Thanks for the comments on my recent post Turning The Corner, about football betting. Since comments can sometimes get lost and because I know you all check back every few hours to see the latest blindingly insightful post, I thought I’d address them all in a new post.
Pete – “First I would just like to comment on your excellent blog. It is always a pleasurable and thoughtful read.” Totally agree! Just kidding. It’s a Friday, I’m in a silly mood. But the comment is appreciated.
Seriously, you mention that you avoid accumulators. Yes, and so do I. It’s hard enough finding one winner, never mind multiple winners, and when I used to play with multiples, I often found myself settling for a selection just to make up the numbers, and that can never be good.
You then say you are “laying odds-on selections where I deem the value to be poor and in truth even sticking to this is proving difficult”. How do you ‘deem the value to be poor’? Do you have a rating system, or is it just a gut feeling?
As for the Unders / Overs comment which was: “…and possibly playing the Unders/Overs markets could prove fruitful but when playing the Unders market in-play it is imperative that you stake yourself accordingly. IE: Do your analysis, if you perceive value have a straight punt and trade out if necessary.” How do I know if trading out is necessary? I’ve messed about with these stupid markets for long enough to know that when I trade out of the unders the game will finish with no more goals, but when I don’t, there will be at least three, with two of them coming in stoppage time. Perhaps an exaggeration, but that’s how it feels!
Talkbet / Paul – thanks for the web site. I’ll check it out. There would certainly appear to be some logic to the idea of including statistics that reflect superiority, and as JPG says, the number of offsides should probably be included somewhere. It would be interesting to know what correlation there is between corners and goals, or offsides and goals, or shots and goals. I’ll probably just have to start tracking these myself (or hire someone to do it for me). Maybe I’ll bribe my son! Paul – I haven’t checked out your website before today, but it looks like you have some interesting stuff there. Thanks.
JPG – I try to remove the emotion from my betting, and for outright punts, I can do this. I just look at the numbers. However, in-play, I find it very hard to turn off the emotion. I have my favourite teams, and I have teams that I always seem to do better on than others, and I teams that I can never seem to win on. When I am trading a game in-play, I do form an impression which I have no doubt is influenced by past experiences with that team and that does affect how I invest, however much I try to avoid it. For example, games involving Chelsea regularly seem to lose me money whereas West Ham are a lucky team for me. It’s a funny old game.
Other ideas I am pondering right now. How many matches should current form include? Should my Elo ratings be separated into Home and Away? The answers seems to be ‘6’ and ‘No’ (at least that’s what “Profitable Football Betting” tells me).
Finally, I see Sunderland are at 3.0 tomorrow for their home game with Spurs.
That seems a value price to me. Sunderland are in form as, admittedly, are Spurs, but Spurs might feel a trip to one of the far outposts of the English Empire is a bit of a comedown after last weekend’s trip to Wembley. Sunderland don’t merit selection based on the numbers alone, but I’ll put them out there and see if I can get some feedback.
That seems a value price to me. Sunderland are in form as, admittedly, are Spurs, but Spurs might feel a trip to one of the far outposts of the English Empire is a bit of a comedown after last weekend’s trip to Wembley. Sunderland don’t merit selection based on the numbers alone, but I’ll put them out there and see if I can get some feedback.
Good luck this weekend.
Cassini,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post/reply.
I agree completely that emotion should ideally be removed from your thought process and actions.
However, this wasnt exactly what I was referring to when I mentioned "feel."
For example, take the Boston/Cleveland game tonight in the NBA. My own stats imply Cle 2.43 Bos 1.7. My own "Basketball knowledge" also ties in with this estimate. However, my "feel" was telling me that the market would go more like Cle 2.18 Bos 1.85 at tip-off (mainly because I believe the market will over-react to Garnets injury and Clevelands recent form appearing to be slightly more impressive then it "actually" is.)
With this in mind, Ive been trying to lay Boston at anything from 1.6 to 1.76 (having got bits and pieces matched although not everything I wanted) from the earliest stages of the market even though this includes laying at bad value prices according to my own stats and knowledge!
Needless to say, I have closed out my "position" on this money at 1.9 and have had an outright bet on Bos at the same price with a possible intention of laying off again in-play if I believe it wise to do so.
In other words, if I had used just my stats, Id be a worse spot now (although not necessarily "down") and if I had used purely my feel, its unlikley Id have got involved at all (yet). But by combining both, I believe Ive created a extra little edge out of this market.
Is this a similar process yourself? Id guess that it isnt as I know you much prefer in-play betting/trading. Just curious! :)
JPG
JPG - My answer was related to football. For in-play basketball, I agree very much that feel plays a key role. Back to that 'blink' instinct, but occasionally I just 'know' that someone is going to miss a free-throw, or hit a three-pointer. (I obviously don't KNOW, but I'm more often right than wrong - or do I just remember the right calls?) I couldn't tell you how, but there's something in the body language that mu sunconscious picks up on. Same as sometimes a team just looks more confident. (Same in tennis - body language is key). Sadly I have no special powers. I'm more Austin Powers...
ReplyDeleteNice win on Boston - Cleveland are one of those teams I do not like betting on! Over-rated.
Cassini
ReplyDeleteI do not use a rating system but price up the matches dependant on a teams recent form. I usually take the last 10 games and also factor in the standard of opposition they have been playing.
When I say trade out if necessary, in the following example I had a Lay of Chelsea who were at home to Wigan recently and Chelsea won in the last minute. Had I been following the game live I would probably have traded out as soon as Wigan scored in the 80th minute.
In my staking pre match I tend to stake anywhere between £3 to £10 a tick. Never risking more than a £50 loss. However when staking In-play I tend to stick to £25 stake as I did in the above match. Trading out in-play is gut feeling for me. Like yourself I would have let the under 2.5 goal trade in the Everton match go into half time and would probably have gone on to lose. But the main point is I would have only lost the amount I was prepared to lose. In days gone by although this market has been kind to me. I have put in and lost hundreds of pounds at a time.
Never again will I let that happen. I will trade large pre-match but am only prepared to lose a set amount In-play.