10th January

I love Saturdays as I get to see a lot of sport on the TV (even more so than the other 6 days that I watch a shed load).

Today I going to do this chronologically:

Villa vs WBA live on sky sports 1

- straight forward trades under/over 2.5 for £7 at which point Villa scored - the trading was at 1.79 at that point and it shows that you cant just blindly back and lay at will, you have to watch the match and see what's happening and ensure you're not in the middle of a trade when the goal is scored. I happened to watch WBA last year when they got promotion and they would beat teams 4-0, 4-1, 3-2, their strengths was the good quality football and their finishing. With Kevin Phillips going to Birmingham and Ishmael Miller on a long term injury their potency has gone upfront and they still haven't done anything about their defence, so the match was always going to be about the nice football that the two teams play, the lack of quality upfront for WBA and the dodgy WBA defence against a really good team. I say it was always going to be like this but it took me 10 minutes of watching the match suss out that was what it was all about. Then it was about trading to half time on Villa for another £7. After the Break I started trading on Villa to win but realised that WBA were looking a lot more up for it and I stopped trading, WBA scored and then after about 25 minutes the match settled down again and a few more trades for another £7ish.

Break until 3:30 when Roddick and Murray stepped on to the court, I checked the set betting and Murray was trading at 1.78 - I backed then saw the toss won by Roddick who elected to serve - I traded back out at the same 1.78 - I did this as I thought that if Roddick wins his opening serve then Murray's odds would go out - they did but only to 1.82 so I backed Murray and after a couple more games I could see that Murray was too good for Roddick and backed again at 1.75. Murray took his time to break Roddick so I layed some of the liability off at 1.71 and 1.64, Murray promptly broke and it was time to green up - I greened up for a total of £54.21. Finally at 5-2 up in the second set, I was watching a stream of the match which was a little ahead (1 to 2 seconds) then Eurosport and saw Murray hitting the what became the winning shot - my finger was hovering over the back Murray @ 1.01 with the £900 I have and pressed the button - to my delight the trade was made just before the market suspended and another £16.50 went into my coffers.

On to the next two games, Swansea were playing someone at the same time as Stoke and Liverpool was playing, Swansea were already ahead, I traded once and greened up for £0.24 - the market didnt have much liquidity or movement. The Liverpool match stayed nil - nil until the end of the match - £18.40.

Guimaraes v Amadora was being streamed - I cant remember the score I suspect it was 0-0 as I traded the draw from half time onwards for £16.94. Not a great game but you get those types of games in Portugal - which is good for trading but not watching.

Inter v Cagliari was 0-0 at half time and the odds for a draw were 3.50 - the highest that I have seen, I traded in this market as Inter were good but not getting clear cut chances and Cagliari were defending for their lives - now I usually place a back bet when the underdogs have the ball and this was the case when I backed Cagliari - I looked up and saw the market suspended - Cagliari had scored - the draw was trading at 2.5 at the time - I waited until the market settled and to my surprise I could trade out with only a £0.46 loss! Time to start betting on Cagliari but with care and attention I managed not to be in trade when Inter scored - it was a matter of actually cancelling a bet that was queued and then it was back to trading the draw again - the result finished 1-1 and my result was £24.61.

Finally Sp Lisbon v Maritimo - the score was 1-0 when I joined the match and when a heavy favourite is leading the odds are usually bad and this was the case with this match. £2.54 from the half time market and £17.27 from the full time market - I had an open bet on Sporting when one of the Maritimo players got sent off meaning that the price dropped immediately to 1.10 and it was time to green up and give up on the match and green up.

Results: 19.39% - £172.72