Results for Fri 7 August 2026

5 picks. One won, four lost. A bad day and there is no way to present it otherwise, so let me go through what actually happened rather than round it off.

Devonport City was the one that worked. 6-0 against Launceston City, giving half a goal at 1.67. Never remotely in doubt. That is the shape of selection this system is built on — a side the market had priced close when the underlying numbers said it should not be.

Glenorchy Knights is the frustrating one, because they won. 2-1 against Launceston United, and the bet still lost. We were giving a goal and a half, which needs a two-goal win, and they got there by one. Winning the match and losing the handicap is a specific kind of irritating, but it is not a bad beat — a –1.5 line is priced at 1.59 precisely because winning by two is genuinely harder than winning. The price was telling the truth.

VG-62 had the game taken away from them. Down to ten men in the 27th minute and beaten 2-1 by MaPS, on a Draw No Bet at 1.59. Sixty-odd minutes a man short is not a football match in any sense the model can price, and this is the one loss on the card I would put squarely in the category of things nobody could have selected around. It is also, honestly, the only one.

The two starts that were not enough. Sligo Rovers were carrying +1.25 at Derry City and lost 2-0, and Dinamo Samarqand were carrying +0.25 at Lokomotiv and lost 2-1. Both of those are split bets — two half-stakes at neighbouring lines — and in both cases the defeat was wide enough that both halves went down. A +1.25 start survives a one-goal defeat with half the stake back; it does not survive two. Sligo needed to lose by one and lost by two, Dinamo needed to draw and did not.

No half-returns anywhere on the card. On a day when three of the four losers were within a goal of a partial refund, that is simply how it fell.

1. Devonport City 6-0 Launceston City (Australia Tasmania NPL) — Home AH -0.50 Devonport @ 1.67 — won
2. Glenorchy Knights 2-1 Launceston United (Australia Tasmania NPL) — Home AH -1.50 Glenorchy @ 1.59 — lost
3. VG-62 1-2 MaPS (Finland Kolmonen Länsi) — Home AH 0.00 VG-62 @ 1.59 — lost
4. Lokomotiv 2-1 Dinamo Samarqand (Uzbekistan Super League) — Away AH +0.25 Dinamo @ 1.92 — lost
5. Derry City 2-0 Sligo Rovers (Republic of Ireland Premier Division) — Away AH +1.25 Sligo @ 1.97 — lost

Day close: -3.33u (1 won, 4 lost from 5).

On the arithmetic of a day like this. One winner returned 0.67. Four losers cost a unit each. That is the whole story of the number, and it is worth sitting with because it is the structure of this portfolio rather than a feature of this particular Friday.

When you win most of your bets at short prices, the losing days are disproportionate. A single bad card can undo a week of quiet accumulation, and it does so without anything having gone wrong with the process. Four losses from five on a small card is well within the range a 75-85% strike rate produces — not common, not alarming, and not evidence of anything on its own.

What I will not do is reach for excuses. One loss had a red card in it. The other three did not. Glenorchy simply did not win by two, Sligo did not keep it to one, Dinamo did not get the draw. Those are ordinary football outcomes on bets that were reasonable at the price, and a run of them is what a drawdown is made of.

Nothing changes. Same rules, same discipline on price, same willingness to publish a short card when the value is not there.