I'll Be Back.

Not a good weekend of punting for followers of my bets with every horse running complete nightmares. I am sure you have heard it all before but thats part of life in gambling. After making a superb +96 points in January ,this month now stands at a meagre +14 points. All that can be done after a shit weekend is to pick yourself back up and start again.

Still its a profit from the bookies and luckily for me my trading has been pretty good with the horses and football. Some of my own selections I have traded in running with my biggest win on Jump Jet that I put up as a selection on Friday i think. This hit about 1.4 in running before finishing third.

The horse lays are still in the middle of a cycle that I use so I havent posted any up on twitter yet, and to be honest I am having second thoughts about doing this as I dont need the grief if losing sequences occur. I think this very famous piece of work says it all:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Moving forward I like so many others have been poor keeping the blog going so I will take the decision that until I feel inspired to write more often and with a greater input I shall stop. I did this last year for about three months. I will obviously be on twitter posting my selections until everyone gets pissed off with them and just so you dont think I have done my bank here is my BF statement for last seven days.


Thanks for reading and for all the comments and as Arnie says " Ill Be Back". I wanted to put two of the best bits of comedy TV I have seen on the blog. One was on ATR a few weeks ago and one was sent to me by "The Professional Loafer"!! Please watch and laugh...



The second one I can not embed but heres the link:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3-E3mAQVyU&feature=channel

Update.

Well a great Superbowl final last night which I managed to pocket a few quid from. I felt that the Packers who were 18 points ahead at one stage and trading at 1.09 were really not in charge of their destiny. The Steelers seemed to me the better team and it was a case of whether they were going to win or shoot themselves in the foot. As it was they gave it away with three turnovers that the Packers scored three touchdowns from. Strange type of game as I felt the best team lost and the team with a 10-6 regular season record won the Superbowl. Two teams with 14-2 regular season records came nowhere. Congrats to all cheeseheads though.


Had an ok week the horses are a couple of points ahead and all football lays have lost their matches, so this is about 3 points ahead as well.

I have been asked about the horse laying system I use. This is a system that has taken a long time to put together. It has made about 160 points profit at level stakes, but I use a daily 1-4 staking plan so this recoups loses quicker and has boosted the profits to about 360 points. It is not for the faint hearted but if you lay at £25,£50,£75 and £100 as per the staking plan it can build a nice bank slowly but surely. I use the same type of staking for my football lays as well.

At the moment I am in a cycle on the lays but have decided to also post these up on twitter in the mornings with the relevant staking plan for anybody to follow. I have had to lock my account as I had a lot of spammers and idiots following me which is not what I want but if you would like to follow just send a request.

Lastly does anyone have any experience of 1st Class Lays I have been following for a while but I beleive the results arent what they seem. The website says they proof to "Laying The Odds" but there is no such site. I had contact with "Lay The Odds" who do not proof them and after sending numerous emails to them I have not had a reply with a link to the proofed results. All looks a bit fishy to me !

Thank You Mr Grace.

I bet the majority of you dont know what sentence comes before that heading..

So a great month for me with my own horse bets finishing +96, a really pleasing start which certainly amazed me as I usually average about 40 points per month. Yesterdays effort from Teenage Idol put the icing on the end of month cake as it got backed in from the 16/1 I got,to 7/1 at the off. It then pretty much bolted up winning by quite a few lengths. Unfortunately I had to split the stakes across three different bookies and two different accounts, but dont you just love that....

Sports wise a great weekend, I didnt bother watching much football as I was really engrossed in the Snooker Shoot Out. This turned out to be a great tournament which had more swings than a darts match, which I would say is the quickest sport to have a go at. Below is the blurb..

The birthchild of World Snooker Limited Director Barry Hearn, the event was designed to attract a younger generation and new sponsors to a sport with flagging attendances and recent corruption allegations. The format sees the world's top 64 players play one frame knockout matches lasting a maxmium of 10 minutes.

Other such rules include a 20 second shot clock for the first five minutes, a 15 second shot clock for the final five minutes and a free ball in hand for any foul. Players must also make a pot or ensure at least one ball hits a cushion, eliminating the common tactic of rolling up behind a colour to enforce a snooker.

After much trepidation beforehand about whether the idea would be a flop, fans and players alike embraced Hearn's new competition. Six time World Snooker champion Steve Davis said: "I was a bit sceptical about how stupid this tournament would look but he has the midas touch."

As expected, some players struggled to adjust and cope with the rule changes more than others, rewarding those that can play and think quickly. Peter Edbon and Dave Harold, regarded as two of the slowest players on the circuit and with no experience of the Premier League shot clock, fell at the first hurdle.

The winner of the whole tournament Nigel Bond in his first match was down about 20 points and his opponent traded as low as 1.13 to win. As soon as a ball was missed the odds flew to over 2.0. There was also a game with Neil Robertson running round the table to beat the clock and potting a black in the very final second to win his match by one point. Again his opponent traded down at 1.04.If you like to lay low this was fantastic and gave me my third highest profit of the month after horse racing and darts.

I am sure that everybody has seen another service hit their emails this month. "Never had a losing month" screamed the headlines. This is http://portfoliopowerhouse.com , funny how going back five years of backs and lays not one losing month in that whole time. This is the first month of free trials and guess what, both backs and lays made losses in January to the tune of £1k (following advised stakes) this happens all the time with back fitted systems that just pull out certain courses, grounds and distances trying to make the past replicate the future. This rarely happens, if you go to Adrian Masseys site you can pick any number of variants to make your own system and spend literally years looking for that one winner. But in the majority of cases one good year for lays becomes a bad year the next.I wish the service well but dont get suckered in to much.

While on this subject I got my old laptop out and looked under the favourites heading. There were about ten websites that I followed for lays back then and also some football stuff and do you know not one of the websites is now trading , all have gone.

Back to the trading and the most disappointing again is football, my only losses this month were from this. I am in that rut when I have lost confidence in what I am doing and going into trades thinking that they will go against me. Speaking of this, all the lay the draw merchants must be having a hard time because I have noticed the draw odds drifting on so many games as I imagine people pile into them, also they tend to be holding up more in play. This month I shall be keeping the faith but using lower stakes, at least my own lay system games have been good and a profit has been made so this has helped.

Finally congrats to Crawley Town for being in the last 16 of the FA Cup. I went to school and grew up in the town until I left for pastures new at age 25. I used to go to the old ground "Town Mead" by Crawley Fire station and watch the team play with a few hundred others.

The last time they had a meaningful game in the FA Cup was the 3rd round in 1992 I travelled down to watch them play Brighton at the Goldstone Ground , and they got stuffed 5-0 ! One of my funnist memories at that game was the first Crawley foul drew a chorus of "You dirty Northern Bastards" 19,000 were there that day.

Anyway should be a great day out against Man Utd and I have already had lots of texts about going......

Lax.

Well very bad this month with the blogging as I have not been able to really find the time, or the inclination to put my thoughts down in writing. I am not the best with this twitter lark but as a newbie I have found it really helpful for posting up my bets and reading other peoples thoughts on this betting lark. I try to get my bets on line in plenty of time for anyone to follow if they so wish and make them clear and concise.

This month has been a great one with +76 points on the racing so far, today I had a 33/1 come 2nd and a 14/1 come second with one unplaced. It was a bumper Saturday for me with a 14/1 and 8/1 winner. The 8/1 went off at 7/2 and won on the line, which helped ease the pain of Somersby which just didnt get up to defeat Master Minded in the big race. If you follow you will see I only place value bets, which the bookies dont like which is why I keep my stakes to £25 each way. If I could get more off I would but its wise to not get to greedy.

A case in point was tonight where in the X Club one of the guys told me about a bet on Arsenal to score 4 goals against Ipswich. They were 5/2 (3.5) with Hills to get the 4 goals but any unquoted score on Betfair was 2.68 to lay so a fantastic opportunity to get a free bet ( as long as it wasnt Ipswich getting the 4 goals!) being greedy I tried to get £500 with Hills on this but got knocked back to just £200, and then a miserly £40 on another Hills account I have . Unfortunately they only got 3 but a fourth would have given me a nice profit of approx £190. So a nothing bet but I hope the knock back doesnt effect me in the future...

I am 3 and a 1/2 points down on the tennis so far but still have Woz who I backed at 9.8 before the start, she is now in the semi finals and I shall look to lay this off if she makes the Final. Mind you if it is against Zvonareva I might let it ride.

The football lays I have been posting up are in profit to the tune of 2 whole points! Again its better than nothing but I got myself out of the whole with the 4 point lay of Doncaster tonight.
Ten days ago on the Saturday I posted up an amazing free bet I found with Raith being 2.4 on Betfair to lay but backable at 2.75 with a couple of bookies, there was £3k sitting there early in the morning to lay.

Trading football wise I havent done many games at all apart from the Asian Cup games in the afternoon which have been ripe for the goal markets especially again today with both Japan/Korea and Aus/Uzbek games being very profitable. The odds gave a good amount of time to be in the markets waiting for goals to come and neither disappointed.

The horse lays are also up about 15 points this month bringing the total to over 350 points in the past 18 months. So all is good for the time being at least!

Back To The Future.

I remember somebody saying to me that after visiting New Zealand it reminded them off England thirty years ago. I had an idea of what they meant but having never crossed so many time zones in my life it has always been one of life's great mysteries for me.
I know from looking back at my blog and obviously from my memory that one year ago I was sitting here watching the tennis from Auckland just as I am now, when suddenly it hit me what they meant.

In between games the music comes on, and while the watchers sit under the green parasols at the side of the court drinking pimms in the midday sun, the sounds being piped over the speakers are the sounds of thirty years ago.

Its like Dazzling Darrens disco as "Walking On The Moon" by The Police, then "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley, "Easy" by Lionel Ritchie , and then rounded off with a bit of Hall and Oates come drifting in the air reminding me of my youth. The more amazing thing for me is that they played exactly the same songs during the breaks this time last year. Groundhog day New Zealand style, so if you get the chance to watch on Betfair video, sit back, relax, enjoy and dont forget your pimms! Magic FMs got nothing on this tournament.

It made me think of when I go to the gym, I used to take an Ipod but its a pain having the lead dangling around you while trying to exercise so now I go and have to hear the same old stuff there too. Sometimes I think I'm in "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest" and I am waiting for the loudspeaker to call out " medication time, medication time."

So a nice 12/1 winner with Dandy Boy winning in Meydan today wiping out the small losses from the last three days and putting me up 48 points for the month. Traded some tennis last few days and added 2% to my bank and some Asian Cup football but broke even there. The markets apart from the Australia game were saying no goals but I am hoping that a few more will be forthcoming especially in the knock out stages.

I had a winning lay with Ath Madrid and then a disaster with Southampton but that League will move on to lay no 2 this weekend which at the moment is looking like Brighton but I will know for sure tomorrow.

As I am not pasting anymore, so for decorative purposes, and for all you tennis fans here is Ms Sharapovas new Nike outfit for the Australian Open. Once the draw is made for this tournament I am going to put up a couple of backs to lay.

Round Up.

So three bets Sunday with two places and a big 33/1 winner. Across The Bay ran a lovely race always near the head of the field and never looking in trouble.



This made up for a unlucky Saturday as 12/1 shot Giles Cross traded down at 1.40 in running before running out of the steam in the Welsh Grand National and coming second to APs mount. Good old good AP now has the Grand Slam of Nationals in his pocket. In the race before Professor Emery also traded at 1.5 with a couple of fences left before completely fading away in the heavy ground to finish third.

This gives a profit of 42 points for the week so if you are following on twitter I hope you had a few quid on as well.

The past week on Betfair has been its normal up and down, winning on Racing and Darts but losing on Tennis and Football, but last weeks profit has put my account at a new high!!

The Tennis has been my fault with some poorly executed decisions and one game where I thought a turn around was forthcoming which wasnt! The Football hasnt actually been that bad just had a down turn with following Pete Norsteds draw master which unfortunately is going through a rough spell but that is only to be expected with an ROI of around 50% which couldnt be sustained. I also signed upto his newsletter that has an Italian Strategy which has had four losers in a row. So hopefully better times around the corner with that.


I have mentioned before about going through spreadsheets of football data to try to get myself a system or basis of that to help with my trading. I had completed it last month but really didnt know how to harness the information to make it viable or profitable for that matter. To this end I have come up with two ideas both with staking plans based on fibonacci.I dont have fancy names so System 1 will be laying odds on teams in certain European leagues. The leagues will not be mixed into together but seperated so each one will have its own staking ladder. The plan will be 1/2/3/5/8/13, so basically if I call five losers in a row in a particular league then the sixth and final bet will be 13 times your original stake. If that loses then its back to the beginning.

The second system is again laying certain teams in European Leagues with the following staking plan 1/2/4/8. Again these will be favourites in their matches but not odds on favourites so the plan is more aggressive to get back losses. Just like my horse bets I will be posting these on Twitter so if you want to follow for small stakes please do. I have checked previous years results in the leagues I have selected but obviously that doesnt mean the future will repeat the past !

The 1st selection for system 1 (which was tweeted) was lay Crotone in Serie B for a 1 point stake last Saturday. I managed to lay them at 1.80 though this was a loser as they won 2-0, so this league will go onto lay no 2 when I find a game that matches.

Finally I am not going to be cutting and pasting my Betfair and Racing results on here anymore.

This is more for personal and time reasons than anything else, but if you see my twitter posts you can get an idea for yourself how things are going.

R.I.P

Yes R.I.P Gary Mason who fought hard and fair, this obit from the guardian:

Gary Mason, who has died in a cycling accident at the age of 48, will be remembered principally for the only professional boxing match he ever lost – for the British heavyweight title against Lennox Lewis at the Wembley Arena in March 1991. The 28-year-old Mason was a 2-3 favourite, but had a problem that Lewis exploited mercilessly: a year earlier he had had surgery to repair a detached retina on his right eye.

Lewis had trained by placing tape just above the right eyes of his sparring partners. He closed Mason's eye, forcing a stoppage in the seventh round, but only after absorbing some heavy body blows. Several years later, he acknowledged to me: "You may be surprised, but of all my opponents, Mason hit the hardest."

Mason, the son of a Jamaican-born carpenter, grew up in Clapham, south London. By his late teens he had developed a powerful 6ft 1in physique, which he put to good use in the amateur boxing ring.

In 1984 he turned professional under the management of Mickey Duff, who developed his career carefully. By then Mason had grown to more than 17 stone, and was far too strong for his initial opponents. After a three-year apprenticeship, Duff arranged more challenging contests, and Mason proved that he was more than just a heavy-handed brawler. He had a tight defence, an accurate jab and – unlike Duff's premier breadwinner, Frank Bruno – one of the hardest chins in the business.

Mason beat Hughroy Currie in the Royal Albert Hall, London, to win the British title in January 1989, but by then his focus was on the world rankings. His biggest victory came later that year when he knocked out America's former Olympic super-heavyweight gold medallist, Tyrell Biggs, in seven rounds. This propelled Mason to fourth in the rankings of the World Boxing Council, but soon afterwards he suffered the detached retina and retired briefly.

Nine months on, following surgery, he returned to stop another American fringe contender, setting up the Lewis fight for a record British title purse of £276,000. Duff was delighted, accusing Lewis's management of "doing a Cecil B DeMille in reverse – taking a star and turning him into an unknown". Instead, the defeat, and the consequent loss of the British title, began a long downward spiral for Mason. "After losing to Lennox, I just didn't want to play any more," he told me. He changed his mind three years later, picking up a couple of wins in the US, but when he was refused a UK licence he retired for good at the age of 32 with a record of 37 wins, 34 of them knockouts, and one loss.

His party-loving lifestyle and doomed investments, including a jeweller's shop called Punch 'n Jewellery, had soaked up his savings, but he pressed on with fresh schemes. He made a pilot programme called Who's Gary Mason? and hawked it around the television studios, "but nobody seemed to want it". He signed for the London Crusaders rugby league side but gave up after three games. He invested in a clothing line called Punch and Style, "but that didn't work out either". He worked as a Sky Sports commentator, but inadvertent on-air swearing led to his being dropped.

Mason then headed for Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, where his activities included promoting arm-wrestling shows, "but no one would invest". He later set up stall as a boxing promoter, predicting: "In time I will be as devastating as a promoter as I was as a boxer." But again it flopped. Soon after his final tournament, his father died and his brief marriage collapsed. He took a job as a hospital security guard, but was fired for too much flirting with the female staff. One of his subsequent ventures was to front a charity called the Rhythmical Empowerment Group to "promote equality and diversity through music and rhythm".

Throughout all these setbacks, Mason came across as a bright, optimistic and avuncular man, always willing to help at charity events, full of ideas and schemes and always ready to break out into his deep "ho-ho-ho" laugh, invariably at his own expense.

Mason was riding his bicycle in Wallington, south London, when he was in a collision with a van, and was pronounced dead at the scene.

• Gary Mason, boxer, born 15 December 1962; died 6 January 2011

Cinzano Bianco

No gripes today as everything ended in positive territory. After yesterdays post my old boss would have been happy that all departments were green if only by small amounts !

The horse bets finished up by £280. I picked seven horses and to be fair they all ran terribly apart from one Bianco Fuji and luckily for me it came home a nice easy winner at 16/1. I did list it on my twitter page so I hope I wasnt alone in punting it.

Think they should have called it Cinzano Bianco though, brings back memories of Leonard Rossister and Joan Collins, but I digress...



The BDO World Darts has been running for a few days and even though I dont think the standard is as good as the PDC its better for trading as more doubles are missed which means lots more price swings. I remember last year a 1.01 getting turned over and today we had a 1.02 nearly get done followed next game by a 1.06 getting a resounding beating. Darts is full of peaks and troughs it just whether you are brave enough to jump in and hold on for the ride !

Myself I dont risk much I lay low so have a very limited downside and steer clear of either player around the evens mark.

Tennis is now in full swing on the other side of the world. Last year I stayed up through the night on many a freezing cold January night and felt like shit the next day, so this time I am going to give it a miss until the AO comes about. Lots of surprises in Brisbane though on Monday, one Czech lefty took out one of the top seeds, as Kvitova beat No.3 seed Petrova. That theme came up again on Tuesday as another Czech left-hander, Savarova upset the tournament's No.2 seed, Peer.

The two had played three times before on the WTA, with Peer leading the series, 2-1. After they split the first two sets it seemed Peer was on her way to another victory, building a 5-2 third set lead; she even held match point with Safarova serving at 5-4. But Safarova finished strong, winning 10 of the last 11 points to upset the No.13-ranked Israeli in two hours and 30 minutes.

"Shahar is a fighter and the match was very long. In the end, it could've gone either way," Safarova said afterwards. "I'm very happy to win this match. It's nice to perform so well right before the AO. I worked very hard in the off-season and I'm happy to play these kinds of matches right now."

Safarova has now won four of her last six matches against Top 15 players.

"I'm happy I'm playing this kind of tennis now," the 23-year-old added. "My goal this year is to be in the Top 20. I'm going to work hard to get there."

I think the Womens AO tournament will be far more an interesting with Serena missing, Kim will be favourite and rightly so but after last years first round exit I will be interested to see Sharapovas draw.


Only had the one football bet today from Premier Betting which was a winner. For the money I think this is a great site with ratings, injury news, analysis, and the odd winner !

New Year.

Belated Happy New Year to all readers of my blog. So after a busy Xmas, I settled back down to work on the January 1st. After the slowness of December the sporting feast has arrived in the New Year with a bang.

An absolute cracker of a World Darts Final with Adrian Lewis finally coming of age smashing records all over the place to overcome a gallant Gary Anderson. If you missed the amazing 9 darter at the beginning of the match have a look below.

As the German commentator says "Thats RocknRoll."




As mentioned before, this year I not following any horse tipsters just my own selections . I have added a twitter link on the right so if I do fancy anything it will get mentioned on there so if you are interested please follow, just dont blame me if they lose !

I had the typical moaning day on Saturday with a 11/1 shot that I backed getting over 11k matched at 1.01 but somehow losing. It was pretty strange as it had more to do with camera angles than anything because it obviously looked all over the winner but as the camera swung round it was actually behind.
It added to my frustration as I tried to get on Blazing Bailey at Cheltenham but couldnt get the 12/1 anywhere. I was being offered 10/1 by Stan James but believe it or not I didnt think it was good enough value at that price in such a large and competitive field. I then had to watch as it romped home. I then had another called "Junior" which I tweeted at 8/1 trade at 1.25 before coming second.

Just three bets on Sunday with one winning at 7/1 and one placed as well, and nothing today.

I imagine I will not have anywhere near the amount of bets I had last year but this will help free me up to follow some projects I want to and hopefully benefit my trading.


Talking of trading my 2011 P/L looks a bit messy. I find it a bit like my old job where I had four parts of a commission structure to complete to get paid well, I normally could get two or three but there was always something lagging behind dragging me down. Then when the boss wanted to see me that was what he concentrated on and not the positive.


So the balls up is with football. I did a few games over the weekend and things just didnt work out, goals came when I didnt want them to and goals didnt when I did. In three matches I had money next in the queue when goals were scored and once like tonight I had got my lay money matched and within seconds a goal was scored costing me £100. Poor choices, poor selections?
Time will tell.

The horses are going well so thats the positive and am looking forward to seeing some tennis again.

Top Man

Well the masses voted,and they all voted for AP McCoy to be Sports Personality Of The Year.

AP's landslide success in the 2010 BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards on Sunday has been greeted with jubilation from the entire racing industry.The 15-times champion jump jockey was clearly touched by the overwhelming public support, which gave him 42 per cent of the vote. McCoy received 293,152 votes, 220,957 more than runner-up Phil Taylor. Ryan Giggs won last year's award with 151,842 votes.

McCoy, who came third in the competition in 2002, became the first racing figure to win the award, adding another accolade to his unrivalled collection. A sustained campaign by the sport saw the racing community and the general public rally behind this year's Grand National-winning jockey.

2010 Sports Personality of the Year results

1 AP McCoy 293,152 (41.98%)
2 Phil Taylor 72,095 (10.33)
3 Jessica Ennis 62,953 (9.02)
4 Lee Westwood 58,640 (8.4)
5 Graeme McDowell 52,108 (7.46)
6 Tom Daley 50,763 (7.27%)
7 Mark Cavendish 44,170 (6.33)
8 Amy Williams 43,056 (6.17)
9 Graeme Swann 13,767 (1.97)
10 David Haye 7,538 (1.08)

Well done to everyone that voted for him.

So after three Xmas do's last week I finally managed to do some football trading over the weekend. I didnt think the markets were to good on some games but then again if they are not helping you in one way then they should be helping you in another. To me it depends on how flexible you are to changing stratagies once the game has gone in play. This is where like all types of trading you have to have the correct mindset for each occasion.

Losses will come but stating the obvious its all about keeping them down to a minimum which I am trying to do! Traded the games in the X-Club room both days and really enjoyed the chat, got some very nice and knowledgeable people there. With the trading I am not sure if I will ever get to where I want to be. By nature I am a saver not a spender and my cautious behaviour seems to stop me from pushing forward to much because I am always trying to minimise my losses, where as to make money from this you have to be aggressive especially when in a winning positon. This is how I see it.

Still hoping to see some horse racing this month but that could just be a dream, and will have a look at the darts too.

In The Saddle

Great to have some quality horse racing on last weekend and today at Fairyhouse, god its so much better than having to watch Southwell and Wolves all weather ! Had some decent winners over the past five days and some very close things as well so the month is looking up.

After a successful Cheltenham I picked four yesterday in the 16+ handicaps and had a winner at 14/1 and a placed horse at 20/1. Also got a 9/1 from two selections from Terry.



These big handicaps are easily my most successful types of races and maybe more of what I should concentrate my efforts on. Today just the one big field, the 12.25 where I had the second and fourth and again Terry weighed in with one from two.

Some high class racing then with Hurricane Fly establishing himself as Ireland’s premier Champion Hurdle contender after slamming a fair benchmark in Solwhit who had match fitness on his side, but sad news here as Twist Magic had to be put down after falling at Newbury.

Concerning my comments about football trading thanks to Cassini for giving his views on his blog and the comments he received. Its a difficult one because we obviously all think differently which is why betfair exists. I was just taking an example of a guy on the forum who said what he had done during the game. I was trying to get an idea of his mindset when entering a trade.
With the amount of in play games and liquidity in the markets I think that football has to be part of a traders armoury. My own thinking on the game was that I wouldnt open up any position until I saw the team news, formations and then watched to see how the game was going. If twenty minutes in the game was end to end but 0-0 then I would go in on the over 1.5 market and see how it panned out, I certainly wouldnt be bailing out because a goal at 55 mins would put you in a profitable position, and even one in the 70th minute would give a break even situation.

This particular game finished 0-0 so you could say he was right there,but he counteracted that by doing a chasing trade of laying 0-0 in the full time market.

A good example was last nights game with Hearts and Motherwell which was attacking from the start. With no goals coming I layed under 2.5 goals thirty minutes in and was rewarded with three by the 60th minute. Lucky? Well of course when entering this you need goals to be scored, I did the same in the other live match Charlton v Brentford that finished 0-0 , but it was just absoutely terrible finishing that didnt give me any opportunity to get out. If you saw the game you would know what I mean. This meant I was up in one and down in another, so maybe we are both right ! No I wasnt in the red card market though ...



Cricket starts in the early hours and a draw is definitely not on the cards here. The Waca pitch is known to deteriorate and crack very badly depending on the weather. I fancy Johnson to come back into the Aussie attack and if he can get his direction right he will certainly have the speed to get the ball bouncing around a few heads, a watching brief for me but with a start time of 2.30 am I doubt it will even be that.

Thats it for me until after the weekend, good luck with your betting.

Christmas Spirit?

Well its been another exciting week in sport with the best news being England thrashing the Aussies. As I mentioned in my post last week I layed the draw from the beginning and was very fortunate that England took three quick wickets very early on Day One leaving me in a positive position from the start. I wasnt brave enough to let it run but did leave zero on the draw and green on any winning outcome .

The thing that struck me most about the match was the "Swann Factor." We now have a World Class spin bowler who can bowl at any time in a match not just on Day Five. No surprise that the media in Australia is praying for Shane Warne to come back because I can see a role reversal between the two nations and maybe we can have the Ashes for a decade or so. Lets hope so !

Below is a photo of who I reckon must be the most hated man in England right now.

He looks cool in his Newcastle track suit doesnt he? The below from the Guardian :

"Christmas must be coming, the Premier League has started to sack managers. This is the season of goodwill to all men but not if they are Chris Hughton whose departure from Newcastle United has confirmed that at St James' Park the spirit of pantomime is alive and well. If Hughton was Aladdin, restoring stability with the magic lamp of common sense, his successor,Alan Pardew, must be Buttons, which is about all he will have to spend.

The treatment of Hughton has been roundly condemned by fans, media and players. It seems his biggest mistake was in taking Newcastle to fifth place after the win at Arsenal. Next to losing matches, the worst thing a manager can do is to raise expectations to levels he will find difficult to maintain.

Apparently Hughton lacks managerial experience, which seems a bit rich coming from a club prepared to put Alan Shearer, whose experience of management was zilch, in charge towards the end of the season before last, when Newcastle were on their way down. Pardew is several sackings ahead of Hughton in experience and at least he is not a messiah, which should help.

Maybe, just maybe, Ashley will get this one right. Hughton was popular with the players but not so popular, apparently, that the team felt like breaking sweat at West Bromwich Albion last weekend, when Newcastle did not so much have an off day as a day off. A manager should never be one of the boys because boys occasionally play truant."

Well chat rooms, forums and the polls were not for Alan Pardew but Big Mike was as Maggie put it " Not for turning" so all the opinion fell on deaf ears. Personally I think he deserves a chance and I think it is a good appointment . Only time will tell ,but at West Ham he got us out of the Championship , to an FA Cup Final which being unbiased we were robbed of but most of all was tireless and shrewd in the transfer market. He is not naive enough to think he will last the five and half years on his contract which is why he got such a contract because when the time comes he will get a nice pay off. Football is a very fickle business and if it goes well he could be heading the next England manager market on Betfair ina few years time. So you might laugh but we had Keegan and Hoddle so why not? I remember when I went to watch West Ham play Aston Villa and they were at the top of the league and had a new manager in place called John Gregory. He was like sliced bread and the media loved his style and the way he spoke in a very forthright manner. He was being touted as the next England manager then. Where is he now? The media can pick you up and put you down very quickly in life.

Betting wise not a lot doing the last week. The racing kicked back of today in earnest with some proper stuff at Cheltenham and what a relief that was. I got stuck into the meeting and picked eight horses , two in each big field handicap race and also did a little e/w double which came in. I managed to get the winner in the 1.50 so a nice profit was made.



I havent managed to do any trading this week as I have had a couple of birthday do's and with one more tonight and three Christmas do's next week its a busy time.

I have read the X -Club manual a couple of times over but will need to do a lot of practise for a long time before I can get my head around all the stuff. One thing did hit me last evening when I watched an Argentian match on Betfair. I went onto the forum and read what peoples thoughts for the match were. One guy had put £300 on over 1.5 goals. No goals were forthcoming so after about twenty five minutes he said that he had taken a red book of £60 because he didnt want to lose his £ 300. Now this guy will never make money as far as I can see. You cannot do your homework, decide on a course of action and then bail out because the required result is'nt hit within twenty five minutes of your trade. In reality just one goal would have given him the opportunity to get out with a profit, or break even if the goal comes later on (within reason). To my mind he was overstaking and out of his comfort zone because otherwise while bail out? If he had bet £100 he would probably of let the trade run a lot longer than just panic. To compound his logic he said at half time he would lay the 0-0 full time result to get his £ 60 back. So as happens to all of us the game finished 0-0 and he lost £ 571.

The question is what would you have done in his situation? To me its the same in a lot of the blogs I read, mine included. Overstaking, taking a red to soon , closing winning trades to soon, chasing small losses and compounding them to bigger ones and not really knowing the dynamics of the markets before entering them. If I was Ian Erskine I could charge money for writing the obvious....Oh and by the way I did receive an email from him telling me why he deleted my comments on his blog and telling me that the bets were ahead this season but not by much , but over the last few seasons in his words he was "miles ahead." Maybe he meant "light years ahead" that would sound better. Sarcasm aside at least he sent me a reply.

Anyway I shall hope to trade some football this coming weekend as long as i dont get roped into anymore Christmas stuff, humbug !

Footballs Not Coming Home....

Nothing more can be said after our bid for the 2018 World Cup went down in flames in Zurich. We cant blame our players as we sent out the best team we could. With a Prince in our team if this had been a fairytale we would have had it all sewn up with enough time for a bedtime story. Sadly from reading all the reports our bid was top in everything, and in the corridors of power when asked if we could depend on votes we were assured that we could.

As it was, only one other member voted for us, not the best way to spend £15 million pounds but as we all know you've got to be in it to win. Where we go from here is uncertain , if FIFA do want to send it to all parts of the globe then we could be waiting a long time for the football to come back to the "motherland" as Sepp called it.

So well done to Russia and lets hope that they can host a true and fair World Cup, and that recent comments from the Wikileaks about" a mafia state " are not true. Otherwise it could be a bit like betting on the ATP tournament in St Petersburg last month with some rather strange odds and results.

So to 2022, and a laughable result with it given to a rather rich country (Emirate)called Qatar. We cant even use playing in 115 degree heat as an excuse as they are going to air condition all the stadiums. I should think so to, if you watch tennis then the last few years at Doha the women have just withered away in absurd humidity.

So the good news is I have started tracing back my family tree to see if I am in fact related to any Qatari people just in case there's any chance of me getting a game .I'm sure Sir Stanley Matthews managed to play in his fifties, and with such a small population I bet they are always short of a couple of players to get a full team out. I also hear that they will be one of the seeds which is just pushing it a bit far.

This is what wikipedia says about Qatar:

"Qatar is a destination country for men and women from South and Southeast Asia who migrate willingly, but are subsequently trafficked into involuntary servitude as domestic workers and laborers, and, to a lesser extent, commercial sexual exploitation; the most common offence was forcing workers to accept worse contract terms than those under which they were recruited; other conditions include bonded labor, withholding of pay, restrictions on movement, arbitrary detention, and physical, mental, and sexual abuse.

The government maintains that it is setting the benchmark when it comes to human rights and treatment of labourers."

So to all those labourers this is what you will be building, and it all looks bloody nice.

Better get cracking guys....

El Classico ?

What an amazing game of the football. The skill, touch and ease of these players was a sight to behold and really proved that dreams can come true as the scoreline showed. The last twenty minutes was just a show of keep ball as the game as a contest was over.

The oppostion only had two shots on target all night and to celebrate I even cracked open a couple of Stellas. When my other half came in from her evening university course I said " Can you guess the score" to which she replied "1-1."
I then moved out of the way of the TV and there it was in all its glory "What!" she screamed "West Ham 4 Manchester United 0."

So she joined me and had a glass of wine and we watched Alex's face getter redder together. Oh and by the way the game on Monday was pretty good those Barcelona boys sure can play some.

Back to reality and another month has shot by, December is here and the first snows landed where I live this morning. Not sure how much blogging I will do this month as I am not following any tipsters and with just my own bets it will be pretty sparce I imagine. After great months in August and October, November will go down as one of the worst this year. My own bets only made a small profit and the two tipsters both lost money. Luckily I traded some good profit from horse racing and amazingly football.

So this is where I am for now. I have dropped all tipsters and joined "The X Club" to try to improve my trading especially in the football department. I am sure if you read blogs like mine that you will have seen it on the web. I have bought enough crappy systems with the money I spent to join so personally I think this will be a great investment and help improve my mindset and skills in this area. Once I joined I spoke to Matt for an hour on Skype and I must say I have never met anybody before who is more astute and knowledgeable about Betfair markets. I do feel a complete novice because even though I have traded the markets for a number of years you speak to someone like him and realise you really havent got a clue. Whether I can cut the mustard is to be seen but I shall try my best!

Finally I have the Winners Market below for 2010/2011 I was going to set a goal to see how far I can get but I wont because I am not really sure and dont want to push it. As it goes up or down I shall update it and see where we are come May next year.

Adelaide.

Good post on "Sport Is Made for Betting" about the cricket. A thoroughly great come back for England who 200 odd runs behind after the first innings made 517/1 in their second innings to claim the draw. How the Australians miss Warne and McGrath, and thank god they decided to hang up their pads.

Personally I think that England can get the twenty wickets needed to win the next test and a lay of the draw at such low odds should be taken. There are five whole days and at 2.16 this price must trade higher. Both Austrailian batsmen (Haddin and Hussey) who put together that record breaking partnership said that the bowling they came up against in the first hour of the second day was the toughest they have faced. We didnt get the rub of the green and who knows what would have happened if we had had the review that we needed to get Hussey out LBW within that first hour? There have been some funny results in Adelaide none more so than Englands last Ashes match there when England after declaring at 551 for 6,managed to get bowled out for 129 in the second innings and lost the match by six wickets. I expect plenty of runs and plenty of wickets to, I also expect the team to bat first's price will steam in.

Well a bit of chilly weekend for sure but no snow down on the coast where I am but plenty elsewhere in the UK. Obviously the weather killed a lot of the horse racing leaving me with just two bets, which both came the dreaded fourth place so no easy pickings there.

This gave me more time to concentrate on the weekends football matches to try and earn a crust. I got involved in a few matches on both days and though a couple of games went against me I managed to pick up a decent profit (for me!)


Both Soccer Insight and Premier Betting had winning weekends as well.

Memories.

When I was a lot younger I used to love listening to sporting events on the radio, curled up under the sheets late into the night. I used to have some provisions that were needed like a bit of chocolate and maybe some lemonade and a torch.

To this day I remember listening in awe to a World Heavyweight title fight between Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks. The commentary, the roar of the crowd, the whistles, the excitement being generated that I could feel coming down the air waves the feeling that this was happening so very far away in another country but here I was in my bed under the sheets being a part of this event. This was the first event I can remember listening to but it has stuck with me to this day and upstaris in my attic with loads of junk is an official programme from that night in 1978 in Nevada where Ali lost his title. My Dads business partner had flown out to see the fight and brought it home for me and boy did I treasure it. I feel that with the radio you can have your own thoughts, ideas, visions of whats happening and you can bring this all together by using your own imagination. Its a bit like reading a book and then seeing the film, we all come out of the cinema saying that the book was better because of our own personal interpretation.

The same can be said about the Ashes Down Under. As a boy this was a major highlight for me I used to love the way the commentators spoke, the love that they had for the game and the silly comments and banter that went on. I had the radio on all night and would drift off listening to thier dulcet tones.When I got my first girlfriend I hatched a plan to stay with her the night without my parents knowing but on arriving at her place I noticed that she didnt have a radio in her bedroom and at that time the Ashes were being played. So I went all the way back home to get my little portable so I could keep upto date with the game. On arrival my mother had a face like thunder as she told me that my cover had been blown and I wasnt going anywhere that night. So instead of losing my virginity I was listening to us losing a test match.

So tonight as per last night I am watching Sky with the sound down and listening to Five Live to Geoffrey and Jonathan feeling like they are lost old friends and still managing to have that relaxed and happy feeling that I had years ago, and I tell you what, it still seems more exciting just listening.

The last couple of days have been good. The Market Examiner obviously read my last post and pulled his finger out and got me a 10/1 winner though he had two losers today. But a profit of £200 and maybe the start of the comeback?

I have had only three bets but managed to find a 10/1 winner today.


And Betfair is green !

Next Year.

So a very slow few days for me. Nothing really tickled me on the horses side of things with some pretty low grade stuff and small fields. The Market Examiner's woes continue with another five losers since my last post . Unless I get a free subscription next month I wont continue with this service. As I put in my last post I needed to have a think and plan for next year and what I am going to do. Horse wise over the years I have followed many tipsters and on other blogs many people still do but its not really the way forward.

JPs blog had many services and when you add in the subs it costs a fortune and then there are the shrinking prices and the trouble in getting the bets on. Thats just the start of the worries as then if the service flounders you are counting the cost and ultimately thats what happened to him and many others before him. His tipsters performed for a while then then they all seemed to hit a bad patch together and he seemed to do a lot of dough. So you flit from one to another until you have a decent run and think "I'm on to something here" so the stakes are increased and encouraged as you think " Its the eighth wonder of the world compounding, if this keeps happening at the same rate as at the moment, then my profits soar and Bobs your uncle and all that. Unfortunately it doesnt work like that, just like the "If I can increase my bank by just 1% a day in about a month my bank will have doubled and then in a year , well I'll be rich and all my worries will be over....

So for me starting from next month I shall just be following my own bets and the bets I get from my tipster friend Terry. Nothing else because in the end all these guys come and go under different guises trying to get you to part with your hard earned. I feel that this has come about more so because of the amount of crap I get bombarded with on email from system sellers and scammers. For example yesterday I went through all the system 3 games that Ian Erskine has sent though this season to check the results.He has had nineteen winners , one break even and three losers. Now laying at average odds of 7/1 means a loss for the season. I wrote to him to which I have had no reply and asked if I was doing something wrong or were these the results. Now I know I am not doing anything wrong you are basically laying 1-1 it aint rocket science but I was hoping for a reply so he would just admit it and say " Yep you are right but these things happen when gambling and I am sure we will turn it around" Or at least some kind of response. But this has not happened so I left two comments on his blog asking the same which have not been shown. So good luck to him mind you he has asked me in an email to join his newsletter for how much a month I dont know cos I deleted it. I imagine like all his stuff its going to open my eyes to the world of betting and scammers, and give me the do's and dont's. Hmmmm....

So to him and to me and anybody else who cares to listen have a read below if you can make out the small print.
I remember when I joined The Secret Betting Club (which I am not a member of anymore) about three years ago. They have a "Hall of Fame" for the top tipsters and these are the cream and I thought right I shall subscribe to these and make a fortune myself.

The first one was Asian Handicapper who actually three months later pulled there site as their results were awful, and there was Blue Sky Racing. I think he is still around but again terrible results and terrible customer service. The Tipping Legends with JC who from emails I have exchanged is a lovely guy , but again after an intial purple patch last year wasnt profitable and has wound up recharging his batteries for the next four months. He split from his racing partner Roger Green who is still going on now. Talking of which it looks like another blog has gone "Tipsters Uncovered" who was following Roger Green and Zafforzi . Zafforzi had five losing days and have closed to re evaluate and taken the site down. I gather they blamed it on Betfair SP not being able to handle the amount of money coming in from there bets. They were the new holygrail.

Anyway the point of the post is just for me to put it down what I want to do and planning a course of action for it. It might sound a negative and poor post, but over the last few years its been a learning curve and an expensive one at that, but with the amount of time I will free up I want to study some trading and try to specialise in one particular area. I have ideas and I have hopes, and I shall put in the hours and gain the knowledge to do it.There is nothing stopping me but myself.

So stick around for the ride.

Mystifying.

A bit of a strange weekend for me as I had a multitude of bets and finished about £ 20 down. It must have been the busiest I have been for a long long time, and the pressure of trying to get so much done especially with the early racing starts didnt really help me.

It was really mystifying going through all the results and got me to thinking about where I am headed to next in my journey. I suppose the only positive is that I am not losing loads of money when things are going against me but really could do with a boost from somewhere for the end of the month. I have been treading water for the last seven days which is really no good and have now slipped behind my target. Results wise The Market Examiner lost another £ 200 and is now down 26.5 points for the month, my tipster Terry had a nice winner on Saturday at 11/2 so winning me £ 200. My own bets I had three winners all at pretty low odds but still gaining me £150. Bet Catalyst came up empty handed losing £ 180. I also layed a couple of horses and lost £ 275 there. I think there is a pattern emerging here of giving and taking !

Darts was good as I won £ 185, and what comes back from Beaton on Saturday to beat Taylor and then tonight as Waites came from 8-0 down to beat Wade in the final.

Football was profitable to the tune of about £ 80 but could have been five times that if Liverpool had scored a fourth goal. Leading 3-0 at half time I thought I was quids in but the game fizzled out and no more goals came. I did join Premier Betting this week and all four games were winners so that was a great start though and won me £ 197.

So as you can see a bit of a messy weekend and I shall decide this week what to do to make it easier for myself for these busy periods and how to go forward.

Brilliant Stuff

What an amazing ride in the first race of the day at Mussleburgh today. I was amazed watching the race and the Racing Post sums it up much better than I ever can:

"Matt Crawley produced a miracle ride at Musselburgh to bring home Lastroseofsummer in front despite the conditional losing his irons at the eighth flight of the opening maiden hurdle over 2m4f.

Crawley's saddle slipped down the back, resulting in the loss of stirrups, but, incredibly, the 7lb claimer was not only able to stay on board but actually ride the four-year-old filly to an 11-2 victory.

Elation at victory was short-lived as he returned to earth with a bump when finally succumbing to gravity and falling off the winner after the line.

But Crawley returned to a warm reception from the public, who backed Lastroseofsummer down to 11-2 from 9-1, and received a "brilliant" response from his weighing-room colleagues. He explained: "My stirrup went down the back. I tried to get it back but the tack went to one side so I had to kick the other one out.

"She was going well so I carried on going."

When asked how he managed to defy gravity and ride without irons for the rest of the race, he said: "I don't know how I did it - instinct just kicked in."

He added: "She jumped better with me on her back than when I was up in the air - she got into the rhythm of it."

Lastroseofsummer was matched at 1,000 for £35 in Betfair's in-running market"

I have never seen a better example of horsemanship and he throughly deserved the applause when he arrived back in the winners enclosure. As for the layers at 999/1 , oh the pain....

So no updates for a few days as its been really slow for me and really slow for the two tipsters I follow. Terry has only had a couple of tips this week both losing and The Market Examiner is just not performing and is down another £ 225 since my last post. Add to that my own bets which are just not cutting the mustard at the moment and I have managed to give another £300 to the bookies.

I have managed to cover the losses with some trading on Betfair, but I really need to get some horses winning over the weekend to push me on as I have had a pretty static week.



Good luck if you are betting over the weekend and roll on Sunday when we get the tennis going again, just dont bet on this game tomorrow Anzhi Makhachkala v FC Saturn Moscow in the Russian Premier League, in fact I would steer clear of all the games. Some very moody odds especially with the Champions Zenit at 5/1 .

Hankey Pankey.

Well todays sporting event was the two champs of darts going head to head in Wolverhampton at the Grand Slam Of Darts. We had Phil " The Power" Taylor and Ted " The Count" Hankey. You could see the difference as Hankey raced into a two nil lead in the first to five match but then the presssure started to tell as he realised that in their first ever meeting he was winning. As many players do when playing Taylor he started to feel the heat even though he is a World Champion in his own right. It then turned into a right ding dong of a match as Hankey led 4-3 and had two shots at double nineteen to win the match but neither landed near as he started to bottle it. Taylor then stepped up and banged in the double to send it to the final leg.

Hankey with the throw started off brillantly and carried on in great style to nail a double five and win a belter of a match 5-4. Some great trading in the darts tonight and could have been better for me if Barney had hit 1.20. He traded at 1.21 and my lay was sitting at 1.20 but it never got matched as he then went onto lose 5-3 to Colin Lloyd.

Todays laugh came from the Elite section of Ian Erskines blog and this is what was said;

"Saturday we had Man City as the first FTS straight forward for me out at 2.0, did think Man City would be more adventurous against a side they have a great record against but the game went against us. This was followed by Athletico which was a 100% win for me and I know some of you used it as a cover to win game so got back the first game losses."

Now I havent printed any of his mails before and wont do it again but to me this is laughable. So you lost £420 on the Man City game but decide to do a martingale to get your money back. So the risk liability on the draw in the Athletico game would have been approx £ 2k which is amazing. I ask you how many people in his group are really doing this type of trading? Do they really have that sort of money to risk?

Anyway enough of that and onto todays business. Firstly The Market Examiner had five picks and all losers. Add into the mix my four selections with only one place so a total loss of £ 270.

Luckily I managed to weigh in with £ 324 on Betfair so a slightly profitable day, had a few horse lays come good and traded a few football matches not the FTS ones!