Tipster: Andy

Algarve Open de Portugal
 

Round One Trades

Sell Jarmo Sandelin over Anthony Wall 18H MB at 2 with Sporting Index for 0.75 pts. (M/U 37, Profit     -26.25 pts)

Arguable favourites for our two R1 trades. Sandelin has played seven times this year, with his best finish 34th. Wall, meanwhile, has had 8 events, with his best 23rd. Their recent scoring record, long term, average FP, Top 10 % record, virtually every stat you wish to examine sees Wall post slightly better scores than Jarmo, certainly enough to warrant favouritism here.

Sell Joakim Haeggman over Paul McGinley 18H MB at 3 with IG Sport for 0.75 pts. (M/U 16, Profit  -9.75pts)

Haeggman is getting tipped up in various quarters as the winner this week so the spread firms have taken evasive action. McGinley should be a clear favourite here on all stats and past record but is not. A 3rd against Haeggman's 11th the last time we were here suggest course form is also in his favour. Where it falls down is on current form as Haeggman has been on a fair run recently. However, all the other stats point to McGinley being a slight favourite.

Round Two Trades

After a disappointing day yesterday i suggest an attempt to get our heaviest loss back.

Sell Jarmo Sandelin over Anthony Wall 18H MB at 4 with Sporting Index for 0.75 pts. (M/U -16, Profit 15 pts)

I am a great believer that all the info that suggested a play in R1 should not greatly affect your confidence in making the same bet a day later no matter what happened in the first round. We have two extra points to allow for the form of both men Thursday and its worth chancing that Wall makes a better fist of it Friday.

Sell Peter Lawrie over Soren Kjeldsen 18H MB at 4 with Sporting Index for 0.75 pts. (M/U 0, Profit 3 pts)

Lawrie is R1 leader but is priced too high at 4-7 against a player who has better long term form. Tomorrow its one player who has to aim for the pins to ensure survival against a player who will want to position himself handily for the weekend. Lets take a chance on the aggressive one. Sell at 4.

Summary - Loss on the week 18 pts.

Over two tours this week we have probably tipped more winners than losers (certainly we have at the time of writing this before planning R4 trades in Georgia). But, unless the R4 trades make a large profit it will be a losing week purely because we have come up with a few large losing trades whereby the winning profits were smaller. That is "spread betting" though and you have to accept that in the long term these things even out.

Two wins out of four here but an 18pt loss mainly due to a big result in the first of the two Sandelin/Wall matches.

Tipster: Shaker

Algarve Open de Portugal

Sell Patrik Sjoland/Peter Lawrie 72H MB at -0.75 with IG Sport for 0.5 pts
Sjoland is far from the player he was and the 2003 Rookie of the Year Lawrie is looking a far more reliable proposition these days. He has made 7 from 8 cuts this year and his 9th in the high-class Dubai event has to rate even better than Sjoland's recent 5th in Singapore which could be misleading as only a Sunday score which was far better than the field average took him that high; Lawrie was in front of him all week until then and I wouldn't trust one good round from off the pace. That was only Sjoland's 4th top ten since the start of the 2002 season and history suggests he's far from certain to back it up with another good finish anyway; his finishes after each of those top tens were MC, MC & 52nd. Lawrie finished above Sjoland in the 2003 Money List and looks to be progressing well in his second season on tour whereas Sjoland didn't make the weekend in a third of his events last year and started this one MC, 82nd before that good finish.
Result:
Sjoland -9, Lawrie -10: MU -1, Profit 0.13 pts
Sjoland played surprisingly well to keep tabs on Lawrie who was the first round leader and didn't do too badly at all. Had hoped all week for a decent profit on this one so not happy with the result.