WEEK 40 : Rules and Guidelines

monkeytennis · Listed Class Joined: 25 Jun 2007 Posts: 35

Our fund is now £1261.75 which includes the £100 top up. Villa let us down at the weekend and we need to finish this season on a high now.

There have been some great contributions and new posters have had good input alongside the regulars. We are getting a lot of people looking at the advices from all over the world. Keep up the good work by working together. There is a great feel good factor about the chat.

Most people now understand how this challenge works and post in that spirit helping and guiding others and putting ideas out there for debate. New members please get involved and have your say.

Most people would admit that this thread has highlighted some great opportunities which may not have been chosen as the BOTW but may have been bet privately.

We know these discussions are read by journalists, tv, bookmakers other sites and forums. They are looking to what we do and say and respect our way of doing things.

Please read the individual match threads where you will need to post in bold your best bet from the 4 categories.
We want these posts to be the best football discussion posts anywhere on the internet, and lets make sure we win

Please remind yourselves of the rules and guidelines. The individual Match threads will be on the forum shortly please stick to comments on those two teams in each match thread. We need great posts on the individual match threads.

Please make sure that when posting you include stats,argument,facts this will help all of us come to the right decision.
Injury news can be helpful. What do the stats say in the matches. Will a team be playing for a draw. We also need to make sure that the price on offer is taken into consideration, can we find a stand out price which offers a good risk to reward. Dont just look for a winner look for a price.

Sunday 11 May 2008
Middlesbrough v Manchester City, 15:00
Portsmouth v Fulham, 15:00
Tottenham v Liverpool, 15:00
Wigan v Manchester United, 15:00
Birmingham v Blackburn, 15:00
Derby v Reading, 15:00
Sunderland v Arsenal, 15:00
West Ham v Aston Villa, 15:00
Chelsea v Bolton, 15:00
Everton v Newcastle, 15:00

Stage 1 Monday: Match Threads
We are asking you to choose your best bet for each match in four bet-type categories

Category 1 : The normal WLD or 1X2 result
Category 2: Asian Handicap (see here for info on this http://www.online-betting-guide.co.uk/guides/asian-handicap-betting.php)
Category 3: Under/Over goals
Category 4: Other (e.g. Clean Sheet, HTFT, Correct Score, Anytime Goalscorer, etc)

We want discussion, debate, statistics and your recommended best value bet in each of these 4 categories

Stage 2 Wednesday/Thursday: Four Bet Type Threads
We will set up a thread for each of the four bet type categories above which summarises the most popular bet in that category for that game.
We then have a vote to come up with a best bet for that category leaving us with
- Best 1X2 bet
- Best AH bet
- Best Under/Over bet
- Best Other bet

Stage 3 Thursday/Friday
We discuss and vote on which of the 4 bets to go for based on the vote winners from each category thread. So we will have one 1X2 bet, one AH bet, one Under/Over bet and one Other bet to vote between to decide on our final bet.

Stage 4 Friday
We then poll for the stake with lots of options (in units of 100) and take the weighted average of all votes rounded to the nearest £50.

This weeks bet will be from one of the following matches.

HOW THIS WORKS
Please Read Carefully

OLBG is giving the forum £100 of real money each week to bet on the Premiership
Every week we pick ONE bet on a weekend Premiership match (Sat to Mon)
Forum members work together to decide which bet to make a what stake to make with that weeks £100 + whether to rebet any winnings from previous weeks.

Overview
1. Forum must decide on ONE bet on a weekend Premiership match each week. (If there is no Premiership football in a week then a match from the next highest UK league or international matches will be used.)
2. Forum must decide on the level of stake each week depending on available funds
3. Decision on the bet must be made by 12pm Friday each week with decision on the stake by 4pm each Friday.
4. OLBG will then make the bet and advise on the odds achieved by 6pm Friday. If OLBG is unable to make the bet for real then the bet is unfortunately void for that week
5. Winnings are returned to the betting pot for use in subsequent weeks.
6. At the end of the season the money is divided amongst the contributing members at the discretion of OLBG

The Bet
7. Forum must decide on ONE bet on a weekend Premiership bet each week. (If there is no Premeriship football in a week then a match from the next highest UK league will be used.)
8. Forum members decide on the bet by posting suggestions and information and working together as a team. Posts without any credible explanation or useful information will be deleted so we can focus on the informative ones which hopefully will help people decide on a selection.
9. It can be any market and any odds
10 Forum must decide on the level of stake each week (min £100) depending on available funds, unless this is pre-specified by OLBG.
11. Decisions must be made by 12pm Friday each week on the bet and 4pm on the stake.
12. There must some sort of consensus in the opinion of one of the OLBG team (Antony, The Shark, Teddy T, Nors). If there is no obvious most popular choice amongst the forum then no bet will be made. If there is no obvious decision on stake then the stake will be £100.
13. For practical reasons we are unable to have multiple bookmaker accounts so may not always be able to get the very best odds. We may in some circumstances also be unable to place a bet, in which case that weeks bet is void. The bet only counts if we confirm we have placed it!

Prizes
14. The challenge runs for 40 weeks from 11/12 August 2007 to 10/11 May 2008
15. The real money cash balance after the final week’s bet has been settled will be distributed to the participating forum members
16. Every member who contributes at any time throughout the year will get a share of the final cash balance. This will be based on each persons “contribution” throughout the period based on the number of weeks they participated and
a. the quality of the information & reasoning they provide
b. the teamwork and help they offer
c. the outcome of the selection they made (if such a selection is clear) whether it is the chosen selection or not
17. People just posting selections without information or who do not work together with other members effectively will not receive any money and will often have their posts deleted.

Terms
18. By participating in this challenge you agree to abide by the rules and respect the decisions of the OLBG team.

bigmoose · Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 10:03 pm Post subject:

I'm almost tempted to beg for a Final Week Strategy Vote page to be open for next 24hrs max. As now that we've failed miserably what's the plan? £100 on a 28/1 shot? Or the usual £500-£700 on something around Evens?

Poss could have done with a strategy decision 3 or 4 weeks ago. Going for the £4,000 has in effect replicated the bad gambler chasing his losses. We even did £550 on a Newc win on the road! (poss good odds but definitely stupid stake in comparison to the prior 36 weeks) Shocked

_________________
Steve

thetitan · At Stud Joined: 25 Apr 2007 Posts: 2964

some of our biggest losses have been by over-staking on poor value bets (aston villa vs sunderland and wigan, newcastle against derby)

i agree with bigmoose, would have been nice to have a discussion about strategy/staking at some point...a few have wanted steady gains throughout the season, whilst others have wanted to have a lump on every week.

the end result is that we're way in the red...IMO there's always a temptation to chase but i think we're better off just picking out a value bet this week and staking no more than usual.
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free tips, previews and analysis.

herby · Group 1 Class Joined: 14 Sep 2007 Posts: 428

Well we didn't really have any sort of long term strategy - and that is something to think about for next season.

I strongly suggested much earlier this season we should stick to backing top quality sides like Man Utd as often as possible. By the same token, by regularly being against very poor sides like Derby - we would have done very well. We should really look on these as premium sort of bets.

No one is to blame - i'm just trying to be constructive by learning from our mistakes.I do however think that a democratic process will most always choose the poorest value bet, that theoretically has the best chance of coming in - but football is never that easy as our over/unders bets have shown.

It's a shame that we've never got on any really good value bets such as the H/T F/T scorecasts - my Derby suggestion came in at 7/2 last week - and to my mind this is where we've gone wrong. Given a choice of a 3/1 or 4/1 shot and an odds on, it's always the odds on that gets the nod.

Still i've enjoyed every minute of it, i've done very well from my own recommendations, i hope you have too & i'm looking forward to next season now.

All the best

Herbs

bottomlesspit · Group 1 Class Joined: 11 May 2007 Posts: 306

I would like to see 1000 in the bank and 261.75 stick on at longer odds.

Since it is going to be difficult to get any concensus on a long odds candidate - I would suggest a correct score bet on one of 2 given matches.

I would suggest Chelsea and Man U as obvious games, as form says that both teams will win = better chance of a concensus

1000 if we lose
2500+ if we win (at min odds 5-1)

My ideal BoTW final selection would be 4-6 possible scores from one of those matches, and we go with the correct score with the most votes.
Any chance?

tipstonga · Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 5:20 pm Post subject:

this is a special week, that is obvious.
Going through the threads and this posts it seems to be 3 positions
1) do as usual = low stake (300-500) low odds
2) profit or nothing = high stake and middle (4-5) odds
3) 1000 in the kitty = low stake and high (15- ) odds

I prefer the 3rd and made proposal in some threads in this sense but it is not my interest neither to discuss it here nor to analyse past and future of this experience. Obviously the latter discussion imo it would be very useful to do thoroughly after the 40 week.

The fact that many people agree with "plans" 2 or 3 -that imply no goals no handicap and few 1x2 bets- suggest that it would be interesting to move from 4 bet-types pools to other kind of pools that may be
a)1 bet per match thread (with "ballotage" perhaps)
b) stake/strategy vote first then choice of the bet
c) other

Whatever this suggestion is taken or not I think it is specially important this week to at least include in the pools the stake proposed with the bet proposed. Thank you.

good luck Win

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tipstonga
August Other Sports 3rd. blogger
NTB May & February Champion (double 4 plt. record)

onaed · Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 12:15 pm Post subject:

gecko6 · At Stud Read My Blog! Joined: 20 Oct 2006 Posts: 3538

i thought we only split anything over the £4k limit.. ie a profit

onaed · Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 1:44 pm Post subject:

I dont know tbh

Betfairalfie · At Stud Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 4892

This exercise proves a few things;

a) OLBG are very generous for a free to join site Win

b) Democracy has its drawbacks Mad

c) Football betting is a "wicked mistress" Lose

I am not sure if the exercise will be repeated next year but if not then maybe we could run a personal football BOTW competition? Maybe we could each have one NAP football bet per week and see who does the best. I'd imagine that less than 5% of us would show a profit, but I'd love to be proved wrong.

Antony OLBG · Stallion Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 5776

lol BFA - very nicely put Laughing

tipstonga · Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 5:21 pm Post subject:

Proved by this experiment: