Update Since Last Friday

I was thinking about where I want to go with this blog. It was supposed to be a diary of my sports trading which was dominated by my up and down horse racing exploits in the early days. Then after a few months neglect I seem to be posting regularly but this has not been a concious effort, I have just been recording the success I am acheiving with my strategy.

I am surprised but appreciative with the numbers that continue to follow the blog but having read back all my entries this year is it really interesting to see post after post about the Homer?  It is for me but I don't think it is for most. I also think it gives the impression of arrogance which in actual fact is the last thing I want to portray. Perhaps it's just the excitement that after years of struggling I have actually got something solid to build on.

I mentioned previously that I was going to trade the horses less and focus on the parts of trading that I am consistently good at. With the main evening racing over it was always going to happen anyway but strangely I really miss getting stuck in with those ladders. It has always been stressful and frustrating but I still feel drawn to it however it is going to be very difficult to find time for a session or two on weekends or the odd late meeting on weekdays but I am going to try to make the effort.

Anyway, so where is all this waffle leading?

Well as usual I don't really know other than to say that I will make it more interesting by including all my other sports trades although my Homer progress will always be the main topic.

So let's bring things up to date on the Homer front.

Sat 24/9 Derby v Millwall - What a strange set of prices that was.  At the time Derby was 4th and Millwall was 16th. Friday's MO price for Derby was 2.50 but throughout Saturday morning the price drifted and at KO was 3.20 whilst Millwall was 2.60. How could that be? It just didn't make any sense! In the past I have left these games alone but Derby's CS prices were very meaty so I would have been foolish to have ignored the opportunity. The trade was the HomerDog the result was 3-0 and the job done! ROI 38.26%

Sat 24/9 West Brom v Fulham - This one was not so good. I had 0-0 scalped which gave me the extra minutes but it seemed more obvious as they game progressed that this was going to end 0-0. ROI -37.75%

Mon 26/9 Norwich v Sunderland - This game played out perfectly for the Homer but I made a staking error when I layed the unders which meant that my profit was short on what it should have been. ROI 20.13%.

Tue 27/9 Derby v Barnsley - Another winner but this was lucky as it could have easily been a loss. Barnsley had taken the lead against the run of play. At HT the single stake loss was only £8 thanks to the 1-1 price which was far lower than it usually is. The exit point is £20 and I was £1 short of that when Derby equalised in the 62nd min. Another 30 seconds and I would have started exiting. The scenario of a 0-1 HT score normally means a potential loss of about £12 which would allow the trade to continue until 55 mins. It finished 1-1 which is the highest green. ROI 39.97%..The profit for September would be just short of £280 if using single stakes.

In addition to the Derby Homer I made two speculative lays. One was laying 2-3 in the Man. Utd game as they seem to score very late regularly and that paid off. The other was laying 1-1 in the Derby game on 89 minutes for minimal liability. Unfortunately that didn't come off.

Back to Reality

On Wednesday I traded Leece v Atalanta which was all over within the first minute when Atalanta scored a penalty. The insurance ensured the scratch. It is such a disappointment having spent considerable time scalping the 0-0 and working hard to get the best CS prices and then finding it's all over before it has even started. The ROI was 6.67%. 

I was scratching around for something to jump on and noticed that the Cardiff v Leicester game had developed into HomerActive territory.  I entered the market on 30 minutes and the home goal came two minutes later. This time I didn't mind the quick goal. It was an instinctive move to trade it and thus I didn't have time to post it on facebook so it won't go down on my results spreadsheet.

Thursday's Homer pick was Espanyol v Getafe and what a dire game it was. It really was painful to watch. I had a very strong 0-0 green which kept me in the trade until 60 minutes but nothing could save me. I was even surprised to see that Espanyol managed to find the net at the very end. ROI -38.30%.

On Friday Elche v Almeria had Homer prices but I didn't fancy it and was worried that the second division game would not have enough in play liquidity.  It would have traded exactly as Leece with the away goal scored in the very first minute. It would have been interesting to trade at the end as there were two goals scored in the third and fourth minute of injury time.

I purchased a three month subscription of the PMT (Pre Match Trading) tool when it was launched at the start of the season but I have been so wrapped up with these Homers that I haven't given PMT the attention it deserves. The reports I have been hearing have been excellent  and I will be making a concious effort to use it over the weekend. For anyone that doesn't know about this tool it predicts which way the prices are likely to move over various football markets. Check out the video below.

Woof!

I have mentioned previously that I have developed a family of Homer strategies. Apart from the main strat which is where the vast majority are picked from, I also have the HomerActive and HomerDog. To be honest the strong success of Homer over the past few weeks has meant that I have rather neglected it's smaller siblings. 

The HomerActive has a very similar structure to Homer but it starts in play from anywhere between the 20th and 30th minutes where the score is still 0-0. There is an element of risk as the trades are not executed at the same time. It can also be a bit frantic as the prices are rapidly on the move but the rewards are higher and the max loss is the same as Homer. There is only a very rough idea pre-match which games may lead to an opportunity but the decision to pick will be made around 15 minutes in play and even then it could be scuppered by a goal. The structure is not black and white, every Active trade is slightly different to each other which makes it very difficult to document it. Only top league games with plenty of liquidity can be traded as a group as otherwise there will not be enough cash in the market to go around

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The HomerDog is a strat that I have been testing on and off over the past few months. It's main objective is for a home team goal where the away team is a strong favourite. It is not often that I find a game where I strongly feel that the MO prices are wrong and it's this opinion that can lead to a HomerDog opportunity. The game that stood out a mile for me was Crystal Palace v Middlesbrough. Crystal Palace were approx 3.3 and Middlesbrough 2.3. I assume Middlesbrough were priced low as they had won six out of six league and cup away games including a 1-0 win at Selhurst Park last weekend. However Carling Cup games normally lead to large team changes and this is exactly what these two teams did making the stats for each teams recent form irrelevant.  As you would expect with a big underdog, the CS prices were much higher. 1-0 was 12.50, 2-0 was 22's.  I offered the trade in the TF green room and a few jumped on with me. Unders was much higher than the maximum entry point so we took extra cover on the FG with the aim of executing the lay on 20 minutes. We could afford to do this thanks to the very high CS prices. In  the end the home goal came in the 18th minute which was just short of the lay but gained a profit from the FG and CS with an ROI OF 39%. It was picked on facebook so is added to the results spreadsheet.

I am nearly ready to document it and hopefully it will be included in MM at some point.

100 Not Out

Two from two winning picks on Sunday continued the success in September and took the profitable matches to 100. Septembers profit to single stakes has now passed £250.

Sun 18/9 Rangers v Celtic ROI 31.21%

Sun 18/9 Udinese v Fiorentina ROI 35.98%

Other games that TF members traded profitably which I steered clear of were Sunderland v Stoke and Napoli v AC Milan.

Septembers First Loss in Thirteen

After a traumatic week I was able to get back in the swing of things on Friday evening and decided to trade Indepiendiente v Colon. The CS prices were not the best so I asked for higher prices and got matched for all but the 1-0 an hour before KO. I had also scalped the 0-0 and was waiting for the lay side to complete it.

Meanwhile I had been notified by a tweeter that there was a competition running for a hospitality ticket at the Wolves game with a seat in the Directors box. I entered but naturally didn't think that anything would come of it. You can imagine my surprise and excitement when I discovered I had won. I was then busily making the arrangements before realising that not only had my traded game been running for fifteen minutes but that it had gone 0-1. My immediate panic was whether the 0-0 scalp lay had been matched as I would have suffured a massive loss had it not. Thankfully the newly introduced 'keep bets' in the football markets had saved me as I had been matched in play. I wasn't so lucky with the 1-0 which by now was obsolete. I had also failed to place my lay of u2.5 so I needed to use the 1-1 to exit which I was able to do with a very small loss.

There were no more goals in the game so had I traded the game properly it would have resulted in the strats acceptable max loss of 35% ROI so I have recorded it as a loss. The strat was never developed to go for thirteen games without loss so a red is to be expected. In fact red runs will occur now and again (as shown on my results tab) but as long as the long term trend maintains it's profitability then I will be comfortable.

I tweaked the stakes at the beginning of the month to give a slightly greater reward for an overs result and for the early goal before the lay but it has increased the max loss of single stakes from £20 to £23 giving an ROI of 35%. I will monitor this over the course of the next couple of weeks to see if the extra rewards are greater than the extra max loss and will make further stake changes if necessary.

I never trade a game involving QPR as I find my heart rules my head when it comes to decision making. However, the Wolves v QPR match had decent Homer prices and many would have thought that it was a reasonable opportunity to get involved. Every football strategy has an achilles heel. For the Homer it is to have a score of 0-2 if the CS market has not been exited after the first goal and where the unders lay has not been placed. Unfortunately this game highlighted the possibility and shows why it is critical to lay off the 1-1 as quickly as possible after the 0-1. In this game QPR scored their second two minutes after their first so hopefully most people were able to exit in time. The FG softens the blow considerably but the reality is that the full CS liability is lost and what was an approx small profit of £5 at 0-1 becomes a £15 loss at 0-2. It doesn't sound much at single stakes and is less than the strats acceptable max loss but you are left totally helpless with just 10 minutes of the game played rather than the larger opportuntity of the entire half. This has only happened in just two of my picks.

Thanks to Mark from Sportingbet.com for looking after me at Wolves. The hospitality, never ending food and drink and of course the win were all first class. It was a fabulous day out. I  never would have known that Beverley Knight is a Wolves supporter!

Had all of my September picks been followed using just single stakes which is having an initial liability of of approx £64 to exit at a max loss of £23. The trading bank would be £220 higher. This is after deduction of commission.

I am in the mood for some Horse trading this afternoon. Will try to multi task with the footie

Hope you like the new background!

The Run Continues But Is Now On Hold

There were four picks announced on Facebook over the weekend that were all winners.

Sat 10/9 Everton v Aston Villa ROI 30.85%

Sat 10/9 Coventry v Derby County ROI 23.35%

Sun 11/9 Birmingham v Millwall ROI 30.91%

Sun 11/9 Espanyol v Athletico Bilbao ROI 31.23%

I was a little anxious with the Espanyol game as I had already committed to a couple of the prices at multiple stakes but could not get a successful scalp pre-match. I don't like staking so high if I do not have cover on the 0-0. The game didn't fill me with positivity as goal mouth action was very limited. Thankfully Espanyol scored towards the end of the first half to keep this excellent run going which is now at eleven consecutive profits averaging at over 30% ROI and thirteen picks without a loss.

The ratio of losses against total matches picked is currently exactly 25%. So for every four games traded there is just the one loss.

I have not experienced one losing Homer trade in twelve this month.

Unfortunately I have a sudden and  important personal issue which is going to take up most of my time over the next few days. During this time I will not be looking out for any Homer picks or adding to this blog. My time with the TF community will be very limited but hopefully I will be back in the thick of it at the weekend but that cannot be guaranteed.

Lo to Hi in Shamrock

Let me make it clear. In last nights game between Shamrock and Sligo, anyone who did not scalp pre-game the result was a scratch plain and simple.

The game reached HT at 0-0 with little goalmouth action. The correct decision was to exit as per the strat description leaving the possibility of an escape if three goals were scored in the second half. However I also presented an option for those who were prepared to take a risk for an additional £15 loss. That was to close the CS which was showing a loss of £3 and leave the unders untouched and perhaps start to trade out if two quick goals materialised.

Shamrock scored on 60 minutes and to my surprise there were quite a few excited members stating that the Homer had succeeded. To be honest I was shocked as I realised that some members did not exit at all. The whole basis of making any kind of long term profit is to be totally disciplined. What is the point of having an exit strategy which some members choose to ignore. They had got away with it and went away with a £19.50 profit but they had risked the full liabilty of £65 to acheive this. It's not trading, it's gambling.

For those that chose the riskier option of closing the CS but leaving the unders market open, the 60th minute goal didn't make much impact so there was little option but to continue to leave the unders market open. Shamrock then had a player sent off which was not a good thing as you would expect them to park the bus to protect their lead. As far as the rest of us still in the trade were concerned it was almost certain curtains for the trade.

On the 80th minute Sligo equalised and unders rose to the price it had started at and the trade could be exited for a scratch, however everyone who had decided to risk that extra £15 decided to continue. One minute into injury time and Shamrock were down to nine men as another red card was issued. The last kick of the game Sligo scored and pandemonium broke out with the realisation that traders on single stakes had just won £46 an ROI of 73%.

There is nothing wrong with taking that extra risk and accept a higher loss but what is not acceptable is to continue blindly and risk it all.

For me and anyone else who had scalped the 0-0 it was a strong profit. As I had scalped 0-0 I was able to continue until 55 minutes when I closed the CS for a £10 profit. By this time unders had reached 1.05 so there was absolutely no point in doing anything with it and I had resigned myself that 3 goals would never be scored in the last 35 minutes and that it was likely that the trade would be my first red in 9 games. The rest is history as I collected the full overs profit plus my CS profit. An ROI of 90%.

Quickie

Just a quick post to say that the Estonia v Northern Ireland Homer pick was a winner. ROI 37.1%.  That's eight consecutive trades without a loss and just one scratch.

Not a bad result when the market had under 2.5 at almost 1.52 pre match.

I am under no illusion that this positive run won't go on forever and there will be a time again when Iosses will take up a large section of my spreadsheet but I am so pleased that the long term winning trend of my picks has been consistent throughout. I would be happy with a no loss strike rate of 60% but 74% is more than I ever imagined.

I don't just trade Homers as there simply isn't enough of them that I pick. You just can't trade every game where the prices fit. Research and constructive reasoning is required to give the best chance.

Football trading is definitely where my heart is.

A Geeks Toy Pro - Well Done

Having used AGT Pro since it's conception, I have always sung it's praises. Whilst not having all the trading features that competitors offer it had enough for most traders. The fact that it performs faster than all the opposition I have tried, it rarely crashes and that it's free has always given it the edge.

However, things have now changed big style. Paul over at Geek HQ has just released a beta version which is available for all to use which introduces an extensive amount of new features shown below:

1. The stop loss is finally here!

2. The stop loss includes a trailing stop, where the loss position decrements 1 tick for every tick the market moves in your favour.

3. A new menu option has been added to the Tools & default staking menu called “Use Global Tools”. When switched on, the tools behave as currently & apply to new bets placed on all markets. When switched off, a new Tools Toolbar appears at the top of the ladder & right of the grid which enables you to set tools at selection & market level.

4. Cancel Tools on Market Hedge - When switched on, this option will cancel all tools active on all bets in the market when the whole market is hedged using one of the various options.

5. Cancel Tools on Selection Hedge – When switched on, this option will cancel all tools active on all bets on that selection when the selection is hedged.

6. New MACD chart added to the streaming charts.

7. You can now change the shortcut keys for the ladder and bet controls. This can be opened via the main info bar menu.

8. Support has been built in for the Betfair live video page which maximises screen real estate. It can be launched via either the Main Info Bar menu, or when a market is available to watch on Betfair video, a TV icon will show next to the countdown clock which you can click.

9. A new multi bet placement window has been added which can be opened from the Main Info Bar menu when a Market is open. { Dutch flag. } This window allows you to place bets on one ore more selections using the following popular methods in either stand alone or combinations of….

• Dutching / Bookmaking

• Back / Lay the field.

• Stop Entry ( Price conditional entry }

• Place bets at a specified time.

• Drip Feed

10.Keep bets are now supported in the Correct Score markets

11. Multi language support.

12. Paul promises additional new features very soon.

Please note that as this is a beta there could be some bugs around but I have used it for the past couple of days and it has been working perfectly.

Ladies and Gentleman, the decision to choose AGT is now the biggest no brainer out of all no brainers! This software is a very serious player in the Sports Trading sector. It is now very rich in features and would proudly stand side by side with it's competitors similar products. However, it can step one pace forward from the rest due to the fact that it is free.

It's free and there is no catch!  It is not often that this statement is true! 

Hop on over to the AGT Forum for more details and instructions on how to download the software..

No Homers yesterday but I did dabble in a couple of trades which were both successful.

There is one pick for today which is on facebook. If you would like to link up with me you must quote your Trading Football chat alias otherwise you won't be able to gain access. They have a free 14 day trial so if you subscribe using the banner on the right, you can gain access.

Excellent Weekend

I traded three successful Homers which were announced on facebook and one successful HomerActive. 

Scotland v Czech Republic ROI 30.40%

Braintree v Lincoln (Active) ROI 36.21%

Lanus v Estudiantes ROI 35.18%

Rec de Huelva v Celta Vigo ROI 46.8%

HomerActives are almost impossible to pick in advance. The circumstances have to be just right mid game plus on many occasions there just isn't enough liquidity to share the trade with many.
I am wary of aftertiming not only with the Active strat but any other Homer that I decide to trade last minute outside the TF community. So to ensure complete credibility I will show the game up on facebook as I jump into the trade. I will only include these games in my results if it is shown on fb and that the score is clearly acknowledged as 0-0 at the time.

The concept is still the same. It is just started mid game.

Still waiting for the first loss this month.

I also continued trading the horses and came away with £86.89

0-2 and what to do.

I did not take part in any Homer trading from Monday to Thursday as the fixtures and liquidity were awful.

I used the Israel v Greece game as a fun trade to do a little tinkering. What started as a Homer ended as a CS Jobby (a proven TF strategy) which enabled me to finish the game as a scratch.

Belarus v Bosnia was my main pick as posted on facebook. I invested heavily in the game and exited shortly after the score went to 0-2 which was in the 25th minute. Had the second goal arrived after the 40th minute my situation would have been at scratch so I would have continued until I had reached the max loss point but because the goal came early I was satisfied with my profitable position and took it, particularly as my stakes were high. My ROI was naturally lower than average at 20% This is something that I would not have done 12 months ago when I was taking gambles rather than sensible decisions.

The strat mainly progresses through the first half with little intervention but 0-2 is the one scoreline where serious decisions need to be made. Provided the lay has been matched before any goals are scored, a 0-2 score up to 40 minutes will usually mean that entire trade is in profit. Naturally the earlier the 0-2 the greater the profit. Whether you immediately take the profit, wait to HT and then take the scratch or push on for that third goal is entirely personal choice. There is no right or wrong way to proceed as long as you exit when faced with the acceptable max loss.

Today's pick has been posted on my facebook page.

Darren over at Betting System Notes has released a video demonstrating the features of the MarketMatcher tool. I have reproduced it below and ask that if you are interested in his service, please subscribe via the banner on the right.