The Alex Buchanan Diary – 06/04/09

Domestic Effort Costs Plenty

It’s a job that was probably a year overdue. The missus would disagree, she would say that it was two years overdue, but no matter, my daughter and I decided that Wednesday would be a good day to take on the task of clearing out our garage. How fitting that it was April 1st!

To be fair, if you needed anything that wasn’t within reaching distance from the threshold, a strong pair of boots and a long rope were almost a necessity, and I was the only remaining family member daft enough to ever enter.

We started reasonably early, especially when you consider that a teenager was involved, and I was thinking that we might just get finished in time for the first race at Exeter, but alas no. By the time it had reached 4 o’clock, I had written off the day in terms of betting, and frankly I was too tired to care.

A warm bath and well-earned square meal later, I sat down to review the days events and see what I missed, out of interest and the need to keep my stats up to date. What I discovered almost had me rubbing my eyes in disbelief, that of all days, this is the one I choose to have off.

Four favourites went off at odds-on on Wednesday afternoon, and guess how many won? NONE! Not one. Is there a doctor in the house?! If you’ve read my previous blogs, you’ll have gathered that one of my cornerstone strategies involves laying odds-on favourites, and in the time since I started, I have never witnessed a day when 4 from 4 all lose.

Indeed, even looking through many months worth of statistics from before I even begun, I haven’t found a day like this. Sure, 4 odds-on losers in a day has happened periodically, but always accompanied by some odds-on winners. Nurse!

So how much did my messy garage cost me? I would guess, around £1500 on the day, and because I operate a loss recovery system, that figure could easily double as I seek to recoup existing liabilities from prior to Wednesday.

As it happened, I missed a couple from the latter part of Tuesdays card as well, as I had other business to attend to, and as you would expect, Thursday proved that there ain’t no justice at all, by producing just one odds-on loser and five winners.

It’s not too often that my composure evaporates, but watching Sayif come from a seemingly hopeless position to nod home on the line at Leicester at the top of the shop odds-on price that I lay, 1.91, resulted in a few random objects being hurled forcibly across my office in a major fit of pique.

Not the way to behave, as I was promptly reminded by my missus, but what does she……! No, perhaps not! AAAARGHH!!

I’m over it now, honestly I am. But, if anyone feels qualified to assist with therapeutic or psychological help, please don’t hesitate.

Being positive, I have no doubt that my system will recover from this, as it has done numerous times now, and it is exactly the sort of test that it must be able to come through to prove itself long term.

And, having rolled out my basic laying strategy to other price groups recently, I am delighted with the way that has gone so far. Very promising.

A quiet week last week on the football front, with the internationals, but by Friday normal service was returning, with 10 positions in matches across Europe, which returned an overall profit. And relax!

I’ve changed the day I submit my blog to a Monday, so this one takes in two weekends, the first of which didn’t produce much in the way of “Longest Minute” drama. 90th minute goals for Berwick Rangers and Ross County evened themselves out in terms of impact on my profits, and that was about it for the weekend previous.

This weekend though, was as dramatic as the last one was uneventful! Look no further than first Liverpool, and then Manchester United pulling 3 points out the fire in stoppage time. Not as costly as my afternoon in the garage, but hefty blows all the same. Actually, the last gasp goals worked in my favour in 3 matches, and against me only in the two big Premiership matches, but my staking system dictated that the losses outweighed the gains quite significantly on this occasion.

It’s typical of the top sides to pull out late winners, as demonstrated by the two Reds, but in Italy it went the other way with Juventus conceding a 90th minute equaliser to lowly Chievo, and Napoli did the same at Sampdoria, to make it a golden few minutes for me, Italian style.

Across Europe on Saturday night, La Liga produced quite a finish in the Betis v Numancia game which also turned out nice. Didn’t look like it though, when the away side had a man sent off, and conceded a penalty in the 89th minute, which Betis scored to go 3-2 up. Amazingly, the visitors managed an equaliser almost immediately, and there was still time for Betis to be reduced to nine men with their second sending off.

For those of you interested in spread betting, the bookings make up in this game was 165! Other than that, nothing much happened!

Oh, not too bad a finish in the Cardiff v Swansea derby either! Naturally, I had a financial interest in that as well, but as I had laid Cardiff, the late drama never really threatened my position.

I could waffle on much more, but that’s enough for this week. Before I go though, I should mention the Grand National, and hearty congratulations to anyone who picked out Mon Mone, even each way. Well done!

I didn’t, but I did make a little by laying the favourite, as per usual. Old habits die hard!

Speak to you next week, I’m just off to walk around my garage for a bit, and see if the gambling fairy has left me some compensation!