Betfair versus the Bookies - The Virtues of Value

The blog below is also available on www.golf-monthly.co.uk as an edited article.  I have been blogging for GM over the past few months now and am thoroughly enjoying the opportunity given to me by the country's best golf mag.  Thanks TC ; )

Stenson won!  StensWon, as he shall be known forthwith, rewarded loyal backers with a 35/1 Betfair booty bonus and delightfully demonstrated two things.  Firstly, that it’s prudent to peruse the punting purveyors for prices, and secondly that persistence and consistency lead to confidence and prosperity.

Heroic Henrik was 28/1 with BetVictor before the off last week, 25/1 with all other bookmakers, but was being readily layed (or laid, if you’re that way inclined) at 36 on the exchange. 

 

Minus Betfair’s commission (usually around 4-5% unless you roll high on a regular basis – mine is currently 4.8%), profit on the £20 win-only stake (before being offset against losses) was a devilish 666 pounds and forty pence.  The same money with Mr Chandler would have returned you £560, a shortfall of £106.40.  So don’t get sucked in by those ridiculous Dennis Pennis adverts.

 

 

Equally, don’t always assume that you have to be with Betfair to “Cash Out”, or that they are the only firm offering value.  Yes, their interface makes the ability for punters to hedge bets condescendingly easy (as shown below), and yes, they are often better priced than the market (as they were last week for StensWon), but you are not “settling for less” every time you opt to place your bets the old fashioned way.

Rather than "Cash Out", I normally favour hedging my bets manually by "laying off", particularly when I still have faith in my original selection

 

In this week’s Omega European Masters, with no FedEx Cup stuff in America, focus is fully on Europe, and I like one of the market leaders: Brett Rumford.  Similarly to StensWon (and this also incorporates my second theme: form), the multiple European Tour winning Australian has been in scintillating nick this term, notching up two titles and two strong top ten finishes in the past two weeks. 

Betfair have Rumford at 32 (31/1 in fractional odds).  He is currently 33/1 with bwin.com and Bet365.  Annoyingly bwin.com don’t do each-way terms.  This is particularly unfortunate for me since Bet365 restricted my account to Granny-bets after I took them to the cleaners in a three month winning window of wonder earlier this year, but I digress.   

Knock off your commission on a £20 stake with Betfair and you pocket £590.24 with them versus £660 with Bet365 (although don’t expect to be able to get a score on with the Stoke-based bookie the following week if Rumford revels!)

I also fancy Frederik Andersson Hed this weekend (runner-up at the stunning Crans-sur-Sierre last year, sixth in 2011 – again; form, consistency).  I don’t need to demonstrate the mathematics for you to work out that you’re better off with Betfair at 95 than you are with the bookies at 80/1. 

If the prices are the same on the exchange as they are with your bookie, it goes without saying you should take your business to the latter, who won’t take any commission if you win (but will take all your losses if you lose, unlike Betfair, who only take their commission fee).

Clear?  Great!

***

Aside from the golf, it's been an eventful few weeks at Palphabet towers.  Actually, that's utter drivel because I haven't spent an awful lot of time here at HQ.  I ventured on an eight-day professional sojourn to Melbourne and Sydney, which involved five days of work, two days of enjoyment, and a day of travelling.

The enjoyment came in droves (whatever they are).  Giant scoops of sporting droves served up in a double-schooner of MCG-branded beakers.  Yes, the Melbourne Cricket Ground was every bit the legendary venue it is cracked up to be. 

 

 

Talking of crack, or craic, Ireland was my next stop, where our friends’ wedding took us from County Monaghan to Galway City, fuelled by the black stuff and the rich tobacco of tightly rolled Cuban cigars.  All the while the gambling has been going well, until the new Premier League Football season started.

 

 

A Full Head on the Pints Only

 

Mrs Palphabet (right) and Her Pal Jules Sampling the Local Beverages

 

Finally, a trip last weekend to the Salisbury Plain.  A visit to Richard Hannon’s yard to see my mate’s new syndicated horse, Mr Greenspan.

 

 

Hannon's Gallops and Popular Filly Maureen

 

Up Close and Personal with Mr Greenspan - a HUGE two year-old colt

 

Watch this space for a more detailed blog on Mr G and the MCG, coming soon.

 

Palphabet

Continuing to Weave Pure Cotton Enjoyment into The Rich Tapestry of Life

 



An Unwelcome Week of Woe - Cheers Bubba!

The blog below is available on www.golf-monthly.co.uk as an edited article.  I have been blogging for GM over the past 10 weeks now and am thoroughly enjoying the opportunity given to me by the country's best golf mag.  Thanks TC ; )

 

 

You’re welcome.  That’s what Bubba Watson says on many a YouTube video like that one, joshing around and playing the fool like someone who doesn’t take life too seriously, albeit while hitting some pretty impressive and entertaining shots, occasionally of blancmange rather than a little white ball.  

Bubba actually wrongly displays the text “your welcome”, after the above clip, his incorrect grammar and complete disrespect for apostrophes perhaps betraying his lack of education through total dedication to his sport.  Or maybe he’s just thick.  Or “dumb”, as he admits in this PGA interview.

    

The phrase ‘you’re welcome’ is usually preceded by someone thanking you for a kind gesture.  Well, this past week I have certainly not been offering any gratitude in the direction of Mr Watson. 

His caddy probably wasn’t too impressed either, after Bubba’s collapse on the par-three 16^th saw him turn a two-shot lead at the head of the scoreboard into a one-shot deficit, ultimately relinquishing the title, he took his dissatisfaction out on his assistant.  

This blog http://ftw.usatoday.com/2013/06/bubba-watson-blew-up-on-his-caddie-in-the-nicest-way-possible/ makes the salient point that Bubba was just doing at the Travelers Championship (one L, no apostrophes? Weird...) what most amateurs do on courses around the world every day – blame someone else for their mistakes – well, in that case, I am blaming the 2012 Masters Champion for my losses last weekend.

 

 

Me and Bubba (or rather, Bubba and I) have previous, as his playoff win against Louis Oosthuizen cost me Augusta profit last year.  Having sided with the South African for the coveted Green Jacket, it was agonising to see that big hook land where it did, denying me a four-figure payout.   Last weekend brought all those miserable memories flooding forlornly back into my bitter, sorrowful soul.

To compound the discontent, I layed my entire book against Ken Duke winning, meaning that any of Chris Stroud, Graham DeLaet, heck – even Bubba Watson himself, emerged victorious, I wouldn’t lose anything.  Duke had never been crowned victorious in his journeyman career, hit 999/1 on Betfair at one point as the chart below painfully portrays, and so I thought the £215 lay at 1.41 was a reasonable course of action.  He went on to win, I went to bed a loser for the second week running.





For this week’s AT&T National and Irish Open I went hard (well, £15.12 each way) on a Seung-Yul Noh/Graeme McDowell double.  Noh was fourth in the US event last year and was priced up a 150/1 outsider, while G Mac, despite missing the cut at the US Open and at this course twice, where he has also never managed to record a score under-par, appealed at 18/1 (for some reason) with SportingBet offering six place each way terms.

That would have given you a 46.5 bag return, had McDowell not missed the cut and Noh not been +5 when I last looked:  You’re welcome!



 

 

***

 

Feedback from your friends can come in many guises: "your hair looks shit", "you were an absolute liability last week", "your missus is gonna leave you when she makes her first million in business" are just a few examples of the more publishable words of wisdom given to me by my mates over the years. 

 

This week, I was informed that Palphabet was becoming little more than a copy & paste exercise for Golf Monthly, that I hadn't written anything about racing for two months (that's a lie, by the way), and that therefore, no one would bother reading it.

 

Well, if you've got this far, I thought I'd reluctantly listen to the lads and go back to my roots. 

 

Various expired bank cards have meant that my multitude of accounts with online bookmakers required some spring-cleaning.  Since Bet365, a favourite of mine throughout late 2012 and into early 2013, have decided to severely restrict (/ban) me from trading with them, I've had some decisions to make.

 

The P&L for May, across all of my accounts looked like this:

 

 

 

Since then, due mostly to debit card admin rather than any particular problems with online betting shops,  I've only been playing around with Betfair (and their new Sportsbook), SportingBet, Coral and my new favourite, Stan James.  Stan's golf prices are often the best around, even better than the Betfair exchange prices available (with no commission taken on winners), and I like the fact that their spokesman @roryjiwani regularly retweets links to my blogs!

 

One of the most satisfying events of recent weeks has been renewing my piece of Barclays plastic and having it emblazoned with the two greatest steeplechasers of my short love affair with horseracing.

 

 

 

The fact that I have chosen those two equine characters, rather than Frankel and Sea the Stars perhaps explains why my writing on the sport has been fairly limited since the Aintree Festival.  No matter how hard I try, and I do enjoy it, I just can't find enough inspiration in flat racing to put pen to paper with the same passion as I do over the colder and darker months of the year. 

 

Seeing champion of jumps Nicky Henderson get a 12/1 winner at Royal Ascot gave me more pleasure this "summer" than any winner I've had over a seven furlongs, and it speaks volumes that the main mention on these pages with regards to The Sport of Kings has been a genuine and heartfelt tribute to Sir Henry Cecil.

 

So, with only a passing interest in the Confederations Cup, a mild understanding of the betting markets surrounding Rugby Union and my small but long standing bets on the next Manchester United manager to follow SAF successfully settled, my current bets and conversational focus has been limited thus:

 

 

 

Sports Personality of the Year 2013 (for which I assume the Racing Post is still suffering a gagging order), antepost golf betting and the winner of Wimbledon Men's tournament dominates the screen above and are likely only to be given company by a few stabs on Le Tour, as I attempt to improve my knowledge of a sport that appears to offer entertainment and value in abundance, but about which I have very little knowledge, and of course, The Ashes.

 

So there we are - Palphabet has become rather more focused on golf, granted, but there's still plenty to discuss away from the fairways and greens.... that is until the proper beasts start galloping their way towards fences at least four feet and six inches tall and I can get stuck in with pen and pound once again.

 



***

UPDATE: Sunday Morning, 10am.....

 

These were the results of yesterday's picks at Newcastle, Newmarket and Curragh.  It's almost as though the lords of the flat were listening to me slagging off their noble sport, and decided to woo me with a fine fillip:

 

 

Let Us Open the Wallets and Get Merry on the US Open at Merion

An abridged version of this piece can be found on www.golf-monthly.com where I am fortunate enough to be a weekly blog contributor - the past eight weeks have all yielded profit and perhaps the added focus on the little white ball is bearing fruit http://www.golf-monthly.co.uk/tours-and-news/opinion/tour-talk/531437/golf-betting-blog-dave-plane.html 

It’s not been a week for the weak: an emotional rollercoaster that has asked questions of this passionate punter and self-styled bon viveur. 

I spent Friday night in amongst the [largely] peaceful protesters in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, where European tension could be felt in such abundance you might have been forgiven for thinking you were back around the 17^th green at Medinah (if the Ryder Cup venue had been frequented by masked graffiti artists jubilantly jumping around atop burnt out public vehicles).

 

 

 

I hadn’t really been able to gamble in Turkey.  I mean, I was able to get a raft of bets on with Stan James on my mobile, but Betfair’s app repeatedly flashed up the error message: “User Restricted Location”. 

There I was, stressed out trying to get the best possible prices at 2am Turkish time, making an international call to one of the exchange’s helpful customer service representatives, all to get my ultimately unsuccessful £150 down on Bernd Wiesberger for the Lyoness Open. 

 



I added Tom Lewis to the portfolio at 135/1, who started flawlessly but failed to capitalise, and followed the Racing Post’s in-form golf tipster Steve Palmer in on Joost Luiten (20/1) and Romain Wattel (55/1), my confidence in the first of those picks later bolstered when I discovered that the William Hill podcast boys opted for the same player.

The pod was banned from the Turkish airwaves by the regime against which my comrades were demonstrating... they must have all been keen to have a hefty wager too?  And rightly so: Luiten won, Wattel placed – tear gas and water cannons would not have been required if I hadn’t been able to get on.

Arriving back into London on Saturday, I headed to Finsbury Park to worship The Stone Roses, whose reunion has made grown men cry and whose masterful set-list resembled something close to perfection.  I've not stopped listening to the eponymous album since the weekend and memories of Made in Stone and This is The One have got me dangerously too close to welling up for a man in his early thirties.

 

And then, on Tuesday, heart-strings continued to be plucked like an eerie John Squire melody with the extremely sad news of the death of legendary racing trainer Sir Henry Cecil.   I have not been into racing for long enough to fully appreciate the majesty of Sir Henry, and am not the expert equine historian that many of my readers are, so reading the sincere and celebratory tributes to the great man this week has given added poignancy to the little I do know about Cecil. 

I was privileged enough to be in his presence on three or four occasions while following Frankel around Ascot, at Champions Day 2011 and '12, and what struck me was this tall, authoritative man's gentle nature, his mischevous sense of fun and humour and his absolute devotion to his craft.  I have a couple of pictures I snapped while standing only a few feet away from him, which I am particularly proud of: 

 

Last October, he was signing autographs outside the main stand around the parade ring and I was so tempted to go and get a few moments with him, but whilst he was greeting fans with genuine pleasure and humility, he looked frail, was with his family and I decided to let him get off and in position to see Frankel fly to what would be his last race.  In some ways I regret not telling him what, in a short period of time, he has done for my love of horse racing; but in another way, I felt like just walking amongst people with whom he clearly felt a natural affinity - he knew.

I hope you don’t mind me punctuating this light-hearted piece with a genuine mention for the great man: rest in peace, Sir Henry.

***

Moving onto this weekend’s Major, my headline picks are Manassero, McDowell and Woods.  I was excited by Mickelson at the weekend, who I backed for the FedEx St Jude before the final round, whilst laying Stefani and Stallings at short prices, partly covering pre-tournament wagers, but I'm yet to add him to an already bulging US Open Portfolio. 

In addition to the main bets - healthy stake on Tiger and mouth-watering prices about MM and G-Mac, I've got the following players on-side, with my own picks denoted by the asterisk and the players I'm following on the advice of others (namely Palmer and Mike Grenham from Billy Hills) listed below. 

 

Plenty of tipsters seem to like the chances of McDowell, so the fact I am on at 43/1 is especially pleasing.  The short, par 70 course has been made into more of a target track due to the inclement weather conditions that everyone has been banging on about, and I think that will help Matteo.  The young, articulate Italian isn't particularly long off the tee but is deadly accurate out of the gates with the driver and he can make that attribute count on the tight fairways with the irons.

I've mentioned Lefty, but I'm concerned that Big Phil the Thrill is slightly too wayward with his driving accuracy (ranked 160th on tour hitting only 330 out of a possible 613 fairways).  The rough here will be punishing, as will pin positions, as the tournament organisers seek to make the contest as tough as possibly in response to the rain, and while many have been saying that Mickelson will "love the course" and go well here, I'm not so sure.  The player that worries me more is Rickie Fowler.  I'm not going to back him, but I have done so for The Open before.  I've seen and heard him tipped up on GolfMonthly.com and by Jamie Spence on the WH pod, and think his price and chance are pretty good.  I will be keeping an eye on the flamboyant young man, who has memorable Merion experience from his 2009 Walker Cup triumph, and will be motivated by the opportunity to secure another winner's medal this weekend.

So here we go: US Open podcasts downloaded, official PGA app installed, bookmakers’ offers scrutinised, RP iPad edition purchased and Golf Monthly microsite adorning my desktop.  I’ve even started following another tipster on Twitter, who seems to know his onions: @NicsPicks 

A weekend of high-octane golf gambling awaits... if my emotions can take it!

The US Open iPad App is a must-download for the weekend ahead

It's Wentworth Shopping Around for the Best Prices

For the past couple of weeks, I've had the honour of writing a review blog for the website of quality magazine Golf Monthly. This piece appears on there via this link, and my first two blogs can be found here and here...

The betting bus bowled into Bulgaria last weekend to break-in a virgin course already being dubbed “Europe’s Pebble Beach” and so it was apt that Graeme McDowell should walk away with the World Matchplay Title, having been crowned US Open Champion at THE Pebble three years ago.   I’ve backed him to regain the US Open title this summer, so was especially pleased to see him come home at 8/1 from Thongchai Jaidee.

McDowell was tipped up by GM’s Nick Bonfield last week, and on the offical European Tour Podcast by Richard Boxall, who successfully selected Tiger Woods the week before.  It’s a broadcast well worth listening to as part of your weekly punting preparations: http://www.europeantour.com/videoaudio/audio/index.html

En route to the title, G Mac beat defending champion Nicolas Colsaerts, who got bogged down and had to take a dump – sorry, drop – in the toilets.  Although flushed, the Belgian didn’t let it wipe him away, halving the hole before eventually plunging to a 2&1 defeat.

Elsewhere in Europe, 2010 U.S. Amateur champion Peter Uihlein caught the eye, earning not only his maiden victory at the Madeira Open, but receiving a tour exemption until the end of the 2014 season in the process.  Many top players hold the U.S. Amateur title amongst their myriad accomplishments, including Matt Kuchar, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods.  So Pistol Pete, (whose father Wally is the CEO of Titleist and Footjoy) is in good company, and will surely always be able to blag top stash from his old man to ensure he has the right tools for the job. 

He was a 25/1 shot before the tournament, carded a second round 64 that included an eagle and two bogeys, was 15/8 going into the final round, and won by two shots from Denmark’s Morten Ørum Madsen (what’s that “Ø” all about?)  I only had small stakes on this event and won nothing.

 

In America, I was delighted with Martin Kaymer’s performance, having backed him at 70 for the win and 6.2 for a top 10 finish.  When I doubled him up each-way with Madsen’s compatriot Thorbjørn Olesen, I thought it would be the German former world number one who would let me down.  Thorbjørn, however, crashed out of the World Matchplay at the group stage and ended my chance of a four-figure profit before the weekend began.  It must be something about those strange letter Øs:  Bøøøøø! 

 

 

This weekend, it's the flagship event on the European Tour, the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.  Since I've started really shopping around for my bets I'm keeping a note of them on my phone so I don't forget where I've backed winners, top 10s, top 5s, each-ways, doubles, exchange bets, fixed odds, decimals, fractions.. it all gets a bit much to remember, especially when you pick 10 (TEN) players for the weekend's entertainment!  It's definitely worth it, though, and I'm sure it's making me think more about what I am doing, even if it's not a guaranteed gateway to golf gambling gains.

My headlines for the European Tour are Martin Kaymer (£50 e-w 33/1 with Paddy Power paying 6 places) and Branden Grace (£25 win at 50/1 with Betway, £25 top 10 at 6 on Betfair).  I fancy one of these to break the recent English stronghold over the tournament so I'm sticking with the improving Kaymer, who has finished 31st and 15th here in the past two outings, and Grace, who was 5th last year and finished 3rd last week in the World Matchplay. 

Whilst Garcia crossed my mind, he is in a right state following this highly public ding-dong with his equally quarrelsome but superiorly talented sparring partner Mr Tiger Woods, and I wouldn't be surprised if he missed the cut.  A real shame it's descended into this as both have been playing some spectacular stuff of late.

I also like Kevin Streelman in the US PGA event at Colonial, who went extremely close to winning me five grand at Augusta the other week, and is the selection of Steve Palmer from the Racing Post and Dave Kelner from the William Hill Golf Betting Podcast.  I'll back him outright, but have doubled him up with Kaymer in the hope of winning 20 bags by Sunday night.

 

 

Class is Permanent, but Form can bring home the Fillips

For the past couple of weeks, I've had the honour of writing a review blog for the website of quality magazine Golf Monthly.  This piece appears on there via this link, and my first two blogs can be found here and here...

The old sporting adage often tells us thus: “form is temporary, class is permanent”.  You only have to look at events at the Crucible Theatre these past couple of weeks to know that is a fair assessment of the powers truly classy individuals hold over their rivals in the quest for silverware and cash in their particular field.   

The nearest Ronnie O’Sullivan has come to pink balls in the last twelve months has been whilst working on a pig farm, and yet he rocks up in the biggest snooker tournament on earth and makes porkmeat of opposition who, in their own right, are amongst the pantheon of potting, the best on the baize.

In golf betting, FiTCiP, if you’ll permit me the acronymisation, is regularly borne out too, with the victory of a huge outsider like Derek “who?!” Ernst at Quail Hollow this weekend extremely unlikely to be repeated when the runners and riders line up at TPC Sawgrass for the Players Championship on Thursday.   Ernst was available at around 300/1 with the bookies pre-event and was rated an eye-watering 999/1 shot by the layers on the Betfair exchange, according to this excellent debrief of last week’s action from Steve Rawlings.   Putting it another way (and that’s putting, not PUTTing): the percentage chance Derek Ernst had of winning the Wells Fargo Championship was somewhere between 0.33 and 0.10 percent.  Needless to say he wasn’t in my portfolio:

Laying Lefty was the sole shrewd weekend move

Many think, quite rightly, that golf is a difficult sport to predict, and therefore to make money betting on, but the other two tournaments last weekend (in China and Indonesia) provided big glimmers of hope, and lead me to question the very fabric of the FiTCiP concept.  Obviously class is permanent, and it’s no surprise that golf has been dominated in various modern eras by class: Nicklaus, Palmer, Player, Watson, Woods, to name a few.  

But let’s not be so harsh on Father Form here.  Look at those names closely and form, specifically course/region form, is perhaps more ubiquitous than the Class Camp would have us believe.  Jack Nicklaus dominated at Augusta (six Masters titles); Watson prevailed on UK soil at the Open (five Claret Jugs); Woods appears four times in the top five of this list of golfers who “own” certain PGA Tour Events – nobody else has won more than one event as many times as Tiger (bagged six tour titles more than five times each; 15 titles in his native state of Florida). 

Aussie Greg Rumford took the Volvo China Open, making him a back-to-back winner on far east tracks having won the Ballatine’s in South Korea the week before.   Meanwhile Victor Dubuisson, top-10 in India’s Avantha Masters, top-five in Malaysia and identified in BetSWOT’s excellent China Open analysis went one better than last year’s fourth-place finish at Binhai Lake Golf Club, finishing third with two bogey-free closing rounds and returned some top 10 money.   

The Racing Post’s golf betting oracle, Steve Palmer, called Bernd Wiesberger, who I backed with £50 e/w at 10/1 “the bet of the week”.  Bernd bullied the field at the 2012 Ballantine’s, winning by five strokes, and took the Indonesian Masters in a Royale Jakarta Golf Club playoff against Ernie Els to gain his second Asian title.

Bernd baby, Bernd

Form may be temporary, but therefore it can be preciously profitable.  Consider that this weekend at Sawgrass, a ball-strikers’ paradise where past winners have built up considerable course knowledge before capturing the unofficial fifth major.  GM's Fergus Bisset highlighted as much in last year’s preview.  I like the look of Masters Champ Adam Scott at 18/1 with Paddy Power paying 6 places e/w (Stan James 16/1, 7 places e/w).  Anyone who can stand on the 17th tee, looking across at ET's head, and keep his head having been there before, needs to be respected and could well bring back the booty.

 

Booty: Phone Home

 

***

Since I started shopping around a bit more for the best prices, which aren't always  found on the Betfair exchange, my Palphabet portfolios have become so varied I've felt the need to keep notes on my iPhone.  I've mentioned before that using http://www.oddschecker.com is vital to building a balanced book for the weekend's betting enjoyment, and with the bookmakers all competing for your custom, there are some tempting offers out there that have to be considered.  This week, however, all of my wagers have been placed on the exchange, with the exception of the Adam Scott bet.  What you lose on the outright part of the stake (Betfair layers have him at 21/1 compared to Power's 18/1) you make back on the fact they're giving you an extra place at a quarter the odds, i.e. 9/2... the same price you can get on Betfair for a top 5 finish.