Readers of last week’s column would have gathered that I put a lot of time and effort into formulating a betting strategy to guide me through the 2010 World Cup. {readmorelink}Read more{/readmorelink}

Essentially the main theme was to focus on long term plays without getting dragged into the individual matches and I can now report that I stuck to this strategy for almost 24 hours.

I had a few speculative patriotic plays on Bafana Bafana against Mexico and left the France v Uruguay and Korea v Greece games alone entirely and all things considered I was pretty chuffed with myself heading into the Argentina v Nigeria clash.

Logging onto the Goodforthegame Forum I noted that punters were making a case for this game being very competitive and the talk was to take a bet on total bookings as there was quite likely to be plenty of action in this game and the ref was not known as someone who takes nonsense.

Now the lads on the forum were looking at a fixed odds play so the risk and return were known upfront but the gambler deep within me craved something a bit more volatile.

A few minutes later I had taken a position that there would be yellow cards and perhaps even a red or two in the game but rather than a fixed odds play I went high or bought bookings in the spreads market meaning I would be rewarded the more correct my call was but would be punished should the game not turn out as I expected.

Things started at a frenetic pace and I sat back and waited for some wild Nigerian tackles and some ludicrous Argentine dives both of which would be accompanied by the colours of yellow and red which I longed and dare I say needed to see.

As the game went on I realized I was in trouble with both sides treating each other with in my view at any rate, way too much respect and the ref was hard pressed to even award the 3 yellow cards which he eventually did. The nett result for me was a large knock to the World Cup budget and this on a game where had I stuck to my strategy I should have done no significant damage.

Writing a fancy strategy is a good idea but it is worthless if you don’t stick to it!

Click here to access our World Cup Betting Centre

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was first published on the 17th of June 2010.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and presents a sports betting radio show every Thursday night from 22h00 – 22h30 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