Thursday 28 November 2013

Just in front at Kempton

The two selections put up last night both managed to make the frame. In the first race, Rosa Lockwood was placed third @ 16/1 (25/1 taken) despite a poor start. In the 19:05 I was completely wrong about Slip Sliding Away's price, having secured 11/1 and thinking that was going to be value. Narrowly beaten in third it was returned @ 16/1. Thanks to BOG we get paid at the 16/1 SP. It was the second selection in the latter race that attracted the money (28/1>12/1 SP) but Enderby Spirit could only finish fifth. One further positive point is that there were 12 runners in both races, the point at which books pay 1/4 odds each-way in handicaps.

So no great winnings this week just a tiny profit over the two days at Kempton. Pays for the crisps.

Meanwhile AP McCoy seems to be attracting a bit of support in the SPOTY markets....

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Thursday horses 2

Final bets for today (subject to non-runners):

16:05K 0.5pts ew Ziefhd @ 16/1 Coral BOG (20/1 SJ)
19:05K 0.5pts ew Enderby Spirit @ 28/1 William Hill BOG

Two points staked.
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SPOTY 2013

The ten nominations for SPOTY have been published with no surprises. Mugray is a best priced 1/20 to win it and almost certainly will (although I have laid him @ 1.03).

The most interesting market is betting w/o Mugray. Mo Farah is odds-on with most firms but worth opposing in my view. Last year he was well fancied in the betting but did not make the first three, despite his wonderful Olympic achievement, polling only eight percent of the vote. Chris Froome is generally second favourite in the w/o market but lacks the charisma of Bradley Wiggins.

Accordingly I have opposed the front two as follows, with the main bet being the only previous winner in the field - who polled 40% of the vote when winning in 2010:

In the betting w/o Mugray market:

3pts win AP McCoy @ 4/1 Boylesports
0.5pts win J Rose @ 34/1 Unibet (or 888.com)
0.5pts win L Halfpenny @ 69/1 Unibet ( or 888.com)

Four points staked
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Wednesday 27 November 2013

Kempton Thursday


Despite the disappointing result at Kempton today, I am having another go tomorrow as follows:

 Firstly it could be that W Hill is overpriced with this one in the 19:05:

19:05K 1.5pts ew Slip Sliding Away @ 11/1 William Hill BOG

In the first race I have had a little ew on an outsider:

16:05K 0.75pts ew Rosa Lockwood @ 25/1 Paddy Power BOG

I might add to these tomorrow but for the moment it's 4.5 points outlay.

Having looked at Friday's card at Dundalk, I  will not be having a wager there. 

Wednesday horses

Like the look of just one race today. I did consider Dundalk but not keen on the card. Will look again on Friday.

Kempton 19:00 looks an interesting ew race so I have had two bets:

19:00K 1pt ew Tiddliwinks @ 7/1 William Hill BOG
19:00K 0.75pts ew Love Island @ 10/1 Boylesports BOG

3.5pts staked.

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Friday 22 November 2013

Anti-patriotic bets

Perhaps I should have learnt my lesson after going low on UK gold medals at the Olympics. But I haven't.

I was looking yesterday at England for the 2014 World Cup - in terms of a poor performance of course - following their abysmal Wembley matches: two defeats, no goals and no shots on target against the German reserves. William Hill was going 3/1 for them to be eliminated at the group stage but unfortunately that has now disappeared and the best price is now 5/2 which is too short to get involved at present.

So I have turned my attention to another sport that I shouldn't really be betting on - cricket!

Ian Botham's prediction of a 5-0 series win for England looks a tad optimistic after just the second day of a potential 25! I have gone with the home side in the belief that confidence may not recover in the England camp. Just a couple of small bets as follows:

1pt Australia to win the series 5-0 @ 36.0 betfair (33.25/1 after 5% commission) 

1.5pts Australia to win the series 4-0 @ 14/1 William Hill (16/1 Ladbrokes if you can bet there)

2.5pts staked





Tuesday 19 November 2013

High point was Lau



The high point of my weekend was seeing Lau at the Ludlow Assembly Rooms. Above was one of their best tracks.

Best band Radio Two Folk Awards 2013 (and several previous years too!)


World Cup qualifiers

I'm interested in two of the second-leg play-offs tonight. France and Croatia are short-priced favourites to win their respective matches. I think the matches will be low scoring. 

France are obviously not the team they were at the end of the last century. They have a 2-0 deficit to overcome against Ukraine this evening. Problem is they don't score many goals. I have had two bets, one would see the match going to extra time, the other would see France coming up short and not qualifying:

 2pts France to win 2-0 @ 11/2 Unibet

1pt France to win 1-0 @ 6/1 Paddy Power

In the other encounter, it starts 0-0 from the first leg. No doubt Iceland will park the proverbial bus however they will have to score at some point if they are to progress. Just one goal to the home side would be enough and if that happened presumably the bus would change ends! My bets are:

2pts Croatia to win 1-0 @ 6.0 betfair (19/4 after 5% commission) 

2pts Croatia to win 2-0 @ 19/4 Unibet

Seven points staked. 

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Saturday 9 November 2013

Turf Season 2013

I'll be updating the website with the final figures for the season in the next few days. Despite a poor closing week it's been a very successful seven months or so.

I said at the beginning of the year that I would be concentrating on the flat and the strategy has duly delivered, producing 581 points profit out of the year's total (to date) of 766 points. For the record this is how things turned out:

Flat season 2013 complete: Stakes 1,906 Returns 2,487 Profit 581 (30.5%)

And the year to date so far:

2013 to date: Stakes 2,472 Returns 3,238 Profit 766 (31.0%)

Looking back on some of the highlights of the season, we backed:

Ascot: Galician w 33/1  
Goodwood: Pal Of The Cat w 33/1 
Ayr: Circuitous w 33/1
Ayr: Ancient Cross w 33/1
Hamilton: Coral Sands w 25/1
Ayr: Hazelrigg w 25/1
Doncaster: Morache Music w 25/1 

Plus plenty of winners @ 22/1, 20/1, 16/1, 14/1 etc.

Hope you made some profits as a result of my scribbles....

As for tonight's TV we have a dead rubber in the tennis, which is rather boring, so maybe I will tune into x-factor shite and watch the Teignmouth boy murder a Van Morrison classic. Still we have 14/1 each-way (1,2,3) about him and he is generally a 6/1 shot which can't be bad. 

Saturday horses 2

Final bets for the 2013 flat season:

13:50D 0.75pts ew Sam Nombulist @ 25/1 William Hill BOG
14:25D 1.5pts win Spinatrix @ 12/1 Paddy Power BOG
16:05D 2pts win 1pt place Prime Exhibit @ 12/1 William Hill BOG

Total six points

That's it unless any of my selections are non runners.

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Friday 8 November 2013

Saturday horses

Well here we are on the eve of  the last day of the turf season. It would be nice to end what has been a highly profitable season with a winner. 

However Doncaster looks really tricky tomorrow in what will be very soft ground.

Three, possibly four races are of interest tomorrow starting with:

13:15D 2pts ew Tableforten @ 16/1 Betfred BOG

13:50D 1.5pts ew Kyllachy Rise @ 16/1 Betfred BOG

0.5pts ew double at above two prices

Total eight points

 

Thursday 7 November 2013

ATP finals - Group A

Stan can no longer finish top of group A following his - rather unlucky I thought - defeat to Nadal in two tiebreak sets. He should certainly have won the first of those sets and the effort he put into destroying his racket shortly after it showed he thought so too. So it's now 12-0 to Nadal in the H2H.

Berdych is up against a similarly daunting H2H tomorrow night - his record is 3-16 against Rafa. You might be surprised to learn though that the Czech player has a losing H2H record against  EVERY other player in this eight-man contest. However Tomas played superbly to beat Ferrer in straight sets to give himself a chance of qualifying for the semis. All he has to do now is beat Rafa! 

I took 8/1 Berdych winning the group at the start and as he is about to play his last group match he is still 8/1. To finish top he would need to win in straight sets. A tall order but I have seldom seen him play better than against Ferrer. Rafa is through to the semis whatever the result tomorrow and in addition has been confirmed as year-end number one following his second win in the RR (against Stan). 

The key to the match will be the Berdych serve. Against Ferrer he lost only one point in the entire match when his first serve went in. Based on what I saw this evening (Delpo's bold effort) I think the court may be getting quicker which could aid the Czech's chances.

Obviously should it be 2-0 to TB we will have a winning bet. I am going to have an additional bet, however, which would still see TB through to the semis, but as runner-up to Nadal:

1pt Berdych to beat Nadal by 2-1 in sets @ 8/1 Bet365

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Tuesday 5 November 2013

Tuesday horses

Just one bet in the last at Kempton:

19:30K 1pt ew Piazza San Pietro @ 12/1 Skybet BOG

At long last Skybet are offering BOG. Unfortunately they continue to offer pathetically small bets to anyone who backs a winner now and again.

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Monday 4 November 2013

Melbourne Cup

Takes place early tomorrow morning. Was forgetting this race when posting last night about flat racing. A 24-runner handicap with most bookmakers offering first four for ew betting. (Boylesports five places). However odds are pretty cramped with the selections I have chosen so I am playing win only and have had all three bets with betfair. There is plenty of liquidity there so you should be able to get the same prices as me if you are interested in doing so. The bets I have had are as follows:

04:00 Melbourne Cup 1.5pts win Tres Bleu @ 28.0 Beffair (25.65/1 after 5% commission)
04:00 Melbourne Cup 1pt win Masked Marvel @ 42.0 Betfair (38.95/1)
04:00 Melbourne Cup 1pt win Simenon @ 18.0 Betfair (16.15/1)

Total 3.5 points

If you have not had a bet in Australia with betfair before you may not be aware that you have to transfer stakes to an "Australian wallet". This is a simple process and you can of course transfer money back to the UK wallet immediately should you be successful with your bets!

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ATP Finals

Have been trying to find a bit of value in the outright market for the ATP finals which start Monday at the O2, but have so far failed to do so. 

Group B looks by far the toughest group with Fed, Delpo and Djoko. However Group A could be interesting as Nadal is as short as 4/9 to top it. His defeat to compatriot Ferrer in Paris this week might be the first signs of him getting tired after a tremendous late season run. If Nadal can't win this group then I think it's "each of three" to triumph. Ferrer had a very hard match today in the Paris final against Djoko (even though it was only two sets). 

Despite the H2Hs not stacking up too well for the non-Spaniards in this group,  I have had a couple of wagers simply because Betfred (and Totesport) are offering odds greater than what I think they should be:-

2.5pts Stan Wawrinka to win Group A @ 12/1 Betfred
1.5pts Tomas Berdych to win Group A @ 8/1 Betfred

Total four points.

On the horse racing front, likely to be very little of interest in this the final week of the flat turf season. Maybe a bet on the sand at Kempton or Wolverhampton. Perhaps something at Nottingham Wednesday and/or Doncaster on Saturday. 


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