Just wondering about whether to deliver the good news or the bad news first this week as theres plenty of the wrong sort and not so much of the other!!
OK will get the woes out of the way first. As you will now know my opposition of Ronnie O Sullivan in the later stages of the Masters tournament last weekend proved futile as he easily disposed of a limp Ali Carter in the quarter final and then went on to edge Mark Selby in the resulting final 10-8.
This brought me back to one of my original rules of snooker betting, that is never be too taken in by one performance and this is where I probably slipped up with the Carter bet after he had looked ultra-impressive in beating Peter Ebdon 6-0 in the previous round, the 10-0 h2h with O Sullivan was obviously eating into his mind during the quarter final and he eventually imploded with a series of wild thrashes in desperation as the match slipped away from him.
The final itself was one lost by Selby I feel rather than won by O Sullivan, certainly the Jester had numerous opportunities to put the match to bed, in fact there must have been four or five frames where he only needed one more ball to win them yet he somehow managed to let them all slip through his grasp. So not alot wrong with the bet in this one looking at it from the long term (I took odds of nearly 9/4) but still dont get paid for a narrow miss on this occasion, though did make a bit of profit on the tournament as a whole.
The Rocket did look close to implosion at one stage of the match in particular, where personally I felt he was doing an exaggerated mimicking of the time Selby was taking around the table, taking four and a half minutes over a buckshee saftey shot at one stage (including pouring and sipping a glass of water) which to me looked rather poor sportsmanship as he was losing the match at the time. Perhaps I'm just an old fuddy duddy lol but he does wind me up sometimes I have to admit!
I have decided to abort the ice hockey betting again, I've had about three goes on the NHL this season and none have proved fruitful in the longterm, had a couple of good weeks after spotting some trends from earlier this season but that strategy turned to dust as many results were just not what the formbook would have suggested beforehand and all the good work of the previous fourteen days was eradicated. My last proper bet was on Boston Bruins who were leading 4-2 against St Louis Blues with a minute and twenty seconds left, yet they somehow managed to concede twice including a goal a tenth of a second before the end of normal time (which for my money should have been disallowed anyway for high sticking), so that is when you know your luck is out. A shootout loss ensued and as Ladbrokes offer a stake refund for all such bets (to be used on NHL) I had to semi-reluctantly have another dabble which also fell flat on its face!
I still might have a few plays on the IIHF World Cup when that starts in April as I usually pay a subscription and watch all the games online plus perhaps with the wider diversity of standard in that particular competition it might be more fathomable.
Also my expected lift for my football team Derby County last weekend against QPR (following the instalment of Nigel Clough as manager) didnt materialise as they slumped to a miserable 2-0 defeat. Perhaps as someone said to me they got their lift the week before when he was sat in the stands but still this was disappointing for his first proper game in charge.
He did take a big risk by ditching the successful formation implemented by departed caretaker Chris Hutchings in the previous match and returning to the one favoured by Paul Jewell which had performed miserably in the main.
There was much more encouragement on Tuesday night though with a spirited effort in the 4-2 defeat at Manchester United (4-3 loss on aggregate) in the Carling Cup semi final and if they can carry that into tonight's match with Nottingham Forest they might be more competitive. Its certainly a game we dont want to lose, especially as the sight of our pugnacious ex-manager Billy Davies in a red scarf running down the touchline with his arms aloft would be quite sickening!!
I notice he is having a pop at our chairman in the papers again, saying he wasnt happy with the amount of times they met up but in all honesty I feel he engineered his own departure from the club to save face when things were going pear shaped in the Premiership. To ask for £40-million was quite ridiculous for a club of Derby's stature at that stage of development and I think he thought it would be better for him if he got out without a relegation on his cv. Given the amount of time it took another club to employ him though not sure that particular plan worked too well!!
The greyhound racing pretty much held its own. Droopys Carvalho won the Coronation Cup final at Romford to land the ante post odds of 3/1 and I also got The Other Achill and Jemmy Doodlebeag through to the John Casey Open final at Shelbourne tomorrow, both each way the first four places at 50/1 and 40/1 respectively so that is quite exciting.
Jemmy has won his last two heats with a flying start and he does stay very well (this trip probably a bit on the sharp side really) but perhaps doesnt have the ideal draw in four though could still nick a place if he doesnt trap out maybe.
The Other Achill ran a fine race in second to Kildallon Maid in the semi final, taking a bad bump and still closing rapidly on the winner in the straight and should have no excuses here as the sole wide seed. He often used to ruin his chance at the lids but has been coming out much better in this event, hope it can continue in the final.
Was reading a David Ashforth column in the Racing Post early in the month and have found he used to use the same method of looking at race results that I now use for the dogs online, that is I get the results section up, click on the meeting and time with my hand firmly in place covering the screen and then edge it up gradually from sixth upwards until I eventually reach the winner, which gives you an impending feeling of excitement as you progress if the name of your dog hasnt yet been unveiled, of course its a bit of an anti climax if instead of being the winner your dog was a non runner though lol!! At least it proves I'm not mad then unless we both are!!
Returning to the snooker and the China Open qualifiers are being held at Prestatyn(!!) at the moment, and thankfully have managed to claw back some money on these up to now.
I had a double on Kuldesh Johal and Peter Lines in the first round on Wednesday that paid 7/10 for a fair amount which saw them both score 5-0 wins and also took Robert Stephen at evens who overcame Supoj Saenla 5-1. Matt Selt got rather bogged down in his match with the grinding Andy Lee though and he lost 5-3 as my 4/7 bet bit the dust there.
On to Thursday and I went with a few lesser known names against some more illustrious but struggling opponents and on the whole it worked. I stuck with Johal and Stephen again and they both won 5-4 from being two frames down against Barry Pinches and Liu Song respectively while Aditya Mehta easily overcame the veteran David Roe 5-1 which made three decent winners at 11/10, 7/4 and 5/4. There were two losses though as Mark Joyce went under 5-3 to Scott Mackenzie at 4/5, reaching the Masters qualifier final doesnt seem conducive to doing well in subsequent ranking events as Kurt Maflin found out last year; and the the other vanquished was Lewis Roberts (7/4) who lost 5-3 to David Gray.
Couldnt see many bets today and the only one I picked was Ricky Walden at 8/15 who had little trouble in overcoming Andy Hicks 5-1 so hopefully things are picking up again!!
Will have to give a mention to our snooker team before I go as we managed a superb 3-2 win over the reigning league champions on home baize on Wednesday night, following up our win against them in the cup match group section and we consolidated our place in fourth position in the league which is some feat really as I was expecting us to be struggling at the bottom.
Perhaps I'm just too much of a pessimist sometimes. Suppose when you think like that though anything you gain is a bonus, its alot better than being continually disappointed!!
All the best for now
Rick
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