Denman's Betting Journal

You cannot lose if you don't play

2012-01-23T12:23:00.005Z

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?

2012-01-16T22:13:00.006Z

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

2012-01-10T15:37:00.006Z

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

2012-01-05T23:00:00.002Z

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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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

2012-01-03T12:45:00.007Z

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.

End of November Update

2011-12-05T22:50:00.004Z

Well I kind of forgot it was the end of November, despite the fact I do have an advert calendar. So I'll have to cheat a little and count the 4th of December as the last day in November. Not that it makes much difference to the overall picture. It has been a very poor year with my betting exploits and the month of November was another losing month to the tune of £136.34. My system haven't been doing that badly, my own ill-discipline once again seems to be the undoing of me with silly mistakes like trying to trade horse racing when I know I can't or trading on football matches with poor liquidity.

I'm sure I've said it a few times but I feel like I need time away, to go back to the drawing board if you like (I do not own a drawing board). But you get the idea, maybe some time away to have a recap on what I've been doing both wrongly and rightly. I'll continue with my obvious "good" or sounds methods of betting like my horse racing systems (between them netted me around £1,500 this year) and I'll carry on with my £10 challenge which seems to be more or less standing still (but they do say that's the first step in gambling, breaking even). I'll continue with my weekly update but won't have too much to say I don't think. I shall re asses and look at new betting options for the remainder of the year as well as scrutinising closely my existing methods. By my end of year update I should have a fully picture of what I'm doing. In the mean time I'm doing some volunteering work at present, nobody seemingly wants to give me a paid job so boasting my CV working for free was a recommended route for myself.

Perspective

2011-11-28T22:07:00.002Z

Cliche it may be but sometimes it's true that certain events really do put your current life into perspective. The very sad news I awoke to on Sunday morning about Gary Speed did just that. Such a tragic loss at a relative young age. Has odd as it may sound deaths among football personaltities always seem to hit me hardest, always difficult in these times to find the words to sum up how you feel but there's been some wonderful tributes I've read that sum it up better than I ever could. My condoleses go out to his family and friends.

On what seems something of an irrevelant sidenote, my betting adventures led me to a loss of £86.89 this week. A few errors along the way and no horse racing systems winners took care of that. Still a few days of Novemeber remaining, has been a relative quite month but looks like it may end in a loss.

Time Management & Organisation

2011-11-22T23:18:00.003Z

By no means the most exciting topics in any walk of life by things that are absolutely necessary if you want to succeed. The world of gambling is no different, the best gamblers out there not only have a very good edge but they also have very good organisation and time management. It may seem simple at times but little things like knowing what time games kick-off and what TV channel they are on. Collecting all those little nuggets of information in quick time is vitally important so you can concentrate on your picks. At times it feels like I spend far too much time on the admin side of my gambling, updating records, placing bets and so forth. But these are things that need doing successful if you want to be successful. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) for all of us (well for the time being at least) our time on earth is limited, therefore our time is a precious commodity and we must treat it as one.

Procrastination I admit myself is an easy trap to fall in but you must fight against it, for if you get the work done quicker you'll have more time to yourself anyway. It is always best to task quickly and efficiently than dwindle your way through it slowly.

Anyway enough of my ironic ramblings about procrastination and onto this week's round-up. Well it was an interesting week, plenty of bets and action and managed to turn a profit of £30.11, which I've got to be pleased with. The end of November is approaching quickly now, been a bit of slow month in truth but hopefully I'll end it with a profit.

Being Lazy Doesn't Pay

2011-11-14T13:26:00.006Z

As it turns out I missed a winner on Sunday because I was being a little lazy. Thought I had plenty time to wake up around noon get my usually bacon butty and place any bets whilst watching the Grand Prix build-up. Turns out that proved a minor slip-up by myself, as I said I went onto miss a winner, the saving grace I suppose was that it wasn't a massive priced winner, that really would have made me angry with myself. Note to self Horse Racing starts earlier since the clocks changed, understandably due to the swift darkness that descends mid-afternoon during winter. Think it gets to something ridiculous like horse racing at 11am as the winter dawns on. Although I should really check what time meeting start the day before, organisation or not being sloppy and lazy must rank just behind discipline and staking plans on the gambling must do list.

This week was quite slowl on the betting front considering there wasn't much football action. Ended up playing a few games of poker this week, did rather well in fact. I get bored with poker easily at times, it is a fascinating game and I believe I could be very good at it if I tried. But playing for small stakes is very different to playing for big stakes, I've set aside £5 for my poker balance and I usually just play cheap SNGs and see how far I get. It looks a lot more glamorous when you see major events on TV, although it must be noted they only show the most interesting or exciting hands on TV whilst cutting out the uneventful hands which make up 90% of the game of poker. It also takes a lot of time up, you cna play trubo games but I feel that becomes more of a lottery at times. Playing the normal slow types of SNGs can take anything from an hour upwards. Playing multi-tables is the way a lot of people go, but I tried that before and it didn't go so well.

Anyway this is my weekly round-up and I managed a loss of £2.75 this week. I did stupidly try to get back into horse racing trading this week, which flopped again predictably. I really should stay away and stick to football. My last 3 months of Betfair P/L show why I should concentrate my efforts on football bets and trading.

My Last 3 Months P/L - Betfair

Week#44

2011-11-07T15:37:00.003Z

Managed to come away from this week with a small profit of £6.96. My £10 challenge still going strong although I don't post all my bets on Betfair in there. Doesn't make sense to post every single trade and in-play bets as I place them because there's just to many and sometimes I change my position in matches.

My weekly Betfair P/L

Just been getting into the routine of Premier League at weekends and the Champions League/Europa League midweek. Whilst I'm not turning over huge amounts I think I'm doing a decent job in these football markets. Internationals some competitive, some friendlies to follow this week.

End of October Update

2011-10-31T22:18:00.003Z

Realise it's been quite a while since my last post, no particular reason for that just never got round to last week's usual update. That means I've got two weeks of good news to bring plus the monthly round-up. Week#42 that was the week ending 23rd October saw me achieve a profit of £97.33, whilst the week just passed saw me go even better with a profit of £144.57.

Thanks to these good two weeks it means that I ended October showing a £233.82 profit for the month, which i'm pleased with considering the down-scaling that has happened. My concerntration was solely on trying to turn these three remaining months of the year into profitable ones and thankfully that's one down and two to go. I know my cumulative profit for the year doesn't look good but I take some solace from the fact that I now appear to be moving in the right direction. My £10 challenge is going along slowly if unspectacular, think it goes someway to showing how difficult it is to turn a profit by seeking value bets. I'm pleased with the fact that for a large part of this month I've managed to regain good discipline in betting. I'm proud to say my few remaining horse racing systems have come back into play and turned a decent profit for October.

Still finding it really difficult to find any sort of work at present, so I'm currently having far too much time thinking about gambling. I really do prefer having some away time from it and having some sort of normal job would surely do that. Still I manage to find quite a lot of time for reading and watching films.

Week #41

2011-10-18T12:57:00.002+01:00

The year is seemingly fast approaching as the 41st week of my betting year came to an end on Sunday. This week was a loss of £111.07, which is squarely because of my horse racing system that hasn't had the best starts to October. My £10 challenge is still going fairly well and i'm upto £12.63 after just over a month of the challenge, may not seem like rapid process but a 20% bank increase each month would see me with a balance of over £75k this time five years on. Know I'm getting a little ahead of myself there but it is true you don't need to start with massive amounts to progress. Learning to have good discipline and a patient approach is much more useful than starting with big betting bank in my view. If your methods are working your bank will continue to grow regardless of whether it's £2 a month or £200 a month.

Raindrops keeping fallin' on my head

2011-10-10T22:07:00.003+01:00

Well not exactly true, I'm more of an indoor creature. But if I was stood outside raindrops would indeed be fallin' on my head because the weather has been depressingly rainy for what seems like ages now (four or five days I think). Well we did have a mini heatwave for like two days, very barmy for October it was.

Anyway onto more gambling matters. This week I recorded a profit of £102.99, although that owes more to incompetence than to skill I might add. For a simple mistake in backing a similar named horse at the same price in a different race at the same track resulted in an unexpected winner which turned my week from an average one into a brilliant one. It's weird how sometimes mistakes or foolish behaviour can result in a positive outcome. This is a large part of the reason why discipline in gambling can be so difficult at times. You can get rewarded for making bad bets or bad trades, therefore only natural it would seem that you would continue with similar behaviour when in fact it was reckless or simply wrong all along. Like I've probably mentioned lots of times before absolutely anyone could be a successful gambler for a day, a week, a month or maybe at a stretch a year. But only the true disciplined gambler with an edge will end up in profit. Whilst in this case it was obviously a simple mistake on my part, I've no intention of continuing this behaviour in the future. But in some situations it's not entirely clearly and that's why reading up on staking plans and finding your edge is vital.

What does it take to succeed?

2011-10-04T22:03:00.005+01:00

I'm guessing this is probably quite a common question among a lot of people. I can't provide a definite answer, I think it's all down to your own interpretation on things but I'm going to share my own. Firstly an element of luck I believe can be found somewhere in a lot of people's success. I'm not just on about celebrities who may have got a lucky break in whatever career they pursue I'm on about normal, working people who may say they haven't succeed in life, but working and providing for your family in my opinion is one of the simplest but best forms of success. As a person who's been fascinated and intrigued by probability it may not come as surprised that I believe in an element of luck in everyday life. I always like to use the hypothetical idea of parallel universes when discussing the idea of luck or "fate". Imagine there's 99 other parallel universes where you where born at the exact same day, at the exact same time, in the exact same place, born into the exact same family. I myself I'm twenty two years old now, in that space of time the other 99 of me in the parallel universes could be doing an array of different things. God-forbidden a proportion of them may actually have a job or may have moved to more exotic pastures. Indeed in these parallel universes maybe one is already a successfully, professional gambler meanwhile an other proportion of myself don't even gamble at all or maybe are just occasional recreational gamblers. You could stretch the parallel universe idea out further, let's say there's fifty million parallel universes. In at least one of them I'll already have died or been murdered, in another I'll have committed a murder, in an other I'll be professional footballer in the Premier League.

To get to my point my parallel universe story wasn't about the idea of parallel universe but more about the fact that various things can happen in a person's life to change the course of their life. That's where my point about luck comes in, something could have happened (something that the person may not even realise) that turns out to have a strong effect on a person's life. Whilst an element of luck can help I don't think a simple stroke of luck alone can make someone succeed (unless you count someone winning the lottery or getting a huge court settlement as a success).

What fundamentally underpins the success of any individual in my opinion is simply their determination and focus in a given area of expertise. I do take the fact that a person's early environments their genetics would maybe given certain people an adventure in differing. But when a person is focusing on something realistically achievable but which will stretch their talents to the limits then they will only succeed if they've got the dedication and commitment required to put in the work or whatever it needs to succeed in that field.

Whilst writing this I'm obviously to some degree thinking about me striving to become a professional gambler and in the short-term to find a part-time job. I'm obviously finding it very difficult at present, but I do firmly believe these are realistic targets for myself. May sound arrogant but I firmly believe I'm considerably above average in terms of intelligence, although I admit to being somewhat lazy and often having the coasting along effect especially when it came to my education. Maybe it's just kicked in recently but I'm now sure of it, I require a lot more commitment to the cause as the say. I'm not exactly a Carlos Tevez style rebel but I do find myself sometimes doing just enough to get by. I don't want to remembered as the guy who could have been great but settled for averageness (may have made this word up).

This is my end of weekly update believe it or not, I know it's been a little hi-jacked with my ramblings (which are of great important of course). This week was a small loss of £16.43, not going to get too wound up over that one. I'm happy enough to move on and conquer the beast of the gambling world with my new found motivation. Finally though a little reflection of my daily Betfair cumulative P/L since the end of July. It did start of as a little challenge at time but it's mostly turned into a simple record of my Betfair behavior. Below is a graph outlining these results, it is the exact sort of shape you would expect to see from an inexperienced mug gambler without a proper staking plan. Which make it all the more scary that it is my figures that have plotted this graph. Largely the blame was badly traded horse racing markets (I've given them up since).

Betfair cumulative P/L

End of September Update

2011-09-30T21:58:00.004+01:00

Realise my last update was a bit poor and lacking in substance. Hopefully I make up for that in this end of month update. September has been something of a low-key month with me turning to the back to basics start with £10 challenge. I'm pretty happy with how that's going to be honest, it's not going to fast process but hopefully it will help me keep that all important discipline as I continue to strive for ultimate gambling perfection. My final figures for September was a loss of £781.24, yes my horse racing systems haven't been doing great but the main culprit of this loss is my own ill-discipline on Betfair.

Although I'm hoping that I've finally turned the corner. Awful saying I know , but it does seem appropriate for my situation. I am to some extent still frustrated with my lack of discipline in my betting adventures because I know (and I have figures to back it up ) that I can be a profitable gambler if only I kept my focus, my discipline and my staking plans in order. I've heard the phrase anyone can make a mistake but only a fool repeats the same mistake (or something along those lines). In which case I'm a pretty big fool by now.

September Profit/loss

Doesn't make for nice viewing that Betfair P/L but I've only myself to blame. I'm now treating my £10 challenge as if that's my only betting funds outside my horse racing system bets (which I shall continue). I could have easily started with a £100 in my Betfair account or £500. But the amount is to some extent irrelevant, if I can't master the skills needed the money will eventually be lost regardless of the size of the starting bank. Now back to my usual Friday night ritual of sorting out my Fantasy Premier League game. Most people my age are probably out drinking somewhere whereas I'm in internal conflict over who should be fantasy team captain for this weekend. But I wouldn't have it any other way. Usually weekly update to follow on Sunday (or more than likely sometime at the beginning of next week).

A winning week

2011-09-27T23:31:00.001+01:00

Little bit late as usual, promise I will make a Sunday update one of these days. Anyway not too much to report in all honesty this week, my betting action is very much low key these days with only small amounts being wagered. I ended the week in profit to the tune of £21.09. Remember you can keep in touch with all of my bets in my £10 challenge (the link is in the sidebar).

These Updates are Painful

2011-09-20T16:45:00.002+01:00

I'm finding it rather painful to continue to post updates on my failings. Bit like that ol' school detention punishment of having to write lines:

I will not look up rude words in the dictionary.
I will not look up rude words in the dictionary.

Whilst at the present with me it's more like:

I shall not be an ill-disciplined useless twonk when it comes to betting.
I shall not be an ill-disciplined useless twonk when it comes to betting.

and so forth. Realise I just actually typed that out twice when I could have copied and pasted. Well the damage this week was done on Monday where my venture into horse racing trading took a turn for the worse, I forgot the golden rule of never go in-play when your pre-race trading and the result was a predictable mess. Such an easy trap to get into though. My horse racing systems decided to have a off week also, meaning my loss this week was a not to clever £237.43. Which takes my cumulative loss for the first time over the £4,000 mark. Well I can't say I'm not breaking records this year, it's just the wrong sort of records.

One bright thing to come out of this week is my £10 challenge. May seem a bit silly but I do find the enjoyment in slow building a bank up from a small amount. If you can try and imprint the discipline at low levels hopefully that will stay with you if you can get your bank to rise. As I mentioned last week I'm seriously thinking about scraping all my other betting adventures for good and concentrating fully on this challenge. Although I'm happy to stay with my horse racing system for the time being, the ones I still follow are in decent enough profit for the year.

Week #36

2011-09-14T13:09:00.002+01:00

Here's my now fashionably late end of week update in which I announce things as if they've only just happened when in fact they are distant memories from several days ago. Sometimes I just feel like kicking myself in the head (not that I'm flexible enough) because I feel I work so hard to get things back on track and moving in the right direction and then one little moment of ill-discipline can wreck a full week's, month's, year's work. I sometimes find myself putting down bets or trades where the logical part of my brain is shouting, 'what the hell are you doing, you shouldn't be doing this' then there's another side of my brain which I like to call the dark side (nothing to do with Star Wars) which is saying 'This is a genius idea, look at the money you could win here'. Think somewhere along the line I've got to try and control this internal battle, the betting world is unforgiving as it is without me fighting with myself all the time. As you may have gathered already this week didn't end to well with me knocking up a loss of £215.90. I also had a bad day on Monday as well which will probably mean next (this) week will be a loss also.

I'm very close to just withdrawing all my money (well what's left remaining) from my various accounts and just starting from scratch with just my Betfair account with a very small amount. I've already started a challenge under a similar ethos called How Far Can A Tenner Stretch? I'm hoping this will help me focus my mind and stop me from being so ill-disciplined. I continue to read various trading and betting books especially those versed in the psychological aspect of trading. Problem is not in what I know, think I've read a lot about the subject it's just about trying to put the methods and ideas mentioned in the books into practice. At the moment I'm a poor outright bettor and a shocking trader. I've become increasingly interested in the trading aspect of betting but for the life of me I can't seem to do it. Maybe more study in finding an "edge" is probably needed but even if I did have a significant edge I feel my lack of discipline would end up screwing it up anyway. General feeling is one of my frustration.

One good thing to come from this week was the amount of sports action to watch, last weekend there was very little sports on TV. Week just gone we had the usual football, cricket (India still not won a game) as well the tennis and not forgetting Formula One. Oh yeah and the Rugby World Cup as well, so it was definitely enjoyably week from a sports fans point of view.

The Return of the Loss

2011-09-05T22:50:00.003+01:00

Gone a while without occurring a weekly lost but the week just gone saw the return of it unfortunately. I take full responsibility for the loss, having a lot of money locked in my bet365 caused me to lose my discipline and made me bet amounts I shouldn't have been under my current betting plan of small stakes and steady as I go. Stupid sucker that I am was trying to reach the rollover requirement so that I could withdraw my existing funds plus the extra £50 bonus I received for reaching the rollover amount. I fell straight for the sly workings of such bonuses, they set high rollover requirement so the account holder bets more frequently to secure in the bonus. In the meantime they can't withdraw any of the funds won so the temptation to continue and maybe even up stakes exist. The sensible plan for me to do what have been to simply back something on Bet365 at the minimum odds required for the offer at 1.50 and then lay at let's say 1.52 or so on Betfair. Meaning a small regardless of outcomes, but in the process securing part of the rollover requirement and ultimately the bonus. The loss for the week was £258.21.

Been a very quiet week and weekend in truth, not much sport going on other than the US Open tennis, don't bet on tennis at all (because I'm bad at it) but do enjoy just watching. The international football scene doesn't really interest me too much these days England looked decent on Friday but I don't know whether it was just Bulgaria being really poor. More of the Euro2012 qualifiers to follow this midweek also.

End of August Update

2011-09-01T11:49:00.006+01:00

So the eighth month of the year has been and gone which signals we have reached the three quarter mark in the year. With the end of August we see summer turn into autumn, although the word summer is perhaps being generous given the lack of warm weather this summer. Don't know if it's just me getting old but wearing a jumper around the house and needing an extra blanket in bed to keep me warm in August is not the usual. Like how the news always have to report it in some hyperbolic way though, it always the coldest summer in thirteen years, never the 25th warmest out of the last sixty years or something. Like we are going to see a real-life recreation of The Day After Tomorrow at any minute. A little warm weather would be nice now and again though.

Enough of my general rambling the final figures for the month say I made a profit of £376.51. Given the current circumstances I'm delighted with that result. The cumulative profit is teetering around the third of a £10,000, thought that might make it sound better but in reality it's just the same as saying around £3,333. My trading adventures on Betfair have been profitable if not exactly fun, since the beginning of the month I'm up around £200 which means that profit this month has been quite evenly split between my trading and my horse racing systems.

One final thing, the football transfer deadline day. A very weird phenomenon indeed, one where football fans spend the day glued to the TV watching Sky Sports News in hope that their club will sign a quality signing or keep one of their current stars. It's more hilarious and entertaining than informative at times. Lots of hearsay, Harry Redknapp hunting and reporters outside of training ground complexes mobbed by opportunistic kids who make ingenious gestures in the background whilst phoning their mates to say 'look I'm on Sky Sports News right now'. Well at least it keeps them from rioting I suppose.

Anyway I'm peckish and the kitchen is out of bounds whilst being refurbished, so I'm off out for a sausage roll. Bring on September!

Mauling by the Mancs

2011-08-29T23:37:00.002+01:00

Amazing stuff from the Premier League this weekend with Man City smashing five at Tottenham and then Man United smashing eight past Arsenal (I'll resist any 8-2 jokes here). Do feel for Arsene Wenger though, done a brilliant job at Arsenal yet is always apparently under-fire. He had about a zillion players out but it was still no excuse for a simply shocking performance. For me it's a two team race for the title Chelsea have been far from convincing so far this season. I think the two Manchester sides look the strongest both in terms of first eleven and squad depth.

Back to the betting front and another successful week with me netting a £72.94 profit, came with a few hitches the week but managed to pull it around towards the end of the week to record my third back to back profit week (shock horror).

The end of August is nigh meaning my end of month update is on the horizon. Shall post a more detailed update of my events then.

Week #33

2011-08-22T22:38:00.002+01:00

Glad to report another profitable week, this time a £211.78 one which is pleasing. Although not at all easy felt at times I was fighting the markets with some of my trades and if anything got a bit lucky to get out of certain situations as healthy as I did.

The good thing is that I did manage to come through it and record a profit though. Although I'm under no false pretenses and I know I made mistakes throughout the week and just hope I can learn from them. Part of the problem is that sometimes you can benefit from bad behavior whereas you may seem to have lost out when practicing some good trading behaviour.

It's quite an equal balance between my horse racing systems and my trading now which I'm finding quite good. Whilst I'm still an unemployed bum I get the chance to watch all the test match action. England have simply blown India away in this series, and managed to complete the 4-0 whitewash today. The sight on England cricketers celebrating is becoming a familiar scene nowadays. Well done to them.

Step In The Right Direction

2011-08-16T23:52:00.005+01:00

Aware I'm a little late with this end of week update but glad to bring forth tales of good news. That's right this week I made a profit, not exactly crack open the champagne time but nonetheless a positive week with me heading in the right direction for a change. £29.92 in the right direction to be exact, not exactly mind-boggling I know but it's certainly an improvement on my recent performances. Which has seen me rack up 7 losing weeks out of the last 9 resulting in two big losing months of June & July.

Enjoyed watching the cricket and seeing England become the new number one, not a fan of backing the teams I support but you wouldn't have gone much wrong backing this England team over the past two years or so. They did me proud with my outright Ashes bet over the winter and I've backed them a few times against India in this series. I watched the market casually for this test match and it seemed strangely stuck around the 1.20 mark for a while, even with India needing to bat for two full days England where still available to back on the beginning of day four at 1.12, which was a stonking price in my opinion with India already 2 down and looking totally demoralized after England posted a mammoth score with Cook falling just short of a treble hundred (shame really).

Meanwhile the new Premier League season got underway and I largely took a backseat and just watched on with interest. I was however rather miffed that the Premier League Fantasy Football site, which I do take a bit too seriously, was down Friday afternoon and Saturday morning meaning I began the season without a team, meaning I'm playing catch up with everyone else in my league now. From the betting front I made a couple of good trades in my view laying both Chelsea & Man United at what looked skinny odds on Saturday night before laying both off for nice profit the Sunday morning. There was particularly a nice drift on Chelsea with them going from 1.75 all the way out to evens and beyond (although I traded out for a nice profit at 1.90).

I've also made a very good start to the new week, so all things going well I should have further good news to announce this week. Elsewhere I'm still jobless but at least my gambling seems to have taken a turn for the better.

Week #31

2011-08-07T22:47:00.004+01:00

Feel a little more positive at the end of this week despite still ending the week at a loss. However the loss was only £15.46 for the week, which is a bit like noticing your half finished packet of softmints has been stolen along with your car, in the grand scheme of things it matters little.

My own trading and other betfair exploits where profitable it was my horse racing system that flopped once again. I'm now down to just two left remaining after dropping another after a horror week this week.

Feel my mindset has been a lot better this week. Only been playing with small amounts and now I know my gambling is a pure part-time hobby now. Been looking especially at pre-game football trading i.e. trying to lock in a profit on certain market before a ball is kicked. Did that with today's Community Shield match and hope to try and do it with the Premiership this season. Don't know whether I'll be doing normal bets this season, didn't go to well last season even if it wasn't that bad. Think I may stick to my pre-game trading method for the time being.

Well here's a rarity, a profitable week on Betfair

People may think I'm a bit crazy for continuing to blog despite the tough year I've had. I've often found bloggers and "tipsters" who start to see things turn bad and then seem to quite hastily stop posting altogether. For me the blog was always about keeping a journal of my betting activities and hopefully learning from my mistakes and perhaps one day looking back and reminiscing in my old ways.

Back to the real world, and I'm still unemployed at present but every new week offers new opportunities (as cheesy as it sound). I'm still hopeful I'll be able to find an ideal or close to ideal job for me. But as with everything in life it seemingly doesn't come easy. But I do feel in a weirdly positive mood for someone who isn't the sort of person to go around feeling happy.

End of July Update

2011-07-31T23:17:00.002+01:00

Think it's safe to say that July wasn't a good month for me with a loss of £1,289.22 having occurred. Took a step back this week and placed only a few bets during the entire week, which felt very strange I must admit after doing something betting-related for at least some part of each day for the past three years or so.

Sometime to step back and reflect is always healthy I find. On reflection I've pretty much messed up big style and in hindsight I was incredibly naive in some of my staking plans and because of the systems not working out as planned a lost discipline in other areas. Now I find myself in a big hole and at rather big bet loss from betting adventures. It's easy to go back in hindsight and say this went wrong, that went wrong, ect. But the real thing I hopefully take out of this experience is that you do need a proper staking plan and you need to stick to it. Funnily enough I think I keep brilliant records, the majority of the bets I've ever placed are record on a excel sheet somewhere.

Yes my staking plans maybe where to aggressive but it also must be said my bets and systems have performed poorly in general this year. Regardless of staking plan if you don't have an edge you won't make a profit. So far this year I haven't had edge even if you remove all the silly mistakes I've made I still reckon I'd still have a big red figure for the year.

Sort of feels like going back to square one again, my stakes are really low and having played with higher ones during the course of this year. Funnily enough whatever gambling environment it might be I always feel more comfortable with smaller stakes I seem to trade better with smaller stakes and systems I start with small stakes tend to go well. Problem seems to come when a scale up. Don't know if it's a psychological thing or maybe just an unlucky coincidence.

I have considered just packing in my life as a gambler altogether and just admitting defeat. But I still think I have the potential to make this work long-term, it might be a naive belief going off my past record of ill discipline. But hopefully I've turned the corner or at least something as finally clicked. My betting bank is diminished now and I think this is my one last crack at glory if this betting bank I set aside two years back ends up empty I'll finally call it a day.

Oh yeah eventful stuff at the cricket today with the Ian Bell run out/ not run out debate. The Sky Sports crew turned into investigators for the day. Was also a great day's cricket in general a bit of controversy always adds a little entertainment though. Looking forward to the final two days.

It's not getting any better

2011-07-25T23:50:00.002+01:00

Things seem to be going from bad to worse at the moment. My discipline has wavered probably as a result of the previous poor weeks and the knowledge that I'm so far behind this year. Got into some real bad situations this week where I was simply over-staking despite me knowing perfectly well what I'm doing is wrong. Sort of my mind telling me to do one thing but hand doing something completely different when it comes to placing bets.

Decided that this week I'm taking a break from it all. At the moment I'm not enjoying gambling at all, plus I need to seriously re-think some of my strategies. Hopefully a week away from it all may help me recover my love for gambling and hopefully means I come back afresh for the start of the new football season.

My next post will be the end of July one, which isn't going to be a pleasant one.

Time to do some soul searching as they say. Got a few thing lined up in terms of job applications to sort out this week also. I don't think that praying on my mind as helped my gambling too much. At the moment I'd love nothing better than to find a decent job on good pay and then gambling can go back to being my part-time hobby as oppose to my full-time worry at present.

A two week "bumper" update

2011-07-17T18:40:00.003+01:00

Realise I didn't post my usual weekly update last week, truth be told not much as happened over the past two weeks in terms of my betting. Very slow going at present with me having dropped a lot of systems. Last week I recorded a loss of £251.69 whilst this week I recorded a profit of £42.17.

My cumulative P/L for the year is at just over the £2,700 mark and I'm roughly £300 down at the mid-point for July. It's true i'm finding my betting a little tiresome at present always makes it worse when your operating at a loss. Whilst once over I'd spend half a day betting or during something betting related, nowadays I spend about half an hour in the morning and that's it. Keep trying my hand at trading but I'm just not very good at it so I don't really do it that much either.

Weekly Summary #26 / Half-year report

2011-07-04T22:33:00.003+01:00

Well the week just past was yet another losing one, a £578.60 losing one to be exact. This means my cumulative profit is now at a all-time high for the year at £2,501.36.

The end of this 26th week signals the mid-point through the year and a little time for me to reflect. Below is a graph showing both the weekly p/l figures (red bars) and the cumulative p/l (the blue line) also.

Whilst in someways it doesn't tell me anything I don't already know but it does act has a good visual representation of my performance and can be used to quickly identify trends in my performance. What really stands out on this graph is the two stinking weeks (week 6 & week 23). It also shows ever since week 6 I've found it hard to recover and haven't been in overall profit since the end of week 5. You can see signs of a comeback I commented on this blog, at the end of week 20 things where starting to look brighter but the massive loss in week 23 really set me back once again.

That just about sums up my half-year report, can't really add much more other than I hope to improve on this record for the remainder of the year. As I've mentioned before I've reduced my stakes quite a lot from the beginning of this month, there shouldn't be any big losses to come. Feels a bit like starting again from square one at the moment but I'm taking it little steps at a time for now and hoping to regain confidence in my betting.

End of June Update

2011-07-02T00:02:00.003+01:00

This update is a bit like a massive pile of dirty plates in the sink, you know at some point your going to have to clean them up but it doesn't make the job anymore enjoyable. So here's me dishing the dirt. The full extent of the damage was a loss to the tune of £2,271.20 which is well rather painful to say the least. It even managed to beat my personnel worst of February this year, which was some achievement if I remember how badly February turned out.

To say I've become a bit disillusioned with betting at present may be going a bit far. But I appear to have lost that little bit of enthusiasm for the game at present. I've cut back on my systems and staking now, so it is nigh-on impossible for me to have such a big loss over the course of a month now. In contrast that means I'm not likely to be able to make any big monthly profit figures.

The also brings up the mid-point in the year, with six months down and only six remaining. At the conclusion of this week I shall draw up a graph plotting the 26 weekly P/L figures, should make an interesting visual but won't do anything to hide the fact that my betting adventures have took a serious setback this year. At the moment I've been spending a bit more time trading on Betfair, I'm still alive just from my initial £100 challenge, been down to as low as £5 and £10 on numerous occasions. Back to £5 again recently but I've managed to build it back up to £9 with numerous small trades over the past week or so. When I'm trading like that it's not so much the monetary gain but the fun and challenge of trading, using your skill (or lack of as it may be) to take on other exchange users across the world. There's something sort of magnificent and appealing in that I find. I might be only winning pennies at a time but the experience is the most important thing (or so I'm told). Of course experience alone won't win your anything in the long-term but it should certainly improve your chances of discovering a successful method of trading.

Just What I Needed

2011-06-27T00:14:00.003+01:00

After two consecutive losing weeks, one of which was an outright shocker, it is always comforting to know your heading back in the right direction. This week I managed to turn a profit of £497.09 and as a result my cumulative loss for the year dips to below the £2,000 mark.

Also happy this week that one of my long-term bets came in and that was for Mexico to win the CONCACAF Cup, profited quite well from that tournament in the end both through individual matches and with me betting Mexico on the outright. I don't claim to be an expert in football in this area but I managed to watch nearly all the games from the tournament and quickly established views and trends of each team and managed to make it pay with in-play betting mainly. Also glad this week to see my horse racing selections bounce back after a poor recent run. Only have the six systems running now, and on average I guess I have around eight selections per day which is comfortable mangable. Especially since I'm not really upto that much at present. Always keep my eye open for any potential new betting ventures though.

Been watching a bit of Wimbledon this week, not a huge tennis fan and I don't bet on the sports usually. But I enjoy watching all the Grand Slams. Cheering on Murray (don't see why there's quite a lot of anti-Murray British people for some reason), got the feeling he's turning into the Jimmy White of snooker with always being the nearly man. Just a shame for Murray that there's three outstanding players who are better than him at present. That's not to say he can't do it, but it is a very tough test for him.

Oh yeah one final note, I got my results back from University. A very predictable 2:1 in the end, felt I could probably have got a first if I really pushed myself (was only a few % out overall) but I'm happy enough with that result and hopefully it will be good enough for me to find a suitable job related to my degree.

Better Late Than Never

2011-06-22T11:51:00.006+01:00

Realise my weekly update is two days overdue. To be frank I've not got an awful lot to be report expect another loss to the tune of £212.24 for week. Which in itself isn't a dramatic loss compared to others this year but after last week's massive loss, even a small loss seems somewhat painful. I feel at the end of this month it may be time to take a step backwards and analysis all my betting and see where it's all going wrong at present. I've considered maybe taking a break completely from betting at some point, I've more or less been betting in some form every day for the past two and half years. Whilst I enjoy it as a hobby it does require certain commitments to continue with it. Just knowing you have to get up a certain time each morning to place bets in itself can become a drag and I would nice not to have to bothered to set my alarm clock every single day for a change.

Whilst my gambling is in a state of unknown so is my future career, I'm awaiting my final results at the end of this week. After that I promised myself to dedicate as much time to searching for jobs and sending in applications in hope of securing a decent graduate entry-level job. Probably not going to be easy because every Tom, Dick & Harry seems to have a degree these days but I believe it's all about marketing and presenting yourself in the right manner. Even if that means stretching the truth a little.

So uncertain times all around a present, I don't really like uncertainty despite dealing in gambling that is inherently uncertain. Getting a good stable job is priority number one at present and my gambling may need to take the backseat at the moment, especially if it continues in the same vein.

On a final more celebratory note, I'd like to say well done to Rory McIlroy for his amazing performance at the US Open. I felt for him and for my wallet after that final round at the Masters but Rory showed he's got character and determination and bounced back from that to totally destroy the field and break all sorts of records. Maybe that's where I went wrong, I should have taken up golf as a toddler.

Ouch!

2011-06-13T22:02:00.002+01:00

Here I am again on Monday posting my should be Sunday evening weekly round-up. Truth be told I was watching the quite amazing Canadian GP, that went for ages due to the race having to be stopped and under the safety car for long periods due to the poor weather conditions. Somehow Jenson Button who made six (yes that's right 6) pit stops went onto win the race after being last place with about a third of the race to go. If that wasn't enough there was the uncomfortable amusing site of marshall nearly getting run over by a F1 car as they tried to clearly debris from the track. Formula One has been great so far this season and yesterday's race is one of the best I've seen in a long while.

Anyway I'm distracting myself from the main part of the post and that's my weekly P/L total. I'm quite embarrassed to reveal a mammoth loss of £1,473.96 for the week, bit of a disaster all round. Even my high-staking supposedly high strike-rate systems couldn't find a winner of note. At a £100 a pop on those systems and an unusually high number of selections this week goes someway to explaining the loss. Still got a responsible sized betting bank to work from but if I get another week like this I think my staking plan may need further investigation and probably an alteration. I can take little consolation from the fact that this is not actually my worst week this year, the first week of February still holds that unwanted record. The overall picture means I'm down by a hefty £2,200 on the year, which is the largest it has been so far this year. Worrying times at present but I still have faith in my systems and I shall continue with them for the foreseeable future.

Stop yer whining!

2011-06-10T12:19:00.002+01:00

It seems human nature as this inherent art of moaning and whining about things built-in. I read it's suppose to act as a sort of soothing mechanism to boast ones ego and make them feel good about themselves. I'm not staying we should all stop complaining about things and just accept things as they are but I feel a little less moaning would make everyone's life that little bit better.

I'll start in general life, how often do you moan about something? three, four, five times a day probably a lot more. Seems like we can't help but moan and complain about things. One good test is to try and become aware of when your moaning about something and try and stop yourself, see how difficult it is to do just for one day. For moaning often takes place about the most trivial of things, where the feck is the remote control? who moved my favourite pair of shoes? I hate this flippin' weather? I feel you shouldn't get wound up for trivial things, they say it's little things that matter the most but I think that's total rubbish when it comes to complaining. Also try and be aware of other people who moan a lot, do you like this person? do you end up joining with their moaning when with them?

The real-life problem was just food for thought my main issue with the subject comes back to the gambling world. Gamblers are often seen to be cursing their luck at every opportunity. Some examples are: last minute goals, dodgy referee decisions, useless jockey, another second place, I was waiting to be matched then a goal went in, this match looks fixed.

Again this is all about shifting away the responsibility from yourself to try and hide your own insecurities. You picked the bet or put in the trade, you know the teams involved, you know the jockeys on-board, you know the referees. If you have a wide knowledge you really don't have any room for excuses, yes for a short period of time you could be unlucky in regards to certain situations but in the long-run if you've got an edge it shouldn't matter you should turn a profit. There's also something I'll call "selections blindness" this is where you are solely focused on your own selection so often fail to pick up on something happening in favour of your selection. For example a couple of horses may be given bad rides by jockeys but if your selections wins you may not notice it. Likewise the team you backed gets a dubious penalty decision your much more likely to consider it a penalty than if it was against your team. Trying to watch an event without any bias can be difficult at times and you often watch an event from your selections point of view. As a result gamblers can often be seen cursing their luck when something goes against their selections, yet failing to even notice when something "lucky" happens in favour of their selection.

A winner that feels like a loser

2011-06-05T19:13:00.004+01:00

There is the saying that a winner can sometimes feel like a loser. Usually when you've backed a long-shot E/W and it finishes second by a nose. You feel like you've totally lost out because it didn't win but in reality you could have made a decent profit on the place part of your wager.

I mention this because the week's performance is actually a profit to the tune of £100.38, but it feels like a losing week because of the way the week went. I had an absolutely fantastic bank holiday Monday as I outlined in my monthly review post, it was probably my biggest profitable day ever. But the week after that point has gone rather poorly and only a managed a few winners out of numerous selections. Weird how the way thing occur can effect your outlook totally, I can take football as a good example your team scores early and is leading 1-0 until deep into stoppage time where the opposition team equalises. You go home not feeling so good after your team throwing away two points in the last minute. Your team goes down 1-0 early on and then is battered for the entire match but scores a equaliser deep into injury time, you come home feeling pleased that your team managed to rescue a point after a poor performance. The end result is the same but the emotions in the two sets of scenarios are completely different.

Had I finished this week, let's say Monday's fantastic results actually occurred today I'd have posted of my wonderful comeback to secure a profit for the week. As it is I end up a little disappointed that the profit for the week is only at the £100 mark. My actually cumulative loss has now gone back up to over the £700 mark which differs greatly from the end of May figure in the sidebar.

I shall post a mid weekly post on something I call the "moaning & whining culture" which is rife both amongst the gambling world and in your every day life. Should be an interesting read for anyone who is gulity of moaning & whining.

End of May Review

2011-05-31T23:20:00.005+01:00

May has been a very intriguing month with two weeks of big profit including my biggest weekly profit of the year so far but also two losing months including last week's hefty loss. Like I said a good day on Monday just about summed up the volatile nature of my profit & loss. In danger of sounding like a broken record here but got to always emphasis it's the long-term picture that is important and not the short-term picture. Therefore I always guard these monthly update as a better guide to my performance than focusing too much on day-to-day or even week-to-week performance.

My profit figure for the month of May totalled £1,145.58, which is a pretty good result in my eyes. Especially since I've had three losing months on the bounce. Overall this means my cumulative loss has been dramatically reduced to under the £150 mark now. Always seemed like a bit of a dumb rule to me but it is said the first target in betting or trading, is to try and break-even first. Right now in the current position I would have actually been better off not placing a single bet this year, but it's probably best not to look at it like that. At least now I'm heading in the right direction, next target is simply to try and get back to break-even and then I'll take it from there.

My favourite song about the month of May to conclude the month with:

It's Just Not Cricket

2011-05-30T20:35:00.006+01:00

England recorded a remarkable victory today and bowled out Sri Lanka for 82 in less than 25 overs. Quite remarkable considering the situation and conditions. I was actually watching the play-off final between Swansea & Reading, that was an entertaining event in itself. Therefore I missed most of the cricket in live time. A very good summary of the amazing scene is found on the Gambler Falls blog (inclu. Betfair carnage).

I actually thought today was the end of May, but that isn't actually till tomorrow. So I may as well post my weekly results now, not good news I'm afraid. A rather whooping loss of £601.65 for the week. Although I hasten to add I've had a very profitable Bank Holiday Monday and recovered a sizable amount of that. I shall post my monthly review for May tomorrow evening, I know for certain I'll be in profit and after today's good performance it is going to be sizable. Today again showed me that it's all about the long-term and not about the short-term. I had a large amount of bets today because of all the racing and thankfully I managed to find a good number of winners and a few at tasty prices.

My Betfair "trading" challenge seems to be hitting a dead-end once again. I seem to have been in £10-£20 zone for ages now. Although I often tend to deviate from the trading and end going for outright punts. Should try and stop myself and concentrate on solely trading, but I'm still treating it as a little bit of fun on the side. Although I've got a mini-target of trying to get upto £100 by the beginning of the Copa Amercia in July.

Once again my strength is evidently with the football here. The Dutch Europa league play-off was rather remarkable with scores of 5-1 in both legs meaning extra-time and penalties. Managed to benefit in both leagues by backing goals, which you'd perfectly understand why if you watched the game.

Always seems to be so many things going on at once. Watched the Monte Carlo Grand Prix this weekend also, by far and away my favourite F1 race of the year. Formula One has really stepped it up this year and the new tyres plus DRS have made for much more exciting races. Unfortunately the safety car and then the red flag spoilt what could have been a classic three car finish with wearing tyres.

I think that's more than enough excitement for one weekend, time for a lie down.

Premier League Season Review

2011-05-26T14:50:00.008+01:00

Another exciting Premier League season has gone and past meaning the time has come to review my performance.

Up until the middle of October, bet no. 35 I was operating a level stakes staking plan of £25 per selection. By the end of this period I was down by a signifciant amount totalling £236.42 since that point I refocused and adopted a varied staking plan based on the premise that bigger value selections should have a higher stake, with stake levels varying from £10 upto £25 in £5 intervals. Come the end of the season my loss totalled £293.33 which actually means from November through to May I was only operating at a small loss of £56.91 in comparison to the first half of the year which at least shows I have improved even if I couldn't profit from it.

Below is a graph of my cumulative profit for my Premier League bets this season:

As you can see after the very poor start I did start to pick up a little bit with my change in staking plan and approach to my selections. The period from bet 55 to about bet 110 looks a very smooth upward trend and the sort of thing I would be looking for. The later quarter of the year was a bit up and down as the graph shows but I did at least end the season quite strongly.

Here's some stats for my year's performance including breakdown week-by-week:

Overall it could be easy to pack it in and say it's not working but I'm determined to try and make my Premier League betting work. Although in my opinion I think the Premier League is probably one of the hardest football leagues to profit from because news on teams/players is so widely avaiable that you rarely see odds dramatically priced up "wrong" although there's been plenty of times this season where I've been baffled slightly by how teams have been priced up.

To finish here's three little lessons or things I've picked up on throughout the year which hopefully should help improve my betting for next season, although things are always constanstly changing.

1.) Take advantage of short-term over-reaction bias in the market - Classic case of a team that's on a great run and may be performing beyond expectations or who have just won impressively in their last game. Both Bolton & Blackpool had impressive starts to the season but by the end of it the season they ended up whereabouts they where predicted to. Opposing Blackpool & Bolton in the second half of the season would have been very fruitful indeed. Likewise I opposed Liverpool at home to Tottenham after they thrashed Fulham at Craven Cottage. They where massively backed and therefore I believe there was great value to be had backing the opposition regardless of how brilliant they may have been in their last game. Always remember to take the long-term view into account and the underlying quality of each team not just a team's short-term form.

2.) Be wary of certain teams when odds-on - I'm not one for taking odds-on bets but if do I would always be wary of backing any team that you don't consider to be amongst the best six or seven in the league. Backing mid-table sides like the likes of Stoke, Sunderland, Newcastle & Bolton at odds-on never does appeal to me, there was a lot of closely matched teams this season and I don't think any of these deserved to be priced-up odds-on at any point this season.

3.) Don't be afraid to oppose the big boys - Some people may get a bit tentative when opposing the likes of Chelsea, Man United & Arsenal but it would have been rewarded handsomely if done correctly this season. Man United away form was average considering they ended up Champions likewise Arsenal failed to win many a game at home this season when priced well and truely odds-on. Chelsea also had a mid-season dip which could have been taken advantage of. When certain situations arise its always worth opposing the big boys, these situations usually include after or before a big European match or maybe when they've got key players missing.

Well that's it for the season, already can't wait for the new season in August. Got the Champions League final to come on Saturday also got the Copa America in July which I shall be trying to trade on (probably unsuccessfully).

Weekly Summary No. 20

2011-05-23T14:57:00.006+01:00

Looks like I've slipped into Monday once again for my weekly update but yesterday saw the climax of the Premier League season and I needed a bit of rest after all of that drama. The "Survival Sunday" lived upto its billing and there was plenty of twist & turns, ups & downs (notice I didn't mention a certain amusement ride here). It was really exiciting but you've got to feel for the fans, players & managers in charge it can go from joy one minute to despiar the next. People saw it can sometimes be punishment watching your own team in a relegation dog ifht yet people pay for the pleasure. I don't agree with the punishment it may not be nice to see your team relegated but even thoose involved all enjoy the thrill and excitement that a last day of a season so often gives. I shall post some concluding thoughts on the Premier League season later in the week which shall include an analysis of my betting record on the league also.

Back to the betting world and my week. Well last week was a poor week and in line with my recent pattern that surely must mean I was due a profit this week. As it happens that's exactly what happened I recorded a healthy profit of £506.51 for the week which more than covers the loss from last week. Still means I'm at a cumulative loss for the year of just under £250 but at least it appears I'm moving in the right direction once again. May seems to have been kind to me so far and with just over a week left hopefully I can end it on a high.

Last week also saw the end of my exams (hooray!), didn't go entirely smoothily but I've done well enough to secure a reasonable final grade for my degree I think. Shall have to wait for the results to be sure. As a result I have a lot more spare time at present so I can begin to analysis my betting a bit more and maybe find a few more systems to add to my horser racing systems armoury.

To conclude here's a picture from a BBC blog entry called Last-day Mayhem at Molineaux which I think perfectly sums up the joy of surviving relegation can bring. As both the Blackburn & Wolves celebrate their teams survival in unison.

Losing week

2011-05-15T20:25:00.010+01:00

After last week's high of a big profit it was probably half expected that I would suffer a losing week this week. It's a reasonable sized loss totalling £340.96 but considering I have a few systems that stake £100 a selection it really isn't that big of a loss in relative terms. Pushes my cumulative loss back out to around £750 for the year, but that's still significantly better than at the start of the month. This week coming sees my final examinations and then maybe I can turn more attention to my gambling and my blog. Although once my exams are over I begin the search for a proper job, which might prove both scary and difficult. I've come to expect the fact that my current betting prospects doesn't lend itself to steady income. The end of year graph for my weekly profit deviations is going to make interesting viewing, maybe I could sell it as a blueprint for a new rollercoaster at the Pleasure Beach or something.

I hate roller coasters and amusements rides, they don't usually agree with my stomach. A bit of a cliche, well a massive one to be fair. But my betting adventures or indeed very much like a rollercoaster my end of year graphical plot will prove that I'm sure. Don't worry I shall try not to mention them again for the fear of bring Ronan Keating into the argument.

Hold on tight!

Short but sweet

2011-05-08T20:18:00.005+01:00

Only got time for a short update tonight, should really be revising now (or cramming as I call it) so I'll get on with it. I'm glad to say it's good news, very good news in fact. After a hefty loss of last week totalling near £700 I could have been forgiven for feeling down-heartened once again. But in line with my performance this year a massive loss is followed by a massive profit. This week I recorded my biggest weekly profit of the year (by quite a margin too) netting a not to shabby total of £804.85 for the week. Almost all my attention is on my horse racing systems and selections now, they performed miracles this week to be fair with plenty of juicy priced winners. Not had much time for trading on Betfair this week with me being in the middle of my exams and all.

So overall absolutely chuffed with this week's performance, my cumulative loss for the year is now below the £400 mark, which is the lowest it's been since the beginning of February. Three weeks left in May to try and reduce the deficit further. Although I shall resist from making any sort of predictions because I just end up looking stupid.

End of April Update

2011-05-02T10:44:00.003+01:00

Last week I reported a very profitable week, this week I'm afraid I've got a weekly loss of £685.76 to contend with. Mainly due to the fact that a few of my higher staking systems had losing selections, this can sway the results somewhat.

The monthly result in the meantime came to a disappointing loss of £294.23 for the month of April, although that includes my realisation of some long-term bets that ended up a bit wide of the mark. Third losing month on the bounce is not what I wanted, April was a bit of a mixed bag with one really good week (last week) and one really bad week (this week). Really thought I'd end this month in profit but it wasn't to be. My overall cumulative loss for the year is now close to £1,300, I mentioned dropping a few non-working systems and that I have done. Believe it or not all but one of the systems I currently operate are actually showing a profit. My football bets don't seem to be getting anywhere to be honest, I much prefer to trade on football for some reason.

One bright note this month has actually been the aforementioned football trading, I was quite surprised to see my Betfair P/L for football, I did have one big winner (which was directly before the Rory incident) but still the figure is quite impressive really especially since my bank was very tiny and below the £20 mark for the majority of the month. I'd be quite happy to turn over a £150 profit a month at present to be honest, although that's not likely right now with such a small bank. But I'll continue to build up and learn slowly along the away and hopefully not make any stupid mistakes like the one which spoils this P/L.

Betfair April P/L

Onwards and upwards for the remainder of the year I guess. Got lots of (important) exams going up over the next few weeks, so I don't think I'll have any time for any midweek topical posts I'm afraid. I shall however continue with the weekly updates, I'll try and get back into the habit of Sunday nights rather than Monday mornings also. Should really be revising right now to be honest, I blame the enthralling snooker for my lack of revision thus far.

The Punter Vs. The Trader

2011-04-27T15:20:00.004+01:00

This is an area that has interested me deeply for as long as I can remember. When I refer to "the punter" I mean a person who simply places outright bets and the profit/loss is determined by the actual outcome of the selections backed. Typically a good punter shall seek value either by pricing up the event in question and backing any selection the holds value or indeed by some sort of systematic function which identifies value over the long-term for you. Over time I've become much better at this and I'm sure this is my preferred type of gambling. I have numerous systems I employ and I also like pricing events up myself to try and find value. My results have been mixed in different areas but over the long-run I've profited greatly from this method.

In contrast "the trader" is someone who trades on the odds being offered and tries to guarantee a profit regardless of the outcome of the given event. I've found this very difficult in the past and continue to do so. For there's lots and lots of different ways to approach trading, I'm led to believe a popular one is "scalping" which is simply profiting from the smallest change (one tick or maybe two) in the odds.

The confusion I seem to come across is the grey area between the punter and the trader, they both obviously involve gambling but I believe they are very different in nature. The punter as an opinion on an outcome and goes with it if he believes it's value whereas an opinion held by a trader on the outcome of an event isn't much use, it's simple a matter of having a knowledge of odd movements whether that be in-play or not. There also comes a time where one might be trading but decides to "let the bet run". I've down this numerous times, and it more often than not often doesn't end successfully. I'm sure some people do balance trading and punting successfully but I've found it very difficult, my nature is very much that of a punter therefore I find it difficult to be a true trader. I've tried to separate the two up by operating my Betfair account as trading only and placing all my other bets with bookmakers. As you can see by my Betfair £100 challenge, it hasn't really been going that well. Trading does appeal to me, it avoids the often psychologically testing up and downs of outright betting. In theory at least trading should ensure a much more steady profits (if you know what your doing). For whatever reason I've never been able to get the hang of it, and my trading usually turns into some sort of pseudo-punting where I go with the mindset to trade but I end up abandoning it and going for an outright punt instead.

I do continue to improve my trading but I've reduced the amounts I trade with significantly, for me at the moment it's just a little bit of a game on the side. My main gambling venture is with my outright bets and if somehow I can improve my trading that would be a bonus.

As the famous saying goes trading can sometimes be a bit like picking pennies up in front of an oncoming steamroller, I unfortunately know this saying to be all too true.

The Chocolate Eggs Are On Me

2011-04-25T12:18:00.004+01:00

A very, very good week for me this week. Weekly update a bit later than normal but here it is. My profit this week totalled an impressive £555.68, in the process more than halving my cumulative loss for the year that now stands at just over £500. It also ensures I fly into profit for the month of April with just less than a week remaining. My horse racing bets really picked up this week, my selective system where I stake a £100 a selection had a few winning ones which makes all the difference to the overall profit. Even my Handicap Hurdle system that had been going on rather slowly managed to find an 11/1 winner yesterday. So overall everything is looking a lot brighter than it did after last week. Feel like I've been resurrected from the gambling wilderness (there's my topical simile out of the way).

I should really be revising furiously with my final exams on the horizon. But someone decided to stage the World Championship Snooker at the same time, managed to catch quite a bit of that. No betting interest as of yet but if I do I usually always side with players who have been there and done it before. Amazing how the pressure can tell on certain players which is why you usually see the same sort of players reaching the later stages every year. Football season is coming to a close fast, small profit with my Premier League selections this weekend although I still maintain the belief it's rather difficult to profit from the league with it being so worldwide (I'll probably do a topic on that one day). For the time being though I'm very happy with the week's performance, it is actually the second highest of the year. The highest being the first week of the year, where I arecall myself proclaiming that a near £700 profit a week being just average (I probably look a bit silly if I read that back now). Shall have a mid weekly update sometime later in the week and I shall conclude with a joint weekly/end of month update next Sunday.

Winning Habits

2011-04-21T21:47:00.008+01:00

I'm not usually one for all this positive thinking and following x number of steps and you will fundamentally change sort of stuff. I like being grumpy sometimes and that probably isn't going to change.

However when it comes to betting it is obviously best to have a certain mindset. Humans unlike computers cannot programmed and therefore comes the difficult of learning to apply yourself in a certain way to achieve a positive outcomes. This is what the book I've just finished reading on is about, it's called The Winning Investment Habits of Warrren Buffet and George Soros by Mark Tier. Whilst obviously aimed at budding investors interested in the stock market it can easily be applied to the gambling world just as easily, or at least I read it with that slant and the majority can be directly related to gambling both in an outright bets sense and trading. The book outlines "23 winning investments habits" and throughout the book compares a master investor (winning punters) to losing investors (mug punters). Whilst I'm not going to list all 23 habits I've combined some of the habits together and here's my summary of three winning habits that I found to be the ones which are most important to being a successful punter.

Habit#1 - Preservation of capital and patience, the book states that the cornerstone of a successful investor is capital preservation, this is not to say that the investor won't invest a lot but rather that he'll look to ensure that big losses are avoided. In betting terms that simple means having a sensible staking and not over-betting just for the sake of it. The second part which can be related back to capital preservation is patience. I admit I often struggle with this, if there's a big race meeting or a big football match on television my immediate thought is let's see if I can find a bet for a little interest here. That is a big no no you should stick to your strategy at all costs. Might be difficult sometimes but if your not sure about a bet it's much better to have no bet than regret it later on, sometimes the best bets you ever have are the ones you don't have. (if that makes sense).

Habit#2 - Have a strategy! may sound simple but I do wonder how many people actually have a strategy or system when it comes to placing their bets. I'm a very systematic person in general therefore I find following systems not to difficult. You can be constantly updating and tracking your strategies and systems to see which ones and working and which ones are not. This can be looked at in a wider sense for trading, you need to know all about your entry times and what triggers you to exit a trade or let one ride and so forth.

Habit#3 - Only invest in what you understand, or as I would put it some sort of specialisation is needed. I imagine the most successful punters out there and the ones who specialise in a certain areas. Whether it simple be just one sport like horse racing or tennis, or maybe even just one league or division e.g. English Premier League football or IPL cricket. The phrase jack of all trades master of none comes to mind. By specialising in one area you'll have greater knowledge that will grow and grow over time and you should become an expert in identifying price anomalies and inventing successful trading strategies.

Right that's about it, hope somebody found that at least a little bit useful. If you want to read further I wouldn't put anybody off buying the book, it is a good read and I went through it in less than week (that's rather quick for me in terms of time taken to read a book).I'm not usually a fan of pop music and the boy band stuff but I can just about stand this song and it preaches habit#1.

Week 15

2011-04-17T23:48:00.004+01:00

On intial impressions of the week I thought I'd done okay I recall a few decent priced winners and even my two football bets came in for a change. But after updating my weekly records I come to the conclusion that I incurred a loss of £174.04 this week, which actually means I'm back operating at a loss for the month April (of course not helped by the "incident" last week).

Just proves the worth of keeping records really, had I not kept any I'd probably have left the week feeling like I made a profit when I clearly haven't. Overall my horse racing system seem to be going reasonable, there's only one system that is causing me a little bit of concern at present and I'm considering reducing stakes on that one if it doesn't improve.

Been reading a book all this week on investment, it is aimed at the stock market investor but it provides good advice that can be applied to the world of gambling which is of course remarkably similiar to that of the stock market especially if you look at Betfair. On the subject of Betfair a good profit for the week there in my recovery stage still though. Reading the book as helped me get a little more focused and learnt me a few good mental habits to get into. I'll post up more about the aforementioned book in my midweekly post. But to summarise a losing week I'm not overally concerned. I've learnt to accept losses and move onwards and upwards, something a certain Mr Wenger doesn't seem to be able do.

The decline of the high-street bookmaker

2011-04-12T23:03:00.012+01:00

I very rarely visit high-street bookmakers but it's very clear to see the decline (or change as the bookmakers might put it) within their shops. I never visited a pre-smoking ban bookmakers but it conjures images of smoke filled rooms with old men betting on horses. Nowadays the set-up is very much different, the main attraction in the bookmakers these days (judging by the queues) seem to be these fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) that run all sorts of virtual games often based on traditional casino game. As everyone should know (although I doubt everybody does know) that you can't win at casino games such as roulette even if we we assume the game is run perfectly fair. Over the long-run you can't win at roulette you'd have to re-write the laws of probability for that to happen! The casino has an edge, albeit only a small one it will guarantee the house always wins or in this case the machine always wins. That's why it's such a sad sight to see not particularly wealthy people metaphorically chucking their hard-earned cash down the drain by playing on these machines. I have bear witness to people on these machines, even one of my friends seems to enjoy the unhealthy habit of having a "quick go" on these machines. I can't say for sure that they are fixed but often I find that the win strike rate seems a lot higher when you first go on a machine, maybe as a way of encouraging the gambler to continue? Also rather sneakily the machine doesn't dispense coins you have to instead withdraw a slip if you want to collect any funds thus sometimes encouraging a person to play on rather than go through the fuss of going to the counter to collect a minimal amount.

Familiar sight in your local bookies?

I'll be honest I'm easily annoyed by things but this one is right up there with my biggest annoyances. The high-street bookmakers then have the nerve to offer simply shocking odds on most sports in-shop compared to much better prices available online. There is very little reason to visit a high-street bookmakers unless you can't get online for whatever reason. High-street bookmakers as a result have largely become a graveyard of mug punters and gambling addicts. Some I'm sure only do a football coupon for a "little bit of fun" but again they could get far superior odds online. I find it incredibly sad and depressing to be honest despite being very much part of the technology and internet generation I often prefer things to be material I actually like the idea of going into a shop and placing a bet over and counter and the receiving any winnings back in cash. The virtual world of numbers and figures sometimes detaches from the monetary values you are dealing with, which can in itself cause problems. To compound things I've noticed some of my online bookmaker accounts have become increasingly limited so maybe in the future I'll have to spend more time in high-street bookmakers. The limiting is understandably and quite laughable at the same time to be honest over the course of three years I've probably only won as much as a single one of these FOBTs takes in a week. Try and get more than £20 on a decent-priced selection and they say no although if your a losing punter I'm sure you'll have no problem getting a couple of grand on it if you want. Again business wise I understand this but praying on the vulnerable and weak whilst trying to eliminate the ones that might have an idea of how to turn a profit seems somewhat cowardly. Sooner or later I'm sure bookmakers will just be "virtual casinos" with row after row of FOBTs. If I offer you one piece of advise to anyone regarding gambling it would be to stay away from these machines and anything to do with "virtual games" and "casino" that bookmakers offer. It's hard enough betting on real-life things let alone on something that is mathematically impossible to profit from.

This blog post was inspired by own experiences as well as this article which further delves into the issue (well worth a read):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/feb/22/problem-gambling-betting-bookies-casinos

Bit of an idiot

2011-04-11T13:55:00.006+01:00

Sorry this weekly update is late I was toot mad with myself last night so I couldn't bring myself to post. I'm sort of happy to say that this week was another profitable one to the tune of £70.78, but I know it could have been a lot better. Plenty of action this week with the Aintree Grand National meet, my main bets over the three days went well but it was silly sidebets like placepots and lucky15s that I shouldn't really have bothered with that set me back a little. Although that wasn't my biggest mistake of the week, oh no that came last night. I'd just won a massive £100 profit from playing with stakes of around £10 on the Standard/Genk football match (late turn round in my favour), after having a good week trading on football and collecting my profit on the Grand National ante-post my Betfair bank was upto £180. I was about to withdraw half (as my plan at the end of each week was to do) but instead for some reason I got involved with The Maters' golf which happened to be in its final round. No joke about it I backed Rory McIlroy who was the favourite at the time about one minute before his tee shot hit a branch and ended up somewhere "even the members haven't been" to quote the commentators. From then on it just went from bad to worse from around 5/2 favourite to about 20/1 within the space of a couple of shots, clever me decided I'll shove a little extra on the price will surely come in. I really should have got out at this point as it was obvious a major choke was on, but at the next hole a brilliant tee shot but then a quite remarkable series of missed putts that even I might have put in. The drift was on and before I knew it he was at the dreaded 1000 price and I'd done my bank rather foolish betting on something I know little about. Could say it was unlucky with my point of entry but it was silly over-staking after the high of winning a good football bet. I seem to never learn my lesson, I'm best at trading football and indifferent at horse-racing trading and anything else I should just avoid. Meanwhile I'm think fixed odds betting only works for me in horse-racing and not football at present. I'm still feeling slightly angry with myself and it's now a new day.

Ouch!

Seems I can talk a good game but when it comes down to the heat of things I make elementary mistakes more in-line with a mug punter. I deliberately restricted my Betfair account so I couldn't make anymore deposits, I'm now over £800 down for the year on my Betfair account without it I would be much better of it seems. I was around £5k down on my Betfair account last year also. My bookmakers account continue to do well, so well that I'm restricted at a number of them. I don't know what else to say other then I'm a major idiot. What makes all that more concerning is that I've been reading an investor book, more about trading stocks but can easily be applied to Betfair. Two of the main "tips" are to specialise in one area i.e. only stick to what you know and secondly is that you should try and limit the loss to your capital at all times. I'm afraid I just totally disregarded these two things in my late night betting antics last night. The loss for the week on Betfair only reads -£40, but it might as well as read -£4,000. For it feels like £4,000 at present, after I worked so hard building the balance up from around £20 to a remarkable £180, but then straight back down to £3 with my idiotic actions. Think I need time away from trading to chill out, feel like taking time away from betting all together but I know my horse racing bets are good, If I'd been running them alone I'd be in profit this year no doubt. So to conclude a profitable week that feels like a massive losing one.

The Grand National

2011-04-08T19:40:00.004+01:00

The Grand National is the one race of the year where even the most risk averse person may part with a few quid on a horse. Probably the same for many but my introduction to horse racing was through this race, remember picking out my horse from the paper pullout on Saturday morning purely on on the basis of "the nicest colour jockey kit or funny name". I remember doing this from about the age of 6 maybe 7 right up until I was able to place the bets myself. Quite ironic I find that probably the most difficult race to call of the year is the most punted on. Done a little ante-post trading on a few selections I liked, also got big greens (+£100) on outsides Cheif Dan George and Kilyglen. Get a profit of at least £20.13 regardless of outcome although like to pick out two and have £5 e/w bets, which will be basically free bets due to my ante-post trading

Grand National ante-post market

Not actually full decided on my bets for the race yet although Oscar Time will probably be one of my E/W selections as I fancy him out of the ones at the top of the market. Probably pick an interesting outside for my other E/W bet. Best of luck everyone and I hope all horses and jockeys manage to come home in one piece.

Bit more like it

2011-04-03T20:37:00.005+01:00

Proud to say another successful week with me netting a profit of £281.98 in my attempt to claw back the loss for the year overall. Horse racing bets going well enough once again, can't really complain there. Football was a little hit and miss this week although my "trading" is going along a lot better at present.

Now that's what I call trading!

By no means my biggest weekly profit on Betfair but probably the happiest I've been with my trading plan so far. I've tried to avoid in-play trading for the time being and focus on trading before the matches. Involves putting a lot of bets up a few days before the games, after all the markets are all open and you can get matched at some good prices for trading. My policy of in-play trading now seems a bit foolish because it's much more high-risk in my view. At least when not in-play you can't get "caught out" by a goal being scored. It's a simple matter of putting bets in at what you think is a good price and at which you can trade for profit. As soon as bets are matched simply put in another bet to trade out for either one or two tick profit, or maybe accept a loss or go for more than two ticks depending on the situation. Good thing about trading is you don't have to predict the outcome of the game or race in question, we all like to think we know what's going to happen next but we can never be sure. Trading offers the advantage of being able to hedge your position depending on how the market is shaping. Does interest me quite a lot trading and it seems I'm at least doing the basic rights at present and getting market moves in my direction in most cases to secure a profit. £8.74 profit with a bank of only around £40 is pretty good going in my view. I've spread my entire bank over numerous markets each day and then it's a simple matter of monitoring and checking up on these bets and then trading out.

End of March Update

2011-04-01T14:26:00.003+01:00

After many hours of work placing bets, studying form and recording results my P/L for the month of March came to ... -£12.60

More or less back even for the month then but considering I was over £700 down on the month at one point I think it is somewhat of an achievement I've managed to claw it back to such a small loss figure for the month. Another psychological boost is the fact that my cumulative loss for the year remains under the £1,000 mark at a quite creepily figure of £999.91, only nine pence of the £1k but a three figure loss doesn't look half as bad as a four figure loss it seems. I've updated my sidebar with all the results. All to do now is to plug on with the rest of the year really, there's three quarters of it left after all. Also I plan to try and do a mid weekly update on my blog from now on as well as my usually Sunday end of week update. The midweek posts will usually be on a subject that interest or annoys me somewhat, no doubt then that it will just be a lot of ranting from me really.

Overall a losing month, and a losing quarter for the year although I still feel reasonably confident about the future the spring/summer time as always historical been the best time for my horse racing bets, hopefully that will be the case once again.

I'm calling it a comeback!

2011-03-27T23:47:00.003+01:00

After seven consecutive weeks of loss I can be forgiven for getting a bit down-heartened over the situation. However one good week and everything suddenly seems a lot more promising. This week I totalled a profit of £481.94, which considering my recent form is rather amazing. Suddenly this week everything just seemed to click right into place, hardly any football bets this week so it mostly all horse racing bets for me. Those annoying 2nd that seem to strike suddenly disappeared and I was actually getting winners and plenty of them.

It is of course important not to get too carried away with this one week, after all I'm still around £1.25k down for the year but this week as at least softened the blow for March and I'm likely to escape the month with a much smaller loss than I anticipated. I'm rather pleased with the way I've adapted since the loss of a number of my main horse racing systems, my remaining systems are going well and a few new ones I've delved into seem to have good potential also. All things being considered I'm in a much more positive mood about my future betting than I was just a week ago. I've also been trading on Betfair to various success, trying a few new ideas with my trading including doing a lot of non in-play trading which isn't usually my thing but it seems to be going reasonably well so far. I shall include a more detailed update on my Betfair trading next week I think. Next update however shall be the end of March update where I shall discover my overall loss for the first quarter of the year.

Super System Selections

2011-03-25T22:32:00.006Z

I mentioned a "beacon of light" in my last blog entry and that light has turned into something of a solar flare at present. It's a return to an old friend if you like, long-time readers of my blog (probably just me then) will know that I followed a subscription service called system selections during the summer. The system itself performed steadily but nothing too outstanding, however with my university time coming to an end I now have more time on my hands to follow the selections more closely. The selections are sent via email at around an hour before the start of the day's racing, problem for me I wasn't always able to get to the computer at that time but as I just mentioned more recently I've been able to do so and I've reaped the reward. The system is an amazingly 57.2pts in profit to 1pt level stakes over the days I've followed over the past two weeks (10 out of the 14). In that time there's been 85 selections with 15 winners including big-priced winners at 20/1, 16/1, 10/1, 8/1, 7/1 and two winners today alone both at 11/1. Whilst this is obviously a purple patch for the system the results on the site speak for themselves, last year for 2010 there was over 4000 selections at a very healthy profit on turnover of 10%. The guy that runs this system, Andrew is a top bloke also and will answer any questions you might have. If anybodies interested finding out more simply follow the link in my recommend sites sidebar, or simply visit: www.systemselections.com

The emergence of this systems success will surely mean I'll end the week in profit for a change (although I'll adhere by the saying and not count my chickens just yet). Elsewhere this week has been rather crazy, the "news" seems to be everywhere and not a lot of it is the sort of stuff to cheer you up really so I've been trying to avoid. Well apart from the budget although that's more an act of theatre really with the backbenchers bleating in agreement in the background, usually makes for amusing viewing. The budget itself didn't contain anything too drastic the petrol deduction and the scrapping or future taxes rises on petrol will come as some relief, although I'm led to believe some petrol stations simple raised their prices by 1p prior to the 1p deduction in tax the next day so that when the 1p deduction did occur the petrol remained at the same price. Don't know if that's just mischievous hearsay but it wouldn't surprise me if it was true.

Back on a sports front and I've not had a chance to follow the cricket world cup that closely unfortunately, although I did catch the South African cricket team choke yet again (surely one of the biggest chokers in world sport along with England football team). On the topic of England looking forward to their game against Sri Lanka tomorrow, the squad is seriously depleted but England can beat anyone on their day it just depends which England side turns up for this. Also the football, England against Wales. Fancy England to win this Wales are not great shakes in my opinion although the odds on an England win are rather pitiful, thinking of a small HT/FT bet with Draw/England for interest, expect the first half to be tight before England take over in the second. All shall be revealed in due course, next update will be on Sunday with my usually weekly misgivings. In the meantime I should really get on with my assignment, which shall be one of the last I shall ever write in all likelihood which in itself is quite an odd feeling.

It never rains but it pours

2011-03-20T19:19:00.006Z

We are taught almost programmed by sayings that when bad times fall upon us they often seem to fall together. Bad things come in threes? How about seven losing weeks on the bounce for bad luck? Needless to say I don't really believe in any of this, although at times this year it seems things have turned against me time and time again. This week I recorded a loss of £365.96 which is my third biggest weekly loss of the year. Yes maybe I did get a bit carried away with too many Cheltenham bets, after all it is true to say a 16/1 in a class 6 race at Wolverhampton pays just as much as a 16/1 chance in a top class race at Cheltenham. All things being said I was only about £100 down with my Cheltenham bets which I don't think is too bad in the grand scheme of things.

However it's the loss of Adrian Massey's fantastic ratings that will undoubtedly go onto hit me hard over the remainder of the year, I had my main years horse racings bets especially from the period of March to June solely based on the back of systems devised from the ratings. The ratings sadly had their last outing on Saturday and now in hindsight I realise I was probably quite foolish to have so much of my betting year relying on one source of information. Now I have to make a swift adjustments to try and find a new "edge" safe to say I don't think football or at least Premier League football is the way forward for me. Seem to keep hitting brick walls with my selections there, thought Tottenham @ 1.71 and Arsenal @1.96 this weekend both offered cracking value but neither could win. Could claim I was unlucky, Tottenahm had about a gizillion chances and Arsenal's keeper went walkabouts again. But you can only claim being unlucky for a short period of time and I'm over £300 down with my Premier League bets this season which seems to indicate that I'm not very good at spotting "value". What with my horse racing bets seriously reduced it now leaves me incredibly light on betting options. Trading hasn't been going well either, think I'm too much in the gambler instinct to have the patience and discipline to trade although I shall continue to try with the little bit of money I have remaining in my Betfair account.

Overall the tag in my blog title which states how I'm striving to "become a fully pledged professional gambler" looks a forlorn illusion. At the minute I'm starting to think i'm turning into a mediocre recreational gambler rather than someone who's taking things seriously. The full-time dream seems very much a dream at present. My mindset is now trying to regain a "part-time income" attitude to gambling which I had last year. I'm over £1.7k down for this year, which is a lot worse than I could ever have imagined. To compound things the loss of my biggest profit turning horse racing systems means the task to turn that loss around looks a very difficult task. I shall keep fighting and battling away though, a return to an old horse racing system as proved a beacon of light this week I shall post an entry on that sometime next week.

That's why I love Cheltenham

2011-03-18T23:25:00.003Z

Well firstly apologies for not posting all my Cheltenham selections up, you haven’t missed out on much to be honest. Just posting to say what a brilliant Gold Cup that was, okay I have only been watching racing for about five years or so but that’s got to be up there with the best race I’ve ever witnessed. It had the element of fairy story to it could one of the old boys in Kauto Star or Denman reclaim their crown. It looked as if those two were going to battle it out to the finish, but then staying on and finishing strongly was the favourite and young pretender Long Run under amateur rider Sam Waley-Cohen. Long Run’s the winner and injuries aside should go onto have a long, successful racing career. But the real winners from my point of view was Kauto Star and Denman, still racing their hearts out and giving punters a good run for their money as always. This may well be the last time either of them take part in the Cheltenham festival, if that’s the case it will be a fitting way for them to bow out.

The Gold Cup's thrilling finale

Cheltenham - Day One

2011-03-14T23:00:00.005Z

Wouldn't take these as tips or anything, Cheltenham bets are usually just a bit fun and not something I take too seriously. Stuck a fiver on each of these in simple win bets, hopefully I can yield a few winners.

1:30
AL FEROF 9/1
RECESSION PROOF 9/1

2:05
REALT DUBH 9/1
DAN BREEN 16/1

2:40
THE RAINBOW HUNTER 25/1
WOLF MOON 14/1

3:20
PEDDLERS CROSS 9/2
KHYBER KYM 12/1

4:40
SPARKY MAY 4/1

5:15
SWING BILL 16/1

Peddlers Cross faces its toughest task to date in the Champion Hurdle

Fiddlesticks!

2011-03-13T20:29:00.004Z

A very disappointing and upsetting week for me. It's not so much the £314.45 loss incurred this week but the news that Adrian Massey's fantastic horse racing ratings will cease to exist from Saturday next week. The majority of my horse racing system (5 out of my 8) use the ratings directly therefore in a sense 5/8th of my proposed horse racing bets for the year become totally redundant. Therefore my hope that "things will pick up" later in the year seem so much more unlikely now these system have become unexpectedly taken away due to the ending of the ratings. This means I'm going to have to do a lot of re-thinking over the next week or so. My proposal at the beginning of the year to potentially go "full-time" now looks a rather wacky pipe dream on my behalf and I shall just concentrate on getting back into profit for the time being. It's true you don't really appreciate something until its taken away, and that has to go for Adrian's fantastic ratings. I was unable to access the rating for two days and I felt totally lost and unequipped without them for the day's racing and thus didn't bet at all. I must however take this time to thank Adrian for all the time, work and effort he's put into offering such a fantastic site for absolutely free when many people (probably including myself) would have deemed it more than acceptable to pay some sort of fee for access.

Although I'd like to put things into perspective, I'm sure everyone has seen the endless news coverage of the earthquake/Tsunami natural disaster in Japan. Seems to be an awful lot of these acts of "mother nature" recently what with the earthquake in New Zealand only a few week backs and numerous under such incidents seem much more common over the past five years or so. It sort of makes me moaning about the loss of a few numbers for gambling ventures look a bit feeble. People have had their lives ripped apart by recent events in Japan and I think everyone's thoughts should be with them now.

Oh well that was a nice and jolly update wasn't it! or maybe I've just got a bout of depressive realism. Anyway it's Cheltenham next week, that will cheer me up yeah! Probably lose some more money but at least I'll be doing so watching some top quality racing. I'll probably post my "Cheltenham tips" up on my blog for what it's worth. Right time to go for a long walk off a short pier.. i mean ermm for a shower.

Very mixed week

2011-03-06T19:11:00.003Z

As the title may suggest this was indeed a very mixed week for me, started rather well before fizzling out towards the weekend. A few horse racing systems doing really well another couple doing rather badly add to that my football bets came to nothing this week. Ended the week with a small loss of £28.82. Although I prefer to look at the positives and how a couple of my horse racing systems did well, still confident of long-term success with them.

It was however a fantastic week for sport some cracking games in the Cricket World Cup not least thoose ones involving England. Add to that two cracking games on TV this Sunday, the Wolves v Tottenham game is right up there as a game of the season for me, pure sport entertainment at its best.

It's actually five losing weeks on the bounce at present, something I didn't anticipate at the beginning of the year. Although it's worth nothing the last three weeks have been very small losses. Hopefully next week I'll be able to bring news of a profit, all these losses are becoming rather annoying.

End of February Update

2011-03-03T00:15:00.006Z

Sorry for the belated end of month update I have been spending time revising and doing my Uni work, not exactly exciting stuff but it needs to be done. Anyway back to the point at hand and February's conclusion. Not much I can conclude to be honest other than it's been a very poor month which I've ended with a loss of £2,220.18 that's right £2,220.18 in the red. Sounds bad and it feels bad but like I've said in the past you can't go beating yourself up over it, you've just got to move on and look at the long-term picture. Overall for the year I'm just short of a grand down, but with the earning potential of my system to follow I'm still very confident I'll be able to pull that back plus some more over the next few months.

One bright note was my Premier League football picks for the month of February, which where on the whole very good I thought. You can see all my PL and other football picks on my Blogabet page (see sidebar).

Cumulative profit for the year against selections in February

So roll on March and the remainder of the year I say, I might be down but I'm definitely not out.

Bottlers

2011-02-27T21:56:00.003Z

I don't really like the use of the word "bottlers" but I'm sure it will be in full force after today's sporting events. I'll start with the Carling Cup and Arsenal v Birmingham, most people had Arsenal down to win but Birmingham's hard work and determination was enough for them to take the cup. Also I might add with a little help from Arsenal defence. Not so much bottling it I'd say more like the same situation repeating itself over and over again Arsenal's defence and goalkeeper has been a major problem for years now that has never been rectified. But I'd much rather say well done to Birmingham City, always nice to see the underdog triumph (well when you don't have any money on the favourites that is).

Next onto the cricket, woke up earlier than the norm on Sunday to settle down to watch this (no betting interest just purely as a England supporter). The game seemed to swing one way then the other, India looked totally in command but collapsed towards the end of their innings but still left England a massive total to chase down. England started their innings well and continued well through the mid-part of the innings and they looked like they where going to win at a canter when Strauss & Bell where at the crease. But in true English style the collapsed ensured leaving the tailenders with what seemed an unlikely 30+ from the last three overs. But remarkably in the last over with three balls to go England where back to favourites once again. The game ended on somewhat of an anti-climax with England knocking a single of the last ball to tie the game. A very nerve-racking game though, suppose you could call both teams "bottlers" to a certain extent but I'd much rather just say it was a great game of cricket between two top sides.

Anyway back to my betting, and this week was thankfully the final full month in February (hooray!). I recorded a loss of the week totalling £70.79, which nicely brings up my record of four straight losing week in February. At least I can't be called for not being consistent enough. Joking aside this week and the last have both been relatively small losses if I consider the size of stakes I'm playing with. It was the first two weeks of the month that really messed up my figures for the year. I'll post a full monthly round up of February either tomorrow or Tuesday, just a word of warning in advice it doesn't look to pretty unfortunately.

On a brighter here's my Betfair P/L for the week, managed to turn a profit but not exactly betting or trading exactly how i'd like to be. Remember I started betting with my last ever £100 I would deposist into Betfair.

Another week goes by

2011-02-21T00:05:00.002Z

Only time for a short update this week. A week which once again felt strange at times I thought I could be racking up another biggish loss again at others I thought I might just about break-even. In the end I ended the week with a small loss of £58.00 exactly. Which after last week's performance can be considered I good result I suppose. Although I'm never happy with a loss, it's just something you've got to learn to accept and remember the long-term picture. Talking of the long-term picture i'm close to £1k down on the year so far, which is not exactly where I wanted to be but my confidence isn't knocked I still believe in what I'm doing. One thing I can't wait to see the back of is February, what the hell ever happens in February? such a nothing month and seems to be bad in a betting sense also. March brings with it the start of both new and old horse racing systems that I follow. These system are my main profit makers, if the systems go well I should be heading back into profit in no time, these systems go wrong and it could be time to starting worrying slightly.

A week to forget

2011-02-13T23:39:00.004Z

Although to be fair calling this a week to forget is probably a bit of an under-statement. I blogged about my concerns during the week about my performance and if anything it got worse as the week went on. Just one of those weeks where everything I seemed to back just lost, or with all my horse racing bets finished 2nd. All my systematic bets as well as my own personal bets just couldn't find a winner at all, really shocking stuff. In hindsight maybe my staking was a little on the aggressive side especially considering a deemed January & February to be tricky months to contend with. I've taken the decision to reduce my stakes for the remainder of the month as I know the best moths of the year are still ahead of me. My bookmakers accounts that looked full all but two weeks ago look rather empty right now. Still got size able betting funds but no doubt about I took a huge hit this week.

Total damage = a loss of £1,686.68 for the week which equates to £240 a day, which in all honesty just makes it sound even worse. All the hard work of the previous five weeks seemingly gone with me now operating at a overall for the year. More worrying is probably the fact it's the third losing week out of six, which wasn't part of the plan at the beginning of the year.

Never liked the month of February at all, read somewhere that it is the most depressing month of the year and that doesn't surprise one bit. On a brighter note my Premier League asian handicap bets are seemingly go rather well this month with a 26pt profit to date. In contrast my betfair challenge also took a bit of a blow with me losing a large chunk of my bank on a french football match on Saturday night (silly staking in hindsight, clouded judgement after poor week maybe. Still in overall profit with that but again a size able loss for the week and it feels like I'm back to square one again with that a little. Also saddened to hear the tragic death of two racehorses at Newbury on Saturday. Whilst death amongst race horses is a somewhat unfortunate occurrence, the freak nature in which they died most have left owners and connections very upset, my thoughts are with them.

That saddening news just about sums up my totally crap week in fairness. Easy to let weeks like this psychologically effect you, but it's important to be strong-minded and look at the bigger picture. I firmly believe in my long-term plan and short-term hiccups like this one can happen and it's a simple matter of continuing with your action plan and the winners will come. (or at least I hope they will!).

Very odd week indeed

2011-02-10T17:56:00.004Z

Don't know what it is but I've felt incredibly odd this week. Had plenty of University work to do but just haven't been motivated to do much of it all. Can't even be bothered to trade that much on Betfair either, although my betfair P/L is the only positive thing so far this week. All my horse racing bets have suffered badly, seems like February is turning into a bit of a shocker for my horse racing bets. Not helped by the heavy going conditions at some tracks I don't think. Funny thing is it doesn't really bother me that much, I know it's a concern obviously but I'm not panicking and going silly like I might have done in the past. This week looks set to be a loss unless a pullout some amazing results this weekend.

Hope I get some of my motivation back I just feel a bit odd right now for some reason. Maybe just tiredness I don't know. Don't usually take much notice of the news it's often melodramatic and repetitive but there was one thing that did brighten my week up, it was this rather amazing footage of some elderly lady thwarting a robbery via the use of a handbag. Don't you just love old people? although as a side note it's a bit of reflection of modern culture, old lady attacks robbers in an act of bravery and protection for her community whilst younger members of society choose to record the robbery on their fancy smart phones rather than actually trying to prevent it.

Think this is the first non-sports related video on my blog, but it's a very worthy one at that.

Granny Power!

Goals Galore

2011-02-06T23:23:00.004Z

Amazing action all round in the Premier League this weekend. Goals in every single game including some crazy scorelines, a 2-2, 3-2, 4-3, 5-3 and a 4-4. The game of the week though has to go to Newcastle who came back from 4-0 down against Arsenal to draw 4-4. With this screamer from Tiote making the equalizer all that more dramatic.

This is why I love the Premier League

On the subject of football I've done really well with the last two gameweeks in the Premier League both with the midweek fixtures and the weekend ones, with 8 out of 9 selections proving to be winners which was great, also my betfair challenge is going along great (see P/L screenshot below), although it was more outright bets than trades this week, betting Inter Milan just before they scored proving to be the big earner. Haven't had too much time for trading this week unfortunately and won't have much time it these next few weeks also, still try and watch a few games and trade nonetheless.

However this update is supposedly my end of week update (week 5). Unfortunately this week I recorded a loss of £399.70, my horse racing bets let me down a bit this week although it's important to note I operate quite an aggressive staking plan that continues to increase staking amounts as my balance for each system grows. Despite this near £400 loss, I'm overall quite happy this week because my football betting, which has been my weak point in the past, hasperformed well and My betfair challenge seems to be going along okay with me already having double my initial £100 investment there. Always a slight worry when you record a loss but I've got a lot of faith in my horse racing bets as they are proven over a number of years and I'm sure they'll bounce back. The real bright note is knowing that I may yet have a successful future with my football betting both in outright terms and in trading.

End of January Update

2011-02-01T00:02:00.007Z

Woah! the first month of the year has seemingly flown by and my P/L figure for the month of January is *enter drum roll*.... +£1,232.87.

Considering my entire profit for 2010 was just short of £1,600, this is a massive achievement to get over £1.2k profit in just one month! My decision to increase my stakes on my horse racing bets as thus far seemingly been a wise move. Suddenley my £10k vague target for the year doesn't seem so far-fetched. Carry on at this rate and my annual profit could be closer to £15k! Working out at roughly £280 a week, which isn't bad for my current "part-time" hobby.

Although I have to keep telling myself not to get carried away. Whilst I don't expect to incurr any losing months it is still possible to have a few bad weeks which could mean an underwhelming profit figure for a certain month or even in an extremely bad case a loss.

I'm quite happy with everything at the moment, I've got around £4k nesting in my various accounts. Don't need to hold all this money in thoose accounts but I prefer having decent amount in each account where possible so I can place my bets quickly and without fuss. Bar these gambling funds, I've also got a decent amount left in my bank account which more than covers my student spending needs at present.

My account balances at January month end

Elsewhere I thought it apt to put my new digital camera to use by taking a photograph of some money (don't think that's illegal, is it?). Can use this to go with my £100 challenge updates. But it's sometimes worth reflecting on the actual physical/material side of things I find. The idea of that can so easily get lost with simple figures on a screen, I always like having the physical cash in hand when I go to buy something rather than some piece of plastic you have to swipe around with.

Just need another 49,999 of these and I can buy myself a Fernando Torres.

Week Four Update

2011-01-30T23:39:00.002Z

First of all might I add what a refreshing sight it was to see the lower league sides in Southampton, Huddersfield & Notts County put up brave battles against the top Premiership sides this weekend in the FA Cup. Never fails to amaze me how well some of these lower league teams play in these matches, they can't usually keep it up for 90 minutes but the fact that they can out play the teams in question at any stage is admirable in itself. There wasn't actually a "giant killing" as such but the teams can sure be proud of their effort, I was hoping one of the big teams would get knocked out if only for their arrogant approach of not playing their full strength side in this competition.

Back to my betting adventure. I'm proud to say another nicely profitable week to the tune of £497.04, my horse racing bets continue to do surprisingly well considering this time of the year, which usually isn't their strong suit. Meanwhile my Betfair £100 challenge as started promisingly enough netting a profit of £39.45 in my first week, may not sound so big but considering I started with a £50 starting balance, I think that amount is exceptional. Although I must admit the way in which I gained some of the profit was rather fortunate, still often find myself stuck between trading and outright bets. Did a few outright bets on today's cup games for a little interest for example but then again there's matches where I've been trading and ended up just letting bets run and ended up in a bit of trouble. So definitely still areas for improvement in my trading aspect but overall can't grumble too much with my first week performance of my challenge. I've updated the figures for this challenge in the sidebar.

My next update will be tomorrow, where I shall be rounding up the month of January. Only likely to be a few bets for Monday so if anyone's that dying to see my cumulative profit for the month they can simply add up the first four week totals I've posted up. Although I can say with confidence that the figure will make for very nice reading and was just the start to the year I was looking for.

Not exactly what a trader's P/L should like with a starting bank of £50

Sky Scandal

2011-01-28T22:02:00.005Z

It appears this week's news coverage has been dominated by the "sexist" comments made by Andy Gray & Richards Keys in an off air conversation. I for one don't condone this sort of attitude but I feel, as usually with the news, it's been blown totally out of proportion. For one, these where off-air comments, and somebody clearly within Sky decided to leak the audio for whatever reason (enter you own conspiracy theory here). I'm not a particularly big fan of Keys & Gray, they do a decent job but I just think they where fortunate to be in the right place at the right time at the start of the Sky Sports revolution. Just seems a bit harsh to me that somebody should lose their job on the back of comments which weren't actually broadcasted and presumably where only meant to be a conversation between the two of them. Certainly seems harsh in that light but I do look forward with interest to see who they are replaced with.

Meanwhile this news story gives me a chance to post up this very good impression of the two doing tactical anlalysis. Quite old I know but I still find it funny.

I just realised I haven't talked about betting at all, this week has been going okay so far I'll update fully with figures on Sunday as usual. Also got to mention Andy Murray here, can he do it? will he bottle it? I for one shall be cheering him on in the final. Not every day you see a British player in a Grand Slam Final., Come On Andy!

Week Three Update

2011-01-23T22:53:00.005Z

End of the third week of my betting year and I'm glad to say it went okay. Ended the week in a nice profit of +£336.16, which sort of cancels out my last week's loss plus a little extra to take my cumulative profit for the year to a new high.

Majority of the profit again came from my horse racing bets which seem to be consistent in performance so far this year. Especially encouraging is the fact that the best months of the year are still to go and not all my systems are operational yet. My football betting once again has been a bit of a mix bag, been trying trades with small amounts on Betfair just to try out various techniques on the football in-play. Betfair P/L for the week however is only small, although there was quite a lot of up and downs during the week with a few outright bets thrown in there as well. My Premier League bets were rather shocking this week I must admit, some bad picks and some others were just plain unlucky. Was on Man City to win, as well as a laying Aston Villa on Betfair in that game. Not quite sure how Man City managed to lose that one to be honest, I stand by the fact that there was huge value on the Man City win and indeed in laying Aston Villa. Just seems at times that everything is against you, especially when the ball skims of a players backside and hits the post and then City's £27million striker misses a header from about 2 yards out. Just have to accept that these sort of things can happen, however annoying they might be.

I've decided on quite a simple plan for my Betfair account from now. I've withdrawn all my money but £50, and I've decided to set aside just £100 to use for my trading experiment as it is. I'll start with the £50 and allow myself to top-ups of £25, should my bank drop below say £10. I've limited my account to a maximum £25 deposit also, to fit in with this. My other plan is to withdrawn half of any profit made at the end of each week. For every £50 profit I withdraw (probably optimistic) I gain one extra top-up of £25. Think this plan suits my style more as I seem more focused when my balance is reasonably low in monetary terms whereas having a large bank often causes me to be reckless. This will sort of be my last chance at trading properly, If I blow this £100 I will no longer use Betfair for trading at least. I shall update my progress in the sidebar on this sort of £100 to ??? challenge on Betfair.

Elsewhere I notice the Australian Open has been going in the early hours of the morning. Can't say I've watched too much of it myself. But I hear Maria Sharapova just got knocked out in the fourth round, I'll take any excuse to post a picture of the lovely Ms. Sharapova.

...Don't worry, I still love you Maria

"Service Unavailable"

2011-01-20T18:25:00.002Z

Was the message displayed on Betfair yesterday at around five o'clock or so. I myself had been dabbling in a little bit of experimental trading, with £2 stakes only and noticed the Betfair site go down during the second half of the Asian Cup game I was trading on. This made me think about how bad the possible consequences of the site going down whilst in-play could have on some of the major traders out there. Think you may be trading in the thousands and then all of sudden the sites down and you can't trade out your position. Well there is the possibility of using bookmakers accounts to hedge your bets, but this is obviously not ideal especially if someone deals primarily on Betfair.

Okay i'm probably not alone with my Betfair bashing here. But I really do think it's time they improved their service, i'm no technical expert but surely back-up servers and systems should be easy to implement for a site accessed all over the world which sees millions upon millions of pounds pass through it each day. I think there was around five or six football games actually in-play and on Betfair live video when the site went down, that leaves a lot of people and particularly traders in open positions which should really happen.

The liquidity on Betfair is unrivalled with other exchanges hence why it is by far and away the most popular betting exchange. People always seem to suggest a major migration to Betdaq or the purple one, in protest of such flaws in services from Betfair. But I somehow doubt that will ever happen, we can only hope that Betfair gets its act together for the sake of fairness. I only lost £2 as a result, but my attitude would have been just the same had my intended trade bet gone onto win. It's not the fact that the bet lost, it's the fact that Betfair's site went down with so many in-play markets running that was the major issue. I feel for people who where adversely effected by this service downtime, you won't get any compensation from Betfair just a worthless apology. Although I agree Betfait can only settle the markets as appropriate in such cases, voiding markets would just cause further outrage. The main point is that the site shouldn't go down with in-play betting advertised, if you can't guarantee the reliability of the site then don't offer in-play betting. Rant over.

Busy day, busy week

2011-01-16T23:08:00.003Z

Apologies for not updating at all this week. Main reason is I've been rather busy both on a betting front and with me being back at university for my final semester. Today was particularly busy, I say busy if you can call watching football busy that is. Three live games on Sky Sports starting from 12pm almost non-stop till 6pm, and then there was the NFL play-offs which are actually still going on as I speak. Whilst watching all that I had to place all my bets for the day and just now I've been updating all my records to work out my P/L for the week (week two of the year).

My horse racing bets have been rather mixed this week, but it's my betfair trading on football that contributes a large portion of this week's unfortunate loss. The total loss for this week came to £313.39, which is obviously not great but I can't help but feel I've been a bit unlucky with some of my bets this week. Ben Foster's howler cost me in the Carling Cup tie midweek when I'd put in a good lay of West Ham after Birmingham equalised I thought. Instead of looking at a profit of around £40 for a draw or a Birmingham win I ended up having to accept a loss of around £100. One little moment like that can make a big change in your overall P/L figures. I did however play some other game including Asian Cup games and my trading was poor I thought, and I made further loss on some of those game.

Got lots of University assignments and work to be doing next week, so even if I wanted to do I don't think I'll have much time for trading. Think it's best I take a little time away from it, that being said in the last few days I've reduced my stakes and have begun to put in better trades. Decided to avoid the under/over goal markets where possible because that's where I often come unstuck.

Halfway through January already, one superb week, one poor week hopefully I'll have two good weeks to finish January with a nice profit. A lot will rely on my horse racing bets to determine whether that will be the case or not. I'm not to disheartened by this week like I've said before bad weeks happen it's the overall picture that matters.

Bit of a shocker this week

Pretty good week as it turns out

2011-01-09T18:43:00.005Z

Bit of a reversal on my previous post, my horse racing bets went into nice profits after a couple of nice priced winners over the weekend. Whilst my football bets went into a loss overall, got caught out trying to trade football again unfortunately. I'm proud to say the week running from 3rd January upto today (9th January) as netted me a nice profit of £671.34. Very good start as it turns out, but still don't think it was a perfect week as my previous post indicates. I have upped my stakes regarding my horse racing bets and I'm glad to see that it paid dividends this weekend. Still think my trading needs improvement, although I am only playing with small amounts in comparison to my horse racing bets. I will try and improve my trading but as long as my horse racing bets are going well I should be able to turn over a decent profit. With the increased stakes of up to £100 a selection maybe a profit of £671.34 is slightly above average but I'm confident I'll have even better weeks later in the year, where I plan to increase my stakes further from March onwards. Although I'd more than happily take £670 a week from now until the end of the year, that would leave me very close to £35k profit mark. Which is very much dream world at present. but sort of puts just how good a week it was into perspective.

I mentioned new year targets but never new year resolutions as such. My personal non-gambling related resolutions involve the not so original trying to keep fit resolution. I'm not exactly over-weight but I do think I could be healthier, need to get using my own dumbbells and exercise mat as well as generally eating a little healthier. Amongst all things in your life, your health should always come first. Another one from me is to try and get out and about a little more, I'm not exactly a socialite and I usually prefer a day in watching the football or the races rather than venturing outside where it's often cold and miserable. Takes a lot of concentration to trade as well as sort all my bets out and I think more time out and away from the computer could do me good and help me clear my mind. That brings me nicely onto the subject of university, I start my final semester of my final year at Uni from tomorrow. I have enjoyed it to a degree (didn't mean that pun!) but it's more about the banter and social side of it that I enjoy. Can call me a snob if you like but I find the course incredibly easy, I haven't but my full effort behind my work, I'd say I'm running at 70% my potential or so on a lot of the work. The lectures are tedious to say the least also, usually end up learning more from the text books than the lectures to be honest. Could say it's foolish of me to take this attitude with my course but I feel happy enough with my overall grades (still possible for me to get a first if I do well in the final exams this year). Although I'd take making good profit in my gambling ventures over any type of degree any day. I do spend more time on my supposed "part-time" gambling than I do on my university work, which tells it's own story I suppose.

That also brings me onto the topic of disclosure about my betting. A lot of people know I bet, a few of my mates say I'm a wealth of information regarding betting, although I think they just think that because I'm good at maths. But I've told absolutely no one about the extent of my betting adventures. Don't know whether that's wise or not. Sometimes I'd just love to respond to someone asking what I did over the new year with a "I made £700 watching sports I love" comment. I still get accused of being lazy for not having a job at times, when the truth is I think I have a workload to compare with anyone if you include all the time spent analysing and watching sports for my bets as well as balancing my university work with that. Then again at other times I like to keep it quiet, I firmly believe people act differently if they know you have money in addition people tend to have a negative attitude towards people who gamble. Plus I don't really want to be known as the wannabee professional gambler. I'm happy being known as a lazy student for the time being at least. Although I'll have to approach the issue soon because I'm suppose to be job hunting very shorty but of course I'm still holding out hoping I can make it full-time with my gambling. Don't really like keeping secrets and I'm definitley going to correct that at some point, hopefully with news of good success in my gambling. I think that just about covers everything, promise all my weekly updates won't be this long.

To conclude a brilliant touchdown from the NFL here, do follow the NFL a little but obviously don't follow it as closely as I'd like (so many sports going on at the same time). Here's the team I support the Seattle Seahawks matching any FA Cup upset with a win over last year Super Bowl champions the New Orelans Saints. Amazing TD! and got to love the commentary.

Mixed start to the new year

2011-01-06T18:07:00.003Z

Was away for the new year so didn't have any betting action bar a few pre-match football on the first few days of the new year. Since then however the start to the year has been a bit mixed, my Premier League football bets on New Year's Day weren't so good yet I had a good round of fixtures this midweek. Proudest achievements of the year so far was laying Charlton when the went 1-0 up against Swindon, Charlton promptly went on to lose 3-1. Think that match was on Monday (lost track of days over the Christmas period). That nice lay ensured I'm in profit with my football bets but my horse racing bets haven't got off to a great start but then again there's a long, long way to go yet in this year. I've no reason to doubt my methods, I have full belief in them at present. I plan to do my weekly updates each Sunday evening, best time for me really and it is when I usually tally up my performance for the week. Next update will probably be Sunday then (with some weekly P/L figures). There is a round of FA Cup fixtures this weekend not fully looked through the fixtures yet but the cups are not something I usually get involved in that deeply. Do like the occasional flutter on the outright markets if I think a certain team(s) look too big.

I also did something I don't usually do with my bets and that is bet against something that you think will happen. I thought Arsenal would beat Man City (should have done as well really) but I took the value approach and had Man City (+0.5) at over evens, which was definitely the value in that game in my eyes. It does feel odd betting against something that you think will happen but you need to remember you should be betting on something that is value and not actually what you think will happen, because let's face it the majority of the time you are going to think the favourites going to win. That's where most people are let down in my opinion they bet on what they think will happen and not on what represents value. I'd like to think my grasp of the sometimes vague "value" concept is improving as my Premier League football bets have been fairly steady for a number of weeks now (see my previous entry on this topic).

To end on a joyous note, England to wrap up the series 3-1 tonight, Aussies in total disarray and they just can't handle this England side, who just keep going from strength to strength.

On yer bike skip!

My Supermassive End of Year Review

2010-12-31T00:43:00.008Z

Well 2010 draws to a close (well in around 22 hours time or so), I shall be busy on New Years Eve so thought I best post up my end of year results now. Firstly I'll close with December's P/L figure which ended up as a loss of £1,033.51, not ideal obviously but as I've alluded to in my previous posts it could have been a lot worse. That brought my P/L for the year to +£1,592.59. They do say profit shouldn't be frowned upon but I can't help but feel I could have done an awful lot better than that. I was over £4,500 up for the year at the end of July, but poor months in September and December has reduced that figure considerable. Below is the spreadsheet I keep with my records for each individual P/L with each bookmaker/exchange, no surprise to see the bookmakers I place most of my horse racing bets with having the larger profit figures.

P/L broken down by bookmaker

This monthly break down below is in my sidebar at present but I shall probably be changing it soon, so this sits as a good reference to my record this year.

January: +£364.44
Feburuary: -£160.34
March: -£185.26
April: +£717.67
May: +£1,249.70
June: +£633.64
July: +£2,093.55
August: -£402.67
September: -£4,319.16
October: +£43.06
November: +£2,626.10
December: -£1,033.51

Also below is a graph outlining these monthly figures, or rather the cumulative P/L figures at the end of each month during the course of the year. Possibly doesn't show much, just that it is exactly the opposite of what I'd be striving for, i.e. a nice steady profit each month would be desired. Whereas my P/L has been up and down and a bit all over the place.

Mountain range P/L graphs are not desirable

Like I said I'm a bit disappointed with my overall performance I was hoping for a much better year in terms of outright profit. But hopefully the experiences of this year, both in mistakes and success stand me in good stead for 2011 and my continuing gambling ventures. Bit of a cliche, to learn from your mistakes but I think it definitely rings true in my case. I keep slipping back into similar mistakes hopefully I can avoid that for the future. I was going to consider setting myself targets in respect to my trading on Betfair (which was lets be honest shocking this year) and also in terms of my overall P/L for each month and the overall year. But I feel that's the wrong thing to do for me, gambling doesn't work to set targets and you have good days and bad days but what I want to avoid is massive variances in P/L from month-by-month which is what happened this year. I firmly believe it is possible to make profit every single month of the year, it's understandable to have a few bad days maybe even a week but your providing you have sound methods, which I believe mine are, you should be able to turn a profit every single month. Therefore in the reasoning for not setting a target I've almost set a target in itself, thou shall try and make profit every single month. Seems a perfect good plan or motto to go with.

I think this year is going to be a major one in my life, it contains my last semester in University and I'm still not entirely sure what I want to do after I've finished yet. Uncertainty is sort of scary and exciting at the same time, sort of like gambling really I guess. But it would be quite apt if I started this year really brightly and could start to realise the dream of perhaps going full-time and thus ending uncertainty in my life via the means of the aforementioned gambling world which is riddled with uncertainty. I'm not target setting here, I'm just pushing some figures out as they say but I feel £10,000 profit for 2011 is well within my means, I would also argue that I could perhaps push more around the £15,000 - £17,500, maybe even £20,000 if everything goes swimmingly well. I know I may sound a bit deluded here, a guy who thinks he can make £20k in year after making just £1.5k this year? sounds like a plonker and will probably end up bankrupt and working in Tesco. The beauty is that nobody knows what the future beholds, I can honestly say I don't have a clue where I'll be a year from now. I hope, I dream I'll have had a joyous and highly profitable 2011. Hopes, dreams, optimism and positivity cost nothing, these help form a good mindset which is what is needed to achieve anything worthwhile in life. I'm focused and I'm determined, I don't want a normal run-of-the-mill job and having to answer to people. I want nothing more than to be a full-time gambler, to work in my own time at my own pace and be able to make a living betting on sports that I love. Maybe just maybe 2011 will be the year my dream starts to become reality (if not it will be at least some journey).

Have a great New Year everyone!

Ashes glory and festive cheer

2010-12-30T03:10:00.002Z

"and that's it England retain the Ashes" are words I thought I would never here. I've grown up in an era where England losing down under was a given, so it was great to see the celebratory scenes from Melbourne has England destroyed the Aussies for the second time the series with a win by an innings to spare. Remarkable stuff, the England team has been superb for the past two years or so and they've to go into the ICC world cup and the Indian test series in the summer in great spirits. Plenty of cricket left in Australia though, the last test as well as ODI & T20 games. This Austrialian team looks vulnerable at present it will be interesting to see how these matches go. Managed to back England @ 1.34 during Australia second innings in this test, which I thought was I cracking bet given that I could see past an England win and was expecting a much shorter price. Also my series bet is in (my lay of Australia which I then greened out for a free bet on England to retain the Ashes).

Elsewhere not been to busy on the betting front, watched plenty of Premier League football and ate plenty of food. I shall post again tommorrow with my intentions for the year as well as a summary of 2010. Haven't totalled up my p/l figure for December but I think it's going to be better than I expected considering the rush of blood to the head I had for two days earlier in the month that cost me badly.

The beauty of in-play markets

2010-12-24T12:03:00.004Z

For me there's no really competition I do much better betting in-play than I do with my pre-match football bets. The very invention of in-play is rather genius I think, it works for the bookmakers because they increase their overall takings and it also works for betting exchanges because they get increased commission. There is however some situations where betting in-play might be difficult, i.e. Saturday 3pm games when there's numerous games on at once. But whenever a game is on television or streamed on a site you are able to bet in-play at your own free will. I've done rather well betting in-play, and that's both by simply outright bets and also quick trades. My trading techniques varies but mostly evolves backing unders when I expect a drop in the price of a unders goal market. Likewise laying something on the outright match odds (usually the favorites) when I expect a sudden drift. I always like placing a back bet on a team when they get a free-kick in a dangerous area or a corner. If a goal goes in you can guarantee yourself a nice profit and if not you can trade back for a minimal loss or maybe even break even. I know these techniques are probably not revolutionary or anything but I find the work well for me and I hope to be Even more profitable using these techniques next year.

I'm also planning to set myself a few targets next year in regards to my Betfair performance and as well as my overall P/L for the year. I know setting targets can sometimes be a bit of distraction depending on where you've set them and how your currently performing. But more on that to come in the new year. Nothing much else to add here, no horse racing in the lead upto Christmas and no racing on Boxing Day either by the looks of it. Looks like I'll be concentrating on the football then, providing the games go ahead that is.

Have a Very Merry Christmas everyone, here's a Christmas song from The Futureheads:

Perception and a clear mind

2010-12-23T20:39:00.008Z

I firmly believe that people's perception and opinions of certain sporting events are biased by the very nature of encounters they may have during the day. Bit of a over-exaggerated example next but it proves the point. You may wake up on a Friday morning open up the tabloid newspaper and read about the terrible run Club A is on and how the dressing room is falling apart. You go into work and listen to a pessimistic workmate who supports Club A going on about how he reckons his teams going to get beat 5 or 6-0 by Club B on Saturday. Another workmate who supports Club B and who apparently knows one of the player's uncle's cousin reckons that Club B is in good spirits and playing some brilliant football at present and he reckons Club A could be on the end of a big scoreline. On the way home from work your have a sport radio station on and you hear the manager of Club B press conference claiming everyone's fully fit for the clash against Club A and he sounds very confident. You get home from work and look at the fixtures and automatically your going to have quite a big bias towards Club B winning the match in question. But in likelihood everybody has caught onto the factors mentioned and Club B probably won't be any value for this game although the stuff you may have heard throughout the day may influence your outlook of this game.

I'm not saying don't talk to people or don't read the football news. Although what I will say is keep a clear mind and form your own opinion, probably the worst thing you can do is take an opinion on a match based on what other people think (I include "pundits" in this). This can be very difficult to do and I'm sure my judgement has been slight effected sometimes. But I like to think I keep a clear mind in my decisions and I like to price up markets myself based on my own judgements for each outcomes. This doesn't guarantee profit okay but if you have belief in your own judgement of value you could go far.

I use this time also to show my performance of my pre-match football bets on the Premier League. Not exactly been brilliant although it's worth noting I operated a £25 level stakes staking plan at the beginning of the season which covered both Asian handicap bets and under/over goal markets. I also had a few really poor weeks which have made the performance look a lot worse. As you can see from the graph my performances has improved recently where I've focused more on Asian handicap bets only and varied my stakes from £15-£25. Not exactly ideal of course but I feel there's been definite improvement over recent weeks.

Pre-match PL picks performance

I emphasis the pre-match element here because I know for a fact I've done an awful lot better in-play with my football bets. I'm going to discuss the topic of pre-match Vs in-play in my next post tomorrow. Meanwhile here's another Christmas song (one that I actual can stand!)

It's Snow Fun

2010-12-19T14:38:00.004Z

Amazing how a little bit of snow can bring so much havoc across the country. Only two Premier League matches got the go ahead on Saturday and all today's fixtures have been postponed. Add to that dozens of horse racing meeting have been abandoned everywhere with only some A/W meeting surviving. All this leaves me with very little to bet on. Oh yes and England got spanked by the Aussies in Perth just when we thought we might have this series wrapped up you can always rely on England to come undone. On a bright note at least this keep the series alive and everything is still left to play for with two tests left.

I may have been a little harsh on the whole christmas celebrating thing in my last post. To make myself get in the festive mood I'm going to be posting up some alternative christmas songs, i.e. not the same old pop drivel they play ever year that drives you mental.

Managerial departures and hello christmas holidays

2010-12-16T23:21:00.004Z

It's probably not gone unnoticed that two Premier League managers have been sacked in recent weeks. Firstly Newcastle sacked Chris Hughton, after he had guided them back into the Premier League and had started the season well for a newly promoted side. Apparently Mike Ashley wanted someone with more experience, so Alan Pardew may not be the biggest name but he has got experience be interesting to see how he goes. Secondly this week the news that new Blackburn owners Venky's decided to sack Sam Allardyce based on the style of footbal he operates. Given the limited financial resources available at Blackburn in recent season it's widely known the Big Sam has been during a reasonable job result wise in keeping Blackburn comfortably in mid-table. They are apparently looking for a young, energetic, British manager who plays attractive football as a replacement. Not many obvious candidates from that description although I hear that Diego Maradona's name as benn mentioned, which would probably be the most entertaining managerial trainwreck of all time.

Lastly I've finished my university work for the year and I'm now officially on my Christmas holidays. Not a huge fan of Christmas itself, after all I am an atheist and I think the day has just become to commercialised for my liking. The sending of Christmas cards is another thing I don't understand, I've seen people send cards to people they haven't seen in years, where's the sense in that? Whilst family is important to a lot of people I think it's only close family that really matter for me. The rather infrequent meetings with distant relatives around Christmas time always seem a bit staged and repetitive to me. I'd love to spend Christmas abroad one year, preferable in a country where it's warm and where nobody celebrates Christmas, so myself and maybe a few close friends could escape the whole thing and just have a nice relaxing break doing things we really enjoy rather than opening your third present that turned out to be yet another pair of socks. Not quite 'bah! humbug!' but I definitely think Christmas is over-rated and the build up and everything that surronds it does my head in.

Just remembered that this is suppose to be a betting journal so I better start talking about my betting adventures. To be fair I've been fairly quite on the betting front at the minute largely due to the fact I was concentrating on my assignments and exams which are thankfully all over for now at least. I've still got my pre-tour Ashes lay of Australia running, England continue to impress and surely they'll retain the Ashes and make my bet a winner. Crazy timings in Perth, 2:30am start is harsh even for someone who likes to stay up late like myself. However last weekend was a fairly successful one on the back of that massive hit I took. Used a much more sensible staking plan, although I choose to deposit more money back into my account because I needed it for my horse racing bets. Profit for last 7 days is decent but dwarfs in comparison with the loss I suffered. Although I think my trading as been going a lot better I've also mixed that with outright bets occasionally, all of which went rather well I thought. Hopefully a reason to be positive for the future.

Road to recovery?

With me being on my Christmas holidays I have a lot more free time so will probably be able to post more frequently on my blog here up until Christmas at least. Can almost class myself as a full-time gambler now, well for two weeks or so at least.

What A Plonker

2010-12-11T20:09:00.002Z

Apologies for not updating my blog for a while I have been busy with university work and there was a major blip in betting quest earlier this week which caused me to have a little time off. Stupidly in hindsight I got involved in an Argentina Premier Division football match whilst watching it on Betfair Video. It was one of the most craziest, open games I have ever seen. There was literally about thirty or so brilliant goal-scoring chances in the game. Needless to say I had backed over 2.5 goals with the score at 1-1 at half time, somehow it stayed this score with some unbelievable misses, post-hitting and world-class saves thrown in there somewhere. However I made the mistake of backing too large a portion of my Betfair balance on it, I lost around 40% of my Betfair balance which was pretty big since I hadn't withdrawn any of my winnings for a while. The few days that followed I noticed I continued to lose bets and put in really poor trades. In danger of losing more of my November profits I decided to take time away from Betfair until my return today. I also installed a neat free software trading tool called The Geeks Toy with use with Betfair. It enables much quicker trades and lets you green up equally on all outcomes with one click, really useful in my opinion and also comes with the ladder layout which I've heard is the preferred layout for the "proper traders".

It's difficult to determine what I am at the minute, an outright gambler or a trader? there's obviously an overlap in these terms because a trader is a gambler of sorts it's just that a trader gambles more on price movements than actual outcomes. The two can also be combined, for example what might have originally started out as a bet can turn into a trade and vice versa. I do find trading difficult I admit but I've been reading a few e-books and websites with good information, they are obviously not going to tell you how to make money trading but they'll for sure point you in the right direction. The danger occurs when one things he's trading when he's actually outright gambling, this has been part of my down fall in the past.

I suffered a £1.5k loss as a result of my madness in the aforementioned days above. I've now purposely withdrawn from my Betfair account and left myself just £100, I think sometimes the amount shown on your balance can effect your thinking (psychology I believe they call it). I had over £3,000 in my Betfair account at the time and I was on a really good run, maybe I was just to confident in my judgement and got carried away and totally disregarded sensible staking rules. It was almost like it was a lucid dream but one which I wasn't able to take control of. I probably sound a right loony here. But anyway yes just the £100 left in my Betfair account going to treat it like it's my last £100 in the entire world. I vaguely remember reading in one of George Soros books that he used to treat his hedge funds like they where his children, in the danger of sounding crazy again I think a similar thing needs to be done here with me. The attitude of risking money because it's money that I've won anyway is the wrong attitude to have I say, you should treat every pound to every pence in the same way. This gambling malarkey is hard enough without chucking money away with inappropriate staking. That's just about rant over, but to end on a brighter note some of my non-Betfair football & horse-racing bets have given me some really nice winners. This somewhat softens the blow of my little Betfair adventure but I'll do well to turn Decemeber into a profitable month of the back of that £1.5k loss in the space of a couple of days. The term like a roller coaster is rather cliched but I feel it's somewhat appropriate to my betting adventures this year.

End of November Update

2010-12-01T15:04:00.006Z

I'm glad to report back some very nice figures for the month of November. It got off to a great start and it continued fairly steadily throughout the month. The main profit has come from in-play trading on football on Betfair.

November Betfair P/L Figures

As you can see over +£3,400 profit on football betting on my Betfair account unfortunately some of my betting on other sports haven't gone so well. The horse racing betting has been a bit up and down not helped by the weather conditions which has abandoned a lot of meetings recently and looks set to do so for the rest of this week.

But overall my profit for the month comes to a not to shabby £2,626.10 which brings my yearly profit back up to a reasonably level after the mini-crisis in September and makes November my best performing month to date. I doubt December will be as profitable but you never know, my football betting has improved and even some of my Premier League pre-match selections have started performing better. But the horse-racing outlook doesn't look so clever with the heavy snow that has descended on the UK this week. But there's the C word to come later this month (don't care for mentioning it so early though) and I've also got a few tests and coursework assignments in relation to my university work, so I really should be concentrating on these but I'm sure I'll find time for my betting exploits.

What a weekend!

2010-11-28T20:58:00.010Z

A whole host of superb sporting action to enjoy this weekend shame there just isn't enough hours in the day to watch it all. One of the events I didn't have chance to watch fully was the ATP World Tour Finals in London. Managed to catch the Murray/Nadal match though and Andy ran him pretty close I thought and Rafa looked a little tired for the final which would have been tough regardless against Federer which he went onto lose.

On Saturday there was the Hennessy Gold Cup which unfortunately for myself and many Denman fans wasn't the fairytale outcome with Denman only managing third. To be fair he was carrying and giving away ridiculous amount of weight to some up-and-coming novices and a few proved too good for him. Although I think his run was still admirable given the weights.

Made a good profit on Betfair today with my lay of Liverpool pre-kick off combined with a further Liverpool lay @ 1.71 at half-time plus a little extra on Tottenham @ 6.8 also at half time. Felt this price was just too big since Spurs have comeback in numerous games this season and the game was quite even and I felt Liverpool had squandered some very good chances and it was only a matter of time before Spurs created some good ones for themselves. Even with the missed Defoe penalty, Tottenham managed to win the game with a goal in injury time that made my Sunday Roast taste an awful lot sweeter (well not sweeter as such just more enjoyable I guess.)

Thank you Aaron Lennon!

If that wasn't enough sports for you The Ashes have been continuing through the night and I've been watching most of it. Stayed up and watched until about 4am this morning with England coasting at 210/1, much more easier to stay awake when England are enjoying a good spell in the game and when you've laid Australia @ 1.48 before the day's play. I'm not overly familiar with betting on cricket but I do watch nearly all England game and have a good knowledge of the sport. It was clear the pitch wasn't doing much and if England could survive the initial morning spell I felt there would be good opportunities for England's batsmen to post big scores, and that proved just the case with Cook & Strauss getting tons.

Clever me!

Now the match looks destined for a draw, although a look at the graph (below) just shows how there's a massive scope for trading in cricket if you know what your doing. Although I salute anyone who's managed to stay up all night and remain focused enough to trade. I probably should trade out my bet for a whole green screen but I think I'll watch the opening stages of today's play and see if there's any early England intent or indeed wickets. Can't see either team looking to force a result to be honest, Strauss is not going to want to get in a position where he'd risk losing the game to win it after coming back strongly in the second innings. That's of course unless the pitch dramatically starts turning sidewards of something in which case Swanny could come into play. But in all likelihood it should end a draw.

A trader's dream?

Also a small shout out to the Ashes coverage on Sky which I think has been very good and they manage to provide that little bit of humour when the cricket is going through a slow period. Although last night's (or this morning's) scream of anguish from Lord Gower made me jump slightly, thankfully he'd only hurt his toe as a result of Nasser Hussain's chair. Pretty funny clip though...

Come on Denman!

2010-11-26T19:46:00.003Z

Tomorrow sees the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury as Denman tries to make it a hat-trick of successes in this race. Backed ante-post at 7.00 was expecting the price to shorten slightly more, think I'm going to let it run and hopefully cheer Denman home. His performance last year was simply remarkable and one of my favourite sporting moments of recent history.

Come on Denman!

Elsewhere the Ashes got under way, I've managed to stay up to watch both days play till lunch so far and catch the rest of the highlights later in the day. Slight edge to the Aussies so far but still think England have a very good chances in this series. Placed a bet prior to the first day and that was simply a LAY of Australia to win the series. More on that as the series develops.

To conclude on the football, there's not too much that takes my fancy this weekend but Everton to beat West Brom and Wolves (+0) at home to Sunderland are my only two bets so far.

Champions League and referees

2010-11-24T18:04:00.007Z

Arsene Wenger does have the tendency to talk absolute nonsense a lot of the time but thought he was spot on with his comments in the press after their defeat to Braga. Arsenal clearly should have had a penalty but instead Vela, the player involved, was booked for diving. Wenger branded the five-official UEFA system "useless" and I don't disagree with him. There always seem to be a reluctance even with normal linesman to over-rule or make independent decisions during the game. Part of the reason could be that they don't want to undermine the referee in charge by going against one of his decisions and secondly, probably the main one in the eyes, is that if these extra officials happen to make a decisions (correctly or wrongly) against the home side they are going to get stick for the remainder of the game. These extra officials aren't going to be perfectly unbiased in their decision when they've got the Stratford End (at Old Trafford) or The Kop (Anfield) breathing down their neck.

For this reason alone they should scrap this system, to some extent referees already seem biased towards the "bigger clubs" this system just seems to favour that even more. The video referee much like a third umpire in cricket is the only way to go in my opinion if decision-making wants to be improved. Whether that could be implemented successfully is another matter and I for one wouldn't want to see a lot of decisions being reviewed and thus slowing down the game. Part of the fun of football is the controversy and a lot of the controversy comes from poor referring decisions taking this completely out of the game may seem a good idea but it would definitely reduce football talking points and I happen to like talking about football.

I wonder if the UEFA officials run a 5-a-side league...

Oh Dear Arsenal

2010-11-20T19:43:00.006Z

Crazy game at the Emirates with Arsenal seemingly totally in control at half-time with them being 2-0 up and totally dominating the game. Second half Tottenham just came out and played well and with a helping hand from Fabregas they came back into the game and ended up winning 3-2.

Mr.Wenger wasn't too happy it seems...

Dirty little arber

2010-11-19T21:36:00.008Z

I've been undertaking in a bit of arbitrage betting (or arb betting for short) over the last couple of days. From my general observations this practise is generally frowned upon and you'll get your bookmakers accounts closed pretty sharply if you undertake it to any great degree. But I personally favour the Back to Lay arb which is taking a bigger price with a bookmaker and then laying it for a shorter price on Betfair (even with the commission charge taken into account). Essentially it's much like any trade on Betfair but instead you've guaranteed yourself a profit before the event as even started, this is where the great competition in the bookmaker industry comes to your advantage as they will generally try and compete on price where they see fit now that there's various odds comparison sites out there that punters have become aware of.

The typical arb for me at least is usually only around the 2% mark, but it is totally risk free money providing you place the bets correctly and use a reliable bookmaker(s). Don't know whether I could see myself doing this long-term because there's limits and the highly likelihood of accounts getting closed which don't make it appeal to me, then again there's no harm in the occasional arb that will cover the cost of your lunch or go back into your betting bank. Read more about arbitrage betting here

I actually had a poor day trading on Wednesday which was part of the reason why I decided to do a few arbs and step away from the trading for a while. November performance still looking good but a couple of poor trades knocked me a bit and I think I'm better stepping back from the trading for a while.

My football bets are up on my blogabet page for this weekend, main fancies are in opposing West Brom at home to Stoke and betting Man City with a draw no bet away at Fulham. My Premier League picks have gradually improved over the last couple of weeks hopefully another decent profit can help me reduce my overall loss so far this season.

I think Sparky's Fulham will find it difficult up against his old employers.

My Tip of the Weekend: Man City (DNB) @ 1.72 (Coral)

Mid-November update

2010-11-14T21:16:00.004Z

Glad to say at the mid-point of November the profit figure is considerable won't reveal the figure now but I'll go as far as to say if I have a half-decent second half to the month it will be one of my best months for the year. A lot of the profit as actually come from my football trading and my amazingly lucky £1k profit week on Betfair, since then I've toned down my trading down a bit. I've actually placed a few long-term bets on the horse racing one on Denman for the Hennessy at 7.00 on Betfair for £50, price already dropped but not much liqudity since it's ante-post market, Expect him to be much shorter come the day of the race all things being well I'll be able to lay off for a free bet probably. Also had a few smaller bets on the Grand National antepost, a long time off the race itself but just backed a couple I liked the look of from last year's race and providing they run they'll surely be much shorter come closer the time.

I've actually lots of Uni work and assignments I really should be getting on with but the weekend is always spent watching sport whether I happen to be betting on it or not. Plenty of drama this weekend from the not totally unexpected demolition of Harrison by Haye to the climax of the Formula One season. Glad Alonso didn't win it can't stand the guy, decent season for Jenson and Lewis hopefully they'll have an improved car next season and therefore have a better chance of the battling for the title. But well done to Vettel he was the fastest man throughout the season and probably deserved it on balance, would have won it a lot easier had he not had the habit of knocking himself and other competitors out of various races.

To finish I can't miss commenting on the remarkable scenes from Stamford Bridge. I've watched plenty of Sunderland away from home and they have been nothing but average at best this calender year. But a superb, energetic display saw them beat Chelsea quite comfortably in the end and the 0-3 scoreline did not flatter them if anything it could have been more! Don't buy the whole Chelsea had lots of players missing excuse, every team has players missing and there's no sympathy for Chelsea who should have quality squad depth with their resources. Fair play to Sunderland, didn't help my fantasy football team much though, thought Ashley Cole should have at least got an assist for the third it was a brilliant cross...

A good impression of what a Sunderland 3-0 layer might look like

Once a thug always a thug

2010-11-11T12:08:00.002Z

Just a quick comment on everyone's favourite footballing personality Joey Barton. He's had more "chances" to redeem himself than I care to count. For the record I actually think he is a decent footballer when he doesn't resort to the sort of behaviour we saw against Blackburn last night.

Clear punching an opposition player straight in the stomach for no apparent reason in front of dozens TV cameras that have ever angle covered is just plain silly. The referee or his officials didn't spot this but he'll surely be in for a 3 match ban (should be more in my opinion) with the aid of the video evidence.

It was more suited to a boxing ring than a football pitch. Maybe we should let Barton take Harrison's place for the big fight on Saturday I'd love to see how tough he thinks he is then.

David "The Hayemaker" Haye

Miserable Mondays

2010-11-08T21:41:00.011Z

Don't know whether it's just my perception but I definitely seem to think that Mondays always seem to bring the worst of the weather. Howling wind and rain crashing against my bedroom window this morning when my alarm clock goes off at 8am, would have been so easy just to stay in bed and forget Uni for the day. Somehow managed to get myself up and into my lectures on time. Although my heart really isn't in it that much anymore. I'd much rather be at home analysing bets and trading market on Betfair. I've had a very good run on Betfair recently, mainly on football trading matches available to watch on Betfair Video. I can't help but think I've been highly fortunate in the process, maybe sometimes ignorance is bliss. Betting purely on what you see on the pitch rather than any pre-made presumptions about each team may be the way to go. My Premier League bets have been awful recently and I'd consider to have very good knowledge of that league yet I've been trading highly successfully on obscure South American and other top European league that I don't pretend to have a great knowledge about.

Here's my quite remarkable Betfair P/L for the last 7 days. Luck or skill? I'd be leaning towards the former that's why I've withdrawn a large chunk of the profits (nicely boosts my horse racing system funds for the new year) and am going reduce my stakes slightly for future trades. But for the first time ever I feel I've been trading really well, think I mentioned my 1.03 lay in a previous post I've had a few similar ones since then but not quite as short as that. Had some lucky escapes also though the Setbul v Rio Ave game comes to mind with a last minute goal from the visitors turning a £200+ loss into a £200+ profit.

How to net yourself £1k in a week (the unorthodox way)

Kauto back with a win

2010-11-06T20:36:00.004Z

I've decided this blog as become to football-oriented so a little entry on the horse racing here.

Nice to see Kauto Star back in action after he of course crashed out of the Gold Cup in his last race. You'd never have guessed that with his performance at Down Royal today, he jumped perfectly and showed his class to overcome the field. Although the one to take out of the race is definitley Sizing Europe in opinion, always been a fan of this horse and glad to see it stay the trip. Be interesting to see where they go with it from here, worth an entry into the Gold Cup based on that performance. Everything for me is always building upto Cheltenham which is the only major time of the race calender where a waiver from systemtic approach and get out my form studying hat. Could be in for a very good line-up for this year's Gold Cup with old boys Kauto Star and Denman as well as last year's winner Imperial Commander plus the up-and-coming younger horses. However plenty of big races before then including the Hennessy in which Kauto may run in according to Paul Nicholls.

Will Kauto run in the Hennessy?

Football Madness

2010-11-01T23:44:00.005Z

Today for me summed up why I love football so much. That can sometimes be forgotten briefly among the process of betting, but football at his best is pure entertainment or the highest form in my opinion.

Firstly I'll start with a game most people probably won't have witnessed. An amazing game in Serie B between Sassuolo and Siena which saw four goals in the opening twenty minutes. The away side Siena scored shortly before half-time to go 3-2 ahead. The second half was still lively despite no goals being scored up until injury time that is, when the home side Sassuolo scored not just once but twice to win 4-3! What makes it even sweeter is the fact I had laid Siena at around 1.50 and then laid the draw after it went 3-3 at my lowest ever successful lay price of 1.03.

Just when I think I'd seen enough football entertainment for the day I watched the Premier Legaue match between Blackpool and West Brom. I actually expected this to be a good game with two attacking sides and the game didn't disappoint what with nine men West Brom battling hard in a thrilling end-to-end game. Had a small lay of West Brom in this game pre-kick off as well as my over 2.5 goals bet I took earlier in the week. So overall very good day, made more money today than in the last month put together, crazy stuff really. Making money is a lot more fun than doing my boring Uni work I must admit.

Good day's work

End of October Update

2010-10-31T19:29:00.004Z

Thought it would be apt time to post my thoughts on my October performance since it is the end of October today and we all have the benefit of having an extra hour today.

My profit for October was £43.06, whilst this is a profit I can't help but feel a little disappointed that all my hard-work in respect to placing bets and analysing data as come to such a small profit. Truth be told I think I've suffered from the fact that I currentley have only one of my major systems running at present and therefore I've not had as many bets as I would have if they were all running. To be honest I can't wait till the new year when I'll have all my main system running at the peak of their powers. For the time being it's a case of the occassional horse racing bet whilst trying to make a profit from my football bets, which I'm finding increasingly hard. Especially since the majority of my bets are placed pre-match and before line-up announcements. I'd love to be involved more in-play on football matches but unfornately the television with Sky is downstairs and my computer upstairs, so therefore unless I watch some live streaming on the internet I'm unable to place in-play bets without running up and downstairs like a maniac. Today's late game was probably a prime example I'd laid Liverpool pre-kick off but they scored a late winner and my bet lost. Had I been able to bet in-play I could have traded out to an all green screen. On a sidenote what a result and performance from Newcastle to win 5-1 against Sunderland, bit of a horror show for the Mackems (had to get a halloween pun in there).

So moving onto November I expect it's going to be a very similiar month to October in the sense of number of bets and focus on football bets. Hopefully I'll be able to improve on the small profit I achieved this month, on the bright side at least I'm back in overall profit for the year now after a shocking September.

Premier League Review (Week 9)

2010-10-25T19:26:00.005+01:00

Some sense of normality returned to this weekend some would say with all the "original" top four winning. But for me it was just as hectic and unpredictable as always. That being said I managed my first profitable week in four on the betting front. I've changed from my normal level stakes to more flexible stakes now, also decided under/over goals bets will be lower stakes from now on as these things are much harder to predict than actual outccomes and my record of these bets as been poor. My new staking plan is more flexible in the sense I give the selections a rating out of 1 to 10 based on how strong the selection is and the value on it, although I plan to rangebets between 3 and 5 out of 10 for the majority of the picks.

Next week's Premier League fixtures at a glance look really tough, think I'll have my work cut out this week. The league is ridiculously close this year although the obvious top teams appear to be breaking away with Chelsea, Arsenal, Man United & Man City making up the top four and I fully expect Tottenham, Liverpool,Everton and Aston Villa to make up the same top eight come the end of the season. But the remaining 12 clubs in the league are very evenly matched in my opinion, Blackpool would obviously be considered the weakest but even they've shown signs of being able to pick up wins against good Premier League side. Then there's a split I suppose you would say between teams who usually operate more defensive systems and rely on keeping games tight, I would class Stoke, Blackburn, Birmingham & Sunderland in this bracket whilst you've got the likes of Fulham, West Ham, Bolton, Wigan and West Brom who try and operate more offensively and enjoy possession of the football. I've left out Newcastle and Wolves, both teams like to mix up their style, although Wolves would be more likely to fall under the first whilst Newcastle could be considered under the second.

The difference in approach from the teams is very interesting to watch, and funnily enough the teams with British managers tend to have the tendency to operate with orer emphasis on defense. Some people call teams like Stoke and Blackburn because of their styles of play. But I say there's not only one way to play football, not every team can play like Barcelona or Arsenal. Part of the thing that makes the Premier League so interesting is the contrast in styles and the mixture of physical stregth and techincal skill. I've not really reviewed the weekend in much depth but I think an overall view of the Premier League serves as an interesting topic of thought.

Handicap Hurdle pick

2010-10-21T12:22:00.003+01:00

Anybody who follows me on the Adrian Massey forum will know that I have a handicap hurdle system topic that I post up selections on. The forum appears to be down at present so I'm posting my selection for today up on here:

3:45 Ludlow - HALLING GIRL

Premier League Review

2010-10-18T15:14:00.005+01:00

I've come to the conclusion that it is very difficult to make a profit betting on Premier League football taking outright prices pre-match. Yesterday's matches just about sums that up for me, in the Merseyside derby their was value to be had in backing over 2.5 goals in my opinion some would argue Liverpool were value considering the historic closeness of these games. Result 2-0 Everton, maybe the actual outcome wasn't that much of a suprise (I expected an Everton win) but the fact that game remained unders was a bit fornate, in my opinion the best bet in that game was overs but it was a losing one.

Probably an even bigger injustice was Man City's win over Blackpool, the people who backed Man City at around 1.66 (4/6 in old money) got very lucky in this game and in my opinion the right bet in this game would have been Blackpool on the handicap (think they where +1 on the asian handicap when I checked). So overall what I'm saying is that there's fine margains to deal with in football, a poor decision by the referee can change everything and you can make the correct bet but still lose. The value concept apparentley states that if you continue to find "value" in your selections then in the long-term you'll be profitable. At the minute I'm either not finding this "value" or I'm just becoming increasingly unlucky. If my performances doesn't improve by the new year I think I'll put my Premier League tipster career on hold.

I'm also feeling a little under the weather at the minute. Another poosible negative of being a full-time gambler, even when you are feeling a bit ill you still have to go about your daily routine whereas if your in normal work you can just call in sick. Then again as long as it's not serious illness (i've only got a bout of man flu I think) you should be able to work perfect fine from home with all the neccessary items to make you better, chicken soup, ice cream, paracetamol and throat lozenges usually does the trick for me.

Weekend football

2010-10-15T15:03:00.003+01:00

My picks for the weekend Premier League are as follows:

Fulham v Tottenham
Fulham (+0) @ 2.12 (Pinnacle) high confidence
Fulham remain unbeaten this season with one win and six draws to their name. In their latest game away at West Ham I thought they acquitted themselves well especially since they have been poor travellers in the past and were missing a lot of their striking options. Fulham’s strength lies in their home record at Craven Cottage (last season’s record: W11, D3, L5) and they’ve continued that so far this season with draws against Everton & Man United and victory over Wolves.

Tottenham come into this game on the back of a 2-1 home win over Aston Villa. However their away form this season has been mixed with one win, one draw and one defeat. Tottenham still have a big injury list with plenty of players out and that must be a major worry coming into this game especially with their big European game in Milan on Wednesday, it would be understandable to presume that players not at full fitness may miss out of this game in hope of playing on Wednesday.

I really like the look of Fulham in this game. Fulham have a strong home record and have yet to be beaten this season against a Spurs side that may have half an eye on their Champions League interests, happy to take the Fulham (+0) here.

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Man United v West Brom
Under 3.25 goals @ 1.84 (SBObet) medium
Man United by their usual high standards have hit something of a sticky patch in recent weeks with just one win in their last four. Man United were somewhat disappointing in their last game away at Sunderland and very rarely threatened to score. With Rooney seemingly still out of form the pressure falls heavily on the likes of Berbatov and Nani to provide the goals.

West Brom have undoubtedly made a very impressive start to their Premier League campaign which was identified remarkably in their win against Arsenal at the Emirates. They come to Old Trafford hoping to do something similar; however I think they’ll find it more difficult against Man United who generally are a very sound defensive unit. West Brom also look likely to be without Odemwingie and Thomas who were their star performers at the Emirates.

On balance it’s difficult to see past a Man United win here, although I expect West Brom to make it tough for Man United. Their defence has improved rapidly since their opening game defeat at Chelsea and they operate a 4-1-4-1 formation which can be difficult to break down. Therefore I’m happy to take under 3.25 goals in this game because I feel West Brom will struggle to score against a Man Untied team that don’t tend to concede many goals at Old Trafford and because Man United haven’t looked as lethal in front of goal recently.

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Newcastle v Wigan
Under 2.5 goals @ 1.85 (188bet) medium
Wigan (+0.5) @ 2.06 (Ladbrokes) small
Newcastle have had a mixed start to the season with impressive wins against Aston Villa and Everton but home defeats to both Stoke and Blackpool. I thought Newcastle played okay in their last match against Man City and it took a moment of inspiration from Adam Johnson for City to break through a very resilient Newcastle backline in the second half in that game. Newcastle will probably look back at both the Stoke and Blackpool games and say we had the chances to win those games we just weren’t clinical enough in front of goal.

Bar the win against Tottenham at White Hart Lane Wigan haven’t really played brilliantly so far this season. Draws against Birmingham and Sunderland could go down as decent results and performances but by no means spectacular. They won their most recent game against Wolves 2-0, but they did play against ten men for the large majority of the game and despite all their possession it took a free-kick to break the deadlock.
For me this game should be low-scoring, Wigan have played only two away games so far this season which have ended 0-1 and 0-0. Martinez favours playing five across midfield in a 4-5-1 formation which both Tottenham and Birmingham have failed to breakdown this season.

Whilst Newcastle do usually play an attacking game they also have effectively five across midfield when defending (Nolan drops back from his supporting striker role). Only one of Newcastle three home games as gone unders but because of the way Wigan set-up I think under2.5 goals is a good option here. I’m also inclined to have a small bet on the Wigan (+0.5) as a feel the price is too big especially if you consider Wigan are unbeaten away from home and Newcastle have lost their last two home games.

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Hopefully it will be a profitable weekend on the football bets. Had a few nice winners this week in my horse racing bets which makes my figures look a little better, currentley in profit for October at the mid-point of the month.

End of the week update

2010-10-11T00:00:00.004+01:00

Decided to post a little end of the week update. But my main reason for posting is to say I'm taking some time off from Betfair, I've withdrawn a £100 from my account and left in just the £20 which I will use for small bets but only on rare occassions. I don't consider myself skilled or disciplined enough to trade on Betfair daily. I've mentioned it before but I've not got much going on at all betting wise, the occassional horse racing selections and football tips. Although finding the football not so successful so far this year I think I definitely prefer horse racing betting as for me at least it's proven to be the most profitable. Football is a very difficult game to try and predict largely because there's usually only a small difference in terms of goals between the teams and finding value can be difficult especially on the well-known leagues. Plus the majority of times I'm betting around the evens mark meaning a strike rate of 50% needs to be attained whereas Horse Racing system tend to have higher average odds but require a much lower strike rate. However I'm going to continue with my PL picks and review my results and situation in the new year.

Anyway here's my overview page which I use to keep track of all the money I have in my various bookmakers accounts as well as my overall year profit. Still working at a loss for the year after September's disaster but the real damage as occured in my Betfair account which is a large reason behind my decision to take time away from it.

Bye, bye laying system hello trading time

2010-10-09T20:53:00.003+01:00

On the back of the really poor performance last month and the equal poor start to this month I've decided to ditch my laying system for the time being, need to inspect why such a massive downturn as occured over such a short period of time after it appeared to be working perfectly fine for the previous four months.

In the meantime I've only got £100 left in my betfair account left to play with after the losses incurred by my laying system. I've decided i'm going to opt for trying my hand at trading, hopefully discplined and successful trading. But I haven't been to successful in the past at trading but this time I'm going to focus soley on football matches. I'd like to try and average 1% per day in profit based on bank size at the beginning of the day, although I don't plan to trade every day. All my trades are going to be in-play mainly across the match odds and over/under goals markets. I had a decent start tonight by locking in a decent profit on the Israel v Croatia after Croatia went 1-0, they've actually gone on to score another before half-time. Therefore at half-time my biggest green looks the most likely, I'll of course keep you updated on how my betfair trades are going as well as all my other bets. Although it's all a bit quite this weekend with the international football.

A successful trade by me!

The magic of the Johnson's Paint Trophy

2010-10-06T22:09:00.002+01:00

Doesn't have the same ring to it does it? But the Johnson's Paint Trophy definitley provided a wonderful, magical game of football tonight in the form of Sheffield Wednesday Vs Chesterfield. Probably made all the more sweet by the fact that I profited well from this game, firstly on my original over 2.5 goals bet and secondly a much bigger win on the match odds market. These are the sort of games that all traders out there love, one like tonight's which keeps changing in outcome from draw to away win to draw and back to away win again. Thankfully I managed to be on the right end of all the swings tonight and got the feeling of what it's like to be a successful trader (don't get that feeling very often I must say).

But the night very much belongs to football, as it was a very entertaining game that ended in dramatic penalty shoot-out which ended with Chesterfield's goalkeeper missing their 11th spot kick and seeing Sheff Wed progess through to the next round.

Europe win the Ryder Cup!

2010-10-04T22:10:00.004+01:00

Got to love the Ryder Cup, undoubtley one of the best sporting events around. I myself managed to get back in to watch the final stages on television. Pure sporting drama as the USA forced it down to the final game with McDowell thankfully holding out and meaning Europe win the Ryder Cup!

Ole! Ole! Ole!

Back to my betting adventure and I thought it would be a good time to display a graph of my horse racing laying system which went totally off the rails in September, although my aggressive staking plan is probably partly to blame for the downfall, but I'm now operating with a more conservative staking plan due to uncertainty, the system seems to have steadied itself over the last week or hopefully the upward trend which I witnessed from May up until August will return. Graph show cumulative P/L over the number of selections.

Click to enlarge

September Review and lots of rain!

2010-10-03T12:05:00.003+01:00

Just a fairly brief September update from me, in truth there's not much to say apart from that it's been a terrible, terrible month in terms of betting performance. My laying system is down over £900 for the month and a few of my other horse racing systems are down for the month combine that with a few lapses in discipline and you get a rather painful loss of over £4k for the month, wiping out all my profit for the year so far. In part I've only got myself to blame my lapses in discipline and using a much bigger % of my bank on Betfair on bets than I should be has been the primarily reasons for this, possibly born out of frustration by the way my systems have been performing. Glad to say I haven't been placing any silly bets or attempting trades with big % of my bank since a few Sunday's ago where I lost big after three goals in the space of five minutes in a Serie A. The full damage (not for the fainted-hearted) in exact figures is shown in my P/L sidebar.

Obviously a big set-back but I like to take everything a month at a time my aim now is to make a profit for October. A lot of my horse racing system don't run during for October because I find it is very tricky to find good horse racing systems for this period of the year. Therefore my main focus at the minute is football, both my own bets (which have been average so far this season) and other football tipsters I follow. There's two new bets up on my blogabet for today's Premier League games by the way.

Finally the subject of weather, it can be crucial in decision-making for your bets. For horse racing I suspect everyone knows the significance of changes in ground, heavy ground can make races a lot more unpredictable and can making betting a bit of lottery. I also recall a Brazilian football game I bet on last year I think it was, there was a complete downpour of rain and the pitch was barely playable as the ball kept stopping in puddles, they continued though and I managed a nice trade on under 2.5 goals on that game which dropped by around 0.50 in the space of the first fifteen minutes due to the state of the weather and pitch. I also mention rain because it annoys me highly, was looking forward to watching the conclusion on the Ryder Cup today but it appears another downpour of rain has meant that the Singles won't be played till tommorrow (at which time I'll be stuck in some University lecture).

Suprise, suprise or no suprise?

2010-09-27T20:10:00.002+01:00

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.