suggestions please...

use the £200 for the remainder of this season and, by your posting you THINK you understand and realise the edge you have, google kelly staking.

just having a quick look at the kelly system my problem would be that because its such a small sample I really could'nt predict a value for my estimation of the odds.

You've probably only got around 14 bets to place so at 1.8 i'd be looking at something fairly aggressive, with a £200 bank, but perhaps that's just me. 1/2 or even 1/4 kelly is an option

Buzzer,if you were to use the £1200 now, what stake would you use then?

have you checked how the system would have fared over previous seasons or do you not have the relevant information. may be able to see if this season is just a blip?

no Diggler,unfortunately the way it works mean I cant look back on previous seasons.

If your bet is with a bookmaker, a significant change in stake may lead to your account or the market you have found an edge in being investigated and then hampered in some way, obviously if it is on here you will be fine.

for a start Tarantula, i'm far from sure if i've found an edge butI am able to use Betfair and not the bookies.

Fair enough, I hope you have found an edge though.

cheers tarantula,me too

Given that there is always a percentage chance that a winning system will go boke before it
has proved itself, no matter how big an edge it has.

The questions I ask myself when implementing a new system are:

a) What percent chance do I want to give it to go broke ?
b) How many times am I going to allow it to go broke before accepting it doesn't work ?


I generally give it about a 2 to 4% chance of going broke and (plan to) allow it to go broke 3 or 4 times.
Iin real life it often doesn't work out like that as things generally change and tweaks are made as more results come in, But its a good enough starting point.


My brain is not fired up enough to fully do the maths in your case but roughly...
In your case, with an 80% strike rate 4 consecutive losers would be a 2.5% chance
So giving it 4 £200 starting banks ( chances to go broke ) would = a £50 unit stake.
or £25 = 1.25% chance of a bank going broke.


The acutal maths behind working out what percentage chance a bank has of going boke is much
more compicated but the example I've used gives a good enough rough estimate for the purpose.



I get fairly aggressive with my staking, once the bank has doubled, I increasi my stake by about 66% which reduces the chances of a bank going bust a bit but also cashes in on any edge a system has while it still has it, as one thing I've learnt about finding edges is they often disappear over time and you should cash in whike the cashing in is good.


hope this is not to much of a ramble.

I new my brain wasn't working enough for the maths...

4 Consecutive losers on an 80% srike rate =

100 x 0.2 x 0.2 x 0.2 x 0.2 = 0.0016 or 0.16% chance of happening... nice

The system is based on sound logical thought... Is there an ingredient which others may have overlooked ? If so, you may have something but if not, perhaps a blip. As you say, not enough sample really, but good luck anyway.

thanks for the reply escapee,

Its an 80% strike rate at the moment but in i'm pretty sure over the course of 5 seasons say,that it would probably be less.

Given that the chance of 4 consecutive losers is pretty small, 016%,I wonder what the chance of going broke is?
Would'nt know how to work that out,but short term say,60 games,i'd hazard a guess at less than 20%.

Might mean,because of the infrequency of games,its worth taking a chance,having say £150 a game of a bank of £1200.

thats probably against your advice,but would you think its verging on reckless.like you said,you've got to cash in when you've got an edge!

Because you say the 80% strike is probably going to decrease you're going to have to guessimate the stike rate to be able to work out how reckless a unit of £150 is using a single £1200 bank.

With a sample of just 25, any losses in the next few bets is going to drastically reduce the 80% win rate and consequently drastically increase the chances of going boke with £150 unit/£1200 bank before actually find out if its a winning system or not.

You'll be surprised how quickly you can increase stakes using a split bank with an aggressive staking plan.
If your 80% stick rate is maintained and you split your £1200 into 4 £300 banks and give each banks
0.32% chance of going broke ( given an 80% hit rate ) each unit should be £100.
Iin 5 bets time your £300 bank will have increased to £504 ( 5% commission ) arround every 6th or 7th bet you can double the unit stake.



Its all about how much risk you want to take before you get enough of a sample to more accurately asses the true strike rate.



I always like a gamble and can see the merits of pressing it hard, But theres also alot of merit in
throttling back a bit and pressing hard with other peoples money that the system has already won.
That way it costs you less/almost nothing to find out if its a long term winner ( or NOT) at the expense of waiting a few bets longer.


Assess how you'd feel if the various scenarios played out, worst thing would be to drop a winning system because you didn't know it was a winning system because you didn't give it a large enough chance to succeed.


Best of luck with it, All £1200 on the first bet gives you an 80% chance of getting off to a flyer :)

again my maths is bad

£300 bank, 80% stike rate, £100 unit = 0.8% chance of busting bank with 3 losers

Also one import aspect to remeber is that if you think the 80% strike rate is going to decrease then the likelyhood of it manifesting itself as a serries of losers in the short term is far higher than it manifesting itself as another sequence of wins followed by an even longer sequence of losers.


So if your overall strike rate is going down, and your overall probability of hitting some losers is increasing.... Is this the time to be rash or prudent ?


gamble... alll in on the first bet ;)

thanks escapee,appreciate your comments.

Its not that I know the strike rate will decrease but a 80% s/r at odds of 1.80,The system can't be that good!!

It is tempting to be a tad reckless at times but historically,personally speaking,if i have rushed in the past it hasn't been particularly successsful.

If its a winning system then it will still be winning in 12/24 months time,so I like your idea of airing on the side of caution then increasing relatively high.Havent really used the split bank idea before,I might start with just 2 as a compromise!

I think i'm convincing myself(or rather you have)that now is probably not a time for recklessness.

The next game is actually Blackburn v Hull on Wednessday night,don't fancy all in on that!I would'nt be able to sleep for the next 2 days!!

It a least gives me a couple of days to chew things over.Thanks again.

Decided to have £200 and have two £600 banks,might appear to be slightly risky but only about a dozen games left til the end of the season and i'll rethink my stakes then.

Managed to get 1.84 on tonights game.

Hopefully I have an edge to put to my advantage rather than to jump off if it all goes t*ts up.