Welsh Open

I've decided to stick to European Tour for now - not that I'm doing very well there either! The golf is certainly bringing down my percentages.


Fasth 1pt win at 22/1
Jimenez 1pt win at 10/1
Brian davis half point ew at 50/1
Ross Fisher half point ew at 66/1
Dredge top Welshman 1pt win at 7/4

The Derby - Tissue

Here's an early tissue and recommendation for the Derby (or for our American friends - the Epsom Derby).

It's based on it being definitely on the soft side.


Visindar 3/1
Septimus 5/1
Lindas Lad 7/1
Championship Point 10/1
Horatio Nelson 16/1
Sir Percy 16/1
Hala Bek 16/1
Dylan Thomas 16/1

Visindar is a solid favourite. The price just looks too short to me. Septimus also solid and I'm happy with my 25/1 ante post voucher. Soft ground should help him stay in touch with the others early and stay on past them late. If the going firms up Championship Point will be added to my portfolio (which does include Sir Percy and Hala Bek, but I can't have them on my mind now.)

The one that really stands out is Lindas Lad. Group 1 winner, solid trial, goes on the ground. Looks way too big to me, and in a fairly uncompetitive race, ew looks the way to go. Obviously there's the usual caveat of betting ante post, but the price merits it.

Lindas Lad 5pts ew at 20/1

Big Brother 7

Big Brother's definitely a trading event. Plus I'm not in much of a mood to watch it this year.
I'm wondering whether I can bet on it simply by monitoring the betfair forum!

Pete looks the main man I have to say, and this Kit-Kat promotion is a difficult one to call.

However, if you want to take a flyer on a couple of rank outsiders you could do worse than these two. Granted one's a porn star and the other's a geek, and both could be gone before June wipes its feet. However, they both strike me as having a hint of the winning qualities (Humility, Entertaining and Inoffensive). Pete, George, Richard, Mikey also qualify but not at prices that excite. Pete currently seems to possess all three qualities, plus he's orignal, so he is a strong favourite, but I couldn't go below 7/2 at this stage.


Lea 2pts win at 50/1
Glyn 3pts win at 30/1

World Cup - to qualify

My prices for the Wolrd Cup outrights and each Group are down below somewhere.

Here's a couple more bets:


USA to qualify from their group 5pts at 7/4

Korea to qualify from their group 5pts at 13/8

Wentworth Golf

I'll skip the US golf this week, and have a throw at the BMW instead.


Stenson 2pts win at 33/1
Immelman 2pts win at 25/1
Olazabal 1pt win at 30/1
Donald 1pt win at 22/1

I'll add a player at end of each day's play.

Golf - Irish Open and Colonial

Ho hum, here we go again...


Irish Open

Harrington 1pt win at 12/1
Poulter 1pt win at 33/1
Lynn 1pt place at 16/1



Colonial

Furyk 1pt win at 14/1
Toms 1pt win at 20/1
Campbell 1pt win at 20/1

Champions League final

We're in profit already, having backed Barcelona and Arsenal at the quarter final stages. Normally I'd sit back and enjoy. However, Barcelona really should be odds on for this, and I feel compelled to play.


Barcelona 5pts win at Evens

World Cup prices

For anyone interested here is my tissue for the World Cup outright, and groups.
They are based on a mixture of rankings, my ratings, qualification, world class players, and for me the most under-rated part of major tournaments - the draw.

Outright:
Brazil 4/1
Argentina 6/1
England 7/1
Holland 7/1
Germany 11/1
Italy 12/1
France 12/1
Spain 20/1
Sweden 50/1
Portugal 50/1
Czech 50/1
Ukraine 50/1
Ivory Coast 100/1
Mexico 100/1
Coratia 100/1
USA 100/1
Serbia 100/1
Poland 100/1


Recommendation:
Holland 5pts win at 16/1
Winner to come from Group C 5pts win at 9/2


Group A
Germany 4/9
Poland 4/1
Ecuador 10/1
Costa Rica 20/1


Group B
England Evens
Sweden 7/4
Paraguay 9/1
Trinidad 20/1

Sweden 5pts win at 9/4


Group C
Argentina 6/4
Holland 13/8
Serbia 8/1
Ivory Coast 8/1


Group D
Portugal Evens
Mexico 6/4
Angola 20/1
Iran 20/1


Group E
Italy Evens
Czech 5/2
USA 5/1
Ghana 16/1


Group F
Brazil 4/9
Croatia 11/2
Australia 9/1
Japan 20/1


Group G
France 1/3
Switzerland 9/1
Korea 9/1
Togo 20/1


Group H
Spain Evens
Ukraine 6/4
Tunisia 20/1
Saudi 20/1

Ukraine 5pts win at 9/4

Golf - British Masters and Byron Nelson

My R&D golf budget will be bankrupt quite shortly!


British Masters
1pt ew Paul McGinley at 50/1
1pt ew David Howell at 20/1 (gone now I think)

1/3rd pt Sandelin at 100/1
1/3rd pt Stadler at 100/1
1/3rd pt Griffiths at 180/1



Byron Nelson
1pt win Adam Scott 18/1 (hardly value, I know)
1pt place Couples at 9/1

Play-offs, The Derby, and Wolrd Cup goalscorer

Three random bets for a bored Tuesday!


1) Division 2 play-offs:
Lincoln are top of my ratings for Division 2, and yet outsiders in the betting. Mind you, I backed Preston on exactly the same basis.

Lincoln to be promoted - 6pts at 7/2.



2) The Derby - ante post.
I backed him after his maiden at bigger prices, and couldn't help topping up this morning.

Hala Bek 6pts win at 16/1



3) Top World Cup Goalscorer.
There's a few teams who look sure to make the last 16 and have two poor teams in their groups to beat, but most of them have obvious strikers at short prices. One team that seems overlooked, and which of course will likely go further is, sad to say, Germany themselves.

I'm going to cover this with a punt on Lucas Podolski (who?).

Lucas Podolski 3pts ew at 50/1 (quarter 1234)

Golf - Italian and Wachovia

Please scroll pass this embarrassing attempt to find a golfer!!

Italian Open

1pt ew Darren Fichardt at 80/1
1pt win Bradley Dredge at 33/1

1/3rd pt Lee Slattery at 130/1

1pt Khan to beat Bickerton, Canonica and Wall at 11/4



Wachovia

1pt win Goosen at 16/1
1pt win G Ogilvy at 40/1

1/3rd pt Villegas at 130/1
1/3rd pt Sabbatini at 125/1

forgot Yeovil

In my haste I forgot Yeovil.

Yeovil 5pts beat Colchester at 7/2

Weekend Football - 6 May

Was going to take it easy on this the last week, but then I saw the prices and changed my mind. Division 1 has been on my mind all season. Incredibly tight division, often wrongly priced based on an over-estimation of the difference in ability between top and bottom.

This week this has been taken to exptremes, with some amazing prices on home teams to beat away teams vying for the play-offs. One thing to remember about teams vying for the play-offs is that all they've proved themselves to be is pretty average!

The first three teams on the list would have looked like value to me at 2/1!

Bradford 5pts beat Nottingham Forest at 11/4

Bournemouth 5pts beat Brentford at 11/4

Chesterfield 5pts beat Swansea at 11/4

Swindon 5pts beat Huddersfield at 15/8

Rotherham 5pts beat MK Dons at 13/10

Rushden 5pts beat Barnet at 15/8

Summary of results

Here's a breakdown of all bets so far on this blog:


Overall
Total points out: 880
Total returns: 958.6
% Returns: 108.9%


Football
Total points out: 636
Total returns: 706
% Returns: 111%


Golf
Total points out: 174
Total returns: 112.8
% Returns: 64.8%


Racing
Total points out: 34
Total returns: 76
% Returns: 223.5%


Others
Total points out: 26
Total returns: 63
% Returns: 262.5


Bets in-running:
We have some useful football bets.
We took both Barcelona and Arsenal in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, giving us a certain profit.
We also have a nice price on Middlesborough for the UEFA cup, which may be one to hedge.
Munster represent us in the Heinenken cup, another one that may be a hedge.
Ryan Moore may have been a touch optimistic, and Hayley Turner is finding life tough as expected but has got 10 winners so far of the 25 needed in 2006.


Summary
Happy with the overall profit, and the football match bets continue to cut the mustard.
The golf is frustrating. Still, I have described it as a work in progress, and I spent a lot of time this weekend analysing my ratings and hope that I'm learning quite a lot of value, whilst I'm losing!
Don't forget that my racing tips are available for free on:

www.escorialracing.co.uk

and showed 125% returns last jumps season.

The "specials" season should start again soon, probably with Eurovision!