Marching On, Toot Toot

March is off to a good start with the best 1st day of a month since April 2007 (no fooling). A back of the under 2.5 in the Aston Villa v Stoke City game was laid off at half-time, and for once I made a good move in football trading. One swallow doesn’t make a summer and all that but it was a pleasing turn of events.

In the Accenture Matchplay tournament, I backed Geoff Ogilvy at 1.86 and laid him off too early to go Green-All-Over. I really am a nervous Nellie sometimes with these bets. I back because I KNOW the price is value (Ogilvy is a better player, and has previously played in two of these 36-hole finals), so he wins the first hole and after 4 holes I lay the bet off. Voices in my head are telling me 101 reasons why I should. Loss aversion won. Typically, by the turn, he was up by 4.

Then later, the Los Angeles Lakers were down by 10 at half-time, and of course I had backed them pre-game and was thus looking at a four figure loss. 

I don’t like four figure losses, so I made the decision to cut my losses, go Red-All-Over and then layed the Suns for a large sum at 1.58 and 1.59 at the start of the second half. 

My reasoning was that Phoenix were under-strength, and had played about as well as they could do, and could be a little flat in the third quarter. The Lakers coach (Phil Jackson) is also good at making adjustments, and my lay paid off when the Lakers cut the lead to 6 and I went Green-All-Over. 

Arguably too early again, (the Lakers later took the lead, but I had a lot of money to offload which is not always easy to do, and I have found it prudent to lay off when the opportunity is there. Bird in the hand stuff. NBA markets can turn in a hurry. The Suns then rallied and by the end of the third quarter, were up by 10 again but by that point I was out of the game.

My summary of the Jazz / Warriors game in response to a question was this:

“Lay Utah at Golden State - Jazz are on a good run, and may win, but they will trade higher than 1.57. They played yesterday and may be a little weary (it was also the funeral for the Jazz owner yesterday which may not help). All the players were there. That, and the fact that the Warriors can explode in a hurry, followed by an equally rapid implosion! makes this a good looking game to trade. Good luck. I make no guarantee...”

Not to blow my own trumpet or anything, well, maybe a small toot, but the Jazz did indeed win, and traded as high as 2.4 during the game, (although 2.2 was the high for more than a few quid).

A pleasing day. May the month continue in this vein.