Success on the dogs but not on the baize

A belated entry tonight (its actually 1.30am on Saturday morning) but thanks to the wonders of technology I can date the blog as Friday so as to make out Ive beaten the deadline, perhaps I ought to wait until the winners have gone in and then post retrospectively lol, wonder if anyone would notice!!
Havent been too well today so spent most of the day in bed apart from belatedly nipping up the snooker club to put up some draw sheets, it seems whatever it is has affected most of our team as we are already looking like being three players short for next weeks match so will be ringing around tomorrow (or today!!) to try and drum up some reserves, failing that will have to cancel this match for the second time this season which probably wont go down too well with the opposing captain!!
The Championship League snooker down at Crondon Park was a bit of a damp squib from a betting viewpoint, its difficult to be dogmatic about anything over such a short format (four and five frame matches) so my new streamlined approach aimed at better value bets doesnt work so well in an event like this. The trouble is that where a firm are out of line with your viewpoint, they tend to be so on every single match for that one particular player you disagree on, and of course its unlikely he will be winning them all so its a bit of a quandary.
Anyhow I belatedly latched on to the fact that Peter Ebdon was struggling here as a late replacement for Barry Hawkins and opposed him in all three of his matches on the second day of Group 2 which brought me about level but then opposing Mark Allen in the semi final and final proved costly as he defeated both Ali Carter and Joe Perry.
Carter really does seem to have a mental block when it comes to getting over the line at the business end, he seemed to have a great chance here to reach the final but even though Allen wasnt really playing anything fantastic, Ali reserved his worst performance of the whole event for the semi final match. Perry set off with two centuries to go 2-0 up with three to play but then began to splutter and finally capsized 3-2, missing chances in all the remaining frames.
Still the vanquished may not be too worried as the longer you can stay in this competition, the more money you will make and the opposition does tend to get slightly easier on paper as the event progresses, so still plenty of time to reach the final showdown Group for which the winner will qualify for the Premier League proper.
On to the Masters and the thing to take out of this week for me was that Ding was playing exceptionally well (despite losing in both semi finals) and that Murphy and Ebdon were struggling rather badly. So being as Ding is up against Murphy in the first round, have taken some of the 6/5 and 11/10 for the Chinaman there and also gone in on the 8/13 Carter up against Peter. Seems I am not alone in those views as the odds have since contracted on both players. Have also stuck with the same players in the outrights, Ding was just over 13/1 on Betdaq and have also backed Carter each way a 18/1 even though there is a big chance he will have to beat his nemesis Ronnie in the second round.
Was considering backing Hendry for his quarter with the match practice from the Championship League behind him but he didnt show enough to get me interested, out of that quarter Robbo probably looks the most interesting but not decided yet whether to have any more interest in the outright market.
Elsewhere had a very good week on the ice hockey again so hopefully the NHL betting has turned a corner after a less than impressive start in the opening couple of months and also had an incredible run of success on the greyhounds, at one stage backing eight successive winners, and then ten out of twelve overall in the same run, including the Tote Gold Collar winner at Harolds Cross last Friday night Have Some Cop at 8/1 on the Tote.
In the ante post market, I got Droopys Carvalho through to the Coronation Cup final at Romford, though another semi finalist Dangerous Lady unfortunately withdrew taking my money with her; Shelbourne Aston returned to the track with an impressive success at Shelbourne in the John Casey Open and have since added Jemmy Doodlebeag and The Other Achill to my portfolio at big prices there. Also Romeo Maldini has reached the final of the Prestige Stakes at Hall Green despite a couple of blips with slow starts and trouble in running and he will most certainly have to get himself organised much quicker in the final itself if he's to be fulfilling his potential. As well as being on the favourite in this event I have added outsider Swift N Hasty at 33s who also qualified but needs to reach the first three places for a payout.
Got a bit bogged down with some clerical work from the last meeting at the snooker club the last few days so have once again slipped behind with the retrospective form study for the gee gees and I'm still on Boxing Day so sometimes wonder if I ever will catch up!!
Can't leave without mentioning my football club Derby County, they certainly made me sweat at The New Lawn last weekend when landing my 4/5 bet on them to beat Forest Green, but the last minute penalty did the trick after at one stage they trailed 2-0 to the non league team.
But The Rams really turned on the style on Wednesday night with a fine 1-0 win over the World Champions Manchester United in the first leg of the League Cup semi final though this time they went unbacked by me at least at 13/2 (apparently much bigger available on the exchanges).
New manager Nigel Clough was in the stands watching and it really was by some distance the best performance of the season, admittedly against a less than full strength visiting side, but it still had a very high number of internationals in their ranks, and indeed Rooney and Ronaldo were brought into the mix for the last half hour too.
Anyway all the best for now
Rick