Archive for Opinion
Historic X Factor Eviction Voting Results
Posted by: | CommentsAll,
For those that are interested, here is an Excel file with all the weekly X Factor voting percentages for 2008, 2009 and 2010.
An interesting first “proper” week this week. With 12 acts you will be looking at around 2-3% of the vote for those in the bottom two. 5% of the vote would definitely see an act safe.
Nu Vibe are apparent sitting ducks, but at 2/1 there isn’t much in the price.
There seems to be a lot of people that think Kitty is good value to go… Can she accumulate the 4-5% of the vote that she needs to keep herself safe?
It’s important not to forget that ”there’s nowt as queer as folk”… Just because YOU wouldn’t vote for her…
If she is in the bottom two, will the judges (AKA producers) choose to keep her and, more importantly, her antics in the show for a week or two yet?
The bands are always up against it – they just don’t inspire people to pick up the phone. I think this year they will see a boost to their voting numbers due to having Tulisa, rather than Louis Walsh or Simon Cowell, as their mentor – but this can only have so much of an effect.
Rhythmix are likely to struggle for public vote based on histric girl band performance – however, one thing that shouldn’t be noted is the support that Gary Barlow gave them last week. Kelly Rowland isn’t a huge fan, but I think they would get to deadlock at a minimum if they were in the sing off. I expect them to be safe, one way or the other.
Tulisa herself failed to back Nu Vibe, and with The Risk pinching all of the boy band votes, it seems likely that they will be in the bottom two – and are deservedly favourites to go home.
The only other consideration is Johnny Robinson. His camp and light hearted performances should see him hang around just yet – but once he does hit the bottom two, expect him to be gone in favour of more serious acts.
Irrespective of the bottom two combinations it does look like Nu Vibe are in real trouble…
What does everybody else think?
Cheers
BOTW’s Ante Post selections 2011/12
Posted by: | CommentsEvening all.
Apologies for the lack of pre-season analysis here at BOTW. I have been a bit of a busy boy recently and it is increasingly difficult to commit masses of time to writing for the site. And in addition to that it is important to realise that “the game” doesn’t change drastically from one season to the next. All the fundamental principles of sports betting are the same, year in, year out.
And the majority of the analysis I could put up would be in the same vein as last year’s pre-season preview series.
All this said, fear not, it doesn’t mean that I am doing any less work myself behind the scenes – just that you are going to get more of a punchy summary of my views, rather than my usual rambling monologue.
Hey, for most people I guess that is probably even a good thing!
Sneaky baseball bet
Posted by: | CommentsEvening guys.
Right, I am going to do my little advertising piece for Major League Baseball here. They really should pay me for this stuff.
Tonight is your chance to find out exactly why I love this sport – for free! in fact, you might even get paid for the pleasure.
MLB offer the most impressive live streaming service I have ever seen. For $100 a year I can watch over 2,400 baseball games each year. If I was stark raving mad and wanted too that is. That works out at about 0.04p a game. Take note Rupert Murdoch!
As it turns out, I only watch about 100 baseball games a year. And edited condensed games of about 80 others. Still pretty amazing value when you think about.
Im 2011, MLB have started offering one free game a night through this service – a nice little taster, but not much use if you strike allegiance to a particular team, or wish to watch a particular game you have bet on. But a nice touch all the same.
Well, tonight is the perfect time to see what all the fuss is about.
End of season recap – Long term positions
Posted by: | CommentsEvening all.
Long, long time no speak.
How are we all?
Sorry for being so quite over the last month or two. I have been manically busy. I might even have been maniacally busy thinking about it.
However, two heavy drinking holidays, topped off with a quick dose of stag do later, I am back and looking forward to the summer.
I was going to pop up my first baseball piece for the summer, along with a little update on the open baseball positions, but then I realised I hadn’t put up a debrief of the season long football positions which matured over the course of April and May.
So I thought I best tie up those loose ends first…
Healthy returns
Overall, my long term football selections were a great success. Throughout the course of the year I placed 23 bets, consisting 19 selections and 4 hedges.
Of the 19 selections I had 10 winners and 9 losers, generating a 19.5% increase in the BOTW coffers.
Nice headline numbers I guess. I did notice a couple of other things when carrying out my internal audit. My pre season antepost selections were absolutely red hot…
Red hot antepost selections
Of my 8 early season positions, 6 ended up being winners which is better than I would ever have dared hope for!
I took a reasonably chunky loss on the Birmingham debacle, which has been well documented. There are exceptions to every rule.
My only other loss was Andy Carroll not being Newcastle’s top goalscorer… If ever there was an example of why, irrespective of price and edge you need to protect against the unknown then this is it!
Even when you have AA in the hole, you are going to get beat 20% of the time. This was very much one of those 20% rather than a poor selection.
Of the winners, Bolton brought home a healthy return over 41 points – assisted by John Elmander’s early season goals – which was also a nice winner for BOTW at 7/2.
Johan’s now off to Turkey – while we are feasting on it!
Everton just about got their act together in time to take their usual “Best of the Rest” position, and Blackburn “coasted” home in their tete-a-tete with West Ham.
The long term winners were closed out with Alex McLeish staying in charge at Birmingham until week 38 and down in League One the combined Southampton/Brighton split stakes position really was never in doubt.
A cracking set of results all around really.
Staggering, kebab in hand
Sadly, I didn’t manage to finish off the year as I began – with my late season positions faltering to a 7.5% loss.
Solid wins on my FA Cup and Top Goalscorer medleys were more than offset by my misreading of the relegation battle.
West Ham’s diabolical attempts at staying up cost me on numerous fronts – as I had backed them to stay up and by getting relegated after game 37 I also lost my ever manager to see out the season bet.
Other wins on QPR and Aston Villa were again offset by losses on Roy Hodgson Albion’s remarkable turnaround and Brentford’s erratic form down in League One.
A 7.5% loss is not likely to see me nationalised, but given the track record here at BOTW it is not what I have come to expect. Hey, at the end of the day it happens to even the very best every now and then – just ask Antony Bolton!
If West Ham had secured a point at Wigan in game 37, we would have been looking at a huge swing and a 10% increase in funds which I would have been delighted with.
It’s a game of small margins. As many an Arsenal fan will no doubt agree.
Let’s play ball!
So there we have it. That is the end of what was a very successful 2010/11 football season here at BOTW.
Here’s to a successful 2011/12 campaign.
And what fantastic timing I have – with the fixture list for next season out today!
Some spicy early fixtures in there, with Man United in particular having an interesting fixture list. Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea in the first five games. The most interesting part of their fixture list however is how easy the run in is. From the end of March onwards they might just be able to coast home… The rest of the league need to raise their games.
However, thankfully for the neutral I expect a lot of the Premier League teams to come on leaps and bounds this season. I expect Chelsea to be significantly more effective and City should develop further. And if the numerous of cash being spent at the Emirates are true, the Gooners should also improve.
However, I shall save all my thoughts on that for about six weeks time.
In the meantime, I plan to focus on the baseball season for a few weeks. So if you have any interest in learning a little bit more about boys’ rounders then keep checking in. I’m going to go through some of the rules, some of the nuances of the sport and where you can look for value in the betting markets.
Unfortunately for those with a lack of faith, you’ve already missed a fair chunk…
Cheers
Saturday AM trivia
Posted by: | CommentsMorning ladies and gents.
Currently digging around to see if there is anything I really like for you today. I am sure I’ll manage to come up with something, although the remaining long positions going down to the wire is enough of a distraction for me personally at the moment.
Before I do get onto today’s action, I thought I would canvas opinion on something.
This weekend I plan to pull together my season long analysis – the sort of stuff from last year that brought about this post on last season’s profit sensation Notts County…
but before I do I thought I would take a stab from everyone as to:
a) Which Premier League team will be the most profitablt this season on a level 5% stakes approach; and
b) Which team will be the most profitable across all the leagues?
If you already know the answers please don’t spoil it for everyone else by “guessing”.
I honestly have no idea, but have two teams in mind… I’ll throw them in the mix after a couple of guesses.
Cheers