Collecting My Own Nuggets

I know I have started to fall into my old habits of long periods without posting but to be honest the week has gone very quickly and it feels like only yesterday that I had my big win. I owe that big win to the nugget crew over at  Trading Football because I left an open position while I was following the conversations in the chat room and it is with them that I am convinced is the way forward for me during these Autumn & Winter evenings. I traded the horses on Thursday as I was not working and I continued right through the US racing. There was also the weekend but there has been little opportunity at any other time and I must find another sport to concentrate on. I have been trading some of the greyhounds quite well but it's boring and not really for me.

You will probably think I am obsessed but I have spent most evenings in the football chatroom, studying their videos and learning the strategies. I have really put all my energies into making this work and the people there are so accomodating.

The Betfair Guru left a comment in my lost post which says:

Good steady growth and a decent set of results.
Although if the football profits are anything to go by, I think I've done well to avoid the nuggets this long!!

He has totally missed the point. The football P&L he refers to was using my poor strategies. It has only been since Monday the 6th September that I have joined the nugget service and my whole concept of trading the footie games has been totally overhauled. I have been using lower stakes this past week and the results have been positive. On Wednesday the football profit was £67 and tonight I reached just over £100. I have looked through my football data since I started this blog in April and the highest profit I acheived before this week was £46 on the 12th June. I have passed that total twice this week. That is no coincedence.

One of the regular guys on the football site has a blog http://soccercompounding.blogspot.com. He has an interesting challenge where he is trying to reach £2000 by the end of the year starting with just a £100 bank.

Just to show that there is no motive for me singing the praises of Trading Football, please try it out if football is your fancy by going through the above blog. There is a link to Trading Football although for some reason it doesn't show if you are using the new update Firefox 3.9.

Earlier this week I received an email from Betfair inviting me to a free advanced course of trading held in London. The first is on 7th October with one in November and December. There was nothing discussed on the Betfair forums and no other blog that I subscribe to has mentioned it either. I am very curious as to how many of these invites were mailed. It seems a very unusual thing for them to do. Unfortunately when I applied I was too late as all three days were full.

The email read:

We would like to invite you to attend a free training seminar, the sessions are designed to be fun and informative, giving you a chance to meet Betfair representatives and like-minded fellow users. We appreciate your continued loyalty and would like to thank you in person. So please take time to look through the information provided and book yourself on the course of your choice.

Pre Requisites
To attend this course you should have a good knowledge of the Betfair betting platform and be accustomed to placing bets on it, with a decent working knowledge of the settings and functionality of the site. You would ideally understand the fundamental differences between Betfair and the high street bookmaker and how an exchange operates. You will need an awareness of the theory behind trading, either backing and laying the same selection or multiple selections in the same event.

Course Content

• Sports Trading Environment - Learn the ideal set up for betting or trading from home, everything from internet connections, TV subscriptions and suggested channels  to computer specifications and just about everything required for the ideal home set up.
• Betting Banks - We explain how a relatively small daily percentage profit on your capital can be achieved. 
• Preserving capital - Learn why winning is less important than not losing. Why preserving capital is far more important than winning a bet.
• Hedging – Green book - Learn how to turn a potential profit into a certain and guaranteed win. Learn how to reduce, minimise or even eliminate a potential loss.
• Price leverage - Find out how to average your position and how it can drastically improve your odds and results.
• Laying or backing multiple selections in the same market – Horses and Football -  Using the percentages to your advantage. How to bet on multiple outcomes and secure profit no matter which one of the outcomes is the eventual result of the event.
• Cold trading. This is trading an event before it starts. It shows the differences between pre event betting and in play betting and the differences in market behaviour
• Graphs - Learn how to read graphs and trends what information you can gain from using them.
• Signals - Learn how the markets move and why and what events will create movement. Learn to read the signals and market trends and discover how to recognise resistance points and the top and bottom of the market.
• Trading Mentality - We explain the correct thought processes for making sound decisions. Take the emotion out of potential mental minefields and dilemmas and have a more methodical approach.
• API Products - Learn the basics of the various API products. What they are, what they do, how to use them, how to access them and discover which product suits your style and technique. API products are like cars, they all do very similar things but are quite different under the bonnet. 
• Volatility - Find out which markets are volatile and fast moving and change direction in an instant and which are slow and steady and only move one way until an event occurs that changes them. 
• Analysis - This is the process of researching an event and coming to a conclusion on which position to take during the event. We take you step by step through the process of researching and analysing various upcoming matches and how to take advantage of what  you find out.
• Knowing your sport - Teaches the benefits of having thorough knowledge and the advantages of focussing on one specialist sport and becoming an expert on that subject or the versatility of spreading your knowledge across a wide range of sports and markets to take advantage of the many opportunities that arise daily.  
• Short Priced favourites - Watch and learn how to take a position on a red hot favourite and make money after the event has barely even started.
• Danger signs - Find out what the danger signs are. When to stop trading, when to take a break and when to walk away. 

Specific SportsWe will be exploring the various Betfair markets and the idiosyncrasies of several mainstream  sports and how their markets differ in behaviour before and during the event.  Some examples are cold trading, volatility, liquidity, liability and other market related techniques. 

• Horse Racing
• Football
• Cricket
• Tennis
• Golf

Learning Outcomes

Anyone that takes this course will leave at the conclusion with the following learning outcomes. They will be taught how to do everything below in detail and be shown live examples of the vast majority of subjects.

• Optimum  time to Back
• Optimum time to Lay
• Hedging
• Offsetting
• Scalping
• Using Software
• Select trades - Analysis
• Manage positions
• Utilise trading tools
• In play trading
• In running race trading
• How markets move and why
• Discipline and Mental approach.
• Associated markets
• The different methods of trading relating to market type. I.e. Elections and X – Factor v Football and Racing

Conclusion

The Advanced Sports Trading course will transform your Betfair experience by giving you knowledge and confidence to improve your performance in markets you are currently active in and enjoy. It will give you the courage and desire to explore new sports and markets that you may previously have believed you did possess the ability to enable success. It will teach you that sports trading is not just for those with years of experience, it can be mastered and enjoyed by anyone armed with some knowledge and confidence and a little bit of training. To succeed at most things in life we need to be trained and shown how to do it properly using every advantage available and this course will give you the tools to become a highly proficient sports trader. If going full time is not your goal, the course will allow you to drastically improve your strike rate on winning trades, allowing you to stay in the game for far longer and get a much more enjoying experience from your trading activities.

Food and beverages will be supplied on the day.

It sounds really good. Maybe I got an invite as Betfair could see that I have real potential. Perhaps they think I can get to a position of paying the premium charge!

If anyone else has received this mail or better still have made it onto the course I would be very interested to know. It will be good to hear a report on how the day went.