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.

Frustrationnnnn

I haven't had much time to trade recently and took a few days off from the ASP system. My welcome back, however, was not exactly blissful, with poor game choices resulting in a miserable Sunday (in betting terms at least). I began the day with my biggest ever loss - £38.50 - as City ran riot at White Heart Lane. Such is the nature of this system that this huge loss could have been a small profit, had I reacted slightly quicker and not been greedy, with Dzeko's goal in the 34th minute being an optimum time for a goal to be scored for this system. Had I reacted before his 41st minute goal I could have turned a nice little profit (in fact I have seen others' spreadsheets and they did turn a profit from this game), but I decided to wait until half time to let the AU price recover a bit, meaning more profit. The second goal inevitably came and any profit I had hoped for was gone.

Another factor which I think is letting me down is my game choice. With the return of the Premier League and Sky's unerring coverage of the football I have found myself picking games which I can watch whilst trading, as well as games which I think I know more about. I find myself justifying the games I have selected, which have gone outside of the filters, by saying things such as 'SURELY they can't...' and surprisingly this isn't that effective. My own 'superior' knowledge of the Premier League is highly distorted and biased, for instance yesterday I didn't believe City would score 4 or more goals because I didn't WANT them to score 4 or more goals, and until I can look at games objectively I don't believe I should use matches which go outside of the set filters.

So after such a morale-crushing decomposition of my inabilities, what now? From today I am going to go back to basics for a short while to see how it pans out. I will stick to the set filters and only trade a few games a day, meaning a maximum of two at any one time. I will also reduce my stakes for a short while until I am having a better run of the results. I am still confident that this will come through as the theory is pretty sound and will endeavour to work hard at it to make it right. Today I have a free day so I am going to re-read some of the tutorials and watch the latest videos in order to boost my understanding.

I have also decided to endeavour to find the most profitable and effective systems over the year, so that I can build up a sizeable portfolio to bring me top dollar. This won't begin until the end of September, however, as this is when I return to university and (ironically) have more spare time. 

On the other hand, however, yesterday was a roaring success. Despite being down after City's very impressive performance there was a silver lining for me. The 'Best of the Rest' Market now has City available to lay at 1.44 (backed at 2.26), and the Straight forecast of United/City is at 3.7 (backed at 8.2). I will probably lay the Straight forecast reasonably soon, but leave the other market for a while as I am waiting for odds of around 1.3, and with City's next few games being straightforward ones I think this is easily achievable. I only wish I had had more capital a few weeks ago as I would have A. Lumped much more on City, and B. Backed the Anti-Arsenal markets which I outlined a few weeks ago. In addition to this good news, the United-Arsenal game was a joy to behold and I am still in disbelief. I thought it was amazing when we beat them 6-1, so 8 goals against 'The Arsenal' is unthinkable, full strength side or not. Despite being a huge United fan however, I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for Arsene Wenger in the dugout, and Fergie's post match interviews would appear to suggest he has similar sentiments. Wenger is a decent man, very clever and has an astute knowledge of the game and does certainly not deserve what is happening to him and his club right now, I hope he can recover before he is shown the door. 

I would also just like to say thanks to everyone who has been reading this blog and all of my followers on Twitter. It has now been just over a month that I have been blogging/tweeting my thoughts so to have this many followers and page views so far is very pleasing. Thanks to all, please help to continue spreading the word.

That's all from me today, hope you have a good day.

Boring couple of days

So since the last time I updated I haven't had too much of a fruitful time, mainly because the games aren't as available throughout the week. In the evening there are cup competitions, but it is quite annoying that all of the games kick off at the same time, as with the starting bankroll being only £200, it means you can only do 3 or maybe 4 at a time. I much prefer the games to be spread throughout the day, but c'est la vie. I've had quite a few games winning only one or two pounds which is quite frustrating, but it is better than a loss anyway. Yesterday was about to become my best day so far as I was going to record a full bill of wins with decent wins, until I made a fatal error. In the Bury game I had inadvertently left a liability on AU of £13.70 and I really do not know why this is. I believed that I had wiped out all liabilities at half time because I even took it out of 'My Markets' on Betfair, as I thought my work was done it the game. After the game I checked it however, and found that Leicester's 94th minute goal (typical) had turned my £8.50 profit into a big loss, needless to say I was fuming. Especially as I'd worked very hard on it last night, particularly in the difficult Genk game, all for nothing. 

Luckily I am more of a silver lining type of guy and have learnt my lesson and will certainly not make the same mistake again. The next couple of days will be fruitless as I am going away again so will have no time to trade. This is rather annoying as I was really looking forward to trading the Udinese-Arsenal match. I dread to think what would happen if Arsenal go out tonight, I'm caught between my like/admiration of Wenger and my typical English mannerism - enjoying people failing. 

Good day and happy trading.

Sorry if the picture is a bit small, I just wanted to fit it on the screen this time.

The Weekend Round-up

It has been a very interesting weekend as I have been putting the ASP system into full flow. First words which pop into my head when thinking about it are; fun, highly addictive and time-consuming. I have enjoyed using it immensely and I think that it is plain to see that it does what it says on the tin; it will assure profits. The only downside to it is that it is quite time-consuming as, despite what the creators claim, it does usually take monitoring well into the second half and I also find myself watching the odds move throughout the game, meaning I am almost constantly involved. Luckily I rather enjoy doing this so, for now at least, it is not a chore to me.
Now, on to how I did. You will notice that when describing the system I didn't use any words such as 'highly profitable', which is not to say that it isn't, just because sometimes using it can be frustrating and pointless for such little reward. For instance, at the moment I am in a game where the most I can possibly win is £0.09 which all seems rather pointless for 45 minutes worth of work. It is, however, the case that mostly games do not go like this; most games seem to average around £3.50 profit which adds up nicely over a day's worth of trading.
The weekend saw me trade 18 games (1 of which is still in-play) and I had 14 winning trades and 3 losing trades. Below I have included a very handy P+L sheet, provided by the creators of the system, which shows all of my trades and my profits and losses.

As you can see I took a very nasty hit in the Brentford game, but as you should also be able to see in my added 'notes' section, it was not entirely my fault. Before the game the market had ample liquidity so I imagined that it would be fine to trade on, despite being a lower league game. I was sadly wrong and it cost me big time, but at least I will know not to make the same mistake again. Had the market adjusted properly I should have been able to reduce the loss down to about £2 or £3. This means that I have spent most of today trying to recoup my losses from yesterday, but I am now back in the black and I hope it will stay that way. Total profit thus far is £18.34 then, with one result left to come. This is not a huge amount of money for the amount of time and effort I have put in this weekend, not just trading but researching the games too, but at the moment I'm not fussed as I am still learning the ropes. The annual forecast is £3,347 but I am aiming to get that much higher in the coming weeks. In fact, if I take out my -£22 from Brentford it shoots up to over £7000, which is more like it.
Other notes which can be taken from my sheet is the 'Country' column I have added, which is obviously stating which country the game was played in, so that I can see which country has a higher profit ratio (once I have enough data) and begin to be a bit more select with my picks.
One last thing before I go; you may have noticed that the £ sign in the 'won' column on the second trade is not in the same position as all of the others. I have absolutely no idea why this is, but it is driving me crazy as it I always have to have things like this neat and perfectly set out. I have tried all manner of things, all to no avail, so if anyone knows how I could change it please tell me! I believe it originally did it because when entering the amount, I entered a £ sign also, which is unnecessary. Needless to say I have gone back and deleted the sign which I entered, but it still didn't help. (It is also annoying me that the image is trying to escape off of this page, but it is the only way which I can show you the whole spreadsheet. In the future I may crop the 'notes' section and just include them in the write up).
Anyway, enough from me, hope you all had a green weekend. Goodnight.

So far so good

At last I am back at home and shall now finally be able to get back to proper betting and using the ASP system. Being away hasn't stopped me from from trading completely however, and I have been able to try out the new system further. I have made about 12 trades over the last week and things seem to be going quite well. So far I have had only three losing games, all with a very manageable loss of under £2.50 each. The rest of the games have been successful ranging from profits of £0.45 to £9.02 (I had one game the other night which followed a very strange betting pattern with Any Unquoted odds being available to lay at 14 after a goalless 75 minutes so I increased my stakes and took a profit of £17, but I won't count that in the system's report). Starting from today I will look to records my trades properly, giving a starting bank and a P+L. 

Today I have successfully traded the Sunderland-Newcastle game, and just waiting on the result of the Arsenal-Liverpool game as well. Later I am considering Augsburg-Hoffenheim, Hull-Palace, Forest-Leicester and probably some evening games but I haven't looked yet. I have found the system easy to use, though in fairness I haven't faced a tough first half yet, it has mainly been goalless or very low-scoring. I have made a couple of additions for myself, which some of you might find beneficial - First one is introducing a back of the HT score being 0-0, normally at odds of 2.6-3.6. I have found this to be particularly helpful as, when picking games liable to low scorelines the 0-0 scoreline isn't too uncommon so this provides extra green which can be used to get rid of liabilities and normally leave me in profit too. At around 40 minutes I lay the 0-0 HT score (if 0-0 obviously) for around 1.08 in the hope of a late goal. 

My second addition is something I was advised on Twitter when talking to others using the system, which is to keep my 0-0 liability as low as possible. I now increase my AU liability to about £60 and try to keep the 0-0 at around half of this in order to make for a quick breakaway at HT. So far this has worked brilliantly but I will keep testing before increasing my stakes higher.

On a side note, I just finished watching the Arsenal-Liverpool game and it really does look like a downward spiral for Wenger and Arsenal at the moment. I really don't know what he is playing at by not spending any of the money at his disposal. I appreciate he has his morales and beliefs but when they aren't succeeding anymore, surely it's time to change? It could cost him his job. The £30m Udinese game is now absolutely crucial for him.

Enough from me, hope you enjoy your weekend and that it is a green one all round.

ASP System

Ignoring my blog earlier in the week, I decided to purchase the ASP e-book prior to my holiday, so that I could read it whilst away. Before reading it I was a little sceptical about the reviews I had read, as, having searched long and far for a money-making scheme that worked, I had not found one that both satisfied my position and had the potential to make me money. But these fears were soon quelled. The system is everything that I have been looking for over the past few years. I am no longer interested (and haven't been for a while now) in betting tipsters who are, in most circumstances, no better qualified to sell their guesses (for that is all they really are) than you or I.
I had always wanted a system and had always strived to create my own. I am still quite confident of coming up with one or two over my life as I am still very young and learning all the time. For now though, I can find no better system than the Assured Soccer Profits system to suit my current needs. It won't be for everyone - it won't make you a millionaire and it does take hard work, despite what the creators claim - but it can certainly make you over 10k per year if you put the effort in.
The e-book is extensive and covers most scenarios and, though it does tend to look upon things a little more optimistically than realistically at times, it should set you up and prepare you for most outcomes. If that isn't enough there are a series of very instructive videos to help you along the way, all for a small price of £89. Bar. Gain.
Despite being in love with the theory, putting it into practice is always the tough bit. I have found it extremely helpful to write out every outcome and what to do in the event of each outcome, so that I am not fazed by what might come (quite a crucial element to success in this case). If anyone wants a copy of this to reference/compare with theirs/nose at, feel free to email me, though it is only a basic document so don't get excited. So far I have only had time to trade 2 games, but both have been successful. The first game was a lovely straightforward (great for confidence) 1-0 first half (this will mean something to people using the system) and I pocketed £4.47 profit (could've been higher but I was taking it easy for my first go). The second game was slightly harder - 0-0 at half time - but I managed to get rid of my liabilities and even won 95p.
As you can see from my results, the wins aren't massive, but this means the losses aren't either (if you do it properly). Also, when doing 6 or 7 of these a day (definitely feasible) the profits will soon stack up to a few hundred per week. Stakes can be increased but I will wait until I'm more confident before doing this. The only downfall I can see in this system is greed. It will be tempting at times to hold out for a slightly higher profit, especially when profit levels are so small, but it is key that I don't. As highlighted previously in this blog, my discipline and naivety has a potential to be my downfall and it is with this in mind that I have DO NOT GAMBLE written all over my notes a billion times. In reality, however, I don't see that I will have too much of a problem with this system, as the lure of £6 rather than £4 isn't going to interest me much. The key to it is small, consistent, regular, profit. And I know this.
This has been quite a rambly post but its mainly because I'm so excited by this new prospect (I get like this when I find something new to play with). To end it promptly then, and summarise: I fully recommend this product. I'm not going to be on the Forbes Rich List 2012 but its still a worthy addition to my portfolio. And when I say portfolio, its more of a folder with this system in it. And nothing else.

Any thoughts/opinions/experiences people using the system have had are more than welcome. I'm very keen to hear how people using it for a longer time than me have found it. For now though, back to the 'holiday' and the Lady Gaga 'impressionist'...