Brent Graham tracks his betting progress on the Goodforthegame website every week and in this installment he looks back at round 3 of the Super 14.

To those who have joined me from Sportingweb it is good to have you on board and I look forward to corresponding with you as part of the Goodforthegame website.

Those who have been reading my poker blogs will know that I was in Swaziland for the All Africa this past weekend and frankly there just was not time to do a lot of punting. That being said I did have a few bets on the Super 14 of course and I ended up showing a 5 unit profit.

Instead of backing the Hurricanes for an upset win against the Crusaders (I had tipped this in my preview) I ended up backing them on the handicap as the first leg of a double ending on the Cheetahs +8 with Betxchange. I never saw the match but the Canes duly caused the upset but I ended up empty handed when the Cheetahs failed to deliver on the handicap against the Reds.

I had made this my best bet for the weekend but the men from Bloem were very poor and had I burgled it heading into the last 10 minutes I would have considered myself very fortunate indeed. That was not the case though and I lost my 5 unit stake.

I managed to win on the rugby thanks to the Sharks barely holding on to beat the Chiefs (I had backed them to win outright) in a very exciting finish. Quite how they kept the home team out I have no idea and a couple of those TMO decisions could have gone either way. It was a grand stand finish and hanging on to win your bet in those circumstances is what having a punt is all about.

I also caught the Blues +8.5 against the Stormers having also fancied the 3/1 about them to win the game. Had I been at home in front of my TV rather than in Swaziland watching and playing poker I may have won a bit more but overall I showed a 5 unit Super 14 profit this weekend.

The bad news though is that I gave some money back in the Socca Scramble shedding 13.77 units. This bet has been very good to me though and I came very close to grabbing a decent payout in midweek where I caught a few PSL upsets but needed the Cardiff and QPR to have a result one way or the other. In my haste to place the bet I assumed it was an FA Cup replay and left out the draw (which in Cup replays only comes into play after 120 minutes) and on realising my error (it was a league match) I sat and stared at the live scores in frustration as the game meandered to a scoreless draw.

This is not the first time that rushing my permutations has cost me money and I need to learn from this and slow things down a bit. If I don't have the time to do it properly then I should rather not do it at all.

BETTING SUMMARY
Balance after week 7: +140.08 units
Week 8 result: -8.77 units
Running balance: +131.31 units

Pending

Premier League: 30 units (Chelsea win 20, Hull last 10)

Champions League: 9.5 units (Chelsea win 2, any English team 6, Juventus 1.5 at 25/1)
Golf: Race to Dubai: 30 units (10 wins Garcia and 20 places Garcia)

6 Nations: 10 units (Ireland at 5.25/1 average)

FA Cup: 3.92 units (Fulham 80/1, West Ham 55/1, Blackburn 66/1)
PSL: Ajax (5 units at 2/1)

Super 14: 60 units (Sharks Top SA, Brumbies Top Aus, Hurricanes Top Kiwi, Cheetahs for last, Sharks and Canes to win, a match bet treble Lions/Cheetahs, Reds/Highlanders, Sharks/Blues)

BEST BET

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