The Draw: Fulcrum Of Opportunity

The lead up to the Liverpool v Manchester City match was almost as interesting as the match itself. I wrote on Friday morning that

"You'll all be interested to know that Sunday's Liverpool v Manchester City is a meeting of the joint leaders in the EPL Elo ratings. Liverpool's move to the top is clearly not all down to results, but the supporting numbers suggest that the results will come. I have them priced at 2.75 and they are currently trading around the 2.93 mark, while I have Manchester City at 2.71 which is bang on where the market has them. The draw looks a tad short."

It's testament to the power of this blog that Liverpool's price then shortened to exactly 2.75 just before kick-off. Interestingly, as more money came in for Liverpool to match that for Manchester City, it might not be unreasonable to expect the draw price to shorten a little too, but as been commented on before, it didn't move. The draw price acts as a fulcrum, with the opposite effect of the added weight of money on Liverpool all reflected in Manchester City's price.

Another interesting thing was the price on the Under 2.5 Goals. My spreadsheet had the Under priced at 1.81. Early this morning, the Under was available at 2.08, a price I backed at. By kick-off the price was down to 1.94. In other words the goals expectancy in this game was now lower than it was a few hours earlier, so why was the draw price 'stuck' at 3.5? A lower goal expectation means a higher draw expectation, so we had two factors which, at least in my opinion, should have lowered the draw price, but didn't.

The ugly sister draw continues to fascinate me and often offers opportunities. For anyone who enjoys the Lay The Draw strategy, the Arsenal v Fulham game was a loser yesterday, one of those games where the 'dog scores first, and fail to hold the lead long enough for the draw price to move out past the entry price. These LTD selections offer value on the back side in my opinion.

The West Ham United v Derby County match kicked-off just ten minutes before the Arsenal v Fulham game, just enough time for a small profit to be locked in.

The latest entrant into the Friendly Tipster League is off to a flyer. Geoff's eleven selections produced five winners, including the two fluked 3-3 draws I mentioned yesterday, and a 90' minute equaliser, but an impressive start nevertheless, entering the table in top spot with an ROI of 61.4%.

Football Elite's five selections were disappointing, with just one winner from five selections, and the ROI on the season dropping into negative territory at -4.3%. A little unlucky with Napoli scoring a 90' equaliser at Atalanta, but on the other side of the coin, it was a goal that Geoff benefited from.

Green Pullover still has one selection to come tomorrow night, but right now is on a poor run of eleven consecutive losers but still with a green ROI of 4.9%.

Pete Nordsted's Game Of Two Halves strategy continues to struggle, finding three games where the second half had more goals than the first on Saturday. The ROI on this is -42.2%. I am still not convinced that this will prove to be one of Peter's better ideas, but all credit to him for trying something different, and credit to to Griff for returning with his selections each week. He is on a current losing sequence of twelve, but when you're looking for draws, long losing runs are part of the game, which is perhaps another reason for the relative unpopularity of backing the draw.