OK it is not often this blog likes to boast but I think for once we have to today. We are not boasting about having bumped our profits up to 23.95pts despite Liverpool and Cameroon letting us down - rather we are boasting about finally getting Boyles to accept a reasonable sized bet from us.
2pts Wayne Rooney to be top English goalscorer at the WC @ 11/4 (Boylesports): Scored 9 in qualifying and is in prolific form this season finally playing in his proper position. I expect England to have a relatively successful time in S. Africa and 5-6 games should allow him the time to establish himself as the teams most prolific striker.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Are Liverpool really that bad?
After a nice profitable weekend we might as well keep going with bookies really doing their best to tempt me away from the beach.
1.5pts Liverpool @ 4/5 (bet365): Yes Liverpool are bad but they are not this bad. They still have accumulated twice as many points as Wolves and even without Torres and Gerrard should be too good for them. Seems an over-reaction to all the negative hype surrounding Liverpool of late - take advantage
2pts Solwhit @ 6/1 for the Champion Hurdle (Ladbrokes): Lads have been surprisingly slow to react to his victory yesterday and 5's is a fairer price. Obviously the danger is all the English money will go for Zaynar on the day and the Irish money will be split between our several genuine contenders leaving even better value on the day. But never say no to value you don't know for sure how long it will last!
1.5pts Liverpool @ 4/5 (bet365): Yes Liverpool are bad but they are not this bad. They still have accumulated twice as many points as Wolves and even without Torres and Gerrard should be too good for them. Seems an over-reaction to all the negative hype surrounding Liverpool of late - take advantage
2pts Solwhit @ 6/1 for the Champion Hurdle (Ladbrokes): Lads have been surprisingly slow to react to his victory yesterday and 5's is a fairer price. Obviously the danger is all the English money will go for Zaynar on the day and the Irish money will be split between our several genuine contenders leaving even better value on the day. But never say no to value you don't know for sure how long it will last!
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Champions Day
Solid day yesterday with 5 pts profit to push us up to near +20pt profit overall. Another day's great racing awaits in Leopardstown today so lets get stuck in.
1pt An Cathaoir Mor @ 10/1 (Ladbrokes, VC, Will Hill): Not convinced by either of the top 2 in the market. The Nicholls horse has won 3 races but with the exception of a 2L victory over Benselem the rest of the form is about as weak as you get and nothing can really be told from those races. Sports Line is another horse with a big reputation but nothing major in the form book. This is a step up in class for those two and I would prefer to side with the 2 horses that have been racing against the best already and will be battle hardened - Zaarito and Cathaoir Mor. At 10's compared to 3's I'm just shading it to side with ACM in the hopes that a bit of improvement and tidier jumping can overturn a 5L defeat to Zaarito earlier in the season.
1.5pts e/w Sublimity @ 10/1 (Paddy Power): I think Solwhit will confirm the form here and ease himself to another G1 win and knock another bit off his price for Cheltenham. However Sublimity is the 2nd best horse in this field and with 3 places being paid even if Celestial Halo does get the better of him I wouldn't fear too much for the rest of the horses. The 2/1 on the place is gravy and if anything does happen to Solwhit I would expect Sublimity to pick up the pieces.
1pt e/w Grey Soldier @ SP (no prices yet 4's or betteracceptable): Solid debut over Christmas and should not be so much between himself and Rite of Passage in the betting in my book. Also the bigger price makes the place part great value.
1pt An Cathaoir Mor @ 10/1 (Ladbrokes, VC, Will Hill): Not convinced by either of the top 2 in the market. The Nicholls horse has won 3 races but with the exception of a 2L victory over Benselem the rest of the form is about as weak as you get and nothing can really be told from those races. Sports Line is another horse with a big reputation but nothing major in the form book. This is a step up in class for those two and I would prefer to side with the 2 horses that have been racing against the best already and will be battle hardened - Zaarito and Cathaoir Mor. At 10's compared to 3's I'm just shading it to side with ACM in the hopes that a bit of improvement and tidier jumping can overturn a 5L defeat to Zaarito earlier in the season.
1.5pts e/w Sublimity @ 10/1 (Paddy Power): I think Solwhit will confirm the form here and ease himself to another G1 win and knock another bit off his price for Cheltenham. However Sublimity is the 2nd best horse in this field and with 3 places being paid even if Celestial Halo does get the better of him I wouldn't fear too much for the rest of the horses. The 2/1 on the place is gravy and if anything does happen to Solwhit I would expect Sublimity to pick up the pieces.
1pt e/w Grey Soldier @ SP (no prices yet 4's or betteracceptable): Solid debut over Christmas and should not be so much between himself and Rite of Passage in the betting in my book. Also the bigger price makes the place part great value.
Friday, 22 January 2010
Roo Beauty
Ok this will be brief.
1.5pts e/w Rooney to score first @ 11/4 (Ladbrokes, Paddy Power): Similar logic to last week. Up against a slightly better team but still a value bet.
2pts Whiteoak 2/1 - 2.05 Ascot (Paddy Power): A top class mare who seems over priced mainly because of the AP/Henderson combo that is making a significant step up in class. Assuming she is 100% after running in a mudbath over Christmas a return to a sounder suface should she her through.
0.5pts e/w Michael Flips 8/1 - 3.10 Ascot (VC): A hurdler on the upgrade and can defy a hefty weight here.
1pt Roberto Goldback 2.00 Leopardstown (SP - no prices yet anything bigger than 7/4 OK): Some solid form to date and has justified his place at the top of the market.
1.5pts e/w Rooney to score first @ 11/4 (Ladbrokes, Paddy Power): Similar logic to last week. Up against a slightly better team but still a value bet.
2pts Whiteoak 2/1 - 2.05 Ascot (Paddy Power): A top class mare who seems over priced mainly because of the AP/Henderson combo that is making a significant step up in class. Assuming she is 100% after running in a mudbath over Christmas a return to a sounder suface should she her through.
0.5pts e/w Michael Flips 8/1 - 3.10 Ascot (VC): A hurdler on the upgrade and can defy a hefty weight here.
1pt Roberto Goldback 2.00 Leopardstown (SP - no prices yet anything bigger than 7/4 OK): Some solid form to date and has justified his place at the top of the market.
Saturday, 16 January 2010
Rooney poised to strike
1.5pts e/w Rooney to score first 11/4 (Paddy Power): not the most creative or unlikely of tips but considering the spread companies have Utd chalked up to score about 2.8 goals today againsty a team that have been a shambles on the road conceding at least 2 goals in every away game this season. Ronney has scored 14 goals so far in the league in 11 individual games from 19 appearances. 7 times he has been the first goalscorer. Doing the maths this is a reasonable bet against an average team. Burnley are anything but average on the road. Granted Burnley will probably adopt a less kamikaze appraoch on their travels under the new manager but still looks value. Get on!
Thursday, 14 January 2010
The gorilla is gonna get ya
Ok so our running total at the moment is +14.67pts with 14 pts currently at stake on Pompey, Valencia, Solwhit and Cameroon. The updates will probably become less frequent over the next few weeks due to me being on the otherside of the world again. However before I go I will hopefully put a few more quid in your pockets:
2pts e/w David Villa to score first @ 17/4 (VC): You will probably have to do this as 2 separate bets (first and anytime goalscorer - 17/4 and 6/5). I've mentioned Mike Holden's columns here before as a source of valuable information and would like to draw your attention to the following column which should explain this bet. And when I'm away jusst remember ever week at the Mestalla repeat until your bookie learns.
http://www.bettingzone.co.uk/football/betting/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=betting/09/12/02/manual_131234.html
2pts e/w David Villa to score first @ 17/4 (VC): You will probably have to do this as 2 separate bets (first and anytime goalscorer - 17/4 and 6/5). I've mentioned Mike Holden's columns here before as a source of valuable information and would like to draw your attention to the following column which should explain this bet. And when I'm away jusst remember ever week at the Mestalla repeat until your bookie learns.
http://www.bettingzone.co.uk/football/betting/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=betting/09/12/02/manual_131234.html
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Get Carter
2pts Carter 4/6 (v Williams) Celtic: Looks a more than fair price on a player who should go close to winning this competition overall. Add in the fact that Celtic will refund your money if he loses 6-5 and (about a 12% scenario) and this bet looks pretty sweet.
1pt Solwhit 7/1 (Champion Hurdle) Celtic: A one day special on this price. They are slightly out of line with the Betfair prices. Haven't really looked at this too closely but this horse would definitely be making the shortlist. Back it now and we can always have the option of trading out shorter if we decide on Go Native instead.
1pt Solwhit 7/1 (Champion Hurdle) Celtic: A one day special on this price. They are slightly out of line with the Betfair prices. Haven't really looked at this too closely but this horse would definitely be making the shortlist. Back it now and we can always have the option of trading out shorter if we decide on Go Native instead.
Saturday, 9 January 2010
Over the hills and far away
Nothing much on with the current weather but seem to have found a bit of value further afield:
1.5pts Arizona (v Green Bay) @evns with Boylesports: You probably will struggle to get more than 20c down on line with this 'bookie' so unless you are within walking distance of a shop the 2.04 on Betfair is probably a better option. Green Bay have been backed all week and have gotten way too short. They are considered the 'form' team here and also people seem to be over-reacting to their win over the Cardinals reserve team last weekend. Worth bearing in mind that if you ignore that game which was irrelevant to the Cardinals but crucial to the Packers GB have won 4 times away from home this season:
21-14 @ Chicago (7-9)
34-12 @ Detroit (2-14)
31-3 @ Cleveland (5-11)
36-17 @ St.Louis (1-15)
None of whom have winning records and with the exception of Chicago are 3 of the worst 5 teams in the league. They also managed to get turned over on their travels by Tampa Bay the 3rd worst team in the league. Nobody likes travelling to the Packers especially once the snow sets in which is always a help in their push for the playoffs but this is a different ballgame in the desert against a completely different side from last week. I expect the Cardinals to take advantage of the extra weeks rest and come out on top here.
Thankfully for soccer the African Cup of Nations has avoided the big freeze and if it can avoid any more gun attacks we might get to see some entertaining football on show for the next couple of weeks.
2pts Cameroon to win @11/2 (Stan James): Now I'm not a huge believer in the FIFA world rankings - any system that can have Ireland actually move down the rankings in a period where their only games were a draw with Italy the current WC holders and a 1-0 home defeat and a 1-0 away win against France the losing finalist at the last WC has to be suspect. However as a starting point the fact the Cameroon (11) are ranked higher than Ivory Coast (16) is worth noting given that both sides should suffer/benefit from the same regional differences that tend to explain some of the distortion in the rankings system. What is perhaps more telling is the fact that since Le Guen took charge of this team in July they have moved from 29th - 11th in the rankings. From a bad start in their campaign to qualify for the WC they qualified easily and although their squad does not have the star quality of the Cote d'Ivoire there are enough big name players there to do the job. I just think there is too big a difference between the prices for the 2 sides and believe this could be where Le Guen ressurrects his managerial career by showing the guile and experience to win this. Another interesting thing that might be worth looking at in the weeks ahead is the difference in price between the 2 teams for the WC currently 28's and 110's. Given that Cameroon have arguably the easier task of beating Denmark to get out of their group compared with Portugal for the IC if you could persuade a bookie to give you a match bet you could be in gravy.
1.5pts Arizona (v Green Bay) @evns with Boylesports: You probably will struggle to get more than 20c down on line with this 'bookie' so unless you are within walking distance of a shop the 2.04 on Betfair is probably a better option. Green Bay have been backed all week and have gotten way too short. They are considered the 'form' team here and also people seem to be over-reacting to their win over the Cardinals reserve team last weekend. Worth bearing in mind that if you ignore that game which was irrelevant to the Cardinals but crucial to the Packers GB have won 4 times away from home this season:
21-14 @ Chicago (7-9)
34-12 @ Detroit (2-14)
31-3 @ Cleveland (5-11)
36-17 @ St.Louis (1-15)
None of whom have winning records and with the exception of Chicago are 3 of the worst 5 teams in the league. They also managed to get turned over on their travels by Tampa Bay the 3rd worst team in the league. Nobody likes travelling to the Packers especially once the snow sets in which is always a help in their push for the playoffs but this is a different ballgame in the desert against a completely different side from last week. I expect the Cardinals to take advantage of the extra weeks rest and come out on top here.
Thankfully for soccer the African Cup of Nations has avoided the big freeze and if it can avoid any more gun attacks we might get to see some entertaining football on show for the next couple of weeks.
2pts Cameroon to win @11/2 (Stan James): Now I'm not a huge believer in the FIFA world rankings - any system that can have Ireland actually move down the rankings in a period where their only games were a draw with Italy the current WC holders and a 1-0 home defeat and a 1-0 away win against France the losing finalist at the last WC has to be suspect. However as a starting point the fact the Cameroon (11) are ranked higher than Ivory Coast (16) is worth noting given that both sides should suffer/benefit from the same regional differences that tend to explain some of the distortion in the rankings system. What is perhaps more telling is the fact that since Le Guen took charge of this team in July they have moved from 29th - 11th in the rankings. From a bad start in their campaign to qualify for the WC they qualified easily and although their squad does not have the star quality of the Cote d'Ivoire there are enough big name players there to do the job. I just think there is too big a difference between the prices for the 2 sides and believe this could be where Le Guen ressurrects his managerial career by showing the guile and experience to win this. Another interesting thing that might be worth looking at in the weeks ahead is the difference in price between the 2 teams for the WC currently 28's and 110's. Given that Cameroon have arguably the easier task of beating Denmark to get out of their group compared with Portugal for the IC if you could persuade a bookie to give you a match bet you could be in gravy.
Friday, 8 January 2010
New Year New New Zealand
No sport worth the name on this week so I finally got around to finishing this piece I started about 2 months ago when I actually was in NZ. Hadn't planned on putting much ante-post stuff up on the blog but with the freeze continuing I might put up some thoughts on the WC and Cheltenham over the weekend.
The great thing about travelling is that every so often you come across something that leads you to a great realisation that you really haven’t a clue about something. This happened me recently when I was travelling through New Zealand. I never thought myself an expert on rugby but I didn’t realise just how little I knew about it until I got there. The day after the Bledisloe cup game I did the typical Sunday ritual of getting a chunky Sunday newspaper and a strong coffee and going to sit by the sea. I sat reading my way through the sports section complete with its 8 page coverage of the previous night’s game and got myself thoroughly confused. Usually if I hear the term five eights I start thinking of Nick Leeson, dodgy builders and complete dellboys for various different reasons. I didn’t even realise it was a position in the back line until I got to Auckland. I mean I can watch a game of rugby and give rough assessments of where the various teams are going wrong – that is to say I can either blame the fronts or the backs. Beyond that I’m lost – I might as well use a dice to decide where the fault lies between 1 and 6. Now you would think that this moment of clarity would be enough to make me realise that maybe betting on rugby is a bad idea for me, however it actually is a good chance to show that sometimes less is more. You don’t necessarily have to be an expert on every aspect of something to bet on it. Sometimes you can try and allow for too much information and you end up giving too much weight to something of only minor importance. Sometimes you need to start with the assumption that the markets will more or less be priced correctly and then look for things that might move the market from its correct price. Sometimes it can be a team that’s living on its reputation (e.g. Liverpool in the EPL at the moment) or it can be when the media loses the run of itself and starts to overhype a team or a horse (see England’s World Cup odds 1990-2006). Other times it can just be a xenophobic bias that can be exploited (European horses at the Breeder’s Cup or French newcomers in England). In any of the situations above you don’t really need to know a huge amount about either football or racing to take advantage of the mispricing in the markets and it seems reasonable to assume that if this is happening in some markets it is going to happen in all the rest as well. During the last rugby world cup after several alarmist reports in the papers about the high risk of severe injury by allowing teams from outside the big 10 play in mismatches against the big 10 the handicap markets in the group stages went crazy with the teams who were favourites in the games being set impossible tasks in covering the spread. Apart from the rampant All Blacks I remember very few of the established teams quite managing to annihilate the opposition quite as badly as the bookies expected. Although even the All Blacks couldn’t cover what if I remember correctly was a 106 point spread in the Portugal game!
Now New Zealand have unquestionably been the best rugby team of the last 20 years yet in the 5 World Cups during that period they have never won a World Cup and have only ever reached the final on one occasion. In fairness to the Kiwi’s they haven’t had a chance to win a World Cup in the last 20 years, they have only had the chance to lose them. Every time around in the months coming up to the tournament the general consensus (and nowhere more so than in NZ) is that they have the World Cup in the bag and it is just a matter of showing up to collect the silverware. This puts the All Blacks in the unenviable situation of knowing that nothing less than victory will be regarded as failure with them being cast in the role of pantomime villains on their return home. This is tremendous psychological burden on the team in their attempts to actually win the trophy.
The British Journal of Psychology published a paper a few years back on what determines whether a player will be successful in taking a penalty in a shoot out scenario based on data from all major soccer championships over the past 28 years. This study found that the success rate depends on the order of the shot with on average 87% of all first penalties being converted dropping down to 73% for 4th penalties (nothing massively surprising in that!) However they then went on to look at the success rate when the player taking the kick knows success means victory for his team. The imminent prospect of being propelled to hero status boosts the success rate to 93%. Contrast this with a player who knows a missed kick means elimination from the competition and with the spectre of being the media scapegoat hanging over him his success rate drops to 52%. It is easy to see how the high expectations of the nation back home can have a crippling effect on the All Blacks by making them focus more on the consequences of defeat than on the spoils of victory. All of which in a very roundabout way leads me to my point that although the All Blacks face into the World Cup with their weakest state in my memory with an incredibly high dependency on the fitness of a handful of key players such as Dan Carter and Richie McCaw, psychologically they are probably in a better situation than has even been the case before. According to opinion polls the majority of Kiwi’s don’t think they will win next year’s World Cup. Most of them think the coach should resign. Their low expectations and the opportunity within the camp to create a siege mentality should mean that at least on a mental level they go into the tournament in better condition than ever before. Whether this mentality is matched by their ability and allows them overcome their lack of strength in depth in some key positions remains to be seen. It is however something worth bearing in mind in the run up to the championship before to readily buying into what will surely be the media line that this is a team of chokers who haven’t got the bottle for it on the highest stage.
You would probably think that after all that I would be suggesting a bet on New Zealand for the World Cup but looking at the current prices and without much knowledge of the edge home advantage gives in rugby I would have to hold off on having a bet until closer to the time. Although if anything the temptation of the 6.6 on the Saffers would be what would bring me into the market.
The great thing about travelling is that every so often you come across something that leads you to a great realisation that you really haven’t a clue about something. This happened me recently when I was travelling through New Zealand. I never thought myself an expert on rugby but I didn’t realise just how little I knew about it until I got there. The day after the Bledisloe cup game I did the typical Sunday ritual of getting a chunky Sunday newspaper and a strong coffee and going to sit by the sea. I sat reading my way through the sports section complete with its 8 page coverage of the previous night’s game and got myself thoroughly confused. Usually if I hear the term five eights I start thinking of Nick Leeson, dodgy builders and complete dellboys for various different reasons. I didn’t even realise it was a position in the back line until I got to Auckland. I mean I can watch a game of rugby and give rough assessments of where the various teams are going wrong – that is to say I can either blame the fronts or the backs. Beyond that I’m lost – I might as well use a dice to decide where the fault lies between 1 and 6. Now you would think that this moment of clarity would be enough to make me realise that maybe betting on rugby is a bad idea for me, however it actually is a good chance to show that sometimes less is more. You don’t necessarily have to be an expert on every aspect of something to bet on it. Sometimes you can try and allow for too much information and you end up giving too much weight to something of only minor importance. Sometimes you need to start with the assumption that the markets will more or less be priced correctly and then look for things that might move the market from its correct price. Sometimes it can be a team that’s living on its reputation (e.g. Liverpool in the EPL at the moment) or it can be when the media loses the run of itself and starts to overhype a team or a horse (see England’s World Cup odds 1990-2006). Other times it can just be a xenophobic bias that can be exploited (European horses at the Breeder’s Cup or French newcomers in England). In any of the situations above you don’t really need to know a huge amount about either football or racing to take advantage of the mispricing in the markets and it seems reasonable to assume that if this is happening in some markets it is going to happen in all the rest as well. During the last rugby world cup after several alarmist reports in the papers about the high risk of severe injury by allowing teams from outside the big 10 play in mismatches against the big 10 the handicap markets in the group stages went crazy with the teams who were favourites in the games being set impossible tasks in covering the spread. Apart from the rampant All Blacks I remember very few of the established teams quite managing to annihilate the opposition quite as badly as the bookies expected. Although even the All Blacks couldn’t cover what if I remember correctly was a 106 point spread in the Portugal game!
Now New Zealand have unquestionably been the best rugby team of the last 20 years yet in the 5 World Cups during that period they have never won a World Cup and have only ever reached the final on one occasion. In fairness to the Kiwi’s they haven’t had a chance to win a World Cup in the last 20 years, they have only had the chance to lose them. Every time around in the months coming up to the tournament the general consensus (and nowhere more so than in NZ) is that they have the World Cup in the bag and it is just a matter of showing up to collect the silverware. This puts the All Blacks in the unenviable situation of knowing that nothing less than victory will be regarded as failure with them being cast in the role of pantomime villains on their return home. This is tremendous psychological burden on the team in their attempts to actually win the trophy.
The British Journal of Psychology published a paper a few years back on what determines whether a player will be successful in taking a penalty in a shoot out scenario based on data from all major soccer championships over the past 28 years. This study found that the success rate depends on the order of the shot with on average 87% of all first penalties being converted dropping down to 73% for 4th penalties (nothing massively surprising in that!) However they then went on to look at the success rate when the player taking the kick knows success means victory for his team. The imminent prospect of being propelled to hero status boosts the success rate to 93%. Contrast this with a player who knows a missed kick means elimination from the competition and with the spectre of being the media scapegoat hanging over him his success rate drops to 52%. It is easy to see how the high expectations of the nation back home can have a crippling effect on the All Blacks by making them focus more on the consequences of defeat than on the spoils of victory. All of which in a very roundabout way leads me to my point that although the All Blacks face into the World Cup with their weakest state in my memory with an incredibly high dependency on the fitness of a handful of key players such as Dan Carter and Richie McCaw, psychologically they are probably in a better situation than has even been the case before. According to opinion polls the majority of Kiwi’s don’t think they will win next year’s World Cup. Most of them think the coach should resign. Their low expectations and the opportunity within the camp to create a siege mentality should mean that at least on a mental level they go into the tournament in better condition than ever before. Whether this mentality is matched by their ability and allows them overcome their lack of strength in depth in some key positions remains to be seen. It is however something worth bearing in mind in the run up to the championship before to readily buying into what will surely be the media line that this is a team of chokers who haven’t got the bottle for it on the highest stage.
You would probably think that after all that I would be suggesting a bet on New Zealand for the World Cup but looking at the current prices and without much knowledge of the edge home advantage gives in rugby I would have to hold off on having a bet until closer to the time. Although if anything the temptation of the 6.6 on the Saffers would be what would bring me into the market.
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