Sunday 23 February 2014

Good Eggs

With almost six months to go until the new season gets under-way, the answer to my question posed a few days ago "Is it too early to ask if there might be any interest out there in an FTL for next season?" is probably yes. 


However, a couple of heavyweights have already thrown their hats into the ring and expressed not only interest, but also interest in some kind of sponsorship - namely this season's 'sponsor' Graeme, aka The Football Analyst, and Ian Erskine of FTS Income fame, and fortune.
TFA

Full of self-confidence, Graeme suggests a performance linked arrangement again, similar to the 'bounty' we have in place this season:
Probably link to it my own performance again and given my performance this season, not sure people need much more incentive to join. Will be like taking sweeties off a kid! :(
"Taking sweeties off a kid" has replaced "Barcelona in the Conference" for next season. Bullying replaces finesse perhaps. Speaking of Barcelona in the Conference, while the prices are not available yet, it does appear that TFA has had a rather good set of results this weekend, and anyone planning on how to spend their bounty liability might need to hold off for a while.

Graeme had a couple of other comments on the subject:
Wouldn’t be against everyone paying you a small admin fee as part of the entry fee either considering the work you do.

I’d also not be against more stringent rules to make your updates easier. From what you say, it seems to me some people drip feed bets to you and not sure my email box could handle this! I’d make it all bets need to be sent at once for each set of fixtures. Hence, one update from each entrant for midweek games and one update for weekend games. There have been a few times on a Saturday morning when I have been placing bets and some teams have drifted wildly from a Thursday and they’d be qualifying bets on this system in the FTL this season but I haven’t bothered to send them (probably wise given my negative ROI this season!). I do think for a league like this, it’s not asking much for people to provide one update for each fixture set.
I also wouldn’t be against anyone from my own service doing unique things with the TFA bets to enter the league as long as it’s made clear their system is based on my ratings and bets. Not sure anyone would be up for it but I can always ask! Given they have an opportunity to show me up, they might jump at the chance! ;)
Good-hearted (we hope) Ian Erskine had this to say:
Cassini all being well and assuming the ticker does not give out I will partake next season and happy to throw some money in the prize fund if you would like, don't want to step on Graeme's toes though. Fixed odds been a bit of a struggle this season for everyone I think, averages compared to last 5-10 years a bit out this season as you have previously mentioned.
Jamie A also showed interest, as did, and again I'll need to seek JG's approval on this, the infamous Hejik, who I repeat, I know nothing about except for his blog posts, tweets and comments - pretty much how most of us know about others in the on-line world.

Whether or not some of the less successful entrants from this season will sign up again remains to be seen. I imagine an unbiased spotlight shining on some systems and services has been an uncomfortable experience for some, but anyone considering joining has a few weeks left of this season to hone their selection process.

6 comments:

Neil said...

As the "wooden spoon winner in waiting" for this season, I would confirm that I will certainly be entering again next season.

I have always used this competition to test out new strategies and needless to say that so far this season I have failed to find a winning one!

I now have a few months to come up with a plan for next season, I happy to pay a bit more to cover admin costs etc and it is great to see that there is so much interest in sponsorship.

Keep up the good work mate, don't let the king of the trolls AKA "Jonny Fart Pants" get you down, although you are helping him out a lot with his viewing stats on his website of "essays" or reams of back fitted waffle :-)

Emp said...

With my confounded PayPal issues behind me, and your jibes about the ease of finding edges still ringing, I am sure I'll be in your league next year, if you choose to run it, and don't forget, I was at the top of your table this year, and my 15+ points in a brief period is still more than any of the paid entrants can boast.

Unknown said...

Lads haven't we got the small matter of a World Cup to sort out first?

Unknown said...

Oh and I really must offer an apology for the appalling performance of my entry 'Murphy's Law'. Think I will have to leave the modelling to the experts!

Been out of circulation for a bit and reading back through the blog entries was really interesting. The tennis debate was especially good with some superb posts. I don't have any high grade info but I would like to throw in a couple of thoughts.

One is I read Peter Webb said he doesn't trade point to point because of courtsiders, which I was a bit surprised at. By that I mean you can see the point has ended by market reaction so you have a certain amount of time say ten seconds to get your order in. But the fact he doesn't do it is worrying.

As a very general comment, if any one participant was taking incredible value from the market you would expect to see a drop in turnover over time. The fact that tennis has such amazing sums traded does suggest the market is functioning in a reasonably fair way. But then again the whole tennis trading business is a bit murky as it's not a sport where you have a mass market of punters underpinning the system. This does make it hard to draw conclusions.

I read with interest Hejik's article on The Sultan which I thought was well argued and amusing in places. It reminded me of articles you see about managers who have just got the sack and every decision they made gets painted in the worst possible light and often the manager can't reply because of legal reasons. Put a number of disparate facts together and weave a narrative and it can all look very compelling.

I have had some dealings by email with The Sultan and in my opinion he is a really genuine guy. I know we all have the same stumbling block over why couldn't he self finance his trading but perhaps the truth was he didn't have any way of accessing any more money. It's not difficult to think of genuine reasons why that might be so if you put your mind to it.

I am in a strange position in that IMO The Sultan is one of the good guys and I might add one of the best bloggers out there. I find it a bit odd more people haven't come out to support him. However although I disagree with Hejik on this occasion I do think he is right to be sceptical in general and I can sort of understand why he came to his conclusion. BTW I know him stopping the blog is just coincidence as he told me last year he was thinking of stopping. It's hardly surprising now he is doing his Academy.

I don't know how much it costs but I'm sure it will be very useful as a way of saving some time for aspiring traders. It's not like he is trying to fool anyone because he clearly says you need to put a lot of hours in and the strats won't make you profitable by themselves. I certainly would have joined myself but sadly I just don't have the time right now.

Dags said...

I would be interested

Peter Punter said...

I'm sure the Sultans as much a nice guy as The Badger, Jack Birkhead etc etc and all the other failed traders that sell these type of courses. The simple fact is no winning trader is going to sell you his hard earned methods or tricks, they just rehash a few trading ebooks and flog the staple diet of 'needing the correct mindset' and a few obvious trading methods. For a tipster to sell on tips he's already backed it's no skin off his nose but trading methods that actually work day in day are hard to find and once you find them you hang onto them. I've yet to see these trading trainers proof any of their vast incomes yet and Jack Borkhead let slip he doesn't even pay the PC2 even after 10 years of being a pro trader.

It's a lot easier to flog those training courses, especially the via the net ones, than making your living trading. All this 'I need more money or investors' reminds me of O'Dire, only a matter of time before he brings out a course but at least he had the balls to proof his 'profits'.