2017 - Round 4 : Over/Under Update

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I'm currently facing a set of mutually incompatible objectives in my over/under wagering and its chronicling here on the blog.

These objectives are:

  • To publish MoSSBODS' and MoSHBODS' opinions in advance of the games they relate to
  • To provide a summary of the prices available at the time wagers were made based on those MoSSBODS opinions (which, ideally, would be from the same day as the blog was published)
  • To wait for both the TAB and Centrebet markets to be posted prior to locking in any wagers. (Otherwise, what's the point of having the choice?)

What's causing the conflict is that, this week, Centrebet has been dragging its feet on posting markets, putting up the Eagles v Swans total only on Thursday morning, followed shortly after by the total for the North v Dogs game on Friday. It's now late on Thursday and there are no further Centrebet markets available. (This despite the fact that the TAB and Pinnacle markets have been available for days. That's pretty disappointing to be honest; I had hoped Centrebet would be different.)

For this week then, in an effort to meet the objective of only publishing confirmed wagers, I decided to lock in wagers using only the TAB markets late on Wednesday night. I'll need to review that approach for future rounds; even this week that approach has meant that I've taken a poorer proposition in the North v Dogs game than I could have had I waited for the Centrebet market.

What I'm thinking is that, in future, I'll post MoSSBODS' and MoSHBODS' opinions generally on the Wednesday night including any wagers that have been made contingent on both the TAB and Centrebet markets having been posted, and then make subsequent wagers on each game at or around the time that both the TAB and Centrebet markets become available. That means, unfortunately, that I'll be posting about some of the actual wagers after they've been determined, but you will at least have the basis on which those wagers had been made.

That's not perfect, but I want this blog to reflect real world experience rather than some artificial, academic version of what might have been possible given ideal (seemingly prescient) timing.

Anyway, to this week then with the market information such as it exists.

MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS again have very similar opinions about the totals in each game, the largest difference coming in the Collingwood v St Kilda game, where MoSHBODS has the Saints scoring 5-points fewer than MoSSBODS' forecast, which is enough to flip the game to being a Pies win in MoSHBODS' eyes.

Both MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS have that Pies v Saints game as the high-scoring game of the round, very much at odds with the TAB, which has the Crows v Dons game in that position. As one sign of just how different are MoSSBODS' and MoSHBODS' opinions from the TAB's is the fact that they have that Crows v Dons game as their lowest-scoring game.

An even starker sign of those differences is the fact that MoSSBODS has seen fit to make wagers in seven of the nine games, four overs and three unders wagers with overlays ranging from about 2 to 4 goals. That is, I'll admit, enough to make me nervous, but was also one reason that I decided to take the TAB totals on offer and not wait for Centrebet markets to be posted. If these are genuine opportunities, surely they'll disappear over time.

Such nervousness as I have is tempered a little by the recent performance of MoSSBODS relative to the TAB and Centrebet, which shows that MoSSBODS now has a better margin MAE than the TAB or Centrebet, and a better MAE for Away team scoring too. 

It's also not all that far behind on MAE for Home team scoring, and on MAE for game totals.

I recognise that we're only three rounds in, but it's a promising start ...