I Have A Dream

Unfortunately my dream is nowhere near as lofty and as worthy as Mr. King's. Our man, Martin Luther dreamed that his four little children would one day live in a nation where they would not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.

And my dream? Well, it's that after a full day's trading, my P&L is exactly zero.

Er... what?

Yes, a little bizarre, I realise. Surely my dream should be a P&L of £50,000? I can't really explain it, but for some reason, I've often thought it would be kind of cool if I traded for a full day and after all the wins and losses, I ended up dead on £0.00p. I just think that would be excellent.

Admittedly I didn't trade a full day today - this evening, I only had three trades, trying my hand on some of the friendly internationals, but I came just about as close as I've ever come to my dream scenario.


Football: -£3.05 | Tote: |  Total P&L:  -£3.05 

 

Football Showing 1 - 3 of 3 markets

Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£)
Football / England v Netherlands : Correct Score 29-Feb-12 20:00  29-Feb-12 21:52  50.65
Football / Wales v Costa Rica : Correct Score 29-Feb-12 19:45  29-Feb-12 21:42  -104.16
Football / Croatia v Sweden : Correct Score 29-Feb-12 19:30  29-Feb-12 21:24  50.46


Maybe next time... Maybe one day, my dream will happen.

____________________________________

Incidentally, there was nothing amusing about the horrible clash of heads during the England v Holland match between Huntelaar and Chris Smalling, and I sincerely hope they'll both be okay... but I couldn't help a small guilty giggle at seeing Huntelaar lying on the ground with a mouthful of grass. Couldn't quite work out how that had happened.

I See Deep Patterns

SoccerDude:      I see deep patterns.
Malcolm Crowe:   In your dreams?
                 [SoccerDude shakes his head no]
Malcolm Crowe:   While you're awake?
                 [SoccerDude nods]
Malcolm Crowe:   Deep patterns like, in games? In leagues?
SoccerDude:      Floating around like regular patterns. They don't
                 see each other. They only see what they want to
                 see. They don't know they're patterns.
Malcolm Crowe:   How often do you see them?
SoccerDude:      All the time. They're everywhere.


Nice movie quote to make my point, huh? Yes, today’s post is all about patterns. And I do see deep patterns all the time. Can you see a pattern?

Well punk…? Do you?

Sorry, I seem to be stuck in movie land at present. But as mentioned, I do see patterns. And before we go any further, this is not me looking at Rorschach tests during my therapy sessions (if you must know, I’m now fully over my alien abduction), and it’s not my failure to understand the latest crochet outline that I’ve received from Knitting Weekly. No, the patterns I’m talking about are those that may be found within football data.

So how about you? Do you look and see patterns?

Football data is a funny old thing. On the surface, it looks quite basic: there’s a home win, a draw or an away win; and there are a number of goals scored in each match. None of this appears too complicated and, if anything, is rather superficial.

But let’s dig just a little bit deeper, and see what possibilities we’re faced with. Yes, there are only three possible results in a match, but what about these questions:

• What is the percentage of home wins, draws and away wins for each league on a month-by-month basis?
• If looking at ten years of historical data, does the percentage of home wins, draws and away wins change at any point in the season? Is there a trend?
• What is the percentage of home wins, draws and away wins for each league over the season when a top four team is playing a bottom four team?
• What is the percentage of home wins, draws and away wins for each league for each month of the season when a top four team is playing a bottom four team?
• If looking at ten years of historical data, does the percentage of home wins, draws and away wins when top four face bottom four change at any point in the season?

These rather basic questions took me about thirty seconds to think up, but I’d guess that you don’t know the answers. There are also easily drawn-up questions for Unders and Overs and also for goal time stats, although these would inevitably lead to even greater proliferation than the ones I’ve just posed, and would doubtless prove to be more complex. You may also want to draw-up questions based around the half-time/full-time, win-both-halves and clean sheet markets.

So look what’s just happened. In double-quick time, we’ve found ourselves completely overloaded (swamped) with questions, and - if we’re prepared to do the donkey work - also overloaded with stats that attempt to answer these questions.

I say, "if we're prepared to do the donkey work", because these are all questions that you won’t generally find on free websites such as soccerstats.com, soccerway.com and the like. Excellent though these sites are, if you're interested in finding the answers, you'll either have to pay for them or else create the data yourself.

But why bother? Why is the standard data (league tables, goal expectation, etc) not good enough? Well, it's unlikely that the standard data will highlight any hidden patterns - and patterns are fantastic. If you are able to draw together football data and view it in a unique way (or even in a non-unique way but in a manner that the majority don't have access to), then certain patterns or trends may come to light that can be taken advantage of. With these patterns, you are then in a position to do a number of things. Value bet and/or automation are the two that most come to mind.

So question the data around you. Try and look at the things everyone has access to in a different way - and who knows, you may just stumble on to something that will make it worth your while.

___________________________________

It's early days, but two of my winners tonight in my "away-from-home" type trading method are as a result of viewing the data in a different way. I've used that different view and applied it using a couple of the methods that I highlighted in my Correct Score Overview. This method has been profitable so far throughout this season, has a defined level of risk and a defined level of profit. If you can conjure-up these kind of strategies, they can become part of your bread-and-butter betting and can really provide an uplift to your P&L:


Soccer: £115.83 | Tote: |  Total P&L:  £115.83 

 

Soccer Showing 1 - 3 of 3 markets

Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£)
Soccer / Macclesfield v Plymouth : Match Odds 28-Feb-12 19:45  28-Feb-12 21:41  14.91
Soccer / Stevenage v Huddersfield : Correct Score 28-Feb-12 19:45  28-Feb-12 21:37  50.46
Soccer / Chesterfield v Charlton : Correct Score 28-Feb-12 19:45  28-Feb-12 21:09  50.46


I really do see deep patterns.

Don't Eat Yellow Snow

Okay, that's my first tip out of the way.

Yes people, you've guessed it. I am now a top-class tipster and I suggest you all follow my amazing advice and tips (for a reasonable fee, of course). My ROI is currently 110% (over a defined, selected period of time) and I have a long history of picking winners (I also have a long history of picking losers, but I won't mention those).

Whoops. Can I start that again? I need to make myself sound a bit more "corporate", giving the impression that, perhaps, I am in a group of seasoned professional tipsters. Okay here goes:

WE here at Tips-R-Us have countless years of experience and an unmatched record of success. Join US in a proven, profitable system where results are guaranteed.

Okay, I'll stop talking bollocks and explain what this is all about. I received this comment yesterday:

Hi sir, is there anyway to follow your tips ?

I must say, I like the "sir" bit. Very polite and it gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Unfortunately, there seems to have been some kind of mistake.

M'lud, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a tipster of any kind. Furthermore, your honour, I do not intend to become a tipster at any time in the future.

Right, I think that's cleared that up. I'm not quite sure how this chap got the impression that I provide tips, as I've never even hinted at doing so. Even if I did, why the hell would anyone want to listen to them? My blog has only been up five minutes, and I have no track record of any kind before it started. If the person who asked this question has read my blog, then they would be fully aware of the abundancy of mental weaknesses that I carry as my burden when it comes to betting and trading. So, if you must seek tipsters, my "tip" for you is to go and look somewhere else.

______________________________

And as if to prove my point, my P&L today has been a bit of a roller-coaster disaster. Started off well, then had a couple of largish losses, followed by some decent wins. Frankly, I'm absolutely amazed to have come away today with a small profit. At one point, I was staring a £300 red in the face. All in all, with the effort I put in today, it's all felt like a waste of my time.

Football: £33.36 | Tote: |  Total P&L:  £33.36 

 

Football Showing 1 - 10 of 10 markets

Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£)
Football / Cardiff v Liverpool : ET - Correct Score 26-Feb-12 16:00  26-Feb-12 18:34  42.90
Football / Cardiff v Liverpool : Over/Under 2.5 goals 26-Feb-12 16:00  26-Feb-12 17:59  -7.64
Football / Cardiff v Liverpool : Correct Score 26-Feb-12 16:00  26-Feb-12 17:58  3.81
Football / Cardiff v Liverpool : Match Odds 26-Feb-12 16:00  26-Feb-12 17:56  100.47
Football / Arsenal v Tottenham : Match Odds 26-Feb-12 13:30  26-Feb-12 15:27  38.03
Football / Arsenal v Tottenham : Over/Under 4.5 Goals 26-Feb-12 13:30  26-Feb-12 14:45  -185.29
Football / St Pauli v Braunschweig : Correct Score 26-Feb-12 12:30  26-Feb-12 14:23  -82.62
Football / Paderborn v Eintracht Frankfurt : Correct Score 26-Feb-12 12:30  26-Feb-12 14:21  50.46
Football / Arsenal v Tottenham : Over/Under 3.5 Goals 26-Feb-12 13:30  26-Feb-12 14:16  22.78
Football / Inverness CT v Rangers : Correct Score 26-Feb-12 12:45  26-Feb-12 14:15  50.46

... One last point. I absolutely do NOT want to discuss the Arsenal v Spurs match. I switched it off well before the end and went out to wash my car. I felt like throwing myself under it. The only sensible thing I can say about the match is fuck, shit, piss, wank, hairy bollocks and smelly snatches to the lot of you.

Two people were walking past a cemetery when one of them stopped and pointed out one of the graves.
"In that plot lies a good man and an Arsenal supporter", he said.
"Jesus!", exclamed the other man, "I didn't know they were putting two people in one grave now!"

Stroll In The Park

I painted the picture you see on the left during the Man City v Blackburn match. This is a real-life, accurate portrayal of the actual match, with all the Man City players relaxing and strolling around the Etihad "park" with not a care in the world (that's Balotelli hanging from the branch).

I do realise that Steve Kean had probably written this game off even before it had begun, preferring to keep his powder dry for more "winnable" matches - but really. Show just the smallest amount of pride, for your travelling fans if nothing else.


Did Blackburn have a single shot on goal? I'm not sure. Gutless fuckers.

Still, I wasn't there to entertain myself (I must keep reminding myself of), I was there to trade, and trade I did.


Football: £120.46 | Tote: |  Total P&L:  £120.46 

 

Football Showing 1 - 8 of 8 markets

Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£)
Football / Man City v Blackburn : Correct Score 25-Feb-12 17:30  25-Feb-12 19:25  40.46
Football / Man City v Blackburn : Over/Under 3.5 Goals 25-Feb-12 17:30  25-Feb-12 19:24  4.30
Football / Man City v Blackburn : Over/Under 2.5 goals 25-Feb-12 17:30  25-Feb-12 19:10  18.74
Football / QPR v Fulham : Correct Score 25-Feb-12 15:00  25-Feb-12 16:53  10.02
Football / Wolfsburg v Hoffenheim : Correct Score 25-Feb-12 14:30  25-Feb-12 16:19  10.78
Football / West Ham v C Palace : Over/Under 2.5 goals 25-Feb-12 12:45  25-Feb-12 14:46  8.23
Football / West Ham v C Palace : Over/Under 1.5 Goals 25-Feb-12 12:45  25-Feb-12 14:46  3.76
Football / West Ham v C Palace : Correct Score 25-Feb-12 12:45  25-Feb-12 14:43  24.17

Trading Habits

Been reading this month's Traders magazine, which has a two-part article on the "Habits of Wealthy Traders". This, of course, is directed towards traders of the stock and financial markets, but there is much in the article that can be successfully applied to us sports bettors and traders. I'll list the first ten here and briefly go through them.

1. Wealthy traders are patient with winning trades and enormously impatient with losing trades.
Nothing new here. This is a well-worn motto about letting winning positions run and cutting losing positions quickly. Yada yada.



2. Wealthy traders realise that making money is more important that being right.
This is a bit more interesting. I think Peter Webb had a way of putting this, and it was something like, "Don't fall in love with a position because it will never love you back". Essentially, be completely and utterly prepared to stand your position on its head. Don't stick with something just because you judged it that way at the start. Look what's actually happening and react accordingly. Always good advice.

3. Wealthy traders view technical analysis as a picture of where traders are lining up to buy and sell.
This also is of interest. Here they are saying that charts and trendlines should not necessarily be viewed as indications that a price is going to turn or change direction, but rather as snapshots of where other traders are lining up to buy or sell (back or lay) - a mental shift of thinking in other words. Not sure how useful this is for me however.

4. Before they enter every trade, wealthy traders know where they will exit for either profit or loss.
For me, this is common sense. If I open a trade, I know how much profit I am looking for in advance - although this can change if things turn in my favour (see point 1). The loss should also be pre-calculated.

5. Wealthy traders approach trade number five with the same conviction as the previous four losing trades.
This, I suppose, is all to do with mental toughness. If we really believe that we have an edge of some kind, then we have to play that edge out in the market. Sometimes the market will go against us (variance) but there should be perserverance and the same, steady approach should be adopted come what may. You've lost the last four? Don't allow your confidence to be knocked. Work your way through the variance and come out the other side.

6. Wealthy traders use "naked" charts.
Not so relevant to us exchange bettors, although I'm sure there are some out there who employ "too many" tools and end up clouding the issue. This can lead to a "cannot see the wood for the trees" scenario.

7. Wealthy traders are comfortable making decisions with incomplete information.
Isn't that just trading full-stop? Complete information is having the final result at hand, and I don't know too many people who have access to that. Unfortunately I don't have the Sport Almanac for the years 2000 to 2020 (like Biff did in Back To The Future), so I'll have to settle for making judgements on the information I can get. Not really sure what they're saying here.

8. Wealthy traders stopped trying to pick tops and bottoms long ago.
I like this one. They're saying that the masses look for indications of the top of the peak or the bottom of the valley, hoping to ride the wave - whereas wealthy traders simply wait for it to happen and grab the middle of the move.

This is much more difficult than it sounds of course. On the occasions when I've tried to trade the GGs (which I'm not very good at), by the time I've reacted to a change of direction, it's already bottoming/topped out. This may be more applicable to the financial markets than the betting exchanges, I don't know.

9. Wealthy traders do not think of the market as expensive or cheap.
To apply this to sports trading, I would say they are implying that value is not necessarily the right judgement when trading. Instead the question should simply be "Can I buy or sell this for a profit in the next five/ten seconds/minutes?" There is no "value" in the eyes of the trader, only the knowledge that they can make a profit in the next immediate period.

This one will, I'm sure, open up a right can of worms. I'm sure there are many people who will agree with this, and a ton of people who won't.

10. Wealthy traders are aggressive with size when they are doing well and modest when they are not.
This is the absolute opposite of chasing losses. When confident of a position that is starting to go well, increase the stake. When you've lost a trade badly, scale right back until a real and definite opportunity next arises.


Okay, well that's the summary of part one. I have chased my way through it, and with my superficial brushstrokes, may have lost some of the original meaning, but at least one of these should prove to be relevant to all of us.

___________________________________

Another good, solid night for me on the markets. I seem to have got my steady approach back that I had in January but seemed to have temporarily lost at the beginning on February. Pleased with tonight's trading:


Football: £134.90 | Tote: |  Total P&L:  £134.90 

 

Football Showing 1 - 5 of 5 markets

Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£)
Football / Mgladbach v Hamburg : Over/Under 2.5 goals 24-Feb-12 19:30  24-Feb-12 21:21  1.19
Football / Mgladbach v Hamburg : Correct Score 24-Feb-12 19:30  24-Feb-12 21:20  21.21
Football / Angers v Bastia : Correct Score 24-Feb-12 19:00  24-Feb-12 20:52  50.46
Football / Mgladbach v Hamburg : Over/Under 1.5 Goals 24-Feb-12 19:30  24-Feb-12 20:45  1.09
Football / Dynamo Dresden v Duisburg : Correct Score 24-Feb-12 17:00  24-Feb-12 18:49  60.95

Well Supported

Like our good lady friend in the picture here, I was in need of strong support yesterday with my last post. At the time, I couldn't see how to provide a download link for the data file accompanying my entry on Dyads and Triads, but I received a great deal of help, via comments and also direct by email.

Boro and Ken both offered to host my Excel file on their sites, so particular thanks to them. As it happens, I'd already got off my arse and sorted it out.


I did also get a question from Cloppa about Goal Supremacy:

Eddie - going back to goal supremacy, what is your preferred method for the last 6 games? i.e last 6 both home and away, or last 6 home for home team and last 6 away for away team? I am leaning towards the latter.

This doesn't necessarily have to be an either/or answer. You could actually do both. For example, you could decide to have 60% of the evaluation based on home games for the home team and away games for the away team, and the rest for overall games.

        Home Team                                 Away Team
(Last six home games * 0.6)            (Last six away games * 0.6)
          +                                            +
(Last six overall games * 0.4)         (Last six overal games * 0.4)

Of course, the 40% is already taking some of the home games (for the home team) and some of the away games (for the away games) into account, so you may want to change that part to away games (for the home team) and home games (for the away team). Anyway, you get the point. You can weight them anyhow you like.


Got home tonight and traded the Europa League games, which went nice and easy. Man Utd started off well, but were probably lucky in the end that they didn't go out of the competition. They were subdued for some reason - complacency perhaps.


Football: £98.26 | Tote: |  Total P&L:  £98.26 

 

Football Showing 1 - 5 of 5 markets

Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£)
Football / Man Utd v Ajax : Correct Score 23-Feb-12 20:05  23-Feb-12 21:57  32.81
Football / Man Utd v Ajax : Over/Under 3.5 Goals 23-Feb-12 20:05  23-Feb-12 21:55  10.89
Football / Man Utd v Ajax : Over/Under 2.5 goals 23-Feb-12 20:05  23-Feb-12 21:49  26.72
Football / Valencia v Stoke : Over/Under 2.5 goals 23-Feb-12 18:00  23-Feb-12 19:54  15.51
Football / Valencia v Stoke : Correct Score 23-Feb-12 18:00  23-Feb-12 19:52  12.33

Compiling Match Odds (Part II)

In the first part of this series (HERE), we looked at Goal Supremacy. This produced match odds based on the goal difference of each team in question over the last six matches. Taking a match at random (and it really was random), the compiled odds weren't too far away from the odds that the bookmakers were offering. So this would indicate that we've made a decent enough start on the path to generating our own match odds.

This was all fine and dandy, but it's not too difficult to see some problems with this first method. Chief amongst these is that bookmakers are really pretty good at pricing up matches (the bastards), and if we perform our own pricing just based on goals scored and conceded, we'll probably not gain any real ground. Relying only on such an obvious and basic method may not throw-up any value bets for us to get our teeth into.

Also, as discussed in the comments after the initial posting, there is the issue with the type of goal scored. Should a goal scored against Man Utd or Man City be given the same points value as a goal scored against Wolves or Bolton? And not discussed but just as relevant is whether to use all the goals for all the past six matches. By that I mean should we use all the last six matches, home and away? Or should we just use the last six home matches for the home team and the last six away matches for the away team? Yes, yet another weighting issue to consider. Sorry about that.

In essence, we can say that Goal Supremacy was a good start at trying to price up a match, but if we're serious about our pursuit of finding value, then we probably need to delve just a little bit further.

The next method, detailed below, sadly does not address all the issues just outlined, but does provide another way of looking at football data and another way of compiling match odds. This can only help us to build-up an overall calculation. Later methods should begin to address more of our concerns.

Dyads and Triads

You'll be pleased to know that this is nothing to do with gang culture. Unfortunately I cannot remember where I stole this method from, so am not able to give due credit and reference to the originator. This doesn't really matter. I'm sure whomever I stole it from probably stole it themselves. That's how these things work. I do seem to remember, however, that this was a system devised by some professor or other when he was trying to formulate an effective way to play the Pools.

So what is a dyad and a triad? Nothing too dramatic: a dyad is a sequence of two matches and a triad is a sequence of three matches. If we look at dyads first, we can see that from the three possible results, we can acquire six possible outcomes depending on whether we're dealing with the home team or the away team:

1. Home Win    (HW)
2. Home Draw   (HD)
3. Home Loss   (HL)
4. Away Win    (AW)
5. Away Draw   (AD)
6. Away Loss   (AL)

A dyad is a combination of any of these two, and the triad is the predicted third result. These groupings have been looked at in detail over the course of several seasons, and back-tested to predict the result of the third match in the sequence. 

Now my stolen... erm I mean acquired, data for this method was taken from 10 years worth of English football league results, and looked at the percentage of home wins, draws and away wins based on every single dyad combination. For example, the triad result for the dyad "HW, AL" showed the following:

   Home Win = 47.38%, Home Draw = 26.19%, Home Loss = 26.43%

Of course, this is not too far from the long-term average anyway, but it's these relationships and the results recorded for each combination that going to be is the basis of our predictions, allowing us to draw-up probabilities for each outcome. Opportunities will arise when the dyads throw-up odds away from the norm.

Right, so when looking at Goal Supremacy, we used the upcoming Arsenal v Spurs match. So let's now use the same match for this method.

   Arsenal's current dyad (EPL only) is: HW, AW

   Spurs' current dyad (EPL only) is     : AD, HW

Note, that the latest match always comes last in the dyad (this is important). Using the data available, this equates:

   Home = 49.30%, Away = 25.10%, 25.60%

And if we divide 1 by all these percentages, we get match odds of:

   Home = 2.03, Away = 3.98, Draw = 3.91

It's about now that you may be groaning and saying to yourself, "Well, how the hell am I going to generate all this data that he's talking about? I might as well stop reading now."

That's your decision, of course, but I would like to just mention that I will be providing all this data for you in a spreadsheet. Please find the link to download the file at the end of this post. The data comes in the form of an Excel workbook. Inside the workbook are the following worksheets:

• "Config" - contains each combination to be looked-up with a lookup number (defined as "dyad_lookup" name)
• "Triad HW" - Every dyad combination that resulted in a home win triad over the last ten years
• "Triad AW" - Every dyad combination that resulted in an away win triad over the last ten years
• "Triad D"     - Every dyad combination that resulted in a draw triad over the last ten years
• "Analysis"   - contains an example of how I perform the lookup. Examine the H9, I9 and J9 for the lookup itself. If you're an Excel wiz, then you may have a superior method to the one I've used.

And that's it. This method, even if used on it's own, is still good enough to raise any predictions well above random. Good luck.

Download the data in Excel spreadsheet format =>  HERE