Haphazard

A word I have used to describe my past betting history, and hoped that I had moved beyond. Sadly, the last two days have seen a reversion to old bad habits, particularly my tendency to increase my risk following earlier losses.

Women's tennis can be a frustrating sport to bet on, due firstly to the lack of service dominance generally found in the men's game, and also the fragile mental state of some of the competitors. Momentum, and therefore odds, tend to swing rapidly. I am well aware of this, but can still be sucked into bets that hindsight tells me I should have avoided.

Monday showed an impressive profit, but my overall gain hid a number of wild betting patterns to offset positions turning against me, plus a slice of pure luck when, with an imminent dental appointment I chose to have a large punt on Marion Bartoli (5-0 up, 1st set) and then close down my laptop. On my return I found that a Bartoli win came via a third set tie break, and I later discovered that Sugiyama had reached 6-3 in the tie break and blown 3 match points. Lucky boy then.

So I was more careful and relaxed today? Er, no, I carried on with a cavalier approach gained from a healthy weekly profit until everything came tumbling down around me. Firstly, the match in Memphis between Chantelle Scheepers and Lucy Hradecka swung wildly throughout, and I thought I had recovered my position when Hradecka led in the final set tie-break, but I was blown away by 5 successive Scheepers points which won the match and swallowed all of my weeks winnings.

Two further calamities have subsequently put me in the red on the week, and both can be analysed as errors. Firstly, I was sucked into the attractive odds on the 17 year old 'wonderkid' Grigor Dimitrov to serve out for the win against Gilles Simon. The result of his failure to do so ( Simon is a Top 10 player so I should have known better ) was a rapid swing in odds leaving me battered again. Then I tried the opposite approach, placing an odds on bet on the experienced Flavia Pennetta to win a final set tie-break against the lowly ranked Masa Zec Peskiric ( who frankly I'd never heard of ). Of course, the result went against me. If it wasn't for my earlier loss, I wouldn't have bet on either of these matches, as both were too tight to call.

Fortunately, I think, my next three days will be restricted to a couple of hours betting in the evening, as I have acquired some part time work off the back of my current business venture. So I will simply attempt to get back to zero on the week by Friday evening, probably by concentrating on the footy. Then I'll hope for a productive weekend to try to make a modest weekly gain. And also hope that a little break from the laptop will get rid of my current frustration.