Kelly bet Penafiel v. Guimares

Back (2) @ 1.72 10:-

1-1

Pre match trade Arouca h. Sporting

Back 2 @ 1.50

Lay 2 @ 1.48

UPDATE: Win €4.50

Pre match trade Man United v. Leicester

Have been working on this one since Monday but now it seems to be in order. First placed a 1.35 back for United to get out at 1.34 but market moved one tick and I decided to get out at 1.35. Did so and market was still steady so I placed a new back @ 1.36 and got it matched last night. Placed a lay @ 1.35 and it's beginning to get taken now. Should be €3 when done.

Kick off trade Parma v. Juventus

Had two quick identical trades in the last 15 minutes before kick off in this Coppa Italia match.
The market moved in the 1.39-1.41 range with a small overweight on the up-side. To minimize the risk I placed a €400 lay @ 1.39 and traded out at 1.40. When completed I could do exactly the same trade once more for a €6 win.

Pre match trade Deportivo v. Granada

Backed the home team last night at 2.32 and got out this morning at 2.28. Money while you sleep.

Tennis bets AO R2

Groth @ 1.75 over Kokkinakis ((Groth in 5)

Anderson/Berankis O38.5 @ 1,96 (LOSS)


Goffin/Baghdatis O37.5 @ 1,99 (LOSS)

Chardy @ 1.58 over Seppi (Estimated price 1.45) (LOSS)

Troicki @ 1.68 over Mayer (Estimated price 1.45) (Troicki wins in 4)

Verdasco @ 1.19 over Soeda (Estimated price 1.18) (Verdasco wins in 3)

Nieminen @ 1.78 over Bachinger (Estimated price 1.71) (Nieminen in 3)

Johnson @ 1.48 over Giraldo (Estimated price 1.44) (Johnson in 3)

Monfils @ 1.41 over Janowicz (Estimated price 1.26) (LOSS)

UPDATE: I need to stop making these over/under bets. My model doesn't really have a good way of predicting this. Instead I have been choosing my bets from matches where I get pretty even match-ups. Anderson was a favorite to win over Berankis but were too low and Berankis had been playing well + Anderson is a fairly weak returner. Goffin and Baghdatis showed Goffin a slight favorite but these are two weak servers with good ground games. Should be long but a 6-0 4th set for Baggers ruined my day. I'll stick with match bet's in the future. My model seems to come up with fairly decent results there and often quite close to real odds. Troicki over Mayer showed a very big difference between the 1.68 offered and 1.45 I got, but he won, and fairly easy.

Kick off trade Sporting v. Rio Ave

Placed a lay @ 1.35 for Sporting half an hour before KO. Market moved one tick against me but since the match was streamed I waited for KO and could get out @ 1.37 at kick off. €8 profit here.

Tennis bets AO R1

Raonic -6.5 @ 1.90 over Marchenko - I think Raonic's return is quite underestimated and he's almost never broken so I think he should be able to cover this line.

Copil @ 2.08 over Andujar - Copil's been really good this year and hard court is not Andujar's favorite surface.

Nieminen/Golubev O 38.5 @ 1,92 - Niemo is an expert in long slam matches. Both players are in quite suspect form and are prone to be broken. Expect a lot of swings back and forth and atleast 4, probably five sets.

Bemelmans +2.5 sets 2 1,54 over Karlovic - Karlovic always play tight sets because of his very dominant serve and weak return game. Also he's not a tiebreak giant like for example Isner who wins close to 65% of his breakers. Karlovic is about average at 51%. Should be very possible for Bemelmans to get atleast one set.

UPDATE: Karlovic during his career won 9% of return games. Bemelmans somehow got broken 4 times in 14 service games, that's over 28%, something we usually see with strong returners, like Ferrer or Murray.

UPDATE: Raonic won in straights, but with two breakers. Another loss...

UPDATE: Copil win in straights so that's a win. Niemo also got it done in straight sets which is a loss.

Tennis bet

Kukushkin 2.05 over Troicki

UPDATE 26 36 Kukushkin's form from earlier this week missing in action. But I'm quite happy for Troicki who I believe was done really hard by the ATP on very shaky grounds. Well done!

Pre match trades

Back AFC Wimbledon @ 2.20 v. Carlisle. Placed an unmatched lay @ 2.16

Tennis bets

Ymer @ 2.16 over Chung
Darcis @ 1.50 over Melzer
Bedene @ 1.46 over Przysiezny

Ymer and Bedene won. Darcis lost.

Tennis bet Rufin v. Ouahab

Rufin @1.53 over Ouahab.

Odds here are actually slightly below my calculated price but I'll throw it in anyway. Rufin is a real talent who has been unlucky with injuries but when fit he's very very good. Ouahab on the other hand has spent most of his career on the challenger tour, never been in the top 100 and at 30+ he's unlikely to suddenly find a new level or two in his game.

 UPDATE: Very strange. Rufin won 59% of balls in the first set winning it 63 and then seemed to just fade away. 63 26 16. Dunno if it's a new injury or Ouahab just went into goat-mode.

Tennis bets

Copil @ 1.30 over Jasika 15:-
Kubot @ 1.67 over Marchenko 10:-

Kubot lost, Copil won

Tennis bets

Found some matches from the Aussie Open Q2 and hoping for better luck than last time i posted bets with 25% hit rate.

Alex Kuznetsov @ 1.62 over G. Melzer 10:-

Liam Broady @ 1.70 over J. Donaldson 10:-

Lukasz Kubot @ 1.81 over A. Nedovyesov 10 :-

Jürgen Melzer @ 1.30 over D. Munoz-de la Nava 20:-

UPDATE:
Broady win 76 67 64
Kubot win 64 63

Kuznetsov won 76 64

Melzer won 26 76 75

Better reading this! 4/4 even if Melzer made it a lot tougher than I had hoped. I know he is over the hill but Munoz on HC is... well not very good. But ok he took himself together and won in the end, no extra points for convincing victories.

Tennis bets

Today had a surprising shortage of matches I liked. A few more tomorrow.

Istomin v. Kukuskin @ 2.31 - My model suggests favorites are mixed up. Istomin comes up a 1.75 favorite to win so this looks like good value.

Same thing for Bellucci v. Vesely @ 2.33 where I think bookies overestimate the "hot young prospect" but imo he has not really delivered and Bellucci is no slouch even if he can be very erratic in performances.

Lu comes up a slight fav v. Monaco but is avaliable @ 2.06. Lu is defending a runner up position in Auckland and looked decent in Chennai. Monaco lost to Kavcic in Doha. Not that impressive.

Garcia-Lopez is made a huge favorite, below 1.20 in my model, mainly because the sample on Schwartzman on hard is very small and very unimpressive. Still 1.36 seems to give too much credit  to this challenger-level clay courter.

UPDATE: all lost so far. Lu plays later. Too early to tell if my model is faulty or these are just surprise results.

Ok so Lu win atleast but 1 from 4 is too poor. 

Tennis bet Federer v. Raonic +0,5 tiebreaks

Two strong servers, should be close backing a tiebreak to be played @ 1,57

UPDATE: 64 67 64

Kelly bet & Pre match trade Asteras Tripolis v. PAOK

Back (1) @ 2.40 12:-

Huge steam on the home team from 3.00 dogs to 2.40 favs and below. Backed big a 2.40 and traded out exactly 2 minutes later at 2.36 for a €3 win. Imagine if one could get that hourly pay all the time €180 an hour or €1400 per working day... keep on dreaming JB ;)

UPDATE: 3-0 Good win!

Tennis bet Golubev v. Smith

Backing Golubev to beat Smith in Sydney qualifiers @ 1.50

UPDATE: Golubev had the chance to serve it out in the 3rd set but choked. 36 76 67

Tennis bet Wawrinka v. Goffin o. 21.5

Back over 21.5 @ 1.81

Missed by one game 75 63

Tennis bet Berdych v. Ferrer

Berdych - 2.5 @ 1.71

Berdych from earlier this week not to be seen 46 57

Pre match trade Bristol C v. Notts Co

Back Bristol @ 1,57

UPDATE: Moved in the wrong direction. Out @ 1.59 for a 2 Eur loss.

Tennis bet Berdych v. Seppi u. 20.5

Birdman has been on fire here. Dismissing Gasquet 2 and 1 was really impressive. Seppi isn't unbreakable and shuold have a hard time with Bird's service.

1.75 standard sized bet.

62 63

Pre match trade GGL v. Bedene

Very close match but GGL should be a slight favorite. Actually got some juice on @ 2.04. Getting out @ 1.99, hopefully.

UPDATE: Yes that's 3 euros for me.

Tennis bet Dimitrov v. Klizan over 21,5

Backing overs with Dimitrov again. Klizan looks to be in good form and in that mood he can keep up with very good players and can be very tough to break when he's playing well. Dimitrov should be favored to win but 1.33 is just stupid considering how close it was with Chardy (who double faulted twice! on match points).

1,83 on overs standard sized bet.

UPDATE: 64 63 so that's a loss.

Tennis bet Tomic v. Kokkinakis

Backing Tomic @ 1,53
Kokkinakis looks good for the future but Tomic is a real beast in Brisbane.

UPDATE: 76 61

Pre match trade Ferrer v. de Bakker

Backing Ferrer @ 1.17 for €400 looking to trade out at 1.15 or even better at 1.14 if that's possible.

Good one. Out @ 15 to win 7 euros.

Tennis bet Dimitrov v. Chardy +22,5

My calculations show this match MUCH closer than the 1,37 on Dimitrov that's on offer. Add to that that Dimitrov plays more 3 setters than average players of his calibre and Chardy is tough to break. Wouldn't be surprised to see atleast one TB and this going to a third set. Long match on the cards here.

Standard sized bet at 2.01

UPDATE: 36 64 76

Tennis bet Lacko v. Bedene

My model is pricing up Lacko as a 1,60 favorite. Odds available at 1.74 so that's a decent margin.

67 36

Short words about this model I'm referring to. It's basically an excel sheet where I can enter various player data and stats, all in a pretty short time and out comes a probability calculation. My selection process is this:

* I scan tomorrows matches and look at the prices.
* If I find a match that looks interesting from a value PoV I have a closer look at the players' recent history.
* Usually the "value" comes from either player coming back from injury, is in dreadful for, or on a winning spree. If either of these are on the wrong side of my initial assumption the bet is off.
* If all looks alright I'll enter the numbers in my spreadsheet.
* If my calculations give a greater probability than the odds offered it's a bet. If not, well it's not a bet.

I feel this model should allow me to post stupid bets on instinct. You know the kind where you say SURELY Player A can't lose to Player B in any circumstance. Well he can and if it's not showing value it should not be a bet.

I'm still working on a way to transform Challenger level players' stats to the ATP-tour to avoid traps there. I have a few ideas that look decent enough but need to be tested more.

Reckless trading

I placed a pre match trade last night at de Bakker v. Dustov at a price I never thought would be matched. Turned out it was and when I remembered that bet it was way into the match. Fortunately for me I could get out with a pretty nice profit after de Bakker won the first set, but he was down a break in that set and things could have been much different. MUST NOT FORGET TO TRADE OUT MY PRE MATCH TRADES!

Tennis bets

Troicki @ 1.61 v. Kudla 46 26
De Bakker @ 1.75 v. Dustov 75 64

Pre match trade Nedunchezhian v. Bedene

These early tournaments have a lot of local wild cards and while the Indian ones are usually a class or two above for example the Quatari WC who goes about losing 60 61 to very average challenger players, they should not pose a serious threat to professional players like Bedene for example. The Slovenian was possible to back @ 1.12 on Betfair last night and I placed an immediate lay @ 1.11 to steal one tick and €4.

Tennis bet. Copil v Smyczek

My model says Copil small favorite. Odds say Smyczek @ 1.45. Doesn't add up. Very small bet on Copil @ 3.05

UPDATE: 63 76 So far the model is holding up very well. Still way to early to jump to conclusions though. 

Tennis bet Bozoljac v. v. d. Duim

Backing the Serbian to win this Q-match for Doha. My model prices him at 1.32 and since odds offered are 1.45 that's value assuming my model is correct, which is also what I intend to find out. :)

76 60

Going into 2015

I've been thinking alot about how to continue this project going into the new year and have decided on the following.

I will continue posting most of my pre match trades. I can't publish everyone because many of them are quite short in time, more of in and out trades and doesn't render much profits either. When I started this I had the ambition to post a graph each week of my trading developments. Now I set my ambition to update with a graph at the end of each month. Trading bank is €700 and when it reaches €1000 I will withdraw €50 for every €100 I win on top of that. €1000 is about the size of money I want to have tied up in this kind of business so it can grow slower after that and the exceeding profits can be used to stock market investments or a new pair of shoes or what ever.

The Kelly bet project will continue as well. At the moment I have a 120% ROI which is the best I've ever had at any betting spreadsheet. Probably says more about my limited betting skills but it's still a quite good profit and with 32 bets it's not just coincidence, there seems to be an edge here.

I don't do many live trades, I'm simply not very good at it so don't expect to see many of them here.

I will have another go at tennis betting. Since I posted my last bet during the US Open I've been reading alot of stuff about different strategies and specific player traits and I feel I want to try them out with live money in the new season which starts tomorrow. Stakes will be small and it's more a case of trying to be smarter than the market than making alot of money.

This is how I see this blog developing into 2015.