Bye Success

My Elo ratings had a mixed day. Obviously the Leeds forecast was way off, but the Chelsea margin of victory was close to expected. Arsenal won, as did Wolves, but as soon as I mouth off about how great the ratings work in Scotland, I go 0 from 3 up there. Typical.

Football Elite had one recommended bet today, and one that made the short-list. Both were Spanish games and both selections (Real Mallorca and Sporting Gijon respectively) were priced at 2.1 on Friday. However, as kick-off approached today, both had significantly drifted for some reason, Mallorca to 2.23 and Gijon to about the same. Real Mallorca went on to beat Athletic Bilbao 2-0 but Sporting Gijon were held to a 2-2 draw by Malaga.

Nevertheless, a profitable day. Not only am I backing these selections to win, but I am also laying the opposed team. Of the recommended bets, only 2 selections of 18 have lost, and 50% of the games have ended in draws. Of the short-list bets, 13 of 27 have ended even, with just 4 losing selections.

It has been a poor American Football season for me so far, but a change in calendar year seems to have coincided with a change in fortune. I made one of those bets in the Pittsburgh Steelers game at the Miami Dolphins where immediately after pressing the "Enter" key I got one of those "What the hell am I doing?" moments. Two plays later and I was starting to prepare to bail out for a loss, but after the next play I am (almost) wanting to marry the Steelers quarterback as he completes a 54 yard pass for a touchdown and a tasty profit.

The late games presented an opportunity where the San Diego Chargers, having already secured a play-off spot and a first round bye, looked likely to rest some key players in a meaningless game at home to the Washington Redskins. After taking a 13-0 lead, they pulled the QB, and a price of 1.16 looked like a value lay. It was. The Redskins came back to lead 14-13 at the half with the ball at the start of the second half, and it was possible to green up for another tasty profit. More importantly, perhaps, was that this was a small step towards restoring a little confidence to my NFL investing. It's human nature, I guess, for a few bad breaks to dent confidence, even in a proven betting method.