The thing is,Sportznut,you need to know what and why you are doing when you are doing it.
When I backed St.Kilda,the reason I did it so early was because I wanted to get set at a good price.
When I made the bets I thought I was doing just that,but in hindsight I stuffed up as I could have waited until now and got $7.
In fact had I waited until now I would have probably kept it in my pocket.

Here's a story for you.

I went to an outdoor market with my mate and the stall had a socket wrench for sale at $12 so I grabbed it.
Two stalls up they had the same wrench for $11.
Another three stalls up they were selling wrenches,so I asked my mate to ask "how much".He was told $10.
3 more stalls up were selling wrenches and I said to my mate,"don't you dare ask how much they are".
My wrench worked fine for what I needed,but I felt miserable.Hard to explain,but life sometimes is,isn't it?

By the way Mo, how did you go with your other bets like top 4 & final 8?

These were mine. Pre season, I backed:
St Kilda - final 8: $60 @ $1.80
West Coast - final 8: $40 @ $1.57
Fremantle - final 8: $20 @ $1.85
Port Adel - to finish ahead of Adel: $20 @ $1.57
West Coast - to finish ahead of Freo: $20 @ $1.68
Then after a couple of rounds, I jumped on:
Essendon - final 8: $20 @ $1.50
Sydney - final 8: $20 @ $1.50

About 6 weeks ago, I had basically given up on the West Coast making the 8 or finishing above Freo, but they came good and I ended up making a profit of $95.80 or 47.9%. Could have been a heck of a lot better though, because I picked Port Adelaide for minor premiers and St Kilda for 'last team standing', but I was just too damn cautious to go ahead and back them.



[ This Message was edited by: sportznut on 2004-08-31 21:18 ]

My other longer range predictions went like this:

Geelong Final - 8
$20 @ $2.60
$20 @ $2.10 - Wins $54
Kangaroos Final - 8
$70 @ $2
$15 @ $2.75 - Loses $85
St.Kilda Final - 4
$25 @ $2.40
$70 @ $1.65 - Wins $80.50

Total of Profit $49.50

Still have a live bet of $20 @ $2.15,St.Kilda to make Grand Final.

Mo make up your mind. You are always saying this way or that way is how you profit...one day it's using your gut, the next it's analysing playing styles???

Short and simple: The way to profit is to have more info than the market, or to be able to make better use of widely available information.

There are many ways to get an advantage in sports: inside information, stats and a greater knowledge of how they relate to each other and the sport involved, analysing matchups, home advantage, weather, injuries, shopping, etc etc.

However, anything to do with your gut does not provide an advantage.

Why do they need to play for the next 3 weeks,just give the lions the trophy now !

Last night.That's why!

Dont grizzle about the lions everyone
it just cant be helped that they are so good
it looks like the first grade team are playing the presidents cup bottom four
I would like a kind bookie to give me good odds for five(5) flags in a row
Cheers

You're right Mr J.
I certainly do keep changing my mind a lot.And I appreciate you pointing out this fact to me.
What I am doing is trying to come up with a system that works.
But I keep changing the rules before the ink has dried on the previous one.
But I would like to point out that it is the selection methods that I continually modify,but not the mathematically sound reasons for backing them.
My formulas work and work well,but I still have to investigate Jakelees input further.
As to the Vibe and the Gut factor.Sorry,but they do work.They are hard to incorporate into a computer program.
Things like a coaches inappropriate smile at an interview,bragging by certain players or punters(M/P),opinions of well respected judges.Heaps of other ******** like that.
It all goes into our minds and gets churned up and means different things to each of us.
And that's the edge we have available to each of us.Interpreting these bits and pieces correctly.
2 points here and 1 point there and 4 points there can make a big difference to bet or not.
Yes I do change my mind a lot but being stubborn in a losing method is not my style.
But I can assure you I have had losing years because I changed styles in the wrong direction.
Thank you for you input.It helps me get back to present time and realize I have strayed once more.
One comment about the available data.A lot better men than I have spent many hours and analyzed this data and formed a market.Surely in my feeble attempts at analyzing this data,I couldn't possibly come up with something more accurate in a few hours.

Premiership odds
Lions $1.58
Port $3.75
Swans $11
Cats $12
Bombers $14
Saints $17
Cheers
P.S. To all those who scoffed at me for offering Lions $1.33,its only gonna shorten
you would think