Typical Palace

Q:Is it is just me and my biased viewpoint, or are Crystal Palace excellent value at 1.81 to beat Scunthorpe United at home tomorrow?

A: It was just me. As Mark commented:

So typical Palace they will probably blow it today!

Yes, typical Palace.

At least I knew better than to go crazy with the stake, but disappointing in more ways than one.

Football Elite had a loser in Koln (L 1-3 v Stuttgart).

Over at Gold All Over, I have posted up the results to date from the Free Daily Picks, both NBA and Soccer, and both are now showing a loss after a promising start. With a current losing run of six, the NBA picks are showing an ROI of -34.39% and with a current losing run of five, the soccer picks are down 12.63%. The suggested staking system is something called the 33% System -

In this system you place a series of up to 6 bets with predetermined amounts of X, 2X, 4X, 6X, 8X and 12.5X, where X is your betting unit value. For example if your unit is 10$, then your predetermined series would look like this: $10, $20, $40, $60, $80 and $125. Place one bet a day and as soon as you make profit, you stop, add your profit to the bankroll and start all over again. You need to win only 1 or 2 games (depending where you are in the series) to make a profit!

which all sounds too good to be true, and of course is. Any chasing system is doomed to failure because the long losing run is inevitable, and if your selections are not profitable at level stakes, no staking system in the world is going to help. I'll continue to follow these picks for a while longer, for one thing it's interesting to see how these hot and cold streaks occur, and for another, they are free. Whether or not they prove to be value remains to be seen. In 2011, the soccer picks apparently have a 59% strike rate, but by itself, that of course means nothing, since most picks are odds-on, with some (since I have been tracking) as low as 1.6 (62.5%).

Normal service will be resumed on Tuesday. The California sporting road trip with my son is almost over, after seeing the Los Angeles Galaxy v Philadelphia Union (1-0), (a surprisingly boisterous atmosphere), the San Diego Padres v San Francisco Giants, Golden State Warriors v Sacramento Kings (the Kings last ever win, and by one point), and San Francisco Giants v Los Angeles Dodgers live, and the two Chelsea - Manchester United games in British pubs in San Diego and San Francisco. It seems strange watching games these days without a financial, or at least a trading, interest, but given my dreadful record in the month of April, that can only be a good thing.