THE GROUP OF DEATH

Tuesday 6th June 2006

It was a hell of an early start this morning. The sun shone in through the window and an hour after I had woken up, I had to question hard whether I should really be playing poker at 06:06 on 6th June 06.

A pair of kings in the hand and a third one dealt on the flop told me I would be fine.

I played for exactly an hour and I think I played around twenty-five hands. Unfortunately the game history panel appears not to be working today so I'll be into 888 for a third day, for sure. I'm hopeful that I will get an extra bonus at some point, so I'll give it more round.

I won again this morning and I was even more careful than I was yesterday. The account balance is now $503.46 and it still looks as though it is possibly to cash out the whole amount, but more on that as soon as the game history panel starts working properly again.

Yesterday I said that we were going to place some football bets and I've gone ahead and done just that. But I haven't opened a Victor Chandler account yet because what I decided to do today just doesn't work with this Victor Chandler offer. To get the free £60 bet, you have to place a £60 stake on a selection that will be settled by the 19th June and my selections won't be. So we'll do Victor Chandler tomorrow or Thursday and I'll give you the rundown of what I have done this afternoon right now.

Take a look at the group winner odds for the World Cup. Nearly every group has a clear favourite at less than evens, which does not qualify you for the free bets.

But take a closer look at Group C, the 'group of death'. It's the only group where all four teams are priced at better than evens.

Now Argentina have as good a chance of winning the group as Holland in my eyes and I wouldn't write off Ivory Coast either. If Holland and Argentina draw, the Africans could scrape it on goal difference, so we have to include them in the equation.

I think it's safe to write off Serbia and Montenegro though. I simply cannot see them winning Group C at all.

That leaves us with three teams, all with favourable odds to run the arbitrage method on Group C.

So what I have done is open three new accounts and backed all three, each with a different bookie, as follows.

I've backed Ivory Coast to win the group at 8/1 with Paddy Power with £10, Holland to win the group at 7/5 with Total Bet with £25 and Argentina to win the group at 6/5 with Bet 365 with £25.

That's a total of £60 I've laid out and if Argentina win Group C, I will get a return of £55 (including my stake returned), if it's Holland who prevail, I colllect £60 and if Ivory Coast win it, I get £90.

So the worst case scenario is a loss of £5 if Argentina win. But we're playing for bonuses here so that we can build a war chest of free money to use later on in the tournament.

That £5 loss has actually bought me £45 in free bets, all of which are now ahowing in my accounts, just six hours after I placed my bets. I'm confident that I can turn that £45 into at least £25 real cash and we'll do that a little later on in the programme.

Right now, it's back to 888 for what could be my last few hands before I cash out and see the first real profits of this exercise.

Until tomorrow.

Steve

Feel free to email me if you have any questions about anything I've covered on this page...

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