Monthly Review Completed

I’ve updated the monthly results section on the blog. If you click on the link and scroll down, you’ll find it! You could also navigate via the tabs at the top. ;)

http://the-football-analyst.blogspot.com/p/201112-monthly-results.html

As always, lots of ways to look at the results of these systems but a few highlights which stand out to me which people reading the blog may not know are:

• The 11 TFA established systems (or the ones alive last season!) achieved their best results in terms of pts won since December 2008. When you consider Dec 2008 had 359 bets and achieved 128pts profit, then a profit of 107.7pts this month from only 224 bets can possibly be described as a better performance.
• In terms of ROI (48.1%), it was the 3rd best month from the two fully backtested years and last season’s live results. Hence, the 3rd best month from the last 31 months of results. In a way, this doesn’t tell the full story as May-11 is the 2nd best month as it had an ROI of 52.3% but that was only over 101 bets.
• The systems which are being proofed by the Secret Betting Club for my proofed results (the 6 combined systems) are now sitting with an ROI of 17.1% since they went live. This is over a sample of 1,364 bets. November-11 is the highest month by far for ROI at 72.5% although the pts won 52.2pts is 1.6pts less than last month! Hence, the two best months these proofed results have had is the last 2 months.

I could go on and on about the results but as I always say, it’s only one month. If we look at all the established systems in total for this season, they have now had 977 bets and generated an ROI of 12.2%. They achieved 9.4% last season across 2,784 bets, so based on the number of bets, we’re only 1/3 of the way through the season. A long way to go but the systems are in a good position so far. Given they suffered record losses in September, it’s amazing how quickly things can turn at this game.

I’ll be back on Friday with the weekend bets. I’ll probably do another post tomorrow though showing all the live results on each system to date on a single page. I like analysing this as it is interesting to compare the systems from this season with last season as well as comparing a system with DNB returns against H/A returns. All very interesting.

Hope you all had a good month too. :)

One of the best things about following systems and having no human intervention is that there are no mind games involved when it comes to the betting side of things. After Saturday’s loss, I would have happily settled for seeing no bets this midweek on the systems if I’m being perfectly honest. Therefore, when I was doing the work to pull out the bets, I cringed a little when I saw Newport as a bet.

Not only did they appear on every established system and the 3 similar game models (ignore the fact the DNB systems didn’t appreciate how strong a bet they were!), but they were also one of the highest rated bets I’ve had all season. Simply, according to my ratings, Hayes were playing like a team that should be bottom of the league and although Newport were very inconsistent, they were playing so much better than their league position suggested, it was impossible to believe that they were 7/4 to win this game (or 2.62 when I gave the bet out).

They’d beaten Fleetwood (top 3 team) 4-1 away from home and played them off the park, lost narrowly to Tamworth (top half side), beat Kettering easily 3-1 (worst team in the league aside from Hayes on my ratings at the moment), drew 0-0 away at Wrexham (top 3 team), lost narrowly at home to Ebbsfleet, drew 2-2 with Grimsby (top half side) and lost narrowly to Luton (top 3 side) 1-0 on Saturday by conceding a last minute goal.

Based solely on the last 7 games, Newport are a top half side and considering they’d played the top 3 sides in the league and competed very well, then they should have made mincemeat of a team like Hayes who had lost 5 of their last 6 games!

It’s not often ratings work out as well as they did in that game last night but Newport should win that game roughly 50% of the time according to my ratings. I therefore smiled when they started at 11/10 in places at kick-off after steaming in from an opening show of 7/4 and the fact they were 3-0 up at half time was very sweet.

I’m sure everyone in the market who uses football ratings in this league had this one down as a value away win but again, the systems were able to spot how good a bet this actually was and I therefore staked it accordingly, along with others who follow the systems I suspect.

Anyway, it’s only one game but it felt great to bounce back after Saturday with such a strong bet that won so easily.

Algorithm one had 2 bets and 2 winners. A profit of 2.45pts and 1.25pts for DNB betting.

Algorithm two had the same 2 bets and 2 winners. A profit of 2.45pts for H/A betting and 1.25pts DNB.

Algorithm three didn’t have such a great night. 4 bets and only one winner. A loss of 1.35pts for H/A betting and a loss of 1.10pts for DNB betting.

With the 100% record on the first two algorithms, the established systems had to have a good night. A profit of 22.15pts for H/A betting and a profit of 11.60pts. There were 16 bets.

The new systems didn’t have such a good night but it wasn’t too bad. A profit of 4.90pts for H/A betting and a profit of 1.37pts for DNB betting. There were 11 bets.

Overall then, a really good night for the established systems. When you consider they lost 28pts on Saturday for H/A and 16pts for DNB, to win 22pts and 11.60pts back so quickly is a great end to the month. For those following the combined systems 6-21 thru to 8-22, all of the losses were recouped from the weekend, so we can start next month from a decent closing position this month.

I’ll get on with the monthly review and update on here when it’s done.

Lambs to the slaughter..........

Well, I never know where to start after really poor weekends as whatever way I look at the weekend, it is poor. I looked at odds portal on Sunday evening and I think that there were only 5 away wins at 2/1+ from all the games played and with Huddersfield losing last night, that means 5 wins from 64 games. Considering my ratings specialise in aways priced 2/1+, you can see how difficult the weekend was for my systems! Looking back now, I actually think they did well to lose as little as they did as it could have been absolute carnage this weekend for anyone backing the sort of teams I back, week in, week out.

Algorithm one had 15 bets and only found 2 winners. There were only 5 draws in here too, so a massive 8 losers. A loss of 7.10pts for H/A betting and a loss of 4.19pts for DNB betting.

Algorithm two also had 15 bets and only managed to find 2 winners too. There were 5 draws in there too, along with 8 losers. A loss of 7.25pts for H/A betting and a loss of 4.29pts for DNB betting.

Algorithm three also had 15 bets and again, only managed to find 2 winners! Can’t recall that happening before where all 3 algorithms had the same number of picks in the same weekend. A loss of 10.65pts for H/A betting and a loss of 6.85pts for DNB betting.

Clearly, the systems didn’t have a lot to work with this weekend, so it was lambs to the slaughter.

The established systems lost a total of 28.40pts from 61 games. DNB betting fared a bit better with a loss of 15.94pts.

The new systems had a nightmare weekend. A loss of 46.30pts from 55 games for H/A betting but interestingly, DNB did much better. DNB betting only suffered a loss of 20.7pts.

H/A betting has easily outpointed DNB betting over the past 7 weeks, so it’s no surprise to see DNB betting make some ground over the weekend. As always happens though, DNB betting only works during really bad weekends when you hit more draws than you want to!

I think it’s important that I don’t get too downhearted about the weekend’s losses. It’s never nice to lose money at this game but when I look at this month in total, there is a lot to be pleased about so far.

Interestingly, if Newport win tonight, this month will go down as the most successful month for my established systems for 3 seasons! Of course, it’s more likely they don’t win tonight which means this month is only the 4th best month since my systems went live. I say only the 4th best month but if someone had offered me that at the start of the month, I’d have bitten their hand off!

I’ll update the results from tonight tomorrow and I’ll also write a monthly review before the weekend.

Midweek Bets

Here's the bets for tonight.

I'll get the weekend results posted later today.

The Football Analyst Bets for 29th November

System 6
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Championship Reading v Peterborough Reading 1.80 1.35
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System 7
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Championship Reading v Peterborough Reading 1.80 1.35
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System 8
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System 21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Championship Reading v Peterborough Reading 1.80 1.35
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System 22
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System 6-21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Championship Reading v Peterborough Reading 1.80 1.35
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System 6-22
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System 7-21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Championship Reading v Peterborough Reading 1.80 1.35
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System 7-22
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System 8-21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System 8-22
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System 31
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Blackpool Blackpool 4.68 3.48
29/11/2011 Championship Southampton v Hull Hull 6.11 4.61
29/11/2011 Championship Watford v Bristol City Bristol City 3.34 2.39
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System 32
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Blackpool Blackpool 4.68 3.48

System 33
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Blackpool Blackpool 4.68 3.48

System 6-32
None

System 21-31
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System 6-21-31
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System TOX
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System STOY
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

System STOZ
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
29/11/2011 Bsq Prem Hayes & Yeading v Newport Newport 2.65 1.90

Weekend Bets

Another fairly quiet weekend. It's funny, when there are less than 150 system bets, it seems like a quiet weekend at the moment. I must be going mad!

3 big games for the systems at high odds. Could do with an Inverness, Dundee Utd and Bristol Rovers treble this weekend but I'd probably settle for one of the three winning! :)

High average odds this weekend, so hopefully the systems can hit enough winners. Always worry on weekends like this as a wipeout isn't impossible. Hopefully not this weekend though.

Good luck.

The Football Analyst Bets for 26th-28th November

System 6
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
26/11/2011 Bsq Prem Alfreton v Hayes & Yeading Alfreton 2.25 1.63
26/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Cambridge Cambridge 2.88 2.06
26/11/2011 Bsq Prem Stockport v Southport Stockport 2.75 1.98
26/11/2011 Championship Cardiff v Notts Forest Notts Forest 4.06 2.88
26/11/2011 League 1 Bournemouth v Oldham Oldham 3.26 2.36
28/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Huddersfield Huddersfield 3.00 2.15
26/11/2011 League 1 Chesterfield v Sheff Utd Chesterfield 4.00 2.96
26/11/2011 League 2 Accrington v Dagenham Dagenham 4.00 2.87
26/11/2011 League 2 Oxford v Cheltenham Oxford 2.10 1.52
26/11/2011 League 2 Southend v Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers 6.00 4.59
26/11/2011 League 2 Swindon v Aldershot Aldershot 5.05 3.77
27/11/2011 Premiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61
26/11/2011 Prermiership Sunderland v Wigan Wigan 5.65 4.18
26/11/2011 SPL Hearts v Inverness Inverness 4.50 3.21
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

System 7
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
28/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Huddersfield Huddersfield 3.00 2.15
27/11/2011 Premiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61
26/11/2011 Prermiership Sunderland v Wigan Wigan 5.65 4.18
26/11/2011 SPL Hearts v Inverness Inverness 4.50 3.21
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

System 8
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
28/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Huddersfield Huddersfield 3.00 2.15

System 21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
26/11/2011 Championship Blackpool v Birmingham Birmingham 3.18 2.26
26/11/2011 Championship Brighton v Coventry Coventry 5.40 3.97
26/11/2011 Championship Cardiff v Notts Forest Notts Forest 4.06 2.88
26/11/2011 League 1 Carlisle v Colchester Carlisle 2.10 1.53
28/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Huddersfield Huddersfield 3.00 2.15
26/11/2011 League 2 Accrington v Dagenham Dagenham 4.00 2.87
26/11/2011 League 2 Burton v Wimbledon Wimbledon 4.00 2.86
26/11/2011 League 2 Southend v Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers 6.00 4.59
26/11/2011 League 2 Swindon v Aldershot Aldershot 5.05 3.77
26/11/2011 Prermiership Man Utd v Newcastle Newcastle 11.00 8.80
26/11/2011 Prermiership Sunderland v Wigan Wigan 5.65 4.18
27/11/2011 Prermiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61
26/11/2011 Prermiership West Brom v Tottenham West Brom 4.33 3.18
26/11/2011 SPL Hearts v Inverness Inverness 4.50 3.21
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

System 22
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
26/11/2011 Championship Cardiff v Notts Forest Notts Forest 4.06 2.88
26/11/2011 SPL Hearts v Inverness Inverness 4.50 3.21
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

System 6-21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
26/11/2011 Championship Cardiff v Notts Forest Notts Forest 4.06 2.88
28/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Huddersfield Huddersfield 3.00 2.15
26/11/2011 League 2 Accrington v Dagenham Dagenham 4.00 2.87
26/11/2011 League 2 Southend v Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers 6.00 4.59
26/11/2011 League 2 Swindon v Aldershot Aldershot 5.05 3.77
26/11/2011 Premiership Man Utd v Newcastle Newcastle 11.00 8.80
26/11/2011 Premiership Norwich v QPR QPR 3.55 2.56
27/11/2011 Premiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61
26/11/2011 Prermiership Sunderland v Wigan Wigan 5.65 4.18
26/11/2011 SPL Hearts v Inverness Inverness 4.50 3.21
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

System 6-22
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
26/11/2011 Championship Cardiff v Notts Forest Notts Forest 4.06 2.88
26/11/2011 SPL Hearts v Inverness Inverness 4.50 3.21
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

System 7-21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
28/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Huddersfield Huddersfield 3.00 2.15
27/11/2011 Premiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61
26/11/2011 Prermiership Sunderland v Wigan Wigan 5.65 4.18
26/11/2011 SPL Hearts v Inverness Inverness 4.50 3.21
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

System 7-22
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
26/11/2011 SPL Hearts v Inverness Inverness 4.50 3.21
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

System 8-21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
28/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Huddersfield Huddersfield 3.00 2.15

System 8-22
None

System 31
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
26/11/2011 Bsq Prem Alfreton v Hayes & Yeading Alfreton 2.25 1.63
26/11/2011 Championship Blackpool v Birmingham Birmingham 3.18 2.26
26/11/2011 Championship Crystal Palace v Millwall Millwall 3.28 2.34
26/11/2011 League 1 Carlisle v Colchester Carlisle 2.10 1.53
28/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Huddersfield Huddersfield 3.00 2.15
26/11/2011 League 2 Accrington v Dagenham Dagenham 4.00 2.87
26/11/2011 League 2 Burton v Wimbledon Wimbledon 4.00 2.86
26/11/2011 League 2 Crewe v Hereford Hereford 4.20 3.03
26/11/2011 League 2 Southend v Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers 6.00 4.59
27/11/2011 Prermiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61
26/11/2011 Prermiership West Brom v Tottenham West Brom 4.33 3.18
26/11/2011 SPL Celtic v St Mirren St Mirren 13.40 11.34
26/11/2011 SPL Hearts v Inverness Inverness 4.50 3.21
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50
26/11/2011 SPL St Johnstone v Hibernian Hibernian 3.75 2.68

System 32
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
26/11/2011 League 2 Accrington v Dagenham Dagenham 4.00 2.87
26/11/2011 League 2 Crewe v Hereford Hereford 4.20 3.03
26/11/2011 League 2 Southend v Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers 6.00 4.59
27/11/2011 Prermiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61
26/11/2011 SPL Hearts v Inverness Inverness 4.50 3.21
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50
26/11/2011 SPL St Johnstone v Hibernian Hibernian 3.75 2.68

System 33
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
27/11/2011 Prermiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61

System 6-32
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
26/11/2011 League 2 Accrington v Dagenham Dagenham 4.00 2.87
26/11/2011 League 2 Southend v Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers 6.00 4.59
27/11/2011 Prermiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61
26/11/2011 SPL Hearts v Inverness Inverness 4.50 3.21
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

System 21-31
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
26/11/2011 Championship Blackpool v Birmingham Birmingham 3.18 2.26
26/11/2011 League 1 Carlisle v Colchester Carlisle 2.10 1.53
28/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Huddersfield Huddersfield 3.00 2.15
26/11/2011 League 2 Accrington v Dagenham Dagenham 4.00 2.87
26/11/2011 League 2 Burton v Wimbledon Wimbledon 4.00 2.86
26/11/2011 League 2 Southend v Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers 6.00 4.59
27/11/2011 Prermiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61
26/11/2011 Prermiership West Brom v Tottenham West Brom 4.33 3.18
26/11/2011 SPL Hearts v Inverness Inverness 4.50 3.21
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

System 6-21-31
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
28/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Huddersfield Huddersfield 3.00 2.15
26/11/2011 League 2 Accrington v Dagenham Dagenham 4.00 2.87
26/11/2011 League 2 Southend v Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers 6.00 4.59
27/11/2011 Prermiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61
26/11/2011 SPL Hearts v Inverness Inverness 4.50 3.21
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

System TOX
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
26/11/2011 League 2 Southend v Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers 6.00 4.59
27/11/2011 Prermiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61
26/11/2011 Prermiership West Brom v Tottenham West Brom 4.33 3.18
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

System STOY
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
26/11/2011 League 2 Southend v Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers 6.00 4.59
27/11/2011 Premiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

System STOZ
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
26/11/2011 Bsq Prem Alfreton v Hayes & Yeading Alfreton 2.25 1.63
26/11/2011 League 2 Southend v Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers 6.00 4.59
27/11/2011 Premiership Swansea v Aston Villa Swansea 2.25 1.61
26/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 3.50 2.50

Doesn't get much better than this....

As the title suggests, I’m not sure my ratings and systems can do much better than they did this weekend. It’s one thing to select a list of games where there is value in backing one of the sides and in my opinion, this isn’t anywhere nearly as difficult as people imagine but to narrow these games down and select the very best games that offer value, this is the thing that separates a good set of ratings from a great set of ratings. As I’ve shown over the past 18 months though, my ratings can do this effectively (some of the time!) but when it works, it doesn’t half look spectacular.

This weekend, the top 8 teams on Algorithm one (system 7) returned 7 winners. The odds of the winners were 4.77, 4.50, 3.20, 3.13, 2.62, 2.00 and 1.80. The loser was Newcastle at odds of 11.40. I can forgive the algorithm that one!

The top 4 teams on algorithm two (system 22) didn’t do too badly either. 4 selections, 4 winners. The odds were 4.81, 4.50, 3.13 and 2.62. Not a bad performance.

Not to be outdone, the top 3 teams on algorithm three (system 33) had 3 selections, 3 winners. 4.50, 3.13 and 2.00 were the odds of these selections.

One great thing about having so much data is that I can look at losing runs and determine how unlikely the run was to occur and it helps keep me sane. Well, it also works the other way too. Looking at my historical results quickly this morning, the systems are on their 3rd or 4th best run historically and the weekend past was maybe the 4th or 5th best weekend ever in terms of ROI, given the number of selections. It’s always hard to judge good/bad spells as pts won/lost doesn’t always tell the story as it depends on the number of bets too.

As someone said to me in an email this weekend, to see the backtested results of my systems is very good. To see it happen in practice when they are following the bets week in, week out is something very special.

Now, if I wind the clock back 12 months, the returns on the systems were much in line with where they are now this season. Things were looking great and I thought I had built something really special here. We all know what happened last season after the systems peaked at Christmas and therefore, with over 70% of the season to go, I know only too well that there is a long, long, long way to go this season. However, you have to enjoy moments like these when they come along as they don’t come along too often and they never stay around for long at all!

Anyway, onto the results from this weekend.

Algorithm one had 22 bets and hit 9 winners. A profit of 9.47pts for H/A betting and a profit of 2.94pts for DNB betting. (Bear in mind that system 7 took these 22 bets, selected 8 of them and hit 7 winners.)

Algorithm two had 14 bets and hit 8 winners. A profit of 15.36pts for H/A betting and a profit of 9.42pts for DNB betting. (Bear in mind that system 22 took these 14 bets, selected 4 of them and hit 4 winners.)

Algorithm three had 14 bets and hit 6 winners. A profit of 6.41pts for H/A betting and a profit of 1.85pts for DNB betting. (Bear in mind that system 33 took these 14 bets, selected 3 of them and hit 3 winners.)

Overall, knowing what you know above, it’s clear that the systems were going to have a great weekend.

The established systems from last season had 73 bets, hit 46 winners and made a profit of 87.98pts for H/A betting. DNB betting lagged behind a little but a profit of 50.05pts from 73 games isn’t bad!

The new systems from this season had 49 bets, 24 winners and a profit of 35.46pts for H/A betting and a profit of 19.90pts for DNB betting.

Overall, all the systems combined had 122 bets, hit 70 winners (57%), made a profit of 123.44pts for H/A betting and a profit of 69.95pts for DNB betting.

As I said at the start, weekend’s like that don’t happen too often. Maybe once a season. Enjoy it. :)

There are no bets this midweek. Only a couple of games take place in the Championship and although Burnley are a marginal value bet, they don’t appear on any system. Dunfermline are also a value bet in the SPL but appear on no systems. The systems can have a midweek off.

Weekend Bets

A quiet weekend apart from systems 6 and 21 which appear to have an insane number of bets which is becoming the norm this season.

Rochdale to win is probably the key game for me this weekend but at odds of 7/2, I can't be overly confident. Throw in Newcastle and Brighton at their odds and this weekend could be tricky I suspect.

Anyway, we'll see what happens.

The Football Analyst Bets for 19th-20th November

System 6
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Braintree v Forest Green Forest Green 3.20 2.31
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Ebbsfleet v Darlington Ebbsfleet 2.10 1.52
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Southport v Bath Bath 5.00 3.70
20/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Crystal Palace Crystal Palace 5.58 4.15
20/11/2011 Championship Millwall v Bristol City Bristol City 5.12 3.75
19/11/2011 Championship Notts Forest v Ipswich Notts Forest 2.00 1.45
19/11/2011 Championship Southampton v Brighton Brighton 7.56 5.89
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Scunthorpe v Hartlepool Scunthorpe 2.00 1.47
19/11/2011 League One Sheff Utd v Carlisle Carlisle 4.33 3.21
19/11/2011 League One Tranmere v Sheff Wed Tranmere 2.63 1.87
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22
19/11/2011 League Two Aldershot v Gillingham Aldershot 2.40 1.72
19/11/2011 League Two Bristol Rovers v Barnet Barnet 4.33 3.22
19/11/2011 League Two Macclesfield v Accrington Accrington 3.40 2.40
19/11/2011 League Two Northampton v Shrewsbury Northampton 3.31 2.34
19/11/2011 Premiership Man City v Newcastle Newcastle 11.40 9.39
19/11/2011 Premiership Stoke v QPR QPR 4.77 3.47
19/11/2011 SPL Aberdeen v Motherwell Aberdeen 2.65 1.87
19/11/2011 SPL Dundee Utd v Hearts Dundee Utd 2.62 1.83
19/11/2011 SPL Hibernian v Kilmarnock Hibernian 2.50 1.78
19/11/2011 SPL St Mirren v Dunfermline St Mirren 1.80 1.32

System 7
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Braintree v Forest Green Forest Green 3.20 2.31
19/11/2011 Championship Notts Forest v Ipswich Notts Forest 2.00 1.45
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22
19/11/2011 Premiership Man City v Newcastle Newcastle 11.40 9.39
19/11/2011 Premiership Stoke v QPR QPR 4.77 3.47
19/11/2011 SPL Dundee Utd v Hearts Dundee Utd 2.62 1.83
19/11/2011 SPL St Mirren v Dunfermline St Mirren 1.80 1.32

System 8
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 SPL St Mirren v Dunfermline St Mirren 1.80 1.32

System 21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Braintree v Forest Green Forest Green 3.20 2.31
19/11/2011 Championship Southampton v Brighton Brighton 7.56 5.89
19/11/2011 League One Oldham v Chesterfield Oldham 2.00 1.47
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Tranmere v Sheff Wed Tranmere 2.63 1.87
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22
19/11/2011 League Two Aldershot v Gillingham Aldershot 2.40 1.72
19/11/2011 League Two Bristol Rovers v Barnet Barnet 4.33 3.22
19/11/2011 League Two Macclesfield v Accrington Accrington 3.40 2.40
20/11/2011 Premiership Chelsea v Liverpool Liverpool 4.81 3.53
19/11/2011 Premiership Man City v Newcastle Newcastle 11.40 9.39
19/11/2011 Premiership Stoke v QPR QPR 4.77 3.47
19/11/2011 SPL Dundee Utd v Hearts Dundee Utd 2.62 1.83
19/11/2011 SPL Hibernian v Kilmarnock Hibernian 2.50 1.78

System 22
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22
20/11/2011 Premiership Chelsea v Liverpool Liverpool 4.81 3.53
19/11/2011 SPL Dundee Utd v Hearts Dundee Utd 2.62 1.83

System 6-21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Braintree v Forest Green Forest Green 3.20 2.31
19/11/2011 Championship Southampton v Brighton Brighton 7.56 5.89
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Tranmere v Sheff Wed Tranmere 2.63 1.87
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22
19/11/2011 League Two Aldershot v Gillingham Aldershot 2.40 1.72
19/11/2011 League Two Bristol Rovers v Barnet Barnet 4.33 3.22
19/11/2011 League Two Macclesfield v Accrington Accrington 3.40 2.40
19/11/2011 Premiership Man City v Newcastle Newcastle 11.40 9.39
19/11/2011 Premiership Stoke v QPR QPR 4.77 3.47
19/11/2011 SPL Dundee Utd v Hearts Dundee Utd 2.62 1.83
19/11/2011 SPL Hibernian v Kilmarnock Hibernian 2.50 1.78

System 6-22
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22
19/11/2011 SPL Dundee Utd v Hearts Dundee Utd 2.62 1.83

System 7-21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Braintree v Forest Green Forest Green 3.20 2.31
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22
19/11/2011 Premiership Man City v Newcastle Newcastle 11.40 9.39
19/11/2011 Premiership Stoke v QPR QPR 4.77 3.47
19/11/2011 SPL Dundee Utd v Hearts Dundee Utd 2.62 1.83

System 7-22
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22
19/11/2011 SPL Dundee Utd v Hearts Dundee Utd 2.62 1.83

System 8-21
None

System 8-22
None

System 31
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Braintree v Forest Green Forest Green 3.20 2.31
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Ebbsfleet v Darlington Ebbsfleet 2.10 1.52
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Southport v Bath Bath 5.00 3.70
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Wrexham v Lincoln Lincoln 5.50 4.13
20/11/2011 Championship Millwall v Bristol City Bristol City 5.12 3.75
19/11/2011 Championship Notts Forest v Ipswich Notts Forest 2.00 1.45
19/11/2011 Championship Southampton v Brighton Brighton 7.56 5.89
19/11/2011 Championship Watford v Portsmouth Watford 2.46 1.75
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Scunthorpe v Hartlepool Scunthorpe 2.00 1.47
19/11/2011 League One Tranmere v Sheff Wed Tranmere 2.63 1.87
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22
19/11/2011 League Two Aldershot v Gillingham Aldershot 2.40 1.72
19/11/2011 League Two Macclesfield v Accrington Accrington 3.40 2.40

System 32
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Southport v Bath Bath 5.00 3.70
19/11/2011 Championship Notts Forest v Ipswich Notts Forest 2.00 1.45
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22
19/11/2011 League Two Macclesfield v Accrington Accrington 3.40 2.40

System 33
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 Championship Notts Forest v Ipswich Notts Forest 2.00 1.45
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22

System 6-32
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Southport v Bath Bath 5.00 3.70
19/11/2011 Championship Notts Forest v Ipswich Notts Forest 2.00 1.45
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22
19/11/2011 League Two Macclesfield v Accrington Accrington 3.40 2.40

System 21-31
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Braintree v Forest Green Forest Green 3.20 2.31
19/11/2011 Championship Southampton v Brighton Brighton 7.56 5.89
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Tranmere v Sheff Wed Tranmere 2.63 1.87
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22
19/11/2011 League Two Aldershot v Gillingham Aldershot 2.40 1.72
19/11/2011 League Two Macclesfield v Accrington Accrington 3.40 2.40

System 6-21-31
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 Bsq Prem Braintree v Forest Green Forest Green 3.20 2.31
19/11/2011 Championship Southampton v Brighton Brighton 7.56 5.89
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League One Tranmere v Sheff Wed Tranmere 2.63 1.87
19/11/2011 League One Walsall v Bury Bury 3.13 2.22
19/11/2011 League Two Aldershot v Gillingham Aldershot 2.40 1.72
19/11/2011 League Two Macclesfield v Accrington Accrington 3.40 2.40

System TOX
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League Two Aldershot v Gillingham Aldershot 2.40 1.72
19/11/2011 SPL Hibernian v Kilmarnock Hibernian 2.50 1.78

System STOY
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League Two Aldershot v Gillingham Aldershot 2.40 1.72
19/11/2011 SPL Hibernian v Kilmarnock Hibernian 2.50 1.78

System STOZ
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
19/11/2011 League One Preston v Rochdale Rochdale 4.50 3.38
19/11/2011 League Two Aldershot v Gillingham Aldershot 2.40 1.72

TOX, STOY and STOZ Updated

With the International break, I decided it was worth taking the time to do one of the mundane and boring jobs that needed to be done at some point.

I can’t recall if I mentioned it on the blog or not if I’m honest but I’ve definitely mentioned it on the SBC forum. After coming up with the Similar Games Model systems (TOX, STOY and STOZ) and discussing them in emails with a few people, the overwhelming feedback was that the system had too few bets and therefore, this really limited the potential of this system in terms of others following the bets. In addition, it would have taken about 10 years of bets before we knew if the systems really had an edge or not.

After a bit of thought, just before the season started, I stripped out a lot of the filters on this system which meant I was including many more games than before. It was always going to reduce the returns but it was a price worth paying.

Based on my previous backtesting, I expected these systems to have about 30-40 bets each this season. We’re halfway through November and they have already had 43,37 and 41 bets respectively, so clearly, the systems aren’t exactly the same systems which had the backtested results I was showing on the blog.

I said last week that I would go back and backtest these systems next Summer if the systems did well this season. If they flopped this season, then they’d be dropped anyway as they do take a lot of time to find the bets for each week.

Anyway, due to the fact I’ve had a couple of hours spare at night due to the fact there have been no games, I’ve gone back and backtested the systems with the reduced filters and updated all the historical results in my spreadsheet. I’ve also updated the blog with these system results. Just so you know, it was easier for me to include this season’s results too in the analysis as it was too much work to strip them out and then put them back in etc.

You can find the updated backtested results here if you scroll down:

http://the-football-analyst.blogspot.com/p/new-systems-for-201112-season.html

For those that are only interested in the summary of results by season, here they are:



Now, the first observation anyone can make here (you don’t need to be a shi* hot analyst to notice this!) is that this season’s results look nothing like the historical results. People will automatically jump to the conclusion that these 3 systems are backfitted to the max and won’t work and in a way, they are correct. The systems are backfitted to the max as it’s the way the Similar Games Model works.

However, they are backfitted on data from 2000-2006. All of the historical results I am showing here are simply backtested results. There are NO backfitted results in these 5 years of results in the table above. I could show the results from backfitting (50%+ ROI in every season) but they are meaningless. Backfitting is just a means to an end.

Clearly, some people reading this won’t believe this fact and will consign these systems to the scrap heap along with the other thousands of backfitted systems that fail when they go live. Of course, these systems may well end up on the scrap heap as I say above as I’m not going to track them beyond this season if they are loss making!

However, if you analyse these systems in more depth, there is lots of hope here I believe and I’ve said it before on the blog and I’ll state it again now but long-term, I think these 3 systems may well be the best systems I actually have. The fact they are loss making after 40 bets is irrelevant really.

The systems are actually making a good profit on the Home bets and yet, are losing on the Away bets. This contradicts every one of my other systems as Aways have made all the profits and Homes have really struggled this season so far. Therefore, these systems are able to identify the best Home bets that my ratings algorithms can find. This is definitely worth knowing for future reference.

Secondly, when you study the drawdowns on these systems this season, it is perfectly in line with the historical drawdowns. Therefore, these systems are more than likely suffering from short-term variance and at some point, they will start producing profits hand like they have in the past I suspect. The Away bets are the bets that cause the variance on these systems but they are also the bets that drive the substantial pts profit each season, so as soon as the Away bet strike rate picks up, the systems P&L will pick up.

I thought it was worth sharing this on the blog. I know people are very sceptical about systems and backfitting in particular but if there is one thing I’ve shown so far on this blog, it’s that I am able to build a system, test it via backtesting and then launch it in a live environment and achieve results close to the results in backtesting. The fact it hasn’t happened for these 3 systems yet isn’t down to the systems in my opinion. This season just hasn’t been in line with past seasons so far………

FA Cup Summary

One of the issues I was always going to have with this weekend’s trial of the FA Cup games was determining whether my ratings had worked over such a small sample of games. It’s easy to look at 15,000 games and say that my ratings have an edge but when they find 16 value bets and you’re trying to judge the success, it’s always going to be difficult.

Before this weekend and before I had calculated the ratings, I knew all of this though and it didn’t faze me too much. I wanted to test two things this weekend really.

Firstly, were my ratings throwing up prices massively out of line with the bookmaker prices in all the games? Secondly, were the ratings throwing up the sort of value bets that are thrown up, week in, week out in league games?

Looking at the results and looking at the ratings again, I think I’m safe to say that the ratings worked as I thought they would. I’ve shown the results below for H/A betting, DNB betting and also Double Chance (DC) betting for each of the games where a team was defined as value.

The ratings found most value with the biggest priced teams (consistent with what happens every week) and there was a general bias towards away sides due to this (same as happens most weeks). There were 4 games thrown up where the selection was priced 7+. 2 losses and 2 draws is a pretty good result overall and a profit would have been made by backing DC on these games.

Overall, from the 16 games, there were only 4 winners but there were also 5 draws. At the odds of the selections, it was always likely to be a really good weekend or a poor one I thought but it wasn’t too bad in the end.

As I said above, it wasn’t about whether the ratings made a profit or loss this weekend. The test was whether they could be used in the FA Cup in future and if I’m honest, I would have to say yes, I don’t see an issue with using my ratings for cup games based on this weekend’s bets. Whether I want to use them is another story though and it is something I need to give more thought to.

The other thing that I wanted to test this weekend was whether there was any point in considering looking at the Under/Over market based on my ratings. Again, based on a sample of 11 bets, it’s impossible to draw any conclusions.

However, there was definitely some promise here I think with a profit made of 3.46pts and a record of 7 wins, 4 losses. This included a last minute goal going against the system.

I think this does give me some food for thought in terms of possibly looking at this in future. It would be a fairly big job to go back and build a selection of systems based on under/over 2.5 goals but the data is all there if I want to do it. I’d need to bring in the odds data for O/U 2.5 goals which is a mammoth task but not impossible. Given where I am in my system building experience, I reckon that from having a quick look, it is maybe a 3-4 week job to do this.

Whether I can justify the time and effort to do this is the question and given where I am with the footie at the moment, the answer to this would be no. However, if this season goes well and I decide to launch some sort of service next season and take this blog to a more professional footing, then I could maybe justify the time and effort to do this. This is a long way off though considering I only really have 11 months worth of actual bets behind me.

Anyway, I hope readers enjoyed the dip into the FA Cup this season. As I say, it does give me food for thought and along with the record from early season games, it does give me some decisions to make for next season I suspect.

I’ll be back later this week with the weekend bets.

Sumary fo far

I thought it was worth doing another summary of the season so far. I did one on the 12th of October and it wasn’t a pretty picture. 4 weeks on, things look much better although many of the same trends are apparent as before. However, it will take more than 4 weeks to reverse some of the trends from September as they were fairly significant.

A few highlights I’ve picked out are:

12 of the 20 systems are in profit - 7 of the 9 combined systems I track are in profit – Remember, there is nothing to stop you making up your own combined systems. See this post. http://the-football-analyst.blogspot.com/2011/06/final-systems-for-201112-i-hope.html
Homes have crawled into profit after a disastrous start this season but Aways still account for 95% of the profits on the systems
TOX, STOY and STOZ buck the general trend – Homes are doing great, Aways are struggling and the systems are losing – Surely a matter of time before these systems pick up!
Bsq Prem and League One bets are making a loss – the rest of the leagues are in profit.
Bsq Prem Aways remain an issue and continue to be loss making

People will be able to draw their own conclusions from the data I’ve posted.

FA Cup 'Fun Bets'

When I thought it would be a good idea to use my ratings for this weekend, I hadn’t factored in that all my spreadsheets don’t cope well with teams playing against others from other leagues. When I was building the process 15-18 months ago, I didn’t ever think I’d be interested in looking at games involving teams from different leagues. I hadn’t actually looked at doing the preparation until last night but it didn’t look too difficult. 6 hours of work later……..

Anyway, onto the more interesting stuff.

Below are the value bets for this weekend. There are 16 value bets from the 25 matches (in line with a typical weekend) and there are 11 value bets for the under/over 2.5 goals market. As I said earlier today, these under/over bets are simply a bi-product of the work I do to come up with the selections. I’ve never placed an over/under bet in my life and for all I know, my ratings could be much better at finding value bets in this market than anything on the planet. I doubt it though!

I’m not sure I can place too much emphasis on the value % this weekend. I had guessed this would happen but the 3 highest value bets are priced 7.30, 7.09 and 7.00! I’m not going to worry about trying to put the bets onto the systems etc. as it’s an additional layer of work and at the end of the day, similar to the trial earlier this season, I’m not overly concerned about what the system results would be.

In terms of the under/over value bets, there are 9 under bets and 2 over bets. I suspect that my ratings may have these games closer than the bookies which indicates I expect a lower number of goals than them in many games. It’s all correlated!

Lastly, I’m always very wary of sharing too much of my workings on here or anywhere if I’m honest. However, for a one-off, I’ve pasted the summary sheet that is produced for each of the league games every weekend. I’m sure this might interest a few of you who are into this sort of thing. For others, it gives an indication of the output that I get from doing the work I do on a bi-weekly basis.

Good luck for this weekend.

Fun, fun, fun.....

As mentioned on my last post, there are going to be some ‘fun’ bets for this weekend.

For those that have been following the blog for a while, you’ll know that I tried to use my ratings before any league games had taken place this season but didn’t record them in my official results. I simply used my ratings from last season and adjusted them for the performance of newly promoted teams in historical seasons in the first few games and this gave me a factor that I can use to adjust ratings between leagues. I won’t pretend that this isn’t very crude and I wouldn’t trust it too much if I’m honest. However, it allowed me to give some bets out before any league games had taken place this season which was an interesting experiment. I didn’t place any money on these games myself.

As it turned out, the results were very good although of course, this didn’t only involve games including newly promoted teams. I didn’t do any sort of analysis looking at how my ratings did between newly promoted or relegated teams and teams who were in the leagues last season but I didn’t see anything untoward when I looked back at the games. The ratings held their own in games involving adjusted ratings from a different league last season.

Anyway, for those that weren’t reading the blog then, he’s a summary of the results.

http://the-football-analyst.blogspot.com/2011/08/summary-of-trial.html

Well, this leads me onto this weekend. As you’ll be aware, I ignore all cup games for my ratings and don’t use my ratings on any cup games either. After the results of the experiment earlier this season, it did make me think how I could use my ratings for cup games. However, with the work I do for the league games, I don’t really have any time to look at the league cup or Johnstone’s Paint trophy as it clashes with the work I do for the league games.

This week though, with there being no league games at all due to the International break and the FA Cup, I’ve decided to see what I can do for the first round of the FA Cup.

Clearly, I only have ratings for teams in League One, League Two and the Bsq Prem. I’ll therefore only be able to look at games involving these teams. There are 25 games of this type.

For this weekend only then, I’ll give out full ratings on every game. I’m not giving away my ratings for each team (that’s a secret as they’ll be valid next week as I don’t adjust for cup games!) but I’ll give a simple H/A/X % probability for each game and highlight the value bets. This is in essence the output from my ratings I use to determine the value bets that make their way onto the systems.

One bi-product that is thrown up from my ratings is I can work out the probability of each correct score occurring. I never use it and never intend to as it’s useless I suspect! However, I have always liked the idea of looking at over/under goals as that is another bi-product of my ratings. I’ll also highlight whether over/under 2.5 goals is value for each game this weekend. Of course, it’s a flaw in my model that every game is either value for over or under. It’s one issue I suspect with using a Poisson Distribution as a basis for correct scores before bringing in the rating algorithm to interpret the correct scores.

Anyway, I thought that would be fun to do this week. I’ll post up the bets tonight or tomorrow.

I’ve already said to people to not follow this with real money as it really is a shot in the dark. If I see some evidence that it can be developed further, I may look into it next summer but there are so many complications involved, I don’t think it would be worth it if I’m honest. For example, if I did do cup games, I’d need to adjust my ratings after the cup games. This then invalidates all my historical ratings as I’m not going back in time to restate 11 years worth of data using cup games!

I do like the idea of a standalone FA cup methodology, based on my league ratings but ignoring all cup games. Keeps it in line with what I’m doing and has no impact on my other ratings work.

Before I go, the one thing I’ve not touched on above is the idea that FA Cup games aren’t likely to behave like league games! Hence, my ratings are probably 100% invalid due to this reason. A small team at home may be happy with a draw and to get a replay and likewise, a larger team may well settle for a draw on 80 mins and take the replay if offered. Does home advantage count more in Cup games? There are too many unknowns for me to state if I’m honest.

Unfortunately, 25 games isn’t like to answer all my questions but I think it will give an indication if my ratings are flawed or not for cup games. If I have 25 value bets, I’ll know they are flawed! Likewise, if I have my prices nowhere near the bookmaker prices, I’ll know that my ratings are flawed.

I’m doing the work tonight (did all the preparation already), so I’ll get the bets up here when I can.

Weekend Results

The Aberdeen game tonight has been called off due to the fog in Perth. It was very bad fog when I was driving home from work and I heard it had been postponed on the radio. This voids the bet as there is no rearranged date. Surely they could just play the game tomorrow night or Wednesday night but it never turns out that way! If they play it before any other games take place in the SPL, the bets stands from my point of view. If they play after other games take place, then the ratings will be updated and there is no guarantee that Aberdeen will qualify as a bet again.

In the meantime, it means I can update the weekend results tonight which means I can have a night off tomorrow night. :)

Algorithm one had 19 bets at the weekend. A profit of 3.44pts was made. The breakdown was 6 wins, 3 draws and 10 losers. However, the winners included teams at 5.00,4.06,4.00 and 3.75, so the strike rate doesn’t tell the full story. A profit of 0.31pts was made for DNB betting.

Algorithm two had a poor weekend. 18 bets and a loss of 3.56pts. There were only 4 winners, 4 draws and 11 losers.

Overall, the established systems made a profit of 8.5pts for H/A betting. For DNB betting, the profit was 3.33pts. There were 14 qualifying games, so a nice profit all round.

Algorithm three had a mammoth 25 bets this weekend. However, a loss of 2.56pts was made for H/A betting. 6 winners, 6 draws and 13 losers. A 2.69pt loss for DNB betting.

Amazingly, even though the algorithm made a loss, the systems did a good job in narrowing down the bets. System 32 took the 25 bets, narrowed them down to 8 bets and hit 4 winners. Hence, the other 17 games it didn’t like only included 2 winners!

Overall, the new systems created a profit of 22.78pts for H/A betting and a profit of 12.92pts for DNB betting. An excellent return considering that system 31 made a loss.

Just on the point about the systems, system 22 took the 18 bets on system 21 and narrowed them down to 2 bets, 2 winners at 4.06 and 4.00. Pretty good performance too.

Again, it’s hard to not be pleased with this weekend. It had the look of a fairly tough weekend with many of the systems not agreeing on bets but in the end, when the systems did agree, the bets performed well.

I’ll do a post in a day or so regarding this weekend. Although there are no official bets as there are no league games, there will be some ‘fun’ bets………

A new blog to read.....

Thanks for the comments on the last couple of blog posts. As I’m sure you appreciate, it is a bit of a slog at times finding bets, placing bets, posting bets, updating results, finding bets, placing bets etc.

I do like the odd comment as it at least lets me know people are reading the blog!

I’ll update the weekend results on here after the Aberdeen game tonight. It was an OK weekend again and things are going as smoothly at the moment for the systems as they have since they went live I think! Even at the start of last season when things were going great, it was still very up and down every weekend but importantly, the good weekends were outweighing the bad weekends, so the P&L was going up gradually. At the moment, it seems to be a consistent stream of profits which really helps the mental state.

Over the past 5 weeks, things have gone fairly smoothly and the losses of September are already starting to look like a distant memory.

However, saying all of the above, if there is one thing I’ve learnt over the past 22 months, it’s that whenever things are going smoothly, the next downturn is right around the corner!

For those that are reading my blog and are also keen on horseracing, there is an excellent blog that has started recently which is written by a very good friend of mine. What this guy doesn’t know about horseracing isn’t worth knowing, so I’m looking forward to seeing how he goes this winter. Things have started well with a really nice winner at the weekend but he’ll hopefully build up a nice profit over the next few months.

He’s already well known to anyone who’s been a member of the TFA forum at my old horseracing site and he’s been proofing his bets in there for the past 18 months very successfully as many will be aware, so hopefully this now translates into a good profit for his blog readers and Twitter followers as he looks to branch out and help others make a profit from horseracing. I know he’s similar to me in the sense he’ll really appreciate any comments (good or bad!) and will respond to all comments that come his way, so don’t be shy in commenting on the blog.

Here’s his blog link here

http://tvb-earlybird.blogspot.com/

I’ll be back tomorrow with an update of the weekend results. Could do with an Aberdeen win tonight to turn an OK weekend into a good weekend.

And the other bets.....

Here's the remaining system bets.

System TOX
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Lincoln v Barrow Lincoln 2.63 1.89
05/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Preston Preston 5.50 4.21
05/11/2011 League 1 MK Dons v Rochdale Rochdale 6.00 4.57
05/11/2011 League 2 Wimbledon v Barnet Barnet 4.50 3.35
05/11/2011 SPL Kilmarnock v Inverness Inverness 4.00 2.87

System STOY
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Lincoln v Barrow Lincoln 2.63 1.89
05/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Preston Preston 5.50 4.21
05/11/2011 League 1 MK Dons v Rochdale Rochdale 6.00 4.57
05/11/2011 SPL Kilmarnock v Inverness Inverness 4.00 2.87

System STOZ
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 SPL Kilmarnock v Inverness Inverness 4.00 2.87
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Lincoln v Barrow Lincoln 2.63 1.89
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Mansfield v Cambridge Mansfield 2.25 1.62
05/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Preston Preston 5.50 4.21
05/11/2011 League 1 MK Dons v Rochdale Rochdale 6.00 4.57
05/11/2011 League 1 Tranmere v Colchester Tranmere 2.20 1.59
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem York v Wrexham York 2.10 1.50

Weekend Bets

The bets for TOX, STOY and STOZ will hopefully be posted tomorrow at lunchtime.

The Football Analyst Bets for 5th-7th November

System 6
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Tamworth Tamworth 3.25 2.35
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Lincoln v Barrow Lincoln 2.63 1.89
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Luton v Fleetwood Luton 2.10 1.54
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Mansfield v Cambridge Mansfield 2.25 1.62
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Newport v Ebbsfleet Newport 2.00 1.47
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem York v Wrexham York 2.10 1.50
05/11/2011 Championship Cardiff v Crystal Palace Crystal Palace 4.50 3.34
06/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Leeds Leeds 4.06 2.99
06/11/2011 Championship Reading v Birmingham Birmingham 3.64 2.56
05/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Preston Preston 5.50 4.21
05/11/2011 League 1 Leyton Orient v Hartlepool Hartlepool 4.00 2.89
05/11/2011 League 1 MK Dons v Rochdale Rochdale 6.00 4.57
05/11/2011 League 1 Oldham v Bury Bury 3.75 2.71
05/11/2011 League 1 Tranmere v Colchester Tranmere 2.20 1.59
05/11/2011 League 2 Crewe v Torquay Torquay 3.00 2.12
05/11/2011 League 2 Dagenham v Shrewsbury Dagenham 3.40 2.47
05/11/2011 League 2 Rotherham v Aldershot Aldershot 3.30 2.38
05/11/2011 SPL Hibernian v Dunfermline Dunfermline 5.00 3.72
05/11/2011 SPL Kilmarnock v Inverness Inverness 4.00 2.87
07/11/2011 SPL St Johnstone v Aberdeen Aberdeen 3.30 2.32

System 7
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Tamworth Tamworth 3.25 2.35
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem York v Wrexham York 2.10 1.50
05/11/2011 League 1 Tranmere v Colchester Tranmere 2.20 1.59
05/11/2011 League 2 Crewe v Torquay Torquay 3.00 2.12

System 8
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Tamworth Tamworth 3.25 2.35
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem York v Wrexham York 2.10 1.50
05/11/2011 League 2 Crewe v Torquay Torquay 3.00 2.12

System 21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Gateshead v Braintree Braintree 3.50 2.53
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Tamworth Tamworth 3.25 2.35
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Lincoln v Barrow Lincoln 2.63 1.89
06/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Leeds Leeds 4.06 2.99
05/11/2011 Championship Middlesbrough v Watford Watford 6.00 4.48
05/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Preston Preston 5.50 4.21
05/11/2011 League 1 Huddersfield v Walsall Walsall 9.50 7.53
05/11/2011 League 1 Leyton Orient v Hartlepool Hartlepool 4.00 2.89
05/11/2011 League 1 MK Dons v Rochdale Rochdale 6.00 4.57
05/11/2011 League 1 Oldham v Bury Bury 3.75 2.71
05/11/2011 League 2 Dagenham v Shrewsbury Dagenham 3.40 2.47
05/11/2011 League 2 Rotherham v Aldershot Aldershot 3.30 2.38
05/11/2011 League 2 Wimbledon v Barnet Barnet 4.50 3.35
05/11/2011 Premiership Aston Villa v Norwich Norwich 4.76 3.47
05/11/2011 Premiership Man Utd v Sunderland Sunderland 15.00 12.69
06/11/2011 Premiership Wolves v Wigan Wigan 4.63 3.31
05/11/2011 SPL Kilmarnock v Inverness Inverness 4.00 2.87
06/11/2011 SPL Rangers v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 12.00 10.00
07/11/2011 SPL St Johnstone v Aberdeen Aberdeen 3.30 2.32

System 22
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
06/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Leeds Leeds 4.06 2.99
05/11/2011 SPL Kilmarnock v Inverness Inverness 4.00 2.87
07/11/2011 SPL St Johnstone v Aberdeen Aberdeen 3.30 2.32

System 6-21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Tamworth Tamworth 3.25 2.35
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Lincoln v Barrow Lincoln 2.63 1.89
06/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Leeds Leeds 4.06 2.99
05/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Preston Preston 5.50 4.21
05/11/2011 League 1 Leyton Orient v Hartlepool Hartlepool 4.00 2.89
05/11/2011 League 1 MK Dons v Rochdale Rochdale 6.00 4.57
05/11/2011 League 1 Oldham v Bury Bury 3.75 2.71
05/11/2011 League 2 Dagenham v Shrewsbury Dagenham 3.40 2.47
05/11/2011 League 2 Rotherham v Aldershot Aldershot 3.30 2.38
05/11/2011 SPL Kilmarnock v Inverness Inverness 4.00 2.87
07/11/2011 SPL St Johnstone v Aberdeen Aberdeen 3.30 2.32

System 6-22
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
06/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Leeds Leeds 4.06 2.99
05/11/2011 SPL Kilmarnock v Inverness Inverness 4.00 2.87
07/11/2011 SPL St Johnstone v Aberdeen Aberdeen 3.30 2.32

System 7-21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Tamworth Tamworth 3.25 2.35

System 7-22
None

System 8-21
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Tamworth Tamworth 3.25 2.35

System 8-22
None

System 31
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Darlington v Telford Telford 4.00 2.87
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Gateshead v Braintree Braintree 3.50 2.53
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Tamworth Tamworth 3.25 2.35
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Lincoln v Barrow Lincoln 2.63 1.89
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Luton v Fleetwood Luton 2.10 1.54
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Mansfield v Cambridge Mansfield 2.25 1.62
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Newport v Ebbsfleet Newport 2.00 1.47
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem York v Wrexham York 2.10 1.50
05/11/2011 Championship Blackpool v Millwall Millwall 3.60 2.61
06/11/2011 Championship Coventry v Southampton Coventry 4.87 3.59
06/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Leeds Leeds 4.06 2.99
06/11/2011 Championship Reading v Birmingham Birmingham 3.64 2.56
05/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Preston Preston 5.50 4.21
05/11/2011 League 1 Huddersfield v Walsall Walsall 9.50 7.53
05/11/2011 League 1 Leyton Orient v Hartlepool Hartlepool 4.00 2.89
05/11/2011 League 1 MK Dons v Rochdale Rochdale 6.00 4.57
05/11/2011 League 1 Oldham v Bury Bury 3.75 2.71
05/11/2011 League 1 Tranmere v Colchester Tranmere 2.20 1.59
05/11/2011 League 2 Crewe v Torquay Torquay 3.00 2.12
05/11/2011 League 2 Rotherham v Aldershot Aldershot 3.30 2.38
05/11/2011 League 2 Wimbledon v Barnet Barnet 4.50 3.35
05/11/2011 SPL Hibernian v Dunfermline Dunfermline 5.00 3.72
05/11/2011 SPL Kilmarnock v Inverness Inverness 4.00 2.87
06/11/2011 SPL Motherwell v Celtic Motherwell 6.57 5.02
06/11/2011 SPL Rangers v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 12.00 10.00
07/11/2011 SPL St Johnstone v Aberdeen Aberdeen 3.30 2.32

System 32
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Tamworth Tamworth 3.25 2.35
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Lincoln v Barrow Lincoln 2.63 1.89
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem York v Wrexham York 2.10 1.50
06/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Leeds Leeds 4.06 2.99
05/11/2011 League 1 MK Dons v Rochdale Rochdale 6.00 4.57
05/11/2011 League 1 Oldham v Bury Bury 3.75 2.71
05/11/2011 League 1 Tranmere v Colchester Tranmere 2.20 1.59
05/11/2011 League 2 Crewe v Torquay Torquay 3.00 2.12
07/11/2011 SPL St Johnstone v Aberdeen Aberdeen 3.30 2.32

System 33
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Tamworth Tamworth 3.25 2.35
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Lincoln v Barrow Lincoln 2.63 1.89
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem York v Wrexham York 2.10 1.50
06/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Leeds Leeds 4.06 2.99
05/11/2011 League 1 Tranmere v Colchester Tranmere 2.20 1.59
05/11/2011 League 2 Crewe v Torquay Torquay 3.00 2.12

System 6-32
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Tamworth Tamworth 3.25 2.35
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Lincoln v Barrow Lincoln 2.63 1.89
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem York v Wrexham York 2.10 1.50
06/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Leeds Leeds 4.06 2.99
05/11/2011 League 1 MK Dons v Rochdale Rochdale 6.00 4.57
05/11/2011 League 1 Oldham v Bury Bury 3.75 2.71
05/11/2011 League 1 Tranmere v Colchester Tranmere 2.20 1.59
05/11/2011 League 2 Crewe v Torquay Torquay 3.00 2.12
07/11/2011 SPL St Johnstone v Aberdeen Aberdeen 3.30 2.32

System 21-31
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
07/11/2011 SPL St Johnstone v Aberdeen Aberdeen 3.30 2.32
05/11/2011 League 2 Rotherham v Aldershot Aldershot 3.30 2.38
05/11/2011 League 2 Wimbledon v Barnet Barnet 4.50 3.35
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Gateshead v Braintree Braintree 3.50 2.53
05/11/2011 League 1 Oldham v Bury Bury 3.75 2.71
06/11/2011 SPL Rangers v Dundee Utd Dundee Utd 12.00 10.00
05/11/2011 League 1 Leyton Orient v Hartlepool Hartlepool 4.00 2.89
05/11/2011 SPL Kilmarnock v Inverness Inverness 4.00 2.87
06/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Leeds Leeds 4.06 2.99
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Lincoln v Barrow Lincoln 2.63 1.89
05/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Preston Preston 5.50 4.21
05/11/2011 League 1 MK Dons v Rochdale Rochdale 6.00 4.57
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Tamworth Tamworth 3.25 2.35
05/11/2011 League 1 Huddersfield v Walsall Walsall 9.50 7.53

System 6-21-31
Date League Game Selection Odds DNB Odds
07/11/2011 SPL St Johnstone v Aberdeen Aberdeen 3.30 2.32
05/11/2011 League 2 Rotherham v Aldershot Aldershot 3.30 2.38
05/11/2011 League 1 Oldham v Bury Bury 3.75 2.71
05/11/2011 League 1 Leyton Orient v Hartlepool Hartlepool 4.00 2.89
05/11/2011 SPL Kilmarnock v Inverness Inverness 4.00 2.87
06/11/2011 Championship Leicester v Leeds Leeds 4.06 2.99
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Lincoln v Barrow Lincoln 2.63 1.89
05/11/2011 League 1 Charlton v Preston Preston 5.50 4.21
05/11/2011 League 1 MK Dons v Rochdale Rochdale 6.00 4.57
05/11/2011 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Tamworth Tamworth 3.25 2.35

System TOX
TBC

System STOY
TBC

System STOZ
TBC

A long reply to a fairly simple question.....

There was a good question on my last post asked by Malcolm from the My Betting Life blog. http://mybettinglife.blogspot.com/

This may be a stupid question but do you bet on all the tips that come out of the systems? The only reason I ask is there's so many how do you do it and where?

Firstly, it’s not a stupid question. Far from it. I’m sure there are a lot of people reading this blog who wonder what the hell I do with the bets each week. I’ve discussed it before on the blog but here’s a quick update for any new readers like yourself Malcolm.

In summary, no one in the world could follow all 20 of my systems. Well, you could do it if you wanted to I guess but at the end of the day, you’d need a massive betting bank and when you consider some teams appear once and other teams appear 20 times, it would seem a bit mad to be staking some of the teams that are only picked once. At the end of the day, your P&L will be dictated by the teams that appear 10+ times I suspect if you followed every bet!

Anyway, in a word, no, I’m not following all of the bets and neither is anyone else. Each system I post is simply a system that produces bets. Nothing more, nothing less. I personally like to think of my systems as a group of tipsters as I’ve said before on the blog. I effectively manage the group of tipsters but at the end of the day, I’m not picking the bets, so I’m not going to be held responsible for the performance of some of the tipsters. Like I did at the end of last season, I might drop or add new tipsters to the group but at the end of the day, it is simply a group of tipsters.

I’m guessing there are a lot of football punters who read my blog and therefore, they are getting access to free systems. How good these systems are is debatable but as I’ve said before, my intention when I started this blog was never to find the 100 best football systems on the planet. No, my intention was to find one of the best football systems on the planet. If I knew which system was best, I wouldn’t worry about the other 19 systems but given I only started this project in January 2010, it’s going to take a bit of time to get to the stage where I’m completely happy with a system and can believe in it 100%.

So, what I do is track the performance of all the tipsters in the group and report back on the blog. Hence, I give out all the bets and show all the results but importantly, I’m not backing every single team that appears on every system. That would be like following 20 football tipsters in a betting portfolio. Not only that, some of the tipsters have 25+ bets some weekends! That would be a lot of work…..

Everyone who’s following the systems is following their own portfolio of tipsters or their own single tipster. Malcolm specifically asked about me and what I’m doing. I’ve covered this before on the blog but I’m following 2 portfolios this season. The first portfolio is made up of the 6 combined systems from last season and the second portfolio is a selection of 5 new systems from this season.

Portfolio one is simply the combined systems 6-21,6-22,7-21,7-22,8-21 and 8-22. These systems are effectively my proofed results at the Secret Betting Club and some of the SBC members following the systems this season are most likely following this portfolio. Due to the fact that I’m pretty risk averse when it comes to betting, I’m following any away teams at greater than 3.5 (5/2) by covering the draw. Hence, I’m using DNB on these teams. At the same time though, I’m playing double stakes on the Home bets.

Portfolio two is systems 32, 6-32, 6-21-31,STOY and STOZ. I started the season off with system 33 but quickly realised there weren’t as much bets as I expected, so I switched to system 32. I play DNB on all aways and 1pt on all Home wins.

So far this season, it has been a rollercoaster with a substantial loss on both portfolios in September followed by a substantial profit on both portfolios in October. Both portfolios are in profit but running below the 10% ROI though that I’m looking for. Still, with so many bets and such a high level of turnover, a circa. 5% ROI isn’t a disaster after the rollercoaster season so far.

As for putting the bets on, I only use new bookmaking accounts I opened up at the start of 2010 for this purpose. I have about 20 accounts these days I use and I have never placed anything other than a football bet on these accounts. So far, I’ve lost my Eurobet, Coral, Skybet, 888, Bsq, Bwin accounts completely and I’m restricted on about 6 others. Nowadays, 40% of my bets go through Pinnacle with the remainder through Lad, WH, B365, SJ and a few others. I have pseudo accounts in my wife’s name for special occasions when I want a large stake on a standout price at a place I’m restricted but that isn’t too often.

I haven’t utilised any of the Asian bookmakers yet and I don’t use Betfair as I can’t get the liquidity I require on most games at the prices I require.

I’m sure the time will come when I can’t get the stakes on at the prices I require but so far, I’m doing OK. I will of course use the more obscure Asian bookmakers if need be although I don’t quite trust all of these yet deep down, hence my reluctance to use them so far!

One thing that is often misunderstood about this blog and my systems is how easy it is to follow the systems. I honestly believe these systems are the easiest thing in the world to follow but at times across at the SBC forum, I get the impression people get lost when they see so many bets appearing on so many systems!

Simply, all you have to do is choose a system or group of systems that you would like to follow and follow them. Ignore the fact that there are another 150 bets appearing on other systems. These don’t matter!

Some of the most common portfolios this season that I know people are following this season are:

Systems 6-21,6-22,7-21.7-22.8-21.8-22
Systems 7-21,7-22,8-21.8-22
System 7-22
System 7-22, System 32, System STOZ
System 7-22, System 6-32, System STOY

Of course, I know a few people who are playing DNB on Aways with different stakes on Home/Away bets and so on. At the end of the day, you can play any sort of portfolio you want.

How do my systems compare with others in the tipster market? Not really for me to answer as people can compare my results with others as I showed the proofed results for all my systems on here:

http://the-football-analyst.blogspot.com/2011/10/monthly-review-october.html

What I would say is that System 7-22 is the system I’ve steered people towards this season (and I steered people towards system 8 and system 8-22 last season) and I know that this system is likely to be my best system. After 11 months of bets (over a season and 2 months), it has an ROI of 25.6%. Hot on its heels, system 8-22 has an ROI of 24.3%.

Clearly, it’s too early to read too much into these returns as you’d need to see more than 11 months of bets on a system but I think these systems have the potential to be as good as anything else in the market. They are very selective, highlight only the best bets and can be followed with a great deal of confidence. Obviously, they don’t have many proofed bets behind them as they are so selective but the other systems give the systems the credibility they deserve by showing a profit is made over a large number of bets.

The SBC are tracking the results of the 6 combined systems as an indication of the profitability of my systems and as of today, after 1,296 bets, there is a profit of 186.7pts and an ROI of 14.4%. I think this is a fair indication of my systems’ performance to date although it is by no means the best way to show my results. If you ignore systems 6-21 and 6-22 in this portfolio, you’d be looking at 666 bets, a profit of 122.8pts and an ROI of 18.4%. Of course, you could bring in all the other single systems that are proofed from last season as well as the combined systems and the return drops 8.1% from 3,551 bets!

Anyway, I think that answers you question Malcolm and a little bit more! ;)

A summary of the systems in 1,500 words exactly

OK, this post is about two weeks overdue I suspect (maybe longer as I can’t remember!) but here’s a quick summary of the rating algorithms and the systems.

I started out in January 2010 with the idea of developing my own football ratings. After playing about with data sources and different leagues, I had something built at the end of March that was simply a prototype. I tested it on a few leagues at the end of that season and the results looked promising.

The Summer arrived and I built my first full algorithm. Before I had finished backtesting the first algorithm, I’d already had the idea of a second algorithm based on what I learnt from my first algorithm as once you know how to build something like this, it is fairly easy to replicate it.

I often switch between talking about algorithms and systems on the blog and I know people don’t always get what I’m talking about. I’ll keep this very brief and make it seem easy!

In simple terms, an algorithm is simply a sophisticated model that is used to produce football ratings for each game. Once you have the ratings for each game, you can test the ratings against the odds available for each outcome in the game and either using software or Excel, try to recalibrate the ratings so that they produce a profit during backtesting.

My algorithms are pretty basic in the sense they are multivariate linear models. Hence, they are simply along the lines of:

Factor A * Weighting A + Factor B * Weighting B and so on. In total, each algorithm has 28 factors and 28 different weightings. I initially started off with 7 factors which became 14 which became 28. In a way, the factors aren’t the thing that separates my ratings from others I suspect. The weights on each of the factor is the thing that is my USP.

How did I determine the optimal weights? Well, I used 6 years of historical data and using the help of a colleague at work who’s into PC SAS, built a stochastic model to determine the optimal weights to backfit a model that produced profits based on certain criteria.

I can tell you the best indicators when it comes to building a football ratings model and I can also tell you the relativity of one rating factor to another. Hence, rating factor A is 2.45 times more important than factor B.

In terms of the factors, it is fairly straightforward with Shots on goal and Shots on target being the key underlying variables in the model. Hence, whereas people look at results of games to determine value, I look at shots on goal and try to find teams who are maybe playing better than the league table indicates. Hence, you look for teams who are playing better than their results indicate as these are the ones the odds compilers and general public will often underestimate.

Being honest, all of the above is pretty basic stuff for anyone who knows what they are doing.

I think my other USP at this game was finding an algorithm that worked and then building a second one straight after! The power of two algorithms only became apparent after last season started admittedly but hopefully if you follow the blog, you’ll see why having two algorithms is better than one!

Once the algorithm was built, it was then a simple game of backfitting systems on the historical ratings data to come up with systems that can be used going forward.

I made the decision early on to never use the most recent years in my backfitting as I needed a large sample of data to backtest my systems on. Hence, I was therefore confident that if they systems worked when I backtested them over the most recent seasons, then they are likely to work when they went live.

Last season, I started proofing bets from my first two algorithms. Instead of just proofing the algorithm bets (every bet), I came up with this unique way of looking at things. This is another USP!

I have 10 systems for each algorithm. What I do is pick out all the bets for the 10 systems and then depending on how many times each team appears, they make their way onto a system. The 10 systems are split 5 home systems and 5 away systems.

So, I have systems A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I and J for each algorithm.

If system A,B,C pick the same team, this means the team makes it onto system 8. If systems A and E pick a team, that means it appears on system 7. If only system B picks a team, that makes its way onto system 6. Likewise for systems 21 and 22.

After watching the results last season of systems 6,7,8,21,22, someone mentioned to me that they were following the bets that were picked out by system 8 and 22 and the returns were exceptional. I hadn’t thought of this, so I started a new project of looking at the returns by backing teams that appear on two systems.

Quite quickly, I picked up on the fact the results were out of this world and therefore, I started proofing the bets on the combined systems. Of course, the combined system bets were already proofed from the start of the season as if a bet appeared on 6 and 21, then it automatically becomes a bet on system 6-21 even though I didn’t know at the time!

Anyway, that explains how I got the first two rating algorithms and systems 6,7,8,21,22,6-21,6-22,7-21,7-22,8-21 and 8-22.

Before I go on, an obvious question, what happened to systems 1-5, 11-20,26-30. In addition, what happened to systems 9,10,23,24 and 25?

Well, systems 1-5,11-15 and 26-30 are just other rating algorithms that lie somewhere on the cutting floor. They didn’t make the grade before going live. The reason for not changing the names of any of the systems that are live is that people who I was sharing all of the model building information with were used to the names of all the systems and therefore, it felt wrong to change them. In addition, I was also used to the names of the systems and became quite fond of system 8 etc. so I didn’t want to change the names for anything fancier.

Systems 16-20 were multiple bets systems based on building multiple bets from the single bet systems. They were proofed on the blog last year but were very high risk, high return and not suited to portfolio betting. They provided me with my highest winning day on betting ever last season but also accounted for a steady stream of losses, so they were dropped from the portfolio of systems this season. The results remain on the blog.

Systems 9,10,23,24 and 25 were all live last season but were dropped for this season. They were all dropped for the same reason of not having enough turnover.

As for the results last season, they are all on the blog and proofed independently by the Secret Betting Club.

Where did systems 31,32,33 come from? Well, using the same approach to the first two algorithms, I built a new algorithm in the Summer of 2011 to use for this season. This is the 3rd algorithm.

What are systems TOX, STOY and STOZ? Well, after building the 3rd algorithm in the Summer, I had a couple of weeks left before the season started. I started reading about someone who had built a Similar Games Model for Basketball games in the US and I decided I’d like the challenge of trying to do the same for the footie this season. Obviously, to ensure I don’t do anything mad, I’d cross refer the SGM with my ratings algorithms so every team that appears on these systems appears on one of my algorithms.

The names don’t mean anything to anyone apart from me and again, due to the fact I’m used to the names, I’ll keep them as they are.

During backtesting, the SGM systems produced the best results I’ve ever seen from a football system, so I had very high hopes for this season for these bets. So far, they’ve been rubbish and to outsiders, may look like I’m wasting my time doing an hour’s extra work every week to find and track these bets but I don’t tend to be wrong too often about systems. Long-term, I’ll be surprised if the returns from these SGM systems don’t beat all my other systems. However, at the moment, they are trailing way behind and are actually loss making as of today this season. Quite an achievement considering all 3 rating algorithms are in profit! Anyway, you’ve all heard of the Tortoise and the Hare, so don’t write these systems off yet.

Amazingly, I’ve managed to write a summary of the systems in exactly 1500 words. Just!

Here’s a diagram which explains it all with no words. :)

(and that readers, is 1,500 words)

Nice start to the month

Well, as always happens when I try to second guess the results, I’m always wrong.

Any fears I had about the fact that systems 8 and 22 had no bets were unfounded as the results last night turned out very good. Of course, when I look at the results now, I wish that systems 8 and 22 had found the same bets as it would have meant an even more profitable night for me but one thing that is great about a systems based approach is that you can never deviate away from the long-term plan. Nights like last night don't come along often, so although I wish I had staked more on the teams, I'm happy that the long-term plan is working.

Algorithm one found 3 bets, 3 winners. A profit of 4.3pts for H/A betting and a profit of 2.19pts for DNB betting.

Algorithm two found 6 bets, 3 winners, 2 draws and a loser. A profit of 1.3pts for H/A betting and a profit of 1.19pts for DNB betting.

The ratings weren’t far off from another good winner with Bristol City managing to draw away at West Ham at odds of 9.00. Close but no cigar which has been the story on these longshots over the past couple of weeks since QPR won at Chelsea.

Overall, the established systems made a profit of 12.5pts for H/A betting and a profit of 6.91pts for DNB betting.

The 3rd algorithm found 5 bets, 3 winners, 1 draw and a loser. A profit of 2.3pts for H/A betting and a profit of 1.19pts for DNB betting.

The new systems did very well though and made a profit of 27.2pts for H/A betting and a profit of 13.92pts for DNB betting.

Overall, a very, very satisfying night with so little games to choose from and the ratings appear right on the mark at the moment. Of course, I know that won’t continue and the next losing run is just around the corner but you need to enjoy these good times when they appear as they never last long enough!

I will try to do a post tonight concerning the systems and how they work for the anonymous poster. Since he last posted though, he should hopefully have made a few quid following the bets! :)