Torque

In the outrights the value once again looks like being away from the top of the market. Scheffler looks very strong and is a deserved favourite, but some of the prices further back look wrong to me and so that's where I'll be backing a few players on the exchanges. 3pts Schauffele to win WGC Matchplay @ 12.27 4pts Homa to win WGC Matchplay @ 14.23 3pts Putnam to win WGC Matchplay @ 37.26 2pts Kuchar to win WGC Matchplay @ 35.30 4pts Spaun to win WGC Matchplay @ 39.22 4pts Poston to win WGC Matchplay @ 49.02

Just the two winners. A couple of close ones went against me and that was the difference between profit and loss.

Don't feel bad @amity Wu had an injury timeout which couldn't have helped, add to that not being able to consolidate the first set break plus Diego doing what he always used to do by saving a truck load of break points and that's most of the ingredients needed to send the bet down. You'll get the next one I'm sure

It's a very bad idea to win. If you lose all the time you can stake what you like

Bet 27 won. Next stake £693.93

Bet 27. Northern Ireland to beat San Marino @ 1.08

I don't think so. Lucky losers aren't based on seedings any more. All losers go into a draw for any main draw places that become available.

Agree. Preferred it the way it was.

Only thing about that is I doubt Hatton is thinking about people betting on him when it comes to statements about how healthy he is or isn't, much like all the other players. At the end of the day, from their perspective it makes sense to play down injuries if acknowledging them at all. The way I see it, unless an injury is known about which is sometimes the case, there'll be times where an injury helps you as a punter and others where it stiches you up. There's no way around it so better to just accept it and trust that in the long run, bad luck about an injury will even itself out with some good.

Not long until this gets started and I've had a look at the groups. Looks like there's plenty of value to be had going against the favourites, so I'm taking all of the below with prices from 365, Boyles, Victor and Betfair Sportsbook. Just a few winners needed for profit. 5pts Noren to win Group 1 @ 6.50 50pts English to win Group 7 @ 4.50 15pts Putnam to win Group 7 @ 4.50 25pts Kim to win Group 8 @ 4.00 15pts Bezuidenhout to win Group 10 @ 5.00 15pts Montgomery to win Group 12 @ 4.33 5pts Hughes to win Group 12 @ 6.00 10pts Hadwin to win Group 13 @ 4.00 25pts Henley to win Group 14 @ 4.00 15pts Straka to win Group 15 @ 5.00

In my experience not one of those players can be relied upon. Kubler has almost constant physical issues which hamper him, Mannarino is decent in very specific conditions but even then has a tendency to lose matches he should be winning and Sonego is inconsistent. I'd be looking elsewhere for a short odds treble.

You should be alright there @Fader I'm sure it's fairly common knowledge about King.

Wonder why he withdrew. If he didn't want to play then why enter in the first place.

I suppose from a punting perspective all you can do is work off the assumption that the vast majority of players are playing cleanly, which I'm sure is the case.

I saw that. I've no idea what the WST can do but the integrity of the sport is being ripped to shreds ATM.

After reading about yet another spat between users on this part of the forum, and as a long-term poster here of more than ten years, I thought I'd put forward some thoughts about how to improve the atmosphere on these threads which it seems to me has been going downhill for some time. These thoughts mainly take the form of how I believe a forum like this should operate. Some may agree with me, others may not and that's fine as long as disagreements are handled in the right way - and that's one of the things I'll be discussing later. Firstly, as far as I'm concerned the purpose of the Tennis Forum is to share picks and information to try to help other users to come to an opinion about what they might choose to bet on, whilst bearing in mind that we all bet at our own risk. If anybody chooses to follow any picks put forward by other users then they need to accept that losing is not only possible but inevitable, even if the pick is well reasoned and deemed to contain value in terms of a price that implies a lower chance of a result occurring than is actually the case, and even if the price is short. What this forum shouldn't be about, but increasingly seems to be, is arguing about picks to the point of personal attacks and boasting about wins as well as demeaning anyone who puts up a losing pick. I'm not interested in vaunting tipping superiority or belittling others and I'm not interested in gloating or the goading which also seems to be becoming a regular occurrence, nor am I interested in winning an argument or trying to convince others that I'm right and they're wrong. There seems to be more and more aggressive and confrontational content here, which is sad to see. It should be simple and straightforward to run a friendly forum and all that's required to make that happen is for users to be respectful of each other. If somebody puts up a pick or some thoughts about a match or tournament, by all means other users can disagree or offer a different perspective and that's conducive to a healthy conversation which should lead to more informed betting choices. What's not acceptable though is to respond to what someone has posted with derogatory remarks, either about what they've posted or the poster themselves. As for critiquing a pick after the result is known - another increasingly common sight - that can be a useful exercise in terms of bets going forward, but in terms of the simplistic view that a winning bet is a good bet and a losing bet is a bad one there's no merit in it at all. What counts is the long-term. If you place bets with a better chance of winning than the odds suggest, eventually you will get ahead. It can take some time though and that's down to the variance associated with probability, and probability and the assessment of probability is what betting is in its most distilled form and that's why you can lose lots of bets in a row and look as though you don't know what you're talking about. Conversely, it's possible to win many bets in a row without having any idea what you're doing. Finally, despite all the gloom of the above, there are plenty of users of this forum who post respectfully and have good information and insights to share. It's my hope that by starting this conversation, the forum can return to being the friendly and helpful place that it's historically been. There will always be the occasional troll or misjudged post and that's to be expected, but recently the atmosphere in here has turned pervasively toxic and it would be good to arrest that. Nobody should feel like if they post a losing pick that they're going to get abuse for it, or that they'll get shouted down for voicing an opinion. That's not the way this forum should be.

There's about 50 days until Christmas, so I'm going to start with £100 today and force myself to bet my bank on one bet each day until Christmas at odds of no less than 1.11. I'll be using the exchanges for this and so commission will apply. Statistically there's a less than one percent chance of success, but as some consider Christmas to be a time of miracles then who knows - realistically though it'll just be a question of how quickly I hit a loser. Still, in life sometimes it's the journey that counts rather than the destination and I'm keen to see how this approach fares. Most of the time I'm very slow and deliberate with this type of hunt, believing that to be the best strategy, but I suspect in reality that's just wishful thinking and you're as likely to hit a loser that way as you are if you're indiscriminate about the bets you place - ultimately all short odds are short for a reason. Anyway, let's see how far I get

I tried this a few years ago and didn't get very far and I thought I'd try again as a contrast to my more long-term betting the favourite thread. The idea is to turn £100 into £100,000 by winning about 70 bets in a row betting the entire bank each time at odds of around 1.10. Statistically it's practically impossible and there are lots of hurdles in the way besides winning so many bets in a row, but on paper at least each bet will have a 90 percent chance of winning so in that sense it should be much harder to pick a loser than a winner. No idea what the first bet will be yet so I'll come back with that later. All bets will be placed with either Smarkets or Betfair unless otherwise stated. *Current attempt begins on page 54*