Darts|geek

It's 3am in the morning and just been called out by work (on my day off!) to fix a problem, so thought I'd add a update of yesterday's trading.

Been loving the PDC darts as usual this Christmas and started to trade the games over the last few days. Nothing yesterday as at the in-laws but looked forward to the Wade-Nicholson and Barney-Klassen quarters today.

Before we started, placed a £25 stake on Under 2.5 goals in the Spurs-Wigan game in hope to trade out early on for the first bit of footy green in 2009.

I then sat down to watch the darts as Mrs FG and her gran watched Mama Mia in the living room. I nipped in and out on Wade, laying him when low and backing back for small £10 stakes.
There wasn't a lot of movement as both players were shocking but eventually backed Wade at 1.61 and as he went 3-1 up managed to have a £10 win on him no loss on Nicholson.

By now the footy had started but price wasn't moving, so continued to hold positions. I then had to nip to shops for Mrs FG and decided to green up on both postions, to have £6+ wins on footy and darts. I came back from the shops to find the darts was switched off and gran was watching Corrie! Wade was now odds against and looked a good move to green up before.

I managed to get the game back on and found Wade back in control. Missed a good trade but moved the green back onto Wade and he eventually spluttered to victory to win £7 odd.

I then laid Barney before the next game as looked too short at 1.45, however after Klassen won the first set, I failed to green up as Mrs FG distracted me and by time I was back at laptop it was 1-1. It was then one way traffic for Barney as he looked in outstanding form including a amazing 9 dart finish with not a flicker of emotion.

I laid him several time in the match for a loss of £8 in the end, to leave me slight down on the darts for today but about a fiver up with the footy.

Not sure I can trade tomorrow as going to a first birthday party in the afternoon and wetting a baby's head at night. Hopefully Sunday will be able to instead.

Well back to fixing other peoples mess........

2009 : Year Of The Geek?

Welcome to 2009 everyone and the start of another attempt to make my footy betting pay.
This time last year I tried to start off a project call LOFT (Living Off Football Trading). It failed apart from the idea to create my now defunct BRAVO rating.

So this year as usual, I will try and re-invest myself and look to move things forward for the better.

So a quick review of 2008 would suggest as before, as a break even year. If this blog was a business I guess this would be a good starting point. All new businesses are suggested to aim to break even in their first year. Successes were the 3-3 draw system on the last day of the season and the next West Ham manager market.
Failures were definitely playing the Under 2.5 goals market and many in-play disasters. The main failing though as always is preparation for games. Not enough knowledge of what is likely to happen before entering a market.

So how to I plan to improve things. Well we'll start with a list of things I'd like to get done:-

- Audit all betting activity

- Create a corner betting related website

- Create new rating systems for teams and corners, which would lead to predicting league positions for all English leagues.

- Create a set of trading rules to follow and stop too many silly mistakes.

- Create a trading bot for automatic trading.


The first 3 maybe easier than the last two for me, but I need to assess my best skills and adapt them to trading as best I can. I'm not a quick thinker, so need to have a set of parameters in place to follow, so I know what to do if this or that occurs. This also could lead to a bot to trade for me instead, so they will follow the rules regardless.

The creating of ratings for both teams and corners is something I really hope to going soon as I found it very enjoyable last time and reading Alex Deacon in the 'Racing and Football Outlook' each week, makes me want to emulate his successful predicting using his Index.

I aim to publish the trading rules in a separate post when I fine tuned them, in the meantime I will be create spreadsheets to record all the ups and downs on Betdaq for now and hopefully produce some useful stats as highlighted in the Punt blog last year.

That's the plan then.......time to execute.

Stay Lucky.

That's Better

Just watching the re-run of the darts on Sky from last night, so thought I'd drop in a quick update on my trading. The Klassen-Hamilton game looked good for trading but I was busy with Villa game last night so missed it.

Monday didn't go according to plan. It was my Mum's birthday and she was popping in for a bit before she went out to play table skittles. I thought I'd then have chance to watch and maybe trade the Wolves game plus keep an eye on Man U-Middlesboro.
As it was when I got back from work, Mrs FG had planned for us to go out after Mum's visit, with the in-laws babysitting.

I was fine with that but my Sister (who is over from Oz) turned up as well with my Mum and decided to stay for the night. I managed to get the Wolves game on but flicked between this and catching up with my sis. Mrs FG wasn't overly pleased but was ok in the end.

So Tuesday I looked to try and get some trading skills back in the FG artillery but a impromptu decision to swap ours and the 2 youngest boys bedrooms round put paid to most of the day. The new arrival will be staying with the boys and so we needed to swap and a new bed from the in-laws came available yesterday, so it seemed as good a time as ever.

Mrs FG went out shopping around 4pm though, so I banged the darts on and got involved for small stakes in the Manley-Stompe game. Managed to build up £4 green on both players quite easy, and then shifted it onto Manley hoping for a comeback and price swing. It never occurred and ended losing a couple of quid but was pleased with the training session. Big swings occur quite often in the darts and it looks a good sport to get involved with.

After tea, we continued to move stuff around and I had the Hull-Villa game on in the background. I tried to nick a few quid on the Unders and then laid Hull as they looked low on confidence after the mauling by Man City. I'd read a tip on bettingzone to expect a goal after 75 minutes, so waited until then and laid the draw a couple of times.
Villa obliged and I quickly tried to green up after getting caught out the other week with Everton-Villa game. This topped the bank up with £17+.

I then switched over to darts for the end of Barney-Baxter game. I laid Baxter straight away before realising it was close to the end and Barney was on the ropes. However it was a cheap lay and I kept faith with Barney as he came back. I eventually greened up for £3+ on either player, as it went down to sudden death, it which Barney scraped through.

Twenty quid recovery from the other day and a few days off from trading with not much sport on until Thursday.

The 'first corner' system I'd been monitoring took a bit of a bashing over the Christmas period, which I kind of expected. The bookies don't normally get things wrong. I did manage to pick out what looked a good selection between West Ham-Stoke and with ratings I think we can move corner betting forward. This area will be my focus for the new year as well as new ratings for teams and corners.

I hope to post a mini review of the year and detailed plans for 2009 in next few days, but for now I wish you all a Happy New Year and see you on the other side.

Stay Lucky.

Not again!

Alright treacle! Hope everyone is well and good after the festivities and enjoyed another mountain full of Christmas footy in England.

It is certainly what makes our league unique compared to across Europe, that we can squeeze in 2 games in 3 days while everyone takes a break and enjoys time out with their friends and families.

All said and done I've had a very enjoyable Christmas, forgetting all the worries and strain of the world for a while and enjoying some quality family time. The kids have had a boat load of goodies as usual but have been polite and grateful for what they have received.

I found it hard to try and do anything with the Boxing Day fixtures, betting or trading wise, but tuned into the couple of live games on Sky and enjoyed the usual banter on 'Soccer Saturday (erm....Friday)' while my parents and sisters visited FG HQ.

Sunday proved a better prospect for trading and so I set about looking at the Newcastle v Liverpool game before we headed off to the in-laws for tea later in the day. I wasn't sure what time we were going but thought I'd try and make the best of this game, as I had time to sit and watch.
I'd already had a dabble on some trading the day before in Sainsburys car park while waiting for Mrs FG to get some food shopping.

The Celtic-Rangers game was on and I managed to make a few quid by laying the Unders at half-time hoping for a goal in the second half. It came and I laid back for £8+ on Unders, of which £5 I put on the draw near the end to try and make some big cash.

Confidence is low on my trading at the minute, but I decided to put £100 into Betdaq and try and take it steady to re-coup some Xmas spending.
I got myself prepared and looked up the true odds according to Statto.com, and they had Liverpool at 1.75 to win, where as Betdaq was 1.8 odd.

This was the value choice but I decided to wait and check Liverpool were on their game before committing. I was also looking to time my entry by the number of shots in a game as per Peter Webb's article in Racing Ahead mag the other month. 9 shots should then produce a goal in an average game he reckons.

Well Liverpool peppered Newcastle's goal and if it wasn't for Given could have been 2 or 3 up inside 15 minutes, by now the price had dropped rather than increased as I'd hoped and were available around 1.7, which is no value. I guess this is where the any profit is good profit argument starts, taking value or not.

It was pretty clear Liverpool were gonna score sooner or later and by time I'd decided.....they had!

Now I decided to test out another new theory in the Unders market that prices are false straight after a goal, and so I backed at highest price I could and watched as it started to build up a nice green. However it went 2-0 and I now was looking at £30 red. Instead of taking and learning from previous problems in this market, I added some more in then took some out and looked to wait until half-time. The Geordies got one back and I lost just over £44.

I now actually had £6 profit on Liverpool from an earlier trade when the price dropped at a corner to 1.62 and then came out after it was cleared.
I could have used this at 2-0 for a free bet and made money when the Newcastle goal came. As it was at 2-1 I laid off all but £1 odd to have £25 on Draw and Newcastle if they did come back.

As the second half kicked off I then put £10 on 2-1 Liverpool hoping to trade or win if no more goals. Liverpool's third came straight after and I started to question my luck again.
I tried to walk away and re-assess if I could do anything more with this game now. I had an idea that I wanted to trade the Unders in West Brom-Spurs game, as bettingzone had tipped it up as a battle to 2 mis-firing attacks.
For some reason though I thought I'd pile into 3-1 score line as "No goal" market in Betdaq has no liquidity. £40 onto this was soon wiped out though as Gerrard snatched a second and I had a fiver left!

Same old problems for the footygeek and I left the game far later than I should have. I should have lost £30 on Unders and laid my £6 green back in hope.

With the fiver left I decided to try and place an acca to try and recover some back, but after several attempts I gave up as I hadn't realised the Premiership kick-off at 2pm today. I then decided to try and trade the 1-0 Stoke correct score just after they scored with the £5 @ 11.5.
It was ticking down nicely and I looked to take a free bet on it when all of a sudden the prices disappeared. I thought it must have been a goal but nothing showed, so I checked main site and found the market was closed.
It looks as if it had been left open by accident and then closed 25 minutes later. So my fiver was now stuck and I had to hope Stoke would hold out. Lucky I didn't risk more as they lost 2-1 but it's something to be aware of.

By now I had added another £50 into Betdaq account, and decided to try and play the West Brom-Spurs game as I had originally decided. The Unders were way to short now, so backed the draw at around 2.6 and watched it down to 1.6 to leave a £50 win on it with no loss on the others. West Brom however scored and I took what green I could at around £4+.

Still had a bit of time left before we headed to the in-laws, and looked at Blackburn-Man City game. Fancied home team but didn't have the nerve to back outright, and especially as I would have to leave open as a straight bet as we were going out. Backed Unders instead and made a tenner, which greened upto £7+ profit before we left.

As it was the game turned out to be perfect for trading as I would have made a green on Blackburn at 2-0 when they were trading @ 1.01, then could have made more by laying back. It finished 2-2. Typical!

One last bit of trading saw me back Ovens in the darts after reading a tip in the Post and then laying back for £10 win risk free bet. He won to leave me £80 down for the day.

Not the best days trading I've ever done, and still a lot to learn it seems. Will try again soon.

Hoping to post before New Year, where I'll try and lay out my hopes for 2009.

Until then, stay lucky.....

Merry Christmas

Not sure I'll have time for a proper post before Christmas, so quick update from mobile.
First corner system going well, from odds in 10 games over the weekend, made small half point profit. Also spotted decent arb opportunity in Birmingham v Reading game.
Apart from that been busy wrapping pressies and working.
So, wishing you all a very Merry Xmas and roll on 2 sets of games in 3 days (cue managers moaning).
Stay festive!

Working from home

Just a quick update from FG HQ as I'm working from home today to look after Mrs FG as she's been up most of the night with a bad cough, which has stopped her sleeping.
There's not much she can do but rest up, so I'll be running around shortly when the kids are back from school.

Had a good weekend, (though no money wagered) mainly because I felt more in control and had done some research on games for a change.

Also started to check out some corner markets and may have found a decent system if the results follow the current pattern.

The basic idea is that first and last corner chances are roughly 50/50, so any odds of 2.0 and better should be value.

Of the seven games I've checked out only one of them failed to win and all the others have come in at odds of 2.1 up to 3.0 for West Ham winning the last corner against Chelsea on Sunday. I know it's only seven games and I am now recording all corner odds pre-match for as many games as possible, so come 2009 I will have some data to analyze and use hopefully.

Right off to fetch the kids and get sorted with dinner.

Cheers and stay lucky.

Time to face the music...........

Well everyone else seems to be using the voice over guy from X factor, so why can't I?

Speaking of X Factor, I've been meaning to comment on this before but never got round to it. The show has been a highlight of the FG clan's weekends for months now (sad I know), and I've been doing ok betting wise on it also.
Unfortunately it's on OLBG so no real money won or lost but I seem to be spotting winners. Backed Scott to go out when he looked like to was gonna lamp 'Kermit' O'Leary when he was evicted.
Also managed to win on Ruth beating the awful Rachel in the Overs category.
Finally I decide to back Alexandera @ 10/3 when everyone seemed to think Diana Vickers[say with Geordie accent] was gonna win. She's now odds on, which looks good, but after losing out on Rhydian last year, you never know.

I've not been the most cheerful chappy lately, a combination of tireness, losing trades/bets and being skint usually sends me down this path.

All three can be rectified but it's easy said (or typed!) than done.
It's 11pm now and I should be tucked up in bed but 3 kids are still awake, and need to wait until they are crashed out before I can.
As for money and bets, both need a good review and some serious answers given.

I'm now looking to leave the betting and trading alone until the new year while I go back to school and try and re-learn footy trading.
I need to set myself hard and fast rules not to be broken after another disaster last Tuesday sent me over the edge. First I placed a crazy set of trebles from 6 at long odds in the hope I'd get lucky for a grand or 2 if 3 or more came in. The fiver was lost by half time and left me with a lay of Chelsea to win £100.

It was a cheap lay from the start and looked good as CFR Cluj attacked and had one or two good efforts but Chelsea took the lead before half time. I decided to keep the lay in place and hope for a come back, which came on the hour mark and I checked my green.
£25 to go all green looked good but with losses from the previous couple of days, I wanted to hang on for as much as possible.
It went upto £35 before Drogba regained the lead for Chelsea and they never looked like losing it again to lose me another £20. No great shakes again but annoying that I hung on too long.

Same old mistakes again and again, and it's got to stop!

First things first is sort out my monthly budget and get plans into place to make money from matched betting and a trading system I can stick too and make money from.
I'm researching trading techniques again and need to go back to basics. Also re-reading some blogs and Life of Brian latest post has some good rules to follow.

Anyway, enough bitching, been catching up on some blogs and emails, and have added some new links on the left. Also checked out the stats console at Simple Soccer Stats which is very impressive.
Finally I'm starting to check out corner stats, as there maybe a niche in the market for a advise and stats service on corners. If so, I may start creating a database and website (another pipe dream!?!).

Anyway, another weekend and loads of footy, so Stay Lucky.