End of October Update

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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.