Boswell's in-play strategies and midweek tips

Non-league / Gary Boswell / 19 August 2007 / Leave a Comment

Boswell's Betfair Blog - a bi-weekly round up of the best plays in the world of non-
league football

Boswell's Betfair Blog - a bi-weekly round up of the best plays in the world of non-
league football (Gary Boswell has been a non-league football betting specialist since 1999 and was the betting correspondent for the Non-League paper-2001-2006. He was a close season transfer coup for the new international publication NonLeague Today and also signed to write for Betfair at the end of the 06/07 season.He scored 100% success rate with his tips for Betfair in last season's Conference South and also correctly identified all three Conference play-off winners - Salisbury,Farsley Celtic & Morecambe).

Boswell's Weekend recommendations scored a 100% success rate and secured a 4.5 pts profit for Betfair punters.

With the Exeter-York and Weymouth-Burton games Live on Setanta this week, time for a look at Boswell's approach to in-play football betting - a technique honed over the last two years.
Those of us who do in-play betting regularly will each have their own methods and systems. Here's a typical Boswell play as used in last week's Cambridge-Oxford game.
The pre-game assessment:
Not everybody likes to take a position before kick-off but I do. I'm especially keen when the team I give the edge to are the supposed underdog as was the case last Thursday. Cambridge were a general 2.98 opposed to Oxford's 2.54 with 3.55 the draw. I'd seen Quinn's troops turn a deficit at York into a win on the opening day. I know a lot about Fortune-West and Boylan - the ageing but impressive new strike duo at the Abbey - and I'd also watched Oxford struggle past Forest Green on day one after last season's disappointments. Despite the big club plus, I've got Oxford down as possible underachiever this year whilst I expect Cambridge to kick on from their good finish last season. Sure to be a tight game but Cambridge have home advantage so the attractive odds have to be taken. 5pts the Cambridge win and 5pts the draw.

Laying back the draw whilst still nil-nil:
Always do this. 1pt after ten minutes or when the first price under my taken one is posted. Laid one point at 3.45 after ten minutes and one point at 3.25 after twenty minutes. Oxford looking the better side with Alex Jeannin running riot down the left but Cambridge still solid in midfield so I'm liking the way the draw betting hedge is reducing my Oxford win liability and increasing my profit on the Cambridge win whilst keeping profit in the draw box.

Oxford's goal on 41 mins
A disaster to my position you'd have thought but it was a poor goal caused by Albrighton's slip so I didn't think it an indication of an imminent Oxford rout. I stuck to my guns and had another point back on the draw at 4.5 and waited til half time before having another point on Cambridge now at the very juicy 12. I've seen enough Conference football over the years to know that half time team talks change games. Sometimes really drastically. Quinn's a good manager and saw the trouble Jeannin was causing so he got Gleeson to counter by charging forward down the right and forcing Jeannin back. Cambridge started to dominate. Gleeson gets a direct assist for his cross to make Fortune-West's equaliser on 50. Boswell immediately hedges his 12 on Cambridge laying them heavy at the new 4.2 on offer to create a lock-in profit on all three results. Always my aim this and works well in tight games which the Conference will often throw up.

The coup de grace
With the profit locked, I could then coast but the game is always kept alive for me by laying the1.1 the draw as the final minutes tick away. This is a technique I've cribbed but it's amazing how many times it scores as you sacrifice a small percentage of the draw profit in the hope of a bonanza with a late goal. Up pops Lee Boylan to oblige on 92. I laid fifteen points at 1.1 with 90 seconds left. Count the number of games in the Conference last week that had a deciding goal in added on time (6 mins extra in both of Burton's first two games!!).
I was as happy as a pig planting apple pips at the end!

So all you need to know now are the Boswell pre-match assessment's for this week's games. Because of the prices, I give York a slight plus on Monday night and will be starting with them and the draw but only to half the stakes that I started on Thursday. Exeter may well make the home advantage pay but are very short priced to do so.
Thursday's game favours Burton and don't forget how they have scored in injury time with uncanny regularity over the past two years!