Yet another great sporting weekend is behind us and there was drama both on and off the pitch as we all know. Thankfully, you wont be hearing anything about handshakes on here as from a trading point of view there was plenty happening all over the place.

Penalty Shoot Out

One of the most notable moments of the weekend was the final of the African cup of nations. Ivory Coast went into this match @1.60 to win the match and @ 1.30 to win the tournament outright. They had actually been strong favourites to take the tournament from the outset and hadn’t even conceded a goal on the way to the final.

The match ended 0-0 and went to a penalty shoot out. Trading a penalty shoot out isn’t something that happens every day and its a strange but predictable market to trade. Just in case you were wondering, you would be trading the “Winners” market as there isnt normally actually a market for “penalty shoot out”.

Ivory Coast went into the shoot out as favourites @1.80 which is strange on its own since who really knows that they are better at penalties then zambia? Surely it should have actually been a 50-50 market with both teams priced at 2? Its not like there is a huge amount of historical data to go on when it comes to penalty shoot outs and the markets will always price the pre-match favourite as the favourite to win the shoot out also despite it often being described as being a “lottery” and something either side could win.

I went into the shoot out with a plan.

When Ivory Coast scored their penalty they hit 1.55, so my plan was to lay them knowing that if Zambia scored their penalty then the price on Ivory Coast would go right back to 1.80-1.90. If Zambia did miss then I would just exit the trade around the 1.20-1.30 mark and take the red. The main plus point about this trade being that I could rinse and repeat this as many times as Zambia would score penalties, yet I could only actually lose the trade once if I stuck to my plan.

In the end it happened about 7 times in a row till eventually Ivory Coast missed a penalty in sudden death and Zambia were now 1.20 to score the next kick and take the cup.

Having built up a bit of green on the earlier kicks it felt right to lay Zambia at this point. I didn’t really know who the player was that was taking the kick but I didn’t think that he would be converting this sort of pressure kick 80% of the time and he duly missed and I could green up as Zambia drifted back up to 2.

After seeing the Zambian goalkeeper take and score a penalty you were wondering if this shoot out was going to go on forever and I was secretly wishing  it would.

However, Ivory Coast’s Gervinho missed another penalty and Zambia had another chance to seal the win. They traded @ 1.20 once again and, once again, I was laying them with the chance of adding even more profits. This time it wasn’t to be and Zambia sealed the win and its always pleasing to see the underdogs get the win.

So trading penalty shoot outs can be quite profitable and its something to look out for as we head into the business end of the season as I am sure there will be one or two more to come!

West Brom

Another interesting observation from the weekend was the match between Wolves & West Brom.

I watched the first half of this and West Brom were dominant. They took the lead and if it wasn’t for an inspired display from the Wolves goalkeeper it could have been 3 or 4-0 by half time.

However, Wolves equalised on the stroke of half time with a piece of magic from Fletcher which was actually completely out of the blue. They hadn’t done much to deserve to be level at half time but West Brom’s price obviously drifted as a result of the goal. West Brom were then trading @ 3.25 to win the match going into the second half which was a price that stuck out like a sore thumb. West Brom were far superior to Wolves and anyone who was actually watching the match could work out that West Brom would just up their game and eventually regain the lead.

As it was, West Brom came out in the second half and managed to win the match 5-1 which was slightly eye brow raising but on the face of the performance was fully deserved.

The main reason I am highlighting this one as it just shows the power of actually watching a match in-play and the fact that its much easier to find value in-play.

If you were asked to pick a winner out of West Brom and Wolves before Kick off yesterday then you might have struggled to call it. However, after seeing West Brom outplay and outclass Wolves for 45 minutes your decision would have been much easier during the half time break. That is despite those annoying Bet365 adverts trying to pressure you into betting on “the next goalscorer @ 6/1″.

Sometimes, it really is as simple as going with the team that is playing better!

Anyway, I hope everyone reading this had a good weekend and we now have the return of the Champions League to look forward too. The business end of the season has truly arrived.