A Question From Michael - Monday Evening 10th May

Evening Keith


You are flying at the moment and well done however I have missed out on a couple of occasions, namely today and yesterday and for some reason I wasn't matched.

I usually log on to betfair straight away after I have received your selections and place the lays immediately if 4.0 or below and if not leave a lay at 4.0 to be placed if and when it drops with bet to be cancelled at start of the race.



Yesterday with Supreme Plan had to leave the lay as not trading at 4.0 or below when I looked and this was never matched even though sp was 5/2 and bsp was 3.75. Again today similar scenario with Cheviot with sp of 11/4 and bsp was 4.23. So basically I have missed out on 1.9 points profit so any suggestions.

Also today with the Barney Curley horse placed a lay at 4.0 and returned at bsp of 1.58 (massive gamble going down as always with his runners) now had that horse won I would have been 3 points down as opposed to just over half a point. Now I am not complaining about the selections as they are spot on just the fact that I don't always get matched.

I think the only time it went against me was when I laid at 4.0 which was accepted then it drifted way out to make it a no lay but I had already laid it at 4.0 about half an hour before which I find incredibly frustrating when the horse then goes and wins.


So what do you advise?

Thanks in advance for any help
Mick

Answer:

Hi Mick

Thanks for letting me answer this question on the Blog, other members & guests probably have the same
problems so it's nice that we can have a forum type situation, if anyone else has any other questions, please reply to this post.

You have also told me you are not by a computer ALL DAY...

I think it's always awkward when their are parameters for prices, we stopped advising laying at Betfair SP
because even though the price was right, the mighty betfair maching still didn't always take the money even
though there is a fortune traded through Betfair before the off - when you leave lays, it's always a risk you
may not get matched.

With regard to getting caught out on a big drifter (one of my pet hates) you could lay it at 4.0 in the morning, then place a proviso win bet with a minimum price of say 5.0, then if they drift and win you would not have been on the lay side but you would have been on the win side, and you would make a small profit.

It's always a balancing act trying to get the right price to lay at and you are not going to get it right all the
time, if you see a horse at 4.2 and the advice is lay @ 4.0 or under I would probably take it, I'm very confident in the overall picture of things that our new strategy of 4.0 or under will pay off in the long term as we will always hover around the 80% win rate (past months may have dropped our strike rate to about 77%
but as long as we always lay at around the 4.0 mark, we must profit in the long run, AS LONG AS YOU ARE ON...

To always be on may mean having to stretch the price over a bit, I personally won't lay at over 4.0 now but if
I couldn't be here to keep an eye on the price, I would either place a lay and a back bet as explained earlier or on the odd occasion, lessen the stake slightly to keep the same liability as if it was a normal stake on at 4.0.

As you said, you can phone the lay over, they should be able to give you an idea of where the price is heading, remember if in doubt - leave it out.