The sports spread betting blog

Review: 2009 Snooker World Championships - 13/5/09

This year’s World Snooker Championship seemed to be especially important for the long-term future of the sport. In the previous weeks, snooker has been engulfed with bad news: from betting scandals (the Maguire vs Burnett affair from December’s UK championship is still under police investigation) to outspoken criticism over the direction the sport was taking from the man who is arguably its only real star, Ronnie O’Sullivan. Furthermore there was speculation that the tournament was prepared to abandon its legendary home of the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield for some glitzy new venue in China or Dubai. All in all, the World Snooker Authority was in desperate need of the positive publicity that a successful tournament could garner.

From a bettor’s perspective, this was significant. A good tournament would surely feature close matches and, more importantly for us, high scoring. Crucially, the latter is something that can be influenced by the organisers. A little softening of the pockets here, a change of cloth there and the world’s most gifted snooker players would have the best possible opportunity to showcase their break-building talents. In the current climate, it was in nobody’s interest to have matches dominated by balls rattling in the jaws of unforgiving pockets, and dour safety play encouraged by the player’s reluctance to chance their arms with long pots.

In light of this, two quotes in particular caught my eye. Total tournament centuries were available to buy at 67 and tournament ton-ups (i.e. the total number of points scored over 100 in each century break) at 1080. Historically speaking, these quotes look on the high side – only twice in the last ten years had centuries made up higher than 67 and ton-ups had never done so. However, sometimes it can pay to not get bogged down in past results. The overall standard of snooker has been significantly improving for years now; the young players coming through all seem to be talented break-builders and the number of centuries scored was increasing: at the Masters in January, the world’s top 16 players – who would all be present in Sheffield – combined for 32 centuries in just 15 matches. Over the longer format of the World Championship, I anticipated a similarly strong performance and so BOUGHT TOTAL CENTURIES AND TOTAL TOURNAMENT TON-UPS.

On the outright market, I had a strong liking for Ali ‘The Captain’ Carter. Frequently acclaimed as one of the brightest young talents in the game, he had consistently reached the latter stages of tournaments during the 2008-9 season and had recently claimed his first ranking title. Having already reached the World Championship final the previous year, I fancied him to go deep again this year and so chose to BUY CARTER ON THE 4-PAY INDEX AT 18. This would make up 100 if he won the tournament, 50 if he reached the final and 25 for a semi-final, so I needed at least a last-four appearance from Carter to turn a profit in the match.

DURING THE TOURNAMENT

Well, I was certainly right on one count. The tournament was indeed a festival of scoring. In the very first session, Ronnie hit a 140 break and was 13 reds and blacks into a potential 147. The scoring barely let up from then on and it soon became clear that the previous record of 68 tournament centuries was going to be obliterated. Despite a slight let-up in the scoring as the tournament reached the tense semi-final stage, both of my tournament bets ended up as very decent winners: centuries made up 83 and ton-ups 1277. Unfortunately, my faith in Carter was somewhat misplaced as he crashed out of the tournament to the Aussie Neil Robertson in the 2nd round stage. Indeed, Carter was a let down all-round, as he contrived to exit the tournament early on without contributing a single century. Still, even his early exit couldn’t spoil what was an excellent tournament, both for my punting and, probably more significantly, for the ailing sport of snooker itself. It was announced halfway through that the World Championships will be returning to Sheffield for the next five years; I, for one, cannot wait.

JW

Preview: Arsenal v Man United, Champions League semi-final, second leg - 5/5/09

There are so many matches between the top four clubs in England these days. I remember a time when it was so rare that English clubs were drawn against each other in Europe that I wasn't even sure if it was allowed in the rules. It's different nowadays, and when Liverpool and Chelsea were put together yet again for this year's Champions League quarter-finals, you could almost hear the groan from every football fan in Europe.

This collective grumpiness would not just have been because of the repetition of games between these two, but also because the matches over the previous few years had been fairly dull. You could argue that the tension made the games exciting, but not many people genuinely enjoy watching matches that commentators are describing after ten minutes as a 'chess match'. I personally found it hard to believe that Chelsea under Mourinho banging the ball up to Drogba over and over again was really the all time pinnacle of football strategy.

One feature of these Liverpool v Chelsea ties was that goals always seemed to be very low - usually a dour, grinding 0-0 away draw from Liverpool followed by a tight win at Anfield on penalties or by one goal. Last season's ties finished 3-2 (after extra time) and 1-1, but still, the instinctive reaction on which way to trade on total goals would be to sell rather than buy. The problem is that bookmakers are aware of this as well, so total goals quotes for the first leg at Anfield were very low, with a typical quote being 1.95-2.15.

I had a look at average total goals make-ups in recent meetings between the sides, and found that in the last twenty-two Liverpool v Chelsea matches goals had averaged 1.82, and in the Champions League matches between them the average was just 1.25. So one could argue that a sell at 1.95 might still be an idea. I simply didn't fancy it though, although I can't claim that I was tempted to buy either. The first leg finished 1-3, which meant that the second leg would be far more open with Liverpool needing three goals to have a chance of going through. The total goals market was therefore very tricky, with lots of factors to take into account - very low historical average, an average of 3.66 in the last three matches between them, and a game which was likely to be very open.

The spread betting firms were still forced fairly low though, with most quotes being around 2.4-2.6 and 2.5-2.7. I still couldn't bring myself to have a buy, and was regretting this as one of the matches of the season finished in a 4-4 draw. There was a similar scenario for Liverpool v Arsenal recently. It sounded like low goals, especially with Adebayor and Van Persie out, but it finished 4-4 again.

It's now very difficult to know what total goals are going to be like in future matches between the big four. After these high goals make-ups we saw another tight affair last week as Manchester United beat Arsenal 1-0. It's tempting after some high goals make-ups to fall into the trap of thinking that all matches between the big four are going to be goalfests in future, and similarly if there's a couple of chess matches one might be tempted to sell for the next one. The correct answer is obviously somewhere in the middle, which is why it's not a surprise to see the spread betting firms putting out fairly neutral total goals quotes like 2.4-2.6 for the Champions League semi-final second leg between Arsenal and United.

AR

Andy Murray v Novak Djokovic, Miami Masters final - 5/4/09

The rise and rise of Andy Murray appears to know no bounds. His latest final appearance, in the Miami Masters, represented his fourth of the season so far, out of only five tournaments entered. The fact that the one final he missed was the Australian Open will continue to raise doubts as to whether Murray has the makings of a Grand Slam champion, but – Melbourne aside – his start to the season has been pretty much faultless.

Such stellar progress had not escaped the attention of the nation’s bookmakers, who made Murray a strong favourite for his Miami final with Novak Djokovic. Murray was available to back at as short as 4/9 with some fixed-odds firms, but the market which caught my eye was the 10/5 set supremacy on the spreads.

This spread betting market, which makes up between -20 and +20, awards 10 points to the winner of the match and 5 points per set won by. The quote for the final of 4.5 – 7.5 in Murray’s favour equated to a degree of favouritism towards the Scot that, in my opinion, was a touch too strong.

Murray’s form, as outlined above, was exemplary, but Djokovic himself was coming off a fine win against Roger Federer and, despite his patchy recent displays, on hard courts remains a severe test for any player. This, added the fact that were they playing just six months ago you could reasonably expect the supremacy to be reversed (i.e. for it to be Djokovic ‘over’ 4.5 – 7.5), all convinced me to SELL THE 10/5 SET SUPREMACY AT 4.5.

DURING THE MATCH

Taking a position that runs contrary to the prevailing market view is extremely rewarding if you get it right. On certain occasions though, like this one, you end up feeling like quite a chump. As it was, the match proceeded just as the market had been anticipating. Murray was too much for Djokovic: too strong, too fast, too resilient and just too darn good. He broke the Serb in his very first service game, and again in his second, racing into a 4-0 lead.

Murray was pummelling Djokovic in the way that Djokovic had done to so many inferior opponents over the years. It was merciless and, for sellers at 4.5, it was painful too. I looked in vain for a closing price, but the spread firms were one step ahead of me. By the end of the first set, which Murray won 6-2, the 10/5 supremacy was trading at 14.5 – 17.5. While I had already resigned myself to a probable loss, I had no desire to buy at 17.5 and lock in – or rather lock out – 13.5 points with no chance of getting anything back.

My continued faith in Djokovic nearly paid dividends when he took a 5-2 lead in the second set – even if Murray went on to win the third, the bet making up 15 would still be preferable to a close at 17.5. Such speculation soon turned irrelevant though, as Djokovic contrived to throw away his 5-2 lead in the most spectacular way imaginable, passing up two set points on his way to a 5-7 reverse for set and match.

A 15.5 point loss then and a lesson learned. That Andy Murray, he’s really quite good. I’ll probably think twice about getting against him again.

JW

Premier League Darts, Week 8 - 26/3/09

Week 8 of the Premier League darts took place in front of a strangely muted audience in Birmingham. Maybe it was due to the earlier than usual 6.30pm start time, but the first match of the night started with the distracting backdrop of the Birmingham crowd still searching for their seats as they hurried from work into the cavernous National Indoor Arena.

This cannot have been good news for Wayne Mardle, whose entire game plan these days seems to be to rely on an intoxicated, boisterous late-night crowd to succeed in putting off his unfortunate opponent. You got the impression that a soulless, half-empty arena on the outskirts of Birmingham wasn’t quite the kind of sort of atmosphere he was looking for.

A quiet night at the darts was exactly what I was looking for though spread betting-wise, as I had chosen to SELL TOTAL 180s ON THE NIGHT AT 24.75. Selling 180s is never a particularly fun bet, especially for the casual punter, who in general would prefer to buy and cheer each 180 as it comes in. Having done the same spread bet earlier this year, I remember going along to the World Championships at Alexandra Palace and being the stick-in the-mud of our group, the only person who’d stay in his seat when a 180 was thrown instead of cheering like a simpleton and waving around a cheap sign.

Still, no-one said betting was supposed to be fun. Winning, however, most certainly is and I was confident on this occasion. In the previous seven weeks of the Premier League, total 180s had made up under this quote four times. What’s more, total 180s dropped from a monstrous 34 in Week 6 to just 20 in Week 7 and I was hopeful that this trend would continue.

DURING THE NIGHT

The subdued atmosphere worked a treat in the first match, as Mardle and Mervyn King combined for just three 180s. King managed to destroy Mardle 8-2, leaving very little time for either player to throw in their expected number of 180s. The next match was a far better contest, with Jelle Klaasen coming from behind to defeat Terry Jenkins 8-6.

This was one of those horrible games where the first two darts from each player kept nestling into the treble-20 bed, leaving the committed seller permanently on the verge of a heart attack. Fortunately, both players had also mastered the art of the stray third dart, meaning a lot of 140s, or indeed 121s and 125s, but very few 180s – just three, in fact, over the 14 legs of the contents.

With a running total of six from two matches, my sell was very much onside, meaning I had a massive 18 ¾ 180s to play with in the remaining two matches. The last thing I needed, then, was an absolute bonanza in the next match, as John Part and James Wade produced a match brimming with quality, and some very heavy scoring.

Ten 180s later, and the bet was now much less onside than I would have liked. To make things worse, the final match of the evening was Phil Taylor vs Raymond van Barneveld, a contest that had 180s-fest written all over it.

As it transpired, the match between the two old rivals had more in common with King’s hammering of Mardle earlier in the evening, than the classic 2007 final which Barney won 7-6. This time, Barneveld looked strangely out of sorts and suffered a veritable thrashing at Taylor’s hands, losing 8-2. Again, the short match worked in my favour – the 10 legs produced five 180s, leaving the total for evening at 21 and me with a decent 3.75 points profit – and a feeling of great relief.

JW

Newcastle v Arsenal, Premier League - 20/3/09

Newcastle, despite being quite dull and poor, have been on TV a lot recently for some reason. As for Arsenal, it's seemed at times this year like every single match they struggle to break down defensive opponents and end up drawing 0-0. So I wasn't massively looking forward to Newcastle v Arsenal, especially when I heard that the Magpies were going to drop their main goalscorer Michael Owen and play Oba Martins on his own up front.

The match started completely differently to how I expected however, with both teams attacking incisively and creating chances. Martins missed two good opportunities, Van Persie somehow contrived not to score when through on goal, and the lively Arshavin almost scored goal of the season after a driving run and thunderous long range shot. To cap it all, Martins then missed a penalty.

All of this was in the first half, remarkably it was still 0-0 at the break. Newcastle's excellent young defender Sebastian Bassong had gone off injured, so they'd had to bring Habib Beye off the bench for the first time in months, and move Steven Taylor in from right back to centre back. The game looked like goals in every way. The spread quotes at half time were 1.3-1.5 - I didn't think the bookmakers had reacted enough to the openness of the game and Bassong's injury. I really thought that 1.5 for the rest of the game looked low, so BOUGHT TOTAL GOALS AT 1.5.

It's difficult to tell after a lively first half if things will carry on in the same way. Often, the momentum of the game can be stopped by the half-time interval and it's more disjointed after the break. There were still a few chances early on in the second half, but it wasn't as extreme as the first period.

However, Nicklas Bendtner did, after a while, put Arsenal ahead with a header from a free kick. Fortunately, before Newcastle's heads had time to go down they'd equalised through Martins, just one minute after they'd gone behind. So I'd already won by half a goal, with over half an hour left and Arsenal needing the win and pushing forward.

Things looked even better for the bet when Steven Taylor went down injured, leaving Newcastle with just one recognised centre-back in the team, Coloccini. While he was off the field receiving treatment, Abou Diaby burst through a Taylor-shaped gap in the centre of defence to make it 2-1. Taylor was substituted for Michael Owen, obviously an attacking move, which meant the returning Beye had to go in central defence for the rest of the game.

We all know that Arsenal are not the sort of team to ease off when they're ahead. They've given out a lot of absolute hammerings in the last few years and I was hopeful that Newcastle's low confidence would yield more goals for the Gunners. Nasri scored again three minutes after Diaby, but unfortunately there weren't any more, even though Arsenal had several chances to extend their lead further. I was slightly lucky with Taylor's injury, but the buy of goals at 0-0 at half time turned out to be an excellent 2.5 point winner.

AR

Cheltenham Gold Cup - 13/3/09

The hype which preceded the 2009 Cheltenham Gold Cup was extraordinary, comparable only to, well, last year’s. Then, just like this time, stable mates Kauto Star and Denman were the talk of the track. The pair, who are both products of the Paul Nicholls yard, headed the betting once again, with Kauto Star a strong favourite to avenge his 2008 defeat and become the first horse to regain the Gold Cup.

My interest in the race lay outside of the top two. I had been excitedly following the progress of another Nicholls’ contender, Neptune Collonges, who had displayed some impressive form since his third place in the 2008 Gold Cup, twice winning out of high quality fields in Punchestown and Leopardstown. In his only other recent race, last December, Neptune had been comfortably leading until an unfortunate fall two fences out handed the race to the Jonjo O’Neill-trained Exotic Dancer.

Such impressive form had been enough to see Neptune vying with Denman for second favouritism (behind Kauto Star) for the renewal of the most prestigious race on the jumps calendar. However, in the hours leading up to the Gold Cup, Neptune was friendless, drifting out to a starting price of 15/2, only marginally ahead of his old and, in my view, inferior rival, Exotic Dancer, who had come into 8/1.

Spread betting gives you so many different ways of getting with a horse, instead of simply backing it to win. I could have bought Neptune at 10 on one spread betting firm’s race index, which, in the case of the Gold Cup, would pay 4 places, 50-30-20-10. Instead, I chose to back him in a matchbet and so BOUGHT NEPTUNE COLLONGES / EXOTIC DANCER AT 1.5.

In effect I was giving Exotic Dancer a one and a half-length start over my horse: for every length over this by which Neptune defeated his old adversary, I would (hopefully) win one point, with a maximum make-up of +/- 15.

DURING THE RACE

If only the Gold Cup lasted two miles instead of just over three! Christian Williams sent Neptune Collonges out to the front of the pack, where he stayed for much of the race, while Tony McCoy gave Exotic Dancer such a patient ride that he propped up the rear of the field, behind even the rank outsiders. As we approached the last third of the race, all that was to change.

Neptune continued to plod along at his own pace, even while Kauto Star and Denman noticeably quickened. McCoy, meanwhile, had also found more from Exotic Dancer. And so followed an agonising process in which the two horses appeared to be moving through space and time in opposite directions. Neptune’s lead dwindled from 10 to five lengths, and then to parity. At this stage, there was only sadly one winner, as Exotic Dancer forced his way into third place, leaving a tired-looking Neptune some six lengths back, and me with a 7.5-point loser.

Neptune’s owner, John Hales, later blamed the jockey for not thrashing his horse out aggressively enough at the start and running the likes of Exotic Dancer out of the race early on. In my view, it was the good-to-soft ground that proved his undoing; on anything heavier, his staying stamina would have told over Exotic Dancer, as it had done previously. On this occasion, though, it was sadly not to be.

JW

Juventus v Chelsea, Champions League last 16 second leg - 10/3/09

Second legs of big Champions League ties are usually a lot more fun than the turgid affairs you get in the first legs, and I was hoping this would be the case for Juventus v Chelsea. The first leg had been uninspiring, with Chelsea notching a fairly routine 1-0 win thanks to Drogba.

The Old Lady put out an attacking line-up for the second leg though, with forward Vincenzo Iaquinta playing on the wing with Trezeguet and Del Piero up front. Juventus started really well, looking to take the game to Chelsea and looking the better side, although you know that a team of Chelsea's quality is always going to have good spells in the game at some stage.

Nedved went off injured, which looked like it might damage Juve's attacking threat, but Iaquinta scored to level the tie on 19 minutes with a nice finish. After this Chelsea started to get into the game and were attacking with menace down the left hand side, while Juventus still looked dangerous on the break. I've always thought the public perception of Italian defences being really solid is a bit of a myth, I've seen many Italian sides holding a lead from the previous leg get absolutely thrashed, for instance Man Utd 7-1 Roma, Deportivo 4-0 Milan, Inter 1-5 Arsenal and Lazio 1-5 Chelsea.

Despite Nedved's absence the game looked really open to me at this stage, and I was surprised to see one spread betting firm's total goals quote lower than everyone else's at 2.5-2.7. There's no other way to put it than that the game looked like it would yield more goals than that, so I went for an in-running BUY OF TOTAL GOALS AT 2.7.

A buy of goals is obviously a very fun bet if it starts going well. Chelsea were piling the pressure on at the end of the half, and looked to have the ball over the line from Drogba's free kick, but the officials adjudged that Buffon had scrambled it away just in time. Shortly after Chelsea took the lead when Lampard's lob came down off the bar and Essien bundled it in on his comeback from a long injury.

Essien's energy in the first half had made a difference and Chelsea deserved their equaliser. This put me in a great position for my goals buy, with Juventus forced to attack for the rest of the game and Chelsea looking dangerous on the break.

There were chances in the second half, but nothing happened until the 71st minute when Chiellini was sent off for two yellows. He'd hacked Drogba from behind when on a yellow, an absolutely ridiculous challenge considering the way the tie was balanced. One would assume that Juve's heads would start to go down after this, but they were given a penalty for handball a few minutes later.

The referee had lost control of the game at this point, with players pushing and shoving and Del Piero somehow still uncautioned despite five or six tackles that should have got him a card. Del Piero rolled it in to put the score at 2-1, Chelsea ahead on away goals and Juventus on ten men.

Juve still piled forward, with young forward Seb Giovinco, nicknamed 'The Atomic Ant' due to his diminuitive stature, having a positive effect on the game. They didn't score though, and Chelsea caught Juventus on the break with seven minutes left as Drogba got another goal, and it was game over. A good 1.3 profit from this.

AR

Phil 'the Power' Taylor v James Wade, Premier League Darts - 26/2/09

Week Three saw the biggest shock of the Premier League Darts so far. On an epic Thursday night in Coventry, a mere mortal had sent tremors through the world of sport by upsetting the great Phil ‘the Power’ Taylor. For the first time since Week Nine of the 2008 Premier League, the Taylor juggernaut had been brought to a temporary halt.

Then, as now, the perpetrator was the Terry Jenkins (a man rather unfairly maligned by commentator Sid Waddell as having ‘all the charisma of your local dustman’), who had summoned up all of his might to hold Taylor to a 7-7 draw. Yes, a draw, not even a defeat, but then with Taylor as short as 1/12 with some fixed odds firms to win the match, it was still a massive surprise.

In contrast to Taylor, who is deemed to be struggling if his three-dart average ever drops below 100, James ‘The Machine’ Wade was having a terrible time, which may or may not have been related to his fledgling relationship with Helen Chamberlain (of Soccer AM fame).

A disappointing World Championships, where he reached the semi-finals almost in spite of his own poor play, was followed by a dismal start to the Premier League that left him languishing near the bottom of the table with just one point from two games. However, the same week that Jenkins drew with Taylor, Wade pulled off his best result in months, rallying from a 1-4 deficit to charge past Raymond van Barneveld by eight legs to four, averaging 120 in the final 6 legs and generally playing like a man possessed by the spirit of, well, Phil Taylor.

Week Four of the Premier League came around last Thursday and brought Taylor and Wade together. I was expecting some sort of reaction, possibly even an over-reaction to the previous week’s events, and, without having seen the prices, was naturally edging towards getting with Taylor. Instead, to my surprise, it was almost as if nothing had happened: Taylor was still an overwhelming, almost prohibitively-priced favourite. Wade’s stunning comeback against Barneveld seemed to have been ignored, dismissed as a meaningless blip in form, just like Taylor’s draw with Jenkins.

I, however, saw their respective performances as indicative of something rather more significant, especially in Wade’s case, and decided to BUY WADE’S 25:10 AT 4.5. This market makes up 25 in the event of your player winning, 10 for a draw and 0 if he loses. For a relatively small downside, I had the chance to win either 5.5 or 20.5 points.

DURING THE MATCH

It is rare in sport, and probably even rarer in betting, that a match pans out exactly as you would hope, but Taylor vs Wade was one of those wonderful occasions. As it turned out, Wade had not just built on his performance against Barney in Week Three, but undergone a thorough rejuvenation. Gone was the hesitant, discombobulated thrower of recent months; in his place, the fearless young southpaw who seasoned darts experts once proclaimed the dominant force of the game’s future.

The capacity crowd in Belfast watched on, astonished, as Wade took a 4-2 lead into the mid-session interval and never relented, closing out the match with a glorious 138 finish to hand a shell-shocked Taylor a heavy 8-4 defeat. Even the Power admitted afterwards, in a rare display of magnanimity towards a fellow professional, that “James was the better man.” And indeed, the better man to bet on, as it turned out.

JW

Newcastle v Everton, Premier League - 22/2/09

Everton have had a strange season. They'd been under pressure to spend money during the transfer window in the summer, and the £15 million fee for Maroune Fellaini on deadline day looked a bit of a panic buy. It also didn't make that much sense in terms of how well he'd fit into Everton's system - in Tim Cahill they already had one midfielder who is an impact player, most effective arriving in the box to get on the end of crosses, rather than creating further back in midfield. Fellaini is similar to this.

They tried to play both Cahill and Fellaini in the middle, but this meant that the other central midfield space had to be taken up by a more defensive player like Neville or Castillo while Cahill and Fellaini made their forward runs. This meant that there was no room for Mikel Arteta in the centre of the park, so he was shunted out to the wing, where his influence on matches diminished.

They usually played 4-5-1 with Yakubu up front and it didn't work particularly well, with Everton around mid-table at the end of November. It was at this stage that Yakubu picked up a serious Achilles injury that ruled him out for the rest of the season. Many thought that this would be a disaster for Everton's campaign, as their only other available strikers were the injury-ravaged Saha and unprolific Anichebe. For their next match they essentially played a 4-6-0 formation, Castillo, Arteta, Fellaini and Cahill all operating in the centre of midfield, with Fellaini and Cahill pushing on to act as strikers when Everton were attacking.

This enabled Arteta to pull the strings in the centre of midfield, and the goals were still coming, mainly from set pieces and Cahill or Fellaini headers. Everton's superb defence and solid set-up meant they went on a run five wins out of six following Yakubu's injury, despite the ridiculousness of the concept of a 4-6-0 formation. Their good form continued, but I worried for them when they signed Manchester City misfit Jo on loan in the January transfer window. I'd seen him play a few times for Man City, and it'd be fair to say he was short on effectiveness as well as letters. He'd done absolutely nothing in any of the games I'd seen him play in, and looked lethargic and disinterested.

I was starting to think that at £19 million and presumably a very large wage he was possibly the biggest waste of money in football of all time. It was difficult to imagine how he could improve Everton. I was more inclined to expect them to get worse, given that the successful 4-6-0 they'd stumbled across would presumably revert to 4-5-1 with Jo up top. However, it looked like I might be proved wrong when Jo played really well on his debut in a 3-0 win against Bolton, scoring two goals.

This may seem like an elaborate and unnecessary ramble on Everton's tactics this season, and perhaps it is, but this was all going through my head when Mikel Arteta was stretchered off with an injured knee a few minutes into the game against Newcastle. Osman, Pienaar, Fellaini and Cahill were all missing the game through injury or suspension, so this meant that Everton were without an entire first choice midfield.

I'd thought that Everton should have been slight favourites before Arteta went off, but he's had such an impact on the fortunes of Everton this year that I thought the game should have been about equal, or Newcastle slight favourites after he went off. All the spread betting bookmakers moved the prices towards Newcastle after the injury, but one bookmaker were still quoting 0.05-0.25 Everton on supremacy. It's subjective how much an individual player affects a team's performance, but I thought they hadn't moved it enough, so had a small SELL OF EVERTON SUPREMACY AT 0.05.

My bet was looking good as Everton were lacking creativity in midfield for the rest of the half while Newcastle had one or two chances, but it all went wrong when Newcastle's Kevin Nolan was sent off for a horror tackle on Victor Anichebe. Going down to 10 men meant that Everton would definitely have to be big favourites in the second half, but I was still hopeful that the lack of guile in the midfield of Rodwell, Gosling, Neville, Castillo and Fellaini (he'd come on as a sub at half time) would make it tricky for them to score. And so it proved, as despite some Everton pressure in the second half, Jo was unable to find the net and the game petered out to a 0-0 draw, giving me a small winner on the supremacy bet.

AR

Jimmy White vs Ali Carter – Welsh Open 17/02/09

The travails of Jimmy White have been well documented over the years. Arguably the most talented, and certainly the most beloved player of his generation, White will nonetheless forever be remembered for being the ‘nearly-man’ of snooker. Recent years have been tough for the six-time World Championship runner-up. White is now 46 and down to 65 in the world rankings; his last ranking event title was five years ago and, to make life even more difficult, he’d been handed an unenviable first round draw in the Welsh Open against one of the most in-form players on the snooker circuit, Ali ‘The Captain’ Carter.

Surely only a madman would choose to back Jimmy White in such a scenario. A madman, or a fearless punter perhaps. For, having scanned the spread betting markets for the Carter vs White contest, one quote really caught my eye and I elected to SELL CARTER / WHITE POINT SUPREMACY AT 140.

Firstly, a word of warning: the point supremacy market is one of the most volatile and, frankly, dangerous markets in the whole of spread betting. Conversely, this also makes it one of the most fun. It works by aggregating the total points scored by each player in a given match and working out the difference between them. So a best of three frame match which ends 100-0, 50-55, 43-44 would end in a 2-1 win for Player B, but a 94 point supremacy win for Player A. Being a spread market, you don’t just want your chosen player to win, but rather to absolutely batter his opponent in every single frame.

A White thrashing of Carter was probably too much to hope for, but I nonetheless had high hopes that Jimmy would put on a decent show for his adoring public. He’d shown some great form during qualifying, thrashing former World Champion Ken Doherty 5-0 (in mitigation, it should be noted that Doherty’s form is on a downward spiral this season so rapid that it makes White’s look mild in comparison) and offered some encouraging noises that he felt back to something near his best. And so, giving up a 140 point start in the match, even to a player of Carter’s class, did seem a little excessive.

DURING THE MATCH

Two frames in, and everything was going swimmingly. After a nervy opening frame, White made a glorious break of 72 to level the match at 1-1 and, more importantly, reduce to point supremacy to just 2 in Carter’s favour. The bet, at this stage, was very much onside. The next hour and a half, however, demonstrated the lightning speed at which this type of bet can go against the punter. Carter reeled off four consecutive frames, winning by 52, 64, 48 and 80 points.

White had his chances during these frames, but missed every one of them. As the match swiftly came towards its conclusion, White cut an increasingly forlorn figure, showing every one of his 46 years. The contrast between the weathered former star, and Carter, this bright, young talent bounding around the snooker table on his way to another big-name scalp, could hardly have been starker.

The damage, in the end, was a 106 point loss (Carter won 376-130). A poor result, by any standards, albeit one on a very volatile market where you stake far less per point than you would normally. Still, watching Jimmy troop out of the arena with his now-familiar hangdog expression, I wondered whether, deep down, I had once again been supporting for the Whirlwind more with my heart than my head. Was this really fearless punting, or just foolhardy sentimentality?

JW