First off, I want to give you my betting plan and a quick glossary of betting phrases I use so you can understand the knowledge I bring to the table.
Bettors and investors alike tend to pick more winners than losers unless they have absolutely no idea what they are doing - what gets smart people in trouble is often overconfidence. By using principles of money management you can keep your bankroll alive and available to play throughout the whole season.
Rule #1 - Define your capital
Whether $100 or $1000 or $10,000, commit yourself to an amount you will risk for any given season and NEVER ADD TO IT. If you have lost all your bankroll based on your system, your system is flawed - adding more money to a failed system is throwing good money away. Try fantasy betting at www.nbx.com to find your rhythm.
Rule #2 - Never invest more than 25% of your capital in one bet.
So assuming $1000 of capital, you should never put more than $250 on one bet (no matter how much you believe in Chad Campbell or Tiger Woods). This way you suffer fewer no debilitating losses. You may prefer 10% or 20% - just define it below 30% and you should be fine. A corollary of this is to never have more than 80% at risk at one time - you would hate to wake up tomorrow and be out of cash.
Rule #3 - Define a confidence system
Many bettors like to bet the same amount on each opportunity, some want to put more money down on their best ideas. I will make reference to “units” throughout the season, and I define the unit as 5% of capital. If I want to dabble on a long-shot or just want to be in action, I put down 1 unit (e.g., I have one unit on Chad at 125-to-1 to win the WGC Match Play). But when it is time to get serious, I can go up to five units. I have no quantitative means to arrive at this - I am pretty quantitative in screening for opportunities, but I admit the confidence system is more intuitive.
Rule #4 - Stay disciplined
All the rules in the world are crap if you break them. The “Just this one time” crap may work on your significant other but you are only letting yourself down by coloring outside the lines. Another corollary - stay quiet. Few people are truly interested in your braggadocio especially if you do not share your “big beats”. Mostly keep your sports investing to yourself.
Rule #5 - Keep a journal
You may see patterns of failure or success that you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. For instance I really believe Adam Scott is destined for greatness, but I lose betting with him more than anyone else. Knowing this I have adjusted my confidence units down on each bet now. Like those who were shorting Amazon stock in 1999 - they were right, it was only worth about 10% of the current value, but they were early. Unless they managed those losses they lost a lot of capital. I plan on posting the KC On Golf journal so you can see just how good or bad I am.
SO given all that, Saturday we like Nick O’Hern at +120 over Henrik Stenson (1 unit since he has advanced to the semis) and Geoff Ogilvy -125 over Paul Casey (Ogilvy may be overvalued as a 5:4 fave but a win is a win).
See our friends at Sportsbook.com to try out your ideas.
KC and I are again beginning to commence to get started on our own golf blog/podcast.
