Snooker 2021
Lifetime: 2459 bets, 16.75%
ROI
2021: 922 bets, 15.15% ROI
Please forgive me for completing
the snooker review before next week’s finish but I don’t expect figures to be
markedly worse.
The snooker model has
delighted and frustrated me in equal measure during 2021.
Let’s get the frustration out
of the way and that’s simply how poorly we’ve run variance/results wise in the
outright markets. In truth the previous
18 months was fantastic in snooker outrights while the previous 18 months to
that was as frustrating as this current spell, though I’m hoping Xintong
hitting in the UK Championship is the start of better form. There’s no way of building up a big sample of
bets quickly like at golf in snooker outright so all we can do is be
patient. When you look at near misses
with Bingtao and Lisowski recently it’s variance and also a fact that the top
of the market has dominated. If recent
events and younger winners have a changing of the guard effect, I’m hoping
we have good days ahead and we already have a unique and unusual high volume of
ante-post bets.
As mentioned in last year’s
review, one aim was to increase volume in 2021 and we did by 80%. Now I’ve proved what, I thought I learnt at
the end of 2020, I will endeavour to increase stakes slightly also. It’s encouraging to know that betting without
outrights would have yielded 20%+ and as such as I’ve mentioned before, it’s
okay to bet more on snooker than golf.
The main thing to do, if you choose to, is to be consistent and disciplined
with staking perhaps reviewing yearly only.
What I also need to mention, is that if you increase stakes on side
markets particularly by too much you allow bookmakers to mark and close
accounts so make sure you have new ones ready to use. Snooker is different to golf in fact that we
have only the bookmakers to use as exchanges aren’t liquid apart from Money
lines.
Overall, I feel more content
with my snooker for the first time than any of my previous four years
reviews. Famous last words but I feel
confident 2022 could be our best year yet.
Golf Outright 2021
Lifetime: 2297 bets, 48.67%
ROI
2021: 708 bets, 38.44% ROI
After only breaking even in
2020, I was delighted to see the Golf Outright model back on track. Golf is a great betting sport and there’s
more than one way to skin the cat and my style has always been the highest
variance route in the attempt to maximise profits long term. This is a built-in ethos for my service as
the lower variance of golf place and snooker manage our bankroll against those
long losing streaks that hit the outright model. That downside to high variance has hurt us
since September with no outright winners despite many close shaves as the model
was above 50% at the end of August. That’s
to be expected long term but the top of the market-dominating the PGA Tour
events in the fall wasn’t helpful or the usual occurrence. Noticeable
that my volume is high at 708 bets and one aim is to reduce that by 10 or 15%
in 2022. The other aim is to improve my
staking, as on occasion when we went 0.2ew or bigger our selections run
poorly. That was something I did well in
the opening two years of service but has been a leak the last two years. That’s likely variance but the short-term
impact in 2021 hasn’t been ideal but the upside is we’ve had some serious CLV (closing
line value) and unwittingly the bookies have dodged many good bullets in late
2021.
I need to mention, that like
the golf place model, it’s entirely feasible someone betting exchanges at 30 to
40% higher win prices has a better ROI than our 38%.
Overall, I’m content we hit what
we should on Golf outright in 2022 in the knowledge it would have been a little
better in the second half of the year with kinder variance.
Golf Place
Lifetime: 1937 bets, 25.81%
ROI
2021: 512 bets, -0.64% ROI
January to June: 281 bets, 79.45
staked, -11.75, -14.82% ROI
July to December: 231 bets, 41
staked, 11.13 profit, 27.12% ROI
It’s been the most difficult
year of four on my place model and I’ve broken the year into two halves to
illustrate the poor opening six months. I
adjusted in the second half of the year decreasing volume by approximately 20%
and stakes by 50%.
Over the three previous years,
the place model was my mainstay balancing variance perfectly and particularly
in year 3 when golf outright only broke even.
The results are the results and all that matters but it’s plausible we
had a ridiculously high number of blowups from positions trading at sub1.25+ on
the exchanges, and it’s prudent to point out that taking exchange prices were
at least 20% bigger on Wednesdays across the board. That said, post-Covid-19, the strengths of
the fields changed particularly at the top end so it’s not surprising that the
profit was made in the second half of the year when the players’ schedules
finally settled back into the previous status quo.
The success in the early years
of the model brought me directly into conflict with the major bookmaker we all
use and the compiler the golf industry relies on to formulate the initial
model. There was a period in 2020 when
they had gained access to my tips and were cutting prices in moments post
email. Interestingly after 12 months of
holding back the place markets until the last few months of 2021, they’ve been
going up first again which cynically will be because they had stopped the
leak. That may have been to our
advantage in recent months and can be going forward.
Variance is a cruel mistress
and there’s little doubt we had the worst of it in 2021 but I also made
mistakes with volume and staking during the opening six months.
Overall review
Lifetime: 6842 bets, ROI
28.87%
2021: 2187 bets, ROI 18.71%
January to June: Bets 1158,
staked 224, ROI 15.18
July to December: Bets 1029, staked
144, ROI 24.19
I hope you will forgive me for doing my yearly review a little early but after
this week our figures won’t change markedly for the worse and I want some time
away from betting. This will allow me to
digest this review and enjoy time with my family over the festive season to
recharge my batteries for 2022.
It feels like an average year
at bookmaker prices making 18.71% for members and like always in life, betting
is a constant learning curve. There’s no
doubt, it’s the Golf Place model that brought our ROI down below 20% for the
first time in a yearly review.
To help, I broke the year down
into two halves which proves my point that Golf Place dragged the profit down
given we know that it was profitable in the second half of the year from our
earlier review.
That leads to the conclusion
that the opening six months results on the Golf Place model dragged the overall
ROI down.
That said, I’m immensely proud
of my service and anyone using exchanges will have gone above 20%. I have been lucky enough to build up a core
of some great long-term members whose trust and support is much appreciated.
Betting is meant to be fun! I
believe my service offers that opportunity while making some nice profits with
the occasional big hits to enjoy. If you
ever feel betting isn’t fun, then take a break as there’s more to life than the
next winner.
It leaves me to say, I hope
you and yours have come through this troubling period in the World unscathed as
there’s nothing more important than family and loved ones.
Let me take this opportunity
to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Craig