Disappointment

I really should stop lumping on early prices in RL matches. Whenever I do that, I tend to end up in a poor position which I never get out of, and tonight was no exception.

After backing Harlequins at what I considered to be a ridiculously high price at 3.65 on Wednesday evening, they went onto trade at 4.3 prior to kick off, and even a couple of nice pre match trades did little to assist me.

To make matters even worse, I was re-arranging my equipment when Wigan scored an early try and their price dropped to 1.15, which seemed to be beyond absurd, although no sooner had it reached 1.15, then they scored again to get to the 1.0s, and again to get to 1.03. I can only apologise to anyone who stumbled upon this blog and had heeded my advice.

At this point, I had a very large red on Wigan and decided to screw it, and to lay Wigan at 1.03, moving several thousand green on to Harlequins and the Draw, all the while thinking that whilst the prices were ridiculous value, it looked for all purposes that Lumpy was going to ease home.

However, Quins then seemed to realise that they were in a RL match and scored a try to make the score 14 – 6. At this point, I could have taken a nice profit and still left a large green on Quins, but in my attempt to seek value, I largely let the bet run only for Harlequins’ David Howell to effectively end the match with a moment of lunacy when he took out Sam Tomkins a good five or so seconds after the whistle had blown.

Of course, there was no option for anything but the red card to come out for the first time this season and making matters worse was the penalty to Wigan deep in Harlequins’ half, which Wigan scored from to make the score 18 – 6, and whilst there was some hope, that was all eliminated by Wigan’s try just before Half Time which made the score 24 – 6.

So, what went wrong?

I think the number one point to make is that when you move to a value system as opposed to a loss elimination system, results like this will happen. The key area that I need to improve on is letting winning trades run longer.

The game was also the perfect example of why I like to watch games early on. Favourites can shoot down in prices, and irrespective of a team’s form, they can come out and be abysmal or brilliant for no apparent reason.

However, I maintain my original position which was that the odds on the game were incorrect, and just wish I had traded out when Quins scored and approached the game more methodically.

I was saved from ultimate disaster however by Salford’s win over Saints. Now, last night I could not seen an opening, but when Saints shortened to 1.08 despite team news showing they were without several first team regulars, I placed a speculative £20 on Salford.

Early on in the game, I was so engrossed in the Wigan game that I missed several opportunities to enhance my position, rather backing Saints trying to achieve something, all the while lumping on the draw as some person was taking it out, only for small amounts, to over 100 which was beyond ridiculous.

During the second half, I looked to trade this game, although the liquidity was understandably poor due to the game not being televised, and succeeded in making over £100 from the game, although if only there had been more interest in the draw, then my winnings could have been even greater!

So, disappointingly, despite some good results on Saints v Salford, last night’s rugby and £30 from the exit of Andy Murray, I am down around £50 this week. However, I will hope to make some back tomorrow although I do feel that tomorrow’s SKY game could be a 1.01 express, that there appears to be no value in the Warrington game ( I thought that about the Saints game!) although Hull KR do appear to be slightly overpriced in tomorrow’s other game.

Therefore, it looks like I won’t manage to reach the £5,000 yearly profit before I depart for Wales and the 1st Ashes test, but it’s hard to be too disappointed at the moment! I just hope tomorrow’s SKY game offers more trading possibilities than tonight’s.