Internet down

What a nightmarish day! About 3.10pm my internet connection just packed up for no reason at all. I've just got a standard ADSL setup, nothing fancy, but it's been very reliable for years, now it just died on me. I was running a few medium footie positions and a biggish one on Deme vs Oudin, waited for a bit to see if it would come back to life but no joy, so decided better get the f*** out of everything pronto! Never placed many bets on the phone and was pleasantly surprised how clued up the bloke was taking the bets. Then down to the internet cafe asap to try and rescue what I could.

Quite happy to get out of the day with a reasonable profit in the end after all that chaos, though obviously a bit annoyed at the footie reds and the red on Deme, solely due to having to get out as best I could. In fact I was rather a lot more red on Deme but managed to reduce it down the cafe.
The connection resumed at 11.15pm just as suddenly as it had died, and again for no discernible reason. Maybe some workman had cut through a cable, who knows, but it has made me aware just how vulnerable you could be. Nowt to be done about it, though.

Dubai kicks off tomorrow with a pretty full program, and a few matches in Memphis too. Not too sure how much liquidity there'll be at 8am UK time on a Sunday morning with the matches not televised. The Sunday kickoff might also explain the losses by Schiavone, Lisicki and Dushevina earlier this week (ahem).

12 Feb

After the previous 2 days carnage some sanity returned as 7/8 favs obliged today, the only fav to fall being Peer in Paris, blown away by a red-hot Safarova. Tomorrow's clash between Penne and her should be something else - think they should consider new balls every 5/7 games, not 7/9! They're going to get a fearful bashing. Sad to see Agnes getting an attack of the walkabouts again - she'd been doing really well so far this year and was clearly the better player till she inexplicably left the building.

Managed to tiptoe my way through the day ending with a nice profit. Just the 4 matches tomorrow as we head into the weekend so will be having a look at the footie and anything else on the TV.

Favs continue to struggle

Only 3/5 favs won in Pattaya, Chan and Dushevina losing, a surprising loss by Dushevina, who is usually very solid against the lower ranked players. And only 2/5 won in Paris, with Rezai, Schiavone and Schnyder perishing. Looks like the Fed Cup form just never translates very well to main tour events, as Safarova and Petkovic had poor results at the weekend but have come out and done well in Paris. I'm also quite surprised at how easily Patty appears to have lost to Oudin, though she often takes a set to get going so perhaps the 1st set scoreline isn't wholly representative. I had anticipated the wily old campaigner, who had played well in her 1st match, to have too many tricks for the youngster who would never have played anyone of Patty's ilk before.

Had another good day with a few in running bets on the tennis coming in. I did let a bet on Patty run too long and may have got a bit ego-bound as she was the tip of the day. You cannot afford to let the need to be right affect you, and thinking back as dispassionately as I can I was probably guilty of that. Cost me a chunk of the day's profits! May have to re-examine doing the tip of the day experiment if it's going to mess with my head like that.Again some very interesting matches today. Was seething when Eurosport didn't cover the Schnyder match last night - hopefully they will cover all 4 qf's today. They didn't even have it on their much advertised subscription stream player. What a shocking channel ES is. They have their exclusive WTA deal but really do mess about with the coverage. The WTA must look at better options when the deal comes up for renewal, as the ES coverage doesn't do the sport justice.

Back to normal

After a crazy few days it was a relief to have a nice low key day today! Think the antennae must've been working well as it turned out to be carnage for the favs.

In Pattaya only 3 of the 7 favs won. This amounts to an absolute bloodbath in WTA terms, and quite unusual for this season so far. Losing favs were KDK by retirement (went into the match with an ankle injury), Goerges to a resurgent Karatantcheva, Mirza, and Lisicki. Not a massive surprise about any of them really. In Paris, 3 of the 5 favs won, Wickmayer and Vesnina losing. Martic impressed in beating Wickmayer and is definitely one for the notebook! Penne and Kleybanova played one awesome set of high octane tennis, though Kleybs fell away in the 2nd set.Just had a few in-running bets on the tennis following the 70k method but not the staking plan! And backed the Arse in the tv EPL game on the basis that the thought of backing Pool made me physically ill and backing the draw is for girls. Very happy with the days results.Some intriguing matchups tomorrow, but again no real standout bets pre-match.

9 Feb

Hasty note as got to get to bed - Pattaya kicks off at 8am UK time, an hour earlier than previous days for some unknown reason.

I didn't note who the favs were in Pattaya so can't say for sure how many won, but looking at the matchups I'd say all 9 did. In Paris, 7/9 won, with one match being pick 'em - losing favs were Olaru and Razzano. The latter probably loses most often when fav of any of the players, though I've got no stats to back that up - just her name keeps cropping up again and again! Srebotnik, one of my fav players, acquitted herself pretty well on her return from a long term injury (she had played Fed Cup at the weekend too), nearly winning the 1st set, but faded away in the 2nd.

Had a pretty good day again, though a couple overnight NHL bets lost. Not too upset with that as I've been doing remarkably well on them. I only started them as the NHL was something to watch during Aus rain breaks or waiting for matches to start. The one footie bet - Man Citeh - obliged, and the tennis went well. I did chicken out of a couple bets that went on to win, but this recent good run has got me spooked a bit and may be making me too conservative, though I did let the Srebotnik bet run too long out of sentiment, which of course has no place in this business!Can't see any standout bets tomorrow so I don't anticipate too much action, but will be watching to get impressions for the later rounds.

Betfair down .... again!

Another long overnight outage scheduled for Betfair, effectively wiping out an ODI in Aus and the whole day's betting in Pattaya. What is the matter with the stupid place? Now if only Betdaq could step it up and provide some serious competition. Sadly it's a case of do as I say not as I do, because after the last time I went onto Betdaq during Sydney was such a waste of time I won't be bothering tonight. I suppose it's that sort of laziness which helps Betfair maintain their monopoly position.

A solid start to the week, with a nice win on the Superbowl and a couple small footie bets. There were only 5 WTA matches with markets - Betfair seem to have stopped offering markets on qualies - and all 5 favs trotted up. Easy to make money when that happens.
Paris is scheduled to be covered all afternoon on Eurosport so an interesting day in prospect. Some intriguing matches, with Srebotnik coming back from a long injury layoff and several others playing after their weekend Fed Cup exploits. Who knows what kind of shape they're in? I can foresee the howls of protest on the Betfair forum if the tanking starts, and assuming Betfair is back up. Should be good!

Tip of the day

Just for a laugh I'm going to do a "Tip of the day". Never tried this before. See the link on the right hand side for staking plan and selections. You may well be advised to lay these!

We'll start with Szavay today. I like how Agnes has started the season, only losing to the red hot Rezai and Na Li. On the other hand Govortsova has yet to register a win (excluding Fed Cup) and she's not exactly been up against tough opponents. 1.47 may not be the tastiest of odds but it'll do.

Another scarily good day

Someone once advised me "Things are never as bad, or as good, as they seem" which is comforting in the bad times but rather worrying in the good ones. Had another ridiculously good day today, so good that I went and got carried away and made the rookie mistake of overstaking the first golf trading of the year, which duly obliged by losing! In a way that's a good thing as I sit here waiting for the Superbowl to kick off, as it's brought me back to earth with a bump.

The Fed Cup went scarily well, with one speedbump when I backed Squeaky on the basis she might be inspired to play better as Serbia were 2-1 up, and how Kleybanova would react to being 1-2 down was unknown. How wrong can you be! Squeaky really is in a bad way at the moment. Losses were soon recouped by a max bet on Russia to win the deciding doubles - a quick inspection of the doubles records of the 4 players showed the Russians to be in a quite different class.

Interesting to note Cornetto was dropped for today's match, Julie Coin playing instead.

My one footie bet, Chelski, also obliged, as did yet another NHL bet! Then the aforementioned massively overstaked golf went tits up - there was one point where I could've greened up but stupidly allowed the preceding successes of the day affect me and let it ride, ending up losing what would normally be a nice figure for a whole day's betting. Discipline discipline discipline! You cannot relax for a moment in this game. Still, a fine end to a good week.
No prematch bet on the Superbowl. I do think Indi are too short, but just not brave enough to back against Manning. Then up at 9am tomorrow for the WTA in Pattaya.

6 Feb retrospective

Actually typing this Sunday morning having dragged my sorry arse out of bed for the Aus vs WI ODI only to find it's pretty much done and dusted with WI 40/4 (or should that be 4/40?) chasing 257. Decided to give the Aus Fed Cup matches this morning a miss as imagined liquidity would be poor and it's going to be a late night tonight with the Superbowl on. I see Stosur won, and CSN looks to have hers in the bag so it's all down to the doubles!

Liquidity was pretty good yesterday for the European matches, especially given it was a Saturday, and it was a nice day's betting. Plus feeds were readily available on the pirate sites. I did make one howler, though, as I just could not believe Mattek would beat Cornetto on clay in front of Cornetto's home crowd, and let the bet ride way too long. Cornetto has staged some silly comebacks before, so I don't feel that badly about it.

Also Barca and RM continued to oblige to round off a very profitable day. (I won £51 on the Aus Fed Cup matches as well but can't be arsed to do a screenshot just for that)