Still No Cigar

Results since last update -£2.40

After waiting for a whole week to trade and after all the charts I have studied in the last 2 weeks when I lost about £2.70 on Saturday I have to say I was 24 hours from quitting. If I had sufferred a loss today I would have.

I wouldn't have given up all this but would have restricted my self to match betting.

Anyway yesterday I lost 17 ticks in 3 races and won 7 in 2 for a net loss of 10 ticks. Today I lost 14 ticks over three trades and won 10 over 5 trades but still ended up about 30p. Today my trend/momentum system lost 14 while my ranging system won the 10. I would be easy to give up my trend system but it would mean I could have only 4 trades in a 5 hour session which would be huge waste of my time. I have found that I need to be concentrating and can't really do anything else even if I have 30 minutes between races. I would be happy if my momentum system could break even but I will give it some more thought and a few more days before I decide. Today was the first day I didn't break a single rule so I am happy about my discipline. I am also becoming better at identifying risky trades. The problem is too much time watching and not doing anything and this is a recipe for disaster for me.

Typing this I have answered my dilemma. I will just have to train myself to utilise the time between qualifying races. I will also double the stakes on my ranging system so the trending trades don't hurt me so much as I try to get them to work.

I should have won an easy £20 over this weekend from sporting index's all losses refunded mobile betting offer. Unfortunately I couldn't get my xda orbit or blackberry to run their software

Next trading day will be next weekend but after this week things should ease up a bit at work and I will be able to trade using logmein

Until next weekend good luck with all your trading

Better

Daily Result £3.51
Horse Racing £1.15
Football £2.38

All green today and it could have been much better. Going into the last 2 games I was 12 ticks up. Lost 5 in the penultimate and 3 in the last to finish just 4 ticks up. The bulk of the horse racing P&L, about 95p came from a lay of a horse i.e a non trading bet. Soccer came from a back of under 2.5 goals between Xanthi & Larissa in the Greek league.

I think the reasons for my improved results in trading the horses is because I have slowed my refresh rate in Gruss's betting assistant. This has meant I am not being stoppped out by noise. It also means I am not getting into trades as quickly as I can but overall I think this is much better for my trading.

In the last race I actually saw a 3 tick profit but queued for 4 ticks 3 and then 2 and watched as the price ran away from me. Really dissapointed and I am toying with the idea of quitting when I hit a predetermined amount but I won't as this doesn't make any sense.

I am happy because in the last 2 races I made mistakes I will eliminate.

In the penultimate race a clear favourite was drifting and I thought my chart was showing a head & shoulders formation meaning the price was about to reverse. I jumped in before support at the neckline was broken and I paid the price.

In the last race I suffered another rush of blood and entered 1 tick higher than I had planned. These are aspects of my trading I can and aim to work on.

Now for a 2 mile jog to clear the head.

Close but still not there

Result since last update £-0.75p
Horse Racing -£3.83
Football £3.08

Not a disaster but not great. The cornerstone of all this is trading horse races before the start with football & match betting as sidelines so I am very frustrated that this is not working yet. Won £3.09 on a football under 2.5 bet in the game between Nice & Auxerre and this is what dragged me back from the doldrums. The good news is loosing causes a lot of introspection. Every time I lose I spend time studying my charts and apply new tweaks to the basic strategies. One thing I have decided is that I will place fewer bets. The problem with this is that if my shortlisted races are about say 30 - 40 minutes apart in a 5 hour period there is not much I can do in between.

I feel my strategies are not far away. One thing I will do is slow down my refresh rate to about 4 or 5 seconds so my stops don't get hit. I still need the stops as I am not disciplined enough without it. I am using betting assistants sliding stop and I will keep this too for now.

Again I am seriously thinking of ordering a few meets from Fracsoft as the data I collect is about 3-4 seconds between each refresh which means strategies I design based on this data do not work in real time.

Anyway luckily I can try new things tomorrow and this will probably be my last trading day until next Saturday. I have an under 2.5 goals bet tomorrow in the game between Xanthi and Larissa in the Greek first division and hope that brings in some cash.

Premium charge delayed

Daily Result -0.95p

Today was a real struggle for me. I had not traded for a while and also woke up too late to get myself into the zone mentally. The evidence of this was I was using my £5 safety stakes instead of my full stakes and didn't even realise

I lost 12 ticks over 4 trades and won 5 ticks over 3 trades. It was one of those days where my rules did not signal any bets so in the end I started jumping in and relaxing my rules. I traded the two available meets, 1 in Ireland which I don't normally do but enjoyed. My spreadsheet is built for only about 24 runners and at least 2 races today in Ireland had 25 or more. This means I will need to rewrite the spreadsheet. Soon

One of my problems is I am not full time and my trading days are few and far between so when I have the time to trade I force myself even if I am not mentally in the zone.

This is why I may give up trading but only after 30 bets each on all systems, hopefully by the end of January. To clarify I will still trade but I will have to be very selective. I trade the over/under 2.5 market very well sometimes having no bet in 2 weeks however when I sit in front of the PC I can't stop myself placing speculative bets or gambling.

Found a few blogs today and it seems almost everybody is making at least £200 a day some about £1,500. Good news is that this is proof that the money can be made and also I may be able to pick up a few tips from reading them.

For now I will spend the next 2 hours doing some more graphical analysis, basically looking at all horses that drift or steam more than 15 ticks in the 10 minutes before the off to see if the charts yield any clues.

Lucky Winnings

Profit since last update £21.41

Above looks very good but came from a match betting error and under 2.5 goals bet.

I placed a qualifying bet on Panseraikos on their game vs Iraklis originally scheduled for 3rd January, backing at Interwetten and laying at betfair. The game was postponed and since betfair hold on to your cash for 3 days (the bet stands if the game is replayed in this period) and Interwetten like most bookies cancel the bet, I made a mental note to remember to back if the game was rescheduled to be played within 3 days. Very busy at work and completely forgot, looked into my account today and I had won £18.16 after commission. I am happy I won the cash but not happy that I wasn't on the ball as this could cost me a lot in the future.

The second was more straightforward. Backed under 2.5 goals in the Braga vs Bellenses game which finished 2-0 to Braga.

Not much has happened on the trading the horses front as I have been busy at work and didn't have the time to try to use logmein from work.

I did do my research on a strategy I had used previously to win about £150 over about 30 bets. I then tried to improve the profitability of the system by increasing stakes lowering my strict entry rules and lost about £200. Tried very hard to get back to the initial strategy but just couldn't.

One reason I tweaked the system was that you could spend two days watching the races and not find a match. I tried to find a way to bet more and also win more per bet and the result was a disaster.

I needed to do a big review as I knew I could get back to the original system. I thought of getting some data from fracsoft initially to do a review of about 100 to 200 races but I decided to first use the data I had collected no matter how small. The results were impressive

Wins 12 bets/25 ticks
Not matched 15 bets
Break Even 7 Bets
Losses 1 Bet/ 4 Ticks

Above is the best case scenario and timing of the exit is crucial . Some of the break even bets could be 1 tick losses and some of the wins were 1 tick wins and could be break even in real time but no matter what I believe the strategy will be profitable if I can stick to the rules. I also believe I will find up to 2 - 5 qualifying races daily assuming there are at least 3 meets.

My next trading day will probably be Sunday as I am very busy at work until Saturday. Also from next week hope to be able to bet using logmein from work.

I am busy at work for the whole of January and I know if I try to trade it will cost me but I will use this strategy which doesn't require too much time on the computer as I simply select the races in the morning and set a reminder about 15 minutes before the start. I will need logmein and Gruss's betting assistant as I will need to use stop losses and ladder interface and also excel logging to see my indicators.

On to matched betting. I have placed my last qualifying bet to enable me complete the wagering requirement at Interwetten as I just couldn't stop winning. At first I was irritated by this but then I realised it is actually a good thing as this will stave off betfair's premium charge. Only for some time I hope.

Disaster at the Dogs

Daily Result -£3.93p

With only one low quality meet today I should have walked away but honestly this did not even cross my mind. Since I was home and after today my next trading day would not be until Sunday, I decided to trade the meet at Lingfield then go do a few chores. All the races were not the kinds I like to trade with few runners and/or clear favourites. After 3 races and a total of 1 hour 30 minutes at the computer with no single trade the inevitable happenned. I started trying to force trades. i couldn't find one single system trade and all the trades I took today were purely based on WOM. I actually won 3 ticks from 2 trades and lost 6 ticks from 3 trades for -3 ticks & -0.95p overall

I had a list of things to do like dry cleaning, haircut etc however since I was down for the day and after reading a post on a forum today which suggested that you could trade greyhounds just using WOM I switched over. 2 hours later I had lost £2.98p. I won't make any excuses and say it doesn't count. I just hope I have learnt my lesson as if I have £4 is a very low price to pay. The greyhounds came thick and fast and I just couldn't drag myself away. Also stupidly instead of trading with £2 or even £0.50p I traded with £5 and paid the price.

Like I say this lesson will serve me for sometime before I get it out of my system as I can't imagne I won't go on tilt again but hopefully not for a while

I don't think the dogs are too difficult to master but I have enough on my plate with horses, matched betting and football.

Also something I have learnt is everytime I read a new idea in a blog, forum post or ebook I always want to try it out. There is nothing wrong with this but the best way probably is to back test and if not possible trade with very small stakes

The availability of the dogs can be a positive or a very big negative. They can be used to earn daily cash but also can be used as an escape from boredom when your main trading events are not available like today. This is one of the reasons I am happy I am writing this blog and hopefully never again will I waste time and money on the dogs

Recharged

Profit since last update £0.12

Yes. The above is over two sessions and is not a typo. Overall I won 4 ticks & lost 3 ticks. Also couldn't find any high quality sitable horses to lay.

I have had a lot of enforced time off as I have had to work & also because of all the meet cancellations that have happened in the last few days.

I have used the time really think about how I want to take this forward. I have been wondering why I traded with £5 stakes for about 2 months and I believe the reason is I do not have enough confidence in my systems without statistical historical support. That's why when I read eBay systems I am never convinced. I need to see things like 50 races identified in the last 2 months, 80% strike rate & 20% yield with a listing of the races. The ebooks always show a few winning selections but what is always at the back of my mind is how many losers and at what odds.

So I decided to do some back testing. My initial plan was to get the data from fracsoft.com but I balked a bit at the price. I would have to pay about 70p per meet so 100 meets equates to £70.

Not a huge amount and I can & probably will pay this amount eventually but since I am not yet in profit I am trying to keep my costs as low as possible. That is why I use gruss' betting assistant at £6 a month instead of bet angel. To digress a bit I really like bet angel's soccer mystic and can think of so many uses for it but i am not quite convinced about the long term viability of inplay trading since betfair's premium charge so I hesitating to invest in it.

Anyway I know I have close to 200 races I can use for review. If I find my systems are as profitable as I think I may even double my stakes. Also if I find my laying system is not profitable I will drop it. So looking forward to the results.

Looks like I will be trading tomorrow as I have to work from home. My daughter doesn't go back to school until Tuesday 6th.

Dissapointed, Bemused, Optimistic

Daily Result: £3.28

Dissapointed
Where do I start. I lost 10 ticks today but won £3.28. This is where the disappointed and bemused comes in. Today was going to be tough as I was trying to trade with about 4 people around me and also taking my turn on the Wii. Excuses I know but most of the races were not the kinds I like to trade. Apart from Cheltenham, liquidity was either very low or there were very clear favourites with no rivals within 40 ticks. Even then there was usually no contest also for second place.

Lost 3 ticks on the first race which went 1 tick beyond my stop then rebounded to break even. 2 break even races followed then won 2 ticks. After this it was a disaster. Lost 9 ticks, 3 each on the next 3 races to finish 10 ticks down. the last 6 ticks lost were particularly disappointing as I wasn't concentrating so broke my rules.

So where did the cash come from. On the last race I layed a horse at a whopping 15.5 to win about £1.50. Risky but met all my criteria so took it. Don't know how long this laying system will last as the odds I lay at are quite high. I have a £50 bank for this split into two and will just see how far I get with this as this is just a fun sideline.

Bemused
I then logged on to betfair to see my P&L and saw I had won £2.50 on another horse in the earlier race at 2:10 that I layed at 6. How this happened I can't begin to imagine as I say it was a full house. So won £4 altogether which is £3.80 after commission. This means I lost about £1.50 trading on my testing stakes of £5 per bet irrespective of odds

I had actually planned to start using full stakes today being a new year and I now plan to take this seriously after the testing period. I believe this will just be a matter of how disciplined I am as discipline and money management is 80% of the battle.

Optimistic
Anyway my battle plan for 2009 is for split into two phases

Jan 09 targets
30 bets in my 3 different trading strategies to use as an indicator of whether I can successfully trade the strategies. I expect to be break even as even if I lose I will recoup from matched betting. Any profit will be a bonus


Mar 09 targets
To make this thing a bit more professional - betting consistently 5 days a week, leaning to lose & not chase, learn to deal with losing starts to the day & get used to the fact that trading is long & slow way to build cash. basically to learn how to deal with greed & fear.At the end of March I should have had at least 90 bets in each strategy so if I am not profitable after over 300 bets I will pack this in & move into trading forex.

My trading strategies all revolve around laying weak favorites 10 minutes before the race starts.
I will keep my 3 tick stop loss and take profits if I feel race is going against me but always expect to make at least 3 ticks.

In addition to trading I have a system for laying horses, laying under 2.5 goals and matched betting

My starting bank will be £200
Staking will be odds
under 2 £40
2-3 £20
3-4 £15
4-5 £10
5-6 £10
6 & over £5

My goals for 2009 are to
make some extra income and eventually enough to give up day job or at least go part time
buy a new car for my 40th in September
make enough to take the family on a holiday as they have to put up with a lot when I am trading
and also have some extra for good causes

Good luck to me and everyone else betting/trading out there

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