Okies – this is going to be a combination of poker and ponies. Basically, the National Hunt season has come to end, so I’d first like to say a few words. Well the 2008Grand National was of the best I’ve seen. What made me happiest is, even with the talent that was out there this year, the trends still stayed strong: the winner, who drew away from the pack to claim the race by 5 lengths on the finish straight, was carrying 10 stone 9, was a competent chase horse with wins over the 3 mile mark, was on form this season with 3 2nd places and a win and had won a grade 1 chase of over £15k. Of those in the top 12 of the betting Comply of Die was the only one to tick all the boxes – because Cloudy Lane lost points, in my calculations, due to his young age. Next year – lets hope I can do it again, coz I have to admit I do love this race. Oh, btw, I had 8 horses in that race, Naunton Brook pulled up, McKelvey fell and the othere, well they cam 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th. Pity I only had Naunton Brook to place – lol.
Ok – well following a loss in February my friend asked me to start collating the data of my wins and losses for the rest of the season. Baring in mind that the 23rd of Feb was a day of big losses for me both at Kempton and FairyHouse (Ire). However, of the £777.95 I bet over the next few weeks I managed to turn a profit of £2.85. Ok – that’s an ROI of 0.366% - ship! Ship!
What have I learnt: There’s been a few times when I’ve allowed myself to get caught up in the action and taken horrible odds on a favourite which were perhaps unadvisable. Kauto Star is my best example – I should have laid off the bet on the day of the Gold Cup, taken the equity on him and backed Denman – I had even mentioned that the ground conditions would determine the race, and they did. At Aintree I took tiny odds on Kauto Star, only a matter of weeks after he’d been defeated in the Gold Cup (and nearly forced to take third by Neptune Colognes) and, weakened from his previous exertion, he made countless mistakes over the flights to finish 2nd (on a photo finish) - however, at 1.56, if you’re backing the horse you have to do so expecting him to take the race absolutely by storm – and Kauto never looked to do that.
I began to rectify these mistakes towards the end of the season. Looking at the disadvantages behind a massive favourite seemed to work well for me – in sum it’s better to make a +ev bet at longer odds than it is to take the “sure thing” at –ev odds. Simple – I know – but that’s easier said than done when you’re chasing losses at the race course.
The final problem with my style was backing races that I didn’t really have a view on. On the day of the Gold Cup I had 4 races which I thought I had handicapped well, however, I backed horses in all 9 races. I had no winners over the whole day, but I would have broken even if I had only backed the horses I had real views on.
And so the poker:
Well, I’ve been trying to make my style a little less break even. Lol. I was fed up of months and months of grinding out tiny profits so I decided to really try to play poker. I took up a 5k hand challenge with my house mate (who could have the larger bb/100 hands). I’ve run at 10.8 tracker bbs/100 hands; much better than before.
I’ve decreased the length of time I play in each session and even leave the tables with a small loss rather than, profit, break even or large loss which was standard before. I’m now happy to stop playing when I’m bored, and I’ll take a 10 min break if I think I’m tilting. I’m also trying to keep the tables to 6 maximum, but I may take this down to 4 whilst I get used to my new HUD layout which is more complicated than the last one.
I know there are still some leaks in my game, and I don’t want to move up during the exam season, so even though I have a roll or $3725 I’m going to stay at $50NL until after my last exams – and even then I want to put in an h-core winning week at $50NL before I jump up.
Anyways – ty for reading
Gl at the tables
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