Monday 7th March to Sunday 13th March

I've just about succeeded. The Cheltenham roll is pretty much intact and I have a lot of antepost bets on, a decent number of which have shortened in price significantly.

I managed to make it through Monday without having a bet on the all weather racing and fancied my chances for Tuesday aswell as distracted myself by going to Preston for a Leeds United away day with my good friend Steeley.

On Wednesday I finally succumbed to the urgings but only because Extra bet kindly offered me a free spread bet to the value of £50. I was going to watch Spurs v Milan and had heard rumours that Pato, Robinho and Ibra were all going to start up front so I eagerly bought the Milan total goals @ 1.1 for £45. I don't think Extra bet have got a lot of chance of enticing me into spread betting after a dour 0-0 draw in which I received absolutely 0 excitement from my free wager.

Thursday at least I had some football to rail. It was Europa League day! I had my 2 pre-tournament (well when Twente came over from The Champions League) outright bets to support, £40 Porto @ 33/1 and £25 FC Twente @ 66/1. Happily, both picked up huge results in difficult games, Porto winning 1-0 away at CSKA Moscow and Twente beating Zenit by a whopping score of 3 goals to 0. Hopefully both have already booked their places in the quarter finals. I also weighed in with a bet, be it a smallish one. I had £50 on Braga @ 21/10 at home to a very much weakened Liverpool side just because I couldn't believe they were outsiders. They won 1-0 in a fairly even game.

I even only had one bet on Saturday (god this week must be boring you), a £100 home banker double on Notts Forest to beat Donny @ 8/13 and Pompey to beat Boro @ 21/20, two of the best home sides in the championship against sides with absolute shocking defences who have let in over 10 goals in three matches. So I guess it is completely standard that I managed to get the 0-0 double up! The championship is such a mental league.

There will be updates on this blog every night this week bar tomorrow as it is CHELTENHAM at last!!!. I said this wouldn't be a tipping blog but lets just say that as a result of juicy antepost bets at fancy prices, Tuesdays blog will be a happy one if Sprit Son wins The Supreme, Medermit The Arkle or/and Hurricane Fly The Champion in the first 3 races of the festival & probably a sad one if all 3 fail.

Sunday 6th March

Had a £30 interest treble from last nights televised Spanish footy (At.Madrid @ 6/5 and Barca @ 1/8) going onto Man Utd (Scum) to beat Liverpool. Wanting them to win made me physically sick so I settled for wanting them to lose with a consolation of £195 if they won. Liverpool were brilliant and recorded a surprisingly easy 3-1 win.

My only other interest in the day from a betting perspective was Yang in the Honda Classic golf who went into the final day 4 shots off the lead and a general 8/1 shot. I got a serious sweat at one point when he closed the gap to 1 shot with 3 holes to play but it only lasted about 1 and a half minutes when his tee shot on the 16th was atrocious and he dropped a shot. I could have quickly laid off for +£100 field during that time but for 90 seconds I really felt like the momentum was with the Ching Chong Chinaman.

In much more exciting news I've booked my ticket and train ticket for Gold Cup Day at Cheltenham, Friday 18th March. I'm Going to get the train up at 8.10am from Leeds to get to Cheltenham at half ten. My Dad and his mates are down there, one of my poker mates is down there and a good friend I used to work with at skybet is down there. And I get to see Kauto Star and Denman run in the flesh before they retire and I get to do my absolute nuts in/win the world. Should be a cracker, really can't wait. If I die before the 18th of March I'll be fucking gutted.

Saturday 5th March

Woke up at 1.30 and quickly showered before going to Leeds v Doncaster with my flatmate Shrewdie. My bets for the day were £80 on Newcastle @ 15/8 to beat Everton and £40 on Drive Time to win the 3.50 at Doncaster @ SP (expected to be around 7/2). Usually my bets on a Saturday would be ten a penny but really cutting down to maintain some sort of roll for Cheltenham next Tuesday. Have I mentioned Cheltenham?

We got to the game and had a beer and a burger and we saw the premiership teams come in on Sky Sports News. The Newcastle team looked poor with no Barton or Ameobi whilst the Toffees seemed strong. I decided to instantly give up on my bet and get involved elsewhere. We studied the rest of the line ups and decided West Ham looked far too strong for Stoke and Bolton's attacking side should be good enough to score goals against a Villa defence which lacked experience to say the least with the average age about 21. I just about managed to get a £50 DBL on @ 11/10 and 5/4 before 3pm.

Leeds were brilliant in the first half and when Donny made it one apiece just before half time it made me absolutely sick to the pit of my stomach. I'd never seen us dominate a half more, we could've scored 7 easily. I loaded up Betfair just in time to see Drive Time hit 1.01 in running in the 3.50. What a life. It went off at 4/1 so I had £200 in my Betfair account to play with. I loaded up the Leeds game intending to back us at anything above 1.7. We were 1.92. I resisted the urge to go all in with Cheltenham round the corner and put £100 on @ 1.92. But no, the price had gone, some bastard had sharked me. I waited for the rest of half time to get my bet matched and no one would match it. I was getting increasingly tilted coz I needed a piss before the 2nd half and I ended up just taking 1.84 whilst telling Shrewdie I hadn't bothered coz I missed the price. I did this to try and maintain an aura of betting dominance that I've spent years building up although the fact that he will read this blog makes it a complete moo point.

Super Leeds continued to play great football with Snodgrass, Gradel and Howson all scintillating and we strolled to a 5-2 victory. On the walk back to the car I nervously loaded to futbol24 to check the other results. The happy Hammers were already 2-0 up at half time so i wasn't worried about them but was happy to see they won 3-0. The big one was Bolton. 1-1 at HT, I slowly moved my hand away from the screen and BOOM, they had won 3-2. Villa missed a penalty @ 1-2 aswell, lucky me. The double returned £236.50.

So it had been a good day both with the Leeds result and my financial gains, ending the day around £350 in the green. As soon as I got home I reinvested £200 of the returns in my Laddies account on 4 Antepost bets for Cheltenham. Right now I already have 19 Antepost bets and it doesn't start for 10 days! Need to calm down.

Monday 28th February to Friday 4th March

Well I didn't exactly have a week off the punting as promised but i probably did about as well could be expected from a junkie like me.

On Tuesday I followed a very shrewd greyhound contact from the Luton area in on a Trixie at Wimbledon's sky dogs. I went for a £25 Trixie (3 doubles and a treble). I don't usually like placing trixies because it sounds like the sort of bet a real woofter type would go into a bookies and place but I made an exception as my man really fancied 3 dogs. Sadly on this occasion none of them won with two of them meeting trouble in running being banged around on the bends costing them their chances, something which happens far too often for my liking when I bet on this sport.

Wednesday came along and I couldn't resist the temptation to get involved on the 2 televised F.A. Cup games and I managed to get £300 together to have on Arsenal -1 @ 8/15 at home to Leyton Orient. I spoke too many shrewd football judges throughout the day and they all predicted at least a 4-0 victory for the gooners including 2 usually pessimistic fans of the club. I didn't have long to worry, they barely missed a chance and were 3-0 up at half time on their way to an easy 5-0 win.

On Thursday I had some very small bets for the Honda Classic golf. £10 on Yang @ 48.0, £10 on Kim @ 55.0 and £20 on Allenby @ 38.0.

Friday was a philosophical day in regards to my betting. I watched a few TV shows, one of which was Ross Kemp Extreme World Episode 2: The Congo. A woman he interviewed in the heart of the Congolese militia lands had had both her arms cut off and then was raped. Then they made her Dad fuck her and proceeded to shoot her in the vaginal area making it explode so she could never have sex/produce again and to top it all off shot her 3 week old baby. She said to Ross "I want to die, my life is not worth living". I think even I might think twice before muttering those words next time my accumulator gets busted in the 94th minute on a Saturday.