Sometimes You Need Insurance!

The World Cup Final went the way I thought it would - a low scoring game that featured the latest goal scored in the final, which also happened to be the first opening goal scored by a player with a surname that begins with a vowel. I actually dutched (forgive the pun) all scores under three goals and that worked out well, although without looking at the numbers 0-0 in normal time was the least profitable. I also won the sweepstake at my office with Spain, so I'm actually quite chuffed with that.

Last Saturday was a bit of a mixed bag - I got Ljungskile v Osters completely wrong (Osters won 2-1) but one of the advantages of the betting exchanges is that I was able to totally reverse position and at half time I backed an Osters win...so when Robin Iglicar of Ljungskile got a goal back with twenty five minutes left, I was left hoping that the home team wouldn't come back for a draw.

Haugesund drew 1-1 with Brann: Brann took the lead though and Haugesund equalised right on half time, which meant I closed the trade I proposed in the interval. Laying Molde at half time in their game at Aalesund proved to be the right decision but - remarkably - I also paid attention to my own advice and avoided getting involved with either goals or the final score. The game finished 0-0, so it would have been 'a large and very expensive trap' ;-)

I'm looking at another couple of Scandinavian games this afternoon: Valerenga to beat Kongsvinger in the Norwegian Eliteserien and HJK Helsinki to win their game against KuPS in the Finnish Veikkausliiga. Significantly, both Valerenga and HJK are unbeaten at home this season and neither have been behind at half time, so that's the direction I've gone in. There are a few games on Sunday that could be worth a look so I'm going to do just that in a moment: I'm probably also going to be backing the St. Louis Cardinals to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers later on, but before committing to that game I want to see how the football goes.

Lastly, I've had a tremendous run with my horse racing lays - the last three I've backed not to win have gone on to do exactly that. Good job I put insurance bets on them...