Nightmare

Me again, questioning another aspect of this post... Specifically about this. I'm stll in the trialing phase, but I'm looking at the 'price/volume over time' graph and stats on Betfair, and I've noticed that pretty much none of my backs would get matched (even at 90% rather than 88% or 89% like you're saying) if I'd put them up, whereas a decent percentage of the lays do (I just started off with a default 106% on these, although I understand in some instances that this could be increased and would still be matched). What I've been doing is creating %s for all three outcomes in the match, and then pricing these up/down to the percentages previously mentioned. For example: Nottingham Forest - 40% chance (2.5, marked up backing at 2.78 and laying at 2.35) Swansea - 32% chance (3.13, back 3.47 and lay 2.93) Draw - 27% chance (3.57, back 3.96 and lay 3.35) For that game, I would have had 4 out of 6 matches (all lays, and the Swansea back). Basically... is what I've done here, what you mean by the quote above? Or have I missed the point and am doing it wrong? But like I said, other than for this game, I seem to be finding it difficult to get matches, especially with the stakes when backing outcomes. Lays are ok, I have about half of them matched so far. You mentioned that only about 30% of all your stakes get matched; are these heavily weighted towards the laying side of what you're doing as well, or am I just getting unlucky?

"You have reached your quota of negative repuation for the day"

8-3.

Wade is a great player when he can be arsed.

Ok, nice one. And with all this in mind, I assume that it's better to get your backs and lays in as early as possible, to try and get people to take your prices before the market starts to take shape and you might be priced out? True. Then again, is that not the case for everyone at the start of the season? Sometimes teams might look good on paper, but just don't perform, and you're never going to know until they play some competitive matches (unless you take pre-season form into account, which I imagine would be gambling suicide ).

Yeah, that was a question too far, wasn't it? I'd imagine league position, form (home/away), head-to-head are all involved, but then you've got to take into account what teams are playing for (will 1 be more motivated than the other?), do they have any injuries, and maybe a couple more things. Quite extensive, I suppose.

Dragging up this post from a few weeks ago here... I've just begun trialing this method of backing and laying all outcomes to a certain percentage, but I've been a bit confused with the what percentages to go with. Do you go with the prices currently in the market and mark them up to the price you want to back and lay yourself, or do you start the whole thing from scratch and ignore the market, going with the percentage chance you think each team has of winning regardless of what other people think? And if it's the latter, how do you go about finding out these percentages? Like, what sort of statistics do you use to say that, for example in tonight's match that Braga have a 30% chance of beating Benfica?

The quality earlier on, when I posted that, was poor. They were both sub-100 at the time, which considering the recent form of both of them, was poor. Maybe thanks to their awful play on doubles, but still.

Anderson nearly with the 9-darter. Was really good quality throwing at the start of legs, but when they got to the doubles it was really poor quality. Not sure how they managed that.

This has been a really poor quality match, actually. Surprising from these two.

Great game between Barney and Jenkins. Jenkins PL draw specialist.

His new coaching team seem to have given him the kick up the arse that he needed. Some of his play in the 2nd set today was as good as I've seen from him.

Webster has been painful to watch. Looked great in his first week, beating Lewis, and since then it's been a disaster.

Andy Murray in 'actually winning a match' shocker! Well, he won the first set 6-1 v Stepanek, and is currently a break up in the second.

Good stuff Blue, very helpful. Had a solid return from laying against top 5/10/making the cut on the Masters, so I've got some funds to play with and try out some things. Going to try it out on maybe one league at first with a few quid on each outcome, and then if it's working for me, increase the number of teams + stake. About the NBA and MLB, I've always thought with the way those sports are structured, that it would be more difficult to make an educated prediction. What I mean by that is like how there are so many more games per season in those leagues than there is in football or the NFL, and players will often be rested, or only play a small part in games. I've seen NBA games where the team is up by 30, only for the losing team to claw back a lot more points in garbage time because the winning team has long since benched all their starters. Is there a way around things like this or is my assumption that this makes it tougher to predict winners just wrong?

Ah, let the teuchters have their time. It's obviously a FAR better place to put on sporting events than Glasgow. That's why they get so many of them.

Whitlock-Barney has been a great match. Both averaging well above 100.

Wade - "I've got 6 titles, I wouldn't swap my career for his" GIRUY Lewis.

Completely flat atmosphere for this match. Then again, with two clowns like Lewis and Wade, it's hardly surprising.

Cheers Blue, sounds like a lot of work. I assumed it would take an awful lot of funds to properly back and lay all outcomes to a level where you could make a decent profit, and that seems to prove it. It's going to be a long time before I have the £1000s lying around to do that One more question about it; when you're backing and laying with your margins, and are having to reduce them through the week, is there a certain point where if they don't get matched, you'll just give up and leave them unmatched, or will you always try to reduce them to a level where they'll be matched, even if it means minimal profit? If that makes sense.

Ah right, so that's why the lay option for some of the players are blank. I thought that was because no-one had been laying them, not because there is currently no-one waiting to back him. Right, cheers. If you don't mind me asking, what sort of laying do you do? I assume seeing as you're posting here it's football-related, but do you find more success in match odds, or scores/goals markets? I've been paper-trialing the scores market (0-0s) and whilst it seems to look potentially profitable, I've only done it very briefly, and I'm not sure if over the long run it would work yet.

I've recently started laying on Betfair, and whilst it's been easy to do on liquid markets like Premiership and Champions League football, I'm finding it difficult to find matches on the Masters just now. This will probably seem like a stupid question to regular Betfair layers, but I don't understand why my lays aren't being matched. Example, Jhonattan Vegas to make the cut. £50 has been backed on him to make the cut at 1.7, and £40 on him at 2.02. However, if I try to lay £20 at these stakes, it won't match up, even partially. Why is this? The lay market apparently has no-one in it, at any price, so how have the people who backed those prices been able to do so, and why can't I lay? Apologies if I'm being a big gambling newbie, but help!

Betfair rules: "a game must be played in its entirety (90 mins plus injury time) to stand as a valid bet" I had a fiver on Schalke, so I'm disappointed as well, but we're not going to get our money.

It actually wouldn't surprise me if this was serious.

Murray is announcing his new coach at 7pm.