Comment Review - Farewells, Draws and Muscle Mass

I was going to blame being away from my computer for a few weeks for getting behind with a few comments posted on the blog, but since they were all from May, I should probably just put my hands up and admit that sometimes I forget to go to the "Comments" page and allow publication of the non-spam ones, which are typically the minority. 

In reverse order, I had a couple from Mulldog regarding the departures from the betting scene of two long-time virtual acquaintances.

The partial end of an era with Mark calling it a day.

Mark Iverson finally called it a day for full-time trading as I wrote about here, and there's not much more to be said that hasn't been said already. The betting environment has evolved considerably in recent years,  and that Mark was able to stay ahead of the game for so long is creditable. 

I'm thinking that the slow evolution is what Mulldog means by "partial end of an era", but as I've written over the years, full-time betting was never a realistic proposition for me for a number of reasons, but that doesn't mean it's not worth pursuing as a serious hobby. Far from it in fact.

I was re-reading a book last week, triggered by a comment from SimonM back in April, and in it was this section:

Nature plays chess, not checkers. There are as many winning strategies in the game of life as there are species on the planet. The best play depends on local conditions and on the strategies of those around you. High-energy strategies have obvious advantages, but low-energy risk-averse strategies can be winners as well.

The book was the previously referenced "Burn" by Herman Pontzer, and is about how we burn calories, lose weight and stay healthy (more on this later), but the statement seems to me to apply quite neatly to the world of sports investing. 

We all have our 'local conditions' and ultimately, as I've stated before, we are all in competition with those around us, and if the efficacy of their strategies catch up with, or surpass ours, then we are in big trouble. 

A high-energy (high-risk) strategy of full-time betting comes at the cost of a career, pension contributions, paid holidays, sick days and the less tangible, but social, benefit of working with others.

The other departure Mulldog commented on was the sad loss of Graeme Dand, who had been a friend virtually for probably 15 years. 

RIP Graeme. I never realised Graeme was a reader here too.

Graeme loved his horse-racing, his spreadsheets and his family - though I'm pretty confident not in that order - and the high esteem in which he was held was obvious in the support and comments he received as he so courageously faced the end of his life. 

As for being a reader here, he was the first ever commenter back in 2008 and was heavily involved in the football betting / tipping competition I organised back in 2014-15. He was one of the "Bounty Boys" with a contribution to the pot and with his TFA Draws (D1-D6) entry, came out on top of the Draws entries. 

On May 17th, modern synthesist commented:

Only just discovered this blog, and it's really excellent. Is the EPL draw system explained anywhere? I'd be interested to know how it works.

"Only just discovered this blog"? Unbelievable! The world's number one sports investment blog (admittedly self-proclaimed, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek) and some people are still unaware of its existence! 

Better late than never I suppose, and as for the EPL Draw System details, basically the idea is to find games where the fair (after removing the overround) win probabilities for both teams are within 25% of each other. 

These are what I call "Close" matches, with "Toss-Ups" being a subset of these that are within 10% of each other. I use Pinnacle's Closing prices for calculating the 'official' results, but strategies can vary.  

I do have a document detailing the exact process and breaking down each step but it comes with details of 8 other long-term profitable systems and in fairness to those who have paid for this, it wouldn't be right to give away everything here. 

Finally, on the topic of burning calories touched upon earlier, there was this comment from unknown posted on my April month end summary post titled "Darwen, Tesla, Twitter and April Losses"::

Sounds like your muscle mass is decreasing if between 1500-1900 is your calorie balance. Increase muscle mass will raise your equilibrium. Then 1900 will be you base line and you'll require 2300 to increase fat deposits.

The part that triggered this comment was this:

The net calories trend I mentioned last month - 1500 or fewer net calories a day and my weight goes down; 1900 or greater, and it goes up - was unfortunately reinforced after a month of too much eating and drinking and not enough exercise meant that my daily net calories averaged 2181 with a consequent guaranteed weight gain.

Not surprisingly, the pattern has continued through May and June although I really need some months where my net is between that 1468 and 1912. It seems that I'm either all-in on losing weight, or I'm not. Here are the updated numbers through June:

My AUs column refers to daily pints rather than the UK's definition of two units to a pint, and yes, before anyone comments, the numbers are arguably a little high with those 'dry' months clearly related to weight loss. 

Summer months are in yellow and with only one (so far) seeing a decline in weight, albeit by just 2.2 lbs, this isn't a great time of year.

The suggestion to increase muscle mass seems entirely reasonable given that muscle burns more calories than fat, but easier to achieve in theory than practice I suspect. My preferred exercise these days is the aerobic walking and hiking and my 2022 target of 1,200 miles is looking far too soft with 900 miles already behind me this year. Maybe I should hit my target and spend the last quarter of the year in the gym building muscle!