31st Jan - Man City v Pompy

Man City 2-0 Portsmouth

Backed Man City £320 @ 1.35 - traded out after the 2nd goal went in. Not a lot to say about this apart from the amount I backed Man City, quite a lot but it's actually a bet farm moment. Paid off for me and I was put in the situation due to the Celebrity Big Brother and African Nations debacles.

Celebrity Big Brother

As I've blogged before, I'm crap at reality TV bets and I wanted to break my duck on this one. I'd backed Vinnie early on £36 @ 3.8 and was very happy with that. After a couple of weeks Vinne had steamed into 1.7 on the 2nd Friday night. So lumped on another £200 before the the evenings episode, what-a-mistaka-to-makea!

That night they showed the fall out between him and Sisko and how Vinne acted like a bit of prat to be honest. His popularity plummeted and Danes odds shortened dramatically. We all know that Alex ended up winning the whole thing in the end and because of a large loss in the African Nations, I was unable to juggle the money to either come out even or with a small loss. So I lost £236 on this bloody programme - here's a picture of Mr Jones waving goodbye to my money - cheers mate, it wasn't emotional at all.

27th Jan - No money for good ideas....

Man Utd 3 - 1 Man City (Carling Cup Semi)

Backed the draw £36 @ 4.6 - didn't work out!

Chelsea 3 - 0 Birmingham

Ok Birmingham were 2-0 down at HT so I bunged a tenner @ 120 for a long shot - I'm still waiting for my Angola game! Didn't happen....

Forest v QPR - the perfect night!

Nights like this come very few and far between. I was pretty confident in Forests ability to turn over a shambles of a club, that is QPR. I mean no disrespect but isn't it 8 managers in 2 years?

I'd backed them at £150 @ 1.8 with a view to trade out when they go up. We got in the ground late, opting to get a balti pie than leg it our seats. By the time I'd finished the pie we were 2-0 up! A classic moment went Earnshaw was placing the freekick for his first, some drongo in the crowd shouted, "Don't bother Earnie, you can't score from the penalty spot!". As the net bulged, I made sure I turned round and gave him some shit!

At 4-0 I was still talking about the 'precarious 4-nil lead....remember Angola!'. Try as I might, the bloody iPhone wouldn't connect to the internet - thanks O2! I was thinking about ringing up the Betfair line but I wasn't sure if they'd take the bet as technically I wasn't putting a bet on but trading out of one with a lay. When the 5th went in, I thought "Ah, f**k it!" and left it on. Heh-heh how risk averse am I?

African nations rumpus!

Zambia 0 - 0 Nigeria (Nigeria go through on penalties)

What a dreadful game this was! If you want to showcase the worst African football can serve up - here it is. So much for the big names in this tourny - Nigera, Ivory Coast and Cameroon were all dreadful in this competition.

On this game I'd backed Nigera £105 and as the game drew to a close I backed Zambia for £15, so a goal in the last 10 minutes would have give me a profit. Alas it didn't come and I lost interest in the competition as whole - which is a shame seeing how t'gypt got on.

New Betfair iPhone app on its way!

Got a call from a Betfair rep wanting to talk about the site, markets etc (and trying to flog me on the casino and poker - no thanks....), he asked me what I'd like improving. I think the iPhone Betfair site, whilst a good idea in principle, it's a little off in execution. It's quite slow and seems to forget your login details quite quickly. I asked him about the possibility of a Betfair app and he said that there is one literally a few weeks away. I did say that I'd really like to have the 'max payout' link in the app, something which the mini site and the old Java app doesn't have. It's very useful for trading out of a market - as you well know and saves the number crunching.

What an awesome job that would be, working on a Betfair app for the iPhone! I keep up to date with the app store so maybe I'll post a review when it comes out.

22nd Jan - a week in review

Ok lessons to be learnt here - £180 from the African Nations competition isn't bad but there was some dodgy decision making going on, from myself. A £50 accumulator on such a volatile market was a bit of a waste really.

Angola v Algeria was a disgrace - both teams played out what looked like a prearranged draw. Results like this undermine what the African Nations is trying build, a tournament which is respected around the world. I and a lot of other punters would have been burnt on that one so I don't want to beat myself up too much on that.

Newcastle v West Brom - kept lumping on the money hoping to catch the correct move but ended up wiping £130. A poor trade and too much money lumped on a result which was always going to be close. Next time, less money on these battles at the top.

Villa v Blackburn & Arsenal v Bolton - layed Blackburn, so when they went 2-0 up I thought 'great!'. Arsenal started the night @ 1.2 which is too skinny for anything meaningful. I did toy with laying them, had the money in the text box ready to go but changed my mind. When the Gooners went behind, the odds rose to 1.6 - ok time to buy in and I did for £200. They conceded another goal which took the odds to 3.3 so I put another £20 on. Arsenal were piling on the pressure and we've all seen them come back from just these scenarios. I traded out at 3-2 for a £145 profit. This is the same strategy that I used with Newcastle v West Brom but this time I caught it right.

Liverpool v Tottenham - £45 on Spurs to break their top 4 duck and they flattered to deceive again. If they can't push a Liverpool team that's at it's weakest in years then maybe they don't have what it takes for a top 4 finish this year.

India v Bangladesh - just a few quid on the overnight game, traded out when I got up in the morning and India were well on top. Toyed with the idea of lumping extra large on India but I wouldn't have been able to sleep all night - maybe if it was at the weekend.