Tipster: Andy

FBR Open

Bet 1 - Buy Jay Haas over Scott McCarron 72H MB at 0.95 with Sporting Index "Matchmakers" for 1 pt. M/U 7, Profit 6.05pts

On current form Haas should be a stronger priced favourite, 3rd last week, McCarron was 56th. Generally McCarron's game has gone backwards in the last year or so. 11 missed cuts from 25 starts and only one Top 10, (Haas has only 5 missed cuts and 8 Top 10's). McCarron does have form here though, 11th last year and top 10's in the mid 90's but current form is worth more than course form and giving up a stroke is worth the risk.

Bet 2 - Buy Sergio Garcia FP at 29 with Spreadex for 0.5 pts. M/U 11, Profit -9pts

First outing of the year for the winner of the Nedbank in South Africa in December. At 26-29 with spreadex, sporting index and sportsspread he may be being priced on that effort and not his 2003 PGA scores. Having changed his swing which affected his game, he is trying this year to get back to where he was in the world rankings a couple of years ago. He certainly should be higher than 26-29 whilst trying to prove that. IG go 30-33 which is nearer a true reflection. Garcia was 61st here last year, 13th in 01' with a finishing 66 and missed the cut in 2000.

Bet 3 - Buy Robert Allenby FP at 30 with IG Sport for 0.5 pts. M/U 18, Profit -6pts

Advising Allenby here with the warning that as another firm go 31-34 there is a chance the price could shift very early. I will attempt to trade it at opening and will take the advice down if it has moved as that is only fair as it is not worth trading any higher. On to the reasoning, Allenby has been 49th and has a missed cut since finishing 2nd in 2000. Allenby is arguably worth opposing on this type of course, he only broke 270 twice last season and when finishing 2nd here in 00' it was the 2nd highest winning score since 1996. His 271 would have had him outside the Top 20 last year.

Post Round 1 Trades

Bet 4 - Buy Sergio Garcia FP at 37 with IG Sport for 0.5pts. M/U 11, Profit -13pts

Playing up another half point on Garcia. He is close to the cut line and with an afternoon tee time he could need a score in the 60s just to make the weekend. For all the reasons we suggested Garcia originally and for the place he is on the leaderboard and his late tee time suggests that 37 is a good buy whether you are on at the original price on not.

Post Round 2 Trades

Bet 5 - Buy Scott Verplank FP at 12 with IG Sport for 0.5pts. M/U 7.5, Profit -4.5pts

This is purely based on price. Verplank is up at the top of the putting stats for this week and if he stays up there this bet will fail. Still, with 36 holes to go, this price is short. a R2 70 yesterday following his blistering start sees him in 2nd place but its a tight field with only 9 strokes between Verplank and the cut line qualifiers.

Bet 6 - Buy Mike Weir over Ricky Barnes at 9 on their 18H MB with SportsSpread for 0.5pts. M/U 0, Profit -4.5pts

Siding with the better player as we get towards the business end of the event. Weir so far has been hitting the greens with regularity, as high as anyone in the field. His putting is getting better though after being poor last week. At the Hope he took 144 putts which was nearly last of those that made the cut. This week he has improved that stat and if he can keep improving should hopefully contend in the event. Barnes has hit just over 50% of fairways but has been bailed out with his putting. If he continues to stray the ball today and his putting doesn't rescue him, weir could win this by a few strokes.

Post Round 3 Trades

Bet 7 - Buy Vijay Singh over Ricky Barnes at 11 on their 18H MB with Cantor Sports for 0.5pts. M/U 28, Profit 8.5pts

A losing bet yesterday doesn't put me off opposing Barnes again. Bar the last 3 ball this is the most intriguing. Barnes is on a sponsor's exemption of which he can have a max. of 7 in a season. He would be eligible for next week's AT & T if he finishes in the Top 10 here. If he doesn't, reports are he will go off to Australia and play in their event this week. I assume the AT & T is the preferred option so he will be aware of the leaderboard positions throughout his round. Which way that affects him remains to be seen. With Singh, we have that old problem of supporting a player just coming off a very low score. Rarely do you see two rounds in a row really low but then in our favour is the fact we are backing the highest ranked player in the field and one who is on an unbelievable run of results. A very worthwhile bet at the price.

Bet 8 - Buy Phil Mickelson special bet at Sporting Index "Phil your Boots" at 136 for 0.5pts. M/U 115, Profit -10.5pts

This price is too low. This is possibly because of the firms' current financial position on this market but it gives us the opportunity to play at a value price. However, there is a fair amount of volatility involved and were he to go outside the top 10 we would lose a fair amount. Therefore we suggest you also do "Bet 9" as cover. Mickelson M/U at 185 if he wins, 50 is for winning, 25 for being Top 10 (and ties), and ten pts for every previous winner of 11 he beats (see list with the bet info at Sporting). By opposing him on Spreadex's Leaderboard, we are giving up part of the potential return if he wins, but lose far less if he has a nightmare R4. To our advantage doing this split bet, we are generally interested in him beating C Di'Marco and Singh as much as winning the event. A win gives us a profit of 13pts. We would also win if he finished between 3rd and 10th but still beat those two players (finishing 2nd to Kaye etc would provide a nominal loss). We do want him though inside the top 10 as the most we can win on the Leaderboard bet is finishing 6th or worse which pays the full 34pts, so anything above 10th is not in our interests.

Bet 9 - Sell Phil Mickelson On Spreadex Leaderboard Index at 34 for 0.25 pts. M/U 0, Profit 8.5pts

A cover bet for the above which pays 80 to the winner, 40 to 2nd, 30 to 3rd, 20 to 4th and 10 to 5th. Everyone else MU at 0. Any ties are scored pro-rata.

Summary

A loss on the week of 24.5pts which is really disappointing and cancels out the profits made in Thailand. Haas won as we had hoped by a good few strokes but all of our FP buys were failures. The Mickelson special just didn't pan out due to Singh overtaking him but of course that helped our 18H match bet.

An unacceptable loss for January but it is the hardest month to bet on due to the lack of current form to study. I had hoped to be well ahead on profits for the spreads by the end of February but it may take to March/April to do this but we will.

Tipster: Shaker

FBR Open

3rd round bet:

Sell Mike Weir/Jeff Sluman (Round 3) 0.5 pts at 4 @ Spreadex:

Taking on a player of Weir's stature isn't often clever but I feel the price is generous enough.
I think putting will win the day this week and there are few putting better than Sluman at present. He was tied 1st for total putts last week and has carried that form on the greens to Scottsdale, which has similar Bermuda grass. With him being a reliable old thing when challenging going into the weekend I think he can outscore Weir today who has really struggled with his putter recently. He didn't perform well with it yesterday and was so disenchanted with it last week he dumped it in favour of an iron at one stage!
Sluman was above Weir for 3rd round scoring in the 2003 stats, he outscored him last week and he is beating him by one this week. I think he's very likely to play well today and getting this margin of start is narrowly the preference for me rather than the other option of giving up a 6pt start against his other playing partner Ricky Barnes.
MU = 19 ... 7.5 pts loss.
Just three of the current top 39 failed to break par today - Sluman was one, and that after being 2 under through 3 holes. An extremely disappointing performance to not at least equal Weir's only-average score of 68.

1st 4th round bet:

Buy Phil Mickelson/Chris DiMarco (Round 4) 0.5 pts at 5 @ SportsSpread:

Just opposing DiMarco in the 4th round really, nothing too scientific about that. I feel Mickelson will have a good day and he'll be oh so keen to secure back-to-back wins for the first time in his career. I think the winner will be someone who is aggressive today and that is Mickelson all over. DiMarco regularly falters when the heat is turned up and I feel confident he won't win tonight. He admits he was rusty last week (his wife gave birth just 3 weeks ago) and I'm not sure he can repeat yesterday's fine round with all things considered - he is a very unlikely winner in my eyes. Possibly we could lay him outright but being more aggressive ourselves we'll go for the more volatile bet.
MU = -19 ... 12 pts loss.

There is a chance he could start well before wilting and it would be a shame to miss out if he did, so we'll put up the following speculative lay of him on Betfair:

2nd 4th round bet:

Lay DiMarco 5pts at 2.2 @ Betfair:

This is a bet to put up before the start of play in case he gets to this price during the round. Will be leaving this bet up for the duration of the 4th round, just waiting to catch him should he ever trade this low.
Result ... 5 pts profit.

Summary (Weekly total = 14.5 pts loss):

Mickelson went in freefall after his chance went and DiMarco's incredible run of six consecutive birdies after the turn sealed our fate before he predictably fell back come the real pressure. A lesson learned in that supporting volatile players on the spreads rarely pays dividends. I just felt that Mickelson had turned the corner. Well played to Kaye though - he showed his supposedly superior playing partners how to play the right way and how to win.