Internet Issues - Sat Recap

Here's how the balance of the afternoon and evening played out...

Whitey called and wanted to get in on the Pick 4 with me, which means he is going to cover 33% of the wager.

We've pooled our $ on several wagers over the years, but its generally when we both want to get in a football pool or something and its a little more than we want to go in for, so we split the investment.  As is always the case, we are great at remembering the wins and less inclined to remember the losses.  A couple of the highlights:

1990 - This would be our senior year at Albion and that budget thing that we tried adhering to had become scratch paper by March.  We failed to understand that the budged for a senior is not close to the one you might have your first 3 years.  Typically, we would work the summers and save up for the school year.  And, it had worked out well.  Not as a senior.  Too many, "we're going to Ann Arbor, who wants to go?" questions came up.  We tried to avoid the question, but when you don't have classes on Tuesday and ESPN had just started "Big Monday" (college hoops doubleheader of the Big 10 and Big East games), we probably got sucked into the trip too often.  Combined with all other senior "functions" we had run the reserves low.

Enter the Fortune 500 NCAA March Madness Pool.  We made out selection and scraped up the entry fee and sent it into our "contacts" at Proctor and Gamble.   Still considered one of the great pools of all time, Whitey and I won a couple of the early rounds and had a check arrive shortly thereafter which was enough to cover us for the last couple months of our career in higher education.

2000 - There were definitely times in between where we had some mutual investments, but nothing will top the result of January 2000.  It started in the fall of 1999 and we entered a "survival" pool where you choose one NFL team each week who will NOT lose.  If you get it right, you move on to the next week.  It started with about 100 entrants and the last survivor would take the whole thing.  We made it through the regular season and assumed we would split the pot with the other 10 or so that had done the same.  But, they carried the selections on to the playoffs and we had to make additional selections.  We hemmed and hawed for the week leading up and made our selection.  In the last minute of the game, we were toast and had called one another pretty depressed.  We hung up the phone, and the following occurred....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2I4_UP8_2M

From that point the St. Louis Rams became our team and we ended up making it to the Super Bowl where the last 3 remaining decided to split the $10,000.  We never again made it past week 5 of the season.

Saturday - As noted, I played the Pick 4 (select 4 straight winners) yesterday and had managed to make it through the first 3 races with the winners in tact.  That left the last race in the sequence remaining, The Travers Stakes.  AC had made his selections and we were going to watch the odds before making his play.  The way I had played the Pick 4, I  wanted to be alive with a chance to win in the last race and had 6 horses that could complete the win.  I wanted the one with the highest odds for the best payout.  The problem is that my internet and phone then went out with 20 minutes to the race.  So now I have no way to A) know who I am rooting for to win, and B) watch the race.

I was confident that of the 6 horses I had alive to the wager, I would win, and here's how it played out...

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qNy7Oy0PUw

We got the right horse to win the photo and ended up winning, but a very frustrating afternoon and evening.  I would have liked it to pay a lot more, but if you have a winning ticket, you can't really complain, can you?  The ROI for the day was positive.  It did take far more than the $6.00 wager to get the return though.

Pick-4	$1.00	3+7/1/4/2+5+7	$6.00	$422.50

It reminds me of a favorite quote, "There really isn't such a thing as a gambling problem, just a losing problem."  This could lead to stories from Vegas, but I think I'll save those.