I am a huge Liverpool FC fan (I know, I know - let the jokes begin!) and as a rule, I usually dont even look at the odds on games involving them as years ago when I did bet on games with them, they seemed to lose - which made me doubley unhappy to see them lose and also lose some money. On the other side, I can never bring myself to bet on them as it feels wrong cheering against my team just for money.
However, I have just broken that rule on the Hearts vs Liverpool, Europa League game tomorrow.
I have been watching the odds get bigger and bigger all week, and trying to talk myself out of getting involved all week, but ultimately trying to look at it from a purely neutral point of view, in my mind the price on Hearts to beat Liverpool looks far too high for me (+735 @ Pinny), and I have had to have a bet on them, with my logic as follows.
Primarily, this game is just 3 days before we play Man City in the EPL so for a start I cant see us fielding a full team and those that do play will likely be thinking ahead to that game, in fact I just saw a report that suggests that Gerrard, Suarez, Skrtel + Johnson will not even travel to Scotland to play while Enrique is still injured.
If this article is true, this means that we will be without 3 of our starting defenders, with only Agger from our best back 4 will play, though arguably Kelly could also be considered very close to our starting defence. We will also be without our Captain and also our most creative forward player in Suarez, even if he misses far more shots than he scores.
There is an argument to suggest that after such a poor start, the reserve players who will get to play this game will be looking to prove the manager that they deserve a place in the team, but even adding all this up I still cant see how Hearts should be any bigger than +400 at best to win this game, instead of +735. In fact you can even get +500 on Hearts for the "Draw No Bet" option with a couple of books, meaning if the game is tied after 90mins you get your money back.
All this aside, I have been wondering whether its not such a bad thing to bet on games involving your own team - in theory you should have a lot more knowledge on them, which can only help - but at the same time does anyone else find it difficult to look at games from a neurtal point of view, or do you find that you get blinded by your support for your team and find yourselves betting on them much more than you really should do ?
However, I have just broken that rule on the Hearts vs Liverpool, Europa League game tomorrow.
I have been watching the odds get bigger and bigger all week, and trying to talk myself out of getting involved all week, but ultimately trying to look at it from a purely neutral point of view, in my mind the price on Hearts to beat Liverpool looks far too high for me (+735 @ Pinny), and I have had to have a bet on them, with my logic as follows.
Primarily, this game is just 3 days before we play Man City in the EPL so for a start I cant see us fielding a full team and those that do play will likely be thinking ahead to that game, in fact I just saw a report that suggests that Gerrard, Suarez, Skrtel + Johnson will not even travel to Scotland to play while Enrique is still injured.
If this article is true, this means that we will be without 3 of our starting defenders, with only Agger from our best back 4 will play, though arguably Kelly could also be considered very close to our starting defence. We will also be without our Captain and also our most creative forward player in Suarez, even if he misses far more shots than he scores.
There is an argument to suggest that after such a poor start, the reserve players who will get to play this game will be looking to prove the manager that they deserve a place in the team, but even adding all this up I still cant see how Hearts should be any bigger than +400 at best to win this game, instead of +735. In fact you can even get +500 on Hearts for the "Draw No Bet" option with a couple of books, meaning if the game is tied after 90mins you get your money back.
All this aside, I have been wondering whether its not such a bad thing to bet on games involving your own team - in theory you should have a lot more knowledge on them, which can only help - but at the same time does anyone else find it difficult to look at games from a neurtal point of view, or do you find that you get blinded by your support for your team and find yourselves betting on them much more than you really should do ?
Well played, Duff. I wondered how long it would take for someone to figure that out.