I can taste the Guinness swirling around my mouth already! I can hear the rising crescendo as the first race of the festival is about to start.

Yes, it’s only February – but I’ve got Cheltenham fever!

February’s edition of What Really Wins Money is dedicated to the Cheltenham Festival. Within this month’s newsletter, Andrew David (he of Little Acorns, Football Cash Builder and now the Revelation Staking Plan) takes us on a form-studier’s look at the festival.

He’s done all of the form research for the major races, he’s looked at all of the collateral form and his reasoning is compelling. Better yet, Andrew advocates each-way betting, which is perfect for the Cheltenham Festival.

It’s a great read as usual, and I must thank Andrew for giving his time and expertise for free for What Really Wins Money readers.

The Statman takes a look at how past winners’ trends can be a very accurate guide to the best-profiled horses. I’ve used past winners to analyse major weekend race meetings. The Statman has uncovered some excellent strong trends and patterns and provides an at-a-glance guide for you to immediately shortlist the likely winners.

The Patriarch shows readers how the Racing Post’s ratings can guide you to strong candidates, not just at the Cheltenham Festival, but also in other major race meetings.

So, if you’re interested in the Cheltenham Festival, try out February’s What Really Wins Money.

‘That’s not crickeet, is that!’

As my showbiz pal Geoffrey Boycott undoubtedly said as England failed miserably against New Zealand earlier this morning.

With £20 million being matched consistently at www.betfair.com on these World Cup cricket matches, the liquidity is most certainly there, but what about the strategy?

Here’s my take on cricket trading from my limited exposure to this, erm, most exciting of sports.

1) Know the starting odds. Look at the Betfair graphs (shown below). New Zealand’s odds were 1.5 pre-match and England’s were 3. Now, do you think the favourites are worthy favourites? If not, consider laying them immediately.

2) Know which team is batting first. In this case, England opened the batting. This is a key piece of information. If you think the batting team is weak, or alternatively, the fielding team has a solid bowling attack, then you can take a position here. Lay England at odds of 3 perhaps if you feel they may not mount much of a total. From my research I found that the ground conditions can play a major role at the venues and favour the batting or bowling side, dependent on the time of day.

3) Take a position pre-match, as above, once you know the opening batting team, or wait until the opening batting team is all out and compare their odds now to the odds pre-match.

This is a simplified method of deciding on your opening position. Let’s see how that would have played out with New Zealand and England this morning…

Here’s New Zealand’s price graph:

And here’s England’s price graph:

When I tell you that England opened up the batting, you can guess that, yes, England’s batting was woeful.

England were 123 all out. If you layed England pre-match, once you knew they were opening the batting, you would have profited very well.

Once the English batting collapse was complete, the market assumed ‘match over’, as New Zealand only had 124 runs to get to win. England’s odds continue to rise, and rise and New Zealand have not even batted yet!

This is a basic look at a very straightforward match. I will be wracking my brains over the coming days to come up with a trading template.

For instance, in the football, we can lay the underdog if he scored first. In the tennis, we can lay the underdog if he /she wins the first set.

In cricket, we… That’s the puzzle we have to solve. The triggers in football are clear – red cards and goals. Those two things change the odds. In tennis the triggers are lost service, games being broken and losing the first set.

In cricket, we assume the trading triggers will be:

• Who bats first

• The state of the pitch

• The numbers of 4s and 6s scored

• The arrival of a world-class batsman to the line-up

• A wicket for a prominent batsman falling

• The format of the cricket match (20/20, one-day international, five-day test)

• The need to win (in a tournament format like the World Cup, there may be a match which is meaningless to one team)

These four websites have piqued my interest currently and I’d recommend you take a look at them:

1. http://tradingcricket.blogspot.com/
2. http://www.howstat.com.au/cricket/home.asp
3. http://markiverson.com/blog/
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnKwYvb0j9I

The bottom line with the cricket is that you have to form an opinion. Did you think England opening the batting was a negative? Then lay them?

After England were all out for 123, if you expected a miracle, lay New Zealand at 1.01 (the lowest liability possible) and hope England can get New Zealand out for 122! An early wicket or two would affect the market.

I must say that cricket as a trading sport is beginning to interest me. The liquidity means that the markets are efficient.

There is even scope for the traditional support/resistance price trader! This graph for Australia in a match with India suggested that the market would not let Australia’s odds drop below 1.5. How can you profit? Lay Australia whenever they hit 1.5 and profit from the ‘bounce’.

I’m off now to console Geoffrey Boycott with a cup of Tetley’s tea. Yorkshire’s finest for Yorkshire’s finest. Have a great weekend.