Standing still

Break Even

Actually a small loss today under £1 which could have been avoided if I stuck to my rules. Woke up late and discovered 2 meets were cancelled today. I scrambled to get into the first race about 8 minutes to the off and not surprisingly lost 3 ticks. I basically saw WOM about 80% to drift & as horse was drifting per charts from betfair & I jumped in. Also I had received an email from someone I sold an Iphone on ebay too who wanted to return it. This put me in a bad mood. second bet was very similar and I duly dropped another 3 ticks. One emotional demon I haven't yet mastered is being in control after a loss. I either trade very conservatively and never get matched or trade aggresively and accumulate losses. Anyway after starting with 2 losses I knew it would be tough.

However I recovered and won 8 ticks on the next 3 bets at 2,3,3 ticks to put me 2 ticks up. Then lost 6 ticks as a horse steamed 23 ticks in the last 4 minutes of the race and took out my stops. 6 ticks because I effectively doubled my stakes. One thing I tried today was to split my stake in two put half in at say 3.5 to lay and the other 2 ticks below. I have dropped this tactic like a led ballon because on all my wins only the first lay got matched while on the losses both lays got taken.

I actually ended 1 tick up but about 60p down

Mixed results but learning

Break Even over the last 2 days

Firstly yesterday was quiet. Only traded one race using my XDA at work. Layed a horse at 13 and I won i.e the horse lost although I was surprised it managed to finish 4th. Today has been dissapointing and I gave up everything I won yesterday but very rewarding as I have also learnt a lot. I am about halfway through the false favourites ebook for laying horses and decided to try a few tricks I picked up and cobbled into a new strategy. This method won 7 ticks and then lost 7 but I know how to avoid the losses so quietly confident. I then lost another 9 ticks on one of my favourite systems and again on the first 3 tick loss I can eliminate or filter out those kind of trades. On the second one I lost 6 ticks as I doubled my size. This was a good trade that rebounded after my stops were taken out so this is a kind of loss I will just have to live with.

I have scrapped system B my breakout system as it has lost about 15 ticks over the period and will replace with this new system F which is kind of a trend pull back system. This means I now have

2 Trend pull back systems
1 Swing trading system for ranging markets
1 Laying horses

I seem to be changing my systems a lot but I am convinced I am learning and I am happy I am breaking even and not losing money. Also any money lost can be recouped through matched betting.

Problem is 2009 is approaching fast and I will have to lock down my systems for 30 bets each. Minor tweaks are of course still allowed.


I have one full day of trading tomorrow and then I will document my system, strategy & goals for quarter 1 2009 and start posting results in £

I am also happy with the changes I made to my trading spreadsheet. When I first started I could only trade 1 horse from the first 3, I then changed so I could trade the first 3. Over the last 2 days I tweaked so i can now trade any 3 of the first 6 in any order I want.

I need to do my review spreadsheet so I can print the charts and review on the train into work.

Next update tomorrow evening which should hopefully be a 10 tick win

Progress

Win over last 2 days


First the update for yesterday a very good win and to be honest going into the day's trading I was expecting this. Late on the 26th I was reading the Experiment another trading blog. Let me briefly say without the following 4 blogs I would have given up a long time before this as they were proof to me that this could be done and the whole thing wasn't just a waste of time. These blogs to me are gold when it comes to learning about trading. Better than ebay ebooks and training courses in my opinion. In fact if these blogs had been published as betting diaries or ebay for dummies I would happily have paid £20 each. You need to read the whole blogs to find gems but believe me there are many. I have picked up at least two solid trading ideas from all of them and they are all free

http://thebetfairtrader.blogspot.com/
http://dontgiveupyourjob.blogspot.com/
http://betyourlife.blogspot.com/
http://www.betangel.com/blog/

Anyway I was reading the experiment, I normally download blogs to a text file and read on the train into work or at home, and something struck me. It also struck me that this same principle was applied by all the other blog authors and even on the Peter Webb bet angel videos. I had read/seen all this before but it had never registered. It was a real light bulb moment and I was pretty sure this last little trick would move me from break even to profits.

One thing I had always struggled with was how come these guys had so few losses usually less than 20% of trades while for me it was more like 50/50 ? The answer - They always asked for a price and never took what was available in the market. I almost couldn't sleep and I sat up and redrafted all my strategies. I already knew 9 times out of 10 I could tell which way the market was going yet I was still losing 50% of my trades. So what would it mean if I asked for a price instead of taking what was available. The reason I often did this was my indicators would be screaming DRIFT and I wouldn't want to miss the move. So I rejigged all my systems to test this.

I knew this would mean I would be frustrated a lot as I would miss a lot of good trades. This would also mean I would spend a lot of time without being able to trade and I would need to be super patient.

Anyway how did things pan out. I brought back a system we will call E that I put on the back burner for some time

So the systems were
A - Swing, 1 bet won, 3 break even
B - Breakout, 2 losses
E - Trend pull back, 7 bets no loss
C- Laying system

I also try to only identify horses to lay as I feel there is more potential here. Not tested in any way just a feeling I have.

Not bad at all

Unfortunately 28 dec was not so good

All bets were system E won 4 lost 4 although I was 0-2 down and 2-4 down so won't complain

I am just going to put today down to just bad luck and keep systems the way they are. I have managed to overcome a lot of my emotional demons but one I am still struggling with is letting my profits run. I am actually slightly down in terms of £ today as i took a couple of 1 tick profits where patience would have got 3. Luckily 2 of my losses were at 2 ticks instead of 3.

3 of my losses came from Catterick but I don't know what to make of this except in the first two the liquidity was really low and I don't like the volatilty this causes. In fact on those 2 with wider stops I would have made money but the number 1 principle, the cornerstone of my betting and the reason why I have survived about 3 years is i always keep my losses as small as possible.

I am going to take an enforced break now as I go back to work tomorrow. There are a couple of fixes i need to do to my spreadsheet so will do that and also keep blog updated as I will still identify possible lays and if i find an place bet on my XDA

I may take a look at the dogs tonight for the first time just watching no bets

Small Win

Small win but still cautious. I have been thinking a lot over the last 2 days and I need to make this more professional in 2009. I will set new targets etc and also devise a plan so I can make sure I can trade at least 4-5 days a week. I hope to quit the day job in 2009 but it will take a lot. May need to have something part time too.

Anyway there were so many races today I knew it would take a while finding the best races to trade as a few were starting within 5 minutes of each other while some even started at the same time. I need at least 10 minutes before the start of a race to form an opinion.

Unlike a lot of people I prefer to trade races with a lot of runners and with no clear favourite and this was the basis of my initial shortlisting of races to trade. However the liquidity on many races was just not there and I had to instead just trade the ones with most liquidity.

Overall again I was bailed out by my system C horse laying system

System A, my favourite lost 8 ticks over 3/3 races. System B won 6 ticks over 7 races with, 5 wins, 1 loss & 1 break even although most wins were at 1 tick.

System C, I do not count in my tick calculation, layed a horse at about 10 and the horse duly obliged. I know when I get a loss on system C it will really be a test of character and will send me running to lok at the races to look for additional loss avoiding filters.

System C is now 8/8 while I don't think system 8 has won in about 10 bets. Should I give this up ???


I will take a look at the charts and decide. System A is laying at high odds so I am trying not to get too excited about the wins. I will review when i have had at least 30 lays.

Overall I was pleased with my discipline amidst all the distractions. I rejigged my spreadsheet completely on tuesday night so spent the first 2 hours also fixing minor errors. There were more meets than I have ever traded before and liquidity was not great.

I have learnt a lot in 2008 but setting myself a target of March 09 to be in good regular profit or I will move into trading forex. Part of the reason I am doing this is to improve my discipline and learn some technical analysis.

Side benefits also include better excel & programming skills.

I am happy that I am now programmed to keep my losses low and manageable although I might actually be too risk averse.

Anyway a quick and early update as i plan to watch my beloved Arsenal avoid defeat against Aston villa, then go for a run and finally do my income/expenditure look back for 2008.
In 2007 I used to do this almost weekly in 2008 I decide to do monthly and he last time I did this was in June. I just want to see what I can afford to loose in 2009 to help determine my starting bank.

Anyway still lots to do today before lots of meets to also trade tomorrow so will stop here

Interesting

Daily Result Small win
Could only do system C trading today so I identified 7 races where i might be able to find a suitable lay. Took about 10 minutes using betfair lite on my xda. I have now found out I can access sporting life at work so this shortlisting process will now take about a minute. Anyway did not find a suitable lay on the first 6 including two I couldn't monitor as I was distracted by a colleague. I am happy with myself that I kept my discipline. On the 7th I layed a horse at 11.5 with increased stakes. Only about 1% of my bank but still not money I was psychologically prepared to lose. My trading is all still at the testing stage so I am using very small amounts. Anyway system C came through again and the horse was beaten into 10th out of 12 places.
Hence the title of my post. While I prefer using charts and indicators to read the races and feel like I am trading shares or forex, so far the results of system c - 7/7 lays have been good. So good that I am going to invest the time to download about 2 months of betfair historical data to back test it. Also I noticed some things while watching the races which has given me some food for thought. Watching the markets and reviewing your bets are probably the 2 most profitable activities a would be trader should do.

So pleased I was able to at least do a bit of punting although didn't get much work done

Quick Update

Not too much trading today. Started at about 11 am completely redesigning my spreadsheet. Spent about 3 hours before it was ready for trading but I had to be very careful as I wasn't in the zone. So ended up trading 3 races, won 1, lost 1 and didn't get matched on the last. No trading tomorrow as I have to be at work

Not having an easy time with my matched betting. I have ended up with £150 in my Interwetten account as I can't stop winning at the bookies

Will not be able to trade until the 26th but can do some system C trading and also will keep fixing my spreadsheet and if available do some more matched betting

Turn around

Daily result Break even

Could have been much better so much better. I don't really like the evening races because of the gap in between races. Also my systems are also time dependent i.e I only bet at certain times before the race starts i.e between 10 minutes and 6 minutes before the start and all that is screwed up in the evening racing

Anyway won the first two 4 trades, 2 system A and 2 system C and was 1 up for the day meaning 1.50 in the evening. Then dropped the last 2 trades on the same selection at the same point on the last race to finish the day break even.

I saw a system C trade but didn't take because there were only 5 runners and I didn't want to lay a runner in a 5 horse race. of course the horse lost

I still have problems with my discipline. In the last two trades i lost in the first I chased the price. This is irrelevant as i would have lost anyway. However in the 2nd trade I somehow wasn't payin attention and clicked before price hit my target and was duly punished

That's why even though i am not winning I feel systems are profitable. I am thinking strongly of automating entry & exits to remove emotions

I am also thinking I will only trade a few races a day say max 5. I hope to spend tomorrow morning tidying up my spreadsheet and over the holidays do the automation or semi automation.

On a positive note my two matched bets lost at the bookies so cash flowed into my betdaq account. On principle I only use betdaq for all my other activities as like most I am very cheesed at Betfair's premium tax.
Another positive is I can trade system C at work using my XDA Orbit & betfair lite and system C is an impressive 6/6. I saw 2 low quality trades I didn't take and they also won - the horses lost

Sometime down the line I also plan to build a bot for my xda. Of course I am going to wait until I have at least 1k profits before investing the time. So it's two days break even which means I am not losing money. it is however a huge amount of time so once i am happy with my systems will cut down significantly on the races I bet

Time for my 1 mile jog as it's been a loooong day sitting at the pc. when I return I will do the betfred free 10 mobile matched bet

Still not there yet

Afternoon PL Break even

Lots of racing today with 4 meets in the afternoon and one in the evening. I thought of only trading three in the end traded them all. Got home at 4am, got up at 11:30 and was ready to start trading about 12 so managed to trade everything. Unfortunately the P&L and trading were very dissapointing. I am only trading systems A to C as I feel 4 is just too much to trade. Before tonite I will also do some minor enhancements to my race recording to add my own time stamp to my bets & also record selection name.

Anyway after a quick check on my channel 4 fantasy football team & my ebay auction where I have an Iphone for sale I was ready to trade. I have just realised Man Utd's games are postponed so I should have removed ferdinand & vidic frm my team. Might still o that

Like I said trading wasn't good
System A 3 bets, lost all 3 but just for 1 tick. I would have won on two but panicked as you do when you are already down for the day.

System B 14 trades, lost 7, Won 5 & b/e on 2. Average win was 1 tick while average loss was 2.2 ticks. In the end it was for an overall 11 tick loss. I am still hopeful because on at least 4 of the losses I didn't follow my rules like chasing & entering too late after the move.

System C layed a horse at about 3.9 and horse lost so I won. So now 5/5 for sytem C but unfortunately not enough to stop me losing

So I will stick with all systems for at least 30 bets errors & all. After 30 bets I will automate to eliminate my errors & watch for another 30 bets

I have a few other things going on today like 2 matched bets with Sunderlands for a free 10 & Interwetten 25 and 1 punt backing under 2.5 so overall will be in profit this weekend.

Also on the positive side discipline is improving as I am only trading systems A,B or C no crazy punting and my record keeping is improving. Still it is a long way to go and I hope I can stay the distance

Will take a 1 hour break then come back to update my spreadsheets & trade evening races

Quick Post

No trading today but a lot of reading. On my way into work read a few betfair trading systems I have acquired over time. Again will tweak system A slightly because this is actually the system I like most. It is easy to implement and you do not need your system to be superfast. One reason I strayed from the original rules is that you may not have anything to bet on for a whole day or may even see 1 or 2 races but not get matched. It is not easy sitting in front of the computer for up to 10 hours and not being able to bet. This leads to stupid costly bets. I now have a system B which allows me to have a bet on nearly every race but also I will take breaks. I am going to make the criteria for system A very strict and expect to see between 3 - 10 bets a week.

Stumbled on a few intersting websites so will list here until I put up my links

For matched betting this is simply the best thing I have seen

http://www.racingtraders.com/OddsMatcher/index.html

and some very useful horse racing/betting articles here

http://www.slipperytoad.co.uk/

Looking forward to a full day's trading tomorrow but may be affected a bit as I am having a big night out today. But let's see still need to socialise

Depending on how I feel I may not trade tomorrow. Who am I deceiving I know will. On the one hand stakes are still very small so I won't do much damage to my bank. On the other losing money slowly erodes belief and confidence and when you play this game when not fully rested and relaxed chances that you will lose are very high

We will see. At the very least I might start trading about 2pm

Still getting there

Daily Result Break even

This is it for today as I am not trading the evening races today. I looked at my systems and decided to make some tweaks to system A and clarify rules for B & C. Also devised system D. It was a bit confusing trading too many sytems but it helps fight boredom and the impule to chase bets

So results
Trading
System A only 3 bets first won 4 ticks but was an error as I laid the wrong horse, second lost 4 ticks but 2 tick profit was available that I didn't take. 3rd won 1 tick. Again 2 ticks available that I didn't take. Overall 1 tick up but I know the first bet was an error. The reason I didn't take the 2 ticks is I like my systems to have 50/50 risk reward ratio. Since I was risking 4 ticks that was my target.

System B got of to a flier winning first 3 bets for 3 ticks each (All system B bets are to win/lose 3 ticks). I then lost 1, won 1, lost 3 and won 1 to finish 1 win or 3 ticks up

Punting
System C - Laying. Layed horse at 7.2 and won. I will be using maria staking for this and a 50 bank
System D- Backing. Backed 2 horses at about evens first won, second lost. For system D I am using the 112233 staking system and also small 50 bank
That's it. Better than Yesterday but still a very long long way to go

System C has won 4/4 which is my best so far however I am laying at odds up to 11 so to early to celebrate.

System B looks like a few tweaks will make it a winning system. I plan to look at all 7 or 8 bets today to see if the winners give any clues and same for the losers

May do a bit of matched betting much later as I have to get a long overdue haircut and do some shopping

Also won't be trading tomorrow because of work. I can get home on time to trade evening races but would rather have a break.

Next update Saturday

The Skinny

Nearly There

Result Break even

The evening wasn't great. In the morning I lost because of poor execution this evening poor discipline. In total I lost 10 ticks so lucky still testing with £5 stakes

System A, Target 2 ticks, Risk 3 ticks Lost 18 ticks
System B, Target 2 ticks, Risk 3 ticks - Lost 1 tick
System C, laying weak favourites, layed 1 at 10.5 Won. This basically bailed me out

I am hopeful as both system A & B are meant to be used to trade races where the favourite doesn't trend strongly i.e moves less than about 12 ticks. Most of the losses came because I traded races where I should have known the prices would trend strongly

I hope to eliminate that tomorrow and that is why I am dissapointed but hopeful

I will keep stops tight because my discipline is still not good. Also I plan to soon automate or semi automate entry & stops

Anyway went for a quick 1 mile jog to freshen up. I have to say I praise people that do this full time as sitting around all day even if you are making money is boring and very unsociable.

I plan not to trade more than 4 days a week. Unfortunately because I work full time this will have to be Saturday, Sunday and 2 days at work using Log me In.

I am back

I am back with a quick post. I haven't traded regularly as been too busy with work but also because after winning 50 my system failed and I an mow down about 50, 100 from previous high.

So I have basically been trying various systems on very low stakes winning, losing and then giving up.

I now think I have found about 3 or 4 systems I can use. 2 trading horses before the off, 1 laying weak favourites and 1 backing over 2.5 in the over/under market.

I will post more later on.

So far today I have traded 16 races and I am 0.09p down using very small stakes

I will trade the evining races today as well as tomorrow. Need to do some work on the football system to enable easy shortlisting so for now just horse racing.

For the next 3 or 4 weeks there will be not so much trading because of work but posting regularly as I am developing and back testing systems.

Will update after the evening races

Let's Go

Okay. Let's Go. I have reloaded my betfair account and I now have a bank of £1,000 to use until I go bust.

My aim is to make money trading mostly horse racing about 15 minutes before the start on betfair. I will also trade other sports when I spot a good opportunity

My Goals are a second income hopefully £500 - £2k a month. Also to use what I learn here in terms of strategy as well as discipline to trade shares. I am setting no time limits on this so we'll see how we go. My Motivation is the extra income to start with and long term to be able to quit the 9-5 life and have the freedom to do what I want. The obstacles I face will be a lot of demands on my time. First & foremost work as I am a professional in the city and often work up to 10 hours a day. At work I trade using Logmein to log into my home computer but I still have to monitor as I use Talk Talk broadband which crashes every two hours.
I have a wife and kids so also need to spend quality time with them of course

I link Gruss's Betting Assistant to excel and this automatically places bets via VBA and the BA COM Interface. If you don't understand that then no need to worry. I will explain later. The key is that all my bets are automated as this is faster and also I just do not trust my discipline or execution.

I also use standard technical analysis indicators like the MACD, RSI, OBV as well as WOM to get in and out of trades. Again will say more about this later

That's quite enough to start with. Only thing to mention now is that I have completely redesigned my spreadsheet to use VBA so will be testing throughout the week and full trading will start on Saturday. All my posts until then will be about automating the spreadsheet

The Skinny