Over Time, Life Happens

Some of you may recall my report of an NFL game earlier this season, where I spent about four hours of my life trading a game that ended in a tie after overtime, waiting for a moment that never came. (See above for how much this 'cost' me).  This outcome is, as I mentioned, very rare, this being the first in four years, but today history repeated itself. Kind of.

Another game, this time the play-off game between the Denver Broncos and the Baltimore Ravens, ended an overtime period all tied last night, but of course, in play-offs, there has to be a winner, and the game continued into a second overtime. The overtime gambling gods taketh, and they giveth back, as opposed to the Betfair Premium Charge which taketh (on a good week), but doesn't refundeth on a bad one.  

Speaking of bad weeks, and with a significant outage at probably their biggest time - 3pm on a Saturday - Betfair didn't help their bottom line or reputation at all.

Speaking (again) of bottom lines, and the XX Draws didn't help mine much yesterday. The Unders (2.5) were slightly profitable with a couple of one goal games, but Chelsea's win by four at Stoke City wasn't predicted by many, and the Reading v West Bromwich Albion game was looking good at 90 minutes, before Reading completed an unlikely comeback. There were a few HT 0-0 winners, three of seven, which was nice, but the actual draw proved elusive.

So far, not a great weekend for the FTL entrants. Premier Edge are down, Neil is down, and Premier Betting had a poor Saturday, but I did have a nice win on Sunderland v West Ham United getting matched at 2.58, a full 24% edge on my price of 2.08. They were value on Friday at 2.36, so why the drift, I am not too sure. Ian Erskine picked another 'winner' picking the Osasuna v Real Madrid game which ended 0-0. With no Cristiano Ronaldo (suspended) Real Madrid are a different team, and today's result is the third La Liga game that Real have failed to win with no Ronaldo.

Soccerdude covered a topic that deserved to be covered - the Betfair Forum and the almost complete waste of time that it is. I say 'almost' because there are a handful of respected, intelligent posters who have some useful things to say, but 99.9% are just pathetic and usually soon ruin any sensible thread. Soccerdude mentions Swearbox and his post on the subject, but getting wound up about such a trivial thing is pointless. Swearbox is actually banned for life from posting on the forum, but his post has attracted (if that's the right word) some 838 comments which must be something of a record. As Soccerdude says though, do these people find time for betting? My guess is no, or at least not successful betting. In the same way that there is a negative correlation between IQ and religiosity, my guess is that there is a negative correlation between the amount won and the number of posts made.

It is always now. In the words of Lester Freamon:

"A life, Jimmy, you know what that is? It's the shit that happens while you're waiting for moments that never come."