The Italian Way

Cassini from Green All Over kindly popped over to my "hood" the other day. He wandered through a couple of my blog corridors, opened a few doors and generally made himself at home here in FootyTradingPosts land. He didn't wipe his feet when he came in, I noticed, and I was surprised to see one of my sock drawers has been left open, which I can't quite fathom. Worryingly, there is also a huge bogey on one of my newly-painted walls, which looks suspiciously "Italian" in its nature - but I'll reluctantly excuse that, I suppose.

Whilst making himself at home here, Cassini did have some "issues" with the way I've decorated the place, in particular concerning my post on the Charity Shield (sorry, Community Shield). In that post, I casually mentioned that there were only eight draws from 22 Charity Shield matches since 1990, but Cassini duly pointed out that this equates to rather small odds for the draw, so what on earth was I talking about.

Okay, he has me in a head-lock there (which again, is very bad manners when visiting someone in their own home, if you ask me), so I'll hold my hand up to that. It doesn't take five seconds to calculate the odds to find the truth, and I should have done so. Fair cop.

But! My fellow blogger-type people, calculating the odds to show the true picture was just about the only thing that Cassini did get right. After that, he got it all wrong and, if I'm honest, has made a fair old mess in one of my blog rooms. It's not exactly a dirty protest in there, but jeez!

He goes onto say:

And why look back at the last 22 matches? It's not exactly a round number, so could it be because games 21 and 22 were both draws? 6 from 20 (3.33) or 9 from 30 (3.33) are also both true, suggesting the 22 figure was somewhat cherry-picked

Erm, I think you're arguing the wrong way here, my good man. I was trying to say there were not many draws in the Charity Shield, so if I was cherry-picking I would most certainly have omitted games 21 and 22, not included them. I've done myself a disservice by including them, and so the point raised makes no sense at all. As it happens, even 6 from 20 doesn't help my invalid point, but at least it's going in the right direction.

And yes, 22 matches is not a round number, but 1990 is a round number and I just plucked a cut-off date at random. Would it have made more sense to go back to 1908 when the competition started?

Okay, I'm getting nicely warmed up now. I've taken off my smoking jacket, placed my meerschaum pipe carefully in its silver holder and I've told the butler to stop ironing my newspaper so he can loosen my cufflinks. That's how serious this all is.

Cassini then states:

With probably thousands of people 'trading' this game, it seems to me that identifying in-play trading opportunities is at best difficult, and that you are better served to let the bet run. Not all matches will play out as your research suggests of course, but no one with any understanding of sports betting expects that, but the key is to be right more often than the odds suggest you should be. Value.

It's right here that I feel obliged to throw our poor Cassini a rubber ring, because he's clearly on the point of drowning. Once you've dried yourself off, you can borrow my pipe (excuse the spittle at the end of the pipe) and smoking jacket and have a good rest. You may need them more than me.

    With probably thousands of people 'trading' this game, identifying in-play trading
    opportunities is at best difficult...

Thousands of people? Oh no, whatever shall we do? I'd better stop what I'm doing straight away then. I'm never going to win.

I'm sure in-play trading opportunities are indeed "difficult" for some people, but this is where I'm completely at home, and where all my bread-and-butter betting comes from; and whilst I'm no stranger to the odd large loss when in-play (as this blog will testify), it is also a place where I have a qualified and defined edge. Is the suggestion that I now give-up this edge that I've worked so hard to acquire, and move onto something else entirely different?

Straight bets are one thing, and good solid research and analysis will serve anyone pursuing that approach well - but to suggest that in-play trading should be dropped in preference to straight betting (if that is indeed what Cassini is suggesting) seems a rather strange point to make. They are two completely different things, which can actually run side-by-side quite nicely. Two individual banks seems like a good idea to me, one for each activity. This allows a complete separation of those activities. But even if the individual doesn't want to have separate banks, I would never suggest that someone drops one activity over the other. Frankly that's bordering on ludicrous.

Ooh, I'm enjoying all this cross-blog banter. It's quite good fun...

But unfortunately I have to go now. I've put on my pink apron and my marigolds, tied a hanky in my hair and have a spray can of Mr Sheen in my hand. With Cassini's "relaxed" attitudes when visiting someone's blog, I've quite a bit of cleaning-up to do. This is not a hotel, you know!