I may be one of the few gamblers around to feel a failure after back-to-back winning years.

Spending more than I won in 2003-04 and hauled from the red into the black only by a single poker tournament in 2004-05, however, I am tired of just bungling along. There have been too many missed bets through lack of discipline (my failure to blog selections consistently is another symptom of this) too little distinction between the type of gambling that makes me money and the type of gambling that doesn't and not enough outrage when a man who has been betting now for almost eight years can't even manage to tread water.

Ninety pounds in the hole for 2005-06, I finally got angry with myself at the weekend. Now making a conscious effort to find at least one opportunity for profit each day, be it at the track, on the sports field or around a poker table, I have found allies in what seems - at last - an effective minimalist poker strategy for cash games and a renewed sense of fury at a bankroll that's showing a deficit.

In four days of application and bloody-mindedness, I made up £49.17 of my losses. That pace can't last but this new-found hunger for a decent profit come 31st May next year just might. If I can't run to a decent meal for two after eight years of studying the ways of chance, then I ought to go back to selling articles instead.

I've been too content with just getting even. It's time to get mad.