Just What I Needed

After two consecutive losing weeks, one of which was an outright shocker, it is always comforting to know your heading back in the right direction. This week I managed to turn a profit of £497.09 and as a result my cumulative loss for the year dips to below the £2,000 mark.

Also happy this week that one of my long-term bets came in and that was for Mexico to win the CONCACAF Cup, profited quite well from that tournament in the end both through individual matches and with me betting Mexico on the outright. I don't claim to be an expert in football in this area but I managed to watch nearly all the games from the tournament and quickly established views and trends of each team and managed to make it pay with in-play betting mainly. Also glad this week to see my horse racing selections bounce back after a poor recent run. Only have the six systems running now, and on average I guess I have around eight selections per day which is comfortable mangable. Especially since I'm not really upto that much at present. Always keep my eye open for any potential new betting ventures though.

Been watching a bit of Wimbledon this week, not a huge tennis fan and I don't bet on the sports usually. But I enjoy watching all the Grand Slams. Cheering on Murray (don't see why there's quite a lot of anti-Murray British people for some reason), got the feeling he's turning into the Jimmy White of snooker with always being the nearly man. Just a shame for Murray that there's three outstanding players who are better than him at present. That's not to say he can't do it, but it is a very tough test for him.

Oh yeah one final note, I got my results back from University. A very predictable 2:1 in the end, felt I could probably have got a first if I really pushed myself (was only a few % out overall) but I'm happy enough with that result and hopefully it will be good enough for me to find a suitable job related to my degree.

Better Late Than Never

Realise my weekly update is two days overdue. To be frank I've not got an awful lot to be report expect another loss to the tune of £212.24 for week. Which in itself isn't a dramatic loss compared to others this year but after last week's massive loss, even a small loss seems somewhat painful. I feel at the end of this month it may be time to take a step backwards and analysis all my betting and see where it's all going wrong at present. I've considered maybe taking a break completely from betting at some point, I've more or less been betting in some form every day for the past two and half years. Whilst I enjoy it as a hobby it does require certain commitments to continue with it. Just knowing you have to get up a certain time each morning to place bets in itself can become a drag and I would nice not to have to bothered to set my alarm clock every single day for a change.

Whilst my gambling is in a state of unknown so is my future career, I'm awaiting my final results at the end of this week. After that I promised myself to dedicate as much time to searching for jobs and sending in applications in hope of securing a decent graduate entry-level job. Probably not going to be easy because every Tom, Dick & Harry seems to have a degree these days but I believe it's all about marketing and presenting yourself in the right manner. Even if that means stretching the truth a little.

So uncertain times all around a present, I don't really like uncertainty despite dealing in gambling that is inherently uncertain. Getting a good stable job is priority number one at present and my gambling may need to take the backseat at the moment, especially if it continues in the same vein.

On a final more celebratory note, I'd like to say well done to Rory McIlroy for his amazing performance at the US Open. I felt for him and for my wallet after that final round at the Masters but Rory showed he's got character and determination and bounced back from that to totally destroy the field and break all sorts of records. Maybe that's where I went wrong, I should have taken up golf as a toddler.

Ouch!

Here I am again on Monday posting my should be Sunday evening weekly round-up. Truth be told I was watching the quite amazing Canadian GP, that went for ages due to the race having to be stopped and under the safety car for long periods due to the poor weather conditions. Somehow Jenson Button who made six (yes that's right 6) pit stops went onto win the race after being last place with about a third of the race to go. If that wasn't enough there was the uncomfortable amusing site of marshall nearly getting run over by a F1 car as they tried to clearly debris from the track. Formula One has been great so far this season and yesterday's race is one of the best I've seen in a long while.

Anyway I'm distracting myself from the main part of the post and that's my weekly P/L total. I'm quite embarrassed to reveal a mammoth loss of £1,473.96 for the week, bit of a disaster all round. Even my high-staking supposedly high strike-rate systems couldn't find a winner of note. At a £100 a pop on those systems and an unusually high number of selections this week goes someway to explaining the loss. Still got a responsible sized betting bank to work from but if I get another week like this I think my staking plan may need further investigation and probably an alteration. I can take little consolation from the fact that this is not actually my worst week this year, the first week of February still holds that unwanted record. The overall picture means I'm down by a hefty £2,200 on the year, which is the largest it has been so far this year. Worrying times at present but I still have faith in my systems and I shall continue with them for the foreseeable future.

Stop yer whining!

It seems human nature as this inherent art of moaning and whining about things built-in. I read it's suppose to act as a sort of soothing mechanism to boast ones ego and make them feel good about themselves. I'm not staying we should all stop complaining about things and just accept things as they are but I feel a little less moaning would make everyone's life that little bit better.

I'll start in general life, how often do you moan about something? three, four, five times a day probably a lot more. Seems like we can't help but moan and complain about things. One good test is to try and become aware of when your moaning about something and try and stop yourself, see how difficult it is to do just for one day. For moaning often takes place about the most trivial of things, where the feck is the remote control? who moved my favourite pair of shoes? I hate this flippin' weather? I feel you shouldn't get wound up for trivial things, they say it's little things that matter the most but I think that's total rubbish when it comes to complaining. Also try and be aware of other people who moan a lot, do you like this person? do you end up joining with their moaning when with them?

The real-life problem was just food for thought my main issue with the subject comes back to the gambling world. Gamblers are often seen to be cursing their luck at every opportunity. Some examples are: last minute goals, dodgy referee decisions, useless jockey, another second place, I was waiting to be matched then a goal went in, this match looks fixed.

Again this is all about shifting away the responsibility from yourself to try and hide your own insecurities. You picked the bet or put in the trade, you know the teams involved, you know the jockeys on-board, you know the referees. If you have a wide knowledge you really don't have any room for excuses, yes for a short period of time you could be unlucky in regards to certain situations but in the long-run if you've got an edge it shouldn't matter you should turn a profit. There's also something I'll call "selections blindness" this is where you are solely focused on your own selection so often fail to pick up on something happening in favour of your selection. For example a couple of horses may be given bad rides by jockeys but if your selections wins you may not notice it. Likewise the team you backed gets a dubious penalty decision your much more likely to consider it a penalty than if it was against your team. Trying to watch an event without any bias can be difficult at times and you often watch an event from your selections point of view. As a result gamblers can often be seen cursing their luck when something goes against their selections, yet failing to even notice when something "lucky" happens in favour of their selection.

A winner that feels like a loser

There is the saying that a winner can sometimes feel like a loser. Usually when you've backed a long-shot E/W and it finishes second by a nose. You feel like you've totally lost out because it didn't win but in reality you could have made a decent profit on the place part of your wager.

I mention this because the week's performance is actually a profit to the tune of £100.38, but it feels like a losing week because of the way the week went. I had an absolutely fantastic bank holiday Monday as I outlined in my monthly review post, it was probably my biggest profitable day ever. But the week after that point has gone rather poorly and only a managed a few winners out of numerous selections. Weird how the way thing occur can effect your outlook totally, I can take football as a good example your team scores early and is leading 1-0 until deep into stoppage time where the opposition team equalises. You go home not feeling so good after your team throwing away two points in the last minute. Your team goes down 1-0 early on and then is battered for the entire match but scores a equaliser deep into injury time, you come home feeling pleased that your team managed to rescue a point after a poor performance. The end result is the same but the emotions in the two sets of scenarios are completely different.

Had I finished this week, let's say Monday's fantastic results actually occurred today I'd have posted of my wonderful comeback to secure a profit for the week. As it is I end up a little disappointed that the profit for the week is only at the £100 mark. My actually cumulative loss has now gone back up to over the £700 mark which differs greatly from the end of May figure in the sidebar.

I shall post a mid weekly post on something I call the "moaning & whining culture" which is rife both amongst the gambling world and in your every day life. Should be an interesting read for anyone who is gulity of moaning & whining.