Keep on Marching

Mr Dand you do keep on giving me ideas for new systems don’t you 😉

Well I have rigged another quick system to try and pick out some draws. As the other systems it is very very very simple indeed and as such there is absolutely NO point in even thinking of using the picks to place your bets. For one I only have it set to give me 5 picks for the time being.

The new system is called (insert drum roll here) System Bravo! As with the other two systems it starts with a “Paper” bank of £100 and I don’t expect that to last too long.

So here are my picks for this weekend….

System Alpha

31/12/2011 Manchester United V Blackburn Rovers Bet £18.00 On Manchester United Odds Of 1.13 To return £20.34

31/12/2011 Arsenal V Queens Park Rangers Bet £11.00 On Arsenal Odds Of 1.25 To return £13.75

31/12/2011 Bolton Wanderers V Wolverhampton Wanderers Bet £2.00 On Wolverhampton Wanderers Odds Of 3.25 To return £6.50

31/12/2011 Chelsea V Aston Villa Bet £8.00 On Chelsea Odds Of 1.29 To return £10.32

31/12/2011 Norwich City V Fulham Bet £2.00 On Norwich City Odds Of 2.63 To return £5.26

 System Bravo

31/12/2011 Manchester United V Blackburn Rovers Bet £18.00 On Manchester United Odds Of 1.13 To return £20.34

31/12/2011 Arsenal V Queens Park Rangers Bet £11.00 On Arsenal Odds Of 1.25 To return £13.75

31/12/2011 Bolton Wanderers V Wolverhampton Wanderers Bet £2.00 On Draw Odds Of 3.4 To return £6.50

31/12/2011 Chelsea V Aston Villa Bet £8.00 On Draw Odds Of 13 To return £10.32

31/12/2011 Norwich City V Fulham Bet £2.00 On Draw Odds Of 3.25 To return £5.26

 System Dand 🙂

26/12/2011 Manchester United V Blackburn Rovers Bet £18.00 On Blackburn Rovers Odds Of 26 To return £468.00

26/12/2011 Arsenal V Queens Park Rangers Bet £11.00 On Queens Park Rangers Odds Of 13 To return £143.00

26/12/2011 Bolton Wanderers V Wolverhampton Wanderers Bet £2.00 On Bolton Wanderers Odds Of 2.2 To return £4.40

26/12/2011 Chelsea V Aston Villa Bet £8.00 On Aston Villa Odds Of 5 To return £40.00

26/12/2011 Norwich City V Fulham Bet £4.00 On Fulham Odds Of 2.75 To return £11.00

As always if you spot anything wrong or want to question me then please don’t hesitate to ask me, after all I am a “Newbie” so any comments/help is much appreciated.

 

Phew and Oh My

Well I have got my laptop back up and running and hopefully I have it sorted and will have no more problems. Anyways on with the results from my picks.

System Alpha

5 picks returning a loss of £3.16.

System Dand

5 picks returning a loss of £55.00

Not a great start to the systems, though I do believe that the staking plan needs tweaking a hell of a lot. On the both systems the total bet was just over half of my paper bankroll and it was thanks to the fact  that I had two winners on System Alpha that I didn’t lose it all.

Damn laptop

Currently my laptop is complete and utterly fu!!ed!!

My anti-virus software happened to miss this one!! I don’t know the correct name for the virus so I will call it the Scotland Yard Virus. It locks your pc/laptop with a message supposedly from Scotland Yard saying that your ip address has been found looking at child porn, websites with abuse to people and sending out bulk spam. Needless to say at first I was like WTF, then you continue reading it says pay £100 in 48 hours to unlock your machine. So then I’m like hang on the police wouldn’t give you notice like that if it was real, re read it again and you notice that the spelling and grammar is completely and utterly poor.

A quick search on my phone reveals it indeed to be a virus that can be a bitch to remove. I spent 8 hours doing 2 virus scans last night (the first one failed as the plug was switched off and the laptop ran out of juice 😦 ) the second fount the viruses and removed them. Re booted the machine but no luck it’s still infected. So tonight I have to go through my registry and hunt it down manually. Oh what fun.

It seems that only two of my picks returned winners on one system. Once I get my laptop sorted then I’ll do a proper update, if I need to do a system restore or wipe then it does put me back a good while, which would teach me to not keep backups.

BubblesBrian –

“DO NOT FOLLOW MY PICKS”

I had a comment from Graeme Dand earlier regarding my first system……

Hi Brian.

Almost ashamed to admit I’ve been reading your blog when you’ve been posting! If you had some Excel skills, you could download some data and backtest this system. What you’ll find (I’m 99.9% sure) is that you end up with a high strike rate but a rather large loss to go with it over time.

I would be willing to bet (just a little mind you) that the inverse of this system is a better system than the one you’re following. When you record your results, I’d record what would have happened if you had backed the other team instead too. I’ll be surprised if your system beats the other system.

Good luck and Merry Christmas.

Graeme

 

To which I replied…..

My Excel skills aren’t great but it’s enough that I can whip up what I think is a pretty nifty sheet.

I will start to download some data and possibly back test this as I do believe myself that it is definitely not a system to bet with, it’s more of a baseline system as I’m sure many people will bet on the higher placed team to win the game. Only problem is that the data I currently have access to only shows (I think) the odds for the winning team at the time so I will need to search out some historical odds data.

And that does give me another idea for another system by the way maybe call it the Dand System. Some of the systems I make, like Alpha, will not be to place bets with, they will just be to try out different ideas.

Who knows I may end up with more systems than you , god knows how you manage to keep them all up to date though I would assume they all update off one central sheet.

BubblesBrian

 

Well seeing as though it’s a simple case of changing some cell references I thought why the hell not. So here are the same picks as yesterday but choosing the lower rated team.

26/12/2011 Chelsea V Fulham Bet £9.00 On Fulham Odds Of 12 To return £108.00

26/12/2011 Bolton Wanderers V Newcastle United Bet £12.00 On Bolton Wanderers Odds Of 2.5 To return £30.00

26/12/2011 Liverpool V Blackburn Rovers Bet £14.00 On Blackburn Rovers Odds Of 13 To return £182.00

26/12/2011 Manchester United V Wigan Athletic Bet £16.00 On Wigan Athletic Odds Of 21 To return £336.00

26/12/2011 Sunderland V Everton Bet £4.00 On Sunderland Odds Of 2.4 To return £9.60

Straight away you can see that it leads to potentially more profit.

Good Luck And Merry Christmas All

Introducing System Alpha

Well it’s taken about a month and a half but I have finally got a working system ready and waiting to go. The name is a cheeky nod to Mr. Dand (The Football Analyst) and his way of numbering his systems 1,2,3,etc. Mine will be Alpha, Bravo, Charlie etc :). Now it’s not that its taken me that long to make it, seeing though it is literally a very very very simple system indeed.

It is basically betting on the team that is higher up in the league, so if the top team plays the bottom team then I bet on the top to win, with the amount I bet equals the difference, in the same example it would be a £19 bet. Now this system WILL NOT take into account VALUE in anyway shape or form. They will come later.

I have gone through 4 versions before completing this one. I would set it the spreadsheet in a certain way and then find I need to add or change something, now when these all added up I decided to just start over. If you use Excel I am sure you know how frustrating it can be when you need to change something that requires a lot of cells to be changed as a consequence.

I have decided to stick with paper trading on just one bookie which is Bet365, and my starting bank will be £100, this does not represent what my actual bank will be when I go for real, it will probably be less, though maybe more.

I have also been working on a separate spreadsheet which I will use to record the season stats in order to use them in subsequent systems. So it’s not like I have been spending all my time on one spreadsheet. Not forgetting of course all the other times that I just couldn’t be arsed or didn’t have the time available, so overall I am happy with what I have got. There will be little changes to the system, but they will mainly be cosmetic. I will be keeping a close eye on things as i don’t really want a repeat of last weeks fiasco where my system was slightly wrong resulting in wrong bets meaning a losing week instead of a winning one.

So just incase I don’t get time to post them later here are my picks for this weekend (well Boxing Day).

26/12/2011 Chelsea V Fulham Bet £9.00 On Chelsea Odds Of 1.3 To return £11.70

26/12/2011 Bolton Wanderers V Newcastle United Bet £12.00 On Newcastle United Odds Of 2.8 To return £33.60

26/12/2011 Liverpool V Blackburn Rovers Bet £14.00 On Liverpool Odds Of 1.25 To return £17.50

26/12/2011 Manchester United V Wigan Athletic Bet £16.00 On Manchester United Odds Of 1.14 To return £18.24

26/12/2011 Sunderland V Everton Bet £4.00 On Everton Odds Of 3 To return £12.00

Good Luck All and Merry Christmas

Back To Value

I recently wrote a post regarding value a while back and as much as I say I now understand the concept I still can’t get my head around it. The more I think about it the more I think it’s just a conspiracy put out by bookies in the past to throw people off. And now its entered the world of gambling as a rule to being successful.

There are many bettors out there who won’t touch a bet purely because to them its not value, even though they know full well that the team they would have bet on has a much bigger chance of winning. People say that it’s just gambling if you don’t take into account value. Well my way of thinking is that no matter how many hours you spend on your picks to find value you are still gambling.

A big problem with value is that its very subjective. What one may thinks is value there is just as many thinking its not value at all. Its not set in stone, theirs no actual physical evidence to say that value exists. I could have been gambling for many years now and turned over a very healthy profit and not even considered value, yet people will insist that I had been getting value all along and just not being aware of it. Because its not set in stone there’s no way that it can be checked, there’s no actual formula that tells me that this or that bet was or is value. After all it’s just my system telling me that so called value is found only if I find a bet above certain odds.

I just can’t help thinking that it all came about from the bookies In an attempt to get people to bet less. I mean if let’s say the team at the top of the premiership plays the lowest team in the lowest league then surely the top team should win and the odds will show this. Yet there are people who won’t take this bet just because its not value, or on the flip side they will bet on the losing team just because it represents value, almost guaranteeing a losing bet.

I may say to myself that I want at least 2.50 or above if I am to bet on a certain game yet I may not get that so because it’s not value I don’t bet. As it turns out I could have won the bet and made a little profit, yet as it goes I should have been happy to not bet and not make any money.

Everything is possible when it comes to gambling, all because the “best” is playing the “worst” it doesn’t always follow that the “best” team will win the match. They may just see it as a game to run out an untried squad or give players a rest, so anything is possible at all.

Having said all this I am not saying that there is no such thing as value or that you don’t need value to succeed. All I am saying is that it is something that I don’t fully understand, I have yet to read something that makes it concrete in my mind that not betting on who I believe will win just because it’s not value is a good thing. I mean I could just say that every bet I make is value and because its subjective, even if I am losing then there’s not really anything or anyone that can say otherwise is there.

This is something I will look into in more depth and keep a very close eye on.

BubblesBrian –

“DO NOT FOLLOW MY PICKS”

Oh Dear!

Well it’s only my second week of “fake” picks and what a disastrous set of selections they were. Out of my five picks not one, yes that’s right not one of them won. If i had money on them it would have been £22 down the drain, now it’s not a lot of money really but it all comes down to the size of your bankroll, that could have been all or half of my bank. A bit disappointing to say the least but hey that’s how we learn right?

As I was checking my selections I noticed that my system was set up wrong and after a brief check (it would take a while and a lot of re working to check correctly) it looks like I may have actually returned a profit of £21.99 if it was set up right, even more of a p!”s take. Just goes to show that mistakes are easy to be made and can cost a fortune, so I need to double check everything I do before I go “live” with any system. It’s probably a good idea that I have decided that I am going to paper trade my systems for a while first so I can work out any kinks like this!!

Any way from here it’s onwards and upwards.

Weekend Picks

In the Everton V Norwich City game, bet £6 on Everton to win at bet365 (odds of 8/13) to return £9.69 ( a profit of £3.69 )

In the Fulham V Bolton Wanderers game, bet £3 on Bolton Wanderers to win at bet365 (odds of 9/2) to return £16.5 ( a profit of £13.5 )

In the Newcastle United V Swansea City game, bet £5 on Newcastle United to win at bet365 (odds of 4/5) to return £9 ( a profit of £4 )

In the Aston Villa V Liverpool game, bet £6 on Aston Villa to win at bet365 (odds of 1/1) to return £12 ( a profit of £6 )

In the Tottenham Hotspur V Sunderland game, bet £2 on Sunderland to win at bet365 (odds of 2/5) to return £2.8 ( a profit of £0.8 )

The above are my picks for this weekend. As you may notice they are all from the same bookie, which as last week is incorrect. My spreadsheet is coming along and I know what I have to do, it is now just a case of setting it up so that I like the look of it.

I think that I will stick with one bookie for my trial period as when I start out it is more realistic that I will only start with one. So there’s no need to complicate matters yet is there. And as I hopefully improve my bankroll I can add more bookies to the mix.

I have decided that picking and choosing what and how to track things to design new systems is a wee bit interesting to say the least. I keep thinking about different things I’d like try and whilst doing a little research on it I stumble upon something else I start thinking I’d like to record. There could be a million different ways to come up with my own ratings, ranging from the difference in goals scored, difference in goals conceded and I suppose if you research hard enough you may think you come across a winning team always receiving the first yellow card (not that I believe that).

 Yet that’s the beauty of doing my own system. Coming up with my own ratings and testing them and in the process learning something new.

Good luck for the weekend.

Weekend Results

Well this weekend I had 5 bets threw at me from my first system that I am still working on. As it’s a system that’s in progress I am not going to keep track of the results of the system yet.

Needles to say all but 1 game went my way, with Norwich beating Newcastle United. To my non-football fan eye I would’ve thought that Newcastle would have won that game, but hey I don’t know a lot about football so I cant comment too much. Though I will say that it would have returned a whole whopping £9 if the result went my way as hoped, but hey you win some and lose some.

As it stands on the weekend I would have made £3.74. So not too bad with my little knowledge if I do say so myself.

 

My first system I have been working on is nearing completion. I am hoping that time permitting I will be able to start recording “paper” bets on it from this coming weekends games. There may be some things to tweak as we go along, especially things like staking, as I mentioned the other day, I am not particularly happy with betting £15 of limited money in one go. Don’t get me wrong its not that I wouldn’t do that, it’s just that for a beginner I think it would be foolish of me to place “large” bets in one go. It all depends on my bankroll size really, as £15 to me may be a huge bet whilst to some-one like Cassini (Green All Over) or Graeme Dand (The Football Analyst), they may be less than 1% of their bankroll.

As long as I am patient then the little wins hopefully (fingers crossed) will outperform the losses.

Good Picks

Here are my picks for this weekend, ignore the fact that they all state bet365 as this is incorrect. The odds were right at the time i selected them which was early Friday morning so they could have changed by now.

In the Arsenal V Everton game, bet £3 on Arsenal to win at bet365 (odds of 4/7) to return £4.71 ( a profit of £1.71 )

In the Liverpool V Queens Park Rangers game, bet £4 on Liverpool to win at bet365 (odds of 4/11) to return £5.45 ( a profit of £1.45 )

In the Manchester United V Wolverhampton Wanderers game, bet £15 on Manchester United to win at bet365 (odds of 2/9) to return £18.33 ( a profit of £3.33 )

In the Norwich City V Newcastle United game, bet £6 on Newcastle United to win at bet365 (odds of 6/4) to return £15 ( a profit of £9 )

In the Swansea City V Fulham game, bet £2 on Swansea City to win at bet365 (odds of 13/8) to return £5.25 ( a profit of £3.25 )

So whilst working on my first system the above is what it threw out at me. Not too sure that I’m happy to start betting £15 on a game, so I’m sure i will change that. Maybe have a maximum bet of £6, £2 on the first bet (as that appears to be the minimum allowed on most sites) and an extra £1 each bet after, going up on a scale of the “worst” gets £2 and the “best” gets the £6.

Most people state that each bet should only be 2% of your bankroll which would mean I have to have £100 or more in the bank in order to bet £2. So obviously that may well be out of the question to begin with, but as and if my bankroll increases then it’s definitely something to bear in mind.

And purely by the profit then it looks only one appears to be Value (again not that this is the way to determine Value)

Yet I’m only just started on my journey so many more similar decisions to me made.