5.27.2009

Judi Hoffman Blows The Kentucky Derby

The day before the Kentucky Derby, Judi Hoffman released her psychic picks for the race:
As many of you know, Judi accurately predicted 2008’s win, place, and show horses in the Kentucky Derby. She has decided to share her 2009 trifecta pick with all of her friends, she is playing 2 combinations, 7/12/19 and 5/14/18 lets see if she can make it 2 years in a row! One note though, she did mention that “Advice” the #4 horse could be a spoiler!
Predictions like that shouldn't be left on the web for too long. They might give the unwitting pause before subscribing to her "Inner Circle of the Enlightened". Why two different combinations with a bonus pick? Look at it this way...Judi picked 7 horses our of 19. That's 37% of the field. That means she had a 37% chance of one of them placing first or second or third. What are the odds of any 3 of the 7 placing in the top 3 positions? I calculate it as (7/19)*(6/18)*(5/17) = 3.6% (and I'd be happy if someone checks my math). The point is that she offered up 7 horses to win/place/show. Even though she was more specific, we know that psychics will take whatever they can get. That is, Judi could have claimed victory not only for a 7/12/19 combination, but also a 12/19/7 or 5/19/18 or 12/4/14...or any permutation of 4, 5, 7, 12, 14, 18 and 19. Even if she only got one right, that would been some victory, allowing her to claim that "the spirits weren't strong that day, but hey...I got one right!".

Unfortunately for Judi, none of her 7 horses placed in the top 3. The winning combination was, in fact, 8/16/2. Mine That Bird, #8, was a come-from-behind shocker, a 50-1 long shot. Judi would have been much better to only pick one horse, any horse, and have a 5% chance of being right. As it is, she didn't get anything right, which shows what a complete and utter failure she was as a psychic predicting this year's Kentucky Derby, especially when the psychic fields should have been veritably humming with the energy of this long shot.

Instead, Judi got 0% correct. Sign of the null set. Zip. Zilch. Nada. In other words, Judi wasn't very enlightening.

Despite all this, I do hope she gets better. Last I heard, she was dying from throat cancer and offering (for a price) to contact subscribers from the great beyond. Hopefully, would-be subscribers will take note that Judi's psychic powers ain't all that she makes them out to be, and that they won't be getting any phone calls from the grave. That's just silly. If she needs donations for medical bills, she should just ask rather than preying on those with ill-formed neuronal connections.

1 comment:

Matthew Pickard said...

Uh ha. That's funny. In our local market, one of our racist right-wing talk show hosts predicted that if the Kentucky Derby's long shot would win, he would vote to reelect Jim Doyle -- the Democratic governor of Wisconsin. This talk show host -- Mark Belling -- predictably backpedalled. Belling claims no psychic powers.