Yesterday nothing went my way and I mean NOTHING! I couldn't get anything matched at the price I wanted, I was SMASHED IN at least 5 times, just that sort of day. I was really aware of my stop loss too and quit the arvo session at -£35 with a view to doing some evening racing to make it back. I subsequently lost another -£25.
Today, on the other hand, was business as usual with no nasty surprises - not one SMASH IN thankfully. I didn't expect to do this well knowing that I had work to do to claw back to at least £1000 balance again before I could withdraw any.
My biggest day so far - another milestone reached. I had to miss a family get-together today to sit and do the racing which is always a pity, but Saturdays are usually my 'bread-and-butter' days and I only miss them if I have to.
Well, today I was a massive £12 up by tea time. I withdrew that amount into my bank account so I wouldn't get too hung up on it, and then proceeded to go at it again once I'd had a bite to eat.
This "only keep a grand in the account" approach seems to be working for me and I can quite easily get hung up on the amounts I make, especially if they're small, so clearing the account down after every session is like pressing the reset button.
Galway seemed to yield a few good wins which made up for a fankly torrid time at Goodwood. When there's a lot of money around for these festivals I can't seem to get to grips with it and my entry points are usually more luck than judgement eg the 14:45 and it's "reversal" at 16:15.
The responses to this post have really got me riled. What's the deal with all these keyboard warriors giving out advice telling people to quit something they've put a lot of time into?
GET A BLOG, GET A NAME THAT WE CAN CALL YOU, AND THEN PUT YOUR ADVICE INTO CONTEXT!
I have so far not suffered the "curse of Anonymous" as any Anons that have posted had the courtesy to sign off a comment with a name / nickname. I know Cassini gets a lot of stick from them, although to be fair he can give a bit out too!
I suppose now I'll get every Anon in the land leaving their own brand of arrogance at the end of this post! The door is always open, take your shoes off on the way in.
It's like this guy I know, a real up-and-coming guitarist called Richie Sambuca, who posted up his rendition of the Top Gun theme, and all people want to do is bash his particularly impressive barnet? Get a life, this guy is going places man! ;)
Anyway, back to the trading and I'm trying to pick my fights carefully following last week's efforts. So I stayed away from the afternoon racing and just concentrated on the evening stuff. After a slow start I've got to admit I really loved the dynamic of tonight's markets and there seemed to be lots of moves I could identify with.
Admittedly, I made lots of errors of judgement; for instance, chucking away a tenner twice in the last race to only make 6p!
One approach I'm taking now is trading with a £1000 bank - Leon the Fixer discussed this in his great blog before he sadly took it down - and withdrawing the profits (if there are some!) after the session. I'm finding that this is keeping me quite disciplined as I try not to stray too far into the negative from the £1000 mark, bearing in mind I won't have anything to withdraw at the end of the session if I don't!
So far so good, this is my 6th positive day in a row (high of £61, low of £14). I desperately want to stay in a positive winning mindset, even if it's only a fiver or something, as ultimately it can only do good things for the confidence.
Saturday's child went in play Sunday's child didn't make hay Monday's child had a red face Tuesday's child was off the pace Wednesday's child savoured every pound Thursday's child made an incredible turnaround But the child who was born on the Friday Aspires to make £60 EVERY day
The summary doesn't reflect a somewhat epic week with plenty to learn from. I need to pick my days carefully as I've resigned myself to the fact now that some days are simply untradable (Monday for instance).
Didn't do so bad on the horses in the end after getting off to a slow start. The -£18 and -£15 losses had me spitting feathers! It was mostly down to just rubbish trading.
The smasher/mad bomber/cash master was out in force again tonight I noticed, chucking in £15k when they fancied. Needless to say I wasn't laying much tonight.
I got off a couple of my Open bets for a -£10 loss overall. None of my picks started particularly well and although Goosen has a chance, he's still pretty far off the pace. I'd rather cut out for a tenner loss than swallow -£30.
I read after-the-fact that Harrington has recently has come into the tournament off the back of some major knee surgery...
THEY DIDN'T TELL ME THAT ON Golf365.com grrrrrr!
His mental strength is magnificent: he can cope with head to head action on the course, with the stresses of the back nine on Sunday and, crucially, the weight of questions from the media sits comfortably on his shoulders. His favoured mode of preparing for this event is a week playing links golf,
Some say there will be Euro glory this year but McIlroy and Rose are a bit short in price for me and Westwood has got an injury, so I'm staying off them.
Harrington has been a bit of a banker in the past. Last year's winner, Cink, at 170? Worth £2 on him. I'm looking for Kaymer and Goosen to steam in a bit. And Wood was third last year so hopefully his confidence is high.
Still feel like I'm trying to settle into a groove following my 'jittery June'.
Saturday was rather annoying having got up to £65+ only to be robbed blind by the 'mad bomber' that has been getting other trader-bloggers so riled. I've not seen any evidence of him since then but I'm sure he's still lurking.
I've been trying to close trades more hurriedly in case he strikes - actually it's probably not a bad habit to get into as who knows what's around the corner in any trade - very little surprises me anymore!
Sunday was one of those days where I lingered around the £0 mark for ages before a back bet got cruelly blasted upwards, reverse-bombed if you like, and lost me -£26 in an instant. I generally don't wait to see what's going to happen to the price in these situations because I'm usually too panicked and stunned to do anything else except close out.
I took Monday and Tuesday off because I needed a rest from it.
Yesterday was an inefficient day: I could read the markets well but I tripped up badly on a few and ended up where I'd made £100 of good trades and £40 of rotten ones. By my reckoning, if I've made £140 of trades and £40 are losses, then 30% of my trading approach is rotten!
Today was similar in that I gave away a load of tasty profit looking for more. The trouble is, there have been times when I've been a tenner up with 4 minutes to go and gone on to trade upto £20+; then there are the times where I've chucked it all away and even made a loss. I suppose if I can cut out that rotten 30% of my game, then the option to carry on trading with time left on the clock would appear to be the correct one.
30% rot? But there's is still 70% of this lovely trading apple to enjoy so let's not be too down on yourself, Mets!
Not a bad month's takings, but a lot worse than May. It doesn't reflect the many hours I've put into it over the course of that month, with an hourly rate probably on a par with a Chinese sweat-shop worker assembling the new iPhone 4!
June started well and included my first £100+ day but halfway through it went a bit wonky - perhaps it was something to do with changing my stakes, style and basically my entire approach!!
I'm hopeful that things will settle down in July and I'll gain some consistency. At the moment, I'm never 100% sure that the session will yield a profit. If I can get off to a good start, I can build up a head of steam and can usually confidently state that I'll be in profit by the end of the session; if I get off to a stinker then I tend to go into 'damage limitation' mode and slowly try and claw back to £0 without getting into more trouble.
I started a session the other day with my lunch on my knee, trading in between each mouthful, and lost concentration and -£15 in the first race. Another rule to enforce then: FINISH YOUR LUNCH BEFORE TRADING. Lots of these sorts of lessons that have been learnt over a long period of time, and they gradually become second-nature in the end. Others include: DON'T TRADE WITHOUT A BACKUP and ONLY TRADE PAST THE OFF TIME WITH PICTURES.
I have no real stop-loss figure at the moment and perhaps that would benefit me; a -£30 deficit is obviously easier for me to get back the next time - with a clear head and renewed vigour - than a -£70/-£80 one.
There were many days in June where I would make a number of positive trades and a more-or-less equal number of negative trades, effectively leaving me with naff-all for the day. This made me question my 'edge': there must be a glimmer of one since I'm not in an overall deficit, but at times it appears to be very meagre. Of course, no amount of head-slapping and object-throwing can make up for truly awful trades, of which there were many. If I can weed out these 'clangers', I'm sure things will settle down.
Not a bad start to July. Long may it continue. Most of this was acquired during the evening session. The evenings appear more readable, but I may just be kidding myself.
UFC An exciting weekend ahead for us UFC fans: UFC 116 - Shane Carwin vs Brock Lesnar. The fans have Lesnar to win it but I'm not sure I can call it. Lesnar is back after a long lay-off with some problems in his intestines so he might have a doubt in his mind, but then again he's a cocky fella and a world-class wrestler / ground-and-pounder so I doubt it. Carwin pummelled Frank Mir and lost me a tenner as I had Mir for a win; no-one has taken him beyond round 1 yet - erk! It's gonna be a great match-up whatever the outcome.
Which one would you rather get your face smashed in by?
I took up horse racing trading in October 2009 after losing my job. After 4 months hard slog trading the ladders, I started to make a modest profit. Having grown more and more confident in my trading ability throughout 2010, I officially went full-time on Betfair in January 2011. I now enjoy the benefits of being my own boss and having a better quality of life. I've vowed not to take anything for granted and to live in the moment while things are going well.
BOTTOM FEEDER Those traders who live off money left by overfed or clumsy livestock aka 'Pro Traders'.
FUNNY MONEY A collective term for money that is sent to intimidate and confuse, sometimes at the hands of SKYNET, which frightens amatuer Betfair traders into handing over their dinner money.
ON THE CRAB A day filled with opportunities to make some money.
NIP ME IN You have your money on at the start of a good move but you're still waiting to get played in..."Go on! Nip me in!"
SKYNET A revolutionary artificial intelligence system built by Cyberdyne Systems to destroy the human Betfair population.
SMASHED IN Where you put your stake on and wait patiently for it to be matched, only for it to be smashed into play suddenly with many ££s already against you.
SNIPPY Where the price of a nag becomes unstable, pinging around like a crazy thing..."This is a bit snippy, I'm not sure what is going to happen next and I'm staying well out of it!"
