Raking it in with Ricky

One of the better punting days today as Ricky Walden landed the each way parts of the 100/1 and 125/1 bets I had on at a third and a half the odds respectively with a 6-4 win over Mark Selby in the opening Shanghai Masters semi final this morning.
As expected I didnt rise with the cockerel but managed to surface in time to watch the recorded highlights of the early frames on Eurosport before they actually switched live for the final two frames, things were looking bleak when Selby led 4-1 but Walden has shown himself the comeback king this week and for the third successive match came back from a very unpromising position to take the spoils.
His final opponent will unfortunately (for me and him perhaps) be the in form Ronnie O Sullivan who edged out Stephen Maguire in the later match 6-5 with a couple of very big century breaks to boot, only saw the early stages of this match as my Chinese feed started to stutter so will catch up with the conclusion on Eurosport tonight, it aint quite the same when you already know the result though!!
Just hope there is a reliable feed for tomorrow's final (again starting at 6am) as not sure there will be too much of it shown live on TV, havent looked at the schedules yet but being told on various forums that its mostly recorded highlights.
Did take a bit of 11/10 yesterday about Ronnie so made sure of a profit in the outright win book, though of course the each way bet on Walden would have more than covered the other bets too.
Also decided to back Ronnie on the -3.5 frames handicap at 4/5 just in case the match turns into the procession that the odds are insinuating, though Walden does have a good all round game and isnt likely to be drawn into the potfest that the Rocket would probably prefer.
In fact their only meeting in the 2006 UK Championships saw Walden at the brink of victory, leading 8-7 and only being denied by a clearance from Ronnie in the next which he took on the final black before adding the decider for 9-8.
Another bet I've had is 2/1 Walden to win the first frame at Sporting Bet which does seem a bit over the top and in fact the offer soon disappeared, now back into 13/8 which is more in parity with other firms.
However slowly Ricky has been getting out of the traps in his recent matches, having been a prolific winner in minor tournaments in the last few years hopefully he won't be too phased by the early stages of his first ranking final here.
Elsewhere I did finally get my football bet matched on Derby's game as the price contracted again, plus I edged my lay offer on Norwich out to a maximum 2.56 (all on the Daq of course - where else!!) and it was rewarded when the Rams earned a 2-1 win.
In fact, listening to the first half it sounded like they should have been out of sight but instead held a tenuous 1-0 lead and when Roy Carroll brought down Leroy Lita for a resulting penalty, his dismissal meant the Rams were down to 10 men for most of the second half, plus saw their lead cancelled out from the spot kick too.
I wasnt feeling quite so confident at this stage but they gradually quelled the storm and sub Nathan Ellington came on near the end to sneak the winner after a mistake by the home goalkeeper. The league table must be looking a good deal better for us now after a nice run of six or so unbeaten games.
The quarter finals of the Irish Greyhound Laurels take place tonight so will let you know how well (or otherwise) my ante post picks fare tomorrow along with a look at the Arc, even though I havent really made much further progress with studying the racing form while this latest snooker tournament has been on, then again if they are all as successful as this one, perhaps it doesnt matter so much!!
See you soon,
Rick