Business as usual

Business as usual, as usual as in the fact that since the last time I posted I have blown my bank all the way down to about £2.20. Since then I have backed a few short priced favs in the horses and worked my way back to about £7 odd last week, since then I have traded the horses making between 2p and 5p per race and my bank now is £11.56, I have stopped trading for today because I have already done 20 markets and I am not feeling like I am concentrating enough. Anyway I have looked through my records and my spreadsheet tells me I am     -£9 for the year and my bank at its highest was £264 and that was at then end of feb, fair to say that in a year I haven't learn't a great deal so it looks like I will have to stop going inlay and learn to accept losses and hopefully one day the good times will come.

Currently reading a book called 'Self discipline in ten days', lets see how I feel on 11th of Jan.

Good luck Happy new year and keep it green

straight lay?

Not much in the horses today, so I did a straight lay in the first race, there was an odds on fav and second fav was under 4's so I layed the third fav out of four horses, I was lucky really as I greened up inplay for £2 profit in the end the outsider won. I know what I did was totally wrong and not trading at all but pure gambling, but it came out of boredom, must try not to do it in future.

Little bit more

Today I traded what was left of the horse race meetings and made 5.5% of my bank, taking me up to the dizzy heights of £34.80

Boring but green

Nothing spectacular today for me but 6% added to my bank on betfair, its going to be a long road to get back to  where I was, but with no full-time job to go to its not like I haven't got the time to learn, today I made an average of £0.11 a race and finished the day with a rather tasty £1.85, taking my betfair balance to the new balance of £30.99, if only all days were that easy.

breaking the trend

Following a poor weekend, not thinking straight at all, a couple of in play trades later and my trading bank is now down to £29.19 it was lower but I have recovered a little bit today,but it is shocking to looking at my spreadsheet to see that I have gone from £140 to £29 in just over four days.
Whether I end up at zero and have to go and get a real job or if I recover and maybe get my bank going again we will wait and see.
I know all the rules in my head and how I want to play the markets but sometimes when it goes bad I am able to block out all common sense and go straight to gambling mode.
Hopefully this is something I can avoid in the future, lets see how it goes then.
Will keep you posted... see you tomorrow

Just over 50%

Sounds good that 50% doesn't it, shame it was a loss to my bank because I couldn't help myself but go in-play. It all started at lunchtime when I layed a horse for £10 got it wrong but got out one tick down, tried again market went right down, so I thought lets switch stakes to£100 and make the ticks up back backing it down and hedging up the green, obviously as soon as I put my £100 back bet in the market rebounded and I was -£7 on all runners, so my plan was to lay the horse for £10 and to green up in-play, plan never worked and I am back to the start of November in terms of bank size.

Very disappointed with myself, discipline went out of the window and I seemed to break every rule I've ever made.

Bal CF £50.55

up and down day

Nothing much to add to my bog, trading has taken it out of me today.
I made 5% of my bank and overall I am happy with that wish I could do it everyday because 5%'s will soon compound into doubling my bank, I always try and run before I can walk and imagine myself trying to make 10% or more,that just makes me make more mistakes and affects my mindset so 5% is my aim and then its time to turn off pc for a while and relax.

Going in-play is not an option

When will I ever learn, was trading really well today....until the 1745 @meydan, I thought I was unbeatabe adding up all my small little profits, before the big loss I had 5% of my bank in profit.
When I was trading the meydan race liquidity was crap, even worse than Irish races, I shouldn't have got involved and needless to say the market bombed against me and just couldn't accept the loss I was faced with, and scaled out to leave a £40 liability on a horse and +£5 on any other runners, with a view to back it in play anyway you know what happened next, and I have lost a weeks worth of profit in one race.

I seem to reach good highs and then end up not being up to it in my mind, something along the lines of I don't deserve it.

I must focus on the 50p a race issue, I know it doesn't have to be every races and trading does present lots of opportunities to trade horses, so why would I want to trade every last race that there is on betfair. Anyway all I would like is to have betfair balance up to £200 by the end of the year. there is about 20 trading days left this month so that works out at about 3.5% a day.

new balance £100- well pissed off

Starting too early

Today was going well, happily scalping my through the markets, when Southwell was abandoned but I thought never mind we can carry on with just one meeting and I did and went straight on and got in to the 1350 @ Lingfield way before the market had formed properly and went from one horse to the next getting it totally wrong and ended the race -£10.99 on any runner. It affected me a bit as I haven't lost like that before and hedged it other wise it would have been pretty bad on each of the runners. Luckily th eday was nearly over as I scaled the markets in the next race for a £1 or so and then put in a lay bet and left it, had it won I would have lost about £40 for the day, needless to say it lost and my losses for the day are £2.75.

I learn't two lessons today

1. Set a limit on the max loss per race, if it happens- close market and move on to next race
2. Don't get involved in the markets to early, I must wait until at least 10 minutes before the race is due to start before I start putting bets into the market.

Didn't trade the last race and went out and bought a Christmas tree for our house

Little increase for little effort

As the title says, not much for me today, I was all set to do the whole afternoon's trading but I got a phone call and had to go out and only got back to complete the last two races.

Sunday update

I wish everyday on betfair could be like today, managed to keep my focus all day. Keep a calm head on my shoulders and scalped away, taking a bit at a time, even when I was on the wrong side when the market bombed I cant believe it but I still managed to claw it back and accept the loss when I had to. Lets see if I can keep it up for the rest of the month.
Even with a few good days, I am trying to keep my feet on the floor( I know these are not millionaire amounts) as I now realise that you have to face each market as a new one and accept that anything can happen, not tempting fate but I think I might of turned a corner in my trading, only time will tell.

Confidence is building

Like the title says, my confidence is building but I would say too fast, I made consistent profits for most of the day and the total for the day was building- slowly. Until I entered the market far to early on one race and ended on a big red of £5.50 and managed to bring it back down to approx £3.20. this affected me a bit and went on to suffer another big loss, but keep my head, although I could feel myself getting ready to start letting it go in play if it went bad or profit wasn't as expected. I was going to carry on and do the evening races if I could of managed to keep myself in the right frame of mind, overall good profit and very happy with it.

GREED

greed- excessive or rapacious desire, esp. for wealth or possessions.

Yes it got the better of me today, let one of the races go in-play and obviously it won, having already layed it. My own fault I should stick to my plan of 50p per race, but I always think one more scalp, one more tick and the ticks go bad and green turn to red and the red gets bigger, until my mind switches and thinks F*&^ it let it go in-play, we can easily get this back, but its not the way to successful trading, in the heat of the moment its easy to block out all common sense. Maybe I need to able to handle losses better and think that at the moment I can't win every trade I enter or come out of every market in profit.
Anyway lets try again tomorrow.
Wipe the slate clean and start a fresh. 

One whole meeting

We had to wait all day, for a bit horse race trading but when it came I did ok from scalping the markets.
Still working on £10 stakes, although I did double and treble up my stake on one or two races went the odds were quite low on two equal horses. I have decided that for the time being I will only traded horses as it seems what I make in the day I give back at night on football.
Goes like this-trade the races, add up profit and fill in spreadsheet and turn off pc(or at least shut down tgt and log out of betfair), so temptation doesn't get the better of me.

Total Profit today £5.98 from 7 races

MAN CITY CS pre match

Writing this as I trade, so please excuse the grammar and text,

1. 1800 placed my back bet 115 @ 8.2, was matched and placed lay bet @8.0
2. From there the market has drifted out to 8.8 where I have moved £100 of my lay bet, doesn't look at the mo.
3. lay price has moved to 9.2 and I am still waiting at 8.8
4. big money has come in at 9's, moving my £100 to 8.6 as mine was the only money there, I move it and its replaced by £200+ of somebody else's cash.
5. Seems we may be turning in the market, heading towards 8.6/8.4 maybe 
6. Still £600 @ 8.6 but I have moved my £100 back to 8.4 as there is only £22 on it
7. Not good there is now over £450 @8.8 and a load @ 8.6 as well.
8. Just over 1 hour until KO and its looking pretty red.
9. I have learn't something doing this- dont trade with your whole bank, not happy as I am going to lose my profits from today's horses and more.
10. Now £800+ @8.8, going to wait until then and hedge up just before KO.
11. Don't think I have the balls for this and wish I hadn't got involved. Safely say I won't be trading football with these stakes for sometime yet
12. 1902 back odds upto 9's, lay is @ 9.6
13. 1912 redded for a real bad loss.
14. Just learn't one my biggest lessons there- don't get involved in market you don't understand. I got into this on a whim really, not looked but I presume the team news came out while I was in this market. Even the AUQ has gone out from3.9 to 4.5, just layed it at 4.3 for £24 and backed it bit higher and layed it again and now going to take it in play and green up at about 9 or 10's and exit at 2's for a loss if I have to.
15. 
    
16. In fact I started scaling placing £2 stakes  every other tick, and will red up once auq has moved one way or the other. Or do I hedge when my liability will keep me with £100 in my bank.
17. Nope changed my mind and I'm redding with my bank, part intact while I can hedged at 4.8 current red -£15.90
18. taking a risk and backed 3-0 @9.2 put in lay @9 will take it in play if I have to.
19. getting match now 3 mins til ko
20. re- backed at 9's for 90 and scaled out 1 tick lower £20 a tick increments
21. ok currently got £67 back in my bank
22. all back and scalped auq in 1st five mins then out for -£13.37
23. lesson learnt, not getting involved next time
24. I have layed auq @6.6 for £4 
25. goal scored 1-0 oops,
26. layed a further £4 @ 3.6
27. leaving it until ht
28. the wank thing is the 3-0 is down to 6's, which is where all my trouble began
29. layed an extra £1 @ 4.2 to leave my max liabilty   to £49.29
30. 15 mins to HT
31. I will scalp at ht and hopefully lower my loss
32. laying auq back @1p a tick at every other tick
33. HT Scalped profit-£1.25
34. still in auq going hedge up but since then there has been two goals and I know I am not doing ths right but I am not hedging up until later 
35. 2 mins to go and its =10p any score -£30 on auq
36. Final loss -£3.30 could have been so different.

Apologies if this post looks rubbish, but like I said I wrote it as I traded so 

OK thats enough now

I know its winter, but why are we having all of this snow if we global warming happening at the same time.
Anyway what I mean is, this is my 1st full week on betfair since David Cameron decided I shouldn't have a job any longer, and its fair to say that the weather is getting right in the way of me trying to make any progress in growing my betfair balance. but I have read on various blogs and forums that trading in the winter becomes a bit hit and miss, thats ok for the people who traded there ass's off during the summer.
I am only joking about the full time bit, the only way fulltime and betfair go together with me is because I have the time to sit at my pc all day, so I might be fulltime in one respect but no in the important one- profit.

Still I did make £3.54 over 6 markets today.

Bank CF £115.41