Knock out strategy

[gazuty]

A potential strategy to investigate.

Let's say a tennis tournament is down the semi finals.

Player A is 2.0 to win the tournament.

If you can lay player A at 2 for $100, you have potential loss of 100.

Those odds are implying 1.41 (ie the square root of 2) as the chance of each match. If you think at some point in each match you can back player A at over 1.41 then you can use a stake of less than 100 in the semi final and you are on your way to a profit. Because you are betting in different markets you need to adjust the odds for the 5% commission. Easily done in an excel spreadsheet.

Wonder if many people look at this as a strategy or decide its too difficult to predict future game odds (say the final in my example) given what might happen in the other half of the draw. Eg an underdog wins through to the final and there is never an opportunity to back player A at over 1.41 in the final. (of course in that scenario you should have backed in the main overall tournament odds and laid each game under 1.41).

Anyways I was just musing over this.

[LeTiss]

Just be wary of withdrawals, this will be costly if the lay bet wins

What I will say though, is on the day of the final compare the odds on 'Match Odds' and 'Tournament Winner'. There's some brilliant pre-match trades available due to 3 or 4 tick differences

[GranpaChook]

Be careful when trying to trade the differences in match odds market and tournament winner market as they have different rules. If the first set isn't completed then the match odds market is void where's the tournament winners market will be settled. So if you back player A in the tournament winners market and then lay at a lower price in the match odds market for a green book, if player A retires before the completion of the first set then you are stuffed as you're left with a back bet in the tournament market but nothing in the match odds covering your liability.

[LeTiss]

You're right, but I wasn't talking about trading across markets, PC makes that totally unviable anyway

I mean you'll often find a 1.44 fav on match odds as low as 1.40 or as high as 1.50 on Tournament Winner. Once you see which way the odds are going they tend catch each other up. You need to be quick, but I've had some great trades over the years by taking advantage of this

[GranpaChook]

Ah right, yes I see, sorry! I've often assumed that the difference in odds was the fact that the retirement rule is different but I've never looked properly. I expect the winners market is a little slower to react than the match odds one? So if the match odd market has the fav coming in then get on the winners market which should hopefully follow suit?

[LeTiss]

Yes that's exactly right.

I remember Federer vs Murray in the Wimbledon Final being like this. Federer was trading at 1.46 on Match Odds, but 1.52 was still available on Tournament Winner. Within 20-30 mins they were both about 1.47

[legendz]

Or you could have had Murray at 50/1 for sports personality and traded out around 4's this morning.