An apology...

Eddie over at A Football Trader's Path took me to task over what he calls a 'throwaway statement' - his concerns being summed up thus:

Hmm, is that last part really true, I said to myself. Do more games that are 3-0 at half-time end-up with the winning team still on three goals? Well, this immediately stuck in my brain, and I just had to check out the veracity, or otherwise, of this casually lobbed-in sentence. 

Of course he then proceeds to do what I obviously hadn't done, i.e. a little bit of digging into the stats. He only looked at the Premier League but it is apparent that my statement was a little..... debateable at best! He makes reference deeper into his post about this being more of a 'hunch' on my part rather than an established fact. He's right in the sense that I hadn't taken the trouble to research the figures as he had, but the statement was made in the light of my using this little method of laying Any Unquoted when a team is three goals up for the past two seasons and being ahead despite the odd loss.

I'm not about to go digging into the stats in other leagues, people so motivated can do that for themselves, but I feel an apology is due.

I should not have written what I wrote presented as a fact without backing it up, whether or no I supplied the 'evidence' in the post. Had I phrased it slightly differently I could have got my point across without implying that the trade  I was suggesting was almost a sure fire winner. In my comment on Eddie's post I did qualify my approach to that particular trade.

Hopefully anyone reading the post and thinking of putting any of it into practice would be intelligent enough to assess the situation for themselves, including any research they deem necessary.

The post that Eddie took me to task over stemmed from a discussion about morality in trading. And whilst I have no qualms about winning money from other Betfair players (whatever their state of mind!) I would hate to think that someone lost a tidy sum from entering a trade s/he'd read about on here based on an unsubstantiated statement. So, going forward, I'll endeavour to be a little less lackadaisical is my approach to writing about the motivation behind certain trades that I do.

The key points about deciding to enter any trade, to me, are those I mentioned before...

1) Is it a valid trade?
2) Can I afford the loss if it goes wrong?
3) Can I live with the result?

This is true whether the trade under consideration is one of your own making, from a 'system' you are following or from an idea gleaned from some lunatic you don't know personally writing on the interweb!

P.S. No sooner had I published this post (written in part yesterday evening before heading out to a party!) that I noticed that Eddie has posted again on this subject. As usual, his points are well worth reading!