My betting lesson for the week...

Last Week

In last week's Monday lesson I talked about players who are leading going into Sunday being odds on, and the potential trading opportunity it offers after Scott Jamieson gave up a 5 shot lead in Durban.

This weekend Justin Rose led by two going into Sunday and was priced at around 1.65. Two holes in and I managed to lay him at 1.53- which I think is pretty short odds for a two horse race such as a football game, let alone one man against probably 8 or more others in contention, and when one mistake can throw the whole lead away. After a few holes and with his lead firmly eroded I decided to be risk averse and trade out when he was available to be backed at 3.25- locking in a nice profit.

The same situation has occurred across the pond where Scott Stallings carried a 5 shot lead going into the final round of the ridiculously low scoring Humana Challenge. Once again he was available at an odds on price- 1.69 and went on to lose!

Even if all of these players went on to win there was always a chance to trade out for a profit... definitely a strategy I am going to be using in the future.

This week's lesson

I spent ages last week researching form, course experience etc etc last week in order to write my preview for Abu Dhabi and come up with some tips without copying the other more experienced tipsters out there. I then carefully made my picks and looked for the best price.

I then read some other blogs / tips sites and saw what people were thinking for the PGA Tour's Humana Challenge. Not really knowing much about the tournament- or the people playing I decided to pretty blindly follow a sort of aggregated version of these tips- all of which went on to lose by a pretty tasty margin.

Now I'm not for one minute saying the tips I read weren't good- but each player I backed was an individual part of different staking plans- one piece of the jigsaw. There may have been a long shot there, but this was probably backed up with a shorter priced player more likely to gain some sort of return to cover that long shot- which I would have obviously missed. Plus, not knowing about the tournament or the players means I cannot judge whether I really agree with the logic of that pick- we all have different reasons for backing players and inevitably people disagree now and again!

This week I will not be backing anybody unless I really understand the reasons they have been chosen and whether I agree with those reasons.

For a great explanation of a staking plan- and one that I am trying to learn to put in practice can be see at http://www.nics-value-picks.com/2013/01/ew-golf-staking-plan.html- this really shows what I'm trying to say above.

Hope this is a familiar situation for others out there, would be great to hear any views on this!