Tips for Tikay

[TL900]

http://www.oddschecker.com/basketball/nba/houston-rockets-at-oklahoma-city-thunder/total-points

Two of the highest scoring teams in the NBA square off in Oklahoma tonight. Rockets avg over 102 points a game and OKC 104.

James Harden going back to Oklahoma for the first time since his trade will fire him up and I expect him to have a monster game tonight.

If you look at the oddschecker link O207.5 on pinnacle is still a favourite over the under. Therefore I suggest betting O205 on PP just simply on the fact that we have 2-2.5 point edge on the market right now.

Is it 'Great Value?' No. Is it a '+EV bet' Yes, imo.

Got a lot to write on Neils posts but will have to wait until a bit later but on this game 2.5 points against pinnacle is enough for this to be a bet without further thinking.

Line has moved to 207.5 across the board now

[tikay]

Dean - YOU don't have to follow their selections, you can just ignore if you wish.

As a general rule, I do tend to follow their suggestions, though.

nothing to do with selections... first point was although the guys mentioned are knowledgeable and prob the best punters on the thread..to state that you should follow their lead blindly without question cannot be correct... personally i have my own mind..right or wrong ... taking into account an 'experts ' wisdom is + ev but not gospel..

As for Chompy i just tire sometimes of his attempt at being amusing when he so clearly is not...

Given that I probably "reject", or fail to bet, 80% of the Bets Posted on here, I think I have my own mind, too.

However, I think I'm savvy enough to know when a Pro is giving us good advice, & in almost all cases, if one of those Pros suggests a MAX, I would rarely reject it. Not sure how that equates to the suggestion I don't have my own mind.

Nobody HAS to accept any tip on here, we can all choose. My only responsibility is to the Fred Account, which, in reality, is my own money.   

[TL900]

Morning Mr T. I would like to offer my support for TL900's basketball bet. There, are you happy Mr T. I know virtually nothing about basketball but in 2 posts TL900 has demonstrated a knowledge of a sport that has convinced me he knows what he is doing and a knowledge of the betting market. I meant to write a post supporting him yesterday but didn't really see that my support should have any weight.

Now maybe we can get back to the most important business of making money in our sleep.

P.S Keep the stakes low to start with but I think we may have the basketball equivalent of Singhee.

Thankyou sir.

[tikay]

http://www.oddschecker.com/basketball/nba/houston-rockets-at-oklahoma-city-thunder/total-points

Two of the highest scoring teams in the NBA square off in Oklahoma tonight. Rockets avg over 102 points a game and OKC 104.

James Harden going back to Oklahoma for the first time since his trade will fire him up and I expect him to have a monster game tonight.

If you look at the oddschecker link O207.5 on pinnacle is still a favourite over the under. Therefore I suggest betting O205 on PP just simply on the fact that we have 2-2.5 point edge on the market right now.

Is it 'Great Value?' No. Is it a '+EV bet' Yes, imo.

Got a lot to write on Neils posts but will have to wait until a bit later but on this game 2.5 points against pinnacle is enough for this to be a bet without further thinking.

Line has moved to 207.5 across the board now

So am I too late now?

Sometimes it can't be helped, I've been in Meets all morning.

Tell you what though - sometimes missing a bet, or losing a few bob, is the cheapest way of learning. I think we've learned a lot from yesterday.

PS - I need to go Offline again for a few hours, but let me know if that Line is still worth betting please.

[bobby1]

Really interesting post Phil

I am fanatical about lower league and non-league

I am convinced, and indeed do in practice, that give me and similar people a coupon on English football minus the top two leagues each week, and ask for 2-4 bets a month, and we'll beat it

Small sample size on thread backs that up so far

I would rather place bets on your thoughts in those leagues Rich than anything I could pick in the Premier league.

I used to be very very close to Scottish football, my newspaper delivery consisted of the RP the Daily Record and the Sunday Post. I did most of the fine tuning and tweaking of prices in those leagues myself and treated them like my property.

Tony Ansell did an interview with Inside Edge or some other gambling mag a good few years ago where he mentioned that the one firm he hardly ever had a bet with and almost used as a second opinion was the one I worked for. It was like getting a  medal from the Queen when someone as good as him liked what you did.

The problem as a punter then became getting on, it can be a tad tiresome trying to get 8 to 10 lots of £50 on per match you like when you wanted to have (for me)a proper bet on a game and it is because of the example above that most firms run scared of minor football, they just don't do the work there any more.

I think one of the best way to have a chance to beat footy as a bettor these days is to ignore the main leagues and try to specialise in one or two leagues. Then have less bets but bigger ones when you do pull the trigger.

The other one is about 90% of my football business these days and become a layer and spread around the variance, there are reasons why firms make millions on footy every year and it's mainly that punters have far too many bets at the right prices, so cannot back enough winners to beat it so I might as well lay the teams that the firms are laying.

I spoke to two guys that work football markets for firms over the weekend. They both said the same thing to me that just about the biggest goal they have had on a regular Saturday this season was the goal Norwich scored at Everton with the last kick off the game on Saturday. The reason it was such a big goal is the fixture list had only one big Prem team playing at 3 o clock, Man Utd were v v short against QPR.

The other big teams kicked off late or played Sunday so a huge amount of accas featured Everton to beat Norwich at what would have been the bang correct price they were to do so. It became the one result that they needed to be beaten to knock out a load of accas.

The % win in the trading rooms probably went up by 25% with that one goal, and the layers have a chance of that to happen in every leg of a dble treble and bigger multi, yet 95% of the bets that footy punters make are those kind of bets.

[TL900]

Glad you are here Red. I meant to ask...

 In NBA if we accept that the Pinnacle line is correct...it is just right (it may not always be but for the sake of this point)...

 How far away from it does a total have to be to bet it blinly at 10/11 and be plus ev?

 How about a side?

 How about NFL and college football?

 Feel free to ignore if you'd rather not answer.

I think pinnacle is the most accurate for lines but there is still sides that are massively preferable even on there imo.

If most books have a total at 207 for example the OKC game today where Paddy Power had it at 205 (PP are often one of the slowest to move their lines) you can feel pretty confident the O205 is just a snap +ev bet.

Going back to your question, I think if you have a preferable side on a Pinnacle line/total and you find a book that has a 1 point difference in your favour then you should probably bet it and feel pretty happy about it. 0.5 is enough sometimes on spreads imo, I think there is more edge in betting totals than spreads in general though.

[the sicilian]

Dean - YOU don't have to follow their selections, you can just ignore if you wish.

As a general rule, I do tend to follow their suggestions, though.

nothing to do with selections... first point was although the guys mentioned are knowledgeable and prob the best punters on the thread..to state that you should follow their lead blindly without question cannot be correct... personally i have my own mind..right or wrong ... taking into account an 'experts ' wisdom is + ev but not gospel..

As for Chompy i just tire sometimes of his attempt at being amusing when he so clearly is not...

Given that I probably "reject", or fail to bet, 80% of the Bets Posted on here, I think I have my own mind, too.

However, I think I'm savvy enough to know when a Pro is giving us good advice, & in almost all cases, if one of those Pros suggests a MAX, I would rarely reject it. Not sure how that equates to the suggestion I don't have my own mind.

Nobody HAS to accept any tip on here, we can all choose. My only responsibility is to the Fred Account, which, in reality, is my own money.   

You miss the point.. i'm talking generally not you specifically.. i cant agree with the sweeping statement that following these sages advice blindly is correct.. the fact that someone neil often invites opinion to his tips shows just this

[TL900]

http://www.oddschecker.com/basketball/nba/houston-rockets-at-oklahoma-city-thunder/total-points

Two of the highest scoring teams in the NBA square off in Oklahoma tonight. Rockets avg over 102 points a game and OKC 104.

James Harden going back to Oklahoma for the first time since his trade will fire him up and I expect him to have a monster game tonight.

If you look at the oddschecker link O207.5 on pinnacle is still a favourite over the under. Therefore I suggest betting O205 on PP just simply on the fact that we have 2-2.5 point edge on the market right now.

Is it 'Great Value?' No. Is it a '+EV bet' Yes, imo.

Got a lot to write on Neils posts but will have to wait until a bit later but on this game 2.5 points against pinnacle is enough for this to be a bet without further thinking.

Line has moved to 207.5 across the board now

So am I too late now?

Sometimes it can't be helped, I've been in Meets all morning.

Tell you what though - sometimes missing a bet, or losing a few bob, is the cheapest way of learning. I think we've learned a lot from yesterday.

PS - I need to go Offline again for a few hours, but let me know if that Line is still worth betting please.

Yeah, all moved to 207.5. I don't think that is anywhere near as appealing as 205 so I would leave it now It may very well go over still though. Needing 208 points is a very big total and if the game goes dry for even 4-5minutes its very hard to reach that total. On the flip side I wouldn't want to bet the under in the hope that they have said 4-5 minute dry spell. Both teams are very good shooters.

[tikay]

^^^^^

Thanks Tom.

[bobby1]

Really great post Phil.

 I suspect you were going back 10 years there but I really remember the fun we had about 7 years ago with the UEFA cup on a Thursday.

 The coupons for midweek football were priced on a Saturday/Sunday (I guess) and went out to the shops on a Monday morning.

 Obviously the main business was on the Champions League. That was the one the wagons wanted a bet on, that was the one where an odds-compiler had all the information available online and that was the big turnover stuff.

 All the dirty-thieving bastards, (I was in there), were just interested in Thursdays. Teams that finished 5th in the Uk playing teams who were 3rd in Greece, Ukraine, Portugal and Poland. Lovely jubbly.

 By about Tuesday the Betfair market would start to show you who was going to win and things that were evs on the coupon would be heavily traded at 1.62.

 You then had two days to get round as many shops as possible. They couldn't pull the coupon until Thursday morning because most of the wagons were still using it to bet on the CL.

 They just restricted you to £50 bets. Sometimes you could get lovely multiples.

 One team drew at 4/7 and let me down for a five-fold and all the 4-folds and trebles.

 I might have given the Ladbrokes share price a hit that day.

That was it, it would be like an avalanche of bets on things that were priced up on Saturday lunchtime using Uefa co effiecients and 5 cups of coffee, with the most insightful comments being along the lines of ' Does anyone know what fucking league Amothorsis Famagusta play in'

[Horneris]

Loving the posts in the last few pages of the thread.

As a young and aspiring serious sports bettor/compiler its great to hear about all these experiences people like Neil, Phil and Stu have had in the industry. You can learn a lot from some posts in this thread if you take it all in properly.

[redarmi]

Glad you are here Red. I meant to ask...

 In NBA if we accept that the Pinnacle line is correct...it is just right (it may not always be but for the sake of this point)...

 How far away from it does a total have to be to bet it blinly at 10/11 and be plus ev?

 How about a side?

 How about NFL and college football?

 Feel free to ignore if you'd rather not answer.

On an NBA total I think 1.5 points is probably enough at 10/11 and probably a point if you can get -105 (19/20)
A point is probably enough on a side and the generally received wisdom is that half a point is worth about 5 cents but obviously there are certain situations where less is fine especially around spreads of 1.5 and 2.

NFL and college football are complicated by the key numbers so it goes without saying that if something is -3.5 10/11 at pinnacle then betting -2.5 10/11 is a good play blind but a similar play where pinny are -5.5 in the NFL and you can take -4.5 is probably not that great.  The best way to check an individual value is to use the drop downs on pinnacle and see what they charge to buy to an individual number but generally speaking a 1.5 middle on NFL sides and 2.5 points on college are probably worth taking.  I would add a point or so for totals.

On a slightly different note I would be slightly cautious about using pinnacle as an efficient market price at the moment after the busts because a lot of their US players dont have access to them anymore at the moment.  The big guys all obviously do and for the international sports like NFL, NBA I am sure they are as strong as ever but maybe not so strong on college sports now. 

[Tal]

I must echo the sentiments of Horneris (albeit as a hobbyist rather than a budding punter) – compelling and insightful contributions as ever by those in the know.

It has made me reflect, as I am wont to do, on my posts on this thread. I probably discuss sports and possible bets as much as most and do so on the whole without anything more than an interest in the field. I rarely come from a position of knowledge, at least of critical depth, and whilst I have a basic grasp of fractions, probability and stats, my interest in these surpasses my ability.

Occasionally, I will stumble across what I perceive to be a wonky price (the Zabaletta booking springs to mind) and have no intention of changing whether I bring that to the thread’s attention; after all, it seems to fit the criteria for bets being posted.

I would like to think that there is room in this thread for my occasional oddball bets like the Booker Prize but I wholeheartedly recognise that posting doesn’t mean they get either embraced or placed. That said, I am feeling a touch insecure – I suspect quite rightly – about putting up bets where I am far from the thread expert.

Reading the past few pages has left me with an image of the likes of bobby1, horseplayer, BadBeat et al rolling their eyes at the sight of a Tal post. “FFS he’s off again”. You’re all people with more experience of both the industry and blonde itself. If I’m wasting your and everyone else’s time, tell me (politely, ideally, but all feedback gratefully received, up to and included STFU; on thread or by PM). I’ve learned more from the last thousand pages than I have likely displayed but there’s a seemingly unparalleled smorgasbord of wisdom watching and posting on here and I would hate to taint it.  

Perhaps I have more knowledge of chess than most (despite the very rare betting opportunities – I assume the paucity of markets means the chances they’re out of line are virtually nil?), but that’s not going to warrant more than a handful of posts a year, perhaps mercifully...

One thing I do like to do is ask questions about betting, odds compilation and markets. If that’s for another thread, fine, but people who can answer the question tune into this one regularly. I only ask because I am genuinely interested.

As for the shape of what is posted on here in the future, if Fred knows what Fred wants, say so and I’m happy to abide by that.

[TightEnd]

I have been looking around Indian press sources for news of the Eden Gardens pitch for the thrid test, and alighted on this

"In a move which has triggered a fresh controversy, the BCCI on Wednesday (November 28) asked the Cricket Association of Bengal to appoint East Zone curator Ashish Bhowmick to prepare the Eden track in place of veteran Prabir Mukherjee, who has been in charge of the historic Eden Gardens pitch for decades."

the video is worth a watch

http://www.timesnow.tv/Eden-curator-sidelined-Dhoni-has-his-way/videoshow/4415650.cms

a big turner is what Dhoni wants, at this stage you'd be looking to back a result, not the draw

As to what you'd back, no idea yet

[Tonji]

Top posts elders.

Not sure I grasp all the wisdom, but I hope I'm heading in the right direction.

Like Tal, my punting is a hobby. I enjoy the challenge of beating the bookies & try to keep learning & finding edges.

I'll still post my cycling (& the odd special) thoughts next season. But if not taken up that ok. I dont take it personally, infact welcome any criticism/feedback. Thick skinned!