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Algorithms predict sports teams' moves with 80% accuracy [pdf]

lisc.mae.cornell.edu

11–20 of 29 posts

Re: Algorithms predict sports teams' moves with 80% accuracy [pdf]

#11
While impressive, volleyball is one of the most formulaic sports when it comes to predicting what happens next. This is not a dig on volleyball (I'm a fan!), but it is how the sport works.

The first touch is always about receiving the ball and passing it cleanly to the setter. The second touch is about setting up the attacker (if possible). The third touch is a spike or other attempt to get the ball to the other side. The only significant decision points are usually who the setter chooses for the attack (among 2-4 players depending on formation), and on the defense side, where the blockers jump (3 players choosing spots to cover). Since the algorithm only predicts "actions", both of those don't matter (the setter is going to be "setting" regardless of who they choose, the blockers are always going to be "blocking" regardless of the spot they cover).

The "team strategy" part is in effect just a check of whether the algorithm knows what is happening on the court at all. Volleyball allows the aforementioned three touches, and what the team is doing for each touch is pretty much immutable (the only source of variation is if one of the "steps" fails).

This is of course still an achievement, but the choice of sport gives the researchers a leg up, since volleyball has significantly fewer "degrees of freedom" than other sports. In that context, ~80% accuracy at predicting an action 2 seconds out is less interesting, and it's unlikely that it's anywhere close to human performance for this particular sport.

Re: Algorithms predict sports teams' moves with 80% accuracy [pdf]

#12
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering about that as well. Somebody is going to make a killing before they close the loophole, a modern day casino heist.

The abstract talks about predicting 48 frames ahead. Is realtime sports betting even a thing? And if so is the liquidity and spread good enough to enter/exit say a $10,000 position that quickly?

> Is realtime sports betting even a thing? And if so is the liquidity and spread good enough

I think the question you really need to be asking is ....

Is there a house that will let me do this ?

The house tends not to like consistent winners.

Re: Algorithms predict sports teams' moves with 80% accuracy [pdf]

#13
The paper doesn't mention any baseline, and so claims like "86% accuracy" are a bit useless: what if players do the same action 85% of the time? Then the model wouldn't be not predicting much. If on the other hand the most common action happens only 30% of the time, then that would be an incredibly strong result.

Re: Algorithms predict sports teams' moves with 80% accuracy [pdf]

#14

The paper doesn't mention any baseline, and so claims like "86% accuracy" are a bit useless: what if players do the same action 85% of the time? Then the model wouldn't be not predicting much. If on the other hand the most common action happens only 30% of the time, then that would be an incredibly strong result.

I wonder what accuracy you'd get in a basketball game with the following constant predictor: “the player who has the ball will dribble”.

Re: Algorithms predict sports teams' moves with 80% accuracy [pdf]

#15
post #11

While impressive, volleyball is one of the most formulaic sports when it comes to predicting what happens next. This is not a dig on volleyball (I'm a fan!), but it is how the sport works. The first touch is always about receiving the ball and passing it cleanly to the setter. The second touch is about setting up the attacker (if possible). The third touch is a spike or other attempt to get the ball to the other side…

Thinking the same thing! Volleyball is very structured, there are schemas and tactics basically for every event in the game. Additionally, at professional level the accuracy of the players is quite high so the variability should get lower e.g. the setter will set the ball very precisely and the spiker will attack from a specific position. What it might change is the timing (depending on how high the ball is), but usually the professional games are very fast so that should also simplify things.

Re: Algorithms predict sports teams' moves with 80% accuracy [pdf]

#16
post #9
post #7

It’d certainly be interesting to see if 80% accuracy over a 2 second window was enough to exploit tactically. If so, you’ve probably just saved a few hours of a video analyst’s time. Interesting approach though. There’s been a lot of work on this over the years, including on (dare I say) more complex sports like soccer. This was from Sloan 5 years ago for example: http://www.yisongyue.com/publications/ssac2017_ghosti…

I'm pretty sure any skilled player can reliable judge what opposing players are going to in the next few seconds. Probably with closer to 95% accuracy.

Especially for volleyball, because the only open question are: “to which attacker the setter will pass”, “where's the attacker going to attack” and “will the defense be able to get the ball”.

For the “nine well-defined classes: spiking, blocking, set- ting, running, digging, standing, falling, waiting, and jumping” used in the paper, the only things that are hard to predict is “jumping”, for the attackers, because it depends on who the setter will pass the ball to, and who's going to be “falling” because it depends where the attacker will shoot the ball and which defender is in range to catch it.

I've just tried to do it on a Youtube video, and it's actually a pretty fun game to play for a minute or two. (I think I'm above 85%, despite not having practiced volley outside of school's sport classes and never having watched it on TV, so I'm pretty convinced your 95% figure is well within reach of a skilled player).

Re: Algorithms predict sports teams' moves with 80% accuracy [pdf]

#17

Title is misleading. This is about classifying volleyball players and predicting their actions up to 2 seconds in advance. Which is really impressive. Humans do this automatically without even thinking about. General artificial intelligence is a still long way away, but the slow progress and exploration is fascinating to watch.

I don't know volleyball well, but isn't it fairly deterministic within the window of 2 seconds? Like... your teammate just set the ball. What are you going to do? Isn't ALWAYS spike the ball?

Re: Algorithms predict sports teams' moves with 80% accuracy [pdf]

#18
post #9
post #7

It’d certainly be interesting to see if 80% accuracy over a 2 second window was enough to exploit tactically. If so, you’ve probably just saved a few hours of a video analyst’s time. Interesting approach though. There’s been a lot of work on this over the years, including on (dare I say) more complex sports like soccer. This was from Sloan 5 years ago for example: http://www.yisongyue.com/publications/ssac2017_ghosti…

I'm pretty sure any skilled player can reliable judge what opposing players are going to in the next few seconds. Probably with closer to 95% accuracy.

The interesting thing is whether you can identify exploitable tendencies in opposition team play (again, faster than your human analysts would otherwise do). If so, that takes preparation with the whole team rather than split second decision making.

Re: Algorithms predict sports teams' moves with 80% accuracy [pdf]

#19
post #11

While impressive, volleyball is one of the most formulaic sports when it comes to predicting what happens next. This is not a dig on volleyball (I'm a fan!), but it is how the sport works. The first touch is always about receiving the ball and passing it cleanly to the setter. The second touch is about setting up the attacker (if possible). The third touch is a spike or other attempt to get the ball to the other side…

> This is not a dig on volleyball

I see what you did there!

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