Much Better

A much better day yesterday with a profit being made on every system.

They key game was the game I highlighted on Friday and Aldershot at 3/1 managed to win easily away at Lincoln. As I suggested on Friday, they looked to be massive value (they’d usually be 6/4 in that game and I would have still backed them to win!) but you can never be sure at this time of the season if the ratings work as well as they do at other times.

Thankfully, they won 3-0 and that set up the ratings to have a very good day. I also found Swindon at 4/1 and St Johnstone at 5/2, so it was always going to be a good day. A profit of 8pts was made from the 12 games picked out.

7 wins, 4 losses and 1 draw (I know, amazing!) was found yesterday and as usually happens when the draw % is very low, the ratings do very well. As I’ve said all season, I just need the draw % to hit the average mark and the ratings will make nice profits but since Christmas, this hasn’t happened very often! Days like yesterday help to repair some of the damage done but to put it in perspective, it wins back 25% of last month’s losses!

Overall, there were 76 system bets which produced 40 wins, 25 losses and only 11 draws. A profit of 29pts across the systems.

With the low draw %, DNB didn’t do nearly as well with a profit of 11pts only and of course, Double Chance performed poorly and basically broke even on a good day for the systems! The multiple bets were useless again and that’s one trial that won’t continue beyond this season.

Just on that point, I’ve been thinking long and hard about next season and although it’s not the really the post to announce it (it’s likely to get lost in here), I WON’T be suggesting Double Chance as a way to follow my bets going forward. I’ll even stop tracking it as it just confuses the picture a little I think with my results.

My issue with DC is that it relies on the ratings finding draws. As I know only too well, draws are the thing I want to avoid with this game and therefore, it doesn’t feel right that I suggest DC as an alternative method to follow my bets. All my work this summer will be about trying to adjust the ratings to find less draws and therefore, I hope to reduce the profitability of DC betting significantly. If not, I’ll fail at this game.

In addition, it feels a little like I’m using DC as a back-up plan if things don’t work with my ratings and that’s not my intention. The purpose here is to find teams to win and therefore, tracking DC returns seems slightly unfair and I don’t want to be judged on DC. If DC does well, it means my ratings aren’t working as well as they should do like this season!

The other obvious point about DC is that backing the draw is heavily loss making as I’ve shown a few times on here. Yeah, it has been very profitable in 2011 but that’s a one-off as I keep saying. Long-term, although DC may be profitable, it is due to the selection winning that makes it profitable. Bringing in the draw just reduces profitability as backing the draw isn’t profitable overall.

What this means though is that my 3rd rating algorithm will definitely be based on DNB next season. I’ll keep my first two algorithms and the new one I build will look to maximise DNB returns going forward.

People could argue that DNB is also a cop out with my ratings since I’m still having something on the draw but simply, I see DNB as a way to reduce the variance in the returns and nothing more. Long-term, DNB won’t beat backing the teams to win outright but many people would happily forego a risky 15% return for a more likely 10% return and therefore, that’s why DNB may be useful for some people.

A quick update on the season overall. After yesterday’s results, it means that the first rating algorithm is sitting with an ROI of 3.8% this season from 570 bets (system 6) and my second rating algorithm is sitting with an ROI of 4.1% from 486 bets (system 21). Teams that appear on both algorithms (6-21) is sitting with an ROI of 8.2% from 295 bets.

Obviously, I could point to the other systems and some systems have a much higher return and (some lower admittedly) but overall, looking at all the games this season on all systems, the ROI is 8.1% from 2,877 games.

I know it isn’t what I aimed for at the start of the season (10%+ was a minimum and 21% was the target) but now that the season is winding down, an ROI of 8% or thereabouts isn’t a disaster I guess. I’ve been exchanging emails with a couple of guys about next season who have used other ratings/tipsters this season and they seem to be suggesting that my ROI this season may actually be above the others in the tipster market and at the very least, allows me to hold my own in the market. Definitely gives me some hope that I haven’t wasted 17 months of my life for nothing!

Thanks for the couple of comments to my last post. I’m guessing that the questions I put up in the post maybe cover most of what people want to know but if there are any more questions, please let me know. I’ll start writing that Q&A post early this week and hopefully get it posted up later this week.

There are 7 midweek games this week and looking quickly, I can’t see there being a bet but I’m nowhere near updating the stuff from yesterday yet. I’ll post up any bets tomorrow night.