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%).

[allthethings]

Re: England Lower-League Dogs, 2012-13

In keeping with my season plan' date=' 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%).[/quote'] Good start, two draws for +3.6 units.

[f0r3st727]

Re: England Lower-League Dogs, 2012-13 which odds are you using (from which website)?

[allthethings]

Re: England Lower-League Dogs, 2012-13

which odds are you using (from which website)?

5Dimes. But I follow Bet Explorer closely...I've used it to back-check data, and find it's irreplaceable information.

[allthethings]

Re: England Lower-League Dogs, 2012-13 More of the same for me today...draws, draws, draws. Last season there were six Tuesday games in Week 2 involving underdogs of better than 4.00, and three finished level: Luton (home to FGR), Fleetwood (home to Darlington) and Alfreton (home to Southport). In 2010-11 the big dogs went 1-1-1, in 2009-10 they went 1-3-2 and in 2008-09 they went 2-2-3. Remove the dogs of better than 6.00 (1-1-4) and that's a Week 2 result of three wins, eight draws and five losses by underdogs of between 4/1 and 6/1. Overall, the last three full seasons have been great for draws on weekdays in this league, about 33%, but especially so early in the season.

[f0r3st727]

Re: England Lower-League Dogs, 2012-13 so you will post games like this: date, league: - team a vs team b (bolded selection) - team c vs team d (bolded selection) - and so on…. just for consideration about, how to provide picks :)

[FleetFanatic]

Re: England Lower-League Dogs, 2012-13 Indeed, the odds bets are placed at also need to be posted before the event.

[allthethings]

Re: England Lower-League Dogs, 2012-13 I've spelled out the general strategy, but the final game selections and odds don't firm up until 10-15 minutes before game time, and I don't have time to post all that stuff at the last minute, when I'm actually clicking like a madman to get all wagers in. My intention was to post regular updates on how it was going as time permits, but if that isn't considered following the rules, I guess I won't.

[FleetFanatic]

Re: England Lower-League Dogs, 2012-13 There's a facility in place for proofing to a moderator. Or screenshots. Just trying to help you continue the thread. :ok

[Bedlam]

Re: England Lower-League Dogs, 2012-13 Hi Att, this is a very interesting strategy & I for one would be fascinated to see how it goes for you, and as you are willing to share your system with PL, I hope you find a way, even if it's not on the S&S forum. Good luck with it anyway:ok

[Razaldo9]

Re: England Lower-League Dogs, 2012-13 Was intrigued by this theory so had a look back on betexplorer. Only looked at a couple of leagues but one had a profitable season as far as i could tell. Championship away wins between 4 and 5 was +9.62 and the draws between 5 and 6 was +16.69. League 1 draws with odds above 4 draw was -16.68. Are these correct? Although the championship looks good league 1 doesn't

[allthethings]

Re: England Lower-League Dogs, 2012-13 At the risk of angering moderators, I will provide the first update. Up until yesterday, the strategy was not doing well at all. Flying in the face of four years of data, this season the weekdays have been very poor, and the dogs that should be winning are drawing, and vice versa. This weekend, however, was 13-13 for +25 units (all bets are for 1 unit), with a draw call @ Reading still to come. That's just a massive weekend (I expected things would come around eventually), but I still wonder whether this Tuesday will see the weekday numbers turn around. And also, virtually all of the winnings have been centered in a couple of leagues, including Premier, which doesn't fall under the heading of a "lower league" (or does it?). Anyway, here's how the dogs have fared: EPL 4-9-12 ECL 1-5-17 L1 7-10-15 L2 5-5-19 BSP 11-15-26 Breaking things down by range: Odds to win of: 3.5 to 3.99 : 7-11-15 4.0 to 4.99 : 10-20-31 5.0 to 5.99 : 7-7-18 6.0 to 7.99 : 3-4-19 8.0+ : 1-2-6 Weekday total: 7-4-19 Weekend total: 21-40-70 This last stat is completely reversed from the recent data, in which weekday underdogs have consistently outperformed weekend underdogs. In addition, I had pulled the first six weeks out to see whether underdogs that get points tended to win games outright early in the season rather than settle for draws...they did...but this season they have won games the numbers say they should draw and draw the games the numbers say they should win. Frustrating...until yesterday. I have had my best results in Premier. Last season it really was marked that dogs in the range of 4.0 to 4.99 got enough wins to be profitable, and this season they're 3-2-1...home dogs tend to draw in that range (witness yesterday's draws @ QPR, Stoke and Sunderland). I only play EPL games in that range, as the past four years have shown that large favorites win most of their games...although there are teams, like Arsenal last year, that fall down regularly as huge favorites. Championship is a real puzzle so far. I won Friday by backing Crystal Palace, but that's the only win by an ECL underdog of better than 4.0 this season. The weekday numbers there are 1-0-4...eventually, there's going to be a Tuesday with seven upsets (ECL teams last season were an unbelievable 14-5-15 in that range on weekdays). I've actually broken even so far in ECL because I don't play underdogs of better than 5.99 (they're 0-0-4 so far). League One began to come around this week...dogs were 2-3-2 yesterday, and most important, the two wins were in the under 4.99 range, and two of the draws were in the better-than-5.0 range. Only Crewe let me down by drawing rather than winning outright. On the whole, I'm down 5 units because of a remarkable number of high-level wins and low-level draws, but the numbers don't look bad league-wide. Not the case so far in League Two, which has been a -10 unit disaster. Not much to say here...the numbers speak for themselves. The big favorites have been frankly dominant, and it makes you wonder. As with ECL, it feels like there are some teams that seem to be obvious promotion candidates right from the start. Conference has been decent (four draws in five games yesterday), but I have some questions. Last season was marked by draws from 3.9-ish all the way to 5.99 (6.0+ was a must to avoid, as the really big favorites won their games in style pretty much all season), but when I crunched earlier seasons I found that wins were as likely...if that's the case, you might as well take 4.4 for a win rather than 3.5 for a draw. I haven't decided yet whether, over the long haul, I might change the strategy here for that reason. So far, I've been playing draws, and it has been working out (but not on weekdays yet). In any case, I change strategies for win or draw as I go, which is one of the reasons I'm not posting plays here (the other is timing, as often I'm making these decisions 10 minutes before the games kick off. But here is my general strategy as of this moment: Underdogs of odds-to-win of 3.8 or so up to 4.99: EPL, Leagues One and Two play to win; Conference to draw; Championship...draw is looking good so far, but I think this will change. Underdogs of odds-to-win of 5.0 or so up to 5.99: All lower leagues: draw Underdogs of odds-to-win of 6.0 or so up to 7.99: Leagues One and Two: draw. I should point out that so far, Conference and EPL have been profitable in this range...but I don't expect it to continue over the long haul. That's about it. Be back in a month.