The follow-up

Well, 0-2 in Europa league for me on the main bets, picking up a tiny win on my other bet. Real sod's law sort of day.

Still, did accounts and finances and things are still brighter than I realised. With some tightening of credit lines etc I should be able to weather the same storm I have over the last 6/7 weeks all over again, and it still wouldn't have too much impact (apart from pretty much making sure I won't be in profit for 2010 of course!)

37k green on a golfer in the world matchplay. So tempting to lay some off but I have promised myself that I won't do it. If it comes in, then it certainly stops me worrying for the year!

Spent the whole week working hard on getting a spreadsheet up and running. An idea that I had a while back that I've decided has to be put into play. It is basically filtering some of my better bets, and the results for the season had I been betting them at best gettable prices near the off (found from www.oddsportal.com) would have been:

166.96 profits from 527 units staked (majority of bets staking 2 points, occasional 3 point play, rare 1 unit play, possible (but not yet seen) 4 unit play (which will inevitably lose I'm sure!). ROI of 31.68%.

There's no backfitting been done and the filtering makes total sense. I had no idea what the results would be before I applied the filters, and have done no tweaking since.

I followed it through with 4 different staking methods and weighting the one most important rating in with the entire bunch differently. Interestingly all four methods return between 30 and 33% ROI season so far, but the level staking (x per point, so a 2 point bet you would bet say £20 if you were playing for £10 per unit) is the smoothest when graphed, so the easiest to swallow the downtrends on.

It also points out something I have known for a long time. If you want the big ROIs on football, you need to go after the big priced underdogs at the right time (i.e. when the value is there of course). I'll try to post all the plays on the blog and keep a record if it doesn't prove too time-consuming.

There will be one play for tomorrow - a 2 unit play, torquay at rotherham. I won't put prices up until the lines have closed - i'll get the historical best price from pinnacle from www.oddsportal.com and use that for proofing.

Wouldn't put anyone off taking the 11/2 with coral or tote if they can get on at those fools (especially with coral's 10% cashback - after all, the bet, whilst value, is most likely to lose). Skybet were 6/1 but hitting the 6.6 on betfair has ruined that - I also had 20 quid on on a mate's skybet account we go halves on, I have promised not to blow it with any big stakes! However these warm favourites can go off very short (artificially so) when they are the friday night game. The initial moves on the asian lines suggest Rotherham will drift, but experience tell me that the day of the game market can be a totally different dynamic (and also team news could change things).

From a quick eye on the team news it seems that both teams are a little short of firepower and want a striker. It will be interesting to see if/how that affects the goal line. Under 2.5 a best price in asia right now of 1.88, let's see how it goes.

If you follow - good luck - but don't even consider it unless you can handle losing runs. I'm sure there will be more than one significant one on this journey.