I mentioned that I had a couple of bets in the 2009 Bridgestone Invitational a couple of days back. I initially backed Justin Leonard in this at odds of 49/1, hoping he’d push up the leaderboard and I planned to lay him off at smaller odds then. He’s a good player and was in the top 20 in this tournament last year. He also showed well in the 2009 British Open tying for 8th place so I thought it was worth a bet. I then backed Boo Weekley at 210/1, he’s a player that ‘can’ push up the leaderboard so I was going in with the same strategy with him. Weekley was sitting at 3 under par after 7 holes in the 3rd round and was trading at 85/1 so I was hoping he could grab another few birdies and give me some value. He had a shocking time from then on and like Leonard, now seems to be out of the running. I’m now writing both these bets off as losses as I can’t see either player featuring going forward. The lays below shown in pink are unmatched.

Now for the good stuff! I had 4 football bets between yesterday and today, 2 losses and 2 wins. The important thing here though was that the losses were small and the wins were big (relatively speaking). I lost on both Reading and West Brom in the Championship. Both these teams were pretty short odds (around even money) but I expected both to win and I went in with the strategy if one wins I get my money back, if both win I double my money. Unfortunately both teams drew so I lost a euro there.

Earlier this evening, my first real big bets came through for me. I bet €2 on Dungannon Swifts away to Institute in Irish Premier League at odds of 2/1 and profited €4. It was a 90th minute penalty that came through for me, but they all count. I’d been waiting on this one as I placed the bet early on Friday morning. Institute released a lot of players over the Summer and I heard they are also injury hit at the minute, so this was a value bet going for Dungannon at 2/1.

The next monster (by my standards ) of €4.28 was lumped on Waterford United away to Kildare County in the League of Ireland 1st Division. Were my bet on Dungannon had real value, the odds on this one was low at 1.56, but I sat down and analysed these matches with 2 good friends of mine on Thursday night and we all agreed that this one was ‘thee’ bet to go for this weekend. Look where Kildare are in the League Table and Waterford are riding high, pushing for promotion. I was down to €14 before these bets settled up and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried. If both these bets didn’t come in, I would have found it very difficult to catch Sean. But for now, I’m back in the game! I expect Sean to go further ahead as he seems to be sitting well in the golf with Tiger and Padraig Harrington, but I’m back in business and I’ve shown that my patient approach has paid off (at least this time anyway). New balance = €26.36, result! I’ve now bet over the €20 quota for the month, maybe that’ll do me for August