of time looking at team-by-team ATS performance of our own picks. While this information is interesting, it is important to note that a) we do our best to "fix" any areas uncovered by this analysis where we believe there may be weaknesses and b) along those lines, we would not recommend blindly picking against our information when teams are involved for which we have not had a strong record this season. In the table below, "Games" represents all games that the team has played that did not result in an ATS push (including games that were not considered "playable" by the Predictalator - that info is still of great interest). "PM ATS Wins" is the number of games involving that team that resulted in an accurate ATS win by the Predictalator this year.

College Basketball ATS Performance by Team:
Actual, real-life ATS, O/U and SU performance by team can be found on each team's schedule page. However, as we continue to leverage the TrendFinder database to find opportunities to improve our engines, we spend a considerable amount of time looking at team-by-team ATS performance of our own picks. While this information is interesting, it important to note that a) we do our best to "fix" any areas uncovered by this analysis where we believe there may be weaknesses and b) along those lines, we would not recommend blindly picking against our information when teams are involved for which we have not had a strong record this season. In the table below, "Games" represents all games that the team has played that did not result in an ATS push (including games that were not considered "playable" by the Predictalator - that info is still of great interest). "PM ATS Wins" is the number of games involving that team that resulted in an accurate ATS win by the Predictalator this year.

As usual, if you have any of your own comments about this article or suggestions about how to improve the site, please do not hesitate to contact us at any time. We respond to every support contact as quickly as we can (usually within a few hours) and are very amenable to suggestions. I firmly believe that open communication with our customers and user feedback is the best way for us to grow and provide the types of products that will maximize the experience for all. Thank you in advance for your suggestions, comments and questions.