Betting First sets only..

**ha1ogen** · 07-21-10, 03:40 PM

you might be on to something there, would have worked wonders with chela today

**beefcake** · 07-21-10, 03:44 PM

Obviously betting all dogs to win first set blindly would be STUPID,would have to filter it somehow..examples being home country dogs,really lots of combos you could do..

Would take a lot of legwork to see if it would pan out...

**CindyCryBaby** · 07-21-10, 03:48 PM

Its on pinnacle too, but I don't like it that much. 20-30% decrease is huge, and is pretty much where most of the value lies in underdogs. You could easily run some numbers and look at 1000 matches this year and see whether you win your bet >20% (or whatever the average decrease is from full match to just first set odds are) of the time by just betting first set over full match. If it's greater than the avg decrease, then we would in fact increase our expected value here.

Also, it would seem to make more sense doing it in best of 5 sets rather than best of 3s.

**EaglesPhan36** · 07-21-10, 03:58 PM

Mentioned it in my thread - spot this might work damn well in is taking the opponent in 1st set against last week's title winners playing in their 1st matches of a tournament.

**beefcake** · 07-21-10, 04:02 PM

Good stuff cindy,yeah thought about that for 5 setters.Maybe being more selective on those 3 set matches you would find a method to grind out a profit.Ive noticed on sites like tennisinsight they dont have records players on how many times they win/lose the first set as a dog or fav.if you could somehow get those numbers or crunch them in some way,you would have a mathamatical advantage over the books.
I know a few guys that just bet soccer first halfs and do better than the whole entire game,or NBA halfs or MLB 5 inning lines.Their has to be an advantage doing it in tennis for 1st sets,trick is how to do it or find it for that matter.

**beefcake** · 07-21-10, 04:04 PM

Originally posted by EaglesPhan36

Mentioned it in my thread - spot this might work damn well in is taking the opponent in 1st set against last week's title winners playing in their 1st matches of a tournament.

Ep,that would be easy to backtest and would not take that long to find out the record,you could do it by surface as well.

http://www.tennis-data.co.uk/..Im sure you know this site..

**CindyCryBaby** · 07-21-10, 04:05 PM

Yea the trick is to find out which underdogs are fast starters and which favorites are slow starters...I'm sure we could find out the first set record of a person and compare that to their overall record (and if there is a disparity between the two, then the value lies in whichever side the disparity is)

**beefcake** · 07-21-10, 04:06 PM

I seem to remember del potro after the Us open losing to Roger-vasselin with RV being a +2000 dog ,that would have made your profit margin for all of 2009 right there!

**beefcake** · 07-21-10, 04:10 PM

Originally posted by CindyCryBaby

Yea the trick is to find out which underdogs are fast starters and which favorites are slow starters...I'm sure we could find out the first set record of a person and compare that to their overall record (and if there is a disparity between the two, then the value lies in whichever side the disparity is)

Yes,I could be wrong but im sure the books dont take that into consideration when making the 1st set lines,they just reduce the line accordingly from the whole match line,and we well know that those are WAY off sometimes.

**jojo85** · 07-21-10, 06:08 PM

could be a nice strategy, you just need to do A LOT of backtesting to find your edge...