My Gambling Thesis

In "A Brief Intro to Gut Forecasting" I talked a bit about what information we draw on when making predictions. Let's be honest, if someone asks you how you think a game will go, you can usually answer within a second. Thought only occasionally actually comes into it. But what I now want to know is - what good is thinking? How does it really help? 

The best-selling book turned Brad Pitt flick "Moneyball" is about how using a numbers-dependent approach to player acquisitions allowed Billy Beane to take the Oakland A’s, with a relatively tiny budget, and make them competitive against the big guns (the equivalent of making Stoke competitive against Barcelona). The key to the "Moneyball" approach was recognising that the most important stat for any baseball player, the one you prize above all others, is something called On-Base Percentage. In essence, this stat was found to correlate most strongly with victories. Knowing that it was OBP, rather than bicep circumference or body shape, that really mattered, the A's were able to pick up a squad of players disregarded by other teams for their unusual technique, their oddly shaped monobrows, or their club feet. What this shows is that predicting outcomes becomes less of vague, if you can figure out what numbers matter, and how to use them. 

So, let’s apply this to the sport we love. Let's go with Shots on Target - did it matter to Monaco that they had none when they qualified ahead of Arsenal for the UCL last-eight? Clearly not. Did it matter the next evening for Leeds when they had 8 shots to Fulham's 27, and beat them 3-0? What about form? Did Villa's 4 goals away from home all season tell you they were about to stuff Sunderland 4-0 on their own turf last weekend? I'm just saying, the numbers are useless unless you know which ones matter, and what they're telling you. Numbers alone aren't worth bubkiss.

So, we arrive at the point. You can crunch the numbers, check the form guides, you might even come to believe that it's the weather that best predicts outcomes. But really, nothing reliably does. You're just guessing anyway, and crunching the stats doesn't really get you any closer than just throwing your hat on a stick (unless you know which numbers you really need to crunch). At the start of any game you have three outcomes - home win, draw, away win - and you don't know, and you can't know, which is going to occur.

The "Bundesliga Route" - aka "Why are English teams struggling in Europe?"

This is pretty much what everyone is talking about - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31842700 - so obviously we couldn't help weighing in with our three or four cents...

In the last five years, the Bundesliga has produced 40% of UCL finalists. 

Well, we obviously need to start doing whatever they're doing, and what are they doing? Well, as you'll no doubt have heard, after sucking giant balls at Euro 2000, they went back to the drawing board, investing huge sums in youth. The consequence? Well, you tell me. 40% of finalists is the strongest showing from any single nation. And that stat isn't a fabrication. Look, you've got - 

Bayern Munich (2010) - lost to Inter Milan

Bayern Munich (2012) - lost to Chelsea

Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund (2013) - Bayern won 2-1

Spain has provided 30% of finalists in that time - 

Barcelona (2011) - beat Manchester United

Real Madrid and Atletico (2014) - Real won 4-1 AET

How can we not look on enviously at that success??

The "Bundesliga Route"

We have two details here - the 40% stat, and the investments in youth which have apparently yielded it. Although, what have they actually yielded? Is the Bundesliga route - a) investment in youth? or b) creating a system that gives a distinct advantage to one superclub? Indeed, for all that enviable "investment in youth" did Leverkusen or Schalke ever for a second enter your mind as potential winners? Almost certainly not. Indeed, please go ahead and name their starting XIs. What Germany has produced, for all the investment in youth you can bang on about, is Bayern Munchen. Presently they sit atop the Bundesliga with an 11 point lead. In February alone they had 8 and 6-nil domestic victories. Last season's margin of victory in the title race was a meagre 19 points (over 34 games) and they only failed to win 5 times. 

"Sluggishness"

How come, asked the Sky pundits, Man City, Arsenal and Chelsea looked so sluggish compared to their rivals? Well, maybe it's a coincidence. Or, perhaps it's down to playing regularly competitive fixtures. Chelsea, you see, have to work to overcome their opponents in the EPL. When the EPL doles out it's masses of TV revenues, it doles them out evenly. In Spain, in Germany, all the cash stays at the top. If the smaller clubs want a piece, they have to produce a player that Bayern, Real, or Barca think is worth stealing. When a rival appears (think Borussia Dortmund three/four years ago) they are quickly gutted and left to slide down the table. Is this the laudable "Bundesliga Route" we're supposed to be envious of?

 
Bayern have knocked English teams out of the Champions League five times since 2009

BAYERN have done this. Have Schalke? No. Have Leverkusen? Er...nope. How are those two doing in this seasons competition? Oh, they're out. What about Dort...them too, huh? How interesting. One side (Bayern) might be going strong, but the rest are Tottenham-equivalent also-rans (on a good day). What about Spain then? They've got Atletico now! But, doesn't anyone feel Atletico sort of resemble Dortmund a bit? One great season where they burst through and became contenders, followed by gradual slipping away. 

The Gutting

Chelsea have already come in and stolen everyone. But, how can they do that? I mean, after all, Chelsea were knocked out by La Liga Champions Atletico last season! Unfortunately, Chelsea have the sort of money that moves an Atletico Madrid player from a Bentley into a private jet. Can they just waltz in and poach Real Madrid players at will? No. Because Real Madrid is a team that pays over £800,000 a week to two individuals. But what about Spanish involvement in this years competition? Well, Atleti, Barca and Real all soldier on. And their other team? Oh, you mean Atletic Bilbao! Yeah, you'd be forgiven for forgetting they were ever even in it (incidentally, as of the conclusion of the group stage, and despite being placed in the weakest group, they're totally not in it). 

What Are We Really Saying?

There are four really top top clubs in Europe at the moment - Bayern, Real, Barca, and sort-of (hanging on the edge) PSG. Sure, it's a disgrace for Arsenal to lose to Monaco. But the others are big, tough teams who get to basically play training fixtures at a domestic level as they trot out and smash 8 past some poorly-paid bunch of future Charlton reserves. Is this the league we really want? Is this honestly what we're actually envious of? 

Who's to Blame?

PART ONE - TELLING A STORY
Who's To Blame? 

The question was (and will be) were Man City rubbish, or were Burnley really good? Well, let's break it down. If Man City are good, and Burnley are good, Man City wins. Man City must be bad before Burnley winning becomes a plausible outcome. So, Man City must have been bad. How good Burnley have to be depends on two things - how far off it Man City are, and 'other factors'. Yeah, that nice vague set of variables that are pretty impossible to put a value on. Will it be a deflection, a shitty offside call, an appalling red card or just a dodgy bounce? 

Putting it Together...

In seeking to produce sense you'll try and stick two clauses together. If Man City were crap, you need something that comes before this (a cause). You need to be able to make sense of this crapness, so the crapness needs an explanation (prefferably a simple one). If Man City play like you expect, then no explanation is needed - that's Man City just being Man City. But Man City performed contrary to said explanation, please feel free to try and explain why...

Your Options

You might want to blame Manuel Pellegrini, but what is he really in charge of? He tells them how to play. If their playing style doesn't work, that's his error (sort of). He also needs to retain the confidence and belief of the players, so that they will confidently do what he says and trust his judgement, and therefore play his way. He doesn't seem to have lost this belief, not obviously. But he got the style wrong, and he didn't change it. What about transfers? What about bringing the right players in to begin with, giving himself the right tools to work with? Well, he's got flops knocking around all over the place - but the real problem is the hit-and-miss, slapdash approach to flinging a squad together. Silva compliments Aguero, but Dzeko doesn't fit with them at all, Dzeko would be better as a target man for a counter-attacking team. Then you have Navas who just innocuously runs up and down in straight lines, and then there's Silva's position, out wide, where he can fail to consistently affect the game and also doesn't protect his full-back at all. There's Fernandinho and Toure, both whom can tackle, but what are their primary roles? On Football Manager your centre midfield needs four things to work - a creator, a holder, an aggressor, and a runner - what does Man City's midfield have? I don't think either of them is creating, nobody is holding, the other roles are vaguely split between the two. So there are tactical problems, and personnel issues, and we can blame Pellegrini partially for one and largely for the other - there are long-term and short-term causes. But, they still win most of their games. Even with these issues, it's usually still not enough to halt City. 

Other Factors

Well, let's be honest, George Boyd hits one in a million like that. It so happens that this one smashes into the back of the net, and it's a real beautiful strike. But it wasn't tactical genius from Dyche, if you were thinking of blaming him for the result. He was responsible for Burnley's compact approach, but Dyche was only indirectly responsible for the goal. His involvement extended to keeping Boyd out there long enough to get it. A tame free-kick is flung in, and Kompany happens to get there, happens to head it to Boyd, he happens to hit a beauty. If that comes back off the post, the game probably ends a draw - no-one is having good chances up to that stage. But Pellegrini wasn't at fault for that goal. He might've been partially at fault for poor general play. But then again, as we've said, his tactics usually get the job done. Since this is the case, do we have to look at the individuals? Sergio Aguero didn't seem to be at the races, Dzeko was totally anonymous, Bony spurned the only chance he got. Pellegrini can't force them to play the way he wants them to play, he just sends them out there. But what if it's competition neglect? What if he's totally failed to account for Burnley's strengths? To adjust to their approach? 
So, Your Choices So Far...
Pellegrini, for a number of reasons. Sean Dyche (sort of). Luck. Competition Neglect. Which is it? 
PART TWO - WYSIATI

Who Watched the Madrid Game in Midweek?

It was quite amazing, and fairly similar, in that one team had all the talent. So, to begin with, Madrid must have sucked quite a lot, and in fact they sucked a whole freaking load. But there is always one person, one factor that people want to hold over the others - (was it that Burnley were crap, or City were good?) - well, it has to have been both. Were Madrid crap, or were Schalke amazing? Madrid were awful, Schalke didn't actually have to be that good, and had they been better, they would've scored more and gone through. With an average crop of players they came up against a team in crisis. 
The Madrid Conundrum...
Here's an approximate list of everything that's been blamed for Madrid's current malaise 
 Carlo Ancelotti (relaxed management style, tactical mistakes/tweaks), Gareth Bale (failure to settle, lack of confidence, lack of ingratiation with teammates), Ronaldo winning the Ballon d'Or, absence of Sergio Ramos, disastrous form of the hapless calamity that is Iker Cassilas, Luka Modric's lack of match fitness, the lack of a holding midfielder, the chairman, Ronaldo throwing a moody, and the Illuminati. 
Which Do You Like Best?
Let's take Carlo - he didn't bag La Liga last season, but he took home the Champions League, he led them to a run of 22 consecutive wins this season - but suddenly his leniency on the players has turned them into a bunch of incompetent twits? He has moved things around recently, but he can't surely have gone from an all-conquering system to one which forces Bale to be anonymous and Toni Kroos to become about as useful as a telephone box in centre-mid. Cassilas sucked all the way through the 22 game run, Modric has been missing for a long while, Ronaldo still found the net twice on Tuesday, and they haven't lost or gained anyone (apart from innocuous Brazilians and Norwegian twelve-year-olds) in January, so the squad is still in tact. 
Err...
Now imagine that a situation arises in which the squad needs a bit of discipline (which Ancelotti doesn't provide), and Bale begins to drain of confidence (the media get on his back, and his being an important part of the attack this is obviously an issue), Ronaldo takes his eye off the ball a little at roughly the same time, the defence struggles in Ramos' absence, thereby exposing Iker Cassilas (who falls flat on his arse in the face of everything that comes his way - but whose awful collapse in form was masked previously by their potent attack, which forced oppositions to curb their attacking enthusiasm to protect the goal), with the consequence that points are lost and vital confidence is sapped, and the Illuminati keep doing Illuminati type shit. Take all of these factors together (problems at both ends and in the dugout), and you get an explanation for the disgraceful home display against a team that is near enough the equal of West Ham. You're welcome to say one factor causes another, but they're all just things that happened. Possibilities that became realities. 

What We Don't Know

Iker Cassilas' sucky form has been blamed on his becoming a father, and it might have been a factor (it almost certainly wasn't, he's sucked for a long time before he became Papa Iker), it could be all sorts of things - who knows what his mental state is really like? Who knows if the problem is really mental or physical? A fully qualified shrink couldn't tell you conclusively what's happened to him, and yet we're totally at ease with throwing our guesses into the ring. Who knows if there's anything wrong with Ronaldo at all? How can Bale failing to integrate suddenly be a problem after twenty-odd months at the club? Think of everything we don't know about Gareth Bale's universe. We're trying to stick a story together with fragments, using the small bits of info we do have and ignoring all that we don't know. We know almost nothing about Gareth Bale's life. However, we, as human beings, are super talented as whacking together believable, coherent stories with fragments of info, as I shall now demonstrate...

Read the Following Description...

You are assessing the suitability of this random guy I just invented, called Jim, for a management position. Read the following description, and use the space provided to evaluate the candidate...

Jim is a very, very nice guy. He is authoritative, intelligent, and respected...

________________________

Now answer the follow-up question...

HOW IS THAT ENOUGH INFORMATION?

I might've cut out another sentence that came after. I could've said 'intelligent, and respected, although he is a paranoid schizophrenic, who likes biting and traipses blood around the office - oh, and don't let him near the scissors'. 

Your Knowledge has Limits, but You Usually Have to Tell it as Much

You don't know all you think you know, and also often don't realise you don't know enough. It's called What You See Is All There Is (WYSIATI); the pervasive tendency to ignore what you don't know, and settle for working only with what you do. You go by the WYSIATI principle when you evaluate Jim's credentials on a very brief account of his personality. You go by it when you think you know why Madrid are in freefall, when in fact, you know alarmingly little, and what you do know is secondary information gathered probably from a range of sources, and often a degree of what you know will either be fabricated or exaggerated. I honestly can't imagine a world in which that information would make it to you without suffering some distortion along the way. And this is another problem - you don't know what the reality is, where the distortion took place, so you can't evaluate the information with this in mind, you can only go on what you see. What You See Is, let's just say, All You've Got. Shame is, it's not really good enough when what you're trying to do is come up with an explanation which is right (part 1 hopefully showed how difficult this is), and which is suitably informed (part 2 hopefully showed you it usually isn't). 

Bloody Foreigners

I know I promised one thing, but I could hardly leave this alone...

Part 1 - the Tackle

It's in a grey area. It could be yellow, it could be red. But jumping at that distance, with force, on Oscar's knee is dangerous and reckless. People are confused because it doesn't fit the red card schema (two footed lunge = automatic straight red). With his weight coming down on Oscar's leg, that could've been a serious injury if his leg was on the floor. There's definite grounds for giving a red. And if you watch in real time - as you can here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcbs6dqQWQA - it looks bad, and as Jamie Carragher said, if you think your team-mate has been done, you're right to be pissed. He strangely went on to say two highly contentious things - 1) most of those Chelsea players "couldn't see it" (they're all looking at the incident, which in real-time does not look good), and 2) the Chelsea player reaction was "disgraceful". 

Part 2 - the Reaction to the Reaction

This is all from one article - read it here http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31845015 - Carragher and McNulty both go with "disgraceful", as well as "shocking" and "ignominious". Lawro said the tackle was "not that bad" (please watch it again). Now imagine that Oscar's leg is flat on the floor, and Zlatan ends his career by basically jumping on his knee - then what would the reaction have been? "Justified", I imagine. Souness, meanwhile, bafflingly working as a pundit for Sky, said "PSG had to put up with stuff" that he finds "really, really unappealing", and that it is not "the British way of doing things" (that is a precise quote)...

Part 3 - Most of Us Don't Know What Racism Is

Let's just examine the statement...

THAT IS NOT THE BRITISH WAY OF DOING THINGS

Now, he's talking about the use of nefarious tactics. He's talking about feigning injury. He's talking, generally, under the umbrella of dishonesty. So, the statement basically boils down to...

BLOODY DISHONEST FOREIGNERS

Which is basically a UKIP slogan. He finds this sort of thing "really, really unpleasant", whereas this sort of thing is just part of the game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygVgxYa3mlo - now trying to get someone sent off, that's "really, really unpleasant" - but deliberately trying to end someone's career? That's just fine is it? So there's the hypocracy, but there's the also the casual racism. It's a classic right wing line. There is a British way of doing things which is being soiled by these bloody foreigners coming in bringing their dishonest ways. Until they came along everyone used to rip the shit out of stadiums and kick each others knees off, which was just lovely. There is how we do it, and how they do it. They are different. They are an outgroup, and the outgroup warrants this label. We are different, distinct, we are not all just humans. 

Part 4 - Words, Actions and Opinions

Most racism is implicit, as it is here. There's a lot of use of racist language, and you do come across overtly racist sentiments, but there's a lot that bypasses our conscious awareness. The issue is with attitudes as much as behaviours. There is an implication in Souness' statement that would read in a Daily Mail article as foreigners being a virus blighting our once great nation with its noble traditions. It wilfully ignores basically all of the evidence. He is saying that British footballers were more honest in the pre-contamination era. There is no way of dressing his words up to give them even the slightest air of legitimacy. When you group people in the way he is (British = honest, non-British = dishonest) you engage in harmful (and shameful) categorisation. The worst thing about it is that there has been absolutely no outrage. If he'd have said one word wrong, outrage would've ensued. Inserting one racist word in there, and he wouldn't have a job. However, couching a racist statement in ambiguous terms means that there is no outrage, no obviously offended party. It bypasses our intuition of what constitutes a racist statement, and essentially smuggles through the essence - the ideology. We should be more vigilant, and we should have a problem with this.
Part 5 - The Essentials of Prejudice
Do you feel that this is an acceptable statement?
I PREFER GAY PEOPLE, THEY HAVE A MUCH BETTER SENSE OF HUMOUR AND A GREAT TASTE IN FASHION
Hopefully you didn't say "absolutely" in answer to my question. I now cordially invite you to think about it for a moment. What that statement says is that people of alternate sexual preferences are different. You are saying that their sexual preference tells you more about them than just their sexual preference. It tells you what they're like as people. Just because it's a positive stereotype, doesn't make it remotely valid, and it does make it an example of a harmful and reductive method of categorising the world. You are saying that a sexual preference tells you really all you need to know about a person. It's the same as...
OH, HE'S GAY? I DIDN'T REALISE HE LIKED ABBA 
One statement is as unreasonable as the other. Some gay people will have a good sense of humour, some won't. Some will have a "great taste in fashion" - others will not. Treat their sexual preference as only informing you about their sexual preference. Equally, the fact that someone is from abroad does not mean you can label them "dishonest". Some people who are not from Britain are also dishonest, and some aren't. 

Anyway, back on with the scheduled programming...

The United/Van Gaal Incongruence (aka - why people can't stop talking about them) & A Thing Called Luck

part one - das incongruence

1. THEY'RE WINNING

2. THEY'RE NOT PLAYING WELL

it really does demand an explanation...

Classifications

For a team to fit with our classification of consistent winners, they should possess the very common trait of not playing such obviously terrible football. The incongruence produces cognitive dissonance ('the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values' - credit goes to my erstwhile assistant Wikipedia for that concise, and hopefully accurate, definition). The "idea" is that a team that only loses twice in nineteen matches should be playing much much better than United are. The dissonance is genuinely discomforting. We do much prefer it when we have a classification for a thing, and it conforms to the definition. United do not. This makes us uneasy. Hence we're stuck endlessly discussing them. 

BBBBBBBBut...

United are playing an awful brand of football. "Hope Fellaini wins one of these long balls we punt up to him" is hardly acceptable for a team that has lavished £250m on new players over the past four windows. But, as we've said, this knowledge is discordant with the way the data seems to imply it actually works. If you were out in the middle of nowhere, and all you got was results, you'd think Van Gaal was doing well (well, well-ish at least).  

"People Get What They Deserve"

We inevitably want to reduce the discordance. We want things to be easily classified. We are always trying to avoid effortful thinking, and where discordance is concerned, this is inspired. We have a stereotype - "People get what they deserve" - which we preserve because it makes us optimistic. We think good things about ourselves (almost always; 90% of drivers think they're above average, etc etc), hence we are deserving, so we want to believe deserving people will be rewarded (just like with driving. We think we're good at it, so we can maintain the stereotype that only bad drivers have accidents, and then we don't waste time worrying about having accidents). Essentially, United are getting much more than their play deserves, and we don't really like it. 

So, That's the Unpleasantness...

But what's the explanation? How come they're winning and not playing well? Well, they keep a tight shape (sometimes). They have so much attacking talent, eventually some of it has to do something. No European distractions, so they have a week to prepare for most games. But mainly, David De Gea is absolutely ridiculously, sickeningly good. Even when they lose at home to Arsenal, he makes a save of the season contender or two. Oh, and luck is involved.

part two - "luck"

I Know You Don't Like That Idea Either...

"People Get What They Deserve" is the view of the world we prefer. "People Sometimes Get What They Deserve, but a lot of luck is involved all the time and all over the place" is not such an attractive view of the world. It's much much more accurate, but who cares about that? Luck is important. A great goalie is important. But there has to be luck, always. What if David De Gea dropped a bottle of salad cream on his foot? What if it missed by inches, he goes out and makes another bunch of world class saves? It was lucky either way. What if Burnley did take one of their hundreds of chances at Old Trafford the other week? Suddenly the record is worse. We'd rather believe it was "never going to happen", even though it certainly could have.

The First Three Examples of Luck and Chance Getting Involved That I Can Be Arsed To Think Of...

1. During the war Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkein became ill during the Battle of the Somme, and was invalided home - after he had left most of his battalion died, and he probably would have too. If not for his chance infection, Lord of the Rings would never have existed, and then what would've paid for Elijah Wood's jacuzzi? 

2. On a wholly uninteresting day in June 1914, a young man called Gavrilo Princip was sitting in a cafe mourning his failure to knock off the Archduke of Austria-Hungary (some guy called Franz Ferdinand), when a logistical cock up forced the Archduke's car to stop right in front of him. Princip, who happened to still be armed, got up and shot him. Now sit still and list all the other things that could've happened instead (and then do one for everything that can be plausibly said to have resulted from that chance occurrence). 

3. On November 24, a club owner from Dallas walked into a police station and shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Now, if some smart sod in the police force had bothered to stop the bloke with the gun walking in and shooting the worlds most notorious criminal in a police station on live television, we'd never have had the Oliver Stone film JFK (which is mainly worth watching for the way Kevin Costner waves his arms about). 
So...
What we're getting at is developing a view of the world that is a bit more "What if the apple hadn't fallen on Mr Isaac Whatsisface's head?", because there are loads and loads of scenarios in which it might never have happened. What if a passing friend hailed him at that moment, and all that ended up happening was Mr Newton going "ooo, delicious apple" and getting a slight vitamin boost (this is something we'd also rather not believe, that the things that have happened were not inevitable - we want to believe the present was inevitable, because it makes it feel more predictable, and we want to believe we can predict the future, because it makes it less terrifying). 

So...

There are all these factors that are beyond Van Gaal's control, and this doesn't mean they don't influence the outcome. That's something else we'd rather not believe - that people often aren't in control of their own destiny, but are at the mercy of others, whose decisions often only inadvertently influence them in the first place...

I've left off because this discussion is really just leading into the next article...

Which will be online at some point...

I have no idea when...

Your Integrity, or Your Fortune...

You've probably heard of Lance Armstrong. 

In 2015 Mr Armstrong, now 18 months on from his confession, sat down with the following baldy gentleman from the BBC for an interview. . . 

The Background

You've probably heard a bit about what Lance Armstrong did. Lance took some drugs, and won a bunch of races. He amassed a personal fortune, and raised half a million dollars for cancer research. He won this bunch of races at a time when doping was rife in the sport, and seems to have started doping as a response to dropping out of first place and being replaced by people who were doping. To survive in the race, and have any chance of winning, Lance seems to contend, he had to start doing it himself. That he doped is not to say he wasn't the best cyclist. 

The Big Question...

Lance talks about having a career, and how failing to get involved in a doping programme harmed your chances of having one. This is the same Lance Armstrong who amassed that $170m fortune, and raised all that cancer dosh. Now imagine that Lance DOESN'T dope, and winds up having a mediocre cycling career in the middle of the pack. Let's imagine, in this case, he amasses a tiny fortune, and raises some tiny pockets of dosh. It's a choice - a mediocre career + integrity versus lots of money + loss of integrity. So, here's the question, given the chance, do you want a) lots of money, or b) your 'integrity' (whatever that even is...).

What Has Value...

What do you get for keeping your integrity? What's the value of your integrity? What does it give you? Some minor satisfaction? Maybe someone will say about you "hey, you know that guy, he's got loooooads of integrity" and probably someone else will say "hey, let's talk about something else". 

The Choice...

Would you sell it? Would you sell this valueless abstract/totally negotiable non-commodity, or would you hold on to it? You can have $170m, or your integrity? If you're the baldy gentleman, apparently you'd (allegedly) choose the second option. If you're Lance Armstrong, you'd choose (as he did) the private jet...

So...
Are you a Lance, or a baldy interviewer guy?
It's just something to think about...