New Attitude

Days like today are the worst, you wake up and see Wolverhampton and Kempton are the only two afternoon meetings on, two all weather meetings, its doesnt exactly make you want to jump out of bed looking forward to it. What makes it worse for me is Wolverhampton is nearly impossible to trade in running, with the hotel boys on course and it being on ATR, which is more than a couple of seconds behind. Kempton offers more hope being on RUK, but its the type of track they always turn it into a sprint off the final bend and I never read it well for in running, but thats OK because thats my issue. Not like Wolverhampton, which is ATRs issue for being behind.

I said I'd come back after my break a new man and I reckon I have done. Have a few plans that I'm putting in place to help with discipline and they can only improve my gambling, things like the small football bank bets, no betting on golf and no betting while the first innings is on in cricket. Stuff like that helps me from not losing. Discipline really is the most important thing, I dont think I've got on tilt since I started the blog, maybe once on the darts but not too bad, but its still important to not bet on things you shouldnt.

But theres a couple more things I want to work on, my staking and 'not forcing things' are at the front of my head this morning. This day is a perfect example, you get given little hope with the horse racing cards but its important not to try and do things that arent possible with them. It natural to want to win €100 or so every day but on days like today I'm starting to think thats impossible. I just want to win €20 today and move on, wait until theres better things to get involved with, which means being more relaxed and accepting I cant work wonders every single day, even though I want to.

Theres a cricket game this evening too and that offers my best chance of doing something good today, but if I start pushing the boat out while the racing is on from 2 - 5, not get matched or get caught out being behind, I'm mentally shot by the time the cricket does come around, not thinking straight.

While the golf was on last night I was doing a bit of research into Michael Clarkes Arabic tattoo, hes fast becoming my favourite cricketer and I think his tattoo on his arm looks savage, did out a design for my own but with a different meaning. But anyway I found out what his meant:

"The pain of discipline is nothing like the pain of disappointment."

I know he probably means it in a cricketing sense, but it rings true more in the gambling sense of things. From his point of view I suppose its about, let the good balls go past not playing at them and wait for the bad ball to put away. That makes a whole lot of sense. Now put it into a gambling perspective, theres so many sports on its so easy to have a bet on anything, but you have to wait until its a good moment. From my point of view the afternoons racing is woeful but I have to let it go past without doing any damage, and wait for the cricket tonight.

Try pick a winner at kempton today, I cant, but I want to win every day, but I cant. Its difficult to put into words what makes sense in my head, mainly because I dont understand half the things going on up there but anyway, its like I'm trying to win €100 or more, trying to do my best, get good results every day, but I just have to calm it down a bit some days. The more relaxed you are the most successful you are. But its just about lowering expectations and lowering bets.

Its only human to want to do good, everyone wants to be a winner at the end of each day, look at the P&L and say "yeah I'm the daddy!" But some days your best effort is when you dont do anything. I'm going a have a little go at in running today because its the first real day back on the challenge, but I'm not going to expect anything, just going to play it as it comes, have patience, relax and let things happen to me rather than go looking for something that might not be there.

It'll probably take a good while to get into this mindset but for the time being I'm just going to focus on trying not to lose, rather than trying to win. Less things go wrong and you can only go forward. Its amazing if you inch forward for a certain amount of time, things just gradually pick up as you go along. Rather than sitting down and trying to work wonders in two hours, Rome wasnt build in a day, and neither will your bank.