It has always amazed me that gamblers, myself included, spend more time describing “bad beats” or heavy losses than victories. Many an hour is wiled away talking about the last minute try that thwarted a big rugby punt or the horse that was given a terrible ride and cost us a 5 figure Pick 6 payout.

We often harp on about the bet we wanted to take but for reasons ranging from forgetfulness to a poor 3G signal we never got on, only for it to arrive. Yes you hear about the big wins but it is the negative stories that are rehashed time and again as the years roll on.

The start of 2010 though has seen me reflect on a bet I was on the verge of taking only to hesitate and eventually decide against it. Heading into the 1^st test of the Proteas v England series I had convinced myself that Kallis was past his prime. He was struggling for fitness and had looked decidedly overweight in the shortened version of the game played some months earlier.

My strategy was to oppose him against the English and the best way of doing that was to sell his overall series runs at 340. For each run that he falls shy of this figure after the 4 matches I would multiply by my stake and profit accordingly but the reverse applied and for each run over the line I would lose money.

I am not sure what made me dither before placing my bet and I literally had the mouse hovering over the submit button when I backed down but I am certainly pleased I did. Kallis has with potentially 3 innings left scored 310 runs and looks well set to kick on and deliver what would have been an 80 units plus loss.

Although I have no direct monetary interest in him the fact that I came so close to going against Kallis means that every time he lifts his bat to acknowledge a century I feel like a winner, knowing that I could easily have been taking some serious punishment of the financial variety.

Sometimes avoiding a substantial loss is as satisfying as having a great win and I reckon my mates will be hearing about the bet that I never placed for some time to come.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and presents a sports betting radio show every Saturday morning at 07h30 on 1485AM Radio Today or Channel 169 of the DSTV Audio Bouquet.

You can follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/brentgraham or get on his mailing list by dropping him a line at brent@goodforthegame.co.za