Land Of Youth

Philly was chilly, but not bitterly so. As some of you will know, the live sporting highlights were a Sunday night Flyers v Calgary Flames (ice) hockey game, followed by a Monday night (American) football game between the Eagles and the Green Bay Packers. Two more entries to check off in my I-Spy book of Sports Venues. My son and I did consider going to the 76ers v Cleveland Cavaliers game earlier on the Sunday, but decided to save that one for February or March.

For the Thanksgiving weekend we ventured down to Washington DC, followed by a trip to see relatives in Maryland. The highlight of the DC trip was my son getting lost for about seven hours, his sense of direction taking him on an adventure which ended when he arrived back at the hotel at 5am. One minute he was with me about to enter a steak house, the next he had vanished, and with both our phones dead, no way of getting in touch. How did people manage before cell phones? 

The bar bill for the pre-dinner drinks for the two of us came to $137.74 (£108.22) which may go some way to explaining the mix-up. Considering that was all beer, and in an unpretentious sports bar, that was apparently quite a session. 

We also had a couple of good Saturdays in a downtown Irish pub (Tir Na Nog) watching Crystal Palace lose and the Rugby Autumn Internationals. At least one reader will recognise that pub name, having met me there during Palace's summer tour of the USA. It's a small world. 

Philadelphia has a large Irish community, and there were a lot of rugby followers for the Ireland games. Quite a few people I spoke to had been in Chicago for Ireland's famous win over the All Blacks there a couple of weeks earlier. In fact, it was so much fun I plan to go back there for the weekend of what should be the Six Nations decider on March 18th in Dublin.

What else is new? James has published a new book called Betfair Trading Techniques which looks worth every penny of £19.09. Unfortunately, the book is priced at £19.10... 

Despite the lack of new posts, the blog has averaged over 300 hits a day during my absence, which is a little surprising. Now I'm back, I expect that number to decline significantly, but 1.4 million by year end is looking probable.

As for betting, one of my NFL Small Road Dog System bets happened to be the game I was at in Philadelphia last Monday which made the game a little more interesting. The Packers were +4 and won outright 27-13. For the season to date:

The College version is performing slightly better, but both have been strong systems so far this season.

Early days still in the NBA season, but the BLUnders is not off to the best of starts with just 8 wins from 20 so far. The Golden State Warriors v Phoenix Suns game tonight has the highest total (229.5) of any game this season other than a couple of Warriors v Lakers games. 

The Lay Last Loser System for this 2015-16 season came to end today with Tottenham Hotspur's thrashing of Swansea City, meaning that three of the five qualifiers won immediately, and thus we took a small loss of 0.7 points on the season.