Back in the UK for this week before my next business trip in the US (via Germany) this Sunday.

My holiday was fantastic however upon my return, a trip to the colder climbs of Kilmarnock for an ex Airforce friend’s 50th birthday party has resulted in a head cold.Still treading carefully in respect to punting as my personal problems though diminished significantly are still hanging over me and I am determined not to use gambling to forget my personal woes. Therefore I’m taking the time to undertake some serious research and reading.

The following books from my holiday reading list are thoroughly recommended. They are “Beyond the Limits” by Ranulph Fiennes and a book recommend by Tooting, “A Bloody Good Winner” by professional punter Dave Nevison.

I’ve been meaning to read the Ranulph Finnes book after he conducted a lecture at my work about 2 years ago. The book details lessons he has learnt from a lifetime of adventures and exploration across the world and these lessons are summarised at the end of each chapter.

Though unrelated but applicable to gambling there are a number of lessons I have engrained in my mind. For example the following lesson is applicable to my punting exploits over the last three years.

try chewing a few prawns before you announce to the world that you intend to devour an entire lobster

The lesson from this book is to start breaking my journey down into bit sized chunks that I can achieve. This lesson I have ignored on many occasions.

Sir Ranulph Finnes is one tough hombre and the chapter describing his unsupported walk across Antarctica was fascinating. He overcame setback after setback (both physical and mental) during his journey to suggest that if you a firm idea of what your goal is and ensure you have a meticulous plan to achieve it, you still need strength of character to overcome any unforeseen event. As they say in the military, the plan only lasts up until the first contact.
The Nevison book was inspiring and sad.

Inspiring in the fact that I understood his approach to gambling and there are tonnes of advice in his words. I stress though this is not a book about handicapping which makes it required reading for any wannabe mug like myself. Unlike most handicapping books with detail methods/systems and approaches touted by the author, this book soon leaves you with no doubt that it isn’t as easy as it seems being a professional punter when you’ve just lost telephone number figures by a short head and then you need to get up and get back in the saddle the next day to make bets in order to pay school fees and mortgage!

The sad aspect of the book was how professional punting as consumed his life to the point he is now separated from wife and family. One day when I am a professional I hope I do not emulate Dave and there will be time in my busy day to devote to loved ones.

Anyway there are a couple of things I have learnt from his approach. Firstly I need to reinstate the process of creating a tissue for each race I analyse. I’m fully aware of the odds compilation process and abandoned the approach as it seemed to be overly complicated as seemed to me to be getting in the way of just “having a punt” for whatever reason I chose

I now know that this was a major mistake. The ONLY way to be successful at this game to seek “value” at all times whenever punting. Period! Without matching your opinion against the crowd in the form of a tissue how do you know you are obtaining “value”?

The other lesson from Dave’s book is that how he considers bets likes the Tote Jackpot and Scoop 6 part of his betting armoury. His logic is sound in that he’s betting against punters who do not understand these exotic bets unlike the Tefal brains that swim around the shark infested trading waters of Betfair.

His strategy relies on irregular but substantial wins at these bets to expand his betting coffers unlike other punters who consider these bets as “a bit of fun”.

I abandoned my favourite exotic bet the Tote Placepot, a number of years ago in the belief I was wasting my time on a bet which I had an extremely poor strike rate, which was true at the time.

Now I am more experienced, upon refection the application of a tissue for every race on the card and focus on All Weather racing makes me feel that I should reinstate this bet to boost my betting coffers substantially when my boat comes in.

In reality win only betting just wont cut the mustard in generating the amount of funds needed quickly to ensure bigger and bigger bets as my betting bank increases.

So now its nose down in the Craimer books on odds compilation (yet again) and Barry Meadows book “Money Secrets at the Racetrack” which discusses approaches to betting once you’ve created your tissue.

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