This Is The End

I did initially state that I'd blog up until the end of the year but I feel that now is the right time to end my blog. I'm afraid to say my motivation for all things gambling as dwindled a lot recently. This was summed up somewhat yesterday when I totally forget I'd left an unmatched bet with the intention to trade later. Lucky the bet won and therefore I'm actually roughly back even for the year but that was somewhat besides the point really.

My activities have more or less come to a stand still for now. I may some time in the future regain my motivation to try and pursue gambling and be profitable. But at the moment my focus just isn't there and I think it would be somewhat detrimental for me to continue for the time being. In addition it's not just gambling that I have seemed to have lost motivation in to be honest. To put it bluntly I seem a bit lost at present, I don't really know what I want to do with my life. I've been constantly applying for jobs but had no look. Secretly perhaps I was always hoping I wouldn't need to find a job and could pursue the dream of living off gambling.

So to conclude I hope all the people that took time to read my blog at any point enjoyed my input and hopefully took something positive from my insight. The big question I started this blog with was whether it was possible to be a profitable gambler and possible make a living from doing so. In fits and starts I've shown that there was/is profitable methods out there if your willing to look hard enough and put in the work. But the harsh psychological effects gambling can have on a person makes it very difficult to do this and maintain the required discipline and consistency of thought to do so. For me the advice for any budding gamblers out there is simply to pursue gambling as something serious but something leisurely, I think I made the mistake of treating as a possible full-time earner when in fact I feel the best way to approach it is to set a small amount aside and any profit earnt is simple a little extra spending money.

One great irony of my time gambling is that I've come to the conclusion that money doesn't really mean all that much to me anymore. Sure you need enough to live off adequately, but beyond that I don't think I really see much appeal in having massive wads of money. For me the joy of gambling was the intellectual game against the bookmaker or against other people (in the case of betting exchange). It just so happened that this game took place using knowledge from areas I follow intensely, i.e. sports. That was always the appeal, yes I wanted to make money from gambling but the large part of the enjoyment was in the challenge and also in the watching of the sport. I don't think that appeal just disappears but it feels like that at the present. Perhaps one day it will return but with heavily limited accounts and the scars from my previous venture I think any future gambling would only ever be a part-time pursuit.

I don't plan to delete the blog by the way, it will still be here until whenever it gets taken down. One day I'll probably read back through it all with a smile on my face. It was an adventure and I'm sure there's plenty of good advice mixed in there too.

My email is denmanbetting@hotmail.co.uk, I plan to seize using that address soon. If you want or need to contact me for any reason please do so at that address within the next week or so if you want to make sure I read it.

Well that's it 29 months of blogging and this is the end. I bid you farewell.

End of May/ Euro 2012 Preview

Quite pleased to say I ended the month of May with a non too shabby profit of £469.29. Although it came at a bit of a cost as a couple of my bookmakers accounts got shut down. Presumably because I was taking odds just before they where cut. Might have been foolish of me to be so obvious, but I had been limited with both bookmakers previous so having my accounts closed completely wasn't a total surprise, despite me hardly turning a profit with either. This means my cumulative loss for the year is back down to just over £100. I hope a decent June could see me back in the black for the year.

My main point of the update was to give a run down of my pre-tournament bets for Euro 2012. Whilst I do take betting seriously mostly I do like an occasional fun bet know and again. Although I still try and only bet on things I think are value. These long-term tournament bets are always a bit hard to judge though mainly because the tournament only involves an handful of game for each team and an element of luck undoubtedly comes into it.

Outright Winner
For me and for many others I'm sure, the two stand out candidates are Spain & Germany. Both come into the campaign with 100% records during qualification. I lean towards favoring the Germans for the tournament, because I feel they have a more rounded team than the Spaniards and in my opinion Germany where the outstanding team in the last World Cup but came up narrowly short against Spain on that occasion. Always worth covering yourself with a potential dark house and I think Poland could be that in this tournament. Home advantage of course and as easy a group as they could have wished for. I expect them to qualify for the quarter-finals although I admit it would be something of a surprise to see them progress further, but by no means impossible and at their current odds worth a speculative punt.

Recommended Bets:
2pts on Germany @ 4.5 (Betfair)
1/2pt on Poland @ 51 (Various)

Top Goalscorers
Again the top goalscorer market is always a bit of a lottery and I don't really think there's one outstanding candidate for it this year. Given that Germany will probably rotate Klose and Gomez in the lone-role upfront, Spain without their top striker in David Villa. Whilst both Van Persie & Ronaldo seem a bit short considering their countries are in the "Group of Death". Therefore I've just gone for a few more speculative punts, although should Germany go all the way I'd fancy one of my two German selections to be thereabouts for the Golden Boot.

Recommended Bets:
1pt on Thomas Muller @ 34 (Betfair)
1pt on Lukas Podolski @ 38 (Betfair)
1pt on Andrei Arshavin @ 126 (Coral)
1pt on Wesley Sneijder @ 74 (Betfair)
1pt on Ztlan Ibrahimovic @  51 (Various)

An Update!

First and foremost thanks for all the comments on my previous post, it's nice to know that somebody at least may be benefiting from my blog and that you are so willing to offer advice.

I've not updated in ages so I'll firstly round of April which came in with a profit of £252.24, although I admit this was mostly down to luck rather than any sort of wisdom I think. (bad trading, lucky profits)

With the first week of May came the end of the Premier League football season and thus my football bets. Here's a graph displaying my performance since the start of February to season end.

So ended up with £25.66 profit from a starting bank of £100. The profit yield was a fairly healthy 6.29% and the average price taken with my selections was almost exactly evens (2.017). I'm happy enough with that, I watch a lot of Premier League football but the season before I didn't finish the season profitable so the knowledge itself doesn't always guarantee you'll turn a profit. Think some of the key themes I noticed this season was teams like Liverpool & Chelsea where continuously under-price given the poor rum of form both teams endured during the season. In addition backing Newcastle every game would have surely given you a nice profit, they where often over-priced presumably because they performed a lot better and maintained for the large part their good form throughout the entire season.

Right my future plans now. Well it is gambling related but not exactly outright gambling as such. Some people may say it's a little bit boring and maybe not in the spirit of the gambling game. But I've recently being taking full advantage of any bookmakers offers and also taking advantage of differing price lines between both bookmaker Vs. bookmaker and bookmaker Vs. exchange. I've been doing it for the last month and turning over a decent profit without having to do anything spectacular. I admit the work involved can be time-consuming but I'm quietly enjoying it. It keeps me in the gambling world and as a result I'm getting an even closer look at how prices shift and change at various times. I'm also looking at maybe developing an horse racing systems out of any reoccurring prices patterns I may come across.

That's keeping me fairly busy at present, as well as watching the England/West Indies cricket (no betting/trading on it though). I'm also looking forward to the Euro 2012 which is rapidly approaching. I'll be having a few bets there no doubt, although I didn't do that well with my bets at the last World Cup, hopefully that taught me some lessons that I can put into practice. I shall update again just before the tournament starts with an end of May update where I shall give my views on the tournament.

The Lost Soul Returns

I shamefully have abandoned this blog for a long-time now. I kept meaning to update but never got round to it. I think I need to take a leaf out of Jim Carrey's character in Yes Man and start doing things instead of waiting for something to happen. Being a more pro-active person is definitely something I want and probably need to be.

One of the main reasons I never got round to updating is the simple fact I don't have much to say anymore, or least not stuff that I've mentioned several times in my blog before. Maybe I was foolish thinking gambling was easy way to make money. My logic says I believe that it is very difficult to make money gambling but deep down maybe I've always, maybe still do believe that there is a way to come out a winner.

I now operate no horse racing systems and I'm not tied to any sort of betting on daily basis. I still tried and failed throughout much of March to try and trade once again. I re-read a book or two on the subject and thought maybe this time I could make it work. But my same old mistakes reared it's head. I've read all about the psychology and the sort of mindset needed to trade successfully. Although understanding what is needed and actually implementing it is two different things completely. I still remain bouncing back and forth between idea, one day I want to try my hardest at poker (that's took a bit of a dip recently) and the next I want to be a trader once again.

I've always been an indecisive sort of person and my mind is all over the place at present. I've taken a few steps back from gambling of late and now spend a lot less time thinking on gambling activities. On a personal note my whole life is just one big frustration at present I can't find a job anywhere, struggle to even get interviews. Tough economic times I know, but I think I'm a bright enough individual to do a very good job at anything I put my mind too. (well if you don't count gambling that is). I should probably feel guilty for spending what is effectively tax-payers money on my silly gambling dreams, but then again I spend very little money elsewhere and I'm sure other people waste money just as badly as I have.

I was contemplating this being my last post on this blog. It would be nice to see a blog finish with a definite ending. Too many blogs I've read just end abruptly and you never know what has happened to the blog poster. Probably just made a mega-mistake and doesn't want to face the punishment of reciting this in words. I'm somewhat the opposite I find typing my thoughts into words is cleansing and makes me feel better for some reason. For that alone I think I would find it difficult to stop this blog today. Although I do fear the time to let go of my gambling fantasies is quickly approaching. But it's been so ingrained in me for the four years now that it even when I've recently took a full week away it felt somewhat weird not to be thinking or hatching plans about my gambling pursuits.

One quick final note on the Grand National, I always hate how the animal activist always rear their heads every time the Grand National comes around. The truth of the matter is horse racing is sport where animals are bred specifically for racing, yes it's true all national hunt racing carry an added element of danger and horses will sadly get hurt and die. But isn't it the added amount of danger that makes The Grand National what it is. Modern day society seems to want to take the danger out of everything. Anyway it was a fantastic finish (one of the best I've ever seen), chuffed for Neptune Collognes always been a big fan of the horse and probably would have won a Gold Cup sometime but not the dominance of Kauto Star and Denman.

Pipped at the post

Loss of Direction

To be frank I'm suffering from a big sense of loss of direction at present. My sports betting/trading is quite clearly not working and I get the sad, sinking feeling of me going around in circles only to come back to the same result of me slowly losing money through my pursuits. The fact that I'm currently unemployed and stuck around the house a lot does not help the matter any.

Starting to think my plans have all been one big delusional thought. It's true that they say you should never really give up on your ambitions and your dreams, but that doesn't apply when they have proven to be largely unrealistic does it?

Do I still enjoy sports betting and trading? There's still a part of me that does, but then there's an other part of me that 's saying think of all the hours you've spent pursing this only to end up losing a decent amount of money. Sometimes difficult when you've got your heart set on something to let it go and move on. It seems I'm very close to coming to that conclusion, but there's still a little bit of drive and passion to continue. If I did however decide to pack it in, I think it would have to be completely. Don't see myself carrying on as a casual punter, be a bit like seeing your ex-girlfriend you still love on the train every day or something and always wondering what could have been or what still happen.

I'm about as close to my gambling goals as Charlie Adam's penalty was to the goal in the Carling Cup final, and I end up feeling a lot like the guy at the end of the clip.

Mistakes, Mistakes and More Mistakes

The more you think about the more you realise that gambling and trading is predominately about mistakes. The more mistakes you make the more likely you are to lose money, whether that be backing or laying something at unfavourable or your more classic mistake in placing a bet you didn't intend to. The saying goes Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Although in betting and trading you can afford to make hundreds and thousands of mistakes, basically as many mistakes as your bankroll will allow you. Sure all people make mistakes, it is often said the most successful people in the world have made big mistakes in the early career but have overcome them. But that fails to notice all the people who make big mistakes who didn't overcome and become routed down by a mistake they've made.

I know that last passage was somewhat vague but my point is that different people react differently to mistakes. The way you react to mistakes and losses in gambling/trading is one of the most important things. It fails under the all important D word again, but is deserving of a category of it's own in my view. I know from experience when I make mistakes I don't like it, it annoys me, it frustrates me, it angers me. I'm the guy banging my head on the wall after my horse is beaten by a nose. I do my best to try not get frustrated in this way, but it's almost inherent human nature that we don't like it when we are wrong, we don't like knowing that we aren't as clever as we think we are. I know I'm some steps ahead of the regular punter who simply thinks he can predict with certainty what's going to happen in a given sporting event. I know what value is. I may or may not have edge when it comes to betting and trading these days. But I know for certain that somewhat primal instinct part of my brain gets frustrated and angry far to easy. I have taken up poker recently but even in that I drifted into the same mode, I was playing my usually game and got a couple of bad beats I proceeded to go "on tilt" and play hands I would never even usually look at playing which of course resulted in further losses. Decided to take the rest of the week off after a very poor week upto Wednesday.

What I'm saying after all this time is that I realise I don't have the mindset for betting or trading. After reading up about trading in particular, it seems there is the possibility that you can train your own mind to get out of this problem. Although old habits die hard as the saying goes.

This week was another loss of £161.95 of which $11.85 (roughly £8) can be attributed to poker, the rest was simply me being a lemon trying to trade, hence the mistakes, mistakes rant. I'm not saying I'm giving up on this pursuit of mine. But I do admit to losing a bit of interest in betting and trading recently. Twinned with the realisation that my mindset is still all over the place, I've decided to take this week off largely to try and think things over and do a little more reading on trading psychology. Reading and applying are two completely different matters though, although despite all this I'm determined to remain positive.

End of January Update/ Week#5

Well I said I was due to end January in slight profit but I managed to mess that up with some ill-advised horse racing trading (I'm sure I said I should stop doing that before). This time I really do mean it thought. I've decided to split my betting upto into clear groups now. Football Trading, Football Betting, Other Sports Betting & Other Sports Trading. £100 each for the football groups and £50 for the other sports groups/ Keeping a detailed record of all bets and trades and it should show where my best areas are, although I'm pretty sure already that it will be the football.

Ended the month down £130.36 and the week down £184.83. Not much else to say other than I really need to stop with these silly blips in discipline, it's a difficult job trying to slowly make your way into decent profits. That is always the dangerous thing with discipline, you could have months of good discipline but it takes just one bad moment and you could quite literally lose at the profits and hard work in a moment of madness. Afterwards is a case of what the hell was I thinking there. Hopefully my new staking plan in place with the different groups should help me in the regard.

Just when the weather is snowy and cold it is the exact time you realise why working from home would be such a good thing. No need to go out and freeze waiting for trains or sorting out your frozen up car.

For me though the focus well and truly slipped last week and for that I'm embarrassed. One bright note once again though is my poker, profit of $11.49 for the week. Wish I could play more poker, I am upto multi-tabling three tables at a time and do try and play for a few hours each day. Although at micro-stakes I'm never going to turn over massive amounts. A couple more weeks of decent profit in my SNGs and I think the time may have come to move upto the next stake level.

Another Nearly Week

Seem to have plenty of these so called nearly weeks where it could have been a fantastic one but ends up turning into a minimal profit or loss, this week I ended down £20.92 for week and I'm more or less break even for the year so far.

My horse racing system still seem to be going a slow rate, I did however enjoy some decent profit from the Snooker Shootout, by betting pre-match. It is a simple one frame knockout competition but with certain time limits on shots and the frame as a whole which means generally the players have to play quicker than in a normal match of snooker. Clearly evident from what I've seen it is a little like a lottery, because one small mistake could cost a player and the majority of the players in the competition are capable of getting a 40+ break, which is usually enough to win a frame. It was fun to watch, not quite the World Championships but an interesting concept I think.

Meanwhile on the cricket I traded both Australia v India and the Pakistan v England test matches. Which wasn't really good for sleeping patters, I never stayed up all night and watched both tests. Just usually tried to catch the sessions that I deemed important. I was with Australia from early on against India and my position never really changed. The Pakistan/England game was a bit different, started off by being against the draw and then backed England when they went out to around 2.50. Ended up leaving my book with massive red on the draw, medium red on Pakistan and Big green on England. Funny thing was if England had around 200 or more to chase in the final innings I'd have almost definitely traded out. But as it was I let it run and well the rest was history really. I actually couldn't get onto the computer at the time England had collapsed to around 30-4, I really wanted and should have laid my bet off there. Apparently I found out after England where 1.50 something at the point, which surely was a big lay given how the top order fared. Then again I really should have laid at the start of the innings with England @ 1.20, I was actually considering that and would have overlaid to ensure bigger profits on Pkaistan had I choosen to do that. Which makes the fact I didn't lay off at all sound even more stupid. Overall was down £30 on the week, but a wise decision or a non-England collapse world could have seen that be a comfortable £160+ profit

Didn't trade any on tennis this match, But I imagine trading was fruitful if you know what your doing. If the final was anything to go by, simply laying who you think was going to win at given point in time would seemingly have been the best strategy. So many swings in that game made for great entertainment. Wanted Rafa to win slightly more, but fair play to Novak two gruelling matches in the space of a couple of days. Think he probably earnt the title and a little rest maybe.

My poker challenge is still on going (think I'll stick something in the side bar about my running totals). This week I netted a profit of $8.08, which is decent considering I never played that many games with me being busy with the cricket and all. Much more time to play this week so hopefully I'll yield a greater profit.

You cannot lose if you don't play

Anybody recently taking up watching The Wire will recognise this quote from the second episode of season one. I think it can be a perfectly applied to the world of gambling, but is one sometimes I don't adhere to. By sticking to betting or trading purely on sports you know about you give yourself a better chance at success. But I'm guessing there's plenty of people out there who have bet on sporting events they know little about, a class 6 seller at Wolverhampton? A Belarusian football match? A volleyball match (because there was some hot females playing)? A match where you see no value but bet anyway because it happens to be on TV?

Easy traps to fall into at times but one that needs to be avoided at all costs. By simply keeping a track of your record in each individual sport you should see which are profitable and which are not. One would think the sports you know most about should see you perform better, might not always be the case because sometimes it's easier to find an edge in a obscure sports markets rather than more popular ones where the bots and professional traders lurk. I know for certain that my football betting and trading has been profitable, it's my horse racing trading and other sports trading that has let me down time and time again. Therefore I'm putting an end to trying horse racing trading from now on. Seems so tempting to trade the horses purely because it takes place a time when nothing else is going on, but I've shown I'm useless at and should really just give up. Other sports I haven't really had a large enough simple to judge whether I'm good or bad but I didn't really feel that comfortable trying to trade the tennis this week. Snooker I found a little better, but I was mainly just outright betting rather than trading. My cricket betting/trading went a little balls up this week with the Pakistan/England test, got into a good situation by laying the draw quite early on but managed to get myself into a mess by backing Pakistan at low odds but then switching to lay them as England came to bat second time round. Should really have got out after first couple of wickets tumbled, but didn't and suffered a double loss as I'd backed England to get 250+ runs as well.

So more or less I did exactly what I said I shouldn't do last week and lost £535.15 this week. My Betfair P/L is very mis-leading because I was hedging a lot my bets with better bookmakers odds this week especially on the snooker, true figure was about £50 up over the week and not £350+


To conclude sometimes the best bets you can ever make are the ones you don't make. Same goes with poker, a pivotal moment in a poker tournament could be the fold of marginal hand pre-flop that could have got you in all sorts of bother had you played it. Didn't mention my poker this week, well that's because I've hardly played and was down a small amount. I will try to play more next wekk.

A New Beginning or Another False Dawn?

Believe it or not last week (week#2 of the year) I made a profit of £610.06 that's right, no typo involved that's six-hundred-and-ten-pounds-and-six-pence. The title of the blog just about sums up my feeling on this matter. Is this me finally turning a corner or merely a very lucky week. The large profits came largely from my horse racing and football trading. Things just seemed to go well and maybe I was experiencing the so-called unconscious trader's mind, where you don't really think about what you are doing it just comes naturally. My horse-racing trading and a few bets where largely in-play and on national hunt races. There is an obvious time delay between the horse racing pictures and people obviously betting in-play on course but I find that it doesn't matter too much when it comes to races over longer distances especially if you take a position early. My football trading was largely on the under/over 2.5 goals and match odds markets which I feel I've become adequate at trading. Although I've not kept a full record over the years I'm pretty sure my football trades in these areas would show good profit. I've sensibly now decided to track every single trade I make on Betfair. (the same Betfair which went down yet again Tuesday I think it was last week).


I'm also looking at trying my hand in other sports trading this week with the tennis and snooker featuring heavily. Only going to play with small amounts to test my skills in this area. Overall it's surprising what a good week's performance can do for your confidence. Although it's also important to stay true to yourself and not carried away by one week's results. I know I have made mistakes this week and possibly over-staked on occasions and it's important to recognise this and correct it, because in the long-term it doesn't pay. Meanwhile my poker career took another small step forward as I played a lot more SNGs this week, overall I was $16.99 up for this week playing around 30 $1+$0.20 SNG. Which is a decent return no doubt. I'm looking for five weeks of constant profit at a given buy-in level before deciding on moving up to the next level.

All things considered this has to go down as a superb week of course, but very important to not get carried away and I'll do my best to remain grounded and calm. A nice solid week this week would be ideal to follow on from this "monster" week.

Week#1 update

Well the first week of 2012 has been and gone. I actually managed to forget to note down my profit/loss for the week, I worked it out and I vaguely recall it coming to a small loss of about £30 for the week but I've made change to the amounts in my accounts since then and updated my spreadsheet according, so I'll just have to leave the week as a loss of £30, not accurate I know but any error will be correct when I record the second week's P/L figure.

It was my two remaining horse racing systems that performed so badly at the start of the year which was the main cause behind the loss. My main success of the week had to come in my FA Cup bets, I really liked the look of Ladbrokes' offer of betting on a lower league team and having your bet count for the replay should it go to one. I ended up picking out the four mostly likely "upsets" in my opinion and ended up with three wins and one going to a replay (with my bet being carried over).

FA Cup bets

I did however manage to get my poker P/L for the week. I have myself a target to play a certain nuber of SnGs and cash games each week, I fell short of that target this week but managed to net myself a profit of just over $8 (that's about £5 I think). Not huge but a decent start, poker is very time-consuming but I can confirm there's surely money to be made given the nature of some of the players I've come up against so far.

Bit of a heart-warming moment last night in the FA Cup, I'm not even an Arsenal fan but I found myself happy at the return goal from Thierry Henry. One of the greatest ever Premier League players without doubt and it's good to see him make a return to English football.

End of 2011 Update - Part 2

This update is more to look ahead to the next Gregorian year rather than reflect on the last (see part 1). This is going to be more or less just a list of personal goals and resolutions for the year, but since the new year always seems hectic I'll be starting these rules and goals proper from the 7th January. Although the first week of year for all my stats will run from the beginning of the year.

Right seeming as this is a gambling blog I thought my aims in regards to this should go first. I've done my best to shorten it to five, could probably include a lot more but five things is comfortable to remember and I can keep it fresh in my mind and hopefully then practise what I preach.

1. Discipline, Discipline, Discipline - Did I mention the word at discipline at some point. Whatever the situation or monetary amount I shall do my best to stay disciplined at all times. That means no chasing and sticking to my own rules.
2. Follow my systems and staking plans religiously and keep detailed records - I've got my set systems and a sensible staking plan in mind, in someways that's the easy part. The most important thing to do is to stick by this at all times. By that I mean no mistakes and no ill-discipline. In addition keeping good and detailed records is important to determine whether a system is worth continuing with or not.
   
3. Take advantage of bookmakers offers and arbing opportunities - may not be the most exciting or glamorous type of betting but I've shown that it can earn you a decent profit if done effectively. I made over £200 last year taking advantage of such situation and I know for certain there was other offers and arbs I could have got involved in to earn myself a much bigger profit.
4. Try my hand at poker more often and read poker/trading books - I've decided that this is the year I try and take poker more seriously, usually play for a bit of fun. But considering putting some serious effort into this and treat more like business than pleasure. Also to read and re-read a few recommended poker books I've got as well as other gambling literature including e-books on trading psychology.
5. Try to break-even - That's it quite simple really, my aim is to try and break-even for the year. May think I sound crazy here, but after the year just gone by a break-even year would be an improvement. I feel like I've been gambling for years upon years but I'm sure there's plenty more experience I can gain over the course of the next year. The profit in a sense is a by-product of having an edge and also having the mindset to cope the variance that comes with gambling. I'm hoping understanding greater the game of poker can also help me with my mindset when it comes to gambling.

Right there are my gambling aims for the year. I was going to post a list of my personal resolutions but I think I'll spare boring people with the usually eat healthy, exercise more speech. My one main aim in my personal life is to try and get on the job ladder, which I'm finding increasingly difficult. In addition my main motto or though going into the new year is to try and enjoy myself more. I can admit to being a bit negative at times, I'm determined to have a more positive outlook on things.

End of 2011 Update - Part 1

Well hello there. It has been a long time since I last updated my blog but it was after all fully intended. December is always a busy month and 2011's was no different. This is the first of a two part special (makes it sound special doesn't it) as I firstly look back at my December performance and my overall yearly performance and the second part will focus on 2012 and my aims for this year.

So December, the beginning of December brought about the news that the great Denman would be retired. Very sad news for me, Denman was the main reason I became so interested in horse racing and it's sad no one will every get to see him race again. But his legacy and memories will remain with many people for a long time, I was going to rename my blog in his honour but I've kind of already got the base covered. Mid-December that proceeded to drag on and on in the build up to the birthday of christ. The day it self seemingly goes down in a very similar way each year and if not for the effects of aging I'd find it very difficult to separate one year's Christmas photos from the next. I do like eating and drinking a lot, it is one of few times in the year where it's basically okay to be a fat slob and drink and eat as much as you like. I'm not a big drinker anyway and I don't like to over do thing as Boxing Day is a very big for sports fans and gamblers alike. Enough top-class horse-racing and football to meet the everyone's demand. So between Boxing Day and New Year it was basically a case of watching all this wonderful sports and trying to make some money in the meantime.

Unless your happen to be a gambler that lives under a rock (some perhaps do) you will I'm sure have heard about the Voler La Vedette fiasco on Betfair.

"Too good to be true"

Maybe some people thought Christmas had come a little late this year and that one person's major mistake could earn them a big payout. But the sheer size of the lay almost immediately renders it some sort of Betfair malfunction unless Bill Gates has suddenly decided to take up horse racing trading. I was actually casually watching the actual race as well as the darts at the time but didn't actually have the race market open it wasn't therefore until afterwards I heard what happened. Was a void market in the end unsurprisingly so I never missed out thankfully.

To round off the year and December I finished with a profit of £112.78 for the month which brought the cumulative loss for the year to -£3,903.45.

The monthly breakdown where as follows:
January: +£1,232.87
February: -£2,220.18
March: -£12.80
April: -£294.23
May: +£1,145.58
June: -£2,271.20
July: -£1,289.22
August: +£376.51
September: -£781.24
October: +£233.82
November: -£136.34
December: +£112.78

I've also put my weekly figures into a graph, the bars represent the weekly P/L and the line is cumulative P/L.


Whether it's in figures or on charts there's no hiding away from the fact my year has been very bad, losing just short of £4,000 in one year is never ideal but especially so when I had such high plans for the year ahead (my look forward to 2011 looks a bit deluded on reflection).

One more graph to show the damage can't do any harm can it. Well here's my P/L for the year with each separate bookmaker account. Thanks to the fine folks at Boylesports who I profited around the £2,300 mark, meanwhile all my other accounts where either a very small profit or ranging losses from medium-sized to rather big.

My Different Accounts P/L 2011

One bright note I suppose is that my accounts are unlikely to be limited, A few of my accounts already are to a degree but on the whole I'm not too bad on that front. But then they are always happy to take your bets if your a loser I suppose, it's when you start winning the problems occur.

Well that just about sums up 2011, pretty bad year I guess. The loss of Adrian Massey's ratings was a big blow as my betting year was largely focused around those very ratings. I'd like to think I've evolved into a better gambler with me having to change my approach and try and find new ways of betting. Not going to really talk about my plans for 2012 in this part (that's for part 2). After I did so well in 2010 to turn a profit it is obviously highly disappointing to give all that back plus more, but hopefully I'm now older, wiser and better placed than I was at the beginning of last year to go into the new one with better plans and attitude to make 2012 a success. Please do tune in for part 2, which I hope to post up tommorrow or sometime later this week.