Psychology of sport

I have always been interested in psychology and would have loved to do it at degree level. As it went, my school did not offer it at A level standard and not fancying diving into it at university blindly, I opted for history instead. C'est la vie. Even so, it has always been a topic which has attracted me, especially when it comes to sport. I have always thought that, if one was to discover certain psychological trends on the pitch (rather than in the markets) then they could create a betting system surrounding it. This may seem a bit wishy-washy at present - probably because I have nothing to back it up with yet, and I am sitting on a train rambling my thoughts - but I intend to delve into my thesis over the year. Doubtless someone has already researched such ideas, and if they have I'd love to hear from them, anything at all.
I have been considering this in my head for years really, but it was pushed to the front of my brain after djokovic came from 2 down to beat Fed in the US open semi final. What I would like to investigate is; how often is it that a player gets a set back after being 2-0 down and goes on to win driven by their adrenaline? And does it happen enough to warrant betting on it?
Other things I would like to look into: the mentality of the underdog, particularly in cups, seeing how many times they avoid defeat at long odds, and how many times they win after taking the lead; the difference between the performances of smaller teams vs bigger teams in comparison to when they play other small teams; the impact of the crowd/being at home; how often strikers go on runs of form after scoring a goal; football results midweek. The latter is something which has been pressing on my mind for some time now, as I have restricted myself from betting match odds in the week due to the volatility in matches. Now this *may* well be something I have created in my mind and actually holds no weight, but I think that evening kick offs might be more volatile than the standard 3 o'clocks. Monday saw sunderland lose again, having lost most (can't remember the actual stat) of their Monday matches over the last few years. Normally stats like this I would dismiss, for instance we do not know who they played in these games, whether they were home or away, whether Roy keane was their manager (cos he was awful), but at the same time I can't help wonder if it is a pattern with true meaning. I remember (this is the last anecdote I promise) a few years back when Old 'Arry was gaffer at pompey and they faced united at old trafford in the FA cup (the year they went on to win it). 'Arry said in the pre match interview that he was offered a KO time and he picked 12.45 to try and ruffle the United feathers, not wanting to have a 5.15 as the evening atmosphere at OT would be too intimidating. United battered them but were destined not to win it seems with carrick missing a sitter and Rio having to go in goal after 2 keepers had been injured and sent off. Pompey won one nil with a pen. I will certainly be looking at how different teams perform at different times and I will keep you all posted on anything I discover.
Moving on, I still have no internet at my new uni accommodation so I cannot begin the ventures outlined in previous posts, but it should be up and running by Monday with any luck. All my plans are now pretty much sorted and I am raring to go. Enjoy your weekend and watch this space.

Back to business shortly...

It should now be only a short time until I am back in business in the betting world. And to be quite honest, I have missed it. Although it has been only a couple of weeks since my last proper bets, I still find myself regularly checking Betfair for the latest odds of the different matches playing at the time and constantly finding bets I could be betting on. The Djokovic outright bet (obviously) paid off, with him crucifying Rafa in the final to continue the outrageous run which he has been on this season. I traded off my liabilities at a slightly disappointing 2.22 (mainly due to the Big 4 all reaching the semi-finals), but I was soon glad of anything as he went down 2 sets in the semis to Fedz. Luckily he scraped through and I adjusted the bank to 70:30 in Djokovic's favour for the final, meaning a decent profit of around £85. This has been quite a good demonstration of the opportunities that lie in the Grand Slam events of the tennis world I feel, and I will certainly look into it further next season, possibly with bigger sums.

Returning to University for me will begin a new betting season and I have decided to step up my activities somewhat. I will spend the next couple of weeks finalising plans but by the end of September I hope to be trialling and reviewing at least 2 other betting systems, in addition to the ASP system I am already running. On top of this I will be providing weekly tips for anyone interested in that aspect of betting. I have also decided to set myself targets each week, for instance I will be looking to make £X per week (I am yet to decide the amount). I will look to set a weekly loss limit, which, if reached, will mean the end of my betting for that week. If I am to reach my weekly profit target four times in a row (all of these figures are examples, I'm not sure of the actual numbers yet) then I will increase my target by around 10%. If I am consistently successful, I will be banking the majority of my profits (around 90%) and leaving 10% in to increase the bank size. All of this will commence when I receive a new betting bank, A.K.A. My Student Loan. I think that this more organised form of betting will help to improve my discipline and bring in steady profits, as well as reduce any potential losses. As I am not trying to sell you anything I have the luxury of being completely honest throughout the season, and will be posting regular P+L sheets, as well of the majority of the things I will bet on, so feel free to follow my progress throughout the year. I intend to reach the target by any means possible, i.e. systems, punting, trading, scalping etc.

Until then though, I hope you have a profitable couple of weeks. Below I have a few screenshots of the season bets I recommended in earlier posts. Thanks to the start from the two Manchester clubs, as well as the disasters down in London, I have been able to trade out and withdraw my money to top up my holiday bank. The Best of the Rest bet I will probably leave all season, as I really believe City will finish above all of those listed (maybe I will put a small amount on the others if the odds get down to 1.05 or something). I only wish I had had more capital at the time of putting the bet on, as I would have put the earth on it. The other bet is less certain but for now I'm happy to leave it as it is as my total risk is £0, just how we like it.

Worst Penalty of all time

This week I have been absent from the trading world as I have decided to take a break until things cool down for me a bit. I'm going back to university in a couple of weeks but before that I am going to Barcelona, having a birthday and need to see all the people I like before I depart. Not to mention the insane amounts of packing which I have now become accustomed to. Not much has changed since my last post but I thought I should give a small update during this rain-break on the Djokovic situation. The odds to lay outright are currently 2.02 and I am still not going to trade out yet due to the odds of him in the quarters being a mere 1.05. In addition to this Murray and Nadal are not even through their fourth-round matches yet (Nadal currently 3 games down in set 1), and whilst I expect them both to win, a tough ride could help to chop Djoko's odds. The odds briefly went down to 1.91 after a kneejerk reaction to Nadal's spectacular collapse after his last match. After the initial shock and a below-par performance from Djokovic himself (despite winning 3-0), the odds are back to evens. I'm hoping he will breeeeeeeeeeeeze through the quarters and the odds will plummet, leaving me in the big-time green.

As I have a distinct lack of trading to report of, I thought I'd provide something else for this week. Today a video clip has been circulating Twitter after an abysmal penalty yesterday from *somewhere* in Egpyt I think. I found the funniest bit to be the Keeper for the opposing team, not content with the embarrassment for the poor man-in-red, he was determined to have him booked for [presumably] attempting to dummy after approaching the ball. Tad harsh.

It did get me thinking about all the other wonderful penalty attempts I've seen over time. Berbatov's versus Everton in the FA cup semi final at Wembley, whilst heartbreaking at the time, was in hindsight a dreadful attempt. My all time favourite though, was the Arsenal attempt at recreating something the genius Johan Cryuff had once come up with. I remember Wenger being absolutely furious at them as they were only 1-0 up at the time it happened, though unfortunately they still won 1-0 if I am to remember correctly. I can't help but agree with the title of this video... as if they could be as good as Johan. As if.

Novak the beautiful man

Unfortunately there has been no ASP results to report of this week since my last post, as I have been rather busy and at the moment I am finding the system rather time consuming, meaning I need to have a decent chunk of time to put my all into it. There were two other results not really worthy of a print screen update, a £0.15 win and a £5.17 win from France, and these were both achieved on the same day of my last update, just after I had already published my post.
As I knew I would be busy this week, I lumped all of my ASP bank (£235) onto Novak Djokovic at the US Open. So far the gamble has worked wonders with Novak doing the bizzo in the early rounds and any sign of the injury (which I feared) seems to have vanished. After a slightly delayed reaction to the beginning of the tournament and a bigger price on Novak, I managed to back him prior to his first round match at 2.66 for £135 whilst simultaneously laying him at 1.02 for £150 in the first round. After breezing through the first round (and losing me £3) the odds dropped to 2.6, where I topped up another £100 before laying him again at 1.02 in the second round (for only £3 again). After only dropping two games in the second round his price plummeted to 2.12 (where I layed for £35 so I could lay him in round 3), presumably with the mare from Andy Murray in round 2 contributing also. Given the short price of 1.04 for tonight's third round match, I think I will oppose him for £200 (liability £8) and then green up in the outright market whatever the price, another 3 set game would do wonders. As yet I am unsure whether to leave the green all on him or how to spread it. I do not have masses of tennis knowledge but anyone I have spoken to seem to agree that, should his injury not reappear, he should walk the tournament. I think it is most likely that if he is to go out, it will be to one of the big boys, so I will probably wait until the semis before adding a little green to the other semi-finalists (if he gets there). So that's all I've been up to this week really, nothing ground breaking but potentially a nice little profit for no effort. I was disappointed to see the awful liquidity in the Shanghai Snooker Masters on Betfair, with Betdaq not even appearing to offer snooker markets. I thought snooker was bigger than that in this country, but maybe it is only for the English tournaments or the ones on the BBC.
Anyway, I should be back to football trading on Monday so my next post shall be around then. For now though, back to watching International games. Fun. Fun. Fun.