Introduction

In the 'Getting Started' section of the User Guide, I explained how we calculate value. If you missed it, you'll find it in the very first lesson, 'How Trade Your Bets Works'.

Once all the calculations are carried out for every fixture in 85 leagues worldwide, the results are displayed on the Live Value Calculator.

In this lesson, I'm going to show you exactly how it works.

There are a LOT of features packed into the Live Value Calculator so this is quite a long lesson, but once you have a play with it you'll soon get to know your way around.

League Zones

We have split the 85 leagues into 'zones'. These are switched on and off by using the toggle switched under the blue 'Select Leagues' button.

Live Value Calculator showing the 'Select League' zone options.

European A are the biggest leagues (English Premier, German Bundesliga, etc), European B are generally ok for trading (English Championship, French Ligue 2, etc) and European C are smaller leagues (Danish 1. Division, Portuguese Segunda, etc).

This is particularly useful at the weekend when European C leagues are often not tradeable because of a lack of liquidity in the markets and can be hidden completely.

Of course, if you're betting (rather than trading) then liquidity is less of an issue.

We also have zones for European Summer (mainly Scandinavian and Irish leagues), Americas (North, Central and South American leagues) and Africa/Asia/Middle East.

Here is the full list of leagues...

Show/Hide by Status

Selecting the 'Show/Hide by Status' filter allows you to hide leagues which are at the beginning or the end of their season.

Maybe you would prefer to switch off 0-10% and even 11-20% as there are often more erratic results early on and there is limited data to research so early in the season.

You may also prefer to switch off 91-100% as the season is coming to an end and this can make a big difference to how teams play.

An underdog fighting for survival, for example, may be more likely to get a 'shock victory' over a mid table team who have nothing left to play for.

These are all factors to take into consideration before entering a trade or placing a bet.

Live Value Calculator showing the 'Show/hide by status' button

In the 'Head Coach Status' section you can hide fixtures in which teams have a new head coach.

A red triangle is for new coaches from 1-5 games and amber is for managers who have been in charge 6-10 games.

Often, teams change the way they play with a new coach in charge. Players may try harder in order to keep their place in the team or tactics and formations can change.

This is something to bear in mind as you are looking, as much as possible, for consistent teams doing consistent things.

Hover over a triangle next to a fixture to see who the new head coach is and how long they have been in charge.

Live Value Calculator showing the new coach tool tip.

Show/Hide by Kick-Off Time

The 'Show/Hide by Kick-Off Time' tab allows you to narrow down the fixture list to the times that you're available to trade.

If you are only free in the evening, say between 7-10pm, you can slide the bar along to see which games are kicking off in between those times.

Live Value Calculator showing the 'Show/hide by kick-off time' button

If you are set-and-forget betting you can ignore this and research the full fixture list.

Betfair Price Filters

In order to calculate perceived value, we regularly import Betfair prices.

The Betfair Price Filters are useful if you want to exclude certain prices when carrying out your research, perhaps anything under 2.00.

You can also use this filter to hide fixtures that feature very strong favourites.

Live Value Calculator showing the 'Betfair prices' filter button

Filter by Ticks/Crosses

The next button gives you the option to filter all selections by 1, 2 or 3 green ticks or red crosses:

1 = Fixtures that have a green tick in the 1 year row.
1/3 = Fixtures that have a green tick in the 1 and 3 year rows.
1/3/10 = Fixtures with a green tick in the 1, 3 and 10 year rows.

The exact same rules apply to red crosses.

Below, you can see that '1/3/10' has been selected in the green tick column of the '1H O0.5' row.

Immediately, all fixtures that do not have a green tick in the 1, 3 and 10 year columns are hidden.

Live Value Calculator showing the 'Minimum number of ticks/crosses' button with selections made on the 1H Over 0.5 goals row.

You can select multiple filters and apply either an 'OR' or 'AND' operator (bottom left).

If you choose 'OR' then the fixtures shown will satisfy any of the filters. For example, 3 green ticks in the '1H Home' column OR 3 green ticks in the 'O2.5' column.
If you choose 'AND' then the fixtures shown will satisfy all of the filters. For example, 3 green ticks in the '1H Home' column AND 3 green ticks in the 'O2.5' column.

To show all fixtures again, click the 'All' button at the start of each row.

More Filter Options

Next, there's a toggle switch to 'Hide fixtures with missing calculations'.

I recommend that you switch this on because fixtures with missing calculations are no use.

The most common cause of missing calculations is that at least one of the teams was in a different league the previous season, so there's not enough data available.

Live Value Calculator showing missing data.

Further along, there is a toggle switch to 'Filter My Games'.

As you research fixtures and pick out potential bets or trades, click the black + at the end of the fixture row. This instantly adds the fixture to your 'My Games' list.

Once you have done this, a green tick appears to indicate the fixture has been added.

Live Value Calculator showing the pencil and plus icons to select games for your 'My Games' tab.

You can also add 'Notes' to any fixture by clicking the black pencil icon. You can even colour them differently by bet or trade type, perhaps blue for first half and green for second half.

Live Value Calculator showing the toggle for filtering your games.

If you are in a different timezone, at the very bottom you can change kick-off times to match your location.

Live Value Calculator showing the timezone options.

Back to the top row of filters... there's a red 'Reset' button that resets all filters back to default. If fixtures are missing and you can't work out why, there may be a filter to clear.

Export

Once you have fixtures added to 'My Games' and 'Filter My Games' is switched on, click on the 'Export' button and details will be exported to a .csv file.

This will include the fixture details, Betfair prices, value calculations and even your 'Notes'

It's a very useful feature that makes updating your results sheet a breeze... simply copy/paste!

Fixture List

Moving down to the fixture list itself, fixtures for the day are ordered alphabetically by country.

Click on a dark blue row and all fixtures for that particular league are expanded, click on a light blue row and only that fixture expands.

Once expanded, you will see details of the fixture itself.

The league positions (shown in brackets after team names) are calculated from trading tables and will not always match the regular league table. This is especially true in Apertura/Clausura leagues which split each league season in half.

I'll explain more about this in the 'League Tables' lesson.

Click on any team name and the 'Score Table' will be displayed.

It provides a huge amount of information about recent form and performance against similar opposition. It's a tool that you're going to use very often.

At the bottom right, you can switch between first half, second half and full match tables.

If you're a fan of head-to-head (H2H) stats, click the grey H2H button and previous results between the two teams will be displayed.

Live Value Calculator showing the Head to Head button.

Betting Markets

We calculate perceived value for 10 different markets.

They are:

First Half Markets

First Half Home Win (1H Home)
First Half Away Win (1H Away)
First Half Over 0.5 Goals (1H O0.5)
First Half Over 1.5 Goals (1H O1.5)

Match Odds Market

Home Win (Home)
Away Win (Away)

Goals Markets

Both Teams to Score (BTTS)
Over 1.5 Goals (O1.5)
Over 2.5 Goals (O2.5)
Over 3.5 Goals (O3.5)

For each market you will see a green tick, amber question mark or red cross for the '1 year', '3 years' and '10 years' rows.

You will also see the latest Betfair price displayed on a grey button. Click on this to be taken directly to the Betfair market. If you do not see any price buttons, switch off your ad-blocker.

Betfair Prices

Betfair prices move throughout the day and that has an effect on our value calculations.

You will see green ticks and red crosses come and go as our algorithms determine that there is either not enough or too much perceived value present.

The Live Value Calculator displays the latest pre-match prices whenever you refresh the page. Of course, they do not update in-play.

It's often worth carrying out a 'hard refresh' to be sure that your browser is not loading a cached version (on a PC, hold down CTRL and press the F5 function key).

If you have backed a value price before kick-off, then the price falls and an amber question mark or red cross appears instead - don't panic!

You already backed with value, so you have nothing to worry about. You can either go ahead with your bet/trade or take the liability out and leave the free bet to run.

Betfair Liquidity

Our calculations are carried out with the most recent prices that are available from Betfair.

In smaller leagues and markets, liquidity does not come in until the day that the fixture is to be played and, often, not until kick-off is approaching.

Here's an example of a fixture in the Australian A League.

The day before this game was due to be played, the Live Value Calculator displayed 3 green ticks in the '1H Home' column.

Example of Wellington Phoenix v Melbourne Victory

However... you can see on Betfair that there was nothing at all matched... not even £1.

You can also see that there was a large gap between the back (3.55) and lay (4.5) prices. That gap would close as liquidity came into the market and, likely, settle somewhere in the middle.

Wellington Phoenix v Melbourne Victory Betfair market

Say the price settled at 4.0 the next morning before kick-off, that may be too much perceived value for at least one of our algorithms and those green ticks would disappear.

In smaller leagues and especially in the first half markets, you can't carry out your research too far ahead of time. It must be done on the day of the fixture. The closer to kick-off, the better.

Live Value Calculator

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