England Lower-League Dogs, 2012-13

[allthethings]

I was going to direct people to my thread on this topic from last year, but at this point it would be far too confusing to sort through. In a nutshell, I have long wondered why odds in these leagues ever surpass 4.00, since it is clear from recent results that anybody can beat anybody on their day. Is any favorite in Championship, League One, League Two or Blue Square Premier really worth short odds? Is any underdog in these leagues really incapable of winning 1 of 4 games against any given opponent? The answer is that there are some very poor teams in these leagues, and some very decent teams (particularly, decent home teams), but on the whole, odds of better than 4.00 are simply unjustifiable. Bookmakers know this, but the market can't help itself. Southampton is 6-0-0 at home, Portsmouth are 0-0-6 away, and before you know it Portsmouth are a 7-to-1 dog. Perhaps, deservedly so. But really: 7 to 1? Look at last year's Championship. The top team, Reading, were 14-5-4 at home. The bottom team, Doncaster, were 4-4-15 away. Reading won 60% of its home games, Donny lost 65% of its away games. That means that in a group of 10 games at Reading, Reading's opponents got a result 6 times. So, Reading are world-beaters? Who'd they give up points to? The 10 top teams in the league? No: Millwall 4.68 draw (16th) Barnsley 6.84 win (21st) Watford 5.21 win (11th) Derby 5.28 draw (12th) Crystal Palace 7.58 draw (17th) Hull win (8th) Middlesbrough draw (7th) Southampton draw (2nd) Cardiff win (6th) I went out of my way to choose a top team...but wacky odds are in evidence even when two mid-table sides square off, mainly because of home-field advantage. The question is, how many of these do you have to get right to finish ahead? The answer is that if you can get roughly 4.00 odds, you need to get 1 right out of every 4 to break even. At bigger odds, you can prosper by getting 1 right out of 5. Okay, let me explain one thing just once here: Anytime I list odds in this thread, they are always odds FOR THE UPSET WIN. This is how I have differentiated potential plays, whether in the end I suggest taking the win or the draw. What I found last year was that at odds of roughly 3.75 (many of the games I took fell from 4.00 to something below 4.00 by the time the game kicked off) to 4.99, wins were as frequent as draws, but that at 5.00 to 6.99, draws were twice as frequent as wins. (This was not true across all four leagues...In BSP, draws outpaced upset wins at all levels until very late in the year, when upset wins started predominating. In League One, underdogs that had been getting wins at the 4.00 to 4.99 level suddenly began getting draws late in the year. In both cases, I altered my strategy over the last few weeks, as I determined that the change was probably permanent.) Okay, so anyway, once again I will be betting on underdogs in these four leagues (and in Premier when odds are 4.00 to 4.99). Here's how I'll start out the season: Premier: 4.00 to 4.99 (win) Championship: 4.00 to 4.99 (win), 5.00 to 5.99 (draw) League One: 4.00 and above (draw) League Two: 4.00 to 4.99 (win), 5.00 and above (draw) Conference: 4.00 to 5.99 (draw) I'm basing this on what I have learned from crunching numbers from 2010-11 and 2011-12...I intend to crunch data for 2009-10 before firming up this plan. One thing that was consistent in almost every situation last year: Weekday games threw up a higher percentage of upsets by big dogs than weekend games. However, the greater number of weekend games made them better in terms of units won. Also, last year started with four really solid weeks, followed by a long period of so-so weeks...then there were fantastic results from Christmas through January...and then Feb-Apr was very rough indeed. I have been studying this across all leagues to see if I see a pattern emerge. One thing that does seem clear is that the really huge dogs (6.00 and above) do worse as the year wears on. It might make sense to play on them in the fall and then drop them like a hot potato in late November. It looks like the huge dogs reassert themselves in mid-spring, but in the last six weeks lose meekly. But as i said, I'm still studying. Looking forward to a profitable year.

[allthethings]

Re: England Lower-League Dogs, 2012-13 In keeping with my season plan, I will play on the draw @ Barrow, Wrexham, Manfield and Luton, though if the odds run toward the favorites I might skip Wrexham and/or Luton (anything above 6.00 will give me pause). This division has thrown up tons of draws in the first couple of weeks in the games with the biggest favorites...last year Darlo managed to win 1-0 inn the opener against Braintree, but the next three biggest favorites, Mansfield, Wrexham and Barrow all drew. Going back to 2008-09, the first week big faves have gone 3-9-1. For three seasons now the biggest favorites have done extraordinarily well in Conference...only about 16% draws in the games with dogs of better than 6.00...compare that to Championship (25% draws), League One (23%) and League Two (21%).