Making Progress

Apart from the small football loss in the early hours of Monday, I had a rest from trading. It was an emotional rollercoaster at QPR and I didn't feel like doing much when I got home other than chill.

We were nine minutes from being champions when Hull decided to spoil the show with their only shot on target. However when our game finished we were promoted so long as Norwich didn't get a very late goal. Of course we all know what happened in the sixth minute of injury time which put a dampener on the afternoon. Pundits have been saying how we are as good a promoted but I don't agree. We are six points ahead of Cardiff with a 13 goal difference which could reasonably be overturned. We never beat Watford at Vicarage Road which if other results don't go our way will leave a rather nervy last game at home to Leeds.

The small break must have done me some good as I has a marvellous Tuesday evenings trading. I was juggling between the horses and a couple of early snooker frames of the evening session. I also traded a successful Homer in the Stoke game and put a lay on the draw in the Man.U game just as they scored and was disappointed that it wasn't matched.

I broke all the rules by laying a greyhound to win £25 or lose quite a bit more. But it was no ordinary greyhound. This one was called Miss Betfair and it came last.

Homing In On Profit

Another horse huff and puff session with lots of effort without reward. You can see from the image below that I lost close to £70 on the closing races. I seem to regularly have a good start only for it to be undone towards that end. It must be due to fatigue that results in loss of concentration.

Most of the snooker profit was gained yesterday when Higgins was playing Mcloed. Higgin's price at the start of each frame was an incredibly low 1.45 so there was plenty of room to manoeuvre thoughout each frame.

The football was an experience as I successfully led the Trading Football community through trading an Argentinian game between Arsenal and Gimnasia using the Homer strategy. The winning result showed a 32% roi. It really was a responsible and pressured experience until the first goal, as it was not just my cash at risk. I also led an unsuccesful trade at 12.15 in the morning where there were about 30 others burning the midnight oil. The exit was at half time and meant a small loss of £10 but any players that decided to stick it out were rewarded as the final score of 2-1 meant that one part of the strategy which was the  U2.5 lay at 1.68 came home.

The TF community has really grown over the past couple of months with some great characters old and new. It's such a pleasure entering into discussions with other members without any fear of abuse. Everyone supports each other and we are a close bunch which is suprising in such a virtual world. 

So £32 has been gained over the past couple of days. Not alot but at least it's in the right direction.

Off to QPR soon for the game with Hull. A win will guarantee promotion and the championship so will be an emotional afternoon if all goes to plane. Just hope we don't get bitten in the bum by losing points after the hearing next week.

Who Needs The Horses

A day when everything goes to plan is very rare but I acheived it without any horse racing and finished the day with a satisfying £123.

I wasn't even trading all day. The morning was spent trading a handful of snooker frames, earning £53 followed by an afternoon out with the family. I traded two football games using my newly named Homer. This is the strategy backing 1-0 1-1 2-0 and laying u2.5. The main criteria is to find a game with a fairly strong home team with a low u2.5 price. I sometimes take a risk and place the back bets while waiting for the u2.5 to drop to at least 1.80. I make sure that I pick a game that will reach 1.80 within 5 minutes of the start. It is a guaranteed winning strategy if the home team scores at any time.

I chose the Nottingham Forest v Leicester game as they both needed to push for the win. I layed u.5 6 minutes into the game and a few minutes later Homer was landed as Forest took the lead. With ten minutes to go and the scores at 1-1 I layed the current score to win an extra £15. 

My other game was Sligo v Bohemians. I recommended this game in the Footbal Trading chatroom but I don't think anyone else traded this game. U2.5 was a staggering 1.46 pregame and absolutely perfect for the Homer. Sligo scored early in the first half and the job was done. Better still, the game ended 1-2. I layed 1-2 with 15 minutes to go but there were no more goals. I should really accept my win and not be greedy to try and make extra gains.

Generally I put at risk about £70 to win £30. I will look to increase the risk over the next few weeks.

Hearts v Motherwell looks great for Homer. U2.5 is currently 1.73 on Betfair. Hearts are out on their own in 3rd place and I am hoping for a typical relaxed end of season game where goals will easily arrive. After note: I have noticed that this is not in play.

Good luck to QPR as they take on Cardiff live on BBC1 later today. I never trade a QPR game but I am expecting goals in the is one.

There is plenty of racing today but I won't be trading them intensively. I will just dip in and out. 

Thy Cup Runneth Over

I couldn't resist that title after having more than a chuckle watching the Real Madrid player drop the Spanish Cup trophy from the top of an open top bus only for it to fall beneath the wheels. It must have been a smashing night!

I do like reading Peter Webbs Bet Angel blog and I have a lot of time for his opinions and thoughts but one of his recent posts really challenged me! It challenged me into thinking what the hell was he going on about. So much so that I had to read it three times over to make sure that I didn't miss anything. I am sure there was nothing to miss. His last sentence said "so that's what I aim to acheive in 2011'. Please can someone explain to me what it actually is that he wants to acheive because I seem to be incapable to grasp what he's trying to say. Perhaps my educational background leaves me lacking in understanding.  Click here to see for yourself and then answers on a postcard.

Over the past four days I have profited by pennies under £100. That's just enough to push me back into the green. Football let me down as I traded the wrong side of the Tranmere v Notts.co. game. I could have settled for a loss of about £20 but did a couple of speculative gambles which didn't come off and ended up down by £58. I am making steady progress going in play on the horses and have even dabbled in the Australian version.

Happy Sunday

A profitable weekend which leaves me just £63 down for the month but it could have been so much more. Saturdays steady progress was undone when I lost £88 on one race. I only have myself to blame as the only two losses over £10 were in races of 7f which I shouldn't have been trading in play. I was down pre-race and thought that I could make it up in play. I must keep to my own rules of never going in play under 1.5 miles. The IPL ensured I ended up in a green position.

Sunday was much better as I reached three figures for the first time in seven weeks. It started early in the morning when I was suprised to see Vettels very low price of 1.5 a few minutes before the start. I layed him for £100 and was very happy to see him struggle off the start. The price shot up to 4 but then settled to around 2.7 before I started to take the profits. In the middle of the race it was interesting to see his price fall to well under 2's when he was still in third place. I should have gone back into the market but I settled for my £46 and moved on.

I traded a handful of horse races and was dispappointed at my final result of £9 as I managed to lose £25 in the last race. It was a good day with the Football. I layed 0-0 with about 15 minutes to go. I secured the profit thanks to Arsenals late penalty and saw a good opportunity when Liverpool had their free kick just as time was almost up. The price for 1-1 was 13's and I thought that it was too high as the FK was in a very good position. It was surely worth putting a measly £2 on it even if it was almost the last kick. The FK didn't come off but naturally I was delighted to see a penalty awarded a few seconds later and that it was converted. To finish the day I successfully traded my signature strategy (I must think up a name for it).  Laying a low priced U2.5 with correct scores of 1-0 1-1 2-0. As you can tell my stakes are generally small for Football and I need to have more scores go against me so I can work my way out of them with minimal loss before increasing them.

Lucklily I steered clear of the featured game at Trading Football which was Bolton V Stoke. Nobody could have predicted 0-3 after 30 minutes and while the service tried  to get the best out of a bad situation, it is a reminder to everyone that  whilst we enjoy the best fruits of success, these sort of games pop up now and then that no stats can predict. The real test is how you manage the position when it all goes against you and Bingo whilst accepting a loss was inevitable, led the troops to as minimal a loss as possible.

Huff & Puff

£93 may seem a satisfactory result but when it has been acheived over the course of 11 hours and 48 races, £20 of which was a late night US race it is disappointing. At least I have made a significant reduction to the month's red but I would have been happier with an average of £4 per race. £200 would have been a good return for all that huff and puff.

I lost a little on the football but to be honest they have all been gambles rather than trades over the last few days. All I did yesterday  was lay the current score late in the Norwich game. I need to get back into the routine of actually trading the games and what better way to start than with the Manchester Derby

There is plenty of other sport this weekend. World Snooker starts today and I will be dipping in and out of the frame market. Sunday there is the Chinese Grand Prix and the Marathon. IPL continues and it is interesting to see that out of the completed 13 matches, 10 have been won by the team chasing.

Red Alert

Well, so much for the miracle at Tottenham!

The last couple of days have been a bit of a mixed bag. I am comfortable with my in play  horse strategy for the races over 1.5 mile. What I am falling down on is that I try to dabble in the sprints which is just not the correct thing to do because it is a 'luck' thing rather than my clearly defined longer race strategy. I am off work today so I am going to do the marathon 50 races and just pre-race in the sprints and see where that take me.

 

My football exploits over the last couple of days have not been great. I thought that the LDU game would produce lots of goals seeing as it was a group qualfier decider that both needed to win. In the end I was thankful for the tiny profit across the markets because I fell asleep midway through the first half. Not a great strategy to take! Then there's the Tottenham game where my dreams of a nice grand was just that...a dream!

I did an SHS on the Braga game on 60 minutes. If I followed the strat correctly I should have been out before the end but I decided to let it run thinking that Kiev would go all out for the goal they needed leaving themselves exposed at the back but they never really pushed hard and the goal never came.

My P&L this month does not make good reading but I am an eternal optimist and I am determined to pull it back. As you can see from the monthly summary I need to make £17.49 per day for a green month.

Almost There

A narrow win at Barnsley by Warnocks blue and White army means that we are eleven points clear of third place with 15 points to play for. Our vastly superior goal difference is worth an extra point so a win on Monday at home to Derby and we are back in the promised land.

It has been an unbelievable season. It has not always been the Taarabt show, the whole squad has worked very hard and played as a team. However the best signing has been Neil Warnock. His team selection, tactics, and man management skills cannot be faulted. I am sure that if the result goes our way on Monday it will be an emotional night!

I only hope that Blackpool can survive the drop so that we can be assured of some points and welcome the legend that is Holloway back to Loftus Road for a Premier Leage Game.

As for the trading. It was a total disaster. I did a combination of pre race and in play during the twilight meetings and I lost over £100 overall thanks to leaving a bet in the market. Same old same old! Why can I never leave a lay in, at least I would have more of a chance. The bet was on the favourite and of course the jockey gets wind that Handy has left a bet in so let's go slow to teach him a lesson! So that's about £250 down for the month. Happy days!

A friend of a friend knows someone who hears voices foretelling the future. I don't know if that is after he has had 10 pints and a bottle of Jack down the local but his advice is to lay the arse off Real Madrid to qualify coz it's deffo going to happen. I will be sticking a £10 liability on at 1.01 and if it comes off I will strip naked and dance around my webcam for all to see!

To Fix Or Not To Fix

Having secured an all round profit inside 12 minutes of the Liverpool game, my attention was focussed on the Serie B game between Modena and Atalanta. The draw pre-match was 1.9 with 83% of the match odds on the draw. 0-0 started at about 4's with most of the money on 0-0 with hardly any cash on the other draws. This scenario has appeared in Serie B games over the last couple of weekends and the final result has been the anticipated draw.

Very early in the second half Atalanta scored but incredibly the draw price was still lower than the leading teams price. I thought along with a few of my Trading Football buddys that here was a nice easy earner and backed draw and sure enough with about ten minutes left Modena equalised. Naturally the draw crashed to the floor as if it was the last minute and I reduced my red a little on Atalanta  but didn't green up fully as the game looked like (it was on Betfair Video) it was heading for the draw that everyone expected. However you just know that when Handy is involved in a game things are never as simple as they are supposed to be and in the last minute Atalanta scored. There was just enough time for Modena to hit then post but it ended 1-2 and I lost £18 and at the same time confirmed that just because a price is particularly low, it does not mean that the game will end that way. Next time I will steer clear. There's never a dull day in Handyland!

That gambling loss ate into my earlier trading profit which meant I ended the evening with a loss because I also had a bad session with the twilight and US horses.

Liverpool v Man.City Trade

Under 2.5 at 1.76 is good enough for me to lay. I am complimenting this with correct scores 1-0 1-1 2-0 so if Liverpool score I win without any sub trades. If it's 0-0 after 30 minutes I will look to reduce red. If Man City score first then I have the lay of U2.5 and 1-1 to use to amend my position.

12 minutes work - Job done

A Mixed Day

It was a very mixed day on Sunday but in the end a hard earned £70 which is greatfully received after a very poor start to the month.

When my Horse Racing session started I was already just over £100 down thanks to poor decisions in the Grand Prix and the early morning Spanish second division game between Xerex and Betis. Every horse race was traded entirely in play and I was more than satisfied with the end result. I then lost a little more in the football markets as I tried a BS on the Villa v Newcastle game. However, the evening ended with a nice profit on the Masters as I layed McIlroy as he stood on the 1st tee.

Opinion

No matter how many temporary email addresses I set up and delete, the system and software emails keep on coming. I tend to take a little look to see if there really is something that can benefit me but 99% of the time it's just deleted. There were two unique products that landed in my inbox recently which caught my attention.

BetTornado for the iPad

The introduction of the BetTornado app couldn't have been timed better as I had just received my new iPad. It has been put together from Juicestorm with whom I used to follow in the days of their radio broadcasts. The application looks very smart and professional. It uses a verticle scrolling ladder w with various features neatly positioned. The hedge feature is a particular welcome addition.

It is a useful application to place bets/lays on the move but I wouldn't recommend using it on fast moving markets such as in play Horse Racing  as scrolling the vertical ladder to catch up with the current price can be rather like trying to catch a fly.  Also it is not immediately obvious when a market turns in play. It definately needs some kind of audio reminder. In any case, anyone with an iPad should judge for themselves as it's free.

Market Monitor

This puzzles me greatly. I think the software is dangerous to anyone trading the horses in play  especially the newbies starting to trade in the dangerous in play markets yet all I ever come across are positive reviews. Am I the only one with an opposing view or is everyone on an affiliate commision? 

The software gives a visual indication by way of a horizontal bar of the odds of each of the runners which is an interesting view if you are not actually watching the race but the major flaw  which is absolutely fundamental is that you can only make a bet or lay with the current price. There is no way you can put an advanced trade. You don't have to be Einstein to know that the prices can be very volitile towards the end of a race so if you decide to lay a horse flashing up at 1.20, by the time you release your finger with that £50 lay, the price could have jumped to 3, 4 or even higher and you are left with a liability of £200 instead of £10 with the horse getting a second wind and winning the race.  You are better off using the standard Betfair grid on their website because at least you can choose from three prices. It is interesting to see that the inplay examples only use £2 and in one example £2 is backed to win 8 pence

It is available to buy at a staggering £3 short of £300 and is not available on a monthly subscription. My response to that would be that if it was available monthly nobody would buy the second month! Why pay £297 when Geek is free!

I would be interested to know who are the 'small group of traders' that are using this software and also which in play product was selling at £2,000 recently? The software has been developed by Mark Baker who is the well respected man behind the excellent Laybot Pro which is why I am even more suprised at the finished version of MM. To be fair to him, he has put together many comprehensive videos (including samples of in play action which clearly shows the volatility)  thus making it clear just what you are purchasing. I can also tell that he is passionate about his product which just adds to the craziness of it all. If MM can have added some kind of limiter where it won't place a lay over a user defined price then at least it will cover the major calamity of accidentally laying at a grossly inflated price in error.

I have put up two different links. One is here and the other is in the MM title. Like I said at the beginning, all I have seen is praise for this product so please let me know if it's just me or are there others with my same view. Is there anyone who has bought the product and happy wth it? Please let me know.

If you disagree with me then my two links will undoubtably mean lots of extra sales for MM which will all go to Paul as you will not be suprised to learn that I am not an affiliate.

ADDED - 17.10 Ludlow, perfect example of what could happen.  Theatre Diva went down to under 1.10 then instantly shooting out to 3-4's (which could have been the actual price by the time the lay was clicked) before winning the race!

Anyway, I am trading the horses in play this afternoon using free software and will see whether I can get some profits out of the last round of the Masters this evening.

Remember Me!

As most bloggers who have regular jobs will testify, it takes dedication to regularly publish posts and at the same time so easy to down tools and disappear into the abyss of blogging history. I didn't plan to stop posting, it just wasn't a priority and the longer you leave it, the harder it is to focus on restarting it.

It has been three months since my last post and during this time I have been receiving quite a few comments and emails. At first it was mainly negative abuse towards my selling pitch but more recently I have received comments and direct emails encouraging me to restart it.

With the evening racing nearly upon us giving me more trading opportunities, I have decided to make a determined effort to regularly post again. No talk of spreadsheets (note I have removed my last post about it). It will focus purely on my emotional highs and lows of that fantastic drug that is sports trading and my opinions on any relevant pieces of news that may crop up.

During these three months my Horse strategy has totally changed. I was fed up with the stresses and strains of the pre-race markets where I was making small profits only to make some kind of cock up such as going in play or accidentally leaving bets in the markets.  Yes I was green at the end of each month but for all the emotional effort and turmoil it was just not enough. So I decided to meet my nemises head on and work on an inplay strategy throughout my available weekends. It's been an interesting time with some very hair-raising moments. I was hit big in one race where I had layed the third place horse who had just started to struggle when the front two fell but apart from that I have come through it relatively unscathed.  

What is important whilst trading in play is to keep calm and remember your exit strategy at all times. I now know that the reason I lost far more than I won when I went inplay accidentally was because I was in blind panic with no structure of how I was going to get out of it.

You can appreciate that I don't want to reveal my way of trading other than to say it only applies to distances over 2 miles, preferably over hurdles or fences. I can clearly tell that there are a few traders using the same sort of strategy. It is not laying at very high odds but it does involve reasonably high prices of between 15 and 30 in particular scenarios with many backs and lays. I aim to profit each race with at least £7.50 which adds up to a considerable sum over the session. I still do a little pre race trading during the sprints but it is not so intense as  before as I know that the inplay races are going to give me green.

My football trading is consistantly profitable and it really is thanks to the Trading Football community led my Bingo and Adster. I am not in their forums as much as I used to be but I make sure that I contribute at least twice a week and I always read their excellent daily emails which give early tips and strategies for their TOTD (Trade Of The Day). 

I have recently developed my own strategy which involves finding a game where U2.5 is priced under 1.7. I lay that market and back 1-0 1-1 and 2-0 giving me a small profit on the CS but a lovely jubbly if there is a goal spree. If the home team score I win no matter what else happens. If it's 0-0 after 30 minutes I look to start reducing losses. I used to put a little bit on the 0-0 as insurance but now I more confident with exit strategies I now would rather take te risk and manage the reds. If the away team score first then U2.5 goes out and 1-1 comes in and there is enough potential profit sloshing around that I can minimise my risk but still give me profitable opportunities.You will be suprised how many of these low odds U2.5's end up as overs.

The strategy that really brings rewards is the SHS but more on that next time. I have been lucky enough to get hold of an iPad2 on it's launch day so I will also give my views on the newly released Bet Tornado app for the iPad and also how an already excellent iBetmate on iPhone is even better when it is magnified to fit the iPad.

I will update my stats in the top right section tomorrow.