Norwich - WBA U2.5

Norwich are always tight at home and WBA are in quite poor form so I expect this to be a low scoring match. I have average odds on unders at 1.785 and hope to back higher and lay lower

Stevenage - Wolves

Like Leicester Wolves has bounced back strongly and now faces Stevenage away. Should be a pretty comfortable win so I backed them for €200 @1.73. Odds then moved out and I backed them again €50 at 1.78 before odds came back down. Could lay off all my liability at 1.72 for another €3 profit.

Wigan - Leicester

Leicester bounced back and beat Burnley last match. Good way to regroup after poor performances. Wigan has cooled off slightly so I expected Leicester's price to fall. Backed them at 2.72 and got about €100 matched and layed it back for 2.64 and a €3 profit. Not much but something.

W8

New Record. Profits during this week €32. Worth noting that this was only my second week with 100% successful trades and no losing ones. Keeping losses to a minimum is more important than getting every last cent out of every trade.

Notts Co. - Colchester

Much better form for the home team. Backed them for 2.22 and have a lay at 2.18 waiting to be taken. Shouldn't be too long. Already earned €18 this week all Saturday's games uncounted so this could very well be a new record for me this week.

QPR - Blackpool

Placed a bet for QPR at 1.67 a couple of days ago but didn't have it matched. Was almost ready to give up but this morning at 5am it was taken. Probably some drunk Blackpool-fan coming home from a bar or something. I placed a lay at 1.65 immidiately when I got up this morning and was matched within 30 minutes. €2.5. Good week so far.

Burnley - Leicester

P2 v. P1 in the Championship. The home team, Burnley, have won four of their last five and are undefeated at home. Away team Leicester are 3 points clear at the top of the table but have just scored two 1-1 draws from their last two matches v midfield team Blackburn and Relegation candidates Yeovil. That's quite poor form so it's surprising to see a very strong, in form home team be priced as a 3.10 dog in this type of match and the away team with at least some question marks over their form curve favored at 2.60. If I made the lines I would price both teams to win at around 2.80 and forced to choose between them I'd go for Burnley. I have a standard sized back for Burnley at 3.10. Market seems to be testing the 3.00 resistance now and hopefully it will break through. If it does I think it could be a quick ride to 2.90 but hopefully it will go all the way down to 2.80 but I don't really believe that myself. We'll see tomorrow or worst case on Saturday but it's generally better to be out come match day when you're a small fish like me.

UPDATE: Didn't go exactly according to plan. There has only been a few trades at 2.98 but I'm out at 3.00 which, given the rather large amount I wagered at 3.10 still results in a €6.50 profit. Hoped for more but greed is the worst enemy.

West Ham - Hull

Much more uncomplicated trade this one. Backed West Ham @ 2.44 before I went to bed last night and when I checked my cellphone this morning I could cash out at 2.36. Fine little job. Made €5 sleeping. Now I'll go take some positions at Saturday's Championship matches. I've identified two matches I think are mispriced. When I'm matched I'll tell you more. ;)

A Complicated Trade

I mentioned the Leyton Orient match and this turned out trickier than expected. I used the back higher strategy to increase my average odds and then sell back when the market dropped back. I've created a graph with my "blue" back points and "pink" lay points. This strategy can be quite profitable if you get the initial price wrong but have a strong fundamental belief that odds should be lower. I felt exactly this. That O's should be favored to win and that prices above evens are too high.
The below screenshot shows the price graph and that I can green out the market at 46 Swedish Kronor. Which is about €4.50. So initially I backed O's at 1.97. Then saw the odds increase and backed again at 2.02. Then they came down briefly and turned sharply up. After some bouncing with 2 as support and 2.04 as resistance it broke up to 2.06 and then I backed it again to have a €350 bet on Leyton. Sold off about half of it when it moved back to support at 2. When it broke the support I closed the trade where I started it, at 1.97 but now with a decent profit. Not straight forward but a good trade in the end.

I had to do exactly the same with United - City btw so there have been some nerves today. :) That trade gave €6

United - City

Manchester Derby. All the clues point towards a City victory but for some reason odds have gone up from 2.22ish to 2.30ish. I'm in on City for 2.28 so I stand to take a small loss if I close out now but I have strong hope that the market will realise how badly United have performed v. the best teams this season. 2.22 is my target.

UPDATE: Actually got my lay matched at 2.22. Good Trade.

Leyton Orient - Oldham

O's should be a significant favorite here IMO. Still I have been able to  back them at 1.98 which seems to me like a very good price. If my dreams come true they reach what I believe to be a fair price of about 1.90 but more likely I'll have to get out at 1.95 which is still ok, but not great.

W7

Another solid yet unspectacular trading week. Had trouble getting matched early in the week but got a few good trades on the Portugese league on Sunday which kind of saved the week. Net result was exactly €10 which is right on target and marks the 7th straight profitable week. 

Sousa - Berdych

Placed a bet on Berdych @ 1.13 this morning and have most of it matched now. The best bookies are at 1.09 so I hope to get out at 1.10 for a good profit. Have my lays placed already. Go on and take them. This is a match Berdych won't lose.

Porto - Belenenses and Benfica - Academica

Sometimes the Portugese league is a pretty good one to do some trading. Three teams, Benfica, Porto and Sporting Lisboa are very well known and succesful and the rest of the teams are not very well known outside of Portugal. Lots of money are going to be attracted towards these three big teams especially if they play at home v. midfield or lower teams. This is what happens this Sunday. The Portugese league and other smaller leagues aswell attract less money and later in the week. You can find quite good liquidity on the EPL early in the week but last night when I placed my backs at 1.23 for Benfica and 1.20 for Porto very little money was traded. I was matched during the evening and placed my lay bets 2 clicks lower and was matched. €2.5 on both games. Easy money.

Crawlay - Wolves

Not an uncomplicated trade but a profitable one in the end. Wolves are in great form in the L1 and had a 9 match winning streak broken last time with a goal less draw v. Shrewsbury. Surely a match the Wolves should have won but nothing last forever. Still the Wolves are in P1 one pt clear at the top of the table and need to win away v. mid table team Crawley Town to keep their advantage at the top and they are the better team.

With this in mind 1.95 on Wolves seemed to be an overreaction to the Shrewsbury match and I expected odds to drop down to atleast 1.90 possibly even more. Insted my bet was matched and the odds shot up to at most 2.10 but with most money traded in the 2.02-2.04 range. I had a very small ammount matched at 2.06 but then, thankfully odds started to drop back down this morning and continued all day with a brief spike back to evens. Could clear out at 1.92 for a €3 profit but I've seen some really big red digits in the cash out menu on this trade. In the end it's the green that counts.

W6

Fairly uneventful week. The Gulbis - Isner issue that i mentioned in the last update solved itself for the better. Isner won  as a 2.31 dog just as I thought he would. Other trades were straight forward without any drama and also without exciting profits. A decent €8 for the week is ok, nothing more, nothing less.

Gulbis - Isner and some catching up

It's been a very busy week at work and I haven't had much time to trade or post updates on the blog. What I've been up to this week is two League One football matches Swindon - Wolves and Oldham - Rotherham, both of them gave a profit of €3 each. I backed the in form away teams monday evening and cashed out before lunch on tuesday with no drama.

Drama however on the Isner - Gulbis trade. I've been taking straight bets on Isner both v. Verdasco and Lu and been confident that the big serving US-HC loving Yank would be up for it and this has been 100% correct. He's been serving great, broken just once in three whole tennis matches. Verdasco, Lu and Davydenko aren't even poor returners but have managed to create among them just one break point (which Verdasco won). Gulbis on the other hand has been up and down as usual. Had a bad match v. Bautista-Agut, serving just above 50% and winning 62% of service points. This is poor because Gulbis is a big serving guy and can dominate rallies when he's on. On top of that he's not exactly great aganist the big servers because he can always throw in a bad service game in a mood swing and if you're playing Isner, Raonic, Karlovic or their likes that will most of the time equal a lost set.

With all of this in mind I became a little too confident and forgot that betting and trading are two separate things. Seeing Gulbis open at 1.80, a complete joke of a price IMO which I would never take. I had calculated the line for this match to be around evens with a slight lean towards Isner so obviously I placed a big lay bet for 1.80 on the Latvian, only to see odds fall down to 1.70 and even with some money traded in the high 60's. Which is absolute nonsense. Set to lose €18 unless the odds swung back 12 points I decided to lay again at a lower price and managed to get some juice matched at 1.69. This moved my breakeven point down to 1.76 from 1.80 and when odds started to move back up I sold off half my liability at 1.74. It's not uncommon for odds when odds move heavily in one direction and then start to move back that they go up to Fib. 32,8 (in this case around 1.74) and then turn back down again. This marked didn't and I could sell off the rest of my liability at 1.76.

I will leave a €3,5 red on Gulbis and €0 on Isner because I strongly believe he will win this tennis match. Usually I red out no matter what but when my own opinion so greatly differ from the market's I tend to value my own opinion higher. You win some, lose some and should I lose the extra Euro and a half then so be it.

Also I'd like to add the W.5 profit chart. Looking quite decent IMO. Every week has been positive total return of 11% in five weeks. Can't complain.

W5

Don't have time for more than a very quick report. Net result this week €22 which is my best ever weekly profit. Almost everything is thanks to one great trade.

Fognini - Harrison

Matched at 1.48. Fognini really should take this. Harrison's form is dire and the Italian isn't too bad on hard court. Fog should be far too consistent and Harrison misses too much. Hope to trade out at 1.43 or so. Most top bookies are at 1.42.

UPDATE: Got some of my stake matched at 1.43, then some at 1.44. Then odds jumped up a bit and I decided to green out with a €2 profit at 1.47. Seems the market believes Fog is a poor hard courter or that Harrison has any form at all. If it goes over 1.50 it might just be worth a straight bet on the Fog.

Closed trade

Closed out the losing trade on Bournemouth. My last pennies were matched this afternoon at 2.56. I'm set to lose €6 on the market which is a bad result but I'm happy to have been able to cut the loss with some laying at 2.50 and rebuying at higher odds. But I think this is what I can do. It looks like the market has stabilized at 2.52 to back and 2.54 to lay and then there's not much more for me to do.

Blackpool - Bournemouth

There are good ones and bad ones. This looks to be a bad one. Got my estimates for this match all wrong. Blackpool is in bad form with just three draws from the last ten games, however they are decent at home and plays kind of tight. Bournemouth aren't great either. They beat Doncaster 5-0 last match but Doncaster is a terrible team at the moment especially on the road. My logic was that one great game doesn't suddenly make Bournemouth a form team. Bournemouth are also kind of bad playing away, only Millwall have conceded more goals and they aren't scoring to many either and have won just three of fifteen away games.

With this information I compiled a line that read something like 2,60-3,30-3,00 and obviously placed a lay at 2.94 to trade out around 3ish or so. Bookies' first lines also gave confirmation to this and opened close to what I had expected. Thankfully I'm not this far off very often, but odds are now sort of reversed at 3,00-3,30-2,60 which is quite an expensive thing for me. Right now I'm set to lose €8 for the market but I hope to do some short trades and scalps later in the week and get some of that back. However it will certainly end in a quite significant loss unless the odds miraculously swing all the way back, but that's extremely unlikely to happen.

W4

Good week that netted a €15 profit with no trades that ended in losses. I had to close one for a €0 result but all the other ones earned me from 10 cents up to €6 for the best trade. Another positive week that is and the second in a row where I reach my goal of atleast 2% or €10.

Colchester - Rotherham

Great trade on this League One match. Threw in a back bet for Rotherham, an in form team in the league @ 2.44 before I went to bed last night. This is way above what bookies offer for the match, most of them are around 2.00. To my great surprise I was matched for my full €150 stake during the night and put in a fairly generous lay bet at 2.10 to get my money greened out. Was matched quite soon and guarantees myself a €24 profit on every outcome. Wish every trade was like this.