Dodging Icebergs!

I’ve mentioned this before on the blog but I’ve sort of developed a sixth sense about how good or bad a set of fixtures are going to be quite early on in the games. For example, last Tuesday, I knew early on that it would be a profitable evening and it had the potential to be a great evening and it turned out that way. On Saturday, things again looked very good early on but the late goals all went against the systems, so it actually turned a profitable day into a small losing day. I’m not right all the time!

Quite early on last night, as sometimes happens, it quickly became a case of damage limitation. As the night wore on, I was starting to think that all 4 of the big games that my systems had selected weren’t going to return any winners and that would have been a disaster.

As it happens, Tranmere came from behind to win and due to the fact they appeared on all 20 systems, then their win alone ensured it was never going to be the disaster it looked like being at one stage.

I think we got a little bit of luck with York who managed to throw away a 2 goal lead (lost count how often this has happened recently) but amazingly, they managed to score late on to win 3-2. Of course, as usual, there were the late goals going against the systems and sending offs again hurting the teams I’d backed but as I keep saying, this is part of the game with these systems. It happened last season plenty of times and maybe we got a little luckier earlier this season when things went out way a fair bit but we’re definitively seeing a correction now.

Overall then, looking at the results, it’s actually a little surprising to see that the systems didn’t lose more points. Of course, hitting a few winners and lots of losers is never ideal as I know some people follow the aways by covering the draw, so it wasn’t ever going to be a good night last night for them. The systems barely had a draw in any of the games.

At times though, holding onto as much of the profit as you can during a bad set of fixtures is almost as important as nights like last Tuesday when the systems hit plenty of big priced winners. I’ll take the results from last night and move on.

I said this straight after the games in the TFA forum but it does feel like I’m trying to steer the Titanic at the moment. Last night was very close to hitting a massive iceberg and if Tranmere hadn’t won, this post would have read much differently today. However, the systems managed to get through (just!) and can move onto the weekend now, with confidence intact and profits still in the bag.

The combined systems have now had 94 bets already this month with the highest live month so far being 181 bets, so with 3 weekends left this month, it’s likely to be the highest number of bets in a month since the systems went live. That alone is quite scary as usually I’d be thinking that the month is going OK and we’ll get to the end of it in one piece but with 3 weekends left, this is almost the same as some other full months of the year! A very long way to go this month……

Algorithm one had 8 bets last night. 4 winners and 4 losers. A profit of 3.83pts for H/A betting and a profit of 0.5pts for DNB.

Algorithm two had 9 bets. 4 winners, 4 losers and 1 draw. A profit of 0.81pts for H/A betting and a loss of 0.91pts for DNB.

Algorithm three had 9 bets, 4 winners and 5 losers. A profit of 2.83pts for H/A betting and a loss of 0.5pts for DNB.

Looking at the results of my ratings last night, it actually doesn’t look too bad but it is hidden by the fact that Cambridge and Hull both won but didn’t appear on both system 6 and 21, so they don’t really count in the returns of the systems as much as I’d have liked them too!

The established systems made a loss of 2.6pts for H/A betting and a loss of 14.4pts for DNB betting.

The new systems made a loss of 2.13pts for H/A betting and a loss of 15.4pts for DNB betting.

Although I said I wouldn’t discuss it until the summer, with DNB not having a good night last night, that guarantees that AH betting would have had an even worse night. It was big losses across the piece for any AH betting last night which goes to show how easy it is to turn a winning system into losing system using AH betting. All 3 rating algorithms were profitable last night and backing outright made a small loss. However, any form of AH betting made substantial losses on the night as it doesn’t work when teams either or lose. No point in having the draw on your side if your teams either win or lose!

The next post will be on Friday at 6pm with the weekend bets.