Thursday 31 March 2011

What will this month bring?

Well, we're starting to approach the end of the season now, so it will be interesting to see if my ratings work as well. The final two months of the season have historically been two of the worst months of the season during backtesting, so it will be interesting to see what happens during the live season.

I've written a review for March and you can read it now. It turned out to be another good month and the systems won back the majority of the losses from February. I can do with a month of consolidation now I think but we'll see what happens.

A busy weekend to get the month started but hopefully we can get off to a flyer.

I'll try to write a post soon on the TFA ratings and how they were developed as someone asked on here earlier this week if my ratings were linked to Fink Tank. I think they'd noticed a correlation between Fink Tank and my ratings which is a fair comment. All will become clear when I do the post I think.

Good luck for those following.

The Football Analyst Bets for 2nd/3rd April

System 6
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00 VC
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91 Ladbrokes
03/04/2011 Premiership Fulham v Blackpool Fulham 1.57 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 League 1 Exeter v Dagenham Dagenham 3.40 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 League 1 Sheff Wed v Colchester Colchester 3.50 WH
02/04/2011 League 2 Gillingham v Hereford Gillingham 1.67 Tote
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Bath v Gateshead Gateshead 2.88 WH
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.75 SJ
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Mansfield v Rushden Rushden 2.88 Corals

System 7
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00 VC
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 League 2 Gillingham v Hereford Gillingham 1.67 Tote
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.75 SJ

System 8
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00 VC
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 League 2 Gillingham v Hereford Gillingham 1.67 Tote
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.75 SJ

System 9
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91 Ladbrokes

System 21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00 VC
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91 Ladbrokes
03/04/2011 Premiership Fulham v Blackpool Fulham 1.57 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 Championship Crystal Palace v Barnsley Barnsley 3.66 Pinnacle
02/04/2011 Championship Middlesboro v Leicester Leicester 2.63 SJ
02/04/2011 League 1 Charlton v Leyton Orient Leyton Orient 3.10 VC
02/04/2011 League 1 Exeter v Dagenham Dagenham 3.40 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 League 2 Gillingham v Hereford Gillingham 1.67 Tote
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kettering v York York 2.38 SJ
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.75 SJ
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Mansfield v Rushden Rushden 2.88 Corals

System 22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00 VC
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91 Ladbrokes
03/04/2011 Premiership Fulham v Blackpool Fulham 1.57 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 Championship Middlesboro v Leicester Leicester 2.63 SJ
02/04/2011 League 1 Charlton v Leyton Orient Leyton Orient 3.10 VC
02/04/2011 League 1 Exeter v Dagenham Dagenham 3.40 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.75 SJ

System 23
None

System 6-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00 VC
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 League 1 Exeter v Dagenham Dagenham 3.40 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 League 2 Gillingham v Hereford Gillingham 1.67 Tote
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.75 SJ
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Mansfield v Rushden Rushden 2.88 Corals
03/04/2011 Premiership Fulham v Blackpool Fulham 1.57 Ladbrokes

System 6-22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00 VC
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 League 1 Exeter v Dagenham Dagenham 3.40 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.75 SJ
03/04/2011 Premiership Fulham v Blackpool Fulham 1.57 Ladbrokes

System 7-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00 VC
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 League 2 Gillingham v Hereford Gillingham 1.67 Tote
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.75 SJ


System 7-22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00 VC
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.75 SJ

System 8-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00 VC
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 League 2 Gillingham v Hereford Gillingham 1.67 Tote
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.75 SJ

System 8-22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00 VC
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91 Ladbrokes
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.75 SJ

System 16
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.85
02/04/2011 League 2 Gillingham v Hereford Gillingham 1.67
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.60
03/04/2011 Premiership Fulham v Blackpool Fulham 1.53 VC
Any 3,4 and all 5 = 16 Bets
System 17
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00
02/04/2011 League 1 Charlton v Leyton Orient Leyton Orient 3.10
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.85
02/04/2011 League 1 Exeter v Dagenham Dagenham 3.20
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.60 VC
Any 2,3,4 and all 5 = 26 Bets
System 18
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91
02/04/2011 League 2 Gillingham v Hereford Gillingham 1.67
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.60 VC
Any 2,3 and all 4 = 11 Bets
System 19
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.91
02/04/2011 League 2 Gillingham v Hereford Gillingham 1.67
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.60 VC
Any 2,3 and all 4 = 11 Bets
System 20
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
02/04/2011 Premiership Birmingham v Bolton Bolton 3.00
02/04/2011 Premiership Everton v Aston Villa Everton 1.85
02/04/2011 League 1 Exeter v Dagenham Dagenham 3.20
02/04/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Luton Luton 2.60
03/04/2011 Premiership Fulham v Blackpool Fulham 1.53 VC
Any 2,3,4 and all 5 = 26 Bets

I'm like marmite......

One thing that has been clear to me since I started blogging in 2008 is that people either like me or loathe me.

I'm not quite sure why I split opinion as much as I do but I think it's linked to the fact that I'm a pretty intelligent guy (when I want to be!) and this seems to wind people up I suspect.

Of course, my history is now tarnished with the fact I launched a racing service with a few members off the back of a blog, produced some amazing results during the summer of 2009, grew the service rapidly, hit a bad patch, received endless abuse, stopped the service, gave everyone their money back and moved on from that venture with a clear conscious.

If there was any doubt that I did something wrong, then surely it would be negated by the fact that around 30 subscribers who were members of the service stayed in the forum when the service closed and pay to maintain the upkeep of the forum out of their own pockets. Hence, if I had acted wrongly in any way, I can't imagine this would be the case!

Anyway, over the last few months and as more people have cottoned on to the fact I've been doing something with the football , I've obviously had lots of comments on the blog saying stuff like "when is the tipster service starting G?", "how long before this crashes and burns like TFA?", "Will you give refunds if this goes tits up like TFA did?" blah, blah, blah, blah.

Clearly, there is a lot of bad feeling towards me from people who joined TFA somewhere towards the end and were rightly annoyed when I stopped the service suddenly. The fact some had lost money meant that it was never a good situation for me and stopping a service when things are going badly will always irritate some people as they'll have no opportunity to recoup the recent losses.

I'll never hide from the fact my results with TFA were poor (only achieved an 11% return since it's inception) but as I know only too well, you are only as good as your last few months and mine's were awful!

Having run a tipster service before, I know the stick that goes with it at times and I laugh at some of the comments posted on here after bad days etc. but at the end of the day, the blog is free and I do all this work off my own back with no payment from anyone. Hence, I don't post any rubbish comments as they would detract from the blog and what it is about.

Rowan from TPI pointed out a few comments posted on another blog about me and being honest, it does surprise me a little that people have this strong a feeling towards me from what happened with the racing site. I apologised at the time for stopping the site and not feeling like I could go on but clearly, people have a vendetta against me for what happened.

Some people have asked on here and via email about my plans for next season and I know the guys in the TFA forum are wondering what I'm going to do too. At the moment, I'm not sure and I don't really fancy going down some sort of subscription route as I can do without the endless abuse that comes with it.

Although I've never been a member of another football tipster site, I know of one guy that has produced 4 season's remarkable results and this season, the results have been a little below par. If there was someone that should be immune to criticism, it should be him! Unfortunately, I was saddened to read on the SBC forum that he has been receiving criticism and it does make you wonder how many brain cells some of his members have. I appreciate some might have joined at a peak and would be well down but surely, you judge a service on the long-term and methodology and whether you believe he has an edge. You don't judge someone on a season's results (or even less) when they have 4 season's results before that show a significant edge!

Reading the comments on the other blog this morning, the comments I regularly receive on here and seeing the reaction to another service having a bad spell, it does beg the question why I should continue with the blog or even consider doing something next season outside of my TFA forum as I really don't need the hassle. I'll not make any rash decisions but I do wonder why I would bother with it!

Anyway, another good midweek with the selections. 6 selections, 4 wins, a draw and a loser. The loser was a bit unlucky too as Macclesfield were 2-1 up with 5 minutes left and lost 3-2! A profit of 3.36pts from 6 games.

The systems did a bit better overall though (makes a change this month!) as they were really keen on Accrington and it was nice to see them win very easily. The record of home bets on the more selective systems is quite frightening at times.

Anyway, an overall profit of 10.49pts to round off the month. I'll be back with a monthly review either tonight or tomorrow, so keep an eye out for it.

Monday 28 March 2011

Accrington again.....

Well, for the second time in a couple of weeks, my results will hinge on Accrington Stanley this midweek. They look a really decent bet to beat Hereford but given the way things are going, it will probably be a draw!

After that, apart from a couple of obvious bets, nothing stands out this midweek and I don't hold out too much hope. The month has been a nightmare for the last couple of weeks, so I look forward to April now I think!

I'll be back on Thursday with the results.

The Football Analyst Bets for 29th-30th March

System 6
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
29/03/2011 League 1 Sheff Wed v Brentford Brentford 3.60 Ladbrokes
30/30/2011 League 2 Accrington v Hereford Accrington 1.83 VC

System 7
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
30/30/2011 League 2 Accrington v Hereford Accrington 1.83 VC

System 8
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
30/30/2011 League 2 Accrington v Hereford Accrington 1.83 VC

System 9
None

System 21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
29/03/2011 League 2 Port Vale v Lincoln Port Vale 1.83 Ladbrokes
30/30/2011 League 2 Accrington v Hereford Accrington 1.83 VC
30/30/2011 League 2 Burton v Macclesfield Macclesfield 3.40 B365
29/03/2011 Bsq Prem Newport v Gateshead Newport 2.10 Ladbrokes
29/03/2011 Bsq Prem Tamworth v Wrexham Wrexham 2.10 B365

System 22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
30/30/2011 League 2 Accrington v Hereford Accrington 1.83 VC
29/03/2011 Bsq Prem Tamworth v Wrexham Wrexham 2.10 B365

System 23
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
30/30/2011 League 2 Accrington v Hereford Accrington 1.83 VC
29/03/2011 Bsq Prem Tamworth v Wrexham Wrexham 2.10 B365

System 6-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
30/30/2011 League 2 Accrington v Hereford Accrington 1.83 VC

System 6-22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
30/30/2011 League 2 Accrington v Hereford Accrington 1.83 VC


System 7-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
30/30/2011 League 2 Accrington v Hereford Accrington 1.83 VC

System 7-22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
30/30/2011 League 2 Accrington v Hereford Accrington 1.83 VC

System 8-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
30/30/2011 League 2 Accrington v Hereford Accrington 1.83 VC

System 8-22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookie
30/30/2011 League 2 Accrington v Hereford Accrington 1.83 VC

System 16
None

System 17
None

System 18
None

System 19
None

System 20
None

Frustrating Weekend (Again!)

It's hard to not feel slightly frustrated again after the weekend that has just past.

I'm trying my best to not get too sucked into the short-term at the moment with the number of draws that my systems are hitting but after a nightmare January and February, and after a decent start this month, it is starting to go the same way as the preceding two months.

For the second or third time this month, simply backing each of the games that appeared as value was the way to make a nice profit. I know long-term that this isn't an optimal strategy (these games all appear on system 6&21 which aren't great systems) but in the short-term, it is very annoying when this happens.

8 games this weekend, 4 wins and 4 losses. With Yeovil in there at 7/2 along with Rotherham at 17/10, it was always going to be a profitable week for this strategy. A profit of 3.78pts from 8 games.

Unfortunately, the systems took this profit and turned it into a 4.84pt loss on the weekend for the single bets! 19 bets, 5 wins and 14 draws were the system results.

The multiple bet (system 17) had no chance either with the 4 teams returning a winner and 3 draws for another 11pt loss.

I'll be writing my usual monthly review later this week and therefore, I don't want to quote too much on what has happened this month as it will spoil the enjoyment for me when I write the review. However, systems 22 will be having its 3rd losing month in a row this month which is most disappointing for one of my best systems. I've had a quick look this morning and system 22 is sitting with a 37% draw strike rate in 2011. Amazing really considering it is over a sample size of 110 bets but then again, 110 bets can hardly be described as a large sample!

My best hope is that the systems stop hitting so many draws and simply go back to somewhere near the long-term trend for draws. Over the last 3 months, the number of home wins have been bang in line with the long-term average. Unfortunately, the away win % is down by 6 points each month on average which is being eaten up by the draw. Over two thirds of the bets my systems find are away bets, so when this sort of run happens in the short-term, there isn't a lot I can do about it but hold tight!

Anyway, there are some midweek games in England on Tuesday/Wednesday this week, so I'll be back later with the bets for those.

Thanks for the comments on here and across at the TFA forum regarding the DNB/DC analysis. The weekend was a good example of what can happen with these systems and the draw, so it was good timing from me in that respect to write the post this weekend!

Saturday 26 March 2011

Draw No Bet/Double Chance Analysis

Firstly, I should add that I mentioned last week about doing this analysis on the blog and I’ve been discussing doing this in the TFA forum for a wee while. Some may just look at this weekend’s results and think it’s a knee-jerk reaction to even consider doing something with the draw and these systems (especially given how much profit they have made this season!) but I never consider changing anything based on a short-term run of results. Simply, I’ve been disappointed about the results from some of the systems this season and after a piece of analysis I did on the draw a few weeks back, I decided the next step was to look at Draw No Bet and Double Chance betting for each of the systems.

As you can imagine, it isn’t an easy job to gather this data but thankfully, I’m a bit of a whiz with Excel as you have probably noticed, so I can usually do things with data that others can only dream about! A lot of work has gone into collecting this historical data but thankfully, it will be easy to keep it updated going forward, so this has been a worthwhile piece of analysis.

When carrying out a big piece of analysis such as this, there are some golden rules you need to follow. In my opinion, you should state any assumptions around the data you are using, you should state any priori beliefs/hypotheses about what you expect to find, you should carry out the detailed analysis and then lastly, you should draw any conclusions including referring back to whether your hypothesis was correct or not. If you stick to these steps, you won’t go too far wrong with analysis I tend to find.

Assumptions

As discussed in various places on the blog, I don’t think that the results in season 2006 and 2007 can be used for any meaningful analysis. These two years were involved in the backfitting of my systems although as I have said before, the backfitting is probably only 50%-75% in these two seasons. I obviously had other data from earlier seasons too when I was developing the ratings and therefore, I didn’t use all of the data from 2006 and 2007. However, I used enough of the data for me to say that these years suffer from backfitting and therefore, I don’t want any analysis or trends to be used involving these two years if I can help it.

Apart from excluding these two seasons, I’m happy to use all the data from 2008 and 2009 as well as all results to the 23rd March 2010 to draw any conclusions. You need to a draw a line in the sand with this sort of thing as your data would be moving all the time. In total, I will be looking at 7,488 bets and these are split 2,483 homes and 5,005 aways for the data from 2008 to now. For parts of analysis which include 2006+ data, there are 14,361 bets. Overall, I think there’s enough data to be able to draw meaningful conclusions even though I have missed out the first two years of data when drawing any conclusions.

Priori beliefs/Hypotheses

I think my main priori beliefs before starting out on this analysis were:

1). DNB betting will be less profitable than traditional H/A betting although it may provide a smoother P&L

2). DC betting will be much less profitable than H/A and DNB betting and I don’t think this will be worth following in future. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was even loss making

3). DNB betting will be best utilised on away bets rather than home bets as away bets have a much higher average odds and a lower win strike rate

4). DNB betting will work well on teams priced 2/1+ as I think this is the area where the systems lose out on most profits as many of these big priced away teams draw regularly

5). Lastly, DNB will not work on short priced aways (less than 2/1) as covering the draw when you are backing at short prices away from home can’t really be a profitable method

Overall, my main hypothesis is that DC betting will not work on these systems and DNB betting may provide a smoother P&L but it is likely to be much less profitable than traditional H/A betting.

Detailed Analysis

I think the first place that is worth looking at is simply the performance of H/A v DNB v DC by year and by system. I have also graphed the 3 P&L’s on the same graph for each system. The drawdowns are only for the H/A betting. For information purposes only, I have also showed the key metrics by each system and league although I don’t think we can use this for any analysis.

Below is a picture of the results:

OK, I could really go to town on what trends I see but I think there are better ways of analysing this data than I’ve shown here. A few things worth mentioning are:

  • On every system, the overall returns from H/A beats DNB and DC
  • However, this is partly due to the results in 2006 and 2007. If we look at the graphs of each system, the DNB P&L looks parallel to the H/A P&L over the last few seasons
  • Looking at 2010 in particular, DNB beats H/A on many systems and overall, it looks fairly close between DNB and H/A betting

I think the above is interesting but it doesn’t really help us to understand how HvA betting compares to DNB and DC overall as it includes 2006 and 2007 data. Let’s exclude this data and just look at the returns by season:

OK, this is starting to look more interesting. Based on the last 3 seasons, the ROI for H/A is 18.3% and the ROI for DNB is 16.1%. DC ROI is lagging behind but is still a very respectable 7.5%.

Interestingly, looking at 2010, DNB easily beats H/A betting for my away bets. The same was also true in 2009! Hence, this isn’t just a trend this season, it was already there at the start of the season.

I think the next stage is to look at the performance of home bets and away bets separately. I could look at this by season but I don’t think it is going to add much by doing this, so I’ll look at it by system and overall. Here it is:

Now, this is getting very interesting. As you can see, Away bets have an ROI of 16.4% for H/A betting whereas Home Bets have an ROI of 22.3% for this type of betting.

Amazingly though, Aways have produced an ROI of 18% for DNB betting and Homes have only produced a profit of 12.3% for DNB betting.

DC is fairly consistent with homes producing a profit of 6.9% and aways producing a profit of 7.7%.

What does all of this mean then? Well, I don’t want to draw too many conclusions without further analysis but clearly, DNB is going to work better on Aways rather than Homes and secondly, the ROI is higher on Homes than Aways for traditional H/A betting, so I don’t think homes are the issue here. Clearly, it is the away bets that are suffering from too many draws and pulling down the ROI of my systems. This backs up what I said above looking at the last two seasons.

So, now we know it is the Away bets that are suffering from too many draws. Let’s drill down a bit further into these bets. This shows the performance of the away bets by season:

As you can see, this clearly shows that DNB betting is better than traditional H/A betting on my away bets. When you consider the average odds of DNB bets will be much lower and will have a much higher strike rate, if given the choice of two systems who produce the same returns, you will always choose the system with the highest strike rate, lower losing runs and smaller betting bank. Hence, DNB is better than traditional H/A betting on my away bets.

What does it look like by odds range though? Well, if you think back to my hypothesis when I started out, I believed that DNB would work better on longer prices but on shorter prices, DNB could never work……..

Here are the results of teams at 2/1+ playing away from home:

As you can see, traditional H/A betting has produced an ROI of 18.5% on these bets. However, DNB betting has only produced a return of 16.1% and DC betting has only produced a return of 8.1%. I find this very surprising as it shows that for teams at 2/1+ away from home, you are better with H/A betting rather than DNB!

So, what does it look like for teams priced less than 2/1 playing away from home:

Well, you can knock me down with a feather duster! Covering the draw when you are backing teams at less than 2/1 away from home has produced much bigger profits than traditional H/A betting.

The ROI from traditional H/A betting is only 14.9% whereas the ROI from DNB betting is a remarkable 19.4%! Over the 3 seasons, it comes to 130pts profit across the 2,896 games.

I rest my case your honour……..

Conclusion

After doing all the analysis, spending a few hours analysing and then writing up this report, I’m just left to try to decipher what the hell it all means!

Let’s go back to each of my priori beliefs and check which ones were right and wrong as a starter for ten.

1). DNB betting will be less profitable than traditional H/A betting although it may provide a smoother P&L

Over the last 3 seasons combined, the statement is true that DNB betting is less profitable. However, in 2010, DNB has an ROI of 13.7% and H/A betting has an ROI of 13.1%. Interestingly, if we split this into Home and Away bets, DNB on away bets have beaten H/A betting in 2009 and 2010. DNB on Home bets has never beaten traditional H/A betting.

As for producing a smoother P&L, I would have to undertake further analysis but based on the fact the strike rate for DNB needs to be much higher than H/A betting to make a profit, it’s safe to say that DNB must provide a smoother P&L overall.

2). DC betting will be much less profitable than H/A and DNB betting and I don’t think this will be worth following in future. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was even loss making

I think it’s safe to say that DC betting is much less profitable than the other types of betting. However, it still produces a steady ROI of 6%-8% a season and therefore, it isn’t exactly loss making like I thought it might have been!

The overall ROI for backing DC Aways is actually just short of 8% and when you consider the strike rate you need for DC betting to be successful, I don’t think it’s the worst system I’ve come across!

3). DNB betting will be best utilised on away bets rather than home bets as away bets have a much higher average odds and a lower win strike rate

This statement is definitely true although DNB betting on homes still isn’t bad and produces an ROI of 12.3%. However, this is much less than the 18% on away bets. In addition, H/A betting beats this ROI on Home bets, so there is no reason to consider DNB for Homes I think.

4). DNB betting will work well on teams priced 2/1+ as I think this is the area where the systems lose out on most profits as many of these big priced away teams draw regularly

This is the most surprising thing from this whole analysis but it is actually more profitable backing these big priced away teams to win outright, rather than covering the draw. It’s hard to understand why but clearly, there must not be as much draws in this category as I thought.

I think finding this out is a massive step forward. Without doing this analysis on odds, I would have been in danger of making a massive mistake and considering backing these bigger priced away teams DNB I suspect.

5). Lastly, DNB will not work on short priced aways (less than 2/1) as covering the draw when you are backing at short prices away from home can’t really be a profitable method

Well, I was pretty certain that I would find out that this was true but it is most definitely not true!

It’s quite hard to believe that covering the draw when you are backing short priced teams away from home (less than 2/1) is actually a better method than backing them outright but this is definitely the case. The difference in profit is actually quite substantial with traditional H/A betting producing an ROI of 14.9% but DNB producing a profit of 19.4%. As I said above, it is 130pts profit across 3 seasons.

So, the piste de resistance of the analysis, what will I do going forward? Well, at the moment, nothing! For a start, we’ve got 9 weeks left this season and therefore, I’m not going to be suggesting that we start covering the draw on away bets at the moment. I’d much rather wait for the season end and take another look at this analysis in the summer before making any wholesale changes. We are playing with profits at the moment, so we don't need to make rash decisions.

Importantly, if I did decide to go down the route of covering the draw with away bets, I would do it with all bets and not just shorter priced bets. Overall, the ROI has been better for the last two seasons on all the away bets and therefore, I don’t want to reduce the sample size by only doing it on a proportion of the away bets.

The other thing to consider for my own betting and anyone else following this is how practical is it going to be to cover the away bets each week with the draw? It is pretty easy to knock up a DNB calculator in Excel where you can enter the stake and best odds for the away team and draw and that will tell you what to stake on each team. However, is this practical for people to follow? I honestly don’t know……..

I’ll leave it there for the moment and hopefully people will have some questions which I can answer. For those that question how powerful this sort of analysis can be, look at the results from this weekend so far…..17 bets, 14 draws, 3 wins. 7 individual games, 3 wins, 4 draws. May look like a freak weekend but read back for the past few months on the blog and in particular, read this post from a few weeks back. The draw is a pain for these systems this season and if backing the draw can increase your profits, surely you have to consider doing this?

http://the-football-analyst.blogspot.com/2011/03/just-track-draw.html

Friday 25 March 2011

Explanation of the system numbers....

Before I reply to Toby, I've just had a comment from Ryan asking how much I charge for this! It's the second such comment in 24 hours. Simply, all of this is done free of charge by me this season as it is a trial season and I want to build up some exposure. Even if I charge next season (depends how well this season goes I guess), it would be a minimal fee to help me justify my time posting on here if nothing else! I follow the bets myself and whether I do the work for myself or 50 people, I still need to do the same work. Hence, I haven't given charging people much thought really as I can do without the hassle although my fiance may not agree with this statement!

I know 'free' blogs like this can be abused though by some people and therefore, I would probably cap numbers on my email distribution list to ensure we all got prices and I would possibly move to posting the bets after I release them to others. Whatever happens, my intention is for me to make a profit first and foremost. Anyone else who wants to follow can do so if they wish but I really don't care!

Just so you know, I will be posting up an analysis looking at Draw No Bet betting and Double Chance betting this weekend on here. It's probably worth a read for those that enjoy this type of betting rather than traditional H/A betting.

Onto the reason why I started writing this post. Toby asked a very valid question about the numbering of my systems. Well, he asked 2 questions really but in essence, he asked what has happened to systems 1-5 and systems 11-15. He also asked why I don't have systems like 6-23,7-23,8-23,9-21,9-22 and 9-23. Interestingly, he didn't ask what happened to system 10 and he won't know this but he should have asked what happened to any other systems as I had as I also have systems 24 and 25 too!

I touched on this back on the first day I posted bets as I had a few friends asking me about the numbering of the systems when I sent the email out with the first bets this season. Looking back now, my answer to the question was fairly ambiguous at the time but I can expand on it further now. For info, here's what I wrote back then... http://the-football-analyst.blogspot.com/2010/09/first-system-bets-this-weekend.html

A few people have asked about why the systems are called 6,7,8,9 and not 1,2,3,4. Quite simply, there are other systems on the go and I'm always looking at data for other systems. These systems 6-9 are the ones that performed the best last season and therefore, I have kept the names the same for those following in the TFA forum. Next season, I will probably change the system names but at the moment, I'm sticking with these names.

Clearly, when I started out this season, although I went live with systems 6-10 on day one which covered the top 5 English Leagues and the SPL, I had other systems on the go in the background. The guys in the TFA forum know about these systems but when I started out on this project in January 2010, my intention was to have systems for the top 5 English leagues, all the non-leagues in England, all 4 leagues in Scotland and the top league in Italy, Germany, French and Spain. I would also move into the Scandinavian leagues when I had time to look at that too. :)

Looking back now, I'm sure they will laugh as much as me at the size of the project I was trying to undertake and after a few weeks this season, all the systems tracking these other leagues were consigned to the bin. I might resurrect that project one day and I still think I can do something in the European Leagues especially as my systems had a big edge when I started looking at this in the second half of the 2010 season.

Ultimately, that consigned systems 1-5 to the scrapheap from about the 3rd week of the season even though no bets had taken place. I kept systems 11-15 live for 2 months and tracked the results and although they did manage to break-even, the upkeep of these systems again ensured that they had to be consigned to the bin.

Therefore, I was left with systems 6-10 which concentrated on the top 5 leagues in England and the SPL. At the same time, I also had a different rating algorithm built which was for the same leagues as systems 6-10 but due to the need to build a way to track these bets like I was doing system 6-10, I didn't want to be posting up bets without being able to track the results closely. Hence, for the first few months this season, these systems produced bets in the background and I checked the results each month but I didn't want anyone following these bets (including me!) until I could get the formatting of the results in the same way as I track systems 6-10.

That explains systems 1-5 (dead from very early on), systems 11-15 (dead after a few months) and systems 20-25 (alive in the background and alive on here and fully proofed from the start of November).

So, what happened to systems 10,24 and 25? Well, amazingly, they had no bets! As you will have seen, the higher up the system you go, the less bets you have on the system as it is filtering the bets by the amount of value each bet is perceived to be. This season, no bets had met the criteria for systems 10,24 and 25 and therefore, after a few months, I knocked them on the head and don't even check to see if any bets appear on these systems now. The systems were so selective and would only be throwing up 1 or 2 bets a season I suspect these days, so they weren't practical to follow. In addition, having a system like this is meaningless as you can never tell if it has an edge or not due to the lack of bets.

Well, that only leaves systems 16-20. Where did they appear from? Well, I always had the idea of doing multiple bets based on the single bet selections thrown up. Some of the guys across at the forum weren't too keen on doing lots of single bets each week this season and they were more interested in playing small multiple bets. They asked me to take a look at how this would do and system 16 was born. System 16 is basically a combination of bets appearing on system 8 and system 13 (which is now dead but is used by system 16 when it throws up bets!). After a bit of work, I managed to build systems 17-20 and I had 5 multiple bets based on the single bet systems.

Overall then, I'm left with systems 6-9, systems 16-20 (multiple bet systems) and systems 21-23.

Early on this season, I highlighted the fact that teams that were appearing on the different algorithms (6-9 and 21-23) were having a very high strike rate when they appeared together. Due to the fact I had no time to look at this and hadn't even thought of looking at it before now, I mentioned it in my weekly email and I even mentioned it on here once or twice. Due to the work involved in looking at this and the past performance, I said that if people wanted to follow this, they could do but I would not be able to track the results until after Christmas. http://the-football-analyst.blogspot.com/2010/11/change-of-direction-needed.html

So that was the birth of systems 6-21 et. al.

Why no systems 6-23,7-23,8-23,9-21,9-22 and 9-23 ? Simple, there aren't enough bets. System 23 only has 80 bets a season and if we only start backing teams that appear on system 6 etc. we would be bringing that down to less than 50 bets I suspect. Likewise, system 9 only has 40 bets a season, so combining that with anything else is useless.

Being honest, system 9 on its own is fairly useless I suspect as with so few bets, you can't get an idea of how good the system is and all it takes is a few games to go against you and it could be loss making.

Will I change the names of the systems? I'm not sure. I've grown fond of the systems and I see them as my little pets. I adore system 8, detest system 23, love system 16, hate systems 17-20, love system 8-22 etc. In addition, anyone following this season knows which system they follow and why and therefore, changing the names of the systems would lead to ultimate chaos I suspect. In addition, all my results are based on these system numbers, so I don't fancy changing them all either!

For those that prefer pictures, this diagram is something I have been working to for a long time now but I know it helped many of the guys in the forum following the bets, so I'll post it again on here. It is somewhere on the blog also a wee while back I think.

Any questions, please leave a comment.


Thursday 24 March 2011

Quiet Weekend

As I said the other day, there are not too many bets this weekend due to the internationals and the way the weekend looked in terms of fixtures. There appears to be a lot of very close games and value is quite difficult to find when this is the case. I prefer the fixtures to have lots of odds on teams and big priced teams as the big priced teams usually have a value bet or two hidden in there!

The best value bet is Bury but I have my reservations about this one. Port Vale have a new manager and it’s things like this that tend to mess up my systems from time to time. Obviously, in the long run, things like this won’t really matter which is why I don’t really overanalyse the results of any particular day but on any day, circumstances like this can affect the results of a game where my ratings determine one of the teams as overpriced.

Anyway, we’ll see what happens. Below are the bets.

I laughed at an anonymous comment posted on the blog today on an older post. It says “What is this? I don’t understand how you can follow so many bets? How much do you charge?”

Being honest, I’m not even sure what this blog is and for anyone coming across it, unless you read the historical results and the season’s results to date, it must be pretty confusing!

Simply, this blog is an attempt by me to show off the work I’ve been doing for the past year or so. It’s not the finished article and therefore, that’s why I haven’t been going out my way to attract readers to the blog and I’m still not doing that. I liked the idea of slowly building up readership to the blog as the season has progressed and so far, I've managed that I think.

I don’t say anywhere on the blog that people should follow these bets as until the end of this season, I don’t really know how profitable they are. In addition, even if they are profitable, I might have fluked this season’s results and therefore, I wouldn’t suggest anyone go out their way to follow the bets with money at the moment. I follow the bets as do many others who are known to me but they understand the systems and the work that has gone into this project, so they understand the potential but also understand the risks.

As for charging, how could I charge anyone? I don’t know if the systems will prove profitable and I don’t know how to maximise the returns from the systems and therefore, how could I charge people for this? In addition, I follow the bets myself and have done OK this season, so I don’t need the hassle at the moment of worrying about others following the bets. It’s hard enough to make a profit at this game without trying to pull another X number along with you.

For anyone who is new to reading the blog, I suggest they just follow the blog, follow the results and try to think about whether my systems have an edge or not. If they do, then the bets may be worth following but I would never follow something myself until I saw that it had a significant edge.

In my opinion, the results from some of these systems look too good to be true and I have tended to find in life, when this is the case, it usually is! Hence, I would want to see lots of evidence that these systems are as good as they appear at face value before I even thought of following with my hard earned cash. Easy for me though as I built them all, so I know the potential these systems have. I’m not the only one though…..

http://theportfolioinvestor.blogspot.com/2011/03/if-carlsberg-did-football-tipping.html

The Football Analyst Bets for 25th-27th March

System 6
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
26/03/2010 League 1 Bournemouth v Charlton Bournemouth 1.91 Corals
26/03/2010 League 1 Colchester v Exeter Colchester 2.20 Tote
26/03/2010 League 1 Leyton Orient v Yeovil Yeovil 4.50 B365
26/03/2010 League 2 Port Vale v Bury Bury 2.63 Ladbrokes

System 7
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
26/03/2010 League 1 Bournemouth v Charlton Bournemouth 1.91 Corals
26/03/2010 League 2 Port Vale v Bury Bury 2.63 Ladbrokes

System 8
None

System 9
None

System 21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
25/03/2010 League 2 Lincoln v Rotherham Rotherham 2.70 Blue Sq
25/03/2010 League 2 Northampton v Torquay Torquay 2.75 Corals
25/03/2010 League 2 Aldershot v Accrington Accrington 3.00 Ladbrokes
26/03/2010 League 2 Port Vale v Bury Bury 2.63 Ladbrokes
27/03/2010 League 2 Cheltenham v Gillingham Gillingham 2.38 Ladbrokes

System 22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
25/03/2010 League 2 Northampton v Torquay Torquay 2.75 Corals
25/03/2010 League 2 Aldershot v Accrington Accrington 3.00 Ladbrokes
26/03/2010 League 2 Port Vale v Bury Bury 2.63 Ladbrokes
27/03/2010 League 2 Cheltenham v Gillingham Gillingham 2.38 Ladbrokes

System 23
None

System 6-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
26/03/2010 League 2 Port Vale v Bury Bury 2.63 Ladbrokes

System 6-22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
26/03/2010 League 2 Port Vale v Bury Bury 2.63 Ladbrokes

System 7-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
26/03/2010 League 2 Port Vale v Bury Bury 2.63 Ladbrokes


System 7-22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
26/03/2010 League 2 Port Vale v Bury Bury 2.63 Ladbrokes

System 8-21
None

System 8-22
None

System 16
None

System 17
Bet 1
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
25/03/2010 League 2 Northampton v Torquay Torquay 2.70
25/03/2010 League 2 Aldershot v Accrington Accrington 3.00
26/03/2010 League 2 Port Vale v Bury Bury 2.60
27/03/2010 League 2 Cheltenham v Gillingham Gillingham 2.25 B365
Any 2,3 and all 4 = 11 Bets

System 18
None

System 19
None

System 20
None

Wednesday 23 March 2011

I don't like milk anyway!

A little bit of a frustrating night again last night with the Accrington game finishing a draw. I heard this on Sky Sports last night and it was confirmed on the BBC today but it does appear as if Accrington scored a legitimate goal last night that crossed the line but neither the linesman nor referee were sure it crossed the line, so they didn't give it. These things tend to happen now and again as we all know, so there's not much we can do about it. It's a bit of a nightmare though when it happens on an 23/10 shot who appears on 11 systems! Instead of a 25pt profit for the systems, it is instead an 11pt loss. A 36pt swing due to the fact the referee and linesman missed a goal! grrrrr.....

Overall, I can't complain too much about things. 7 games, 3 wins, 3 draws and only one loser. A 0.66pt loss on the evening if backing each of the games that were determined to be value.

As I said to Rowan in a comment on the blog today, I will be undertaking a project to look at the returns from the systems by using Double Chance (dutching the win/draw) and also DNB (covering the draw) on each of the systems. It was mentioned by one of the guys across at the TFA forum and he's been asking me for a wee while to have a look at this. It won't take me too long to collect the draw odds data and I'll obviously report back my findings on here too.

In the meantime, I'll be back tomorrow with the weekend bets although after updating the results for last night, there won't be too many value bets this weekend again. There might be a gem or two in there though!

Monday 21 March 2011

Accrington Stanley....Exactly!

There was an interesting discussion in the TFA forum today regarding which systems to follow for the remainder of the season.

It turned into a discussion where I was posting thoughts that I was having and as sometimes happens, I end up just writing and speaking to myself on the thread and coming to a conclusion that I already knew was the right answer before I started!

Rowan from http://theportfolioinvestor.blogspot.com/ has recently switched from following system 8 to following system 8-22. Simply, 8-22 is a stronger system and has outperformed the rest of my systems this season but he had previously been following system 8. Obviously, when you switch systems, you can guarantee that the new system will start badly and the old system will go on a good run!

The weekend past wasn't quite as bad as that but system 8 made a nice profit at the weekend and system 8-22 had no bets.

I brought up the fact that I didn't think Accrington were any better bet than Yeovil were at the weekend based on my ratings and therefore, I don't think that missing out Yeovil (3/1 winner) and backing Accrington this midweek is a good strategy.

However, when you look at the returns this season, it's hard to not argue that system 8-22 is a much better system than system 8 and therefore, Accrington must be better value than Yeovil were (even though Yeovil won). Hence, Rowan is correct to only follow system 8-22 if he wants to follow the strongest bets that I can find.

For the record, system 8 has an ROI of around 16% this season and system 8-22 has an ROI of around 35% this season. Hence, there is no denying that system 8-22 is the stronger system and therefore, Accrington must be a better value bet than Yeovil were at the weekend.

As it turns out, Accrington are the only team appearing on system 8 and system 8-22 this midweek, so my whole midweek will be determined by the result in this game. Fingers crossed they can sneak a win.

Below are the bets for tomorrow for all the systems.

The Football Analyst Bets for 22nd March

System 6
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
22/03/2010 League 2 Aldershot v Barnet Barnet 4.75 B365
22/03/2010 League 2 Crewe v Accrington Accrington 3.30 Pinnacle
22/03/2010 League 2 Port Vale v Hereford Port Vale 1.91 Ladbrokes
22/03/2010 League 2 Torquay v Cheltenham Torquay 1.75 Tote
22/03/2010 Bsq Prem Grimsby v Gateshead Gateshead 3.75 Skybet

System 7
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
22/03/2010 League 2 Crewe v Accrington Accrington 3.30 Pinnacle
22/03/2010 League 2 Torquay v Cheltenham Torquay 1.75 Tote

System 8
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
22/03/2010 League 2 Crewe v Accrington Accrington 3.30 Pinnacle

System 9
None

System 21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
22/03/2010 League 2 Burton v Stevanage Stevanage 2.40 Corals
22/03/2010 League 2 Crewe v Accrington Accrington 3.30 Pinnacle
22/03/2010 Bsq Prem Grimsby v Gateshead Gateshead 3.75 Skybet
22/03/2010 Bsq Prem Histon v Mansfield Mansfield 2.19 Pinnacle

System 22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
22/03/2010 League 2 Burton v Stevanage Stevanage 2.40 Corals
22/03/2010 League 2 Crewe v Accrington Accrington 3.30 Pinnacle
22/03/2010 Bsq Prem Grimsby v Gateshead Gateshead 3.75 Skybet
22/03/2010 Bsq Prem Histon v Mansfield Mansfield 2.19 Pinnacle

System 23
None

System 6-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
22/03/2010 League 2 Crewe v Accrington Accrington 3.30 Pinnacle
22/03/2010 Bsq Prem Grimsby v Gateshead Gateshead 3.75 Skybet

System 6-22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
22/03/2010 League 2 Crewe v Accrington Accrington 3.30 Pinnacle
22/03/2010 Bsq Prem Grimsby v Gateshead Gateshead 3.75 Skybet

System 7-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
22/03/2010 League 2 Crewe v Accrington Accrington 3.30 Pinnacle

System 7-22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
22/03/2010 League 2 Crewe v Accrington Accrington 3.30 Pinnacle

System 8-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
22/03/2010 League 2 Crewe v Accrington Accrington 3.30 Pinnacle

System 8-22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
22/03/2010 League 2 Crewe v Accrington Accrington 3.30 Pinnacle

System 16
None

System 17
Bet 1
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
22/03/2010 League 2 Burton v Stevanage Stevanage 2.38
22/03/2010 League 2 Crewe v Accrington Accrington 3.25
22/03/2010 Bsq Prem Grimsby v Gateshead Gateshead 3.75
22/03/2010 Bsq Prem Histon v Mansfield Mansfield 2.10 Skybet
Any 2,3, and all 4 = 11 Bets

System 18
None

System 19
None

System 20
None

So close, yet so far.....

Well, a lot seems to have happened since my last post on here. The title relates to my Cheltenham exploits but can also relate to what happened on the footie this weekend I think!

Although this blog is about my footie systems this season, as many of my readers are aware, I used to run a successful horse racing tipping service in the past. My passion will always be horseracing and I can't imagine me ever getting too passionate about a football game I've had a bet on!

With last week being Cheltenham week, it's the biggest week in the sporting calendar for me and I look forward to it immensely. Due to the fact my last couple of years of enjoyment were spoilt by tipping or being too heavily involved financially, I decided that since I haven't been too close to the racing this winter, I would keep stakes to a minimum when I was punting. However, I always like to have a go at the Racing Post's Select A Stable competition each year.

In 2007, I finished 8th in the competition and there was a bit of a hard luck story as I had weighted my lines towards the first 3 days and when the final day came, I had no runners but was top of the leaderboard. In reality, I was a sitting duck in the game and I didn't really think I had much chance of winning even though I finished a close up 8th.

Well, I did my usual research on Monday night for the upcoming week and entered my 5 lines like I usually do. It only costs £20 for 5 lines. On the first day, one of my lines hit 4 winners from 4 runners and it soon grabbed the attention of the guys in the TFA forum. Although I was only about 700th after day one, I knew I was in with a real shout after that start as not many would bit sitting with a 100% record after 4 runners.

On day two, I hit a winner, a 2nd and a 4th to push me up the leaderboard further and I was about 200th at the end of day two.

Day three was a key day for me with 3 runners including my banker bet, Big Bucks. Loosen My Load was 3rd in the first race, Alberta's Run won the Ryanair and then Big Bucks just got over the line in the Stayers hurdle.

10 runners, 7 winners, a 2nd, a 3rd and a 4th. Could anyone beat that?

Well, I waited anxiously for the website to be updated that night. I was 4th. I bought the Racing Post the next day and it showed the stables for the top 3 in the game.

All of the top 3 above me had no runners left. Hence, I needed a winner from my final 2 runners on day 4 to overtake them and hopefully win the £15k first prize.

In the Gold Cup on Friday, I had plumped for Kempes but it ran an absolute stinker and pulled up. This meant it was all down to Sir Des Champs in the 23 runner Conditional's race. Easy peasy!

Well, here's the race http://horses.sportinglife.com/Video/Racing/0,27770,420103_4,00.html for anyone that didn't see it but Sir Des Champs managed to get up to win.

It simply came down to whether anyone had overtaken me on day 4.....Unfortunately, someone had. It was in the Racing Post on Saturday but someone hit 3 winners from 3 runners on Friday to beat me by 5pts in the game. He ended up with 9 winners from his 12 runners at Cheltenham compared to my 8 winners, a 2nd, 3rd, 4th and one pulled up.

So close, yet so far. I still won a decent sum for 2nd place but the first prize was 10 times more!

Anyway, that leads us onto this weekend on the footie. As I said on my last post, I wasn't too confident as there were a lot of marginal value bets that appeared and so far this season, they haven't exactly set the world alight. Hence, I was worried about what may happen this weekend. As it turns out, I shouldn't have worried.

There were 24 unique bets thrown up as value this weekend on my ratings. I hit 13 winners, 7 losses and only 4 draws. As you would expect, this translated into a very good profit for the ratings.

The profit was 8.6pts and this produced an ROI of 35% this weekend. Great going.

On any other week, you would expect this to translate into a great profit on most of the systems but as I said on Friday, the selective systems didn't like a lot of these bets and therefore, the profits varied across systems.

System 6 made 8pts profit, system 7 lost 1pt, system 8 made 2.67pts and system 9 had no bets.

System 21 made 4pts but systems 21 and 22 lost 2pts each.

The other systems all made small losses or profits.

Due to the fact the selective systems didn't have a good weekend, this meant the multiple systems had a nightmare weekend again and they continue to haemorrhage points at the moment.

The more I see of the multiple systems 16-20, the more I think they are simply the sort of systems that can be followed on paper but even with small stakes, you can do some damage to your bank with these systems. The returns are so variable and the strike rate is so low at times, it simply feels like you are throwing good money after bad at them.

Overall then, the singe bet systems made a profit of 14pts and the multiple bet systems made a loss of 84pts.

The month has been very stable so far and a quick look at my personal results sheet shows that the single bet systems have made a profit of 66pts so far in March from 313 games. That's an ROI of 21%.

Those who have been reading the blog regularly will know that the single bet systems lost 66pts in February and therefore, it is quite freaky how similar this month's profit is at the moment!

We still have a set of 15 games this midweek and 29 games this weekend as well as a midweek set of fixtures next midweek to play this month. Plenty of time left for the systems to win more profit this month or loss the profit they currently have but hopefully this month will go a long way to showing that February was a one-off month for these systems.

The multiple bet systems are down on the month amazingly even though they are picking from a pool of bets that have made large profits. I think reinforces my points about these systems being too random to be followed as part of a portfolio but I'll keep tracking them until the end of the season at least.

Anyway, I'll be back later tonight with the bets for the midweek games. There won't be too many bets.

Thursday 17 March 2011

Quantity over quality I think

At first glance, it may look like a busy weekend but in reality, it isn't too busy.

The selective systems 8,9,23,7-21+ actually don't have too many bets. System 8-22 doesn't actually have a bet and neither does system 9. I think this definitely points to this weekend being a weekend where there is plenty in terms of the quantity of bets but the quality is lacking somewhat.

Many of the teams are only marginal value calls (0-10% value) and therefore, they appear on system 6 or system 21 but don't get much further than that. Hence, they aren't strong bets at all and are the weakest bets my ratings will find. They haven't performed well this season either, so I fear for system 6 and 7 and system 21 and system 22 this weekend. It could be carnage I suspect.

Anyway, we'll see what this weekend brings and if we can get past this weekend with a break-even or small profit, I'd be hopeful that this month will be ending in a good profit and will recoup most of last month's losses.

The Football Analyst Bets for 18th-20th March

System 6
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
19/03/2011 Premiership Aston Villa v Wolves Wolves 4.50 Ladbrokes
19/03/2011 Premiership Everton v Fulham Everton 2.05 VC
19/03/2011 Premiership Wigan v Birmingham Wigan 2.20 SJ
20/03/2011 Premiership Chelsea v Man City Chelsea 1.67 Ladbrokes
19/03/2011 Championship Bristol City v Burnley Burnley 2.60 SJ
19/03/2011 Championship Ipswich v Scunthorpe Ipswich 1.67 Corals
19/03/2011 Championship Leicester v Portsmouth Leicester 1.75 SJ
19/03/2011 League 1 Exeter v Yeovil Yeovil 4.00 Corals
19/03/2011 League 1 Plymouth v Rochdale Rochdale 3.00 Corals
19/03/2011 League 1 Tranmere v Colchester Colchester 2.88 VC
19/03/2011 League 1 Walsall v Hartlepool Hartlepool 3.02 Pinnacle
19/03/2011 League 2 Burton v Gillingham Gillingham 2.50 Corals
19/03/2011 League 2 Oxford v Crewe Oxford 2.20 Ladbrokes
19/03/2011 League 2 Southend v Hereford Southend 2.17 Pinnacle
18/03/2011 Bsq Prem Crawley v Wimbledon Crawley 1.67 Corals
19/03/2011 Bsq Prem Fleetwood v Wrexham Wrexham 2.75 VC
19/03/2011 Bsq Prem Rushden v Southport Rushden 1.62 VC

System 7
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
20/03/2011 Premiership Chelsea v Man City Chelsea 1.67 Ladbrokes
19/03/2011 Championship Bristol City v Burnley Burnley 2.60 SJ
19/03/2011 Championship Ipswich v Scunthorpe Ipswich 1.67 Corals
19/03/2011 League 1 Exeter v Yeovil Yeovil 4.00 Corals
19/03/2011 League 1 Tranmere v Colchester Colchester 2.88 VC
19/03/2011 League 1 Walsall v Hartlepool Hartlepool 3.02 Pinnacle
19/03/2011 League 2 Burton v Gillingham Gillingham 2.50 Corals
18/03/2011 Bsq Prem Crawley v Wimbledon Crawley 1.67 Corals
19/03/2011 Bsq Prem Fleetwood v Wrexham Wrexham 2.75 VC
19/03/2011 Bsq Prem Rushden v Southport Rushden 1.62 VC

System 8
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
19/03/2011 League 1 Exeter v Yeovil Yeovil 4.00 Corals
18/03/2011 Bsq Prem Crawley v Wimbledon Crawley 1.67 Corals
19/03/2011 Bsq Prem Fleetwood v Wrexham Wrexham 2.75 VC

System 9
None

System 21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
18/03/2011 Bsq Prem Crawley v Wimbledon Crawley 1.67 Corals
19/03/2011 Premiership Stoke v Newcastle Newcastle 3.64 Pinnacle
20/03/2011 Premiership Chelsea v Man City Chelsea 1.67 Ladbrokes
20/03/2011 Premiership Sunderland v Liverpool Liverpool 2.86 Pinnacle
19/03/2011 Championship Barnsley v Reading Reading 2.50 VC
19/03/2011 Championship Bristol City v Burnley Burnley 2.60 SJ
19/03/2011 Championship Doncaster v QPR QPR 2.10 VC
19/03/2011 Championship Hull v Norwich Norwich 2.95 Pinnacle
19/03/2011 Championship Sheff Utd v Leeds Leeds 2.20 SH
19/03/2011 League 1 Exeter v Yeovil Yeovil 4.00 Corals
19/03/2011 League 1 Plymouth v Rochdale Rochdale 3.00 Corals
19/03/2011 League 1 Tranmere v Colchester Colchester 2.88 VC
19/03/2011 League 2 Burton v Gillingham Gillingham 2.50 Corals
19/03/2011 League 2 Oxford v Crewe Oxford 2.20 Ladbrokes
19/03/2011 Bsq Prem Fleetwood v Wrexham Wrexham 2.75 VC
19/03/2011 SPL Hamilton v St Johnstone St Johnstone 2.75 WH

System 22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
19/03/2011 Premiership Stoke v Newcastle Newcastle 3.64 Pinnacle
19/03/2011 Championship Bristol City v Burnley Burnley 2.60 SJ
19/03/2011 Championship Hull v Norwich Norwich 2.95 Pinnacle
19/03/2011 League 1 Plymouth v Rochdale Rochdale 3.00 Corals
19/03/2011 League 2 Burton v Gillingham Gillingham 2.50 Corals

System 23
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
19/03/2011 Championship Bristol City v Burnley Burnley 2.60 SJ
19/03/2011 League 2 Burton v Gillingham Gillingham 2.50 Corals

System 6-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
18/03/2011 Bsq Prem Crawley v Wimbledon Crawley 1.67 Corals
19/03/2011 Championship Bristol City v Burnley Burnley 2.60 SJ
19/03/2011 League 2 Burton v Gillingham Gillingham 2.50 Corals
19/03/2011 League 1 Exeter v Yeovil Yeovil 4.00 Corals
19/03/2011 Bsq Prem Fleetwood v Wrexham Wrexham 2.75 VC
19/03/2011 League 2 Oxford v Crewe Oxford 2.20 Ladbrokes
19/03/2011 League 1 Plymouth v Rochdale Rochdale 3.00 Corals
19/03/2011 League 1 Tranmere v Colchester Colchester 2.88 VC
20/03/2011 Premiership Chelsea v Man City Chelsea 1.67 Ladbrokes

System 6-22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
19/03/2011 Championship Bristol City v Burnley Burnley 2.60 SJ
19/03/2011 League 2 Burton v Gillingham Gillingham 2.50 Corals
19/03/2011 League 1 Plymouth v Rochdale Rochdale 3.00 Corals

System 7-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
18/03/2011 Bsq Prem Crawley v Wimbledon Crawley 1.67 Corals
19/03/2011 Championship Bristol City v Burnley Burnley 2.60 SJ
19/03/2011 League 2 Burton v Gillingham Gillingham 2.50 Corals
19/03/2011 League 1 Exeter v Yeovil Yeovil 4.00 Corals
19/03/2011 Bsq Prem Fleetwood v Wrexham Wrexham 2.75 VC
19/03/2011 League 1 Tranmere v Colchester Colchester 2.88 VC
20/03/2011 Premiership Chelsea v Man City Chelsea 1.67 Ladbrokes

System 7-22
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
19/03/2011 Championship Bristol City v Burnley Burnley 2.60 SJ
19/03/2011 League 2 Burton v Gillingham Gillingham 2.50 Corals

System 8-21
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
19/03/2011 League 1 Exeter v Yeovil Yeovil 4.00 Corals
18/03/2011 Bsq Prem Crawley v Wimbledon Crawley 1.67 Corals
19/03/2011 Bsq Prem Fleetwood v Wrexham Wrexham 2.75 VC

System 8-22
None

System 16
Bet 1
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
18/03/2011 Bsq Prem Crawley v Wimbledon Crawley 1.67
19/03/2011 League 2 Bury v Cheltenham Bury 1.62
19/03/2011 League 1 Exeter v Yeovil Yeovil 4.00
19/03/2011 Bsq Prem Fleetwood v Wrexham Wrexham 2.75
19/03/2011 Bsq Prem Rushden v Southport Rushden 1.62 Corals
Any 3,4 and all 5 = 16 Bets

System 17
Bet 1
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
19/03/2011 Premiership Stoke v Newcastle Newcastle 3.50
19/03/2011 Championship Bristol City v Burnley Burnley 2.50
19/03/2011 Championship Hull v Norwich Norwich 2.88
19/03/2011 League 1 Plymouth v Rochdale Rochdale 2.88
19/03/2011 League 2 Burton v Gillingham Gillingham 2.50 VC
Any 2,3,4 and all 5 = 26 Bets

System 18
Bet 1
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
19/03/2011 League 1 Exeter v Yeovil Yeovil 4.00
18/03/2011 Bsq Prem Crawley v Wimbledon Crawley 1.67
19/03/2011 Bsq Prem Fleetwood v Wrexham Wrexham 2.75
19/03/2011 Championship Bristol City v Burnley Burnley 2.60
19/03/2011 League 2 Burton v Gillingham Gillingham 2.50 Corals
Any 2,3,4 and all 5 = 26 Bets

System 19
Bet 1
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
18/03/2011 Bsq Prem Crawley v Wimbledon Crawley 1.67
19/03/2011 Championship Bristol City v Burnley Burnley 2.60
19/03/2011 League 2 Burton v Gillingham Gillingham 2.50
19/03/2011 League 1 Exeter v Yeovil Yeovil 4.00
19/03/2011 Bsq Prem Fleetwood v Wrexham Wrexham 2.75 Corals
Any 2,3,4 and all 5 = 26 Bets

System 20
Bet 1
Date League Game Selection Odds Bookies
19/03/2011 Championship Bristol City v Burnley Burnley 2.60
19/03/2011 League 2 Burton v Gillingham Gillingham 2.50
19/03/2011 League 1 Plymouth v Rochdale Rochdale 3.00 Corals
Any 2 and all 3 = 4 Bets

Midweek Results

Apologies again for the lack of updates on here at the minute. With this week being Cheltenham week and my racing background, I struggle to do much other things than work during the day, listen to commentaries and watch replays at nights.

Below are the results for midweek. A small loss overall but none of the main systems were in action this midweek as I couldn't see much value about at all.

I'll be back in 5 mins with this weekend's bets as I've just sent them out to everyone.

Monday 14 March 2011

Midweek Bets

Really short of time at the moment, so here are the bets for this midweek. No strong bets at all although Southend appear to represent a little bit of value at the price but they don't look a strong pick at all.


The Football Analyst Bets for 15th/16th March

System 6
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
15/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Crewe v Southend Southend 3.55 Pinnacle
15/03/2011 19:45 Bsq Prem Grimsby v Rushden Rushden 3.20 Ladbrokes

System 7
None

System 8
None

System 9
None

System 21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
15/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Crewe v Southend Southend 3.55 Pinnacle
16/03/2011 19:45 SPL Dundee Utd v Hearts Hearts 2.80 WH

System 22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
15/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Crewe v Southend Southend 3.55 Pinnacle

System 23
None

System 6-21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
15/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Crewe v Southend Southend 3.55 Pinnacle

System 6-22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
15/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Crewe v Southend Southend 3.55 Pinnacle

System 7-21
None

System 7-22
None

System 8-21
None

System 8-22
None

System 16
None

System 17
None

System 18
None

System 19
None

System 20
None

Sunday 13 March 2011

Lost In Translation

Well, I’ll start with the positives from yesterday. My ratings found 14 value bets in total from the reduced fixture list. Thankfully, only 3 games finished a draw and therefore, as you would expect (see my post from last week!), the ratings made a good profit with an overall profit of 6.83pts from 14 bets. This is much in line with what tends to happen when you hit lower draws than the ‘norm’.

Unfortunately, this didn’t translate into a great weekend for the systems as when it came to narrowing the bets down, it didn’t exactly go to plan!

Overall though, the single systems made a profit of around 9pts in total. This was quite variable by system with the most interesting of which was system 22 and system 23.

System 22 had 7 bets and found 3 winners and 4 losers. System 23 takes these 7 bets and picks out the best bets (which is has done very successfully all season!). Not this time though….

4 bets on system 23, 4 losers. Unbelievable really but these things happen now and again.

Thankfully, many of the systems relied on the 4 bets I mentioned on Thursday and we hit 2 winners, a draw and one loser in here. The winner was Brentford who won with an 89th minute goal. Given the way it has been going for the past 6 weeks and the number of late goals that have gone against me for teams at decent prices, I’m not even going to say I was very lucky. I don’t even think this small bit of good fortune undoes the previous bad luck!

Anyway, it was an important goal as it ensured most of the systems made a small profit.

The multiple bets were again a mixed bunch with a couple making small profits and the rest suffering losses. I’ve not really made up my mind about these multiple bets yet and I sometimes wonder what they add to a portfolio apart from a high degree of variance! However, the returns can sometimes be very high as we’ve seen a few times already this season on here, so I’ll not draw any conclusions until the end of the season at the earliest.

Overall, a loss of nearly 30pts on the multiple bets. Remember, these systems are all staked to a much larger bank, so as a proxy, you can divide by 10 to compare the performance with the single bet systems. Hence, a 3pt loss for this weekend for example which isn't a disaster.

There are 21 games in midweek, so there are likely to be a few bets thrown up for these games. I’ll post these tomorrow once I’ve updated this weekend’s results.

Thursday 10 March 2011

Big Weekend (again!)

I've lost count of the number of times I've used the title of a weekend bets post as 'big weekend'. As well as showing a lack of decent vocabulary, it also indicates a pivotal point on this blog I think.

When I first glanced at the weekend fixtures last Sunday, I expected a reduced number of bets this weekend due to the FA Cup games taking place but it is actually a very busy weekend.

There are 4 massive games for me this weekend and these will determine how the weekend pans out. For what it's worth, my ratings suggest Newport is one of the best value bets this season but I struggle to see it myself if I'm honest. Altrincham need the win much more and that is something that my systems will never factor in.

Anyway, we'll see what the weekend brings.

Good luck if you are following.


The Football Analyst Bets for 12th-14th March

System 6
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50 Tote
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Hartlepool v Plymouth Plymouth 4.33 B365
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Cheltenham v Aldershot Aldershot 3.13 Pinnacle
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Crewe v Chesterfield Chesterfield 2.60 Corals
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Gillingham v Accrington Accrington 4.50 VC
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Hereford v Barnet Barnet 4.33 Ladbrokes
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.70 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.80 B365
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Stockport v Burton Burton 2.50 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.73 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Tamworth v Hayes Hayes 4.20 Tote
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Wrexham v Rushden Rushden 4.00 PP
14/03/2011 19:45 Championship Norwich v Bristol City Norwich 1.80 Blue Sq

System 7
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50 Tote
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Cheltenham v Aldershot Aldershot 3.13 Pinnacle
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Crewe v Chesterfield Chesterfield 2.60 Corals
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.70 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.80 B365
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.73 SJ
14/03/2011 19:45 Championship Norwich v Bristol City Norwich 1.80 Blue Sq

System 8
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50 Tote
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.70 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.80 B365
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.73 SJ

System 9
None

System 21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50 Tote
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Hartlepool v Plymouth Plymouth 4.33 B365
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Leyton Orient v Oldham Leyton Orient 1.84 Pinnacle
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Cheltenham v Aldershot Aldershot 3.13 Pinnacle
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Crewe v Chesterfield Chesterfield 2.60 Corals
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Gillingham v Accrington Accrington 4.50 VC
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.70 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.80 B365
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Stockport v Burton Burton 2.50 B365
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Fleetwood v Crawley Crawley 2.10 WH
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.73 SJ

System 22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50 Tote
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Crewe v Chesterfield Chesterfield 2.60 Corals
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.70 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.80 B365
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Stockport v Burton Burton 2.50 B365
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Fleetwood v Crawley Crawley 2.10 WH
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.73 SJ

System 23
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Crewe v Chesterfield Chesterfield 2.60 Corals
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.70 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.80 B365
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Stockport v Burton Burton 2.50 B365

System 6-21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50 Tote
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Cheltenham v Aldershot Aldershot 3.13 Pinnacle
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Crewe v Chesterfield Chesterfield 2.60 Corals
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Gillingham v Accrington Accrington 4.50 VC
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Hartlepool v Plymouth Plymouth 4.33 B365
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.70 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.73 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.80 B365
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Stockport v Burton Burton 2.50 B365

System 6-22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50 Tote
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Crewe v Chesterfield Chesterfield 2.60 Corals
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.70 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.73 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.80 B365
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Stockport v Burton Burton 2.50 B365

System 7-21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50 Tote
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Cheltenham v Aldershot Aldershot 3.13 Pinnacle
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Crewe v Chesterfield Chesterfield 2.60 Corals
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.70 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.73 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.80 B365

System 7-22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50 Tote
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Crewe v Chesterfield Chesterfield 2.60 Corals
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.70 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.73 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.80 B365

System 8-21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50 Tote
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.70 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.73 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.80 B365

System 8-22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50 Tote
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.70 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.73 SJ
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.80 B365

System 16
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.40
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.70
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.75
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.73 SJ
Any 3 and all 4 = 5 Bets

System 17
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.40
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Crewe v Chesterfield Chesterfield 2.60
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Fleetwood v Crawley Crawley 2.10
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.63
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.73 Corals
Any 2,3,4 and all 5 = 26 Bets

System 18
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Crewe v Chesterfield Chesterfield 2.60
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.63
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.67
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.75 SJ
Any 2,3,4 and all 5 = 26 Bets

System 19
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Cheltenham v Aldershot Aldershot 3.00
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Crewe v Chesterfield Chesterfield 2.60
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.63
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.67 Betfred
Any 2,3,4 and all 5 = 26 Bets

System 20
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
12/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Brentford Brentford 3.50
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Crewe v Chesterfield Chesterfield 2.60
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Southend Southend 2.63
12/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Newport v Altrincham Newport 1.67
12/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Rotherham v Bury Bury 2.75 SJ
Any 2,3,4 and all 5 = 26 Bets

Wednesday 9 March 2011

Just track the draw.....

One thing I've really struggled with recently has been the performance of the systems since the turn of the year. Up to the end of November, all my systems had been behaving exactly like the historical results suggested they would. Steady monthly returns, short losing runs and fairly consistent returns. ROI's of 20%+ were not uncommon on most systems and the very best systems had ROI's of 30%+ this season which again, was not too unlike the past.

December then came along and over a shorter number of games than we'd usually see in a month (due to postponements), the systems produced exceptional profits, the like some of the systems had never witnessed before. As mentioned in my summary for December, the overall ROI was 40% on the single bets and this was a phenomenal month.

Clearly, I didn't look at December in too much depth as when you are winning money hand over fist and the systems look unbeatable, it doesn't really seem like the best time to over analyse what is happening!

January then appeared and after an OK start, some of the systems fell away at the end of the month and a few of the systems had a losing month which doesn't happen very often. However, nothing unusual seemed to happen I think although I was conscious of the fact that there had been a lot of draws on the systems at the end of the month.

It was then onto 'Armageddon February' (as it is now known by me!) where everything appeared to go wrong and the strike rate for the systems dropped to an historical low. As I said in my monthly review I think, I was conscious that there had been a lot of draws in the month but due to the fact I don't track the draw at all, I couldn't really say for sure whether it had been any less normal than usual.

Well, I've spent the last couple of days collecting all the data I need to look at the draws and I find the results interesting and quite informative. I personally feel like I can put February out of my mind now as these sort of months are going to happen now and again and it's important to always think long-term and not get too drawn into the short-term, no matter how bad it gets at times.

So, where do I start........

Season Comparisons



This table below shows the split of homes/aways/draws by season on the systems overall. I've also graphed the % at the end of each season (taking into account all data beforehand) to the start of this season.

A quick observation of the first 4 seasons would be that the numbers of games finishing a draw has been increasing year on year but it has been stable at around 26% for the last 2 seasons.

As you can see, at this point in the current season, we're sitting with a draw % of 29%. This is up a good bit from the last two years but not out with the boundary of possibility. Hence, this probably explains why my systems haven't been as profitable this season as they have been for the last couple of seasons.

Monthly Comparisons



This table shows the % of homes/aways/draws across each month across all systems overall.

As you can see, the overall draw % is 25% across all the games which isn't too surprising and in line with what I thought it would look like. Doing a couple of quick statistical checks, you would expect 9% of the draw % to lie within 2 standard deviations of the mean. Therefore, you would expect 95% of the observations to lie between 12.5% and 37.5% in this table.

As it turns out, only 2 of these observations lie outwith this boundary. Which months are they? December 2010 and February 2011!

An amazing statistic that 2 of the outlying months come within 2 months of each other. I'm not sure if there is some sort of correction factor that happened at the start of 2011 to correct for the fact the end of 2010 was so profitable but I do find it interesting. The draw % was only 11.7% in December whereas it was 38.5% in February. They're both lying about the same distance away from the mean, so they were as likely as each other to happen.

What does this mean? Well, I think we can ignore the fact that February was the biggest losing month the systems have ever had as it is unlikely to happen again in the near future. Likewise, we can ignore the 40% returns that were achieved in December as this is also unlikely to happen again in the near future.

What is does show though is that when the draw % is behaving and is in line with the long-term norm, the TFA ratings and more importantly, the TFA systems have an edge here that can be exploited.

Systems Comparison



You need to be really careful about looking at how systems compare to each other with things like this. The obvious reason why is simply the data is very thing on all of the systems. When you are looking at trends over a few hundred observations, it isn't easy to jump to the wrong conclusion and therefore, I don't intend on commenting on the system by system comparison of how the draw is behaving. Clearly, with a fewer number of games, you are much more prone to big swings in the percentage of draws you can hit at any point in time.

What does it all mean?

Well, I think we can safely say that the exceptional month of December 2010 isn't likely to be a regular occurrence and likewise, the nightmare month of February 2011 is also something that shouldn't be appearing too often.

We can definitely say that the draw is the enemy when it comes to my systems and my ratings. When the overall draw % gets very high, then it is inevitable that my systems will struggle to make money. Likewise, when the draw % gets very low, my systems will outperform in the short-term.

Overall though, the draw % has been fairly steady year on year in these leagues I am looking at and therefore, I expect my ratings to remain profitable as long as there isn't a fundamental shift in the number of draws occurring in each of the leagues.

For those that like to see this sort of thing on a graph, here is the correlation between the ROI by month of my systems and the % of games that finish a draw by month. As you can see, the systems have an exceptionally high ROI in the months when the draw % is very low and when the draw % is very high, the systems will lose money in the month or struggle to make much money. Importantly, when the draw stays within the 'normal' deviation in most months, my systems are profitable which is all that matters to me.



As the title of the post indicates, I don't need to track how the systems do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, I just need to track the % of games that finish a draw to work out if I will make a profit or not using my systems. ;)