It’s taken 7 weeks of games to come home, but come home it did.  Courtesy of Taylor-Fletcher and a 0-1 away win for Blackpool at Birmingham, the Championship Fund was boosted by 35%.  The odds were 9.6 and the Fund wagered just over 4% after calculating the odds offered 82% value.  Along with other winning bets this weekend the Championship Fund has moved into a positive position overall.  We’ll see over the coming weeks whether it’s a case of one leap forward followed by many small steps back.  It would be nice to stay above water before the next big win comes in.

By contrast the Premier League Fund fell back this weekend mainly due to losses on Liverpool and Pompey.  It does however remain ahead for the month of September.  The portfolio theory of running more than one fund is working well with any significant moves in one fund being offset by the other.  With just one week of games left in September i’m hoping the Trading Fund will break through the hurdle of 200% gains.

Gains for the Premier League Fund and losses for the Championship Fund left a net gain overall for the Trading Fund when the two were put together this weekend. Looking at the historic performance of the Championship Fund shows that a considerable amount of the gains come from a few wins at long odds. This may leave that Fund under water for a considerable time. It could also continue to weigh on the performance of the Trading Fund. This season could therefore see the Premier League Fund shine as it continues to impress.

Turning to individual matches this weekend, Middlesbrough was a large gain increasing the Premier League Fund by over 8%. It was just a shame the final game of the weekend hit the Fund for almost 6% as Newcastle held Man U to a draw. There were no large gains/losses on the Championship which is to be expected as i’m running it on a low risk strategy until it proves itself. Continued

Here we are back for another season.  This season i’m including the Championship in my coverage.  The tips are now shown on the relevant pages under each Fund, links at the top of this page.  I haven’t had time to consider how I will adapt the Trading Fund tips on this first day - sure it’s only been 3 months!  But a general note is that I will only make changes to the tips thrown up by each algorithm if there is significant news.  I may adapt this appoach as we move through the season as I learn more. 

First match is Birmingham v Sheff Utd - come on you Blues!

Here is the weekly performance of the betting fund after the betting tips for the football last weekend, 19-21 January 08.  To see the detailed betting results for each game see the Fund page.  With a gain in the betting fund of 12% over the weekend the fund is now 102 days ahead of target.  However, I consider these 102 days as a reserve against 2 things. Firstly, there are no games during the summer months and therefore the fund will not advance whereas the target advances 0.51% every day.  I have marked where the fund needs to be at the start of next season on the About page.  Secondly, there is always the chance of getting hit with a bad loss.  When these hit they hit hard, sometimes up to 25-30% of the fund’s value.  This would translate to a setback of around £75-100. Though this would still leave us above target! 
Continued

Below are today’s betting tips.  A good day yesterday, the results of which I will post once all this weekend’s games are finished.

Man City v West Ham.  The algorithm still has Man City rated way below their form though they did lose last week.   West Ham are priced much shorter than the market due to the low rating of Man City.  The algorithm therefore tips an away win.

Wigan v Everton.  The market odds in this match are much closer to the algorithm’s odds.  Indeed Everton is priced just below the market odds with 0% value due to rounding.  Another away win is therefore tipped.
Continued

The midweek Premier league news suggests this is going to be a really interesting weekend for the algorithm.  Harry stays at Pompey minus 4 first team players, Newcastle get Keegan and the Dubai Government is trying to buy Liverpool.  None of which the algorithm takes into account as the effect cannot be reliably quantified.  I cannot see the Liverpool news influencing play but certainly there is consideration needed for Portsmouth and Newcastle.  I will deal with that as I comment on each game and the betting tips below.  Odds and stakes are shown at the bottom of this post.
Continued

A story about how a winning streak can fool and lead to a mispricing of risk.

Rare as apples 

When I was a young lad I remember holding an apple and wondering, in one of my more philosophical moments, how remote the chances were that I should be holding this particular apple.  It was a French apple and I began imagining all the apples in all the orchards in France.  This single apple was picked, packed and journeyed across the Channel.  It was then passed to one of many distributors and sold to one of a thousand shops selling a million apples.  What are the chances, I pondered, of seeing that apple on a tree in the orchard and then it landing in my hand days later.  I didn’t really know the chances of course, I just knew they were remote.  I also understood that since I had an apple in my hand, one apple from one orchard was always going to make that identical journey just as I had imagined it. 
Continued

The 2 Premier League funds diverged this weekend.  Whilst the Alpha Fund took a slight loss, the Beta Fund managed a moderate gain.   As the Beta fund is an enhanced version of the Alpha fund it was good to see the Beta fund continuing to outperform.   See the stats below for relative performance of the 2 funds.

It was actually a very pleasing result for the Beta fund as it overcame the setback of laying Bolton v Man U (Bolton winning 1-0).  At market odds of 8.4 the win for Bolton was a rare event; even rarer at the Algorithm’s price of 11.85.  Of course, these rare events are by definition expected and therefore cannot be excluded as ‘unlucky’ or ‘one-offs’.  It’s just good to see the other match bets more than offsetting the loss in the same week.  The weekly gain is however easy to comprehend once you note the Algorithm backed all 5 winning away teams this week. View the detailed Beta fund results here.

PERFORMANCE OF ALGORITHM BETTING PREMIER LEAGUE FUNDS:

Weekly gain/loss in the fund (movement in the fund since last week): Alpha -2.9%, Beta +4.8%

Winning weeks (number of weeks showing gains/ total number of weeks since fund started): Alpha 12/14, Beta 7/7

% gain to date (% increase since the fund started): Alpha 37.2%, Beta +121.6%

Risk (max weekly gain/max weekly loss, insufficient data for standard deviations): Alpha 6.9%/-2.9%, Beta +49.6%/+4.8%