Nugget

The Los in Los Angeles Clippers turned to Loss last night, as the Portland Trail Blazers won four in a row to take the series 4-2. It's hard not to feel some sympathy for the Clippers, but basketball is very much an individual sport in that prices and fortunes are hugely influenced by one or two star players and to continue in the play-offs, teams need those players to stay healthy. Although I'm happy with the lay at 1.37, I am somewhat kicking myself for not taking a few hundred more that was looking to back the Clippers at 1.5. Opportunities like this don't come along too often these days.

While the BLUnders Sytem is probably done for the season, I saw a post on the Betfair Forum from 'nugget' saying:

92% of the playoff games have gone under the total

With the total varying slightly from book to book, the numbers may be correct for nugget, but my numbers show that of the 84 games played so far, 56 have gone Under. Exclude the 4 pushes and we have 70%, which is still impressive but not quite 92%.

Is this a one season wonder? Here are the numbers for the last five full season, plus the one in progress:

Not convincing evidence that blindly backing playoff unders is a long term profitable strategy, but as I mentioned in this post, BLUnders selections continue to be profitable in the play-offs.

Over the same period as above, i.e. 2010-11 to this season, their record in play-offs is 10 Unders from 16 games, with one Push.

A modified form of BLUnders for play-off use (16 selections in six seasons isn't going to do anyone much good) would have generated 45 selections, with 27 Unders (and 2 Pushes) +9.70 / ROI +21.6%