Highs And Lows

I was going to open the post with something along the lines of "another mixed bag of results yesterday", but that sounds very negative. I think I expect too much. When you are dealing with probabilities and value, any day when you finish in the plus column is a good day. Some days will be better than others, but to expect close to 100% every time, while a nice goal, is somewhat unrealistic. Saturday's results were good. 23 selections, 13 winners, +8.37 points. Of course, there were some howlers in there. QPR's thrashing by Bolton for one, but that just serves me right for trying to impose a promoted team's previous form onto the spreadsheet. Football Elite had this one too, which makes me feel a lot better. If I'm going to be wrong, I like to be wrong in company. Overs in the Fulham v Aston Villa and Newcastle United v Arsenal games came up rather short with both finishing 0-0, but then there's the highlights. Mainz '05 picked at 3.1 (shortened significantly later as you will read later) and a lay of Olympique Lyon at 1.3 being the cream of the crop.

Peter Nordsted is back with his Drawmaster picks, and I'm pleased to see he is not necessarily selecting three every week. As I've written before, some weeks there are no selections, other weeks there are several. It makes no sense to me to handicap yourself by forcing picks or leaving picks on the table. Interestingly, Peter's two selections this weekend are also in my XX Draw list, and he started the season with a winner in the Newcastle United v Arsenal game.

Today, I have value in the Overs (2.12) at Stoke City (v Chelsea), lays of Evian Thonon Gaillard at 2.2** (what a name!) and Olympique Marseille (2.17) in Ligue 1, where the Over (2.37) Auxerre v Marseille, and Under (1.92) Lille v Montpellier are also value while in the Bundesliga, lay Kaiserslautern at 1.93. Stoke City v Chelsea and Auxerre v Marseille also feature on the XX Draw list.

Unless anyone vociferously complains, I'm discontinuing following the Free Under Over Soccer Picks - I don't see anything like value here after 115 selections, (probably why they are Free) but mainly the web site very annoyingly disappears to another site after a few seconds and whatever they are selling, I'm not interested in it. Deal or No Deal? I'll pass, thank you.

I now need £3.85 before Friday for this to be my best August ever. I am cautiously optimistic. Come Friday, and I shall be away for 17 days, so just five more trading days to do it.

msv left a nice comment, which was

Hi Cassini,

I am following your blog very closely and have to thank you for all the advice which has helped me a lot to improve my trading, so at least I do not have to deposit funds any more :-) Especially the discussion on the topic "to green or not to green" was very helpful.

I am from Germany and a big fan of the Bundesliga (but unfortunately have no edge there), so I checked the prices you had in this post and recognized you were right in a older post where you wrote: "On a final note, I am seeing my value picks in midweek frequently shorten before kick-off. Something I need to look at more closely in the coming weeks"

So the prices are now (approx 80 min. before kick-off):

Back Mainz 2.72 (instead of 3.1)
Lay Hamburg 2.06 (1.98)
Lay Dortmund 1.84 (1.8)
Back Nuremberg 2.16 (2.36)
just Lay Schalke improved 1.64 (1.67)

Maybe next time you could post the Bundesliga prices little bit earlier :-)

You get those prices out of a self made excel-sheet, right?

Thanks for all the great posts, I have learned and laughed a lot.

with an update later saying:

Just before kick-off the prices have even dropped to

Back Mainz 2.6
Back Nuremberg 1.97

Yes, the spreadsheet is self-made and generates the prices I use. I shall make every effort to improve the service and have my Bundesliga prices up earlier in the week. Regarding the "I have laughed a lot" comment, I trust that isn't at my selections or my picture? I'm very sensitive.

** Update: I'm an idiot. I said to lay Evian at 2.2, but the bet here was a back. I layed it myself! Must do better.