Monday 29 September 2014

Crazy Couple of Weeks

Up and Down


Was away last week with work and had what can only be described as the perfect trading week. I'm 99% sure that was down to the environment I was trading in.


I'd get back to my hotel room around 6pm ish, having had a gym session. I'd then put on the radio or some background TV noise and sit at the desk with peace and quiet to mull over the markets or do my research for the following day.


It saw my (at the time) biggest win of around 750% in a CS trade in Brazil (a risky league with huge rewards if you get a nice win). My final night in the hotel I did my research for the following days trading (Friday). Friday came and I got my biggest ever win yet again with over 800% in Ireland Division 1.


Safe to say I was on cloud 9 and my monthly target at that point was over 45 points, well over my target of 30.


What happened next was nothing short of disastrous.


I didn't have a huge amount of time to do my Saturday research (Friday night) but I got it done and decided to be confident in my new found 'edge' and include in my CS trades two very risky leagues in Serie B Italy and Greece Super League. Both appeared sound choices following the super month today.


Safe to say both lost, around 350% each. What happened alongside those games was even worse.


Of the 8 games I traded that day, I had 2 red cards (they fuck up matches big time) and 7, yes SEVEN (OUT OF EIGHT) missed penalties. Safe to say I lost a fair few of those 8 trades, and when your liability is 300-400% a go, they start adding up.


The rest of the week followed suit and I couldn't buy a winner for love nor money. A real low point and I hit rock bottom to be honest.


I turned my attention to my new system (previously) mentioned that I have been paper trading. At this point it was up 135 points in 4 weeks, remarkable. I started setting them up at £2 a go and found to my peril yesterday that 23 points worth hadn't been matched as the odds weren't quite there. Gutting.


That said today had a stormer and its up 939% in 1 day with real money staked.


Ended 'September' on Sunday night up approx 15 points, no disaster by any means but disappointing.


Lost track of my blog total but it is something like this:


Blog Total: Start - End of Sept 46 Points.


Oct to date 9.4 points.

Monday 15 September 2014

Green Green Green

Happy Mondays


3 Pre Match CS Trades (75%) and a perfect In Play (300%) means another cracking day.


With the CS games I will typically accept a small controlled lost of 20-50% once a certain point in the match has been met. It is much preferable to me than a scratch or full blown loss, and my wins more than compensate them. So I consider the 3 Pre Match games as 'wins' really.


The Fram match was perfect really but I opted to take 50% in the CS market to protect my IP profit from earlier.


Blog Total: £654.76 / 5465% / 54.65 points


MarketStart timeSettled dateProfit/loss (£)
Football / Fram v Fjolnir : Over/Under 4.5 Goals 15-Sep-14 20:15 15-Sep-14 22:11 -12.60
Football / Fram v Fjolnir : Correct Score 15-Sep-14 20:15 15-Sep-14 22:11 39.84
Football / Fram v Fjolnir : Correct Score 2 Away 15-Sep-14 20:15 15-Sep-14 22:11 -0.75
Football / Fram v Fjolnir : Correct Score 2 Home 15-Sep-14 20:15 15-Sep-14 21:30 -0.65
Football / Orebro v Kalmar FF : Correct Score 15-Sep-14 18:00 15-Sep-14 19:54 58.93
Football / Slovan Liberec v Plzen : Correct Score 15-Sep-14 18:00 15-Sep-14 19:50 6.00
Football / Slovan Liberec v Plzen : Over/Under 4.5 Goals 15-Sep-14 18:00 15-Sep-14 19:50 -12.61
Football / Slovan Liberec v Plzen : Correct Score 2 Away 15-Sep-14 18:00 15-Sep-14 19:50 -1.50
Football / Slovan Liberec v Plzen : Correct Score 2 Home 15-Sep-14 18:00 15-Sep-14 19:50 -0.25
Football / Tromso v Hodd : Correct Score 2 Home 15-Sep-14 18:00 15-Sep-14 19:49 -5.00
Football / Tromso v Hodd : Over/Under 4.5 Goals 15-Sep-14 18:00 15-Sep-14 19:26 60.00
Football / Tromso v Hodd : Correct Score 15-Sep-14 18:00 15-Sep-14 19:25 -57.50

Sunday 14 September 2014

Quick Weekend Update

First all green weekend


Finally a weekend with a green Friday, Saturday and Sunday.


Been spending literally hours working on my secret new system that I am paper trading and along with another (with its own 74% strike rate), it is making my CS selections so much more logical, with great results.


Saturday: £26.27 (131%)


Not a classic, an in play that cost me 300% and an early Japan CS trade which blew another 300%. Last game of the day took me into profit.


Sunday: £79.39 (395%)


Includes a full blown worst case scenario loss in CS of 400% and spent all day trawling round the shops and driving down the motorway. All trading done on my phone, cannot complain with that result.


My secret new system hauled in an incredible 61 points on Saturday. Sunday pretty poor, but still took in 2 points profit. Total now is 83 points in 3 weeks assuming a lay price of 3.0. Ridiculous. I could well be retired soon if it works as well in principle.


Blog Total: £580.26 / 5095% / 50.95 points

Friday 12 September 2014

August Target Smashed - Sept Looking Good

Which stage is this?


Which stage is what, I hear you ask.


There is a gem of a post from what I assume is a trading/betfair forum from years ago whereby someone very articulately talks through various stages of the betfair traders journey. This includes stages such as unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence and unconscious competence. It is a very amusing but also very accurate.


One of the latter stages discusses breaking even most days, knowing that you generally make good calls and win more than you lose. The last step being the one where you know you have an edge that works long term and you just trade on auto pilot.


He (she?) suggests it takes 3-5 years to reach this stage. I'm not arrogant enough (well, I am actually) to assume I'm there already, but things are looking very good.


Since my last post (Aug 26th - sorry for delay), I managed to claw back some of the in play losses that haunted me so badly around that Bank Holiday Monday.


In my 'August' total I am including the 1-2 weeks back end of July, as that was when I started the blog, but August really was when I had the first of many 'Eureka' moments.


Anyway August ended up 3327% (33.27 points), split 1748 (17.48) In Play and 1579% (15.79) Pre Match.


The Pre Match is 99% Correct Score markets, the 2.5 nonsense I began the blog with has long gone, such is the speed of my development.


August saw me choosing In Play and CS trades using historic stats and in play stats, and I met my target of 30 points, just. Considering this was my first month with a consistent couple of systems and applying the long awaited discipline, with sod all fixtures, I was delighted with that.


Literally from the 1st September though I have had somewhat of a brainwave. All my subsequent Pre Match trades have not used the website I'm subscribed to for stats for the season. I've not even had a peep.


I have literally discovered what I consider to be an incredible edge with regards to selecting matches to trade. Generally I will need 3-4 goals, spread over first and second half with both teams scoring. Sounds easy? Well try it and see how you get on!


This eureka moment spawned from a system I have also been paper trading since 27th August, which is currently up 42.0 points from 324 selections, at an assumed lay price of 3.0.


Such a return not only in a short space of time, 2-3 weeks, at a fairly high lay price, is literally incredible. I am very excited by its potential, not only because there are so many selections each day/weekend but because the strike rate so far is alarmingly high (over 70%), across literally any league across the world. Betfair also has the liquidity in the market I need to apply real money to this.


Watch this space, if the return for the whole of September is anything near 15.0 points, let alone 40+ I will be bouncing off the walls and applying for a £10k loan to play with £100 stakes...maybe.


September has started very well, tonight being no exception. Despite the lack of fixtures for a whole week due to the international break, September is currently up 1240% (12.4 points). I am still at £20 stakes. I won't play about with these until my bank reaches £1,500 ish.


I've seriously messed up my maths somewhere along the line, with regards to cumulative P&L. My points totals are accurate (from my spreadsheet of all my trades) but my betfair P&L is a lot higher.


I've done the BF one from when I started the blog, so we'll start again.


Blog Total: £474.60 / 4567% / 45.67 points