To hell in a handbasket

This is the poor soul who has landed himself right in the middle of a storm of protest in a place he probably couldn't find on a map before he arrived. Yes, please welcome Mr. Maricio Pochettino.

Huh? Who?

Precisely. Who the hell is Maricio Pochettino? Why have Southampton sacked a decent manager who looked like he was finally starting to get to grips with life in the Premier League, only to replace him with an unknown Argentine who doesn't speak English, has no knowledge or experience of the Premier League and has only ever managed one mediocre Spanish club who sacked him after he left the team nine points adrift at the bottom of the La Liga table? It is quite beyond reasoning.

Talk about a steep learning curve. Pochettino must have the abilities of a mountain goat to survive this tenure.

And what complete and utter wanker made this decision at Southampton? Where in the hell is the logic? Where is even the smallest scintilla of loyalty and common-sense? Southampton fans, former players and managers have been quick to castigate the Southampton board and howl in protest. And who can blame them? I'm a Spurs supporter but I do have deep sympathy with anyone following the Saints. With Adkins, I'd have given you a decent shot at staying in the Premier League this season. There was no guarantee of that, of course, but as mentioned, they did appear to be turning a corner.

With Pinocchio (as he must surely be called) how will they fare now? Well, I suppose it all depends on how motivating/demotiviating this absurd action is for the players. How frustrating is it going to be having to converse with your manager through a translator? How easy is it going to be performing for someone with no real pedigree or track-record? How easy will it be to adopt to a foreign manager's methods and tactics? Only time will tell.

For the fans sake, I hope he proves competent, but I now fear for their survival. The ship has well and truly sailed in the port of Southampton.

Breaking News: water is wet

Yes, water is indeed wet, it gets dark when the sun goes down, big tits are not good on a man and smoking 100 Rothmans a day is not healthy for you.

... oh, and yes, Luis Suarez is a diver.
Hm? What was that. Suarez is a diver? Are you sure? Well, yes, apparently the man who is whiter than white has confessed all when giving an interview to Fox Sports Argentina, admitting that his ridiculous swan dive when playing against Stoke was indeed an example of, how shall we say?, not so honest behaviour. That's right, Suarez is a contestant that didn't quite make the grade to appear on Tom Daley's reality television series Splash!

Of course the fact that Suarez has finally done the decent thing and admitted what every person on the planet already knows is not the interesting thing about all this nonsense. No. It's Brendan Rodgers sham anger at Suarez's admission, calling it "unacceptable" and letting us all know that the matter will be dealt with internally.

It seems that simulation begets simulation. Suarez's fake pole-axing after being assaulted by a feather, followed this week by Rodgers fake ire at finally finding-out in print what he'd seen first hand anyway. It's beyond belief.

Being the wise monkey with his hands over his eyes is not a sensible or credible approach, and it's halfway down the road to Kenny Dalglish's style of "deny everything" management. Perhaps Rodgers still believes the Earth is flat because he hasn't been up to space and seen it for himself? Maybe he's still holding-out hope that the Loch Ness monster will be found. And perhaps he still thinks that Liverpool are a big and important club.

In my view both Suarez and Rodgers should receive some kind of sanction for their gross dishonesty. Neither are oil paintings, so maybe they should be forced into this years annual gurning competition as a penalty - although Suarez does have an unfair advantage there.

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A couple of comments now. The first on my post about maintaining records of all betting activity:


Laurie Wakeham17 January 2013 02:27

I too have spent ages setting up spreadsheets.I have created a new one for 2013,along with a statsitics and prediction model spreadsheet(during work hours as im bored to death and need a new job desperately).

I'm hoping these pain staking hours of inputting statistics will pay off this year.So fingers crossed. Altho i still have to do an unders/over model too,but cant be arsed at the moment as its just too hot and being couped up in dark cave whilst its 40 degrees outside just isnt healthy,(almost as unhealthy as my betting account).

Good luck on your effort Laurie, although putting-up with that heat must be troublesome. You poor dear! And here we are in England, lucky enough to be enjoying snow blizzards and temperatures of -10 degrees. How you must envy us.

The other comment I have received recently was from Swearbox in response to my post on his blog:

Swearbox16 January 2013 19:22
"Don't spend more than three or four minutes reading the absolute shite in there as it will surely melt you brain. "

Hmmmm...I can't make up my mind whether you are referring to my blog posts or the comments that follow some of them. Hopefully it's the latter but clarification would be great.

As far as it becoming a 'mini-forum' then that's fairly accurate. As you pointed out in your piece above I am currently banned from the forums and have been for the best part of a year now. So if I have something to say that I would have said on the forums I say it on my blog. If others want to comment then I welcome that and it's fair to say that I don't spend too much time on moderating comments though I did go through a period where I had to censor a bunch of posts due to repetitive stupid remarks aimed at mr Bob Vegas that were uncalled for.

My own moderation policy has led to a tremendous amount of 'same old same old' crappy flame wars and my advice is if you don't want to read that then don't read it. In between the insults the comments also serve as a place where pleasantry is exchanged too (shock horror)! Having said that the meat of the blog is the posts and not the comments and I try to make it an interesting read and I've had many folk tell me they enjoyed reading it. 

I'll conclude by saying thanks for putting me in the spotlight...I'm not sure what sort of a readership you have but I suspect it's not huge as my stats don't show a tremendous influx of traffic coming from your site...nevertheless your post did generate some interest so thank you. If you really do find my blog distasteful then you always have the option of removing me from your blogroll which is entirely up to you but I would say that we're in the business of helping each other not obstructing each other. Anyway I'll shut up for now and end by wishing you the best for 2013 and beyond.

There are a few points here, so I'll try to address them. First, yes I was referring to the comments section of your particular post and not your blog in general. I'd have to agree that some of your posts are worth reading and you  can be entertaining. 

I do also take the point about bloggers generally supporting each other and I have no intention of removing you from my blogroll. I don't recall whether I'm on yours or not, but if I am and you decide to remove it, then that's entirely up to you - but it will not result in you being removed from mine. I am childish in many ways, but that would be a step too far, even for me.

My post was largely meant to highlight the low and very poor standard of the Betfair forum, which one of your posts appears to have become an extension of. My target was the lame bunch of people who don't seem to have anything better to do than cause trouble amongst themselves.

Other than that, there does seem to be a bit of "dick checking" hidden within your comments, and a "my dad is bigger than your dad" aspect. What do I mean? 

"'Im not sure what sort of a readership you have but I suspect it's not huge as my stats don't show a tremendous influx of traffic coming from your site"

That sounds like a challenge! I've only been going just over a year now on this blog, but attract between 450 and 500 hits each day and have around 90,000 overall. Judging by the small number of posts you generally make, I'd be surprised (but not shocked) if your equate to that.

... so you see my dick is indeed bigger than yours, and my dad could almost certainly tear your dad a new arsehole.

Cheers.
 

A record disaster

As most normal long-term bettors and traders, I keep regular records of my bets and trades. Probably like most of you, I've also spent a great deal of time creating a snazzy spreadsheet to suit my needs and my betting style. Over the years, I've built-up a full record of all my bets, the type of bets, which markets/trades are successful and which are less profitable or fail.

This of course is absolutely vital as our brains can fool us into thinking that we're doing well in one particular area (a couple of big wins has the ability to blind us) when in fact we're in the red. Over the years, I've dropped countless strategies that I "thought" were doing okay, but the stats proved otherwise.

Recently however, I've got myself into a bit of a sticky patch. I've always been prudent in updating my stats after each day's trading, but for some reason I've recently allowed myself to become lazy in this respect. My stats are very important to me, but I've now created a situation where I have masses of results to input and, much like a tax return or doing one's expenses (which incidentally I'm also behind on!), it has become something to avoid. Now after each day's trading, I feel a pang of regret and also slightly nervous at the thought of attacking my overdue stats.

I'm back in my hotel tomorrow night, and with a very slim football card, I shall bite the bullet and start working my way slowly through my stats backlog. It's not something that I want to do, but it's absolutely vital if I am in any way serious about my betting.

It's an old cliche, but if you haven't started logging your bets in a bespoke spready, then I would urge you to start doing so. I'm personally vowing never to get behind again - once I've finally got myself straight.

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It was about this time last year that I said to myself (and I think I may have even declared it on this blog) that I was going to get up and running with some serious tennis trading during 2012. Well, as we all know, I'm full of shit and beyond some vague Slam bets, I haven't really taken it seriously. Firstly, I just haven't found the time as I do spend a lot of time on my beloved footy, but also (in hindsight) I do believe it is sensible to stick with a speciality. My speciality is not tennis, it's football. It's the one sport I love watching and trading, but even if I wasn't trading it, I would still watch it and absorb all that's on offer. I suppose I just have to be honest with myself and state that I will never be a serious tennis trader. It's not my first love.

Regardless of all that, however, I will be "auto-trading" the early stages of the Australian Open. This was first highlighted by Peter Webb, but rounds One and Two throw-up a few 1.03/4 "certainties" that just have to be layed. And when I say layed, I mean lay them with a view to backing later if/when they start shakily. For example, Murray plays tonight and can be layed at 1.04. I fully expect him to win, but if his opponent should start well, or Murray starts slowly, then there will be a small drift to be taken advantage of. Laying five or six of these means only one favourite "wobble" will be enough for some green. If there is no wobble, there is still plenty of time to get out for a very small red.

Personally, I'll be firing-up Betangel and doing all this through automation. Hopefully I can wake-up in the morning and seen some profit somewhere. Either way, the liability is neglible:

Haase v Murray (1.04)
Darcis v Kohlscreiber (1.17)
Paire v Federer (1.04)
Sela v Davydenko (1.17)

When is a blog not a blog?

Answer: when it becomes a weird losers forum for the twisted, vindictive, mindless individuals who surely have no home life, no friends, and absolutely no edge in the betting game.

What am I on about? Well, I pop onto the Betfair forum every now and then, even though it is serious decline and is seemingly about to become completely moribund. Anyway, when I did have a look recently, I saw there was the usual break-out of spats between the various childish people on there - with one long-running argument between a couple of people who seem to have nothing better to do than spend all their time on the forum. Jesus, do these people even have time for betting?

I think I signed up for the Betfair forum at the beginning of 2008, and in those five years I think I've made less than 200 posts. But there are posters on the BF forum who have only signed-up a few months and yet have thousands of posts, and appear to have opinions on absolutely everything.

Don't ask me why, but I did revisit the forum again recently, and noticed that one of these individuals, a particularly sad specimen who used to trawl any running thread to see where he could make trouble, had managed to get himself banned from the forum.

Swearbox from the blog The Expat Punter, and someone who also managed to get himself banned from the Betfair forum, posted an entry on this individual (HERE) - and it duly sparked a running flame war in the comments section of that post that continues even now. There are now over 800 comments for Swearbox's post, including multiple comments from the subject of the post, who of course has nowhere else to peddle his poisonous views.

So now that blog has seemingly turned into a mini-forum of some description - although I do warn you. Don't spend more than three or four minutes reading the absolute shite in there as it will surely melt you brain. Talk about old women, it's unbelievable. Backwards and forwards, going over the same ground time upon time. It's breathtaking how much time some people are willing to dedicate to absolutely nothing.

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Yes, we were all greeted with this familiar page again today, and on this occasion the timing could not have been better (or worse). Three O'clock on a Saturday afternoon. Oh dear oh dear.

Luckily I only had a few straight bets on (some dutch's) that I had no intention of changing, so I wasn't affected, but I do know a great many were as they were locked-out of open positions for the whole of the first half of matches.

Yes another PR disaster for the greatest betting exchange in the world.

Fink On

The Fink Tank stats site, also known as the Dectech Predictor was originally created by a team at the Times Newspaper. Using their own algorithm, they create percentage chances for teams based on shots (on and off target).

 

The Fink Tank website can be viewed HERE.

 

This is a commonly-used method to derive different odds and attempt to eek out a little value from the normal odds on offer from the exchanges and bookmakers. Generally speaking, they do seem to hold some worth and should be looked at and checked-out by anyone serious about their betting. It’s probably not a good idea just to take them in isolation, but rather use them to enrich your data sets.

 

 

Having said that, looking at the Fink Tank ratings for the New Year fixtures, there are a few standout matches for me.

 

Swansea v Aston Villa:

According to Fink Tank, Aston Villa – who, let’s be frank, have been absolutely woeful recently – are amazing value. You may have to grit your teeth if you decide to back Villa, or perhaps you may want to hedge a little by settling on an AH0 or AH0.25

 

Liverpool v Sunderland:

Liverpool, as usual are ridiculously priced compared to their actual performances, and have been for the last few years. They are currently a paltry 1.43 on Betfair (better elsewhere) but according to Fink Tank, it’s not just the mis-pricing of the home side that makes Sunderland a decent bet.

 

Southampton v Arsenal:

Another interesting one. Arsenal have had an excellent Christmas campaign and, I suppose, everyone expects them to travel to the south coast and complete another win. Southampton, however, show value according to Fink Tank.

 

Others to consider are Fulham (another side who have taken a dip in form) away to West Brom; Stoke at home to Man City; and QPR away to Chelsea (although you’ll be a brave man to take that bet on).

 

Do remember. I’m not saying any of these will win. They are not bets based on form, but on value. If you look for value, then the three I have highlighted should be of interest to all of you. I'm going to have a small tickle on all three.

 

I Might post on New Year’s day if I manage to trade anything. If not Happy New Year to you all… oh and happy birthday to me.

 

Not so smarket

Don't know if you've been following the thread on the Betangel forum about Smarkets recently. If any of you have ever used Smarkets, then it may be worth your while doing so. it's here: Smarkets begins closing successful accounts.

Smarkets are a betting exchange that's been around since 2008, they have a flat 2% commission fee and have passed 100 million in trading volume. Small fry compared to Betfair, of course, but it's progress isn't it? Or so it would seem.

For it now appears that Smarkets have taken the dubious decision to start closing profitable accounts - or should I say profitable accounts that don't quite fit the profile they require from their customers. So if you have a particular style of trading that doesn't help Smarket's small number of market makers, then it looks like you'll be asked to leave the premises.

And surely this is the death knell for Smarkets? A betting exchange is a betting exchange. Smarkets, Betfair and Betdaq can change the window-dressing, apply different commission structure and do their best to attract a certain type of bettor/trader. But to actively close accounts they don't like is the antithesis of a betting exchange and will surely send current and potential customers away in droves. A shockingly bad move.

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So what a cracking set of Christmas football fixtures we've had so far. Amazing stuff, with goals flying in all over the place. Peter Webb, from Betangel has reminded us, however, that we shouldn't be fooled into thinking that this will continue. The average number of goals may be creeping-up, but it's certainly not shooting-up. See Peter's blog post here: Goal Fest.

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Well, after a horrible day traipsing round the shops yesterday, I managed to miss every trading opportunity going. I did catch all the matches on Match Of The Day in the evening, but can't help feeling it would have been good fun to trade it all.

Today, the Everton v Chelsea match went well, with no real issues. Missed the first two goals in the QPR v Liverpool match, but did jump on after that. How bad were QPR? Terrible. I layed Liverpool at 0-3 hoping for some small fightback from QPR, but they had nothing. Powder-puff stuff and surely they will be relegated now.
 

Football: £156.66 | Tote: |  Total P&L:  £156.66 

 
Football Showing 1 - 8 of 8 markets

Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£)
Football / QPR v Liverpool : Correct Score 30-Dec-12 16:00  30-Dec-12 17:50  29.91
Football / QPR v Liverpool : Over/Under 3.5 Goals 30-Dec-12 16:00  30-Dec-12 17:50  13.18
Football / QPR v Liverpool : Match Odds 30-Dec-12 16:00  30-Dec-12 17:50  -4.00
Football / QPR v Liverpool : Over/Under 4.5 Goals 30-Dec-12 16:00  30-Dec-12 17:49  14.28
Football / QPR v Liverpool : Over/Under 2.5 Goals 30-Dec-12 16:00  30-Dec-12 16:27  5.44
Football / Everton v Chelsea : Correct Score 30-Dec-12 13:30  30-Dec-12 15:27  77.54
Football / Everton v Chelsea : Over/Under 3.5 Goals 30-Dec-12 13:30  30-Dec-12 15:27  4.72
Football / Everton v Chelsea : Over/Under 2.5 Goals 30-Dec-12 13:30  30-Dec-12 15:04  15.59

AWOL

Soccerdude shuffles slowly and guiltily in through the door, looking down at the ground, kicking dirt up from the ground as he makes his way towards the front and towards the microphone. Pausing hesitantly in front of it, he clears his throat, looks down at the ground once more, and then starts to speak.

"I, er.."

His quiet voice hardly breaks the silence, a touch of feedback making more impact than his address.

"... I am... well, I suppose that I'm..."

"ARE YOU SORRY, SOCCERDUDE?", shouts someone from the listening throng.

Soccerdude looks up, his face wreathed in gratitude for the assistance. "Yes! That's right. I'm sorry. I've been, erm..."

And with that, his address falters yet again.

________________________________________

Okay, hardly Harold Pinter is it, but you get the idea. I've been - well how shall we say? - absent without leave might be the best term. Anyway, bollocks to it. I appear to be in good company as there are a couple of other bloggers who's posts have also dried-up somewhat. I shall not bore you with any excuses. I've been trading (although not excessively) this December, but just haven't got round to blogging about it for some reason. Tough shitty titty.

Still, with the onset of the new year. Resolutions and all that, I'm sure things will take an upturn. And accompanied by some outstanding trading from all of us, I'm sure it's going to be a runaway train of success for each and every one of us in all aspects of our home, business and betting life.

...Or not as the case may be.

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Right, well I have the annual torture of the January sales tomorrow.  So it's Lakeside shopping hell for me and a good chunk of trading will be missed - including the lunchtime match between Sunderland and Spurs on telly. I do have a small forlorn hope that I may get back for the Arsenal match at tea time, but doubtless that will be missed as well and that will be the whole day written-off. Not only will I have a huge assault on my poor little old wallet, but there will be no chance to replenish it with some decent trading.

Sunday should be hopefully be clear for some trading. Monday there's nothing on but that also happens to be my birthday. New Year's day I tend not to trade as I have to scrape my tongue off the carpet and get my head out of the toilet bowl - but if I'm not too bad, then there's lots of action to be had that day. In an ideal world I will trade on New Year's day as it would be good to start the year on a decent winning day. Assuming of course that it will be a winning day.

So do I have any New Year's resolutions with regards to betting and trading, I hear you ask? I suppose only a fool would answer yes to that question... and my answer is "yes".

It's only natural to cast one's eye back over the last year and to see how we might improve and refine things if possible. As a large amount of my trading is carried-out in-play, I've been looking at the amount of time I've spent trading and working-out whether it's been worthwhile. For me I would say it has been worth it because I really enjoy my trading. It's a hobby. Nothing more and nothing less and it feels good when a trade goes well and I beat the market. That's undoubtedly satisfying and so, based on that alone, I have to say the time is well spent.

However (and you knew there was going to be a "however", didn't you?), I do also have to look at other factors. Most importantly my wife and children. They have largely got used to me staring at my stats spreadsheets or a betting API throughout the weekends, but increasingly I've been noticing my guilt at this has been gnawing away at me while doing so. It's that shitty American phrase "quality time" that has been making me feel uncomfortable. I don't need the money that I make from my betting, it's largely incidental for me. I bet because it's fun to bet. But the sighs from my youngest daughter when she sees a football match on the TV are getting a bit hard to take.

I would therefore like to make a small, if not dramatic shift in my betting activities to allow me to reduce the time I spend betting and give some of it back to my family. I will therefore be spending a bit more time on my bots than I have done this last year, and I will also be increasing slightly the amount of time I give over to my straight betting. Hopefully these activities will still allow me the satisfaction of beating the market, also give me something to blog about and yet free-up a bit of my weekend time.

Anway, this is all just hot air at the moment (something which I am superbly skilled at producing). I need to sit down and plan this all out properly, and until I have actually done that then nothing will change. I'm not bright enough to just change the slant of my betting on a whim. I need a properly focused and thought-out plan of action. When I've done it, I'll try and let you know.

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I do also have (if not a resolution) a mental resolve to complete some missing posts in the New Year. I have repeatedly been asked for the missing posts on weighting Poisson and also for the post on MLE. With my hand on my heart, I do solemnly swear to get off my fat and lazy arse and knock these posts up. Presently I don't have a great deal of enthusiasm to do them as they are rather dry subjects, but they are not that hard to produce so I'll make a start in early January and keep pecking away at them until they are complete.

Hope you all have a good New Year. I'll try and post on Sunday if I get some trades in.