That's More Like It

Life is never dull. By sheer chance, my early morning perusal of my Twitter timeline drew me to the latest post from Steve over at Daily25 and what do I find but my name mentioned a couple of times. The first reference was innocent enough: 

This morning I woke up to a Graeme-esk (TFA) length tirade (the length was Graeme-esk, not the tirade) in my comments section. I felt Skeeves voice should not languish in the comments section where only a few people will see them and instead I will directly answer his comments in a new blog post. Hat tip to Cassini for showing me how to produce lots of content this way.

I think Steve meant Graeme-esque, but he's Australian so we'll let that go. The second mention of my name was in a "Skeeve said / Steve said" 'discussion' where my post from yesterday was quoted in reference to the AFC Chester v Nuneaton Town [no longer Borough] 3:3 draw. Here's Steve's comment about Skeeve's follow-up email comment:

Steve: Yes it was very very lucky. Chester had a player sent off very early and kept taking the lead. Here is a quote from Cassini about your pick as well “including fluking a 3:3 draw in the AFC Chester v Nuneaton Borough game!”, I do not see you commenting on his blog about that. This is a real bugbear of mine and I have posted about it before. When you have a losing bet where woodwork was hit or penalties missed you are the first to let everyone know in your recap emails, o woe is me, it’s not that I didn’t pick well, it was that the woodwork got in the way or a player didn’t play his best or the ref was a cheat. This was your quote on the Chester win. “That’s more like it. Chester and Nuneaton shared points in a high-scoring 3:3 draw”. So you are not very consistent in your commenting, there have been a number of last minute goals and missed penalties that have gone your way, but I have never heard once you say how lucky we got. It’s betting, luck goes both ways but if someone was to read your emails, they would assume all the gods ever created were against you. I feel your ego gets in the way sometimes and it is the case on many of your recap emails.

I can assure Steve, and anyone else reading, that not one god has ever existed or been created. Not even the 'one true god', and which 'one' that is of course varies depending on geography and your choice of parents.

Anyway, the quote from Cassini about fluking the draw when it is 3:3 or above is one I have used since at least 2011, probably longer, and usually to describe my own XX Draws selections, and its origins are in the fact that when you are looking to select a draw, you are looking for a low-scoring game.

The 0:0 is the perfect draw, the 1:1 is perfectly acceptable, the 2:2 is a little embarrassing, but selecting a draw that ends 3:3 or above is frankly very embarrassing. The draw was value because your expectation of goals was lower than the market's expectation, but you were totally wrong and the fact that the game ended in a draw was pure luck.  

I do see how Skeeve's comment on the selection "That’s more like it. Chester and Nuneaton shared points in a high-scoring 3:3 draw” could get under Steve's skin, because "that's more like it" suggests everything went to plan, a perfect 0:0 perhaps, yet it clearly didn't. It was a goal-fest, and the fact the teams ended with three apiece was a fluke. Perhaps Skeeve meant his words as an "about time we had some luck go our way" comment.

I'm not sure what Skeeve's 'official' results are for this season, but I do know that backing his selections as singles to level stakes, he is blowing the other professionals I follow and track out of the water. I've written before about my dislike of betting multiples, and following Skeeve by my rules has been very profitable:

An 18% ROI using Pinnacle's prices is not to be sniffed at. Backing Skeeve's selections to level stakes using his recommended multiples is also profitable:

Skeeve does vary his stake size which is another no for me unless I know the edge size. Here are the full numbers for the Professionals:

Betslayer commented:

Seems very petty to include Paul Finns draws (as Jonny G) on a bad week for him, when he has provided his draws since July on SOTDOC and betontarget.com forum for FREE.
I must admit its the first time I've seen him hit a blank so its a little ironic
Regards

Now I am very confused. After being bombarded with Tweets in the first-person plural saying that sotdraw were "making my XX Draws look pants", I rather assumed that Jonny was part of the show and that the multiple Tweets promoting the selections were a cry for attention.

Who Paul Finn is, I have no idea, and I'm afraid I have never heard of the betontarget forum, but my attention was caught on Feb 26th, which was only last week, which is why following the selections started this weekend. I like draws, as I have mentioned several times before, and I am always interested in comparing my selections with those of others.

Obviously I can't back-date selections to before they caught my attention, but as I said yesterday, when you have an edge, it makes no difference in the long-run when you start because the profits will come, and I'm not one to get too excited or despondent until we have several weeks and selections behind us.

What was quite interesting to me was that three of sotdraw's selections were XX Draw selections also:

Sochaux v Bordeaux (2:0), Cagliari v Udinese (3:0) and Ajaccio v Lille (2:3). 

I often have an overlap with Peter Nordsted's Drawmaster too - this week we shared Werder Bremen v Hamburg (1:0), Getafe v Espanyol (0:0), Cagliari v Udinese (3:0) and Hoffenheim v Wolfsburg (6:2). 

Pete and sotdraw also shared Hull City v Newcastle (1:4), but I had the value on the home win here.