Wednesday, 19 June 2013

All systems go.....not quite!

Just a quick post with an update of how things are progressing.

One issue with the Summer Plan I sent out a few months back is that I had no contingency built into the plan at all. Every week was full of me doing work in preparation for next season and when I created the plan, I realised there wasn’t a lot of time to build a new set of draw ratings, build systems, do all the work in the ratings sheets to pick up these bets every week, amend the weekly bet sheet to pick up these bets and so on. Unfortunately, getting a robust set of draw ratings to work and work like I wanted them to has been difficult.

Don’t want to lay it on too much here but I’ve worked basically nonstop for 2 weeks now to get to the stage I’m at now. I now have two new algorithms built for draws and both look very good I think. I’ve also built 10 systems to find bets and these systems look fairly decent. I would say that finding a profitable edge with draws in the UK leagues is easier than finding an edge with Homes but more difficult than finding an edge on Aways.

What does all this mean? Well, I now need to take these 10 systems worth of bets and build the actual systems we’re going to have next season. This will systems D1,D2,D3,D6,D7 and the 6 combined systems D1-D6 etc.  11 systems in total.

Unfortunately, those who read my Summer plan will be aware of the fact that I hoped to do all of this in one week and in reality, by the time I’m expecting to be done at the end of this week (Sunday night), it will have taken me 3 weeks rather than a single week.

Not ideal but I was probably being ambitious thinking I could do this in a week. So, I’ll continue ploughing away and when these systems are completed, I’ll share the results on the blog along with the betting banks and expectations for next season.  It will squeeze my time later this Summer to help people with portfolio building but my way around this is probably to work even harder then and maybe take some time off my day job at some point to spend dedicated time doing this, so I hope I won’t run out of time to get everything done.

A couple of people have asked why I’m looking at Draws considering I already have all these other systems but as always, everything I do with this service is linked to how I want to play this game. Yes, most subscribers aren’t interested in using draw systems and probably think I’m wasting my time here but for me, these draw systems are the missing piece of the jigsaw. I use AH betting on some bets as I’m trying to mitigate the impact of draws on my betting portfolio but this is a lazy way to do this. I know the draws are the biggest danger to my systems and my betting portfolio and if you look at the biggest drawdowns most of the portfolios have when I build them, it’s due to the times when the systems are really impacted by draws.

Quite simply, when draws are higher than average, my systems will lose badly and it usually costs me a small fortune in the short term. Therefore, covering the draw helps to minimise my losses as I’ve said a few times. Using AH betting was never a way to increase profits, it was a way to mitigate risk. However, if I can actually pinpoint a strategy that is profitable using draws (and of course, this will include some games where I’m backing a selection to win), then instead of just minimising losses, when the draws hit, I can actually recoup some of the losses and if I do it well, I can actually get the draw on my side.

Of course, a lot of this is hypothesis and ultimately, I’ve no evidence (yet!) that a portfolio of systems backing selections to win and other selections to draw is any better than what I have been following over the last two seasons (which to be honest, haven’t been bad!) but I suspect that common sense dictates it has to be.

We know that using AH bets in a portfolio had the potential to smooth the returns, reduce the drawdowns and increase the ROC that could be achieved. Therefore, going one step further and actually backing draws rather than just backing the selection and getting the money back when the game is a draw should be optimal.

Anyway, that gives a bit more insight into why I’m spending 3 weeks on this. I actually expect most people to ignore the draw systems for the first season which is a sensible approach but long-term, finding something to work with draws is more beneficial to me than finding an edge in the Euro leagues. Pinnacle and Betfair offer the most competitive odds on draws by a long way and yet, I can get almost any stake I want on the draw each weekend in any game.

Next update should hopefully be this weekend with a summary of the draw systems.

I’m opening the doors to the service for those on the waiting list in the next 24 hours. They’ll have until the 1st of July to subscribe before Joe Public can subscribe if they so wish. Places are limited and severely restricted to protect odds. Keep an eye out for an email and a link to join.

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