Sunday 5 June 2016

What A Time To Be Alive

It's Sunday. God's day. The day of rest and on such a day, it's a great time to make it clear we are living in the halcyon days of punting. That's what they say anyway.

My first blog, a preview blog maybe, got more views than I was expecting. Thanks for that. I'm unsure of which way the blog should go (career crisis after about 20 views of a blog - this is great) but I'll give you the run down of what happened during my first week as a Blogger. With the Copa America already started and Euro 2016 on its way along with the Derby meeting at Epsom it was imperative to only back winners so I could re-invest it all on all sorts of fanciful things.

Somehow, I got Queensland up in that first game and put my series bet in a very healthy position. They're about 1/4 to win the thing now and the winnings are already being spent. 1/4 shots don't lose do they? That's what the Twitter Tipsters say.

It's remarkable how when you have a winner suddenly value just appears everywhere. Some of my Queensland match winnings were with Marathon and so I was obliged to not withdraw anything until I had given them the chance to win it back off me. Horse racing it is. After some sparring I had found a winner and it had drifted on the show from my 6/4 out to an even juicier 7/4. Lovely. How good is Best Odds Guaranteed? Not that good apparently. I almost assumed every firm had this concession but seemingly not. I sort of respect them for not even giving BOG but whoever made up the phrase "It's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all" is wrong. The correct phrase is, "It's better to have had BOG and lost it than never had it all".

I've been having bad headaches recently and it's not because I'm struggling to comprehend how easy this game is. I needed to go to the doctors. "I've been having headaches" I said. "Take off your shirt" he said. Not a great start. The doctor had hay-fever and I ended up counseling him more than the other way round. In the most awkward moment of the appointment I said to him "I hope it gets better". That's right. Me telling a doctor I hope he gets better. He must have wanted to give up the game.

Blood tests were required to "rule out most things". Off to the nurses office. The nurse in question was retiring soon and was training up her incumbent. While she tried to distract me from the fact I was being butchered up and having heinous amounts of blood taken out she asked me about my job. Ah a good old chat about The Industry. She must have had some retirement funds burning a hole in her white outfit cos she was keen to know about the ins and outs of it all. Like many who don't work in The Industry, she adopted that tone of "Awww I feel sorry for you that I and everyone else feels utter disdain for you". I feel like that too sometimes.

Nurses are funny old people. My mum was a nurse and their job turns them into heartless individuals I find. They've seen it all and they've heard it all. It made my mum (no idea why past tense, she's still alive), into a person with a terrible sense of humour. I was 4 and on Christmas Day, I bounded down the stairs happy to see what old Santa had brought me. Before I could reach the second-to-top stair by Mum shouted up to me "Oh my God". I hastily replied "What Mum? What?". In all her glory and I have no idea why, she said "Santa hasn't been". I collapsed. Slumped to my bum on the stairs and instantly burst into tears. It was a joke she said. Some joke. Santa had been but I swear none of you have a Heartbreak Hotel story like that. I'm still bitter & twisted to this day.

I'd like to blame the loss of blood on Thursday as to being the reason why I did my absolute pieces on Wakefield to beat Hull KR on a -4 handicap. I shiver now looking back to that terrible time a massive 3 days ago. I had a friendly £50 on the handicap at evens with bet365. Wakefield were quickly losing by a relatively huge amount so there was only one thing for it. In again. This time at +6.5 in-play and then in again on their match prices at a Betfair Exchange price of 11.0. Wakey were only losing by 10 points with 20 minutes to go and it was well within the rugby league possibilities that they went and did the job and got some pennies back for me. They lost by 38 points. Oh dear. I'd lost my blood and lost my money. This wasn't supposed to be how it all ended.

The saving grace in all this was Chris 'Mike' Smalling. Portugal were without Ronaldo but as I woke up on Thursday morning the price had nearly gone. Nevertheless I still made them value at anything that wasn't odds-on and went into England at Evens and lobbed them in a double with Worcestershire to beat Yorkshire in the T20. By the time I placed the double in the early evening, I'd missed the prices for both those selections and I think the double paid just over 15/8. All was going well when Worcestershire were cruising and England were playing against 10 lads from Portugal. Easy this. With 6 minutes to go, it wasn't looking so good. Up steps Chrissy Smalldog and all is good again. Redemption for doing my pieces on Wakefield. I'd got back my losings and was ready to smash up the Derby weekend.

An Oaks-Derby double wasn't beyond me. In fact I wouldn't accept any less.

That didn't happen. Obviously.

I had sold it to myself that the Oaks and Derby were terribly weak this year and resembled a set of handicap fields. For that reason I chased the big priced winners. Not to be.

Between the million offers and a clean mug punter account, I think it's almost impossible to do your absolute pieces these days on any horse race(s) on Channel 4. I made a very good go of it though. I definitely lost on the horses and if it were not for some rugby league bets across the weekend that bordered on palpable, I would certainly have been in a worse position as I write this.

There would be no retirement this weekend. In fact I'm not sure there ever will be with such tame betting, but with the State of Origin series bet a certainty* and with enough funds in the betting account I'm confident of success. I've booked a suite on The Strip in Las Vegas for New Year's and I refuse to pay for it with my own cold hard. Time to put my foot down on the pedal.

It's fortunate I did this as suddenly I spotted even more certainties, just when I needed them, that were there as juicey Brucey bonuses. Remain wins the EU referendum and Hilary Clinton wins the Presidential Election in the USA. I've about three weeks to accumulate as much money as possible to run onto the double and I'll be writing a blog in 2017 from the sands of the Nevada desert.

That double above, at present, pays Evens. Yes you read that right.... EVENS. You lay down everything you have and come November, you have double everything you had in June. What a time to be alive.

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