Tips for Tikay

[Doobs]

Please be more selective though. Watching the Masters scattergun from an over-worked perspective was painful (not aftertiming, just an honest criticism )

for example Carter has to play Ronnie in Round 2. If you are bullish about Ronnie, no point doing Carter really just on draw

Similarly Higgins is seeded to play Ronnie in the Quarters

Players in the other half that could go deep are

Robertson (nap)
Ding
Selby

all of whom should give you a good run if Ronnie loses and your money isn't coming back on that...

This appears to have been directed at me.  

There was nothing scattergun about these bets, or the ones I put up on the Masters.

The National, Masters and these Snooker bets have something in common.  We had a betting market that is strong (the Masters and National were clearly very liquid markets at the time of the bets and this afternoon I made the assumption that the World Snooker market was going to be strong enough that on best prices the potential margin on the whole market is likely to be less than 13% (it was).

The reasoning behind these bets is nothing to do with my views on Carter, O'Sullivan, Selby or Trump.  I have just made the assumption we have an efficient market and they are probably about the right price.  So I can assume that O'Sullivan is about 13% to win.  I have also checked them all against the betfair market which only has a 3.2% overound.   When I checked the prices all were close to betfair and at the best prices amongst the bookmakers.  The prices have moved around a bit now, and aren't so good.  On the top 2 in the betting, I am paying an extra overound of 5.7% on betfair, so if I just backed Selby and Trump (Selby is best), I am losing 6% and gaining 13% from the O'Sulivan bonus.  So in the long run I will make about 6% or so, if I make these bets forever.  I can know that without even knowing anything of the form, just by making some assumptions that should hold on average.  

Ali Carter hasn't worked out so well, I can now back him at a 10% better price on Betfair than I did on BetVictor.  So if I add in the 3% overound I am gaining 13% and losing 13%.  In fact I probably lose a bit, but don't think that really matters.  But even here, I don't think I have a bad bet. I can assume that if Ali Carter makes the final he will be the outsider more often than he will be favourite.  So if his true odds of making the final are indeed 32/1 to win or so, he is going to be quite a bit less than 16/1 to final.  So the place part of my bet is going to be a bit better than losing 13%.  So even with the Ali Carter bet, I am probably slightly +EV overall on the bet.

Note that I think betting Selby or Trump e/w is a mistake, but betting Carter e/w at half the odds 1/2 is likely a +EV thing to do.

Throughout this, I have made no view on the right odds on any player, but I really don't need to be selective on the bets.  My bets would be better if I knew enough to have a strong view on the prices, but I don't and admit as much.  But what I can do, is assume that sometimes the price of the player I pick is going to be a bit too low, but on others it will be a bit too high.  In the long run, I am going to do about average on this.  

I don't really think it matters if Carter wins against O'Sullivan.  We still have a horse whatever the result, and the fact Carter is due to play O'Sullivan early is in his price.  But this was the bit I wasn't really sure about.   All the players bar one are going to get knocked out at some point and I don't think it really matters who it is against.  I think it is fine, but wasn't really clear and it was hard thinking about such concepts with a five year old craving attention, and now she is in bed, I am still not absolutely sure!

In addition to all the above, O'Sullivan is now shorter than 13/2 on Betfair, so we have probably gained a percent or two there too.

If I was going to make the same bets now with time on my side, and now my distractions are in bed, I'd probably still make all 3 bets, but put a bigger slice of the £50 (say £25) on Selby.  This time diving in hasn't worked so well, but often the prices could go if I waited until I could do a proper analysis, and off the cuff is so much quicker anyway.

That is a lot of chat for a series of bets that I expect to make about 6 or 7% of £50 on long run (ie £3ish).

I think we should have a post mortem on the Masters bets too.  

FWIW I put up 5 golfers for the Masters.  In every one of these the win money was approximately the same as the win price on betfair and the e/w terms were noticeably better.  They were Scott (25/1 e/w) , Furyk, Stricker, Cabrera (28/1 e/w) and Leishman (40/1 e/w).  The first 3 got severely limited and the last two got drowned by the Tiger Woods contoversy and people moaning we had too many bets.  Just as I think I ran bad vs variance in the National, I obviously ran very well vs variance here.  

No matter what happened, I think the fundamentals of every bet were good, be it the National, Masters or the Snooker.   I don't think I have heard a single well reasoned response as to why anyone views these bets as bad.  

I think I also reacted positively to Tal's bets, if that is part of the scattergun.  I admitted at the time I thought I had made a mistake on one of those bets (cheers Dubai), but I think his other bet was sound.  

The 4 bets on the 4 favourites that somebody else put up were clear no brainers.  You have an efficient market, somebody adds 20% to the prices of the 4 most backed golfers, you simply should bet.  We failed this time, but the logic here was very similar to the e/w paying 5 horses that was so succesful.  The fact we lost on these bets was just randomness dealing us a bad hand.  

I did read the posts on the debutant market and the leading Spanish golfer.  I remember the place terms looked good on the debutant market and I think the Castano looked a very good bet.  Even though the end result wasn't great, I think he did enough to show what a good price he was and it was only a very strong Garcia resurgence that may have made it look bad (I personally still think it was a good bet).  I remember thinking the Amateur bet was well reasoned too.

I can't say I read the reasons for backing Snedeker (it clearly looked a bit unlucky).  I can't remember the post on the 1st day markets, as I am fairly sure I only skimmed it at the time, and am fairly sure it was from somebody well respected.  I didn't comment on the Woosnam bet, as given my position, I knew I was fairly biassed (I pretty much had the old men and chokers portfolio at the time!).

I am not going to pick these up on all the bets I missed now, but I really don't think there was much to feel pained about.  I think we should always be learning lessons from our betting, and we should learn them when we win almost as much as when we lose.  I expect if we weren't so badly limited on Scott, we wouldn't be trying to learn any lessons today.  

Anyway tl;dr must concentrate and get this seat in the Monte Carlo and we can discuss it there, though suspect you'd prefer a bad beat story.

[TightEnd]

It wasn't aimed at you, though that is an excellent post.

we seemed to get severely limited on various things, but could get what we wanted on all sorts of other things.

as a result the overall portfolio looked very lopsided, and then when pretty sensible suggestions came along as the situation changed (sunday morning notably, e/w suggestions) they couldn't be activated in part because the portfolio was big already 

[superwomble]

we might need someone to collate the various snooker players that have been suggested so far. I've lost count at ten.

Any value in Ebdon at 126.0, 160.0 on Betfair?

[tikay]

Fascinating stuff.

I've had a Fred rest today, needed to do some other things, & I've not totted up The Masters damage yet.

All - or most - of our bets were correct, as to value, I think, though maybe I needed to balance the portfolio better, some of the amounts were a bit lopsided, but when I get randomly Restricted, it makes it awkward.

Had we got some of our bets through - Sneddy, say, who we backed months ago - we'd be pretty smug. It worked at Cheltenham, but not at Aintree or Augusta.

The way the World Snooker is structured - a limited field & a clear, advance draw - should make life easier.

One thing I MUST do though is Update the Snooker Potfolio latest position onto the thread regularly, so we can view proposed new bets in a better context. I should do that for all portfolio markets actually.

PS - Ronnie is the outstanding choice to win, but we may have missed the market.

All good.

[BigAdz]

Blimey. Has some shit comedian died and TFT are hosting auditions for a replacement?

[Tal]

Blimey. Has some shit comedian died and TFT are hosting auditions for a replacement?

Right on cue.


I actually will stop now

[bobby1]

It wasn't aimed at you, though that is an excellent post.

we seemed to get severely limited on various things, but could get what we wanted on all sorts of other things.

as a result the overall portfolio looked very lopsided, and then when pretty sensible suggestions came along as the situation changed (sunday morning notably, e/w suggestions) they couldn't be activated in part because the portfolio was big already  

TBH the last line is what gets my goat a little and was also the reason I brought up the National bets in a reply to Doobs post last week. The reason that event annoyed me a little was I was going to put up a match bet against Imperial Commander for a reason that nobody on the thread had mentioned but I thought was important. I logged on Saturday morning to post the bet to find that one person had tipped up around 4 horses each way, IC being one of them.

Ok no probs not putting up the match bet but when it came to the convo later Doobs actually said

'I didn't even look at the form of the 2 outsiders I picked as I was going away for the day.'

I'm not having a go for the sake of having a go Doobs but you put up bets on the GN on horses and you hadn't looked at their form. Is that what the idea of  thread worthy tips has descended to?

This gave us a one man portfolio and means there isn't much room for other bets.

As we are talking snooker I put up some stuff on Ronnie that I thought would affect the market and made him value at the time at 7/1, it got the elbow from one or two that were guessing there might be some offers available near the event.I stated why I thought it was value, which way I thought the market would go and that the 7/1 wouldn't be available, someone posted that there was no point betting that early as the prices prob wouldn't change coz there were no more snooker events before the Worlds.

At what stage of the year did they think the market takes shape and the majority of the money that will change the prices is bet?

Your input was this when Richard suggested betting 3 players.

'What is the purpose of building a portfolio?'


Yet today you have suggested backing 3 players in the event and ended the post with

'I don't really follow snooker much anymore, but am a fan of maths'

The bet I suggested is not on, that's ok and it is too late now coz he is going to go off around the price I thought he would but you must be able to see why speaking against the bet is a bit tough to take when you then put three up yourself and admit you don't follow snooker.


So you cannot really complain that some Masters bets of yours were missed because the portfolio was too big when you are putting up one man portfolios on events.

[bobby1]

we might need someone to collate the various snooker players that have been suggested so far. I've lost count at ten.

Any value in Ebdon at 126.0, 160.0 on Betfair?

I wouldn't bet him at that price tbh Womble, he seems to be declining as a player tho I wouldn't be amazed if that bit of the draw had an odd look to it later in the tourney. I can see Gould giving Murphy a tough game tho which could remove the seed from his 2nd round match if he does beat Dott.

[bobby1]

Fascinating stuff.

I've had a Fred rest today, needed to do some other things, & I've not totted up The Masters damage yet.

All - or most - of our bets were correct, as to value, I think, though maybe I needed to balance the portfolio better, some of the amounts were a bit lopsided, but when I get randomly Restricted, it makes it awkward.

Had we got some of our bets through - Sneddy, say, who we backed months ago - we'd be pretty smug. It worked at Cheltenham, but not at Aintree or Augusta.

The way the World Snooker is structured - a limited field & a clear, advance draw - should make life easier.

One thing I MUST do though is Update the Snooker Potfolio latest position onto the thread regularly, so we can view proposed new bets in a better context. I should do that for all portfolio markets actually.

PS - Ronnie is the outstanding choice to win, but we may have missed the market.

All good.

This is a lot different to those previous events tho Tony because at Chelters, Aintree and to an extent the Masters you were taking advantage of special offers, much bigger prices available than the proper market price and good each way terms given the field make ups. The Snooker isn't likely to throw up those opportunities.

[BigAdz]

Got to agree with bobby1.

I am retiring from the few tips I have posted, the golfers always finish 7th/8th/9th and my horses fall, but I love the thread and look several times a day. However sometimes we appear to chuck all reasoning out the window with some bets, in the name of value.
For example, I love the priority bets but cant understand the blind following on saturday of a horse who's only winning form is on soft and heavy ground on good quick ground. Priced properly, the priority odds were prob its true odds.

Sometimes it aint just the maths.

[bobby1]

imo Adz nails a good point, looking at BF and putting up bets on an event at near those prices fixed odds because you don't follow the sport much is ok for personal bets but the idea that this was a place for good reasoned value angles. It would be like me looking at the Prem matches this week and suggesting 4 bets I had picked because the fixed odds prices were near to the BF price. And then adding no real reasoning and admitting I don't follow Prem football.

[Junior Senior]

Think we need to re-focus a bit.  Perhaps each poster needs to give a bit more of a rationale for each bet with cliffs on research done and the edge we have and why its a must bet for Fred.  Clearly the Betfair market prices have a bearing on this but we do need some specialist input from those members of the TFT massive has their individual edge.  

A suggestion if i may....A bit like being elected for membership of a golf club, perhaps each selection posted needs a seconder and a third poster also in agreement before Tikay punts it? 3 affirmative re-quotes of the suggestion and it rides.

[Doobs]

It wasn't aimed at you, though that is an excellent post.

we seemed to get severely limited on various things, but could get what we wanted on all sorts of other things.

as a result the overall portfolio looked very lopsided, and then when pretty sensible suggestions came along as the situation changed (sunday morning notably, e/w suggestions) they couldn't be activated in part because the portfolio was big already 

TBH the last line is what gets my goat a little and was also the reason I brought up the National bets in a reply to Doobs post last week. The reason that event annoyed me a little was I was going to put up a match bet against Imperial Commander for a reason that nobody on the thread had mentioned but I thought was important. I logged on Saturday morning to post the bet to find that one person had tipped up around 4 horses each way, IC being one of them.

Ok no probs not putting up the match bet but when it came to the convo later Doobs actually said

'I didn't even look at the form of the 2 outsiders I picked as I was going away for the day.'

I'm not having a go for the sake of having a go Doobs but you put up bets on the GN on horses and you hadn't looked at their form. Is that what the idea of  thread worthy tips has descending to?

This gave us a one man portfolio and means there isn't much room for other bets.

As we are talking snooker I put up some stuff on Ronnie that I thought would affect the market and made him value at the time at 7/1, it got the elbow from one or two that were guessing there might be some offers available near the event.I stated why I thought it was value, which way I thought the market would go and that the 7/1 wouldn't be available, someone posted that there was no point betting that early as the prices prob wouldn't change coz there were no more snooker events before the Worlds.

At what stage of the year did they think the market takes shape and the majority of the money that will change the prices is bet?

Your input was this when Richard suggested betting 3 players.

'What is the purpose of building a portfolio?'


Yet today you have suggested backing 3 players in the event and ended the post with

'I don't really follow snooker much anymore, but am a fan of maths'

The bet I suggested is not on, that's ok and it is too late now coz he is going to go off around the price I thought he would but you must be able to see why speaking against the bet is a bit tough to take when you then put three up yourself and admit you don't follow snooker.


So you cannot really complain that some Masters bets of yours were missed because the portfolio was too big when you are putting up one man portfolios on events.

I have explained my reasoning for the bets numerous times, and this isn't the first time you have criticised them.  

I suggest you reread my post above which explains why I put up these bets fully.  

All I did in the Snooker was respond to a question of Rich's about the Ladbrokes and BetVictor offers and explained that I though Ladbrokes offer was just a bit of smoke and mirrors, and explained what I thought was the best way to take advantage of Betvictor's offer.  I was pretty open in my response to Rich, and made it clear that I did not really follow snooker much anymore.  Someone who was expert on the snooker betting markets may have been able to do better than I did.  

With the two outsiders in the National (Soll and Harrythe viking) we got the equivalent of 10/1 the place on two horses that were the equivalent of 7/1 on betfair for the place (the 6 places made all the difference).   This was explained in my original post, and there was nothing else that needed to be explained.  I didn't need to look at all the past form to see why the bet was worth placing.  I put a brief post up explaining this as quickly as I could, and then went and did the things that are more important than a £20 e/w bet on the National.

I follow racing to a much greater extent and have done for numerous years, but despite this I didn't think my limited time that day would have been well spent looking at these horses in any detail.  

What I am, is fairly expert on is the mathematics of investment, and I am pretty confident that my knowledge is stong enough to know that I will make a profit on these bets long run.  Sometimes submersing yourself in the detail of an investment stops you seeing the underlying basics, and I think that is what is happening here.

I am not going to explain the reasoning further, I simply don't want to devote any more time to this.  People are either going to get it now, or they aren't.  

I am confident people will make about £3 long run from this offer if they did something like I suggested.  

On to this ongoing discussion around portfolios.

When I asked about the portfolio it was in direct response to somebody stating that we needed more snooker bets "for the portfolio", or similar (I am fairly sure it wasn't even you).  I am fairly sure I didn't criticise any bets specifically, including yours and didn't get personal, I simply asked why we needed to build a portfolio?  I never did get an answer to my question, and not at all sure why you seem to have taken the question so badly.

As I said in the Golf discussion last week, there shouldn't be a limit on the number of bets on an event, so long as every one is value.   If people are stopping putting bets on because we have too many on one event already then they are making an error.  If people are putitng on bets because they feel they need a portfolio, then they are also making an error.

Good night.

[The Camel]

Calm down guys, this thread is supposed to be a bit of fun, right?

I know successful punters who relying solely on Maths for their bets and know very little about sport, but by the same token I know big winners who rely more on their knowledge of sport than their sometimes shaky grasp of the mathematical concepts other winners would regard as crucial.

More than one way to skin a cat, right?

I would definitely class myself as more of a feel punter than a maths punter. In fact, in many ways some of my recommends on here - especially San Francisco - probably didn't have a firm foundation in maths.

I enjoy backing my judgement - that's the fun of the game for me- but I'm prepared to accept maths punters can be more successful than me.

As I suggested a while ago, while all these offers are must bets - they aren't really much fun, are they?

[bobby1]

It wasn't aimed at you, though that is an excellent post.

we seemed to get severely limited on various things, but could get what we wanted on all sorts of other things.

as a result the overall portfolio looked very lopsided, and then when pretty sensible suggestions came along as the situation changed (sunday morning notably, e/w suggestions) they couldn't be activated in part because the portfolio was big already  

TBH the last line is what gets my goat a little and was also the reason I brought up the National bets in a reply to Doobs post last week. The reason that event annoyed me a little was I was going to put up a match bet against Imperial Commander for a reason that nobody on the thread had mentioned but I thought was important. I logged on Saturday morning to post the bet to find that one person had tipped up around 4 horses each way, IC being one of them.

Ok no probs not putting up the match bet but when it came to the convo later Doobs actually said

'I didn't even look at the form of the 2 outsiders I picked as I was going away for the day.'

I'm not having a go for the sake of having a go Doobs but you put up bets on the GN on horses and you hadn't looked at their form. Is that what the idea of  thread worthy tips has descending to?

This gave us a one man portfolio and means there isn't much room for other bets.

As we are talking snooker I put up some stuff on Ronnie that I thought would affect the market and made him value at the time at 7/1, it got the elbow from one or two that were guessing there might be some offers available near the event.I stated why I thought it was value, which way I thought the market would go and that the 7/1 wouldn't be available, someone posted that there was no point betting that early as the prices prob wouldn't change coz there were no more snooker events before the Worlds.

At what stage of the year did they think the market takes shape and the majority of the money that will change the prices is bet?

Your input was this when Richard suggested betting 3 players.

'What is the purpose of building a portfolio?'


Yet today you have suggested backing 3 players in the event and ended the post with

'I don't really follow snooker much anymore, but am a fan of maths'

The bet I suggested is not on, that's ok and it is too late now coz he is going to go off around the price I thought he would but you must be able to see why speaking against the bet is a bit tough to take when you then put three up yourself and admit you don't follow snooker.


So you cannot really complain that some Masters bets of yours were missed because the portfolio was too big when you are putting up one man portfolios on events.

I have explained my reasoning for the bets numerous times, and this isn't the first time you have criticised them.  

I suggest you reread my post above which explains why I put up these bets fully.  

All I did in the Snooker was respond to a question of Rich's about the Ladbrokes and BetVictor offers and explained that I though Ladbrokes offer was just a bit of smoke and mirrors, and explained what I thought was the best way to take advantage of Betvictor's offer.  I was pretty open in my response to Rich, and made it clear that I did not really follow snooker much anymore.  Someone who was expert on the snooker betting markets may have been able to do better than I did.  

With the two outsiders in the National (Soll and Harrythe viking) we got the equivalent of 10/1 the place on two horses that were the equivalent of 7/1 on betfair for the place (the 6 places made all the difference).   This was explained in my original post, and there was nothing else that needed to be explained.  I didn't need to look at all the past form to see why the bet was worth placing.  I put a brief post up explaining this as quickly as I could, and then went and did the things that are more important than a £20 e/w bet on the National.

I follow racing to a much greater extent and have done for numerous years, but despite this I didn't think my limited time that day would have been well spent looking at these horses in any detail.  

What I am, is fairly expert on is the mathematics of investment, and I am pretty confident that my knowledge is stong enough to know that I will make a profit on these bets long run.  Sometimes submersing yourself in the detail of an investment stops you seeing the underlying basics, and I think that is what is happening here.

I am not going to explain the reasoning further, I simply don't want to devote any more time to this.  People are either going to get it now, or they aren't.  

I am confident people will make about £3 long run from this offer if they did something like I suggested.  

On to this ongoing discussion around portfolios.

When I asked about the portfolio it was in direct response to somebody stating that we needed more snooker bets "for the portfolio", or similar (I am fairly sure it wasn't even you).  I am fairly sure I didn't criticise any bets specifically, including yours and didn't get personal, I simply asked why we needed to build a portfolio?  I never did get an answer to my question, and not at all sure why you seem to have taken the question so badly.

As I said in the Golf discussion last week, there shouldn't be a limit on the number of bets on an event, so long as every one is value.   If people are stopping putting bets on because we have too many on one event already then they are making an error.  If people are putitng on bets because they feel they need a portfolio, then they are also making an error.

Good night.

Hi Doobs,


I certainly understand your maths angle  but using your place prices in the GN there were a host of horses available at bigger place prices because of the 6 places in that race, you put four of them up but said you didn't know anything about 2 of them, what made all four of them thread value bets?

That then takes up a decent stake on that event and doesn't leave room for bets on any of the other selections that could have been made that were also good value on the place market in relation to BF. obv I am miffed that it didn't make sense to put up a match bet that would be betting against one of your outright selections even tho I wanted to make a good case for taking on IC because of its bounce stats since the GC winning season. I've now  edited this to add them here.

2008/9

1st, 6th
1st, PU

2009/2010

2nd, 5th
1st, UR

2010/2011

1st, PU

This season now reads

2nd, PU

I don't think it is unfair to say I did more work on that than picking two of any amount of runners I could have picked by looking at the BF place market.



The reason I brought them up again is this. The day the Dubai each way bets went wrong seemed to be the turning point for the thread, that was just about the nut bad each way race you are going to find, the fav got beat but we just didn't get there. But there was a seal broken there re the staking, it wasn't the same as the Cheltenham Hills offer which provided the greatest ever each way heat I can remember seeing, that was an event that rightly had its own stake ceiling. The Dubai bets were good but we didn't need to be betting such amounts in relation to other bets, it was one opportunity to place good value each way bets within the structure we had been using. I think Tony has to look at that and my view is it was a bad decision to be over staked to the extent he was. ( I can hear after timing being bandied about but It isn't the case, I had a few convo's with Tony before the race) you also made the point on the thread and I think it was right to do so.

What then seems to have happened is more bad each way bets have started appearing and there seemed to be a race to get them on first, I mentioned that last week. There was also an each way first goalscorer bet in the Germany game that you put up on a player that wasn't even playing, you were trying hard to get the bet on first but hadn't even looked at the team news. So the GN bets isn't an isolated example.

Anyway, since that race the selection process seems to have gone to pot and so does the overall staking plan. I brought up cricket bets the other week, we seem to have a bet on most events, are they really all thread level value or are they just 'what I am backing in this event' bets. This weeks golf was staked much higher than many majors in the past, obv some of the prices on special offer provided most of the turnover but I get the feeling Tony is trying to win this months losses back and is looking to stake more to do that. So between us we have got away from the basic requirements/staking that were set out last year but I think we might have hit a perfect storm of circumstances in being deep in the red this month x slightly slacker selection criteria x inconsistent staking x Tony feeling more open to more suggestions re selections and staking coz he wants to eradicate the losses from what I think he feels was possibly a rash moment.

Just one thing tho mate, I don't have any bad feeling towards you but I do think that having a go at Aaron last week and bringing up some of his old selections that didn't win is bad form and I wasn't the only one that said that. If you are policing other peoples bets/opinions but not using the criteria you are judging them by yourself then I don't think it is out of order to point that out using your bets as examples as you did with him (and of course by doing so I am opening myself up to that too) . This is the thing tho if that is a seal we break from now on and instead of discussing things we just get rude and ridicule then to use one of Tony's favourite sayings the thread will be like Zed.