Mercedes Championships

Final Summary: Three wins from four in an event where it is difficult to find value as the prices will almost always be correct due to the field quality and quantity. Wouldn't have expected Flesch to be the loser after Day 1 but he went backwards tamely after his initial good start. Total Bets = 4, Profit = 4.17 Pts, Profit Per Bet = 1.04 Pts.

Pre Round Two Trades

Sell David Toms FP for 0.5 pts at 13.5 with Spreadex M/U 8.5, Profit 2.5 Pts
Toms shot 71 yesterday and is tied 19th. With so many "lesser" players in the bottom half of the leaderboard the price for Toms is a bit high. I wouldn't wish to take much lower though but it is value at 13.5.

Pre Round One Trades

Sell Steve Flesch FP for 0.5 pts at 17.5 with Spreadex, M/U 29, Loss 5.75 Pts
With a range of 31 places it is probably more likely we see some value bets in running than before it starts. Flesch has reportedly lengthened off the tee by 15 yards due to a new shaft in his driver. With this being a par 73 with only 3 par 3's he gets the chance to try it out in an event with very forgiving fairways. After Vijay won 9 events there are only 31 players playing this week and a roll call of those here shows that last year had a lot of surprising winners. We can go on very little current form for any players and course form for Flesch basically is a 15th last year. Now with some course experience lets hope he improves on that this year. Lastly though as always it is a play on price and Flesch is arguably worthy of a quote around 15 in this company.

Buy Ryan Palmer FP for 0.5 pts at 19.3 with Spreadfair M/U 26.5, Profit 3.42 Pts
Palmer is one of the new breed of players that the US are pinning their hopes on to challenge for major honours but this event may just be a step too soon. With a first at Disney and 2nd at the Southern Farms behind him he has shown he can handle life on tour. However, we have a lot of missed cuts (15) and no other Top 10s in his 2004 record. There are players quoted here in the 20's who maybe should be lower than Palmer.

Buy Todd Hamilton FP for 0.5 pts at 18.5 with IG Sport M/U 26.5, Profit 4 Pts
Comments comparing Hamilton to Ben Curtis after the Open were ill informed as Hamilton has won in other parts of the world including his own Tour last year. Still, his performances since Troon suggest his game is possibly more suited to the more thought provoking courses around the world rather than the hit it and rip it courses that usually populate an American players' year. His best result after Troon was a 6th in Ireland in the WGC. I would pitch him at 20 so the other two bets are better value possibly.

Season Preview.

After a fairly successful first year in 04' tipping spread plays publicly, i am hopeful of putting that experience to good use in this new year. Last year it became apparent that tipping up trades where the downside was huge in relation to the upside was not a good policy to take. It has always been value to sell a player on the indices rather than buy, sell a group of 4 on hotshots or go low on a special relating to a particular hole at a famous course. However, not all spread bettors are open to the risk that this entails.

Therefore, this season, rather than study all the available avenues open to spread betting on golf I am going to concentrate on Finishing Positions for a variety of reasons. That is not to say we will never advise any other type as the bookies may offer a price we know is completely wrong. However, on a week to week basis most if not all bets will be FP. Reasons: for one, the risk is greatly reduced compared to other markets, with the lowest result being 1, the biggest 50. The only other market with such low volatility is 72H betting but the downside to that bet is the spread of 1.5 strokes eats in to any potential profit that can be made. Also for a 72H bet to succeed you need not only your player to perform as you expect, whether good or bad, but the opposing player to perform the opposite way. In almost all cases, the player you have the most interest in will have a value FP quote anyway.

Last year I tended to put up suggestions before play and let the bets run, this year though we will be trading FP bets before every round if there is value. At the end of the week we should have placed a few bets on various players trading them at the point where their price is value in relation to where they are positioned at that time. By doing this, we should have many more winning weeks than losing and won't be open to the volatile swings we had last year on our profit/loss figures.

Staking will be constant throughout. We will stake a half point on every trade unless we take an opposite view on a player we are already interested in. We would then, and only then, bet 1 full point so in effect we are closing bet 1 and opening up a completely new bet with the other half point. Very rarely do spread companies make large errors in pricing so the target we can hope for over the 2005 season is about 1 to 1.5 pts profit on average per bet based on the half point stake. Anything above that is a bonus.

The only other difference this year to last is that we will incorporate Cantor Spreadfair as a firm to use as and when they are best priced. Like Betfair they charge a % commission and this will be allowed for in the P & L at the end of the week. We will also only advise them if they are sufficiently better priced than the regular firms which will allow for the commission deduction if successful. Feel free however to try and obtain the best price you can using their facility, that is what exchanges are all about.

This week sees the Mercedes Champs and with it being a 31 man field, the FP opportunities will be limited. We should though have a few bets over the week to get us started.