A Cruel Game..... For Mugs!

It took me until Tuesday of this week to get out of a destructive mindset and finally settle into trading with some purpose, after a predictably red fortnight. Once I had accepted that September should be written off as a potentially profitable period, I was able to release the frustration I’d been feeling and move forward.

Five days on, and I was feeling confident, with controlled and consistent trading making a modest but stress-free profit. So I’m more than a little irritated that one lapse in concentration blew away a chunk of that profit. I was listening to the Manchester derby on Five Live, and as the fourth minute of injury time passed, Mike Ingham noted that United had a last-chance free kick. I was tempted by the 1.05 on the draw – surely City could deal with one free kick. So £105 on. Yes, they dealt with the free kick. But not the couple of minutes beyond the allotted time, nicely described by Stephen Maher here as ‘Fergie time’.

I don’t instinctively bet on situations where one kick would blow my whole stake, so I haven’t a clue why I took the draw on – maybe I was just surprised to see 1.05 being offered. I was interested to see that in similar circumstances, Bet Angel’s Peter Webb laid the draw. So who’s the mug? Yes, I can complain about my luck, having being burnt on my only error of the day, but frankly I deserved the kicking for taking on a high risk bet. I’m sure my £105 was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the losses and gains Michael Owen’s late intervention caused.

Anyway, I kept my head and after a session extending into the evening, I pulled the day back to (£12). It could have been considerably better – I’ve been following Melinda Czink over the past few months in the WTA events, and fancied her to turn over Lucie Safarova in Quebec today. But, following my earlier calamity, I was cautious about leaving a large stake open for a long period, and had to settle for a £20.00 profit. So a bad day survived, and I look forward optimistically to the coming week.