Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew
The Road to Riches Weekend of 29th Feb - 1st March
Coming up this weekend
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Everton v Manchester United
- Racing, over the jumps at Doncaster, Kelso and Newbury and all-weather racing at Lingfield and Southwell
- Golf, On the USPGA The Honda Classic and on the European Tour the Honda Open
- Tennis, ATP Opens in Brazil, Chile and Dubai
Cheltenham Festival (10th-13th March)
If you had bet £10 a point on all racing since we launched the website 7 years ago you would be winning £12,871. Join us for four days of write ups and bets by Neil Channing for £199 here
Free tip
Fa Cup 5th Round Tuesday 3rd March
This year the fifth round of the FA Cup moves to a midweek, and with no replays.
The West Brom v Newcastle tie throws up an opportunity. West Brom are very marginal favourites at home here. Under Bilic West Brom are top of the Championship, have lost only 4 times in 35 league games and have scored 64 times in 35 games. A well organised side with some real quality they probably should be favourites against this Newcastle side. Newcastle needed a replay and extra time to get past Oxford in the last round, a piece of individual brilliance from Saint-Maximin took them through.
We all know the issues around the club, now 14th in the Premier League. They have only scored 24 goals in 27 games, with Joelinton not suiting the position he is played in as a lone striker through the middle.
The game is sandwiched between a home game against Burnley and a trip to Southampton, and I would expect rotation here with league points very much the priority. West Brom meanwhile are nine points clear of Fulham in third in the Championship with eleven games to go. A deep run in the Cup moves forward on the agenda with their league position so healthy.
10 points West Brom to beat Newcastle 17/10 Sportingbet, 13/8 BetfairSportsbook, 8/5 Betfred, Ladbrokes/Coral
F1 in 2020
The 2021 season will see the next major shake-up of F1’s regulations which often means in such seasons that a driver from the team that gets on top of the new regulations quickest will come out on top that season. In 2020 it was previously considered that with the cars likely to be subtle evolutions of their 2019 predecessors we should have anticipated a real driver-focused battle for the championship as a new generation of star drivers and veterans in Hamilton and Vettel with ten combined championships are in the leading three teams.
As it stands the Mercedes technological evolution of a DAS (Dual-Axis Steering) system which allows a driver to change the ‘toe angle’ of the front wheels into corners and on the straights by pushing and pulling on the steering wheel, rather than just moving it sideways is being viewed as a potential game-changer for this season. How quickly rivals might be able to copy it and whether they might protest after the opening race remain lively topics of conversation.
All three of Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull showed in the latter half of 2019 that they could win races, with five out of the six drivers from those teams taking victories in that period. With the prospect of another in-team Ferrari battle between LeClerc and Vettel likely in a car that was excellent but erratic last season and Verstappen becoming a consistent winner there is at least a realistic prospect of a two or more driver battle for the drivers’ championship, forcing a title decider at the finale in Abu Dhabi for the first time since 2016.
By mid-season 2020 driver market could be very entertaining. Sebastian Vettel’s contract is up at the end of the season at Ferrari. So too is Max Verstappen’s at Red Bull, as well as both Hamilton’s and Bottas’ at Mercedes. In fact, the futures of just three drivers – Esteban Ocon, Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez – are set in stone beyond the end of 2020. The arrival of the 2021 regulations, then, could bring some potentially fascinating driver changes with them as well, as well as furthering existing rumours of Mercedes’ future in the sport.
Below the top tier of drivers it will be a season in which the likes of George Russell, Lando Norris and Alex Albon develop further. Norris and Albon should find themselves on podiums through the season.
Meanwhile the season sees a first time visit to Vietnam and a return to the Dutch coastal track of Zandvoort whilst already the China GP has been postponed due to the coronavirus.
Part sport, part soap-opera, 2020 sets up to be a controversial season.
StattoBets Dave Joins Betting Emporium
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English, Scottish and Euro Football
Plus Australian Open Tennis starts 20th January 2020
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Bookmaker reviews and advice
Getting the best price available is very important for all those who take their betting seriously.
Please open an account with all those bookmakers on the page on this link that you do not already have an account with using the links provided.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £45,361 All bets have an ROI +2.78%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £49,361 a 1134% increase
The Road to Riches Weekend of 22nd-23rd February
Coming up this weekend
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Chelsea v Tottenham
- Racing, over the jumps at Chepstow, Kempton and Newcastle and all-weather racing at Chelmsford and Lingfield
- Rugby Union, the third weekend of the Six Nations
- Golf, The WGC-Mexico Championship
- Tennis, ATP Opens in Brazil, Chile and Dubai
Cheltenham Festival (10th-13th March)
If you had bet £10 a point on all racing since we launched the website 7 years ago you would be winning £12,871. Join us for four days of write ups and bets by Neil Channing for £199 here
Free tip
The Democratic Presidential Nomination by Neil Channing
I'm having 44 Points WIN Bernie Sanders to get the Democratic Nomination at Evens with a couple of firms but mainly on the Betfair exchange where there is currently over £30,000 waiting for us.
Comeback
Through three quarters of the Superbowl the Chiefs had been outgained in yards 292–206 by the 49ers. After each team had a series in the fourth quarter, and Kansas City took over at its own 17 with 8:53 left, that count was 314–237.
San Franciso’s vaunted rookie pass rusher Nick Bosa was leading a defensive line that was get ing the better of the Chiefs. Jimmy Garoppolo had outplayed Patrick Mahomes. Up 20–10, the Niners were in great shape.
After a review overturned a Tyreek Hill catch on a second down with 7:13 left, the Chiefs found themselves in third-and-15 the critical play of the game. The Chiefs repeated an unsuccessful play from the second quarter. This time Hill caught the pass for 44 yards and a first down, the start of three offensive series during which the Chiefs gained 175 yards and three touchdowns to turn a 20-10 deficit into a 31-20 win
The Chiefs overcame at least 10-point deficits in all three of their playoff games to win by at least 10 points. That's the benefit of having a nuclear weapon at quarterback. This season alone Mahomes was 5-0 when trailing by double digits. In his Hall of fame career to make a comparison Kurt Warner was 2-44 when his team trailed by double digits.
It looks like we have seen the development of the next long term league superstar in Patrick Mahomes’ first two years in the league.
StattoBets Dave Joins Betting Emporium
Stattobets write ups and bets will be available to monthly subscribers.
English, Scottish and Euro Football
Monthly subs are £50 pcm and can be cancelled at any time. You can sign up here.
Bookmaker reviews and advice
Getting the best price available is very important for all those who take their betting seriously.
Please open an account with all those bookmakers on the page on this link that you do not already have an account with using the links provided.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £45,361 All bets have an ROI +2.78%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £49,361 a 1134% increase
The Road to Riches Weekend of 15th-16th February
Coming up this weekend
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Chelsea v Manchester United on Monday Night Football
- Racing, over the jumps at Ascot, Haydock and Wincanton and all-weather racing at Lingfield and Newcastle
- Golf, on the USPGA the Genesis Invitational tournament
- Tennis, ATP Opens in Buenos Aires, New York and Rottterdam
- Cricket, the final T20 International between South Africa and England in Centurion
Cheltenham Festival (10th-13th March)
If you had bet £10 a point on all racing since we launched the website 7 years ago you would be winning £12,871. Join us for four days of write ups and bets by Neil Channing for £199 here
Free tip
South Africa v England 3rd T20 Centurion 12.30pm Sunday
After winning the 50-over World Cup last July, England will look to become the first men's side to hold both global limited-overs trophies simultaneously at the T20 World Cup in Australia in October and November.
England’s tour of South Africa concludes on Sunday with the third and final T20 at Centurion. England lost the T20 in unfortunate circumstances by 1 run, losing 4 wickets for five runs at the end of the match when they looked set to win. I am writing ahead of the second T20 on Friday in Durban.
England’s problem in East London in the first game was really one of balance. With Buttler moved to open, breaking up the Roy-Bairstow opening partnership, the side was left short of finishers lower down the order with only Stokes batting at six an effective option in an era where sides tend to look for fast starts and pack their batting order with big hitters down the order.
My interest here is once again looking at Temba Bavuma, who opened the batting for South Africa in the first game alongside Quinton De Kock and top scored with 43 off 27 balls. The angle here is basically a value one. For the second T20i De Kock is favourite in the Top South Africa batsman market at sub 2-1, which is reasonable enough for their most effective batsman in the format in a line up not full of depth. Bavuma can be backed at 100/30.
Beyond those two the South African batting order features Van Der Dussen at 3, Miller at 4, Smuts at 5 and then a series of all-rounders. Van Der Dussen has played nine T20 internationals, two scores above fifty, Smuts has also played nine, top score 45 and Miller is a veteran of 73 T20 internationals usually batting 5 or 6 and has two scores over 50.
Bavuma himself is an inexperienced T20 international cricketer, this will be his fifth match but even if you look at De Kock’s record in the format, its clear that he doesn’t have an insurmountable task to top score. De Kock averages 30 in 39 internationals with only 5 scores about 50.
Let’s try Bavuma again
10 points Temba Bavuma Top South African batsman 3rd T20I Sunday at centurion at 4/1 with Betfred (3/1 elsewhere which is the price you'd expect to see)
Go for it
In the 2019 NFL regular season teams went for it on fourth down-and-2 35% of the time and 53% of the time on fourth-and-1. In 2018, teams went for it on 24% of their fourth-and-2s during the same span. Fifteen years ago teams went for it on fourth-and-2 only 16 % of the time and from that pont on, due to a national discussion that took place after some high profile decisions by big name coaches in big names, many teams started to consult on decision-making analytics.
One metric called “win probability forfeited,” shows how often teams cost themselves an edge in the game by needlessly punting. NFL teams are forfeiting about half of what they did a decade ago, The league has changed dramatically and there’s still more room to go. In short, fourth down is increasingly an offensive down.
These days the New York Times runs a feature called “Fourth down bot” utilising analytical models and it offers some interesting rule of thumbs for fourth down. These include:
On fourth-and-1, go for it anywhere on the field from your own 9 yard line or better.
On fourth-and-2, go for it everywhere beyond your 28-yard line.
On fourth-and-3, go for it almost everywhere beyond your 40.
This, of course, is far too aggressive for NFL coaches who often cannot countenance handing their opponent’s offense such a short field would mean guaranteed points in many cases.
The use of 4th down in the NFL took a leap forward because of the Philadelphia Eagles under Pederson in the superbowl winning season including the “Philly Special” itself in the superbowl . In that 20176 season the Eagles broke the NFL record for fourth-down attempts in a season Multiple teams now have an analyst advising coaches when to go for it on fourth down or for two-point conversions.
In 2019 Jim Harbaugh and the Baltimore Ravens took it to the next level with offensive players on over 75% of their 4th downs, advised in game by an analytics team into the ear of the coach of the sideline.
Purely by the numbers most NFL teams are still too conservative, that said next season the upwards trend of going for it, less punting and greater reliance on ever more sophisticated data and modelling is likely to continue
StattoBets Dave Joins Betting Emporium
Stattobets write ups and bets will be available to monthly subscribers.
English, Scottish and Euro Football
Plus Australian Open Tennis starts 20th January 2020
Monthly subs are £50 pcm and can be cancelled at any time. You can sign up here.
Bookmaker reviews and advice
Getting the best price available is very important for all those who take their betting seriously.
Please open an account with all those bookmakers on the page on this link that you do not already have an account with using the links provided.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £45,361 All bets have an ROI +2.78%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £49,361 a 1134% increase
The Road to Riches Weekend of 7th-8th February
Coming up this weekend
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Manchester United v Manchester City
- Racing, over the jumps at Newbury, Utoxeter and Warwick and all-weather racing at Lingfield and Wolverhampton
- Rugby Union, the second round of the Six Nations
- Golf, the Vic Open in Australia on the European Tour and on the USPGA the Pebble Beach Pro-Am
- Tennis, ATP Opens in Cordoba, Montpellier and Maharastra
- Cricket, the final ODI between South Africa and England in Johannesburg
Six Nations (1st Feb-14th March)
The full package, outrights, specials and all the match write ups with details of all the bets that we have is £50 here
Cheltenham Festival (10th-13th March)
If you had bet £10 a point on all racing since we launched the website 7 years ago you would be winning £12,871. Join us for four days of write ups and bets by Neil Channing for £199 here
Free tip
3rd and Final ODI South Africa v England Johannesburg 8am Sunday
England were quite flat in the first ODI of the series in Cape Town, with the top order failing to contribute meaningfully on a slow pitch and it was left to Denly and the lower order to get the total to over 250. England’s second-string attack (only Woakes from the World cup team, Archer, Wood and Stokes rested from this squad) were then both unthreatening and wayward and South Africa chased the total down easily thanks to DeKock and Bavuma.
England batted Banton at 6, which is not where he will end up, but nevertheless renders top batsman opportunities more unlikely and he is in the region of 10-1 here.
I am writing before the conclusion of Friday’s abandoned second ODI in Durban. In the Top South African batsman market Quinton De Kock, opening the batting and an experienced ODI player is understandably favourite. He averages 45 in 116 ODI innings with 15 hundreds and 24 fifties but at 2/1 there isn’t much to go for.
Temba Bavuma batting at 3 is a more interesting price. He scored 98 in the first match and is available at just under 4/1. He has only played 3 ODIs (40 test matches), Cape Town was his first ODI since 2017 and comes just after his re-introduction to the Test team. A talented back foot player in an inexperienced team without a lot of batting depth, he is an interesting value alternative to DeKock here
10 pointsTemba Bavuma Top South Africa Batsman 3rd ODI at 9/2 with William Hill, more firms to follow before Sunday
Down.
Saracens’ relegation is the most remarkable scandal the domestic game has ever seen. As it emerged that the club was once more in breach of the salary cap this season after Nigel Wray stepped down as Chairman the new board was faced with the choice of opening up the books to a forensic audit or accepting relegation. They took relegation after deliberate circumvention of the rules over a significant period of time. In effect this is for two years as Championship rules say that clubs cannot be promoted if not compliant for two years at the time of relegation.
The players are in an unfortunate situation now, some fringe players will leave in the short term, others will leave on loan and the core of the squad will face two seasons in the Championship. Off-loading some of the bigger salaried players will not be easy. Other Premiership sides operate up to the salary cap, French clubs also have salary cap restrictions, many Pro14 sides are not well off and operating overseas would as it stands mean players would not be eligible to play for England. Finally there are implications for the British Lions tour to South Africa next summer in which a number of the Saracens players would expect to be selected for the tour
Every scenario here is bad but of course something had to be done. The bigger picture is that Professional rugby union continues to be torn between the need to grow audiences and revenues but with no proven strategy to do so and many club owners taking punts within a game without the governance to be effective
Notwithstanding Saracens strategy, the governing body has given the impression of making things up as it goes along. Only last week there were two new additions to the salary cap regulations: Any club who has breached cap/suspected of breaching the cap can be subjected to a mid-season audit and secondly Failure to comply may result in a 70 point deduction. This is what has happened to Saracens in addition to the original punishments.
StattoBets Dave Joins Betting Emporium
From this month Stattobets write ups and bets will be available to monthly subscribers.
English, Scottish and Euro Football
Plus Australian Open Tennis starts 20th January 2020
Monthly subs are £50 pcm and can be cancelled at any time. You can sign up here.
Bookmaker reviews and advice
Getting the best price available is very important for all those who take their betting seriously.
Please open an account with all those bookmakers on the page on this link that you do not already have an account with using the links provided.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £45,361 All bets have an ROI +2.78%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £49,361 a 1134% increase
The Road to Riches Weekend of 1st-2nd February
Coming up this weekend
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Tottenham v Manchester City
- Racing, over the jumps at Musselburgh, Sandown and Wetherby and all-weather racing at Kempton and Lingfield
- Rugby Union, the start of the Six Nations
- Golf, the Saudi International and on the USPGA, The Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale
- Tennis, the conclusion of the Australian Open in Melbourne
- Cricket, the three match ODI series between South Africa and England begins in Cape Town on Tuesday
NFL The Super Bowl
The Super Bowl on Sunday in Miami, write ups including all of Neil Channing's prop bets costs £25 available here
Six Nations (1st Feb-14th March)
The full package, outrights, specials and all the match write ups with details of all the bets that we have is £50 here
Free tip
South Africa v England ODI Series
1st Match is in Cape Town on Tuesday
England’s tour of South Africa concludes with a three match ODI series then T20 matches after England convincingly won the Tests 3-1.
The England squad for the ODIs is selected with an eye on the T20 World Cup in Australia later this year with the likes of Stokes, Archer, Wood and Bairstow rested for the longer games ahead of a busy schedule through the year
The England ODI Squad does contain the core of the World Cup winning squad supplemented by younger players and they meet a very inexperienced South Africa squad led by new captain Quinton De Kock.
One of the newer England players is someone who has featured in this column before, Tom Banton, who at the age of 21 made his England debut in the New Zealand T20 series. Banton is a real talent, a very clean striking hitter with a great temperament. Currently ideally suited for the shorter formats of the game and his T20 skills should transfer to ODIs where the use of two white balls, fielding restrictions and often pitches set up for high scoring encounters often allow for the top of batting orders to go well.
Banton most recently player for Brisbane Heat in the Big Bash League and confirmed his burgeoning reputation with 226 runs in 7 games with 18 sixes at a strke rate of 176 including scores of 55,56 and 64. He’ll have another opportunity to impress having been picked up in the 2020 IPL auction by KKR.
He is absolutely a player to follow in the early stages of his international career. In terms of bets across a series that remains a stretch as consistency can be an issue at this stage. For the first ODI though I am looking at him for top batsman and embracing the single game variance
10 points Tom Banton Top England batsman 1st ODI v South Africa 4/1 generally
Four or Five days?
From the introduction of the ICC World Test Championship, to day-night Test cricket with the pink ball, to players’ names written on the back of their whites, there has been a concerted effort to revitalise the longest format of the game in recent years.
The latest addition in the International Cricket Council’s efforts to sustain Test matches could be the introduction of four-day Tests. The ICC could make four-day Tests mandatory from 2023 as part of the World Test Championship, primarily to free up the crowded calendar.
This idea has left the cricketing world divided. While there are plenty of former and current players who have raised concerns about tinkering with the format, there are also those who believe it is the right time for Test cricket to embrace the change and evolve with time. Over 60% of Tests since 2018 have not needed the fifth day.
There is no denying that there are advantages to having four-day Tests. With the number of draws reducing and the majority of matches ending inside four days, it makes sense business-wise to not have a fifth day allocated. Playing 100 overs in a day for four days (two of which could be in the weekend) could prove to be just the kind of reinvention Test cricket, which often struggles for audiences, needs at the moment.
However, the purists are of the opinion that Test cricket is just fine as it is. As was visible in the South Africa-England match in Cape Town, Test cricket can always provide fascinating fifth-day finishes. Also, the pitch gets worn out by the fifth day and becomes much more condusive for spin. In this regard, it could be argued that reducing the match to four days is unfair to spinners.
It may be that a flexible system is implemented, or trialled, where minor series are played as four day matches (say for example a match like the one off test between England and Ireland at Lords last year) and the big marquee Test series and the Test championship matches stay five days.
For four day matches you will get many more draws especially where weather is a factor. Wickets are a lot flatter than they have been in the past, so it currently allows (or should allow ) teams to bat longer and to put pressure on sides.
StattoBets Dave Joins Betting Emporium
From this month Stattobets write ups and bets will be available to monthly subscribers.
English, Scottish and Euro Football
Plus Australian Open Tennis starts 20th January 2020
Monthly subs are £50 pcm and can be cancelled at any time. You can sign up here.
Bookmaker reviews and advice
Getting the best price available is very important for all those who take their betting seriously.
Please open an account with all those bookmakers on the page on this link that you do not already have an account with using the links provided.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £45,361 All bets have an ROI +2.78%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £49,361 a 1134% increase
