Vagaries

Some clear winners in the Friendly Tipster Table this weekend, with Pete Nordsted picking up a hat-trick will all three Drawmaster selections as Liverpool v Stoke City finished goalless. After finding just two winners from the first 17, Pete finds 3 in a row. The vagaries of probability. Going into Saturday, 13 of the previous 17 Extended XX Draws had been winners in the HT 0-0 market. One week ago I wrote:

The Extended Half-Time 0-0 bet is proving to be quite a gem. With an average price of 2.94, the strike rate on these is currently 28 of 57, and a profit of 25.76 points. 24 of those 28 went on to finish Under 2.5.

Perhaps I should have kept quiet. As we all know, these things tend to even out in the long run, and the last eleven selections have not seen a single 0-0 at half-time. This is still the best bet in the XX Draw 'arsenal' but some of the gloss has come off as the ROI has dropped to 24.29% from an admittedly unsustainable 45% last week. The losing run on the Classic draws was  stopped at 11 as Brest drew 1-1 with Bordeaux, but Newcastle United v Manchester United didn't come close.

Football Elite had three selections this weekend, all Draw No Bets, and came up short with two losers and one no bet. Matt had two of my draw selections, Sochaux to beat Rennes, and Newcastle to beat Manchester United, but both lost at home, while Hannover '96 scored in the 86' v Borussia Dortmund to at least ensure a refund. But Peter's successes this weekend kept the 'Professionals' in profit. The slip by Dortmund was Tony's one ray of sunshine, as the strategy of laying away favourites continues to struggle. Still 1.44 points in profit, but eight losses before the last winner of the day have hurt.

Jon (Talkbet) was a big winner this weekend too, opening with a loser, which put him at three winners from 25, but then out of nowhere, Jon finds five consecutive winners:

Three winners all season - then this!

Still in the red, but definite signs of a recovery.

Little Al eked out a small profit, picking the Liverpool v Stoke City draw, and Neil moved his selections into profit with the Southampton v Fulham draw, and lay of Liverpool, but he was another one who felt Manchester United were too short at Newcastle. Premier Edge had a profit too and move into the green overall, but Football Formbook and poor old Griff continue to struggle, with the latter occupying the bottom two spots.

The Liverpool v Stoke City game attracted a lot of interest this weekend, with the general consensus being that once again Liverpool, at 1.52, were too short. As last week, I agreed, and this time the result, while in itself proving nothing, went the way of those opposing Liverpool. I had them priced at 1.8 for this one.

Reading comments on this game was interesting. On the one hand you have the guy quoting that Stoke haven't won at Liverpool in 49 attempts, to which the responses included:

So they're definitely due a win so. Posting stats like that is meaningless. Spurs didn't win at OT for 23 years before last weekend.

or the more poetic:

But in 99% of those attempts, Liverpool were a top club. Now they are a steaming pile of dog excrement, so past history may not be so important now.

Indeed, the importance some people place on the historic head-to-head record between two teams is quite amazing. Teams change so much even in one year, that even a recent game is often pretty much irrelevant, never mind matches going back to the Dark Ages.

Anyway, there is more to life than football, and for those of you who read this blog carefully, you no doubt did very well on last night's WNBA game between the Los Angeles Sparks and Minnesota Lynx. I wrote on home favourites just this Saturday that:

The trick is knowing when this resistance will collapse, but it certainly isn't mid-way through the second quarter when the lead is just ten. 

Which was exactly the situation in the Sparks - Lynx game, a curiously prescient Cassini in top form. Pre-game odds-on favourites Sparks were down by 10, mid-second quarter, and trading at 2.32. There wasn't enough money to fill your boots exactly, but enough to fill my Crocs as the Sparks closed the gap and at one time went on a 17-0 run to lead by 13. In the end, the Sparks lost this game, but traded in the 1.0s so there was no excuse for anyone not pocketing a nice profit. Lynx move on to the final. The worst part of the Lynx win was that the best-of-three series is over. For the second season in a row, these games are proving to be quite lucrative. At least the final itself is a best of five series.

The NFL was as interesting as ever last night too. The late game saw the San Diego Chargers traded as low as 1.1 when it appeared they had taken a 17 point lead in New Orleans, but they hadn't, and the Saints went marching on for a come-from-behind win 31 - 24.

A couple of comments on the multiples of three post yesterday. Sports Betting Bloggers noted that the initial letter of Cassini is amazingly the third letter of the alphabet, while upandathem questioned the wisdom of highlighting this phenomenon, saying:

Don't think you should have posted this,if the significance of the number 3 becomes common knowledge is there not a great danger that bookmakers will cease to exist?

I am tempted to do a Rick Ford and delete the post, but as a service to bookmakers everywhere, I shall leave it up for discussion.

Today's thought for the day from the Betfair Forum is this:

well actually match odds dont change that much during a game unless there is goals