I thought of a way to not entirely abandon the work I put into the follower system. Since the part where I optimize the zero count has 10 possibilities to cycle through, what if I modified the follower program to print out the followers most frequent for every game in every position and create an 11th and 12th (one for day, one for night) lookup table? This could just be another test injected into the workflow, and the original script can be modified to get the results in one big pass. When tested with the others, if it makes more matches, it's in, otherwise it sits out with the others.

By focusing the output if the script to just the follower number and the distribution list, run time would be about 20 seconds. There is no need to pause the other system while working out the details. It either works better than what is there or it doesn't, that is the charm of considering it as an add on.

I did not measure the time it took to perform the update process, as the games went online asynchronously, but if the overall process can be held to an hour or 2, then weekly updates might make sense. The nice thing about actually recording the zero counts with each possible lookup table set is that you get a feel for how close the top performer is to the runner ups, and can determine an update schedule for each game, that would be a time saver for sure.

I am hoping that when I have my class in machine learning, I will pick up new skills to refine techniques, particularly in automating processes. The work put in so far will definitely be helpful.

Because of my overnight work hours, I play night and the next day. After 2 days of the system there have been no wins yet, but on the PA mid day pick 2, missed by one both days (up and down so not a trend... yet) 2 of 4 in the pick 4 and 3 of 5 (in position) on the pick 5. Both pick 3 games have had 1 or 2 matches in position each play. From remembering how off the followers were, it is a marked improvement... but again no wins yet. Still running the test through March 1st, still hoping for that elusive Pick5 straight.

By keeping photos of the lookup tables for each game, picks can be generated on the fly in less than 5 minutes, so that is a huge improvement in ease of use over the old follower system, but incorporating that data will be an easy add, and it would have to produce more zero counts (hits per column) to be implemented. Outside of the script modifications and running a count test, the ease of pick generation stays the same.

Onward and hopefully upward.

Happy Coding!