Das Punter

Chateauroux haven't scored a goal in four games, losing 4 of their last five matches. If you are a believer in laws of averages like me, then Chateauroux simply will score tonight; it cannot go on forever. Bastia on the other had very rarely have BTTS fail, so the high odds here are purely down to the fact that the market predicts home scoring troubles. 2.12 for the BTTS. I'm also eyeing up two potential women's matches in which the underdog has a +1.5 sets start. Hampton-Stephens is my first and Kanepi-Kerber the second. Prices will dictate of course.

Errani: Pressure stops me sleeping at night By Eurosport | Tramlines  –  11 hours ago   From the outside, Italy's Sara Errani appears to be living La Dolce Vita, looking as though she hardly has a care in the world. But behind the dazzling smile, she has a dark secret. Her recent success in tennis has come at a high price. The pressure, she said, had become so overbearing that she was struggling to sleep at night and no longer enjoying the  prospect of going on court. "I don't know why," she told reporters at the U.S. Open on Thursday after a 6-3 6-1 loss to Flavia Pennetta . "I think it's the pressure. Everything is very difficult for me." The Italian is one of the rising stars of women's tennis, ranked number one in the world in doubles and fifth in singles. She has a globe-trotting lifestyle and has earned nearly $7 million in prize money. Two days ago, everything seemed in perfect order when she creamed Au

Udinese will have to dig themselves out of an almighty hole if they want to progress in Europe this year. They trail Slovan Liberec 3-1 from the first leg which along with the Celtic result was probably the shock outcome last week. Udinese are 1.93 to score 2 or more team goals, and I think win lose or draw, they will have to play all out attack to get the job done . Who knows, an early goal, and they may begin to see an opening. Also, look out for the Halep loss of the first few games of the match against Vekic to get any value out of her if you want to back the Romanian to progress.

Ensured that glory girl Wozza, couldn't just turn up Yesterday's coverage of the Simona Halep-Caroline Wozniacki match was nothing short of disrespectful to the Romanian star. First and foremost, bookies had Wozniacki a clear favourite and apparently all she had to do was turn up and turn over Halep. Wozniacki is of course 'high profile', and, as we were reminded about on every other point, a former world number one and grand slam finalist. But what year are we in now? Hmm? Last time I checked it was 2013 not 2010. Sam Smith was simply drooling over Wozniacki. The main points were that she possesses a great forehand, a great backhand, serves well and is one of the best competitors in women's tennis. All this was said before Halep handed Wozniacki's ass on a plate and before the commentators spent three seconds summarizing Halep as basically a Grand Slam bottler. It was painful to hear. Anybody that has followed women's tennis (and no, not JUST the

Udinese were perhaps the shock result of yesterday, losing 3-1 to Liberec. Meanwhile Fiorentina won away from home and the English sides, Tottenham and Swansea dealt brilliantly with their opposition. An in-play Kiev bet won yesterday with HT game state at 1-1, and Kuban v Feyenoord came in under 2.5, 1-0 to the home side. Incidentally, that's Feyenoord's fourth straight defeat. Halep came through against Makarova and Wozniacki defeated Stephens in straight sets 7-6 6-2 to meet Halep in the semi-final. On 365, Halep is 2.10 and Wozniaki 1.72. Lovely stuff. So yesterday was 3/3, now onto today.

Halep has been a dream to punt on The Queen of tennis punting ONCE AGAIN defied the odds to rake it in for me yesterday with a quite brilliant comeback against nemesis Carla Suarez Navarro. Quite bluntly, Simona Halep has been the biggest winner in terms of a singular betting entity in my entire betting history. If you want more in depth information regarding why I rate her so highly then scroll through my blog or look at the label down the right hand side for keywords 'Simona' and 'Halep'; but for the purposes of here and now let me continue. Yesterday she came into the match at around 1.36. But the beauty of Simona is that she is lightening slow out of the blocks most of the time. This gives punters a clear range of entry points, and mostly you can read her like a book . From 1.36, I took her personally at around 1.75, evens, 2.35, 2.75, 3.25 and finally at around 3.5. She lost the first set, and was down in the second, but this is the interesting thing with S

Stats, stats, and damned lies Yesterday highlighted just why using statistics alone can be just as dangerous as betting off the cuff on instinct. Whilst I find @JonnyGrossmark and his work highly intriguing, by following a HT game state trend on this match would have seen you lose a bet; which it did to me. Almeria were 2-1 up at HT against Villareal. Last season, out of 21 home matches, Almeria were winning at HT in 9 of those games, and went on to win all 9 of these games. So, Almeria with a game state when winning at HT had a winning ratio of 100%, from 9 occasions.  Where Villareal is concerned, there were 3 occasions last season when they were losing at half time (away from home out of 21 games), and they didn't win a single game when trailing at HT (drew 1, lost 2). SO....out of TWELVE games combined between the two sides, Almeria never lost when leading at half time and Villareal never won when losing at HT. SO...GUESS WHAT HAPPENED!??! That's right; Villar

She needs to be tested from the off Yesterday, Victoria Azarenka claimed the Cincinnati Open with a three sets win over Serena Williams. Many will have gone into raptures and are already writing Williams off for the upcoming US Open, but the fact remains that yesterday she was operating in 2nd gear. There's something up with her. Something deeper that we are not seeing. She trounced Azarenka in the first set and everything seemed to be rosy in the garden. But these days, it's almost as if everything is below her, almost as if she feels elevated above these minions at the other side of the net and any tournament which isn't a major. Williams' demeanor has long been analyzed; this is nothing new. But yesterday I thought she displayed more signs of contempt to anything than ever before. She has always had this body language of complete superiority and dominance but after the first set in the final, it was as if she completely shut down thinking to herself that the wh

A few good mentions I think; Norwich-Everton made light work of the BTTS, and into the bargain I had Norwich +0.5 too. Aston Villa probably gave the EPL performance of the day, winning 1-3 against a totally beleaguered Arsenal team who in the end had their fans round on Wenger in a show of frustration. QPR also had a late winner to continue their predicted form. Isner is into the finals against Nadal in Cincinnati.  And where next for Nathan Cleverly, who was absolutely schooled by the Russian Sergey Kovalev inside four rounds. The big hitting Russian just had way too much for the Welshman and in the fourth it was one of those moments in boxing where you felt great concern as it was obvious that the Welshman was just getting teed up.

Harry Redknapps sister?!?!?!? #uncanny pic.twitter.com/EUrDJY1ieR — Scott (@scottylar) August 17, 2013

Halep - a punters' wet dream! On the 16th June 2013, I wrote this blog post - http://overtheodds.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/morning-thoughts-some-in-depth-halep.html. - in it I highlighted just why I thought Simona Halep would be a world top ten player within a year and why she went off the boil from her stunning early rise. I'm pleased to say I am STILL on track with my predictions. For the past six months, Simona Halep has been a punters' wet dream. She was seen as little or no threat to the big girls for a long period of time after falling way down the rankings because of a combination of injury and natural physical development which hindered her game. On her way back, bookies and tipsters were still not convinced and it was an absolute pleasure taking her inflated odds each and every time she took the court. But even with recent tournament wins, even with some nice scalps, the bookies and tipsters are still undecided about her.....and it's to their cost. I have

Marion Bartoli, the champion of Wimbledon, has bowed out of tennis after losing in three sets to money maker Simona Halep in Cincinnati. Breaking down in an interview post match she cited constant niggling injury as a main reason why she feels she can no longer go on in the game. Marion has been a credit to the sport, a wonderful champion and deserves all the adulation she gets from her supporters and fellow professionals.

Simona Halep came back from a set down to convincingly beat Hsieh yesterday. The straight sets blog bet was lost but the in-play bets more than made up for it with wagers at 1.5 and 2.42. Great to see her back and hopefully she can make us a couple of quid yet again.

This result passed me by yesterday but I had to snigger as Ajax lost their first game of the season in only their second league match, to Alkmaar 3-2. Scanning up and down the Twittersphere, this result has really ruined some 'expert' tipsters final league positions' models already and shows that for all the fancy stats models and predictions nothing can be taken for granted. Terry Tipster for example set out the league table as thus at the end of the season - Well, Ajax have lost ONE already and in conceding three goals into the bargain. So it just goes to show that you simply cannot take anything for granted in the betting business and that it may even be folly to think that you can project forward an entire season with any great accuracy.

I was brought up following women's tennis in the Graf era. Such competitors I used to love were Graf herself, Seles, Vicario and then more latterly the era of Pierce, Davenport etc. Never in all my time following women's tennis, some times more closely than others, have I ever seen the epidemic problem of the utterly atrocious women's serve, and their insane inability to hold their own service games. It is reaching a laughing point quite simply. I could go on and on with examples from almost every match over the last few years, but the pinnacle surely has to be yesterday's Agnieszka Radwanska v Sara Errani match. Here is the first set of yesterday's match. Radwanska is on the left and Errani on the right. As you can see, Radwanska had break points against her the very first game of the match, but she came through this to take it. Errani then sealed the second game to make it 1-1. Then, rather unbelievably, we had a string of TEN consecutive breaks of serve in th

Arsenal are now 33/1 to win the Champions League, meaning if you bet £100, you lose £100. — Football Jokes (@Footy_Jokes) August 9, 2013

Swansea - the mug bet of the night Every man and his dog yesterday opted for a Swansea win in one of the 'bankers' of the day. It once again highlighted the rather murky world of online tipster service and the 'sing when you're winning' mentality. Swansea were around 1.9x to win yesterday, and there was a raft of backers at this price. I warned against this bet as a) Swansea had a more than comfortable 4-0 lead from the first leg b) they may put in some effort but ultimately the psychology of the match would mean that most would operate to just kill the game off c) Malmo could not be worse than the first leg in front of their home fans. The line was +1 Malmo at 1.90. This I thought was the bet to go for. The match finished 0-0, which was hardly surprising given the complete context of everything. What was worth pointing out is that hardly any that backed Swansea for the outright win came out and highlighted that loss. It just re-iterates that a good tipste

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http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/228025.html

Yesterday saw another remarkable example of the fine lines in sport and highlighted once again how punters must be tearing their hair out at times. At the start of the match the handicap line was around 6.5pts start for the home team and they soon coughed those points up when they went 8-0 down from two Canterbury tries. But, the home side fought back to make it 10-8 at half time. Then from a very promising start after the team talks, St George came flying out of the traps taking a 20-8 lead after 50 minutes. But in true sports drama, the entire match was turned upside down on one restart, one unbelievable bounce and a try not a minute after the kick. From there Canterbury were dead and buried and never recovered from one gigantic piece of bad luck. Canterbury then went on a run of 31 unanswered points in a quite remarkable turnaround. So was this written in the stars? Would the 'better' team have had that ball bounce differently? There is little doubt in my mind that if the

Champions League Qualification 2nd Leg (0-1), 6pm. FC Basel +0AH, 1.87. FC Basel take a one goal advantage in traveling to Tel Aviv, and they should have enough to win here as the home side simply will have to press the issue. The one goal from the first game will ensure that the landscape of this game is totally different. Maccabi can not afford to play too cautiously for too long, and it may be catch 22 as Basel will look to hit them on the counter with pace as the home team commit more players to the attacks. Basel have scored in every game since the new season started (friendlies and league) and their defence has been quite mean in the process. The game could be quite niggly too, there were 8 yellow cards in the first leg. If Tel Aviv start getting frustrated then they should be racking up the card count quite quickly.

DFB Pokal, 5.30pm. Union Berlin, 2.08.  Regensburg won their opening game of the new season, a 3-1 away victory against Munich 1860, but since then haven't won in four. They scored 2 last time out away to Heidenheim, but failed to score in three consecutive home games before that. Looking a little further into this, Regensburg haven't won a single game at home in 17 matches, when they defeated St.Pauli 3-0 in September of last year! Union haven't won in three, but they had an encouraging club friendly start to the season. Out of 7 matches they won 5 including a 3-0 win over Celtic. They lost to Bochum in the opening league of the season 1-2, and drew to Bielefeld 1-1 second match, but they are scoring goals. They have only lost once both home and away in their last 11 games. I think with Union being able to score, and Regensburg only finding the net twice in four games (including NONE at home so far this season) then the odds of 2.08 for an away win for a side in a h

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Hitler goes mad at the bbc another shameless plug for a work of genius from @fattusantus http://t.co/KQijrk7yhF — Brave sir Robin (@stevietrfc) August 4, 2013

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South Americans....total fruitcakes You can bet your bottom dollar (as I did for the last time) that South American teams and players will do something stupid, outrageous, crazy and downright unprofessional. I'm thinking Luis Suarez when I type these words. What is it with South Americans that they are so brainless that they cannot keep their emotions in check and put personal vendettas and squabbles aside for the greater good? What is it in their fiery DNA that sees them gouge, punch, kick, bite and generally mess things up for the team? Last night it was the turn of Estudiantes and in particular Jonathan Cristian Silva. Arsenal went a man down inside 17 minutes which would have triggered a flurry of Estudiantes bets. Even better, Zapata scored for the away side and they were completely dominating the game. The only question was at this stage, is how much would Estudiantes win by? Take centre stage Silva. Take a Royal Bow. He stupidly gets involved where he shouldn't

Check out @philjones53's Tweet: http://sulia.com/channel/soccer/f/79406288-56f1-4eef-a114-b6022e4728e9/?source=twitter

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Huge service weakness is again a major problem Laura Robson once again crashed and burned this time to Petra Kvitova on the hard surface of Calsbad. I think people need a reality check about Laura and they need it now. She is a decent player, who, if she works very hard from here on in could possibly be a top16 player. But consistency is her Achilles' heel, and you simply cannot afford to be as erratic as she more often than not. Yesterday she was swept 6-1 6-2 and her serve was once again an area of great concern. The problem with the serve is that it is highly mental, once in a rally players can rely on instinct and natural ability so the brain doesn't have to be as stringent in its thought processes. The serve at the moment for Laura is one huge mental block, each and every time she takes the line, bounces the ball and attempts to land it . It's now becoming almost an event in itself, and the gap between points only ensures that there is more mental calculations