PREMATCH LAY TO IN-PLAY BACK
A prematch
lay to in-play back can be a great way of opposing short priced players. As the
name suggests, we lay a very short priced player pre-match, with a view to
backing them at a higher price later on during the match. Clearly at this
point, our view would be a subjective, or qualitative, assessment of the
player’s chances. I’m not particularly a fan of qualitative assessments, and
always look for quantitative solutions. Therefore, having built my effective
projected hold model primarily for in-play trading, one of the many advantages
of it, is that it can indicate which favourites are priced far too short for
the match.
It’s not uncommon for a big name to be priced below 1.20 pre-match,
and even well below 1.10. A lot of the time this is very justified – Rafael
Nadal on clay, for example, hardly ever loses to non-elite opponents. However
there are many occasions where it’s not so justified
– Andy Murray on clay, as we’ve discussed
already, is a prime example.
In the 2013
clay season, Murray played six matches. He was pre-match favourite in all those
six matches despite having atrocious clay stats for a player of his rank. In
five of the six matches, he started at a price below 1.50. The only
straightforward victory he had was against Edouard Roger-Vasselin (1.09 SP) and
in the four other matches his price increased a great deal – he lost the first
set against Stanislas Wawrinka, Gilles Simon and Marcel Granollers, all of whom
were ranked below the top 15 at the time. Against Florian Mayer, Murray won
both sets on a tiebreak, but having started at 1.13 SP, his price drifted until
he took the tiebreak.
If we had
laid-to-back Murray pre-match in the five matches he was priced below 1.45, we
would have made significant profit in four of the five matches, because his
opening price was far too low.
There are other
players that are over-rated, particularly on certain surfaces that they may not
be that comfortable on. The market tends to price a player on reputation fairly
often so these players can be way too short in the pre-match markets. This is
an area where it really pays to do your research and check a player’s recent
win-loss record on a surface, and also their serve and return statistics on
that surface. If a player has a very mediocre record on the surface, and the
serve and return statistics for both players are reasonably close (e.g. within
5% of each) then we can consider the short priced favourite as too short in the
betting.
Regarding the prices that I perform this trade, personally I will not
lay a player pre-match with a view to backing them later unless they are priced
below 1.40. Ideally they will even be much shorter, below 1.20, reducing our
potential liability further.
When we back the player later on in the set, if the trade is going in
our favour, is purely down to your own tolerance of risk. Personally if the
favourite goes a break down and therefore I have decent profit I will at least
clear my liability from laying the favourite.
Depending on how
bad the value was on the favourite pre-match I may leave all my profit on the
underdog for the set, or split it equally. If I don’t clear my pre-match
liability if the underdog goes a break up, obviously if the favourite goes on
and loses the set I lose some potential profit but I’ve taken less risk, which
is always important to me. There’s no shame in protecting your trading bank.
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