Sunday 11 March 2012

Home again!

You know it never quite felt right. A Punter's Year? What was that all about?

Nope, it wasn't right, but now we're home again. This is the blogging equivalent of coming back from holiday, weary after a crack of dawn start to catch the early flight, a seat on the 'plane next to a screaming baby, waiting an age for the suitcases to come through on the carousel, and then getting stuck in a traffic jam for an hour or two in the taxi from the airport. But we're back home now. Time to pour a glass of red, sink into the favourite armchair, put the feet up and stick the footie on the telly. Ahh.

Mind you, it's going to cost me readers isn't it? All those blogs that were kind enough to stick up a link to A Punter's Year? Well they're not going to be too chuffed with me, are they? All I can say chaps, is that if you're reading this, have a heart. Us bloggers must stick together. Aye. You know what you must do, chaps. Don't just change the link...write a special commemorative post. Shout it from the blogging rooftops, The Portfolio Investor is back!!! Vive la Revolution!

Ahem. Perhaps time to just get on with it, eh? I think that's quite enough rhetoric.

So what's been happening since Friday?

I shall go through service by service. Probably easier that way, and when you're as one-dimensional as I am, simple is good. I am very much the Stupid in Keep It Simple Stupid. You ask my wife. Or kids - they're telling me so all the time and the two of them can't both be wrong, can they?

Northern Monkey
Only the two bets, both of them yesterday. Unfortunately neither were able to find the frame. Got a fair few Cheltenham bets coming up though. Fingers crossed for those.

Staked 1.75pts, -1.75pts.
Month To Date: Staked 6.25pts, -5.77pts, roi -92.76%.


4PA
Talking of Cheltenham bets, 4PA has been going mad! Mad I tell you! Good job I've recorded all the antepost bets as they were struck - I honestly can't remember what I've backed because quite frankly, the sheer number of bets makes my head hurt. Gonna be a big week for 4PA. Was last year if I remember and things didn't go so well until a glorious Friday when Zarkander and Long Run did the biz and pulled it all around.

4PA have played a bit of a blinder this weekend, quite superbly ensuring that they are due a good week by losing a few points yesterday when it doesn't really matter. A bit like fielding your reserves in the Carling Cup and losing in the third round because, let's be honest shall we...the Carling Cup? Pfft.

Staked 5pts, -3.687pts.

MTD: Staked 7.5pts, -6.187pts, roi -82.49%


Chasemaster
A fine three days for Peter and the Boys (which sounds like a eighties boy band), especially Friday (Rumbrey Grey - Leicester - 14/1 and Noble Witness - Leicester - 7/2). A small loss yesterday from their three bets although far from a disaster as there was a nice placed return (Rossini's Dancer - Ayr - 9/1), and then a very nice saunter back to the winner's enclosure today (Sycho Fred - Market Rasen - 6/1).

So the rather impressive three day figures are...

Staked 2.375pts, +2.131pts.
MTD: Staked 3.375pts, +1.681pts, roi 49.81%

Oh, and Peter. Time to man up with that cold - it's Cheltenham week! You don't want to be sitting suffering whilst all that's going on you know. I suggest lashings of fine brandy.


The Market Examiner
A rather fine winner yesterday for TME (Dovers Hill - Sandown - 6.96/1) for an overall small loss.

Staked 5pts, -1.02pts
MTD: Staked 14.5pts, -1.52pts, roi -10.48%


So that's the racing. Now onto the footie, and with Graeme at The Football Analyst playing funny buggers with not having any System 7/22 qualifiers (I mean, what is a man to do of a weekend without his 7/22s!?!), it was over to others to produce some profit, and what a mighty fine job they did of it too...


Skeeve
Now there's a chap called Skeeve who I know, when things aren't quite going to plan, as sure as eggs are eggs, is going to put one heck of a stint of hard work into making sure that things right themselves. After the dust had settled on a disappointing weekend or two, I thought to myself that that Skeeve, he's not going to be sleeping much this week. Oh no, there's going to be one industrial sized vat of midnight oil burnt over the next few days I thought, in Skeeve's quest to produce a profitable weekend. Well, it was all worth it. A good winner on Friday night, two good winners yesterday afternoon. Three from three and thankyou very much Sir.

Staked 12pts, +10.46pts.
MTD: Staked 33pts, +1.98pts, roi 6%


Football Elite
Star of March so far? Matt of Football Elite. The busiest weekend for a long time for FE. Six bets running from Friday night, and four lovely winners. I'm not going to mention the teams because I know Matt follows the teams closely and so they may well come up again, but I thought a couple of the selections were top class and far from obvious. Nice to see.

Staked 6pts, +4.55pts.
MTD: Staked 9pts, +6.257pts, roi 69.52%


And so there we have it (I quite like this format for the results - what do you think?). Just a Strike Zone selection to come tonight and that'll be it for the weekend. And what a very nicely profitable three days it's been. Which is a relief really, because the one thing we don't want is a blowout weekend going into Cheltenham week.

On the Cheltenham note, I hope to be tweeting as events unfold. So if you want some fantastically witty tweety entertainment, follow @rowanday (you can see how witty it's likely to be from the imaginatively named Twitter handle can't you?).

And that's that.

A Punter's Year? What was I thinking?

8 comments:

  1. Rowan, were you pissed when you wrote this ?!

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  2. Erm...don't think so.

    Perhaps a bit giddy at the prospect of time off work and Cheltenham races. :)

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  3. yeah, well certainly high on something :)

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  4. It is good to have you back home, Rowan. TPI is where you're at. I will leave the link to A Punter's Year on HCE just in case you want to use it as a second home :-).

    Regards,
    Jason

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  5. Why thank you, Sir. Blimey - talk of second homes will have the Tax Man after me. :)

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  6. Hi Rowan,

    Great to see you back home. And you're right, I didn't get much sleep last week. :)

    I can only agree about the star of the month so far - Matt's FE bets have recently given a very welcome boost to my portfolio. Stewboss' FI service has also been doing good lately and they're now just about to breakeven for the first time this season, even though I did increase the stakes at the beginning of the 2nd third of the season and I think the official results aren't as close to finally making a profit for the season as my own. I'm of course talking about his main FI selections, the ones you unfortunately don't follow any more - although I remember you writing about the possibility of starting to follow them again, now that Stewboss is sending the weekend e-mail on Thursday.

    Unfortunately, the SZ bets have now found only two short-priced winners out of nine selections in March, but they're still in solid profit for the whole season, so yeah, I'd say my portfolio is suddenly looking very healthy (I can't wait to start following some of Graeme's systems next season as I'm a huge fan of the work he puts in - I'd probably write as much as he does if I had a ratings-based service; this way it's impossible with all the research I have to do for two leagues, with the help of my assistant Sandra of course; btw it's her birthday today). Now that I wrote it, you know who to blame when Matt, Stewboss and myself all lose all bets this upcoming weekend. :)

    cheers,
    skeeve

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  7. Hey Skeeve,

    How's things?

    Yeah, good to see Matt starting to hit some winners again - am going to mention it a bit more in tonight's post. Good to see FI doing nicely too for everyone and suddenly it does feel like the footie part of the portfolio is in quite a healthy state at the moment.

    I can recommend Graeme's stuff. He's got something for everyone there - if you want lots of bets then fine, or if you want a more select system with fewer bets, then fine. I've also been lucky enough to see the systems develop from the very start and have witnessed how they've developed through sheer hard work. As you know, this makes the good times seem even better somehow.

    Say 'Happy Birthday' to Sandra for me and thank her for all the work she does. Definitely true what they say...behind every great man...

    If it was me, I'd be treating her tonight. Is the Arsenal game on live in Croatia? Can't think of a bigger treat than that for anyone! :)

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  8. Sandra says thanx. She also says I should let everyone know that she's spent her birthday working (and, indeed, she's just sent me the updated excel sheets for all the Blue Square South teams, after she's sent the Blue Square Premier ones earlier today - and we both got pretty drunk on a Wilco gig yesterday, so an ideal assistant without a doubt).

    She's actually going to London for a few days tomorrow and no, she won't be going to non-league games as I can't imagine her watching football for more than a few seconds - although she's learned quite a lot about centre-backs, emergency loans and various injuries in these past few years. :)

    Fun fact: Although she's in London every couple of months, I still haven't visited UK. In fact, I've never been on a plane. Terrified of flying. When I finally decide to come, I'll probably take a Calais - Dover ferry. :)

    cheers,
    skeeve

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