I spent last night at an open mic night where the warm up gig involved myself and three other musicians jamming some old folk tunes including Bob Dylan, Steve Goodman and Woody Guthrie. For those old enough to remember those guys you will know that it was a cracking if not somewhat depressing night. However once we’d finished, it was free for all and a new generation of musicians got on the stage and started playing their stuff.
They where good, very good and the night ended in encore after encore from the rest of the crowd. What the hell has this got to do with the MATR weekly column? They had practiced and knew what each other was doing. Simple as that. It made me think of betting in general and I thought of how many people actually practice their betting?
Would you get on stage and announce your bets, talk through them in great detail, with full confidence that the crowd would applaud you and get into your groove? Now I know that’s not the general thing to do with a bet we’ve placed but how about the confidence? Why have you backed that selection? Could you back that up if someone had asked you why you’d backed it?
It’s something we should all think about before we strike a bet. Are we confident of that selections chances? If you are then it’s a good bet. If it’s a blind bet that we’ve followed then you wouldn’t get on stage…if you get my analogy!?!
Talking of confidence, I promised last week a tale of my Grandfather beating the bookies that involved his car!
I don’t remember the name of the horse or the meeting but I do know that my Grandad had been given a nugget of information and he wanted to take advantage. He’d been told that it was personal money only and not to use runners as that would ruin the price as they would inevetiably get more on than required with their own money.
Knowing full well that he was known in every bookie close to him he decided to take a day trip. My Grandma and himself hopped in the car and drove to my Great Aunties house. Why? To borrow her car. You see back then high street bookies didn’t have clear photographs like they do today of what a professional gambler looks like but they did keep a description and a note of what car they drove.
My Grandad at the time owned a Navy Blue Ford Cortina. A very common car but also noted by a lot of bookies on the South coast as owned by a lot of runners that placed bets! My Great Aunties car was a Two Point Five (a very stylish old model of car produced by Riley) and had not been noted by the bookies. My Grandma and Grandad spent the morning of the race traveling round in this old car and my Grandma placing bets as the Riley idled outside.
All in all the horse won and my Grandparents picked up a lot of money that day. Of course my fondest memories of my Grandad are of his winning stories but I have heard some horror’s from my mother! Just goes to show that despite my Grandad’s clever plots and schemes and the fact that he made a living from the sport there are always some down times that we need to remember to keep us humbled.
Just like playing music on stage. Practice, practice and you’ll perfect what it is you’re doing and feel confidence when you present yourself on the betting stage.
I’ll be back next week with more tales from the gambling world.
MATR
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