Matt, otherwise known by the rather mystifying moniker of 'IronyPirate', has an interesting blog going and it's well worth a read. I don't know where he got the name of his blog from, but I'm sure he consulted his lawyers before choosing it ;-)
Matt likes spreadsheets and trawling through data looking for reasoning to aid him in his decision making, an exercise which I must confess that, despite knowing that I should, I don't generally do. My research is normally restricted to a quick look at the H2H on the Betfair site and a glance at www.soccerway.com to give at least a crumb of comfort to my decision making. Advertisements for life assurance products and similar carry a warning along the lines of 'past performance is no guarantee of future performance' and football data needs to be treated with similar caution in my opinion. But as a guide it has to be better than nothing!
If your data mining produces a sure fire way of avoiding 0-0's, Matt, I'd bottle it if were you, and put me down for the first crate, please! As that's unlikely to happen I'll certainly keep a weather eye on your research and watch your strategies develop with interest.
Selasa, 06 November 2012
Senin, 05 November 2012
Options, options, options
A great post by Eddie at A Football Trader's Path about a little trade that I did the other night. As he is much more of an analytical sort of bloke than me he back tested laying 2 goal leads across a couple of leagues with some interesting results. Take a look here.
Essentially all I did was to lay Cottbus in the Match Odds market when they were 0-2 in the second half of a Bundesliga 2 match against Bochum. The home team had started as marginal favourites in a classic Scatter Gun profiled match. In that particular instance I simply removed my liability in the market at 1-2 and let the trade run to be rewarded by a last gasp equaliser. I laid to £50 stakes in that game, but thought some people might be interested in exploring the different potential ways in which that trade might have been played.
To make the maths a bit easier let's assume I'd laid to £100 stakes. I laid at 1.06 and the price I took just after Bochum's first goal was 1.23.
A) Let it run. This is really quite simple - a £6 loss if it Cottbus won, £100 if they didn't. You pays your money and takes your choice!
B) Remove liability. This is also simple. My liability on a £100 lay at 1.06 would have been £6. To leave a scratch on a Cottbus win would have required a back stake of £26.08. That would have left £73.91 on the draw or Bochum or no profit or loss if Cottbus had held on. A free bet, if you like.
C) Hedge and recycle. Bochum's first goal came in the 73rd minute, so allowing for a little bit of injury time there was about 20 minutes of the match left. By hedging after the goal it would have been possible to have guaranteed a win whatever happened. Hedging at 1.23 would have given a green all over of £13.82 whatever the result. A doubling of my original exposure, so not too shaky. However, if I'd let then re-entered the market at, say, 1.10 for £100 I would have been ideally poised in this particular game... a very small profit on the Cottbus win (£3.82), and a much larger profit (£113.82) on any other result. But, importantly, I'd have had no downside at all - a win / win situation.
D) Back Cottbus. If I had felt that Cottbus were able to hold out for the win the other option would have been simply to back them for the same stake that I'd laid for originally. That would have left me with a scratch trade on Bochum or the draw and a whole £17 on Cottbus. Probably not the best value trade in the world, but of course there is nothing stopping me from mixing options C) an D) here to have the best of both worlds.
As always with Correct Score trading the timing of goals has a big impact on what you can, and choose to, do. In this particular trade the timing of the first goal was perfect ... soon enough to get a decent price movement yet with long enough left for anything to happen. The great thing about this sort of trade is that the liability won't hurt you too much, yet the upside is relatively large. If Bochum had left it until the 85th minute to get their first goal I reckon the price on Cottbus would have moved sufficiently to have allowed a scratch trade should I have wished to take it.
Talking about low liability lays, most traders in the chatroom tonight (including this one) had the Getafe v Betis game down as a low scoring hum drum affair, re-inforced by the fact that it was 0-0 at half time with half a dozen shots, few of which troubled wither goalie. I suggested a dutch of 1-1 2-0 0-2 which we greened up on at 1-1.
The screenshot below shows the outcome. Oh to have laid U5.5 at half time for a grand at 1.01 / 2!!!! Or to have backed AU at 50 odd for a tenner! Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but not always the trader's best friend!
Essentially all I did was to lay Cottbus in the Match Odds market when they were 0-2 in the second half of a Bundesliga 2 match against Bochum. The home team had started as marginal favourites in a classic Scatter Gun profiled match. In that particular instance I simply removed my liability in the market at 1-2 and let the trade run to be rewarded by a last gasp equaliser. I laid to £50 stakes in that game, but thought some people might be interested in exploring the different potential ways in which that trade might have been played.
To make the maths a bit easier let's assume I'd laid to £100 stakes. I laid at 1.06 and the price I took just after Bochum's first goal was 1.23.
A) Let it run. This is really quite simple - a £6 loss if it Cottbus won, £100 if they didn't. You pays your money and takes your choice!
B) Remove liability. This is also simple. My liability on a £100 lay at 1.06 would have been £6. To leave a scratch on a Cottbus win would have required a back stake of £26.08. That would have left £73.91 on the draw or Bochum or no profit or loss if Cottbus had held on. A free bet, if you like.
C) Hedge and recycle. Bochum's first goal came in the 73rd minute, so allowing for a little bit of injury time there was about 20 minutes of the match left. By hedging after the goal it would have been possible to have guaranteed a win whatever happened. Hedging at 1.23 would have given a green all over of £13.82 whatever the result. A doubling of my original exposure, so not too shaky. However, if I'd let then re-entered the market at, say, 1.10 for £100 I would have been ideally poised in this particular game... a very small profit on the Cottbus win (£3.82), and a much larger profit (£113.82) on any other result. But, importantly, I'd have had no downside at all - a win / win situation.
D) Back Cottbus. If I had felt that Cottbus were able to hold out for the win the other option would have been simply to back them for the same stake that I'd laid for originally. That would have left me with a scratch trade on Bochum or the draw and a whole £17 on Cottbus. Probably not the best value trade in the world, but of course there is nothing stopping me from mixing options C) an D) here to have the best of both worlds.
As always with Correct Score trading the timing of goals has a big impact on what you can, and choose to, do. In this particular trade the timing of the first goal was perfect ... soon enough to get a decent price movement yet with long enough left for anything to happen. The great thing about this sort of trade is that the liability won't hurt you too much, yet the upside is relatively large. If Bochum had left it until the 85th minute to get their first goal I reckon the price on Cottbus would have moved sufficiently to have allowed a scratch trade should I have wished to take it.
Talking about low liability lays, most traders in the chatroom tonight (including this one) had the Getafe v Betis game down as a low scoring hum drum affair, re-inforced by the fact that it was 0-0 at half time with half a dozen shots, few of which troubled wither goalie. I suggested a dutch of 1-1 2-0 0-2 which we greened up on at 1-1.
The screenshot below shows the outcome. Oh to have laid U5.5 at half time for a grand at 1.01 / 2!!!! Or to have backed AU at 50 odd for a tenner! Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but not always the trader's best friend!
Jumat, 02 November 2012
Well, what would / could I have done?
In my previous post I mentioned that Brazillian games often result in either a 0-0 half time score, or a goalfest in the first half. The game I posted about proved to be the former, but Simon, quite reasonably, asks what I would (and by extension, could) I have done had it been the latter.
Before I go on I should just say that to an extent that Brazillian game the other night was a bit of an 'accident' in the sense that I went to pick Gun jr up from work and he wasn't quite ready.... so a five minute trip took closer to 25 mins. Ordinarily when I do this trade I remove the stake from 0-0 when I can leave a small profit on that score whilst at the same time reducing my exposure on the whole trade by a quarter. In other words I don't usually let it run until half time, but it was so close when I got back that I took the chance and, on this occasion, it paid nicely.
The obvious problem with backing the 0-0, 0-1, 1-0 and 1-1 scores is that a goal wipes out two of the four. As with all Correct Score trading the timing of goal(s) plays an important part in your decision making. A very early first goal presents the biggest problem, as the odds on the two remaining scores drift, sometimes massively if the favourite scores first. You need to decide quickly whether to a) let it run b) take a 50% plus hit or c) cover some other scores.
Let it run - a second goal to the leader kills the trade completely leaving you with the choice of chasing other scores or taking the loss on the chin and moving on. The trade will still win if the score stays as it is, or if there is an equaliser and it then stays at 1-1. You might decide to set a 'stop loss' figure, hedging the current score and 1-1 when you can recover, say, 75% of your original stake.
Take a 50% (plus) hit - this is possibly the smart thing to do - bank protection is a crucial part of your success as a trader in my opinion. Assuming you've used £10 stakes on each you'd probably be able to get out for a loss of around £12 - £13 after an early goal by hedging the current score and 1-1. An alternative is to just take what you can out of the current score and leave 1-1 alone as the price will start falling, and the score can still be a winning score for the trade. Of course occasionally a match with a very early goal sees no further goals - and to avoid the frustration of that happening you could lay Over 1.5 goals at very low odds to cover the rest of your original stake. So there are options with this method.
Cover some other scores - of the original 17 possible scores only thirteen are left after a goal. They can't all be covered and it is easy to find yourself chasing what is already a potentially losing position. Having said that there are some other options to consider. At the risk of actually increasing your overall liabilities you could take advantage of market over reaction to an early goal by laying some of the scores that raced in after an early goal. Possible candidates are 2-0, 2-1 ( or 0-2 1-2) plus 2-2 and Any Unquoted all of which would be significantly lower than their starting price after an early goal. The main problem with this approach is further goals - you might find yourself in a lot of hot water if the goalfest ensues.
Whichever route, or a combination of routes you take you can always do some scalping to reduce your exposure (wealth warning!) - but in my view the key is the do something - decide quickly.
Before I go on I should just say that to an extent that Brazillian game the other night was a bit of an 'accident' in the sense that I went to pick Gun jr up from work and he wasn't quite ready.... so a five minute trip took closer to 25 mins. Ordinarily when I do this trade I remove the stake from 0-0 when I can leave a small profit on that score whilst at the same time reducing my exposure on the whole trade by a quarter. In other words I don't usually let it run until half time, but it was so close when I got back that I took the chance and, on this occasion, it paid nicely.
The obvious problem with backing the 0-0, 0-1, 1-0 and 1-1 scores is that a goal wipes out two of the four. As with all Correct Score trading the timing of goal(s) plays an important part in your decision making. A very early first goal presents the biggest problem, as the odds on the two remaining scores drift, sometimes massively if the favourite scores first. You need to decide quickly whether to a) let it run b) take a 50% plus hit or c) cover some other scores.
Let it run - a second goal to the leader kills the trade completely leaving you with the choice of chasing other scores or taking the loss on the chin and moving on. The trade will still win if the score stays as it is, or if there is an equaliser and it then stays at 1-1. You might decide to set a 'stop loss' figure, hedging the current score and 1-1 when you can recover, say, 75% of your original stake.
Take a 50% (plus) hit - this is possibly the smart thing to do - bank protection is a crucial part of your success as a trader in my opinion. Assuming you've used £10 stakes on each you'd probably be able to get out for a loss of around £12 - £13 after an early goal by hedging the current score and 1-1. An alternative is to just take what you can out of the current score and leave 1-1 alone as the price will start falling, and the score can still be a winning score for the trade. Of course occasionally a match with a very early goal sees no further goals - and to avoid the frustration of that happening you could lay Over 1.5 goals at very low odds to cover the rest of your original stake. So there are options with this method.
Cover some other scores - of the original 17 possible scores only thirteen are left after a goal. They can't all be covered and it is easy to find yourself chasing what is already a potentially losing position. Having said that there are some other options to consider. At the risk of actually increasing your overall liabilities you could take advantage of market over reaction to an early goal by laying some of the scores that raced in after an early goal. Possible candidates are 2-0, 2-1 ( or 0-2 1-2) plus 2-2 and Any Unquoted all of which would be significantly lower than their starting price after an early goal. The main problem with this approach is further goals - you might find yourself in a lot of hot water if the goalfest ensues.
Whichever route, or a combination of routes you take you can always do some scalping to reduce your exposure (wealth warning!) - but in my view the key is the do something - decide quickly.
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