Heartbreak.

After a morning shopping for some last minute clothes and other bits and bobs for my week in Wales, I returned home to follow the afternoon’s rugby and if I spotted any value on Betfair, then great, I could do with a nice profit after a rather poor week and having just spent an obscene amount of money on a pair of sunglasses.

However, to begin with I was not wholly focused and almost got into a very bad situation when my mobile phone lost all power whilst out at 2.30, leaving me with potentially a very large liability on the afternoon’s two games depending upon any last minute price swings. Add in more national rail incompetence, and I didn’t even arrive home until 15 minutes had passed in both Super League games. Thankfully however, my fears of a possible large liability went unfounded.

Still, both games had largely uneventful first halves, although I did have some lays in the 1.1s nibbled at which some would say was very fair value given that both favourites held a two score lead.

The major change was in the second half when with there being little action in the Huddersfield v Wakefield match, the Castleford v Bradford match exploded into life.

Castleford scored first in the second half, pushing the score to 22 – 18 and maybe on account of my relatively poor week or on account of my search for value, I opted to pile in on a near £800 wanting to back Bradford in the mid 1.1s. At this point, if Bradford had scored next, I probably would have lost it all, but I made an instant decision to go for it.

Castleford then scored again to take the lead at 22 – 24, and I made the decision to offer up value by offering a lay of Bradford at 1.3 and 1.4. There are definitely two schools of thought here. The first is that I am giving up value which, in the long run will depreciate profit. The second is that I am looking to avoid losses, and that in a game which notoriously has low liquidity, the value concept should be adjusted to include that. After all, laying in the 1.1s was a tremendous trading opportunity. As a one off bet, its value was probably no more than good.

The other reason that I follow the second strand is because my initial bets are very rare. There is very limited turnover during the games, and so the ability to profit is vastly reduced. I would probably back myself more in a more efficient, liquid market than in an illiquid market where fastest finger or luck can be the greatest influence. Certainly, the more that gets turned over, the more money will be bet and that is of great interest to me. Let’s also not forget that £100 is a large liability, and not one that I always like to take on!

Anyway, Cas went onto score two more tries and I was stunned by the good fortune I had received. I was then able to trade out as low as the 1.3s on Cas, which had near enough guaranteed me a win of £280, only for Bradford to come back to level the game at 34 – 34!

By now, I was getting increasingly excited as I had also placed a £10 back of the draw prior to kick off, and I had a very large green on the draw of over £800. Castleford went on and scored again however, but at 40 – 34, the draw could not be ignored, and was trading at a remarkable 16.5! and as the full time whistle approached, and a final lay of Castleford of 1.05 got taken, Bradford seemed to go near enough the distance to score with minutes remaining!

However, they had scored in the corner and needed the kick to draw level. At this point, there was still sensational value on the draw of 6 and later 8 which was frankly incredible. The odds of the kick being converted were probably around 2/1. Maybe an extra .5 to 1 weighting for layers securing a profit, but that was value.

Adding to the pressure was the sound of the full time hooter as the ball seemed to be in the air. Only, for the ball…. to….. shave…..the….post.

And with that, I missed out on my largest ever win and had not even managed to trade out. This was precisely the situation I had dreaded. £500 resting on a single kick where despite my best intentions, I could not trade out.

Of course, it is hard to feel too sorry for me. After all, I did win over £400 before commission, but to miss out on such a large extra by a couple of metres is the stuff of nightmares.

Add in a very small win on Wakefield, and a small loss on Andy Roddick (any other time I would have traded out, but following a £400 win, I was prepared to keep a small red) and I have turned what looked like a poor week into a great week. Indeed, the first week of the RL season that I will miss comes just as I seem to be hitting top form. Since my disaster in the Wakefield game, I have earned over £1,500 which takes my profit for the year over £5,000, and my profit from 6 April, when I resolved to get more serious, to an incredible £4,000.

It just goes to show that all the hard work I have put into this is paying off and if I am getting lucky in the less liquid games, it is only because I am working so hard, constantly looking for value. Now, if only I could apply such a work ethic to perhaps the more important things in life which, whilst I don’t neglect, I don’t embrace with the same dedication that I do here. (Possibly because they can go much more wrong than a loss of profit, but that’s another story for another day.)

As I am not here next week, I will try to quickly post a preview of the weekend’s action tomorrow, although given that it will be without odds and team news, it will be very vague but hopefully still of some use.