CapperTek Review.

2 Replies

You’re the owner of CapperTek, the self proclaimed “largest and most trustworthy sports handicapping service directory on the web”. Someone reports a pick that’s not actually allowed and another that’s at best, dubious. What do you do? DELETE THE PERSON WHO REPORTED THE PICKS, OBVIOUSLY!

That’s what happened to me… I reported a couple of picks to CapperTek admin, one was placed at odds I don’t believe ever existed (online at least), the other was a parlay that you aren’t allowed to do because the bets are interlinked. I tried explaining this to CapperTek but was ignored and fobbed off and told they were accepting the pick. I pressed the matter, said I was not happy for them to accept the pick and that if (at the very least) the fake parlay wasn’t voided, I would make the rest of the MMA handicapper community aware of what was going on because it’s not fair to those of us who work hard to put in legitimate picks. When I woke up the next day, my two CapperTek accounts (one for my personal tips and one for the wisdom of crowds tips), were both gone.

I was delighted when I found CapperTek because the concept is fatanstic. Everyone tracks their picks, nobody can make shit up (or so I thought) and the best tipsters will rightfully be promoted as such (or so I thought). When I started writing this blog, I thought I was just deleted because the owner didn’t like having his authority questioned but the more digging you do on CapperTek and the more the situation has unfolded, the more murky it becomes.

Had the shady picks been voided, I would have gone on with my life, quite happy and none the wiser. However, when I got deleted, I decided to go digging.

This blog will detail the investigative process. We’ll start by looking at the picks I reported and end with video proof of accounts on CapperTek removing losing picks from their MMA record to inflate profits.

Analysing the bets

So, the bets in question, which I was deleted for reporting, made by Betlock.cappertek.com

To view betlock’s picks before an event, you need to pay $5. So these picks were only visible to me after the event. ALL “winning” picks were for the maximum allowed 11 units.

Betlock picks
Or a link here to a copy of the page, which I made in case CapperTek try and hide it.

+110 for Cormier I didn’t report this pick. Whether you think this bet is a problem or not depends on your stance on updating odds. Odds were around -110 or -105 on Cormier at the time pick was first made yet the odds were updated to +110. That’s a 15.5 to 21% increase in ROI %. It’s a discussion I would genuinely like to have another day but I don’t want to get off topic. Personally I think it’s OK as long as you update ALL your picks to the latest odds, not pick and choose which odds you want to update, so your unit profit / loss is displaying a snapshot in time. Anyway, back to the proper shadiness.

-110 for over 2.5 rounds is a problem for a couple of reasons. The line opened at -117 and went out to an average of -162, with an absolute best odds of -145 when the lines closed. I’ve annotated the graph with the approx odds at certain stages.
CapperTek Graph
Graph is from here.

The graph displays average odds. However, when lines open in MMA it’s basically 5 Dimes/SportBet (same company) that does all the prop stuff ahead of everyone else. The other bookmakers come in several days later. So you can state with a high degree of certainty that the odds were never better than -117 online, at least at any of the bookmakers displayed on best fight odds. Check out any of the future events on best fight odds to see that prop process in action.

BetLock’s pick states “CRIS 24101 A. Johnson @ 24102 D. Cormier 05/23/15 09:05pm Totals 05/17/15 06:45:32am”.

If I’m reading that right, they’re saying -110 was available OFFLINE in Vegas on the 17th May, yet was logged ONLINE on the 22nd May, when the odds had changed massively. Anyone paying to tail those bets ($5 daily pass) would be getting SIGNIFICANTLY worse odds than the unit profit suggested.

As we’ve already noted, they must have updated fight odds just before the fight, to get the best odds possible on Cormier. The best odds on over 2.5 rounds at that time was -145. The difference between -145 and -110, is a very significant 31.8% increase in ROI.

Betlock have a HUGE unit profit of (at the time of writing) 1162.55 units. However, they have a very marginal ROI of 3.04% over the last year (over a massive 5825 bets). At very best, offering odds not available online is extremely misleading to anyone buying tips from what is, an online service. Claiming a massively inflated unit profit on a bet, based on a line that hasn’t been available on or offline for nearly a week is totally and utterly against the CapperTek terms of service.

Now, they’re not always going to get away with putting on massively inflated (31.8%) odds, so let’s just have a look what happens if they’d inflated their odds, on average, 10% AKA the difference between -110 and -121, between +200 and +220 or -400 and -440… Stuff that doesn’t really get noticed.

For Betlock, that would be the difference between +1162 units profit and -2419 units loss. A difference of 3582 units.

Again though, this is small potatoes compared to the main problem.

Parlaying the two together. You aren’t allowed to parlay those two bets together. Anywhere. Go to any bookmakers now, online or in the real world and ask to parlay the winner of a fight (at the standard win odds), with that fight going over 2.5 rounds. You won’t get it because it’s essentially parlaying the same value twice, as both parts of it are interlinked.

You can't parlay this stuff!

Betting on Cormier at +110 ALREADY INCLUDES a percentage of the value for over 2.5 rounds, within that +110. Likewise, over 2.5 rounds includes a % of that Cormier overall win value. This is the case for every fight. It’s more pronounced in this fight than most, because if the fight went over 2.5 rounds, chances are, Cormier would win. So of the -110 or -145 or whatever odds you got on “fight goes over 2.5 rounds”, the majority of that odds calculation is based on Cormier winning late on or by decision, not on Johnson winning late on or by decision.

When you think of it in terms “odds” it’s a bit abstract and possibly a little harder to understand. When you realise that odds are essentially just a conversion of the probability of something happening, it becomes a lot easier to understand. We’ll do that in a minute.

Just a quick general point first… To make a parlay, you OBVIOUSLY have to get both parts of the parlay from the same bookmaker at the same time. +110 on Cormier was only available right before the fight. -110 on over 2.5 rounds, if it ever was available at all, was only available when the lines very first opened.

From betlock’s own pick notes, you can see the two bets were nearly a week apart and using different lines (LVH and CRIS respectively).

The response from CapperTek to a detailed message explaining all this? “We are allowing the pick.”

Online, the best parlay odds you could get around the time of the fight, when they last updated their odds to get Cormier at +110 as an individual pick (with the bookies listed on best fight odds), was +105 Cormier and -145 on over 2.5 rounds, with SBG Global.

If you were actually allowed to parlay the two things together, the difference between those two sets of odds is +246 and +301, AKA 22.13% extra ROI.

 

SO, back to working out the proper probability of this happening and consequently the approximate odds.

There are 13 possible outcomes in an MMA title fight, in terms of time / winner.
Fighter A wins in R1,R2,R3,R4,R5 or by decision, then the same for Fighter B and the final option being a draw/NC. The following image shows the best odds you could get online for those outcomes, when the lines closed. You could get as good as +108 on Cormier but not from a bookies that breaks down odds by round, so this is the closest match we have to illustrate the logic.

Cormier vs Johnson odds by round

If you want to work out any probabilities yourself, this is a good site.

In terms of parlaying Cormier SU and over 2.5 rounds, you are giving yourself +301 (a 24.9% chance of happening) for Cormier winning either by decision or in round 5 or round 4 or in round 3 after the half way mark.
You get Cormier wins by decision for +251 (28% chance of happening). It’s therefore pretty obvious to anyone reading this blog that “Cormier wins by decision or in R5, or in R4, or in half of R3″ isn’t going to be +301.

So, what should the odds have been for that pick?
Cormier wins by decision: +251 (28.5% chance of happening).
Cormier wins R5: +2825 (3.4% chance of happening).
Cormier wins R4: +2025 (4.7% chance of happening).
Cormier wins R3: +1425 (6.6% chance of happening).

So to find closest approximation, you have to do 28.5% + 3.4% + 4.7% + (6.6% / 2) = 39.9%.

A 39.9% chance of this happening, equal to odds of +151, not a 24.9% chance of it happening at +301. AKA a 99.3% increase in ROI.

There’s a quick caveat to add here. Bookies add their bookmaker stake to every bet, so really you would get slightly better odds than this, because adding all these odds together, you’re adding up several bookmaker stakes. You would have to ring up and ask them to give you the bet properly but my estimate would be around +175 for this bet. Fundamentally though, it’s not a bet that any bookmaker offers, certainly not online, so even if you did use the right odds, you can’t include it in your picks.

 A quick look at Betlock’s account

Betlock had only placed a couple of straight up MMA bets before this event, so my initial assumption was that this was an oversight and a lack of understanding about what you can parlay in MMA. Either that or maybe they were trying to pull a fast one but once they’d been flagged, they’d fall back into line.

All I wanted was for them to go “oh yeah, my bad”, CapperTek void the parlay and we all move on happily with our lives.

However, I point it out, CapperTek refuse to void the pick, then when I say I’m not going to let it slide, they delete my account. Anyone with half a brain can see this account was being dodgy as hell, so why would CapperTek do that?

The more I thought about it, the more suspicious it became. Betlock, with that many picks, would be a seasoned gambler. Whether they know MMA or not, they know full well you cannot parlay odds from different bookmakers at different times. That’s not the action of a reputable tipster.

Additionally, after I gave betlock the right of reply and allowed “him” to read the initial draft of this blog before posting it, instead of replying, they followed then blocked me on twitter. Then unfollowed and followed me for several days afterwards. Not exactly the behaviour of someone making an innocent mistake.

Buying betlock’s picks.

Not long after I reported their picks, In an astonishing display of arrogance, despite knowing they’re being watched closely, betlock apparently placed 3x 11 unit last minute bets on MMA winners! Woooooow!!! Amaaaaazing!!!

Not that anyone should need any more proof to see exactly what they are up to but I decided to get some hard and fast proof. I asked a couple of users from MMA Tycoon to help me sign up to CapperTek as a customer (on a different IP, in case they had mine logged). We then bought betlock’s picks for UFC Fight Night – Boetsch vs. Henderson.

They placed 3 bets, all for 1.1 units, on the day of the event.
Tim Boetsch straight up
Matt Mitrione straight up
Parlay of Boetsch and Mitrione

You can view video proof of that below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kaTAqbLnVY

1.1 units look a lot like 11 units if you’re not paying attention, so my expectation was that those 1.1 units would miraculously change to 11 units, if those two fighters won. Unfortunately both fighters lost, which was irritating.

Still, they deleted two of those three losing picks, as you can see from their profile now. Hardly surprising. Their only losing bets on MMA are listed as 1 and 1.1 units, whereas wow, amazing, all their winning bets are 11 unit bets.

Oh and not that it really matters but buying a 24 hour pass didn’t get us anywhere near 24 hours. We were locked out of betlock’s picks before I woke up the next day, despite us buying picks about 4pm the day before.

Summary & a note to my fellow MMA handicappers.

Apparently 95% of major sport handicapping is a sham; I didn’t know that until I started researching this issue.

By contrast, nearly all MMA handicappers are legit, so I’m hoping that as a sector of the industry we can try and stand out as a group that can be trusted!

It is really important for handicappers to be tracked independently, to stop fraudsters and to stop everyone claiming they’re #1 when really they just shout the loudest. However, that has to be done on a site everyone can trust.

This sucks. So, what now?

If nobody else is gunna do it, I will. It won’t help me independently verify my own picks BUT, I am in the process of adding a handicappers directory to this site, just for MMA. It’s all automated, including prop bets, so it will be minimum work for you guys. I’ll be doing basically what CapperTek should have done and promoting those of you who do well and we’ll set up a facility for people to buy your picks etc.

Anyone reading this blog is more than welcome to sign up to our site as a handicapper.

I want this to be as clearly legit as possible. If it doesn’t make any money, too bad…. It’s only taken a month or so to program. I just wanna give it a go and see if this can be run as a legitimate concept.

Either way, whatever comes of this, I’m just glad everyone gets to hear the truth. I want to push for integrity in the industry because if we don’t have that, how can we possibly complain when people assume our picks are bullshit? The more people hold that assumption, the fewer will be willing to pay for ANYONE’s predictions.

Many thanks again for reading and good luck with your picks!

Mike.

 

Moving over from MMABetting.tips

So, as many of you may know, this site was originally set up at MMABetting.tips but we’ve moved over to here at BetMMA.tips to avoid any confusion between our site and an existing MMA tipster (MMABettingTips.com).

My initial thought process when choosing mmabetting.tips was pretty much that it just seemed like the best domain available for what I was offering. I was too interested in getting the site up and running to think about possible confusion between our site and the existing site, so that was an oversight on my part.

As soon as Chris @ mmabettingtips.com made it clear he wasn’t particularly happy about the potential confusion, I was like “yeah, I get your point” and offered to change my site if that’s what he wanted. He did, so I have. No problems at all from my point of view in terms of doing that and I apologised to him for any stress it caused, assuming he’d have to deal with some douchebag trying to be difficult. That’s not me so new domain name bought, website all changed… We’re all good 🙂 I’m here to be an integral part of the MMA handicapper community, not turn up and start pissing people off.

I’ve also taken this opportunity to combine my own betting blog (which was at mmagame.net), into this new site, with the addition of this blog. The only reason I’d done anything at all on mmagame.net was because I needed a separate username for CapperTek. However, now CapperTek has deleted my accounts after I threatened to expose their sham betting practices (view blog here: CapperTek sham bets – CapperTek Review), I have no use for mmagame.net and can just detail my own picks here… Of course, I need to find a new, REPUATABLE, independent tracing service, so if you know one, please let me know!

Thanks,
Mike

UFC 187 – Johnson vs. Cormier Betting Results

Just a quick post to analyse the results for UFC 187 – Johnson vs. Cormier.
Overall profit was +7.81 units. +111.57% ROI (7 units bet), taking me to over 105 units profit in 4 events, so far.

This card absolutely sucked for value and it was seriously hard to drag some profit out of it. The only fight that I bet straight up was Cormier. I went into watching tape thinking “this is a pretty clear pick for Cormier” but it really wasn’t. If you watched the Phil Davis fight, Johnson looked an absolute beast and I think Cormier really had to be on his best to beat Johnson. Anyway, that pick came off just fine, with my breakdown of how it would go being spot on.

“These are, in my opinion, without a doubt the two top fighters in the weightclass outside of Jon Jones. As a result, this is a fascinating fight to try and break down. I would personally put the line at around -145 Cormier, so really, I wouldn’t normally bet something I think is so close to the proper line…. However, this fight seems to be a bit of a “chopper on the block” sort of pick for tipsters, so it’s only right to make a pick one way or another.

To find the key to this fight, for me, you have to go back to Johnson vs Belfort… Going into watching the tape I had one major question – what does Johnson do when he’s put on his back? Well, Belfort tooled him, took his back and choked him out, whilst Johnson did absolutely nothing to escape the position. Now, that fight is not one in general to use for predicting because Johnson missed weight MASSIVELY, so he was obviously not in a great place. However, you don’t suddenly lose all technique just cos you missed weight and technically, he just had nothing on the ground for Vitor. On the other side of the equation, Daniel Cormier has one of the best controlling top games I’ve ever seen. He never gives up dominant position.

So can he get the fight there? Johnson stuffed 8 of 8 takedowns from Phil Davis, a national wrestling champion so obviously you have to go with “hell, that’s some good takedown defense!” However, Phil Davis and Daniel Cormier are not the same fighter and they don’t go for the same style of takedowns. Phil Davis was going for desperate diving double legs because he was outmatched on the feet. Cormier goes predominantly for clinch based takedowns and trip takedowns in transitions. Very technical. What’s more, Cormier is a vastly superior striker to Phil Davis. Yeah, he probably doesn’t hit as hard as Anthony Johnson, but he still hits hard and has a really solid chin, fights at a good range and throws a real mix of strikes. He’d more than likely lose this fight if it was a standup only fight but he wouldn’t get tooled.

Obviously the elephant in the room is whether Johnson will get the KO. Yeah, maybe. But like I say, this is chopper on the block time and I’m saying he won’t. I’m saying Cormier manages to get a takedown, manages to wear out Johnson much like he did to Dan Henderson and either wins a solid decision or gets a finish in R3-5. Fingers crossed :P”

The rest of the card was, as I said in my CapperTek writeup, full of favourites that should win but were far too wide favourites. As it was, the favourites to lose were Uriah Hall, a guy with serious skill but a nack of finding ways to lose, and Travis Browne. Now, Browne was a -400 favourite I believe… I watched the Johnson vs Arlovski fight in preparation for both fights. Arlovski does not have as bad a chin as I thought. He took some serious shots from Anthony Johnson and just fired back… it’s just a fact of fighting at heavyweight that there are a crap load of knockouts, so I guess Arlovski has built up the glass chin repuatation by having a lot of high profile fights. This isn’t to say he has a good chin though; I would place it as slightly below average for a heavyweight.

Anyway, let’s have a look at my prop parlays.

Parlay 1 @ +240
Cerrone by decision (+132) WRONG
Dodson wins (-500) RIGHT
Benavidez wins (-605) RIGHT
Not Natal by KO/TKO (-2060) RIGHT

Unfortunately, Makdessi’s jaw broke due to a high kick. Other than that, this was a decision win for Cerrone all day long.

Parlay 2 @ +629
Covington inside distance (+125) WRONG
Scoggins by decision (+165) RIGHT
Not Natal by KO/TKO (-2060) RIGHT
Benavidez wins (-605) RIGHT

This was a bad pick (Covington). When I was breaking down that fight I started by watching Covington as I’d never heard of him before. My conclusion was that he wasn’t that good and Mike Pyle should beat him, if he was as good as I remembered… so I started watching Pyle fights to convince myself of that pick. My gawd, Pyle was nowhere near as good as I remembered and on top of it, had a really, really bad chin. So I think this was a little bit of a searching for value pick that made sense for a very short period of time. Hitting a +2000 parlay last event made me greedy I think and I wasn’t satisfied with a mere +300 parlay on here with just Covington win, so I was stretching, looking for value. Anyway, it won’t happen again (hopefully).

Parlay 3 @ +541
Kim vs Burkman starts R2 (-515) RIGHT
Benavidez wins (-660) RIGHT
Natal vs Hall starts R2 (-230) RIGHT
Cormier wins (+110) RIGHT
Cerrone vs Makdessi starts R2 (-281) RIGHT
John Dodson wins (-705) RIGHT

This parlay came off, which was nice. Cormier obviously is the big bit of value but Cerrone vs Makdessi and Natal vs Hall were two of the most undervalued props I could find. Both fights were fairly evenly matched but at the same time, pretty much all fighters involved were fairly low output. The only exception being Cerrone but Makdessi is a high level striker, so Cerrone was never going to come out all guns blazing. I would say there was actually more chance of a first round finish in Kim vs Burkman than Cerrone vs Makdessi.

Anyway, if you were wondering where you get that sort of bet, you’ll need an account at 5Dimes. They allow you to parlay in all sorts of weird and wonderful bets.

All in all another successful event. This one, as I say, was a lot harder to find any value than the last couple of events. The next event in Brazil looks much the same, so expect to see a few more unusual prop parlays!

Jimmo vs Barroso betting analysis – UFC Fight Night

Barroso is a guy with technique but no real gameplan on how to use any of it. He doesn’t press the action, doesn’t throw any real volume of strikes, accepts being in bad positions both on the ground and in the clinch and basically just could be a lot more effective than he is.

Jimmo is quite similar in many ways. He’s a higher output fighter but he seems to fight on auto-pilot. Basically all his fights end up in a pointless clinch battle, which would be fine if he was trying to wear down his opponent and actually defeat them somehow afterwards but there appears to be no post-clinch battle gameplan.

Barroso, though he’s meant to be a BJJ black belt, doesn’t pass guard and doesn’t really do anything from top position. Jimmo is more active than his opponent from top position, though not so much in latter rounds when he runs out of gas.

In terms of positives, both guys throw fairly heavy leg kicks (though both also do so with fairly low volume). Jimmo is quick for the weight class.

If significant parts of this fight aren’t spent clinched up against the cage, I will be very surprised. Jimmo should win the fight due to higher output and a slightly higher fight IQ but it’s not a fight I would want to bet on. Jimmo does also have the propensity to get injured. 3 of his 6 UFC fights to date have seen him injured in one way or another. Twice it has caused an end to the fight and against Te Huna he was limping heavily.

My line for this fight would be around -200 Jimmo.

Lim vs Neil Magny – fight pick

Below is my fight breakdown, as posted on CapperTek, prior to the fight….

Magny to win at -120. Whoever got on this action when the lines opened at +110 Magny is a lucky person.

Magny is a very technical, impressive striker. He moves well, throws really high volume, varied strikes, slips in and out of danger well, fights at range perfectly, is extremely quick both offensively and evasively and most importantly seems to fight sensibly, or “has a good fight IQ” as a lot of people like to phrase it. My only concern for this fight is that he perhaps leans a bit too much on his speed defensively and doesn’t really keep his hands up. When he does get tagged, I also worry slightly that he turns his head away from his opponent rather than covering up and could be open to a massive one shot KO.

His opponent Hyun Gyu Lim is an enormous, powerful, powerful guy. However, this is his weakness moreso than his strength, now he’s bumbled his way up towards the upper echelons of the sport, where he will start to need some proper gameplanning and technique. He is apparently a TKD black belt but you wouldn’t know it. He’s seriously lacking in any sort of gameplan on the feet and essentially just zombie walks around then looks for a one two or if he gets a bit bored he literally runs at his opponent and throws wild combos. When he out matches his opponents standing this is fine. Because he’s so massive and does have a fairly fast straight right & jab, he can land effectively. However, against anyone with striking prowess, he has a punchers chance and if he doesn’t land that, he’s basically stuffed.

So, there’s the danger in this fight – Hyun Gyu Lim could get a knockout…. and I believe it would need to be a straight knockout because even from a knockdown, he’s not a great finisher (Pascal Kraus was doing a chicken dance for about 30 seconds before Lim finally finished him by running at him and flailing).

The only other concern is that he may have improved significantly since his last major bout (vs Saffiedine in Jan 14). His only fight since then was a gimme fight against a massive underdog, as a thanks for taking the Saffiedine fight on short notice. Whilst this is always a possibility, his corner was giving him some appallingly rudimentary non-advice in that fight, so I wouldn’t imagine they’re going to be revolutionising his game if he’s still training there. “Throw a 1-2, be aggressive and you’re doing well” was the advice, for what it’s worth, when he was getting absolutely demolished and was just aggressively throwing 1-2s already.

So, what I believe will happen:

vs Saffiedine, Lim got leg kicked to bits. He stands flat footed with his hands wide apart, which is also just about the worst thing you could do against Magny. If Lim fights in the same way here, he’s going to get leg kicked, straight punched and countered all day, whilst swinging wildly at thin air. Magny’s not got the biggest power but he should do a Nick Diaz on Lim and just pepper him incessantly and break him down. Having said that, though he’s never been KOd/TKOd, I believe Lim’s chin is questionable so a TKO is very much a possibility. As mentioned, Magny’s gas tank is excellent, so he’s not going to tire at all. Magny’s also got a decent body lock takedown and given that Lim did literally nothing at all when he was on the bottom vs Saffiedine, an intelligent fighter like Magny will most likely look to clinch up against the cage, take Lim away from his only chance to win and wear him out on the ground too. Magny’s ground game is very active but technically a bit sloppy but it’s enough to get the job done in this fight.

Dhiego Lima vs Li Jingliang

Below is my fight breakdown, as posted on CapperTek, prior to the fight….

In my opinion, Dhiego Lima is not a UFC calibre fighter and if it wasn’t for one sloppy takedown by Tim Williams, he never would have been. I’ve just watched all of Lima’s fights in the UFC, working back to the original fight on TUF against Williams. Williams totally dominated the first round on the ground, which Lima just gave away without a fight. Williams was then winning the second when he dived in for a sloppy takedown, very nearly got it but Lima just got out, scooted round and got a RNC. In his second fight on TUF he got knocked down after 10 seconds but got a very slick armbar straight off it.

So we then move on to his proper UFC fights. He’s been sparked out within a round twice and won an unimpressive decision against a last minute replacement who moved up from 155lbs just to take a fight in the UFC.

I don’t like being a douche about it because he does seem like a nice guy but I just don’t think the guy does anything that well and he has some massive problems. He’s got a really, really bad chin and he has a maximum of 7 minutes of gas per fight. Those are the main things. On top of that, he doesn’t hit very hard, though he has some decent leg kicks, he couldn’t finish his last minute kick boxer opponent from some really dominant positions on the ground, he has poor defensive grappling in that he just accepts being in bad positions and it appears and doesn’t have that “hell no, I’m not losing” sort of mentality.

Jingliang Li does nothing spectacularly but is a pretty solid, well rounded and improving fighter. His one (I think) elite attribute is his chin. That won’t be tested in this fight. He also has a really solid gas tank. So that’s basically two massive red flags for Lima to worry about. Though it’s hard to tell for sure, as he’s faught two guys with bricks for heads so far in the UFC, I think Jingliang Li does hit pretty hard. It certainly looks it on a basic visual level but KO power is more of an intangible than that and sometimes guys look like they hit hard when they don’t and vice versa. All I can go on is that both David Michaud and Nordine Taleb looked busted up pretty bad at the end of both their fights with Li.

So, to quickly get to the point, I do heavily favour a TKO for Jingliang Li.

But let’s look at the potential problems. Jingliang Li’s takedown defense is not great. Both his UFC opponents so far have taken him down against the cage and with straight double legs. That’s a worry. However, they are both much better wrestlers that Dhiego Lima, who has less than impressive wrestling. If it does go to the mat, Lima’s BJJ is weird…. he’s landed two really slick submissions on TUF, then his top game looked pretty poor against the late replacement mentioned earlier. He has the ground equivalent of a punchers chance, I guess, but Jingliang Li is a brown belt in BJJ and he reversed / escaped against both Michaud and Taleb who both have good top games. I think Jingliang Li really should have plenty to cope with Lima, especially given that Lima is likely to gas out a lot quicker than he is, so there’s a limited timeframe when he’s going to be dangerous.

Throw in the fact that Lima was a late replacement around a month before fight time and that the fight is in Asia and that’s another two negatives for Lima. Honestly, I have no clue how the line got set where it is but it fascinates me and I’d love to know 🙂 I’m guessing it’s more based on statistics than watching fight tape, that’s for sure.

Analysing my UFC bets so far….

So, we’re 2 events in to my official sports capping career and it’s time for a recap on how we’ve done so far. In summary, very well 😛
You can read all my fight breakdowns on CapperTek. Depending on when you read this, you’ll have to change the drop down to show X number of days betting history. I’ve talked to CapperTek about making this a bit more MMA friendly but they’re more interested in the major US ball sports at this stage.

https://www.cappertek.com/picks.asp?lastDays=60&shs=MMAGame.net&sport=ALL#history

First event: UFC 186 – Johnson vs. Horiguchi: 9.89 units profit
Predictions made;
Nordine Taleb not to beat Chris Clements inside the distance. (CORRECT) Profit of 2.55 units
I split the prediction into two parts to get better odds. Clements to win SU (+226) and Taleb to win decision at +171. 1.5 units on each. The fight pretty much went exactly how I expected and Taleb won a wide decision, being quite happy to just sit in half guard and throw ponderous elbows, exactly like I stated he would in my breakdown.

Patrick Cote to win (CORRECT) Bet 11 units at -180 for profit of 6.16 units
Riggs was slightly more competitive than I thought but in the end it was a pretty clear decision.

Chad Laprice to win (CORRECT) Bet 11 units at -296 for profit of 3.74 units
This one I thought would be a lot more clear cut than it actually was. Laprice totally dominated the first round in exactly the way I expected but then for some reason completely gassed and struggled in the 2nd and 3rd to maintain his clear technical advantage. It appears that he was having trouble with his opponent’s size advantage so I would not be surprised to see Laprice drop to 145lbs at some point in his next couple of fights.

Parlay of 4 fights going to a decision and one SU pick at +1053. 1 unit (LOST)
Davis vs Kaufman (-240) (LOST)
Barberena vs Laprice (-150) (CORRECT)
Clements vs Taleb (+105) (CORRECT)
Daly vs Marcos (-185) (CORRECT)
plus Bec Rawlings beats Lisa Ellis (-184) (CORRECT)

This one was a learning experience for me. I chose 4 of these picks myself and then just casually threw one last one in there that everyone else said would happen, to bulk up the odds over +1000 because I thought it would be cool to hit a +1000 parlay on my first day of tipstering…. you can guess which one I just threw in without any knowledge 🙂

Without the Davis vs Kaufman pick in there it would have been correct at +712 and the event profit would have been +19 units instead of +10. Never mind! 🙂

Event Number 2: UFC Fight Night – Hunt vs. Miocic: +42.37 units profit
This event couldn’t have gone a whole lot better. Well, that’s actually a lie… I was away for the weekend and in Bucharest on a friend’s stag do / bachelor party and if I was at home I would have put bets on Miocic to get a TKO at +500(ish)… probably just 1 unit so I’m not going to complain too much! 🙂

Main pick: James Vick to beat Jake Matthews at +158. 11 units (max allowed by CapperTek) (CORRECT) 17.38 unit profit
At fight time odds on Vick were actually as high as +170 I believe, so if you were following the line closely you could make even more profit.
This fight went a long way to showing me that I can actually be good at this tipstering business. 8 out of 9 “experts” on MMA Junkie picked Jake Matthews but I was very confident in Vick, to the extent I actually went around telling my friends to put real money on it. The fight went totally as I expected. Jake Matthews was throwing heavy leather and trying desperately to get the fight to the ground (against the cage, just as I stated in my breakdown). Vick mostly stopped the takedowns but got taken down once (due to brute force)… there he used his good escapes to get straight back up. Matthews got rocked, as I said he may well do, then his poor technique on his takedowns, again as I noted :), led to him leaving his neck wide open for a guillotine choke that Vick finished quickly, due to his superior technique. Seriously, if you are wondering whether to follow my picks, read my breakdown of this fight on here or on CapperTek, then watch the fight. Basically every single thing I said would happen did, right down to Vick getting clipped early and getting semi-knocked down, but it not making a damn bit of difference.

One thing I would note: there is no way in hell Jake Matthews is 5 foot 9. He is every bit of 6 foot tall and I really wish the UFC would measure their fighters properly because it does make it harder to make a pick.

Pick: Beck Rawlings to beat Lisa Ellis at -162. 4 Units (CORRECT). +2.48 units profit
I was on and off this pick because I don’t think Bec is the greatest fighter. I doubt I will ever be picking her to win again but this went totally as expected. Bec broke Lisa’s will and dominated her due to being bigger and stronger. In general I believe there is good value to be had in betting on women’s fights. They are more rudimentary in their skillsets at this point (as you would exect from a growing part of the sport), which means there are more “styles make fights” picks to be made… On the other hand a lot of high level men’s MMA is becoming two very similar fighters fighting eachother, which leaves the results more down to things which are harder to quantify, such as chin / power.

Those were my only two straight up picks. The rest was all in parlays.

Parlay 1 Total +1301. 2 units bet for total profit of +26 units.
Vick to beat Matthews (+159)
Hunt vs Miocic over 1.5 rounds (-175)
Grujic vs O’Reilly over 2.5 rounds (-140)
Rawlings to beat Ellis (-162)
Alvey to beat Kelly (-389)

In reality I would have bet on a KO for Alvey and a decision for Grujic vs O’Reilly, which were both close to evens so it would probably have been more like +2500, but those odds were not available before I went away for the weekend and had to place my picks on CapperTek. Still, you can’t complain about +1300 🙂

Parlay 2 1.5 units bet at +363. (LOST)
Dylan Andrews vs Brad Scott goes to Decision (+105) (LOST)
Robert Whittaker vs Brad Tavares goes to Decision (-135) (LOST)
Anthony Pettis to beat Miles Jury (-337) (FIGHT HAS BEEN CANCELLED)

This one didn’t go very well 🙂 Basically the only thing I got wrong in my breakdowns is that I said Whittaker is probably more of a points fighter. He went balls out for the KO in this fight. That’s another good bit of information for future predictions, as Whittaker had recently gone up in weight. I did say that Tavares was hitable and that there was a decent chance of a knockout… If this fight happened 10 times, who knows… I think maybe 4 or 5 times out of 10 it goes to a decision.

Andrews vs Scott was pretty much going as I expected before the sub out of nowhere in R2. People were saying Andrews’ chin was shot to bits because he lost his last 2 by TKO. It’s not and anyone that said that hasn’t watched his fights. He got KO’d by Sam Alvey, which means precisely nothing at all. The fight before that he didn’t lose by TKO, his shoulder came out and he faught half a round with it just hanging there and didn’t even get rocked. 7/10 times, I maintain this fight does go to a decision.

Parlay 3: 2 units bet +482 (LOST)
Andrews vs Scott goes to decision (+105) (LOST)
Rawlings beats Ellis (-162) (CORRECT)
Sam Alvey inside distance (-130) (CORRECT)

As stated above, I think this comes off more often than not but that’s just how it goes! 🙂

So, overall after 2 events we’re at +52 units, which is better than a some of the more prominent MMA tipsters have made in 2 years. I am sure I will hit a skid at some point, particularly if I keep going for big parlays, so I may tone that down a bit… we’ll see. As I say, this is all a fantastic learning experience. I’m really enjoying the whole process so far, though it is very time consuming. I would estimate I watched 30-35 hours of fight tape just for the last event. That’s the sort of thing you need to do if you are going to be successful at this.

I’ve stated this elsewhere but I think some tipsters are just guessing a lot of the time, based on records. I’ve seen some statements made by tipsters that are just flat out wrong and show they haven’t watched tape at all. So my warning to anyone out there looking for picks – mainly go off profits on CapperTek because you cannot fix that. Ideally follow people who make a sensible sounding prediction but actually watch the fight afterwards and see if what they said makes sense. Some people make very elloquent arguments that are completely wrong.

Anyway, thanks for the read and for your time.

Breaking down Sam Alvey vs Dan Kelly

The 185lb at UFC Fight Night – Hunt vs. Miocic, sees Judoka Kelly vs the seriously hard hidding Sam Alvey.

Dan Kelly is a decent lower tier fighter. He doesn’t do anything really badly but doesn’t do anything really well either and at 37, that’s probably not going to change. Sam Alvey is not a particularly technical fighter but holy crap the guy hits hard.

Dan Kelly has had a mixed bag of performances in his official UFC career. He looked impressive vs Luke Zachrich, who he essentially bullied on the way to a finish. However, against Patrick Walsh in his last fight, he looked physically softer (a worry for someone with a history of injuries) and looked a lot more ponderous in terms of his fighting style.

Technique wise his striking is predominantly just throwing a one two. He has probably slightly below average power, slightly below average cardio and a slightly above average chin. When throwing punches his feet are about half a mile apart and he reaches forward and juts his head forwards as he does it. Not a lot of foot movement and basic head movement.

Alvey has a slightly wild, winging style. He doesn’t check leg kicks and he spent basically the entire Tom Watson fight with his mouthpiece hanging out his mouth.

So yeah, I’m picking Alvey, obviously 😀

The guy counters with massive power. He is flat out a finisher, both with counters and when putting together his own offense. He has a chin solid enough to withstand what Kelly has to offer without any issues. He knocked his last two opponents out in the first round. More importantly for me, he very nearly finished Tom Watson with strikes, who has NEVER been finished by strikes.

Kelly isn’t a dummy so he’s going to try fighting cautiously, so Alvey’s offensive mindset is important. Alvey’s takedown defense may be an issue but Kelly’s takedowns are not great, he’s slow and I think even if Kelly does get a takedown, Alvey could reverse position.

I would be fine placing a bet on Alvey now at -356, which I think is probably just about right as a line. However, I’m going to wait to see what the odds are on a TKO and bet on that.

Early pick: UFC Fight Night – Jake Matthews vs James Vick Betting Advice

Jake Matthews is an interesting fighter but he’s very raw.

He came on to TUF Nations at 19, having been trained by his dad in a shed, where he got absolutely tooled by Oliver Aubin-Mercier in his first fight. That’s not the end of the world on its own but my belief is that he is a bully or be bullied type of fighter at this stage in his career. I’d never seen him fight before today but I watched the line come in on Vick and I thought there must be a reason for that, so I just spent 3 hours scouting fights.

Matthews’ two fights in the UFC proper have been against fighters he significantly outsizes and he basically bullied them. His first fight was against a 145lb typical “unbeaten prospect” who’d faught opponents with a combined record of about 5-100. The guy was listed as a boxer but Jake couldn’t take him down against the cage…. UFC’s website lists his takedowns as a strength. His takedowns against the cage are dreadful.

Anyway, enough of the negative. What he does well: He hits hard, is confident, has good cardio, is very composed. He has creative BJJ and uses it to get into good offensive positions, however he does not seem to have the technique to finish from those positions. I believe this comes from training where he does and the fact he’s still trained / coached by his dad. Maybe if he goes stateside to a high quality gym he can tidy this up… but for now, this is a big issue. In the 5 or so fights I watched he’s had people in armbars, triangles, omoplatas, RNCs… but he’s only finished anyone with VERY rudimentary RNCs… one was basically a headlock and one he had his leg over their shoulder from the back. These were brute force finishes, not technique.

James Vick is an ENORMOUS lightweight. 6 foot 3, to Jake Matthews’ 5 ‘9… though he was listed as 6 foot on TUF. He’s probably somewhere in the middle. Anyway, Vick fights differently in each fight I watched. First fight he was basically a lunatic and ploughed forward. Second he was a lot more careful and used his range well against a shorter fighter.

He seems to have a solid chin, a good straight right with good power, a decent jab, good TDD against the cage, excellent sweeps / reversals. Matthews finishes his combos nicely with an outside leg kick but Vick checks leg kicks well. Conversely Matthews doesn’t seem to check leg kicks.

SUMMARY:
Basically I just think Vick has so many more ways to win. Matthews might catch him and knock him out but I don’t think he will…. maybe a knockdown from which Vick could recover but I don’t see a knockout. Vick I could see picking Matthews apart and even getting a knockout. Matthews did get stunned by a much smaller fighter in his first UFC fight. Moreso, I see Vick able to dominate on the ground and control the action against the fence.

I see Matthews trying to land an overhand right and leg kicks but Vick using is lateral movement to frustrate Matthews. I see Matthews trying to take it down against the cage but not getting anywhere with it. I also see me with a few heart in the mouth moments during the fight but in the end, Vick comes out with a W due to superior technique and experience. Probably a decision but also he has possibilities for both a KO and a submission on the too-raw Matthews.

Recapping UFC 186 – Johnson vs. Horiguchi betting analysis

In terms of the Wisdom of Crowds picks, after two negative events, we’re back in the positive, thanks to a 7 fold parlay coming off at +540.  This event was full of favorite winners. 11 of 12 fights in fact; the most since we started our system, making a parlay win all the more likely.

On individual fights we went 10-2 on predictions but unfortunately the big one didn’t come off. For the first time in a few events the system spat out a big bet on an underdog (Chris Clements). I had personally identified him as a live underdog, so I tentatively OK with the pick despite thinking that Taleb would more than likely win a decision. As it happens, that’s exactly what did happen and we took a big hit of -13.25 units from that fight. Getting another 9 fights right on bets only managed to claw half of that back and it was left to the parlay to save the day.

So how could we improve things?

– The system works on perceived value and doesn’t care whether something is high risk or not. That is both a strength and a weakness. Normally people would put a small bet on Clements if they thought he’d win…. but we put a whopping great bet on. In reality, when it’s a pickem fight with a lot better odds than pickem, that’s the right thing to do. Sometimes you’ll lose big but sometimes you’ll win REALLY big.

– WIth regards Clements vs Taleb in particular, I had made some changes to the equation that probably wouldn’t have seen us bet on Chris Clements but when I ran them, it absolutely decimated our profits from past events. I am confident it would be a better overall equation but that’s just my personal hunch and when the past results went from +240 to +100 units or something crazy like that, I felt it needed more data and just left the equations as they were for a bit longer.

A quick summary of my own predictions:

I personally went 3-0 on straight betting picks.

– Taleb would not win inside the distance.
– Cote to win.
– Laprice to win.

Taleb vs Clements basically went exactly like I expected. If anything Clements looked a bit worse. Cote vs Riggs was more competitive than i expected, as was the Laprice vs Barberena fight. I have no idea why Laprice gassed like he did and did not see that coming at all. I could see him dropping down to 145lbs as I can only assume he was struggling with his larger opponent’s size advantage.

In parlays, I was going for a 5 fold. 4 fights to go the decision and Bec Rawlings on the next event. 3 of 4 fights went to a decision and unfortunately I did what I tell people never to do when it comes to MMA betting – I added a fight into the parlay based on other people’s opinions (Kaufman vs Davis). I know virtually nothing about these two but everyone was saying it would be a decision. Sigh. All mine came off, this one didn’t. Never mind, I won’t do it again! 🙂