31st January -Total Profits - £240

Saturday and lots of trading but not for me, out at 11:30 back at 7:30 as I went off to watch my football team - first time I have watched them win since September.

When I got back Ath Bilbao v Malaga was on the box, Ath Bilbao looked more dangerous than Malaga, but Malaga looked dangerous from set piece's the score was 1-1 a half time and it was from that point that I started trading, I backed when Malaga were in possession, made sure I was out of trades when Ath Bilbao looked dangerous and traded out when Malaga had a freekick in Ath Bilbao's half - it was from a free kick that Malaga scored and I was not in a trade, I entered the Malaga market cautiously as I though Ath Bilbao were dangerous and within a few minutes Ath Bilbao equalised and from that point onwards neither looked likely to score and once the draw got down to the 1.35ish level I opted out as I thought the odds were not providing value with the number of minutes left to play. Shortly after Ath Bilbao scored to go into the lead and their odds went down to 1.07ish and I just left the match completely.

I did a little on the Numancia v Real Madrid match but was catching up on the web, when Real Madrid scored and the odds went to 1.20 and I left it and they scored again apparently - not sure what the final result was dont really care to be honest.

Results:

£24.62 - 3.79%

30th January - Total Profit - £215

After yesterday's day of errors - I kept to my rules, hedged when I needed to and traded on just one match, the Hamburg v Bayern Munich match - not sure how good Bayern are supposed to be this year but from the time I started watching (about 10 mins in to first half) there appeared to be only one winner and that was Hamburg, Ribery supposed to excellent but didnt show much of his talent and Hamburg won 1-0 in the end.

Results:

£33.28 - 5.39%

29th January - Total profit - £182

Error after Error after Error - repeat etc...

Got a bit complacent from the past few days, where I thought this trading is easy.

Here's the story:

Cambridge v Oxford - game started off and Oxford looked like the better team and they could score (first error - dont trade on a market that you dont think will be the final result), Oxford did score - my second error was not concentrating enough on both the game and the market - you cant do one without the other and both have to be watched equally carefully - I didnt and I got caught out - I hedged for a £35.70 loss - about the only thing I got right. I traded a little on the half time match and recouped £6 and diverted my attention to the Barcelona v Espanyol pre match odds on the U/O 2.5 market - I thought the 2.88 was too high - I backed, it rose to 2.90, I backed, it rose to 2.92 I backed it rose to 3.10 I backed twice and was looking at a hedge by this time of minus £25 - hated it, waited for it to drop to 3.05 and hedged out for £16 loss - you know the error, I know the error and I traded on the U/O2.5 market til a goal was scored and left the market at minus £7.33. Went back to the Oxford v Cambridge match as the odds on the Barcelona match were too low and I was trading all right but with double stakes and I got caught again when Cambridge scored - this I dont mind it wasn't a mistake but I was chasing the match and that was the error, I knew Cambridge were looking dangerous and should have opted out of trading (repeat error). Next error instead of hedging for a £55 loss, I chose to keep the £50 green on Oxford and trade the £75 draw downwards - the game finished a draw and I lost £54.35 - had I hedged for red then this loss would have been £34.

Left me feeling blue and questioning why but this morning feeling a lot better about it and I need to get back to cutting out the silly errors and things will be fine. Oh I won £4.5 on the handball.

Results:

-£85.66 - -12.19%

28th January - Total profits to date £268

A marathon day but over all quite happy with the day as I made profits in illiquid markets and but for a dodgy penalty it would have been even better.

Asian Cup started at 11:30 this morning and the schedule looked something like this:

11:30 Singapore v Jordan
11:30 Thailand v Iran
12:30 Indonesia v Australia
13:30 Yemen v Hong Kong
13:30 Lebanon v Syria
15:00 Kuwait v Oman

followed by:

19:30 AC Milan v Genoa
19:45 Celtic v Dundee Utd
20:00 West Ham v Hull

The only games that had decent liquidity were the AC Milan and West Ham games.

The Singapore game was going smoothly enough with both sides not being very good and whilst I was in an open trade the referee gave a penalty which sometimes are given but mostly they aren't - left me with £30 deficit at the start of the day - nice I thought, but with all the other games to trade, there was no point panicking as there was going to be plenty of time to turn the situation around. The Singapore game lost me £11 in the end.

The remainder of the games were uneventful from a trading point of view for me and I made money overall. I mentioned the Celtic game but I didnt actually trade on the game, the reason being that Celtic looked very dangerous, there wasn't much liquidity in the match, if I wanted to get out of a trade due to the liquidity, I would be losing £2 - £3 each time, with these circumstances, I just watched it for a while and then just left it alone.

Results:

£51.85 - 7.97%

27th January - Total Profit - £216

It started with tennis and with me still not feeling confident just did 2 bets and left with a quid's profit.

Onto the horses and the place market in live running - 3 out of 4 correct the one that failed fell at the last leaving me down £3 on the horses.

A new column appeared on the spreadsheet as I gave handball a go - I have watched a lot of handball and think I can spot a winner in a match and a couple of trades got me £2.

So basically I wasted my day and started the football with my target for the day still to get.

Portsmouth v Aston Villa - the game started off with the two teams playing high tempo football and this is dangerous - or it appears to be dangerous as the action goes from one end of the field to the other in very short time. What I sussed out is that with high tempo games you need players who have exceptional first touch to be dangerous and Villa and Portsmouth only have about 2 or 3 players with this quality, meaning that when the ball is passed wide at pace to a winger, the winger usually wont control it with his first touch and the defender will be all over him or the ball will be played into the centre midfielder who will have 2 opposition players to nick the ball off him and thus this game can be traded quite normally but with the usual prerequisites in place, i.e. if an attack looks dangerous and you're in a trade get out and take the small loss, if there's a corner and a dodgy defence then trade out - in this match I like the defences of both sides and was out of a trade when the ball was passed to Heskey who scored. After he scored, Portsmouth upped their game for 10 minutes or so and I opted out of trading and in the 2nd half I tried to set up a position whereby I had an open bet on Villa so that if they did score then I would be able to make a nice profit. What transpired was the odds were around the 1.45 mark and fluctuated two or three ticks depending on who was attacking, so rather than just leaving the position open, I backed and layed a few times and made £5ish just on the match odds. I could have continued doing this all through the 2nd half but then I got the message from Sky "if you want to continue watching this then cancel one of these recordings" - I didnt want to cancel one of the recordings and turned over and stopped trading. A bit frustrating as I had made £13.50 and would expect to have made a bit more if I hadn't turned over - however the Mrs would have had me if she missed her CSI or Gok.

So onto 10:00 and El Nacional were playing Nacional, neither of which were the Portuguese Nacional so what was it - tuns out to be a south american pre qualifier to their equivalent of the Uefa or Champions League. El Nacional of Ecuador were playing Nacional of Paraguay. Long story short the Paraguayan team were the far better team and were dominating, so careful trading ensued, after half time El Nacional (the crap team) scored from a freekick, then I was faced with a situation of trading on a result that I didnt expect to be the final result and abstained, last time I looked the crap side were winning 3-0. I made £9 but only £7 is counted for the 27th as £2 was settled after midnight and will counted for the next day.

Results:

£21.00 3.33%

26th January - Total Profit - £195

Monday and not much sport on, tennis and Murray was about to lose, cricket and Aussies about to lose, horse racing and I would lose so when I eventually entered in to a trade it was tried and tested football.

A live stream a few seconds behind the actual match and it was between Ethnikos Piraeus v Kerkira... yeah my thoughts too, one side in blue was better than the side in white but couldn't get past the defence. The white side didnt look dangerous on the attacking front and it was quite late in the 2nd half that one side did score and it was the underdog who scored, by the time they had scored I had packed up on the game, happy with the profits and not wanting to risk it at too low odds in the last 4 or 5 minutes of the match. A profit of £26 and well done to the Greeks for playing a match on tv whilst the world was devoid of such games.


And not to be out done Setanta put on a rip snorter of a game Burton v Barrow - lack lustre first half with no side looking capable of scoring, I traded up to about 5 minutes before the first half ended - the odds were getting way too short and no value - one thing I had noticed or researching as it were was trades around the half way mark and seeing whether I can predict where the market is going to settle and trade accordingly. It looks fairly good for trades and will take note again when the opportunities arise. Anyway with about 30 seconds of the first half left to play I placed a bet on the draw and then during half time layed for a two tick profit before the 2nd half started. I didnt watch the first 5 or so minutes of the first half as I thought that Burton would win the match and will try extra hard for the first few minutes - Burton won the match and are 17 points clear with 16 matches left to play in the 5th division of England. Any how Burton did score within the first few minutes and then started trading at 1.15 to 1.13 with 35 to 40 minutes of the game left to play, I would want to have an open bet on the favourites but the odds are just not worth the risk and that ended the trading for the night. Burton went on to score again and presumably the price plummeted and surprisingly Barrow got a goal back and the final score remained 2-1.

Results

£41.91 - 7.13%

25th January - Total Profit £153

It didnt take me long to get over the astonishing error of yesterday. I went out last night after the heavy loss and got nice and truly drunk, not something I do on a regular basis, usually 2 or 3 times a year.

Anyway a couple of decisions that I have made:

I will start recording my total profits from the start of my trading on 8th December 2008. The figure is +£153 and includes yesterday's total loss of £968.66.

I received an inheritance of £1000 recently and I had plans to use this to pay off a credit card which is in the process of being paid off and the extra £1000 would just speed up the process. I had thought about depositing this into betfair, which would make up for yesterday's loss. I have decided against this as I think I will learn more if I make mistakes by putting in the work of rebuilding the bankroll again.

So today, starting off with a hangover and a thumping head, I didnt do much trading, I also had my family at home and wanted to spend time with them rather than watching the football with one eye on the footy and the other on my laptop. My new stake has dropped from £230 to just £85 and I was interested to know how I would manage to use these small stakes again, I didnt really notice much difference other than ensuring the timing of my trades were carefully timed, noting how much cash was on the ladder and ensuring that the trades would be completed in the shortest time possible.

Football:

I traded on the Cardiff v Arsenal and Liverpool v Everton matches, nothing too surprising happened in each game, both ended as a draw. I made a total of £20.98

Results:

£20.98 - 3.70%

24th January

Now pay attention:

This is what happens if you're not paying close enough attention:



I thought I was backing Man Utd to win with £460 stakes and I repeated the mistake to really screw myself over.

Once you stopped laughing, I will return probably in a month or two's time...

23rd January

Self Doubt - No Doubt

Tennis

I stayed up late to trade on the tennis, Del Potro was playing and he was playing Muller, whom prior to the match I didnt rate and still dont, not really, not against the top 10 lads. So I watched the first game which was a Muller service game and I think it went to deuce and Del Potro had a couple of break points - this was a reoccurring theme throughout the first set. On the other hand Del Potro's serve was excellent and by the time the tie break came up he had only lost 4 points - think about that he won 24 points and lost only 4, his first serves was at 82%, my bet was Del Potro to win 3-0, tie break went something like this both held serves, Del Potro breaks, Del Potro mucks up and loses a point, Del Potro breaks, then he mucks up, 5-5, first to 7, Del Potro serves and plays a poor first serve into the net followed by a 2nd serve that was non inspiring and Muller breaks. Muller hits an ace and Del Potro is down one set, my bet has gone south and I'm down £72 - yes I was confident on this match but why didnt I trade out? cos no one would take my lay bets.

Go to bed when Del Potro wins the 2nd set and I'm miffed.

Ivanovich, playing some tubby Russian who knocks the ball hard and from what I can see is quite a good player - Ivanovich, No.1 at some point last year in the world and currently ranked number 5, has a history of coming back in adverse circumstances. Ivanovich leading 5-4 in the first set and serving to take the first set promptly lost the next 3 games and thus 1 set down, she later comes back to make it 1-1 in sets on the tie-break, saving a few match points I believe in the process and promptly loses her first service game in the 3rd set. Comeback queen Ivanovich, then waits until the Russian lass to be serving for the match before breaking back and then goes on to lose the 3rd set. Oh my bet was £34 to win 2-0 when she was serving for the first set @1.68.

Del Potro's odds' were 1.66 to 1.80. I won a couple of bets on the matches but over all I have had a day of self doubting on tennis and I'm not going to do any tomorrow.

Tennis losses amount to £89.65.

Football.

I traded on the Dubai's Emirates Cup matches in the afternoon for about £26 - nothing really to add except that staking for £224 or £448 (double because I was down £90 on the tennis) was virtually impossible in an illiquid market, it was taking odds with whatever was on them, at what I considered good value and then laying them at more of a bookies price and waiting for them to be taken.

Derby v Forest match - I have watched both these teams against my team and out of the two, Forest have the superior attacking force and it was to my surprise that Derby took the lead and then it was tricky to bet on an outcome that I didn't think would last and at stakes of £448. I traded little and concentrated on the Portuguese match. Once Forest had equalised, I rejoined the trading. A total of £48 was made on this match.

Maritimo v Leixoes - I traded on this one and it was a matter of lumping on at less than ideal odds - i.e. odds you could get at the bookies but I could match £448 all in one hit, the ladder was sporadically filled with bets and lays all over the place. The match was less than riveting to watch - which I dont mind as there are less surprises and I layed £61 at one price £122 at another and just kept feeding the prices until the £448 was completely layed. £22 from this match.

Belenenses v Benfica - By the time this game had come around I was pretty much level for the day having traded the loss away at the higher stakes on the previous matches, so I reverted to the 15% of bankroll again. Another boring game and good to trade on, the pitch was a mud bath and it tipped down - anyone watching the Gloucester rugby match will get the idea of the pitch (not as bad as the Gloucester pitch - but pretty bad for a football match). Didn't trade much in the first half as I felt that Benfica the league leaders should score and looked dangerous, but in the 2nd half neither side looked threatening. Benfica did score but I was not in the middle of a trade but it was deemed to be offside. A profit on the reduced stakes of circa £32.50.

No doubt, I am far more confident with Football than Tennis.

Results.

£41.89 - 2.80%

22 January

A day of luck.

Tennis.

Good luck comes to those who least deserve it, and today that was me, a poor decision was rewarded on the tennis.

Venus Williams was playing some 20 yr old and I backed her to win 2-0, Venus broke and I traded out for a small win on small stakes.

Gulbis v Andreev - I noticed the same patterns as yesterday, but I didnt like what I was watching so only did it once and again for pennies.

Murray v Granollers - I backed Murray to win 3-0 but in the first two games, I thought he was taking it for granted that he would beat his opponent and I decided to trade out my £50 stake for again pennies. Murray promptly broke and Granollers broke back immediately. Something not right about Murray - so I didnt trade any more until I noticed there was game betting - now game betting is something I like if I am confident in either the server holding his serve and the odds are right (Murray was 1.05 to hold his serve - so completely the wrong odds) or if the return of serve player is excellent and the server is weak. I backed Murray @ 2.50 to break and then promptly layed the bet @ 2.40 before the first point of the game had started.

So there it is frustrated with the tennis, not feeling too confident on tennis at the moment, £3 banked and I noticed that my internet stream of the match was about 1.5 seconds ahead of eurosport's coverage, so with this in I mind I had been pressing the back button on whoever had just hit the winning shot at 1.01 and each time I did it I seemed that I missed out by 0.5 to 1.0 seconds. Until the 3rd set 5th game - Murray was leading love-40 on Granollers serve, he hits the winning shot I press the button the bet seems to be going through, I look up at the TV and the winning shot had just gone out! oh dear or words that dont resemble those at all, I watch as the back bet looks to get filled at 1.01 - oh did I forget to mention the stake was £400!! not sure if you have ever been in that state whereby you want to swear and swear out loud and normally that is precisely what you do but you are so dumbfounded that it's hard enough to breathe out let alone swear, well that was me. What can I tell you, the Layers in the market have faster internet connections than me and my 1.01 got matched at 1.12, I immediately layed the same £400 @1.12 but there were others at higher in the market and the next point was about to be played, If I changed the price it would take time, if I cancelled then I got no chance of getting matched. Some of it got taken but not all of it and I saw Murray hit the winning shot and I cancelled the remainder for a £39.22 profit - jammy barsteward. As I said, poor play leads to undeserved rewards - I feel like a chief executive at any of the banks.

So tennis - £42.82 profit.

Football:

Two matches of differing fortunes.

Kilmarnock v Ayr - trading on the under/over 2.5 market using £216 stakes - now if you remember a certain lad called Maradona punching the ball into the net, well replicate that but with the linesman and referee in no position to see it then you can see what luck I got - bad luck and a £108.25 loss. Kilmarnock were the favourites and trading then became impossible as I was backing a result that I didnt think would ultimately be the result of the match as Ayr were the side with the cheating little barsteward, so I headed over to the next match.

Wrexham v Cambridge - double my stakes to get back the £108 loss - so I was using a stake of £432!, it worked out all right as it happens as I managed to get £30 from the under/over market and then I was out of the market as Wrexham scored - I thought they were most likely but not sure if they would actually score, but I was pretty sure Cambridge wouldn't. The odds on Wrexham started at 1.49 when the market resumed and I traded to a £13 profit, when I noticed that Kilmarnock had scored. Wrexham match got to half time and I took a peek at the Kilmarnock match.

Kilmarnock looked strong but Ayr looked resilient and determined, after watching for 5 minutes, I decided that it was unlikely that either side would score, so I entered the full time draw market, still using £432 stakes. Now in the past if a side is winning, I tend to leave an open bet on that side to win and hope they score a 2nd to seal the deal and if the other side looks to be likely to score, I just trade out and try again - now in this match I put a £432 bet up to get filled and I got £329 of it filled, I had placed another lay bet at a few points lower but it was the last price the market had traded and some of it got filled - but basically I had a good £300 open at 2.42. Someone got sent off and the market suspended. I didnt know this before, I knew the teams' market would get affected by a sending off but no idea what would happen to the draw market - I waited for the market to reform and it reformed around the 2.00 level and I hedged out for a lovely jubbly £70 profit - I wasnt dumbfounded I had a big grin on my face and laughed out loud. So the draw market plummets upon a sending off.

I left the two markets at that point, happy to have recouped the loss created by bad luck and a cheating Ayr Utd player.

Results:

£48.94 - 3.39%

21st January.

Early start today, much to the annoyance of my wife, couldn't sleep and happened to have my laptop by my bed, now it's a 15.4 Dell Laptop which is a bit large and rather bright and the time I woke because I couldn't sleep was 5:40 a.m.

So with Australia being 11 hours ahead of us the aussie open was in full swing and I loaded up the live streams and the other software.

Tennis: now it seems a while ago so I'm not sure in which order I did the following:

Lu v Nalbandian - I noticed trading patterns on serves, when Nalbandian served and I was trusting his serve at the time his odds would drop each time he won a point on his serve and bottom out when he finished the game off. Lu has a good serve and as each serve that he won the Nalbandian price would go back up to roughly where it started when I first backed it. So using huge stakes of only £25 as I am not wholly confident in the tennis markets, I just backed and layed Nalbandian at the start and end of each of his service games. I did this in the first set until the games became vital for the players i.e. 4-4. I made £5.37

Santoro v Kohlschreiber - now we talked about Santoro before and watching his matches is cringe worthy as he drags his opponents into a style of game that he loves and plays on the other player's ability to play shots that they are not used to, if they just stuck to their own strengths and get Santoro to play his backhand they would win but they dont and start to self doubt. I thought Kohlschreiber would play his big serve game and stuff Santoro. I backed Kohlschreiber to win 3-0 at 1.88 and then 1.77 as he looked to be breaking Santoro in the first set, I layed at 1.6 and 1.5 when he did break and greened up for £16. I think Santoro won 3-2.

Del Potro v Mayer - I backed Del Potro to win 3-0 at 1.42 for £50 and traded out a couple minutes later at 1.37 and greened up for £2.72.

Same story for the Roddick v Malisse match except that there was only £16 to be able backed at 1.76 so I traded out at 1.65.

Generally I was shocked at how little liquidity there is on some of these matches and I suspect I will have to avoid these markets.

So tennis made me £24.85 and close to the £40ish target that is 3% of my bankroll.

Football

Malaysia v U.A.E. at 12.45 p.m. and not much to say I traded the under/over 2.5 goals with a total of 27 transactions for £10 until U.A.E. scored after about 25 minutes and the markets for Half time and full time both dipped for the U.A.E. to a shocking 1.12 - complete waste of time - I closed the stream and my laptop and waited for this evening's matches.

Burnley v Tottenham - I traded in the over/under market and cancelled a bet as Burnley looked like scoring which they did and concentrated on the half time and full time markets but Spurs looked rather dangerous in the 2nd half and I decided to look at the Espanyol and Barcelona match instead - I managed to trade for £13 in total on this match.

Espanyol v Barcelona

Finished 0-0 so a good game to trade - I made £22 from this match

Burnley v Tottenham Take II

Now Spurs were 4-1 up in the first leg and the only time extra could take place would be if Burnley from a league below won by 3 clear goals at 90 minutes - which they did! 3-0 and with that scoreline if they could hold out for the 30 minutes of extra time they would win on away goals. Burnley win market started extra time at 1.90 so the price would drop on average by about 0.03 per minute. Now with the delays with Betfair if you got a price matched by the time you layed, the price had dropped as the price was due to drop on average every 20 seconds - I love markets like this and made £24 before deciding not to trade any more with 3 minutes of extra time left to play at which point Spurs scored and then scored again to go through to Wembley.

Results:

£101.93 - 7.59%

20th January

Went to a friends house in the morning to show him how trading works, as a result no tennis trading.

With Man Utd v Derby the only game in town and there is little to report. Man Utd 3-0 up at half time and with the final score 4-2 then there was little value in any of the markets but plenty of danger. I managed to get £10.50 from early trades and that was it for the day.

Results:

£10.56 - 0.79%

19th January

Started trading the Tennis and didnt do too well - the Hantuchova v Dellacqu was the cause of the losses and it as being fairly certain that Hantuchova would win but not completely convinced and trading at the death of the match made me think yes She'll win to oh my how did she lose that point etc... So in future I am taking a vow not to bet at the death of a match. Federer - I bet on a 3-0 set win and then trading out when he won the first set.

In future I think tennis will be about taking a view on a match and sticking with it until proven correct or trading out for as small a loss as possible but allow the tennis player to prove themselves.

Football.

Yesterday I think I mentioned about getting through tough games and taking the profits on the easier games. Oman v Indonesia was the 0-0 easy match that made up the bulk of the profits for the day. It is interesting to note that in this game my stake (now up to 188) and not very liquid markets meant that I could move the market to the next level i.e. take out bets of £50 £60 and £70 on three different ticks in one go and then laying at a few ticks below and their was enough money in the market for the lay bets to get filled within a minute or two - the beauty of this, is that the lay price is several ticks from the lowest price I took and I get the benefits of getting profits from three different prices. The Oman match provided £61ish profits.

Kaiserslautern v B Munich was a friendly match and it appeared to me that not much tackling was going to take place so I left the match early after taking £11 profit.

Yeovil v Leicester - not a great match with Yeovil lasting out to after half time to concede - I left the match in favour to look at the Liverpool v Everton match which as playing at the same time. £3 profit.

Liverpool v Everton - Merseyside Derby with not much blood and thunder but just two good defences nullifying the attacking prowess of the other sides. Quite good trading conditions but fraught with danger as Everton need the points to get a European place next year and Liverpool needing to win to go back to the top of the division. £17 profit was the result and 1-1 the scoreline. They do it all again on Sunday in the FA Cup which is being shown live on the tv.

Results:

£77.76 - 6.2% profit and a new stake size of £200 to use tomorrow.

18th January

With 3 matches all starting within 30 minutes of each other it was a matter of which were going to have the liquidity, which had big favourites and of course how each team played.

I'll start with the NEC v Ajax match, the first half was all about Ajax and they must have missed 4 or 5 clear cut chances and were a far better side than their opponents and with that in mind it's tricky to bet on an outcome that you dont think will occur i.e. under 2.5 goals and a half time draw - but I took some opportunities and was up 6ish quid by half time as the score remained 0-0. Into the 2nd half and Ajax scored early and confident they would go on to win by a comfortable margin, I backed them with 1.5 times the normal stakes i.e. £246, within a couple of minutes NEC scored leaving me facing a big loss. I thought this through, did I believe Ajax would win, answer yes, how long will I leave it until I take the hit and lose approx. £135 - not sure. I left it for 4 minutes and Ajax regained the lead - not wanting to get caught again I greened up, did a little trading and decided that it wasnt worth it and concentrated on the other two games that were being played.

West Ham v Fulham - West Ham took the lead early in the 6th minute and I felt confident they would go on and win, I started trading the West Ham half time market, I was making money and all was going well. I was in the process of greening up and the £20 figure was in the market waiting to be matched and Fulham scored a 30 yarder past the West Ham goalie, this time it wasnt a matter of waiting to see if West Ham could regain the lead as there was only 15 minutes to half time so I took the loss of £13 and traded a little to half time and reduced the loss to around a fiver. It was about the time I gave up on the NEC v Ajax match that I switched over to the West Ham match again and West Ham were about to take a penalty from which they scored and I wanted to back West Ham for the remainder of the match but the odds were quite low with 30 minutes left to go - so I left it and concentrated on the Aberdeen v Celtic match.

Aberdeen v Celtic - Aberdeen had taken the lead against the big favourites - so trading on a result that you dont think will happen makes it tricky, Celtic equalised within a minute. Around the 30 minute mark Aberdeen scored again - oh my what to do? Mostly I like to do nothing until certainty or good mark of certainty returns. Aberdeen went on to win 4-2 and West Ham 3-1 and for trading purposes, it's tricky trading conditions that can be your downfall and if you can come through these then I'm confident profits can be made in the easy games to trade.

Tricky trading happens in a match (for me) when the favourite goes behind in the match or dominates and doesnt score, tricky trading happens when there are a lot of goals and those 3 matches above had 16 goals between them and 1 big favourite losing. From those three matches I made around £20.

The last three matches were far easier to trade;

Tottenham v Porstmouth final result was 1-1, both sides to me didnt look clinical in their finishing, they were both producing chances but half chances and not excellent chances and I made a profit of over £50 - I will say this about the 2nd half of a match - lets say that it's drawing at half time and the odds for a draw is 2.40, over the next 45 minutes the odds will obviously fluctuate but if the sides dont score the odds at full time will be 1.00. So 140 divided by 45 means that the odds should come down at a rate of around 0.03 per minute. In this match with 1 minute left to play, the odds on a draw was 1.36 - sure there's injury time and you have to factor that into your calculations, in this case I got a £168 bet got matched at 1.36 and within 30 seconds traded out for £16 profit as the relentless tick tock of the clock means that the ultimate 1.00 odds are only a few minutes away, I got out at 1.26.

Lazio v Juventus and Almeria v Athletico Madrid both behaved themselves and they both finished 1-1. The easy games gives you the profits. These two games gave me £60.

Results:

£136.34 - 12.19%

17th January and it felt more like work than a hobby.

Preston v Burnley - traded nicely to a £18 profit on the half time and over/under 2.5 goals market. Burnley goalkeeper brings down an opponent and my backing of the draw on the full time market was exposed for a £78 loss - from that point onwards, I doubled my stakes and managed to reduce the deficit from £78 to £20 - A total loss on the match of around £2 - my aim for the day was to recover the loss from yesterday of £45 - so first match down and £47 away from my target.

Hull v Arsenal - Arsenal scored early and being the big favourite, the match turned out to be a waste of time for trading purposes. I was however watching the other match...

Bristol City v Wolves, traded successfully on the under/over 2.5 market but only for a short time as weather conditions were horrendous and I decided to opt out of trading as the wind was proving an obstacle to decent football - this was shown when just before half time a fluke goal took the ball over Bristol City's goalkeeper who had he stayed on the line would have had it covered (he was only 6 yards from his line but a gust of wind took it from his finger tips). With Wolves winning 1-0, I started trading on them winning and when they scored the 2nd I had an open bet on them - now Bristol City haven't been doing very well this season and instead of trading in for the £38 available, I wanted the £52 that was the total profit if they won the match - or more accurately I didnt think 1.10 were fair odds for the league leaders to not to win from being 2-0 up - taught me a lesson as Bristol City scored and the odds went flying back out to where they were when I backed Wolves - I traded out for £4 profit then traded the rest of the match for a total of £18.94. For what it's worth the score as 2-2.

Barcelona v Deportivo - waste of time - Barcelona scored early on and went on to be leading 3-0 at half time.

AC Milan v Florentina - again favourites scored relatively early and for trading purposes an opportunity gone. £6ish profit.

Sevilla v Numancia - a game that actually behaved it's self and profits were made - £25.

Results - did I manage to recover the £45 from yesterday?

£60.77 - 5.74%

16th January

Great day trading but a shit day gambling.

I lost on my favourite sports (not!) Horses and snooker a total of -£38.42 and -£113.98

So the tennis is showing a loss on my spreadsheet but not on the Betfair P+L due to me having a £20 punt on a long shot for the Aussie Open at 1000-1 with a view to laying him off before he meets anyone too good.

I won on the cricket using £41 stakes, I opted out of the final 10 overs when South Africa needed 68 from 60 balls with 3 wickets down, two established batsman with a stand of over 100 and then they self destructed with losing 4 wickets for 8 runs and needing 40 from the last 4 overs - Aussies were trading at 1.2 and promptly lost the match with a few balls left to play.

I used double stakes to trade on the Torquay v Wrexham match for a profit of £107.97.

So results:

-£45.63 (including the £20 punt on the Aussie open) - 4.13%

15th January

Not too much to report really, the football was for a loss, I was right side of the result, but the opposition looked like it was more likely to score, I had too much exposure and took the loss, of course this was promptly followed by a goal for the side I had just layed off for the loss, but it could have quite easily gone the other way. I managed to win on the snooker and again like the tennis using 1/4 of my normal stakes. I was watching the rugby, the side who were in front had possession and scored a try with less than 90 seconds left, meaning that the other side had to score twice and the conversion of the try would eat up much of the time - it was quickest to the button wins for the 1.02 and 1.01 that were on the ladder (rugby doesnt suspend when a try or penalty is scored) - I won the race, Surprised me how many people actually lay off at 1.01 once the result as effectively known.

Results:
£10.44 - 0.95%

14th January

Started last night but settled today so:

Tennis:
Lu v Almagro - bookies predicted a close match, I thought Almagro should win but he started slowly and Lu has got a good serve, so rather than taking a position on the match, I decided to trade on movements on players which meant that the serves of both players had to be reliable, as the trading involved individual points rather than the players service games. Due to the high volatility I decided to not use the full stake that I use on other trades - my trade stake is usually 15% of by bank and for tennis when I am trading movements in prices I chose to use 1/4 of this size so my stake was one quarter of £150.80 i.e. £38. I felt really comfortable with this and realistically I couldn't lose much of my total bank. However with the big swings in prices on each point the profits were really good - I managed to rack up £13.59 on just this one match - it also allowed me to not get involved with the market when the prices got below 1.20

Del Potro v Gulbis - now I know Gulbis beat Djorkovich last week but I wasnt sure how well he played and how well Djorkovich played (I have doubts over Djorkovich and how well he will do this season - Djorkovich beat Davydenko at the Masters finals but that was after Murray effectively allowed Davydenko to play the final by beating Federer in a game that he didnt need to win but it took too much out of him to play Davydenko the next day - had Murray lost to Federer in the group match he would have beaten Djorkovich and then played Federer again in the final - any way I digress) So Gulbis beat Djorkovich, but I didnt put too much meaning into this as I dont rate Djorkovich and Gulbis is playing Del Potro - now Del Potro after he lost at Wimbledon he went on an amazing run of matches - not losing in something like 24 matches and winning title after title - he's young, tall, strong and Argentinian and only lost to Murray in the US Open and did enough to reach the Masters final which is open to only the top 8 players. I wanted to watch Del Potro's match but it didnt start until half past midnight but I did notice he was trading at 2.40 to win 2-0 and given what I had just said thought it was way too high and placed a back bet on it. 15 minutes later I traded out at 2.18 (before the match started) for a profit of £4.78 - I went to bed happy that I had got a head start for today.

Snooker and Horse Racing:

Bored and lacking clearly skill in these markets - I lost £39.14 and £23.19 respectively - I really need to avoid these sports.

Football:

3:00 pm and Jordan were playing Thailand - love these type of matches, not too much liquidity in the market but enough to take a position for 90 seconds to 3 minutes and know there is enough money in the market to lay for a profit. Boring 0-0 with Jordan pressing most of the time but with no real attacking prowess to break down a well organised Thailand defence (I dont know these things before I watch the match but I form opinions as I watch). £46ish profit.

Valencia v Racing Santander. Valencia took the lead and looked like they were the most likely to score again and I backed them with the lead at 1.24 for £154 to win the first half - well that's the amount I queued up - I was watching the build up of a Racing Santander attack and thought that they might score - I cancelled my bet but £7.27 got taken, I layed at 2.25 for a £5.02 loss. Oh I had traded the Under/Over 2.5 goals market for £6ish profit prior to this - so not too bothered and with my win on the Jordan, Thailand match I was in profit for the day.

Traded the draw down to full time for £17ish profit and there was extra time (by this time Southend was live on ITV against Chelsea), Southend had taken the lead and I didnt want to go anywhere near it - I watched it for a while and when I noticed that Valencia had scored in the 30 minutes of extra time being played in this cup match, I tuned into see Valencia not really being pushed hard by Racing Santander and I backed and layed for one trade then backed again - this time though with gaps in the ladder and trades already been traded at 1.13, I backed at 1.14 (current matched price) and at 1.15 i.e. one above on the ladder. The market came down to 1.13/1.14 and I kept my eye on the match with the idea to lay off the liability if Racing Santander looked in imminent danger of scoring, they threatened but left themselves open at the back, Valencia scored and just before they scored someone filled up £113 of my open 1.15 back bet - traded out at 1.01 for a £36.02 profit.

Southend v Chelsea

As I just mentioned Southend were leading and I didnt want any piece of the action, well that was until they went 2-0 up and from watching the match there was no way Southend were going to get back into the match. I backed at 1.07 and 1.08 (as above), the price fluctuated between 1.09 and 1.07 - so I backed at 1.08 and 1.09 and then laid off at 1.07 whilst leaving one stake's worth of trade open - due to the fluctuations, had Southend gone down the other end and got a corner or something threatening, then I could lay off for worst no profit but most likely £1 to £2 profit. As it was the market had stabilised at 1.07 and I could green up for £4ish - with little risk to the open I bet I considered it for a minute or two and Chelsea scored - so I layed at 1.01 for a profit of £13.06.

As I closed the Chelsea match off I turned over to the Barcelona match and with 2 minutes of extra time being played in the first half and 1 minute already gone I backed at 1.05 and the ball wasnt at either end it was in the middle of the park with the midfielders not doing much other than tussling with each other and giving away throw ins I felt 1.05 was reasonable, Barca went down the left and got a corner with 15 seconds left of the half left and not wanting to be done again I layed at 1.08 for a £4 loss.

Totals:

£67.27 - 6.56%

13th January

Quiet day today, went to look for new cars for my wife.

Traded uneventfully on the FA Cup tie between Bristol City and Portsmouth.

Total was £20.72.

I traded on the tennis but those settlements fall into the next day so I'll report on those tomorrow.

Results: £20.72 - 2.06%

12th January.

Poor trading cost me Sunday and a simple mistake cost me again.

Started off with a look at the calender and it looked fairly empty - yes there was tennis but it is on at 10 pm and for an old geezer like me that's means a 11:30+ finish - so not too impressed. Eurosport has got snooker on and there is a football match on in the evening.

So I had a five quid bet on the snooker and when it turned out to be the wrong decision I traded out for a loss and this was probably down to being bored.

Being bored I tuned the tele on to horse racing - not my favourite sport but I think I have watched enough to see when a horse will win or not - I backed the photo finish favourite for a start and then just watched the racing and backed the leading horse when I thought it would win - but only with £10 bets.

Now onto the footy - MK Dons vs Colchester - Started disastrously when I was really eager to start trading, I got the markets up and placed my first bet which I thought was ok but then the odds went up instead of down, I waited and it dropped back down to the price I backed and I looked at the tele and Colchester were attacking, I pressed the lay button but too late and Colchester scored - I then realised I had not changed the market and I was backing MK Dons when I wanted to back the draw - I lost £57.

Sunday I took a position that a certain result would be obtained and chucked a wedge on it to recoup the deficit, this time I decided to try and trade out of the deficit and instead of using the £140 stakes, I doubled the stakes to £280, the reason being only 12 minutes had elapsed since the start of the match. Trading in and out I managed to recoup £40 by half time (which meant I was approx. £3 down for the day). In the 2nd half MK Dons had a player sent off and the odds went from 1.75 prior to the players tackle down to 1.35ish, there was a lot of money being traded at this level and frankly with quite a lot of the 2nd half to play, I didnt see much point trading when a single tick movement would take a while and attacking moves means that the market is likely to move against you. So anyway, MK Dons got a corner and with the 10 men scored and I could start trading again as the odds for a draw went up to 1.99 - which surprised me but hey ho who am I to complain.

With the draw being the final result the total I managed to get back from my original mistake at the start of the match was £59 - so actually turned a profit on that market.

Tennis Kohlshreiber was playing Hrbaty, Kohlshreiber is ok if his serve works, if it doesnt then he usually struggles, Hrbaty is a good enough player, better on clay courts and I felt that Kohlshreiber should win 2 sets to nil but it's a matter of getting the right price and making sure his serve was working effectively. So I missed out on the pre-match odds of 1.87 and had to settle for much lower odds as Kohlshreiber broke Hrbaty's first service game and the odds came tumbling down and I took a quick trade and went to bed.

Results:

£66.64 - 7.10%

11th January

Really bad defending late in games and really bad trading meant that I gave up most of the profits I made yesterday and it took a lot of down right gambling to retrieve the situations.

Tales from the day:

Hearts went 1-0 when I had an open draw bet at half time. I thought incorrectly that Hibs would defend for their lives when they were reduced to 10 men shortly before the goal. With Hibs down to 10 men and Hearts in no danger of losing a goal, I backed Hearts to win with a hefty chunk of my bank roll. With a few minutes left and the amount recouped, I greened up to make the loss into a small profit.

Wigan vs Spurs

Having greened up a profit of around £32 on the match, I had an open bet with 93 minutes of the 94 minutes played, Wigan got a corner, I pressed the button to green up and unfortunately for me the lay bet was about 2 seconds too late and £79 was lost.

Fiorentina v Lecce

Straight forward trading lead to a £37 profit.

Man Utd v Chelsea

Decided to watch rather than participate - traded a couple of times but then closed the bets out again as I didnt want to be involved with these talented players.

Benfica v Braga

Pure gambling, watching a stream on line, I thought that there cant be many minutes of extra time in the first half and with 90 seconds gone of the extra time, I placed a double stake at 1.05 for the draw for a quick profit of £15ish - 2 minutes of extra time were played and Benfica scored. Loss of £319

All of my bankroll went on Benfica to win at 1.3 for a win.

Roma v AC Milan - straight forward trading for a £9.73 win.

Porto v Trofense - again straight forward trading for £6 - but why not more? Well there wasnt any results I was confident would occur, apart from Trofense not to win - but with odds of 15.0 at half time it just wasnt viable, this was due to Porto having chance after chance - in a normal football match there are around 9 to 11 corners with both teams participating in the total - in this match the corner was 18-1 to Porto.

Results:

-11.72 -£124.67