Cucumbers and the Tote
I am about to repeat something (many things actually) - and if you are sensible and interested in betting on The Tote, then read on… otherwise skip to the next bit, and it will just mean one less hand on the pot tonight!
Point one. The Tote has a Jackpot rollover tonight on a Tuesday night for heaven’s sake of £58k. which means an almost certain £100k jackpot. You cannot play without a Tote account. Why don’t you? Open One. Now! Visit www.tote.co.uk and follow their instructions.
Now, secondly, when we have to make selections for the Tote Jackpot or Tote PlaceBot, we all face a tricky dilemma due to the rising costs of making more selections. There you are with six horses in one race, two in another, and five in a third. By the halfway point of the card, you already have sixty selections, and if you then restrain yourself to a single favourite, then two in the fifth and three in the sixth, your card contains 360 permutations!
Luckily, I discovered Tix, which allows me to focus on building tickets, increasing my chances of winning a bit, and increasing my chances of winning a bit more than a bit by the sheer number of perms I have automatically placed. If I told you that I can place over 300 individual Tote Placepot or Jackpot tickets in less than ten seconds, and each one costs no more than a penny, you might go “Wow” - as I did.
Anyway - and though this sounds like a sales pitch, it isn’t - it just works, and it is a useful tool for your armoury.
Tote Tix (usually referred to simply as Tix) is betting software designed to help punters build, optimise, and place complex multi-race pool bets like the Tote Placepot or Jackpot.
How It Works
Instead of picking just one horse, multi-race bets require you to pick horses that will win or place in several consecutive races. Doing the permutations (the math) for these combinations manually can be extremely difficult. Tix solves this by:
You assign your horses either by your perception of their chances or simply by a choice based on your personal criteria.
Automated Permutations: The software builds out the most likely ticket combinations for you.
Staking Plans: You can set different budgets or multipliers to ensure you aren’t overspending on unlikely outcomes.
Direct Placement: Once you are happy with your generated tickets, the software sends them straight into the Tote pool market for you.
What You Need To Do
To get started using Tix, you only need a few simple things:
A Tote Account: You need a funded betting account with Tote.
Access the Tix Platform: Go directly to the Tix Bet Builder.
Connect Your Accounts: Log into Tix and link it to your existing Tote account using your registered email and password.
Build and Place: Select the race meeting you want to play, fill in your selections, set your stake, and execute the bets directly.
Built into Tix are several methods for exploring permutations. In other words, you can say, “I think horse A is twice as good as horse B,” and Tix will adjust the number of bets it places on each horse accordingly. Rather than having me explain it poorly, I’ve included a YouTube link below. The video, featuring the creator of Tix, explains everything, and a Tote Tix search on YouTube will provide more - but this is the place to start. TIX ON YOU TUBE
The essence of all this is that TIX will give you better coverage for a smaller stake.
Anyway, Newbury today
1,2 - 2,4,6,8 - 1,2,3 - 3,4,10 - 3,7,9,11 - 1,3 Fingers crossed
A propos of heatwaves and cancelled racing, and starting on the gallops at 3 in the morning, I was chatting to Bert about cucumbers. Bert has a glut, and mentioned this to me, and I foolishly replied, “Lumme, not much you can do with those once you’ve done three salads.”
Bert’s wife overheard this somehow - I actually thought she was in Spain - and she has a low opinion of me, a state of mind that, I am happy to accept, she may not be alone in owning. Anyway, it matters not how she heard - she did - and I was reminded via email that while she thought Samuel Johnson’s words on the subject harsh, viz: “Cucumber should be well sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.” she also thought I was no Samuel Johnson! Nor was I aware of her mother’s Cucumber, Gin and Mint Ice.
For a litre of what might be thought of as a sorbet:
INGREDIENTS
1.5kg cucumbers, peeled and deseeded, weight
50g mint (i.e. a decent bunch)
Juice of 4 lemons and the zest of one of them
150g icing sugar
100ml gin, warmed
METHOD
In a blender, blitz the cucumbers, mint and lemon juice, and then pass through a sieve.
Dissolve the icing sugar in the warmed (not boiling or even simmering) gin, add the zest, then add to the cucumber mixture.
Freeze in your ice cream churn as normal. If you have no churn, pop it in the freezer, beat every 30 or 45 minutes until almost frozen, and then leave it to freeze properly.
Make sure you remove the sorbet from the freezer around 30 minutes before you want to eat it.