The Fix
Today, I thought I'd try my hand at a bit of fiction - y'know, story-telling, because if the following actually happened in real-life you wouldn't believe it.
There's this tennis match see, between a real good player called Nick Davedonko and a mediocre journeyman whose name is Marty Vaseline-Redyellow. Nick has been around for years and plays lots of matches and wins most of them and is currently ranked No. 4 in the world. On the other hand Marty struggles to earn a living on the tennis tour and more often than not has to bail out of his hotel room at 4 a.m. to avoid paying the bill.
They're both playing in some tin-pot tournament in the wop-wops of Poorland. Nick hurt his left toe in his first match and doesn't really want to play anymore as he has some real big matches coming up in the United States soon. But he can't pull out of the tournament otherwise he cops a fine from the Tennis Police. Also, Nick's brother who is rumoured to be involved with the Vodka Mafia is in a spot of bother after spending too much money recently on hookers and cocaine.
So Nick comes up with a plan and waltzes up to his next opponent Marty and suggests - NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK - not to book the train out of the tin-pot town they're in until the day after tomorrow. Then Nick tells his brother his toe is throbbing more than his appendage does at the sight of Maria Sharapova.
Nick puts 2 and 2 together and rings his Mafia boss. "Look Guv, can you spot me a couple of G's for some info?.... Yeah you can? ... Alright, Nick's just told me his toe's in a spot of bovver and he's throwin' the towel in, y'know what I mean?"
The boss certainly did know what Nick's brother meant. By the time the match between Nick and Marty starts, the odds on Nick winning - which he could normally do with one arm tied behind his back - have shifted from an understandable $1.20 to an extraordinary $2.40. Marty the mediocre journeyman is suddenly the favourite everywhere to win.
But there's one problem. Marty actually has to win, and Nick can't retire from the match until at least one set is completed because some bookmakers don't pay out on matches unless one set is played - thanks to the occasional suspicion on the tennis tour that some matches get fixed. But of course they don't, that's just conspiracy theory nonsense.
I should mention at this point that in recent years, a new phenomenon has swept the gambling world where you can bet on sports events during play. A lot of this action occurs at a place called Betngetrobbed. So the match starts out - remember Nick is paying an unbelievable $2.40 to win - and all Marty has to do is hit a few balls over the net for an hour or so and he'll be into the quarter-finals and a healthy paycheque.
Trouble is, someone slipped a note under Marty's hotel room door overnight telling him if he doesn't win this match his cat will be strung up on his clothesline, so understandably he's a little nervous. So nervous in fact, that he starts off playing real bad (even for him) and midway through the first set has to call the trainer for a nose bleed, he's so stressed. He goes back on court with cotton wool stuffed up his nasal passage, but his biorhythm's are seriously out-of-sync and poor old Marty loses the first set 2-6, having hit only two winners the whole set.
Meanwhile, the punters at Betngetrobbed think all their Xmases have come at once - the World No. 4 starts off paying $2.40 against some no-name, Nick wins the first set and he is STILL paying $2.40 to win the match! Now a few of these punters who have been around the block a few times smell a rat, but the vast majority of these lemmings just wade in with maxed out credit cards.
Now Nick starts to worry. He knows his brother's testicles will join the cat on the clothesline if he wins this match so when no-one's looking, he kicks a chair on the sideline with his sore toe and immediately crumples to the ground in agony. The trainer comes over and looks at his toe, applies some first-aid so Nick can manfully soldier on. And Nick does, but eventually has to retire in the third set when the pain becomes too great to bear.
Unfortunately for Nick, his brother and his Mafia boss, the lemmings have this time cried enough and forced the blind mice who run Betngetrobbed to contact the Tennis Police. And here the story must end, perhaps I might write Chapter 2 in a week or two.
DISCLAIMER: This story is purely a work or fiction and any resemblance to actual persons is purely co-incidental. Yes, I know Martin Vassallo-Arguello beat Nikolay Davydenko in the second round at Sopot; wow, was there really 3.5 million quid matched on Betfair for that game? You don't say ...
There's this tennis match see, between a real good player called Nick Davedonko and a mediocre journeyman whose name is Marty Vaseline-Redyellow. Nick has been around for years and plays lots of matches and wins most of them and is currently ranked No. 4 in the world. On the other hand Marty struggles to earn a living on the tennis tour and more often than not has to bail out of his hotel room at 4 a.m. to avoid paying the bill.
They're both playing in some tin-pot tournament in the wop-wops of Poorland. Nick hurt his left toe in his first match and doesn't really want to play anymore as he has some real big matches coming up in the United States soon. But he can't pull out of the tournament otherwise he cops a fine from the Tennis Police. Also, Nick's brother who is rumoured to be involved with the Vodka Mafia is in a spot of bother after spending too much money recently on hookers and cocaine.
So Nick comes up with a plan and waltzes up to his next opponent Marty and suggests - NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK - not to book the train out of the tin-pot town they're in until the day after tomorrow. Then Nick tells his brother his toe is throbbing more than his appendage does at the sight of Maria Sharapova.
Nick puts 2 and 2 together and rings his Mafia boss. "Look Guv, can you spot me a couple of G's for some info?.... Yeah you can? ... Alright, Nick's just told me his toe's in a spot of bovver and he's throwin' the towel in, y'know what I mean?"
The boss certainly did know what Nick's brother meant. By the time the match between Nick and Marty starts, the odds on Nick winning - which he could normally do with one arm tied behind his back - have shifted from an understandable $1.20 to an extraordinary $2.40. Marty the mediocre journeyman is suddenly the favourite everywhere to win.
But there's one problem. Marty actually has to win, and Nick can't retire from the match until at least one set is completed because some bookmakers don't pay out on matches unless one set is played - thanks to the occasional suspicion on the tennis tour that some matches get fixed. But of course they don't, that's just conspiracy theory nonsense.
I should mention at this point that in recent years, a new phenomenon has swept the gambling world where you can bet on sports events during play. A lot of this action occurs at a place called Betngetrobbed. So the match starts out - remember Nick is paying an unbelievable $2.40 to win - and all Marty has to do is hit a few balls over the net for an hour or so and he'll be into the quarter-finals and a healthy paycheque.
Trouble is, someone slipped a note under Marty's hotel room door overnight telling him if he doesn't win this match his cat will be strung up on his clothesline, so understandably he's a little nervous. So nervous in fact, that he starts off playing real bad (even for him) and midway through the first set has to call the trainer for a nose bleed, he's so stressed. He goes back on court with cotton wool stuffed up his nasal passage, but his biorhythm's are seriously out-of-sync and poor old Marty loses the first set 2-6, having hit only two winners the whole set.
Meanwhile, the punters at Betngetrobbed think all their Xmases have come at once - the World No. 4 starts off paying $2.40 against some no-name, Nick wins the first set and he is STILL paying $2.40 to win the match! Now a few of these punters who have been around the block a few times smell a rat, but the vast majority of these lemmings just wade in with maxed out credit cards.
Now Nick starts to worry. He knows his brother's testicles will join the cat on the clothesline if he wins this match so when no-one's looking, he kicks a chair on the sideline with his sore toe and immediately crumples to the ground in agony. The trainer comes over and looks at his toe, applies some first-aid so Nick can manfully soldier on. And Nick does, but eventually has to retire in the third set when the pain becomes too great to bear.
Unfortunately for Nick, his brother and his Mafia boss, the lemmings have this time cried enough and forced the blind mice who run Betngetrobbed to contact the Tennis Police. And here the story must end, perhaps I might write Chapter 2 in a week or two.
DISCLAIMER: This story is purely a work or fiction and any resemblance to actual persons is purely co-incidental. Yes, I know Martin Vassallo-Arguello beat Nikolay Davydenko in the second round at Sopot; wow, was there really 3.5 million quid matched on Betfair for that game? You don't say ...
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posted by Rob Crawford at 12:24 PM
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