Rubbing Sultan The Wound 7:1

January is over, and what a strange month it was for me. A good start, a good finish, and an awful run of nine days in the middle when absolutely nothing went right. When all added together, its a reasonable profit, and although not a good one by January standards, I would have gladly settled for any profit just a few days ago, and its always better to finish on a high. While the end result is the same, there's a world of difference between scoring in the first minute, and conceding a 90' equaliser versus the other way round. My three best days were all after the 23rd, and I saved the best for last as opposing the supposedly 'sure-thing' Denver Nuggets worked out rather nicely, albeit after overtime. Still not sure about those nine days though. Six losing days in nine was probably a new record - one that I won't be looking to beat in February or ever for that matter.

There were two XX Draw selections yesterday, with the best result being the postponement of the Parma v Juventus game due to snow. The second match was the Everton v Manchester City game, which was the low-scoring game I'm looking for, but the draw didn't happen. Griff picked the same match as one of his draws, but grabbed the Swansea City v Chelsea draw which was an unofficial near-selection for the XX Draws too. No luck for Geoff who had Gabon v Tunisia and Nottingham Forest v Burnley as draw selections. Swansea City to beat Chelsea was Football Elite's selection of the night too.

More games tonight, with Griff going with the draw at Bolton Wanderers v Arsenal, and Mark J looking for Atalanta (-0.5) v Genoa. Geoff's draw picks are Blackburn Rovers v Newcastle United and Cagliari v AS Roma.

SJ stopped by for a little chat, and had this to say:

Whilst I was off a couple of weeks ago one of the tv shows I started watching to pass the time was Sky's "Mad Dogs". Don't judge. It can't have been too bad though because last night I watched the newest episode. It is a little bit silly but one of the quotes from the show was something like "if you come in at the beginning of a growth market, unless you're an idiot, you're going to do very well". It obviously wasn't mentioned in relation to betting exchanges but I believe it is quite a good extension to your evolving markets point. The quicker you can react to long or short term changes in a market the better chance you stand of being successful.

Also, you might be pleased to know that as a result of my whining you managed to send people to my blog at a ratio of 7:1 to The Sultan today. Good job.

Excellent work readers. The Sultan has been firmly put in his place. Now if he would just stop posting interesting stuff...

SJ had a good post too on the subject of 'trendfear' which was on the BBC's site. SJ writes

I'm beginning to think that perhaps Twitter is something I should know about.

Er, hello SJ. Wake up call. This is 2012, not the dark ages. I cannot believe that there are people today who do not have Twitter accounts. I mean seriously, it's unbelievable. And here's a little advice - Twitter is a two way thing Mr. SJ - a wise man once Twittered

"It's a two way thing Cassini - follow and you shall be rewarded lol"

although what the 'lol' at the end meant, I have no idea. 'Lay off losers' I guess, I certainly hope it wasn't 'lots of love'. ROFL.