What is the point of this?
This is just a rugby fan with a chip on his shoulder cos football is so much more popular.
And he's just comparing apples to oranges.
Football is not supposed to be 'hard'. It's the beautiful game. There is an element of physicality to it but it is by no means the main element. What we appreciate is the skill, the artistry.
I assume most rugby afficionados appreciate the skill in their game over the 'hardness' of it. But if you want to compare sports that are hard, then compare rugby to similar sports that put a higher premium on physicality like American football or Gaelic football, or Aussie rules.

Well done to the winners and particularly to MereNovice, it was very smoothly and professionally run.

Just watched Nicky Henderson talking about the Gold Cup on Ch 4. When saying "I wouldn't want any other jockey than Sam on Long Run", he looked down and to the left. As all you live poker players know, that is a sure fire tell that he is lying!
C'mon Burton Port.

After race 3:

Tipster   Total Score
Alverton   61.25
tikay   61.25
Simon Galloway   53.25
ChipRich   52.00
T_Mar   42.95
Chompy   40.60
DUNK619   33.75
NigDawG   32.50
The Camel   31.58
Doobs   31.10

Ironically Tikay is behind alphabetically

A mate of mine is friendly with Gary O'Brien of At the Races and Gary gave him these tips pre meeting.
Shop , Sir Deschamps, Call the Police, Shadow Catcher and Toner Doudairis.

oh sigh i assumed we had until the first race

is too late or can i be let off this once? still 30 mins to 1st race...

Ooops, so did I think we had until 1st race. I just sent mine. I'd appreciate being let off but no probs if ya can't.

Ok, sent and in.

I am a huge Diego fan but I think Messi is the best ever.
The game has moved on a huge amount since Maradonnas time and it's almost like a different game.
I liken it somewhat to the difference between pre professional rugby union and what we have today. When Jonah Lomu arrived on the international scene, he revolutionised the game. A back that was as big as a forward and opposition teams couldn't deal with him. Now all players are extremely athletic and powerful.
The same thing has happened in football (albeit to a lesser degree). Players now appear to be athletes first and footballers second. And yet Messi is a mere slip of a man. He's a physical poet in a world of souped up steroid munching super athletes.
Ronaldo is an extremely talented and skillful footballer but his physique is an important part of his game. If he had the physique of Messi, he wouldn't be half the player he is. I feel sure we'll see more 'Ronaldos' come off footballs conveyor belt but I think it may be a long, long time before we ever see anything like Messi again.

Can I send via Pokerstars? Or Paypal?
I'm in Ireland and when I try to transfer (from Bank of Ireland) it asks me for the payees name, full address, sort code, account no, bank name and bank city.
I'm not sure why it wants the extra info beyond name, sort code, account number and understand if OP was reticient about giving me his home address (especially if he lives somewhere really crappy  ).
Failing the above, can someone else bank transfer to OP and I'll send to them via Pokerstars (I'll send first obv)?

In.
I'm comletely dead money in this either way but I love this festival and will be taking all days off work for it. The electricity in the air on the off for the first race is like nothing I've ever experienced.
I attended for the one and only time in 1999 and myself and a mate rode a couple of unfancied local mares on the 1st night. It was a very competitive race as there was actually three of us vying for those 2 rides and the unlucky one had to spend the night in the car. We all spent the night in the car the following night so our performances were obviously not up to scratch. Just a 3 day festival back then and we were back to London after the last day.
On the suggestions, I quite like the 2pt win and 1pt e/w option and maybe double points on the Gold Cup?

I don't think he set out to grim anyone but his addiction may have led him to do so at a later point if this had got going.
As for him being profitable at tennis, there is some proof that he may be (his tennis diary obv) but it's not conclusive.
The figures in that diary may have been massaged somewhat, he may have quoted the top prices that he could have gotten but they may have already gone by the time he backed it, for instance.  
And maybe he just ran really good for a month. I don't use Betfair so I don't know but can you get an history of all tennis bets struck on an account? If so, that should be looked at to really ascertain how profitable (or not) he is.
Hope everybody gets their money back anyway.

I'll do it.
As I wouldn't fit most the criteria, I'll put up the stake myself.
I know nothing about racing but I like to have a flutter on Cheltenham so it'd benefit me to have someone shrewd doing the homework for me rather than my 'that's a pretty name, I'll back that' technique.
I don't currently have a 365 account.

I know I'm not a well known member of the forum or anything so people can tell me to gtfo but I kinda agree with Ace2M here.
The way this is set up is precarious to say the least.
Imo, Solaris shouldn't have access to the account for pretty obvious reasons. For his and the stakeholders benefit.
Instead why not allocate 1 or 2 trusted 'keyholders' to the account. I think the lost EV of bets not placed due to the non availability of the keyholders at the requisite times is more than made up for by the added safeguards.

Heavyweight division will always get the glory from boxing fans because they're the biggest baddest gladiators in the sport of fighting. A small guy might be more technically gifted but ultimately he still gets knocked cold by the big guy in a fight. Just like how the 100m sprint champ has the glory of being the fastest in the world in the sport of running. Other sprinters might be technically better but the public wont be as interested in the slower guys with nice stride patterns.

200m runners go faster than the 100m runners, just saying.

They should have a go at the 100m in that case.

not sure thats true

I think he's saying that due to the fact that the 200m world record (19.19 sec) is less than twice the time of the 100m record (9.58 sec). The reason for that is that a human can run full speed for up to 300m (I think?) and so during a 200m race the athlete is already at peak speed when entering the 2nd 100m of the race, hence his overall speed (metres/second or whatever) is faster. The reason the 100m racer is 'slower' is due to the fact that he has to start from a standing start.
This is why the 100m relay record is faster still at 37.04 sec.

Dazzler - Do you want a match bet on our H2H that comes after this week? anything up to £50.

A fool and his money.....

Yeah ok, say $25? I would go $50 but I see you've played your wildcard this week. I might play mine but I'm hoping I can hold off.

$25 booked. gl gl.

Its got ugly with the bonus points, need a big night from Aguero and a shit night for Silva.

Down to the wire!

On regards the money = points issue, the theory is simple enough Moneyball stuff.
At the start we have £100m and we are aim to hit a generally average score of something over 2000 points. So every £1m garners ~20 points.
There is a heading in the drop down list when you go into transfers titled 'Value (season)'. This equates to how many points the player has per £1m in cost. Vorm currently tops this with 19 points/£1m. This is actually based on his value for money at his current price of £5.2m. If you got him at £4m, he is actually at 25 points/£1m and may end the season at something like 40 points/£1m which would equate to a very good VFM (value for money) buy.
When buying players at the start of next season, that Value drop down box will give you the points of this season divided by their current new season value. This is a very, very powerful tool. Use it.
Somewhat on a tangent but related is the theory of 'not having too many players'. Lots of people will have teams that have too many good players. By this I mean that they have maybe 5 good defenders, 5 good midfielders and 3 good strikers. But you can only play 11 players and they often are leaving too much money on the bench.
You should in general be looking to having (at least) 1 base price GK (£4m), 2 base price defenders (£4m) and one base price midfielder (£4.5m) which allows you to put as much money as you can on the pitch.
Say Player A has 2 x 6m Gks, 3 x £6m Dfs, 2 x £5m Dfs, 3 x £8m Mids, 2 x £6m Mids, 1 x £12m Stk + 2 x £6m Stk. The most amount of money they can get on the pitch is £6m + £18m + £30m + £26m = £78m on the pitch.
Player B has 2 x 4.0m Gks, 3 x £6m x 3 Dfs, 2 x £4.0m Dfs, 4x £9m Mids, 1 x £4.5m Mid, 1 x £12m Stk + 1 x £7m + 1 x £6.5m. They get £83.5m on the pitch.

Like poker a lot of this is 'it depends' and there are exceptions to everything. For example, as regards my team value being ~£110m, it's slightly misleading. Due to the games policy of 'agents fees' taking half the profit gained when selling my actual team value, when I sell all my players my selling team value is only £105.3m. 

A good mathematical approach is required but after that good football judgement is required as to form/fixtures etc and of course as Napolean said, "I'd rather have a lucky general than a good one".