Yesterday was EHD day where we traded three games with this strategy. The EHD or Extreme HomerDog relates to games where the home team is the overwhelming underdog. No searching through stats and form will find any genuine reason why the games should be selected. There is just one positive factor and that is that the weak team has the home advantage.
We don't care whether they are going to win the game, just that they can score and preferably in the first half. Even if they don't score we will not lose if they get hammered. It's a powerful strategy and whilst the ratio of winning trades are less, the reward for a win is an above average profit. Possibly 4 or 5 times higher.
We didn't have to wait long to secure our first console trade. Genoa opened the scoring and the trade was a guaranteed win. We had the choice of exiting with £13, waiting for an unders finish which was £18 or an overs finish of £9. These were at half stakes so the maximum loss was £12. Some took the £13 whilst I decided to hold and wait for fate to take it's course. It finished as an overs result.
The second console EHD trade was Sochaux v Lyon. It was a lively game and Lyon opened the scoring which is always progress as 0-1 is a far better position than 0-0. This meant we had longer in our trade. The home goal arrived but unfortunately it was too late for us. A third goal would gave scratched the trade but it was not to be which meant a loss of £12 at half stakes.
We saved the best until last in our final game in Greece. AEK v Olympiakos had the highest home MO price of all three therefore greater rewards. It was a game that was dominated by Olympiakos who not only are the better team, they were also playing most of the game against 10 men. Olympiakos took the lead which meant we could continue in the trade until around 60 mins and possibly longer thanks to the red card. The away team extended their lead on 57 minutes at which point members could exit the trade with a small profit but the carrot of a jackpot or Overs win kept us in the trade. Normally the MLE (Max Loss Exit) which at half stakes is £12 is normally reached on 78 minutes but in a game where Olympiakos were totally on top against 10 men but the under 2.5 was not reducing and we were in an incredible position of the MLE not being reached at 85 mins. I was just about to give the order to exit when the score became 0-3. We had now won the trade whatever happened but securing our 0-3 hedge in case of another goal was most important. Thankfully members had achieved this before the fourth goal arrived. The profit was £23 at half stakes with risking only £12. The goal on 85 minutes is the latest time before the exit strategy is executed. This surpassed 82 minutes in the Spain v Italy Euro Championship final. This is against 656 recorded Homer strategy games that I have picked/traded either at the console or prior to that lead on another service.
That is now 1 loss from 7 Homer trades. 10 losses in 37 Homer trades. These wins are very welcome especially as my console trades went through a dark period for 4 weeks from mid August. The longest bad run since I introduced the strategy 18 months ago. There is no hiding from losses which will always rear their ugly head but if a strategy has recorded long term success that will always end up shining through.
Overall I have traded 656 games of which 378 have won, 52 have scratched, 225 have lost. The no loss strike rate is 65.54% which equates to 1 loss every 2.90 trades. When the loss and average win are almost the same it makes good reading.
It is so important to keep full records. Not only for your own personal analysis but also it's necessary when running a service to show the true picture. It's easy for results to be spun when there is no data to back that up. Recorded results don't lie. The facts are there to be seen. Including 20 losses and 1 scratch from 33 games for four weeks from mid August.
I also analyse my results by country/competition and looking through them this morning I am staggered to see that I have never lost a Portugal League game that I have traded/lead. In the strategy criteria I state not to include this league as the teams only seem to wake up in the second half. That said I have gone against this on 7 occasions, winning 5 and scratching 2.
If I only look at leagues/competitions where I have traded at least 12 games, the league that comes out on top is Greece with a no loss strike rate of 76.92%. Considering it's a league that always has a low Unders starting prices it may be a surprise to some. Runner up is Ireland with 76.47%. Bronze medal goes to Sweden with 74.19%. Just behind are Japan with 73.68%, USA with 73.33% and Brazil with 73.08%.
It may be a surprise to learn that the worst league/competition to perform where I have picked/traded at least 12 games is Spain. This is why record keeping is so important. Who would have thought it would be Spain propping up the rest? The no loss strike rate is a very disappointing 55.77%. 52 games have been traded with 28 wins, 1 scratch and 23 losses. Even though Spain is bottom of the pile what is remarkable is that they still recorded a profit since 1/9/11 of £41.55 for full stakes. This is followed by Italy with 60.87% which is in the red by £21.52 at full stakes with CL/EL games filling the last relegation slot with 61.02% but still making a tiny £15.43 profit at full stakes.
Of the leagues that I do not trade that often, the most successful is Turkey which is currently running at 9 games with 7 wins, 1 scratch and a loss and is showing £127 profit at full stakes. Russia also hold their heads high with 7 games, 6 wins and 1 loss. Perhaps I would trade Russian games more at the console if their KO times were better suited to UK trading.
Overall there were 14 qualifying Homer games on the list yesterday. 9 winners, 5 losers.