Suprise, suprise or no suprise?

This weekend’s Premier League results would probably have surprised quite a few people, I beg the question where the results really such a surprise?

I’ll take the Saturday early kick-off first with Chelsea coming unstuck against big spenders Man City. Chelsea where seemingly in great goal-scoring form and definitely looked the team to beat, represented by the fact they are odds on to win the title this year. But Man City have lined up the same in every league game so far in a rather conservative 4-5-1 formation which teams have found very difficult to break down so far this season. Chelsea’s midfield consisted of two defensive minded players in Mikel and Ramires as was as Essien who’s a good all-round player but not exactly the attacking creative midfield force that Chelsea needed in this game. I didn’t bet on this game but my instincts told me unders on this game and I was perfectly correct in the end. The outright Man City win offered great value as well but Mancini’s tactic heavily relied on getting the first goal in the game, and that they did. So overall it was probably a slight shock but Chelsea’s form maybe was over-rated since this was their first game against a “top team” this season.

Secondly probably the biggest shock of the weekend and a blatant “coupon buster” as it was referred to as West Brom beat Arsenal at the Emirates. I actually took Arsenal on the handicap in this game, I had reluctance pre-game about this bet and the actual game itself just confirmed I’d made a poor bet. The main logic for my bet was that West Brom where unproven away from home in the Premier League having been walloped by Chelsea and having got beat at Anfield. However I did mention in my preview to this game that West Brom have been highly impressive since the Chelsea game and were unlucky not to get anything from that aforementioned game against Liverpool. Then you have Arsenal, who had to go through extra-time in the Carling Cup and who had and still do have a rather long injury list. Plus you should always remember to factor in the Arsenal defence go AWOL phenomenon that happens on numerous occasions during the season. Overall this game was probably a no bet all round due to the issues mentioned, you couldn’t really see West Brom scoring three but the West Brom (+1.75) was probably the bet to have if you put their recent form into perspective.

Tottenham also suffered a defeat at the hands of West Ham. I had West Ham (+0.25) in this game so this is where I can pat myself on the back. Again the reasons were all fairly obvious, West Ham coming into the game off the back of a good point at Stoke and a morale boasting away win in the Carling Cup. Whilst Tottenham where/still are ravaged by injuries especially in defence and with half an eye of the Champions League the bet on West Ham made perfect sense.

Finally Man United could only manage a point at Bolton. I was tempted by Bolton on the handicap in this game but decide against it. Bolton have been impressive so far this season and held Villa the week previous. For Man United you have Rooney who’s clearly still out of form completely and therefore a lot of reliance of Berbatov to produce the goods. Bolton also always line up 4-4-2 which was the formation Liverpool switched to which got them back in the game at Old Trafford and which Man United seemed to struggle against. Man United odds looked much too short in this game.

So the entire top four from last season could only muster up one point between them, but I’d say no great surprise at all. Isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing.

Back to normal life and my weekend picks

I was in a strange way looking forward to going back to university for my third and final year but just three days of boring, tedious, mind-numbing lectures confirmed to me why my real ambition in life lies in trying to become a full-time professional gambler. Don't get me wrong i'm glad to have had the opportunity to study at a university, although truth be told anybody with half a brain cell can seemingly get on some sort of university course these days. I study business and finance foremost which I was extremeley interested in a couple of years back but my passion for that has seemingly passed and I know my real passion now lies in horse racing, football and gambling in general.

That makes this month of September with my own ill-advised lapses in displine and the decline in a number of my systems all that more harder to take. It's basically rendered the year to date a pointless waste of time. I have been considering the option of taking the rest of the year off away from gambling and come back next year fresh and with my capital still intact. But I'm only dealing with small stakes on my own horse racing laying and football bets at present with slightly bigger stakes on some reliable football tipsters picks. Therefore I decide i'm going to be continue since in general ity's going to fairly quiet on the betting front from now until the new year. Not until March through until the end of August do all my big-earning horse racing systems start. Like I've mentioned before I had hoped to be backing these selections with stakes somewhere around the £100-£200 mark to really start profiting significant amounts. But at the moment my betting funds are running low and I can only hope that from now till the end of year I can manage a decent profit which will add to my fund for next year and thus increase my ability to raise the stakes on thoose horse racing system bets that I have so much confidence in.

My football weekend bets for the Premier League are up on my blogabet for thoose interested. Now there's something I don't mind watching and studying, some high-class Premier League football, if only lectures where this entertaining!

Foolish, foolish me

Sorry to say I slipped into the slippery slope of trying to do what I refer to as a "quick trade" i.e. bet a large proportion of your bank on something with the intention of trading off nearly straight away. The typical example of this would be to Back Under X.Xgoals and then lay off as the price drops one or two ticks. But I fell victim of just this tactic in a Serie A game, I won't go into further details but fair to say I blew a fair chunk of my Betfair funds by doing this.

September has been absolutely terrible and I'll post an update at the end of the month so everyone can see the damage with their own eyes. I feel like such an idiot for continuing to do stupid things like this, betting more than say 2-3% of your bank on a regular basis is only going to end in tears. Think part of it as got to me being bored over the summer months, ironically enough Sunday night was my last night of the holiday and I was back at University today. I've had to reduce the stakes in my laying system which is my main use for my Betfair account. I've made a deal with myself that if I ever try and go trading again on Betfair I will immediately remove all money from my account and close it leaving just my bookmakers accounts. My Betfair P/L is terrible especially compared with my bookmakers P/L which is actually quite good. Shame I'm such a sucker for in-play betting, another £800 loss is sizeable damage. My plans to go "full-time" next year look to be unlikely now. Which is a real shame because I firmly believe I have a good number of horse racing system between March and August which could spring myself profit given the right amount of investment. My job now for the remainder of the year is to try and raise some funds for my horse racing system plans next year.

Not a huge Green Day fan but I do like this song and I feel it's quite fitting after what has happened so far this month:

My Weekend Premier League bets

Here are the bets I've took for this weekend, in-depth explaination on each pick is on my blogabet page along with stakes for thoose interested.

Stoke City v West Ham
Stoke (-0.5) @ 2.02

Sunderland v Arsenal
Under 2.75 goals @ 1.86

Everton v Newcastle
Under 2.5 goals @ 2.01

West Brom v Birmingham
Draw @ 3.37
Under 2.5 goals @ 1.81

Man United v Liverpool
Man United @ 1.73

Crazy weekend of football and my awful week comes to an end

Whilst I watch a lot of football from a betting point of view it still provides us all with some of the best entertainment and drama that is unrivalled to anything else, which is part of the reason I enjoy it so much. Saturday's lunch-time game between Everton and Man Utd being a key example of that with Everton coming from 3-1 behind in injury time to score two goals and level the game at 3-3. I had Everton (+0.75) as one of my bets this weekend and I couldn't help but raise a smile as the usual sound Man United defense crumbled late on.

Arteta completes Everton's unlikely comeback

Elsewhere in The Championship Burnley went one better than Everton by coming back to win from 3-1 behind after Preston were reduced to ten men. Even Barcelona lost in La Liga this weekend, crazy, crazy happenings.

Back to my betting adventures, I say adventure but it feels more like I've taken a blow from Audley Harrison or David Haye (who announced their bout this week) as my betting profits have been eaten into quite badly. Some ill-discipline from me in earlier this week which prompted my last blog entry cost me a decent amount and my horse racing laying system which I've been running since May as comeback down to just about break-even after being over £1,000 in profit at the end of August. Aggressive staking as it's part to play but also the selections have just been ermm winning instead of not winning I guess. I could keep with my aggressive staking plan but a continued bad run would start to wipe out my remaining profit I've achieved this year. Instead I've decided to lower my stakes and use a set % of my bank total for my staking per selection. Below is a screenshot of my Betfair account P/L for the last week, as I say partly due to poor system performance but also due to poor discipline on my behalf. Nice to put it on my blog as a visual reminder to keep patient and don't go trading on Betfair when that's not my strength!

Oh Dear!

Betting works against human nature

I'm sure you've all heard the statistic (I use the word statistic loosely here) that 99% of a gamblers lose money and that only 1% (possibly less in reality) actually make money from gambling. There's a good reason for that, a large majority of people see betting or gambling simple as a leisure activity and putting on a ten-team accumulator on the footy each weekend in a sense is no different than having a quid lucky dip on the national lottery. For some people this is as far as it goes and betting is simply a mechanism to make the weekend football results a little more interesting. But for some people it goes beyond that point, gambling takes over their life and that's when it becomes dangerous and sadly it can destroy a person's life rather rapidly.

You could blame the bookmakers for their continuous advertising and glamorising of the industry, anybody who watched the ad breaks during the world cup will know what I mean. I'm by no means the biggest fan of bookmakers in general, but after all they are only businesses and the main objective of any business is to make profit, and that they'll continue to do at the hands of the uneducated and sometimes frail and unaware punters who fail to grasp the key concept of value.

I'm not trying to sound arrogant or indeed highly educated in the world of gambling. I know very little on the face of things but I've learnt that getting good prices and only taking bets that offer value is the only way to make a profit, either that or adopting a systematic approach that does all this work for you. It makes me feel somewhat sick that people pour their high earned into FOBTs (Fixed Odds Betting Terminals) and the like when the basic laws of probability says in the long-term they are only going to lose money, not even Derren Brown could turn a profit on one of these machine which frequent every high-street bookmaker.

I come to my main point now, that is that the human mind and instinct isn't meant to bet and gamble successfully. Instinct will tell you to only bet on something you think will win, regardless of the odds. Human emotions get depressed and upset at a losing run of bets and the chase instinct takes over. Human emotions get happy and excited at a winning run and the thought off winning money from betting.

I myself have fallen demon to these human instincts on a number of occasions in my betting. It's alright and good breaching the words discipline, sensible staking plan, bet on value, ect, ect. But in reality the human brain works on emotion not on numbers and on discipline. The human brain is a wonderful thing but in my opinion it is difficult to control and tame. I mentioned that only 1% (probably less) make a profit from gambling, to them I salute, I myself could be considered one even if my overall profit for gambling is minuscule. I feel I'm a rather controlled and level-minded sort of soul but even I can wander down unsafe ground at times.

I'd originally planned to trial and go full-time from next year. But at the moment I'm having doubts over that (the recent poor losing run and the depressed emotions that come from it may be talking here) but the main reason comes back to human nature. Could I trust myself not to go crazy one night and blow a small fortune? I know for a fact I have all the resources and skill I need to make a very good amount of money, maybe even enough to live from. But could you trust yourself as a "professional gambler"? With all that responsibility and the need for a strong mind and steady emotions. I've frequently mentioned the 1% figure as people who make profit for gambling, but no one knows for sure how many people of that 1% make a living off betting, I'd hazard a guess it wouldn't be very big. It's the ultimate dream for most punters, the illustrious image of the professional gambler: black coat, sunglasses, racing post under one arm and an expensive wristwatch on the other. I for sometime have dreamed of just this image but just recently I've started to wonder whether this image is not highly desirable after all and that whether to achieve this feat you have to be somewhat void of emotion and instinct.

A Quite time on the betting front

A good number of my betting systems finished at the end of August therefore I've been very light on selections over the past week or so. The Lay system recovered a bit after a really poor start to the month. Follow a number of football tipsters as well as my own football bets which haven't really got going that much yet. At a loss of -5.36pt to 1pt level staking on my own football bets on the Premier League hope to improve that in the coming weeks. My football bets for this weekend will be up on my blogabet shortly.

End of August Update

I doubt many people read this blog but apologies to anyone out there who may do so for my lack of updates. Unfornately I've come to report that August was losing month in my betting ventures, mainly due to a loss of just over £3,000 on Big Brother 11 outright winner market in which an unusual voting procedure throw me off slightly as my two biggest greens where evicted before the final night, leaving me in a bit of a mess. Glad to say however my horse racing bets all seemed to fair really well which meant the overall loss wasn't as bad as it could have been. The loss for August totalled just over £400 and overall profit still remains healthy above the £4,000 mark.

September as however started badly with a few big losses for my laying system. Hopefully it can turn it around, also betting on Ultimate Big Brother and I've got a nice all green screen at present so I'm guaranteed profit whatever outcome.