26th February - Total profits £523

As you can see the total profits took a dip again, it happens that last night's football preyed on my gambling instincts rather than my aspiring trading tendencies. The story is quite simple, when you back the draw and the clear favourite scores the words you're stuffed or similar comes to mind.

As you are probably aware Hull played Sheffield United last night and Hull scored in the second half, the reason I was trading on the Hull match was that in my trading opinion the Man City v Copenhagen match was too dangerous to trade on, with Man City looking the most likely to score, so I wanted a less dangerous trading environment to trade in. I got hit for a £100 loss and my gambling instincts of trying to get it all back kicked in, so I traded the draw on the Man City game. I got hit by the inevitable Man City goal and the curse of the gambler in me decided to back Mn City for all of my remaining bank for them to win. They scored the second, I traded out at 1.01 and moved back to the Hull v Sheffield Utd match and decided to back Hull but I wished I hadnt as Sheffield Utd were pouring on the pressure and the realisation of losing a further bet was a distinct possibility, I traded out and waited for the markets to close to see exactly how much I lost.

As to the tennis loss, I layed Djokovic, which at the time of writing this is something I should have done today.

Results:

-£153.29 -13.79%

25th February - Total Profits £676

That's more like it.

Woke up early today and spotted some 20 20 cricket on - New Zealand v India - New Zealand had been asked to get (I think) around 160 runs, the first over they lost a wicket and by the 6th over they were 54-1 or 54-2 the odds were acceptable at around 1.60 and 1.45ish when I took them. One of the batsmen hit two sixes, the odds dropped and with only a £40 stake used, there was a profit of £9 to be had - I thought it would go lower and didnt bother taking it and a wicket promptly fell so I took the £2 profit available as I had to go out.

When I arrived home after lunch Bolelli was playing Gasquet, I set up a trade for £10 on Bolelli to win the 6th game of the 1st set - which was the next one to be played after the current one had finished. Quite comfortable with the trade I then realised that I had in fact placed a £186 trade - visions of yesterday and another big loss were in my head - with virtually no liquidity, I had to see out the game, first point -love-15, tension crept in but the reason I backed Bolelli is that he as an excellent serve that seemed to be holding up, 15-15, 30-15,40-15 traded some out, game to Bolelli and £21 made. phew!

Traded 2 other service games,1 Bolelli and 1 for Gasquet and they held easily enough - set coming to some crucial games where the receiver puts in extra effort and i left tennis for the day with £27 profit.

Thirty quid up and a good start on making up yesterday's loss.

I noticed a live stream of a Greek football match between AEK and Xanthi. I checked to ensure the stream was not delayed by too much - it wasnt and I started trading the draw - under 2.5 market was below 1.50, the half time market had no liquidity. Sixty-three selections later and my dinner on my lap I stopped trading, AEK scored with about 8 minutes to go, so I left the market with nearly £29 profit.

Yesterday when I tried to trade the Champion's league matches I had 12 markets open, 4 other windows open, my trading software, a spreadsheet open to assist with my decisions and I was flicking between matches - it was impossible, so with that experience behind me I decided just to look at one match and luckily for me it was the Real Madrid v Liverpool match - which in terms of quality was poor, there wasnt much goalmouth action and ideal for trading with more liquidity than needed. I traded the under 2.5 market for £4 and after experiencing the draw market over the past few days, I decided to ignore the half time market completely - it seemed to be the right move and this time 71 selections provided £43.50 profit.

Results:

£106.16 - 10.56%

24th February - Total Profits £570.

Tennis - 8th best player in world playing someone ranked 469, whose ambition is to one day play in one of the majors loses first set and me £86.36.

Horses - chasing the losses down £40.03.

Football - stick to what I know - up £34.68

Results

-£91.71 -8.36%

23rd February - Total Profits £662

How exhilarating can this trading be?

Quiet day, a little tennis, couple of horse races and a tiny profit.

So where's the excitement?

Football of course - tonight's football is the kind of football I like and each match was different. So the story from tonight:

St Pauli v Kaiserslautern were playing at 7:15 - I only noticed the live stream when I looked at a regular link that had been down for a couple of weeks but was back up again. The other matches were Wycombe v Rotherham and Hull v Tottenham one starting at 7:45 and the other just after 8:00.

So I started trading on the St Pauli v Kaiserslautern match and had racked up £8 on the unders market. It was a live stream so I was grateful that the two football matches were starting so I could watch them on the tele. As it happened the Wycombe game started with a low starting point to the unders market and it didnt move very quickly - so I sopped with only doing two trades. The Hull match was different and the unders market started at 1.90, with large figures surrounding the back and the lay side and the fact that the two sides were being very careful not to lose this match made the trading tricky as what happened was the two sides were defending a lot and put the ball out for corners and throw ins but this led to set pieces and set pieces are dangerous for trading so perversely the fact the two sides were determined not to lose meant that both sides were more vulnerable than in a normal match due to the high number of set pieces - so I took a decision to not trade much on the unders market and return to the St Pauli v Kaiserslautern match.

St Pauli v Kaiserslautern - the crowd and the atmosphere that they created looked and sounded great. Neither side looked capable of scoring due to the over officious referee who was blowing up at every opportunity, glaring at players and booking them. He sent a player off and the trade on the back side of the draw market at 2.94 was in "suspended land" and the market opened at 3.10, with neither side looking capable of scoring I took on an extra £23 worth of liability as the odds screamed "too high". Fairly comfortable trading took place all the way down to the 2.20 mark where I had greened up for around £11. The referee took it into his hands to show how good he was and handed a penalty to St Pauli and my Back bet of £186 on the draw was again in "suspended land" - commentator said that it was never a penalty, the player's foot slipped - goodness knows what he was watching as it looked a stonewall penalty to me. So lets recap; about £10 up to now, a further £11 on this market and a back bet on the draw for £186 - traded out for a £96 loss. Not the best of nights trading but these things happen - would I have changed any of my actions - the answer is no so just need to keep my head, dont do anything silly and keep calm and focused. So I focused on the Wycombe v Rotherham match that at half time was 0-0.

Wycombe v Rotherham - 2nd half, there wasn't much trading going on, I presume everyone was trading the Hull match rather than look at this one and what transpires was a stretched ladder with approximately 10 to 15 clicks difference between the backers and the layers and the amount of money on the lay side was minimal - like £7 here, £12 there on the other hand the backer(s) had £200 but at odds that were only going to be matched if someone desperately wanted to get out of the trade - I have seen these markets before and fortunately I have seen these football matches before - on the football side neither side were dangerous - the match was in the 4th tier of English football and thus the quality of attacking isnt that great and the defending is adequate in terms of what they are facing.

So what I did here is get £186 worth of liability and just watch the match, if there is imminent danger then trade out at the high odds i.e. not get full value but still at least you have an option to trade out. The match was uneventful and I was mindful that I had just lost £96 and needed to get it back. So when the odds finally got down to a range that was of fair value and other traders started to get interested in the market, I traded out for £50 - very happy with this and with more traders and liquidity to the market I went on to make £67.76 from this market when I left - I left when the market reached 1.43. The reason I did so was to now concentrate on the Hull match which started 15 minutes later than the Wycombe match and thus had high draw odds as the score was 1-1 at half time.

Hull v Tottenham - there was a spell in the match where the odds on the draw were coming down rapidly and as it happened neither side scored - which is good for trading the draw. Now unlike the previous market this market had plenty of traders trading and so a different type of trading was employed - basically if there was money to back then I backed and then layed at 2 ticks lower which would take about 15 seconds to get filled. I traded down to 1.38 mark which coincided with 5 minutes left to play - the total number of selections on this market was 49 - so this was busy trading where the Wycombe match was patient trading. Anyway I made 37 quid so I ended up for the day.

When I finished trading, I had the excitement and exhilaration of the nights trading. I felt tired and reflected about the fact that the way in which I trade can be enjoyed, which I am not sure is the case with all trading.

Results:

£20.84 - 1.94%

22nd February - Total profits £641

I should have been £50ish up today and I learnt a very important lesson whilst bemoaning my losses. The loss was less than a fiver but here we go.

Sky television - we have been spoilt with the number and quality of their live sports packages, the premiership, championship, rugby union, rugby league, darts, tennis etc... we rely on their accuracy and pictures to trade on. You know there's a but and here it is, their Spanish live football on saturdays and sundays will never have me trading on those games again (that's the lesson). On 14th February I mentioned that Sky must be doing something wrong as their pictures were a few seconds behind Betfair's markets and tonight I got the lesson that it wasn't a one off - I was watching a match and the ball goes down the left wing and out for a throw-in not too concerned with my open back bet, the market gets suspended and about 5 to 6 seconds later the throw in is taken, the ball is in the box and in the net. With Eurosport and their tennis coverage you can accept that it is a few seconds behind and again with live streaming on the net can have similar delays but for Sky and their reputation it's most surprising. For the record I was about £10 up and had to trade out for a £40 loss - which so happened to be the amount I had won so far for the day. I hadnt traded all day as my parents invited themselves over for the day.

So I decided to trade the Guimaraes v Trofense match and I got hit by a goal to Trofense - now I dont mind this loss at all - my trading style leads me to make decisions as to who is most likely to score and Trofense was in the "no chance in this match" category but they scored and I turned a £38 loss into a £20ish loss by the end of the match - as I said no regrets.

Finally I watched Andy Roddick v Stepanek and I had a preconceived idea Roddick would win - but everyone else would have this prediction too I guess and I missed the jump on him breaking Stepanek's serve in the first set as he broke on Stepanek's first service game - the way in which I traded was to trade at the start of his serve in the second set and trade out with 2 to 3 ticks profits when he was about to hold for his serve - this kind of trading relies on having utmost faith in the server's serve and with Roddick not only do you get one of the best first serve's in the world but he has the best 2nd serve in the business - in effect he gets two attempts to win the point at the outset of a point. Well anyway £14 profit.

As the Champions League is starting again this week, does anyone have experience of the time delays that occurred on the Spanish games happening in the Champions league matches on Sky?

Results:

-£4.65 -0.43%

21st February - Total Profits £646

The calm after the storm of the day before - probably helped that I had a limited number of opportunities after going at 9.00 am and not getting back until the 3 O'clock games were just finishing.

All the profits came from football with circa £12 from the Man Utd game - it was this game that I managed to turned a potential £15 trade into a £4 trade and I was so glad I did - I traded out when Ronaldo was about to take the free kick on the left side of the box - my trade to fill up for £15 looked to be gone and I was thinking, he'll put into the box like Beckham does but with less skill and the ball will be flicked out for a corner or throw in - I then looked at the £170 potential loss and traded out for a far higher figure that had been available about 2 to 3 minutes ago (which is a lot considering the market was trading at 3 to 4 ticks per minute). I lost the potential of a £15 gain but it was surely a lot less painful than the £170 I could have been facing.

The rest of the evening was uneventful and traded calmly.

Results

£28.90 - 2.75%

Total Profits - £617

I'm in a pretty good mood tonight despite losing a shed full.

I could have been £230 up if I had let the bets run to fruition but I was chasing a loss all day and the damage could have been bigger. I bet on Venus Williams to beat her sister - she was leading 6-1, hadn't dropped a point on her own set and was at break point on her sister's serve and I then the stupid stick hit me on the head, I backed her at odds of 1.13, she lost the point and she started serving - at this point she hadn't dropped a single point on her own serve - so I wasn't too concerned, I backed her at 1.27 with the thought that when she held her serve and started attacking her sister's serve again her odds would drop to 1.20 and I could get out of the trade - oh because I had successfully traded with £42 stakes for a £11 profit at this point I had used £186 stakes so I was facing a £360ish loss. I let the trade run as I thought that Venus would break back and Serena seemed to be clutching her leg. Well Serena won the 2nd set I could have taken losses of £70 to £100 at this point and I took the decision to let the trade continue convinced that Venus would hit back. First game, third set, Venus wins to love - feeling good, Serena taken to deuce twice on her serve - bit disappointed she didnt break - Venus serves and loses her serve - expletives - never mind Venus will break back - she didnt - Serena looking rather good at this point and I take a loss of £265.94. Serena holds her next serve but gets broken in the next and promptly loses the tie-break and hobbled off the court.

Double stakes on the footy gets me back £20.

I heard Leeds are good at Rugby League and I thought I will trade on them - usual chasing stuff for me again - backed Leeds at 1.3 and then again at 1.5 then a smaller bet at 2.38 and when they got level I traded out for a £20 win - typically, I then backed them again then traded out for only a £5 win and finally I greened only on Leeds when they took the lead for £8. On this trade I could have lost £230 or won £150, chase chase chase - I'm an idiot.

Oh I lost a couple of quid on some other rugby game too.

I am in a fairly upbeat mood cos I know exactly where I went wrong and I got away with not being seriously further down.

Results:

-£243.80 -18.79%

19th February - Total Profits £860

Day of frustration.

My son is away for two days and my wife was out for the good part of the day so I thought this would be a good day of tennis and horse racing and to cap it off some football. Then my other son decides he will come home for the day with his girlfriend and promptly sat down in the living room all day and then announced their not going until they have some chinese takeaway.

So the horse racing was non existent and the tennis mounted to £1.46.

Whilst we are waiting for the chinese, I traded very easily on the Lech Poznan v Udinese game for £26, ate my takeaway, waved them goodbye and made another £21 on the Spurs match.

Frustrating day, as I felt I could have made a shed load more - never mind it's another day of above target earnings.

Results

£49.43 - 3.97%

18th February - Total Profits £811

Most things went my way today.

Tennis -I traded with £44.50 stakes and took profits at the earliest possible moments and won £11.70.

Horse racing - I won £3.47 (£10 stakes in running hedging out - the max I could have won was something like £5.70ish).

Football - I traded on a lot of markets due to the Villa v CSKA Moscow match being 1-0 to CSKA, when Villa equalised the draw market resumed at 2.00 with just 20 minutes left to play, it corrected it's self to some extent but it still traded at 1 tick per 15 seconds - when the odds got to 1.38 and only 5 minutes left I left the market with a profit of £22.85. Total profits of football were £43.22.

As it is a brief blog today I thought I would mention a website where you can upload your betting history and see if there are any glaring areas of your trading that is getting you into trouble.

http://www.trackbets.info/ is the site and here is a table





not a meaningful table but I'm sure if you look into it then some of it might be useful. For example, I have tried to avoid trades in the 1.01 to 1.28 range for football and I think it's helped - I took the decision after looking at the results of different analysis of my trades.

Results:

£58.39 - 4.92%

17th February - Total profits £752.

When I trade I try not to leave a market unless it's green, now this is fine but I do know that in some cases I know it's going to happen due to circumstances - usually goals and in football I accept it and move on whereas the difficulties I have had trading tennis is somewhat down to this attitude. If you have gambled you know the problem, you think you're right, you know you're right but the evidence is showing you are wrong and it's this denial of being able to be wrong that stops you accepting that you are wrong and it's usually a loss or even worse a big loss due to chasing the loss that occurs. Yesterday Kousin it as I call her started trading at something like 1.12/1.14 and I know she is the biggest screw up waiting to happen - before she can win she has to beat herself and then her opponents, in that order. She went 3-0 up in the first set, went on to lose first set, won the second set 6-3 and lost the last 6-0. I didnt bet on her because I was afraid of being wrong - I mean how wrong could I have been at laying her at 1.12 or 1.08 etc... I would lose but not a lot but the description of my mental state stops me from doing these bets with small stakes of £42 or £21. Today I backed Safina at low odds but did so on the basis that she always comes back and she did come back and I got it back to evens. Now my mind said put a fiver on at 2.0, so I did, I went on further to back her at 2.7 3.35 etc... I was in denial state and lost a total of £10. I got the tenner back when I joined the Serena Williams and she was leading 3-0 with a break of serve and her odds were something like 1.25 - I had the confidence to back her and then take the profit when she broke in the 3rd set.

Dementieva v Bammer and Clement v Safin (Safina's brother for those who didnt know) were the other tennis matches I traded on, I made only £1.20ish from the two matches and I know I did the right thing as both the favourites were broken in the first sets, both had broken or got the break back but it just looked that I would be trading to prove a point and the point was that I thought both of them would break through easily, one did, one didnt and I was happy to just move on. I have to start accepting the losses in tennis and get over this I cant be wrong attitude.

Horse racing - If you know Maria and her horse racing laying systems etc... then google to see what she's up to now. I backed the horse she predicted in the win market and the place market and watched it live - the race was for three miles and the horse was a front runner and kept clattering or running through the hurdles and most of the time it was red screens, however when I saw a profit of £11.42 and £3.48 on the two markets I hedged out and I will be investigating her tips further in the future. I had £10 back bets on both markets.

Finally the football - a choice of Kidderminster or Luton matches were available but they were at the same time I was having dinner - so with my mouth full, I watched a very early goal in the Luton match and Cambridge two nil up in the other. By the time I got around to trading, the Luton match was 1-1. I started trading and all was going smoothly, closed down the half time market when the odds were getting low and I had an open back bet on the draw at 2.78 and with just a minute left of the first half, a Brighton player got sent off - I could have greened up for around £8 just before it suspended but I had no intention of greening up as the market would have gone down quite a lot at half time - buggers - the market settled on 2.78 when it re-opened and all that patience was for nothing - I eventually traded out for about £5 at half time but it could have been so much better. Now with a team player down, the market felt that Luton (bottom of the 4th division) would go on and beat their higher 10 man opponents - not a view I concurred with as I witnessed a good defence defending, the market was trading at around 4 ticks per minute and when the big hitter comes in with his predictable £5k back at five tick intervals then it was an easy back at one point lower than what he had come in with, get filled up and then wait for the 5 point drop to trade out again. I made a penny shy of £45.

Results:

£62.14 - 5.52%

16th February - Total Profits £690

The tennis I traded illustrates one of my rules, you have to be confident that what you think will happen will happen in the time frame that you expect it to happen.

Sugiyama v Bartoli - Bartoli won the first set 6-0 and in the second set she called for medical assistance, it transpires that when she left Australia she was laid up in her sick bed for 10 days and was rough. She is rough and she looked completely out of it, at 4-4 in the second set she wobbled and staggered to her chair and that was that, we all thought she would give up and go home, the market switched completely from a Bartoli win to a Sugiyama win. I backed at 1.51 and laid at 1.37 using £39 stakes. Sugiyama went on to win the set and traded as low as 1.08 and about £100k was traded - third set went to a tie break, Sugiyama had three match points, 2 of which Bartoli served to leave her opponent with 1 match point left and you remember I said you cant trust the women's serve - yup she double faulted and lost the match to Bartoli. I was confident the odds would come down but they wouldn't come down much more as they had plummeted already and if Bartoli came out and continued playing then her odds would stop. Sure I could have predicted she would lose that set but I wasn't confident she would so I didn't wait until the set was won by Sugiyama but had she lost then it was match over. Her odds after the 2nd set for Sugiyama were low very low but Bartoli was still competing and I didnt get involved - I'm sorry but if you cant break against someone who is very obviously ill and then break again then the player cant be very good and my confidence in Sugiyama wasn't as strong as others obviously.

There were a few opportunities to trade in football today.

There was only one televised match to look forward to and that was the Arsenal v Cardiff match. I expected a tight 20 minutes and the opportunity to trade on the under 2.5 market. It didnt turn out that way. There were clues for those not able to watch the match that Arsenal were very dangerous and goals were going to arrive shortly - I traded at 1.88 and out again at 1.87 then six minutes later I did the same trade - a lot of people who were watching the match were convinced that a goal would be scored - six minutes of the market not budging is unusual. I stopped trading for 5 minutes (I looked at my matched bets to know this information) to re-assess the situation and started trading again but only traded for 2 to 3 minutes before coming to the conclusion that I was trading in dangerous markets - A few minutes later Arsenal scored and they started trading at 1.15/1.14 now with 70 odd minutes to go, you can make a positional trade i.e I dont think Cardiff will win and lay them, I think Arsenal will win and back them. I dont like taking positional trades when the odds are so low - I moved on to another football match where the markets had less liquidity but at least the markets were moving.

Setubal v Academica were playing in the Portuguese league and the markets behaved themselves, no goals means no huge surprises and thus an easy £19.

The other match I watched and traded was the Al Wasl v Ajman match (yeah I got no idea either) very little liquidity but with neither side looking that dangerous (Al Wasl looking the more likely) I managed to turn a £12 profit into a £10 loss when they scored their first goal and then turned the £10 loss into a £0.90 win when they scored their 2nd goal.

Results:

£32.60 - 2.98%

15th February - Total Profits £657

Just when you think you're doing well...

Ajax v Feyenoord - Under 2.5 - £4.67.

Celtic v Rangers - half time market - £7.81 and full time market were just so easy to trade - with neither side looking capable of scoring the odds in the 2nd half were daft 5 minutes left to play and the draw market 1.48 - I exited the market at this point satisfied with a £40.39 profit.

Juventus v Sampdoria another 0-0 in progress and a live steam to watch it - £18.84.

Derby v Man Utd - stopped trading when I thought the game was too risky to trade in - I made £4.36.

Time for Dinner and the situation looked liked this:



£76.72 - 7.47%

Was it time to finish for the day - well I thought the Milan derby would be a low scoring, defenders dominating match and with a nice cross and a good header Inter were in the lead and I just lost £66.43 when I traded out - grrr so the temptation was there to double the stakes but I decided against it, the odds were low, Inter were the more likely to score again and their odds were quite low and AC Milan have quality through out their team - mental note not to trade on half time and Italian matches again - I probably will ignore it but that's how I feel at the moment - saying that I did win £18.84 on the Juve match so I am probably wrong - wasn't going to mention this yet but there is a website where you can upload your betting history and you get lots and lots of charts - it's free and I want to dedicate some time to the information when I have not a lot to report.

So without resorting to the double stakes on a match that could prove my downfall, I decided to trade on the French match on setanta - nope my opinion of French football is not changing but it did seem a good way to get back on the bike again. Another 0-0 match with Marseille looking the more dangerous - £53 from the match and Marseille scored the opener - I was not in any trades and the odds were going to be ridiculous, so I closed the market down.

It does seem that the draw market is a very good market to trade with the odds decreasing at 2 to 3 ticks a minute. I noticed the Benfica match was trading way over the 3 ticks per minute mark at half time (so was the Celtic v Rangers match but both sides are evenly matched), I decided to leave the match alone.

Results:

£65.18 - 6.34%

Since losing the big one on 24th January I have traded on average at 3% per day - that is with two days of no trading included in it too - another 9 days of 3% and I'll will have recovered the money lost.

14th February - Total Profits £592

Eleven days of not posting a loss came to an end.

I started the day by trading a little prematch on the under 2.5 market between Swansea v Fulham match - It went the wrong way and I traded out for a £3.60 loss, with my wife sounding like she was getting ready to leave I continued in play and gained back the loss and finished for £1.50. We were going out on valentine's day it was lunch time and she had to get me to the match and her to her mothers.

Got back from the match just in time to see Wales complete the victory over England. As it was valentine's night I decided against watching sport and let go of the remote control and just trade on the live streams that were available, I did snatch a few minutes watching Betis v Barcelona whilst a valentine's dinner was being prepared.

Not sure what Sky were upto they said it was live match but as I had an open trade on Betis to win the first half (they were 1-0 up) and still looking to get some more on them the Betfair market suspended and I watched the tv and about 4 seconds later Betis scored again - I didnt have a lot of money on them but I did close the trade with a £13 profit.

Live stream of Belenenses v Sp Lisbon well again I say live and usually they are in sync with Betfair but this wasnt the case again - after being up on the Under market for £3.40, I had switched to the full time result - I was trading the draw and all was going well and I had built up something like £11 profit when Belenenses scored and I was looking at red screen - I waited for about 30 seconds after the market re-opened, trying to minimise my loss and eventuall to my surprise I came out with a £0.50 profit. I traded on the Belenenses market and got caught by a Sp Lisbon goal and then it was time to double my stakes whilst the market re-opened and got matched 5 ticks above where the market eventually settled about 30 seconds later. I later managed to get a two ticks proft twice at the death of the match when Sp Lisbon were leading 2-1. Total loss on Belenenses v Sp Lisbon match was £30.50.

Not sure how I got away with such a small loss today but grateful I did and I need to be more watchful again as the evidence is showing that I am not.

Results:

-£12.56 -1.21%

13th February - Total Profits £605

A mixed day - started with the Aus v New Zealand ODI Cricket - jumped out of bed when I heard they hadnt started yet and wanted to trade. I backed Aus and they lost a wicket, I backed again so that the odds that I had to lay were a higher so that I could extradite myself from the situation again, they lost a wicket, I waited as the two good batsmen were in and the odds were about 5 or 6 ticks away where I could get out evens, they lost a wicket and with only 1 more wicket needed and they would be into the bowlers, I consolidated my losses at minus £21. Went on the Aussie football and won £12. Turning back to the cricket and they didnt lose another wicket and their odds were way lower than what I had originally backed for - ah well the New Zealanders came in banged the ball around and the decision to take the loss seemed a good one - then came the rain and the game as called off and the match was voided by Betfair - good result for me.

I decided to prove my pre-horse racing trading wasnt a fluke turned out it was and I lost £5. Tried the tennis and won £2, could have had more had I stuck with Nadal for another game but traded out of that one evens.

Missed the start of the german football on Setanta which wasnt a bad thing as it was 0-2 after 12 minutes. Looked for a live stream of the portugese match and won £20.

Results:

£29.50 - 2.92%

12th February - Total Profits £575

Due to going out I had to make do with sports that I'm not that comfortable with playing with high stakes - so I used smaller ones instead.

Tennis:

Ancic v Simon - I thought Simon would win this but the commentator mentioned a couple of alarming things that I have logged in my memory bank firstly that Simon wasn't moving that well in the first set and to be fair he looked a bit flustered and Ancic was competing well on Simon's serve so as a service break was there i.e. Advantage Ancic I layed Simon, Ancic took the point and game and served out for the first set which made me £6 - I was using £34 stakes. I mentioned two things regarding Simon that the commentator mentioned - he is 5ft 11inches tall and weighs only 150 pounds - 10 1/2 stone that is light - Murray was talking about putting on more weight before the Aussie open and I'm sure he's not light - I perceive a tennis player to be all about muscles - the right muscles and now I have it in my mind that Simon might of had some excellent results end of last year but will his lack of muscle mean that he might not perform again to those highs - time will tell.

Llodra v Monfis - Monfis is a bit like the girls I mentioned yesterday - he can be excellent (like his win against Nadal in Dubai earlier this year) and all he needs to do is have self belief - I layed Monfis hoping he would get the jitters again - he didn't and I took a £6 loss.

Seppi v Murray - I backed Murray to win 2-0 and after he broke first in the first set I layed for £4.50 profit - Murray is back and I mean back to his bad old ways, he's not hitting the lines, losing long rallies and he needs to work on his game again if he wants to stay in the top 4.

Serena Williams with a bit of a cough and a cold made short work of her match with a qualifier and I won circa £1.40.

Tennis total £5.91

Horse racing

I came to trading through racing traders who have excellent forums. When I first started it was all about pre-race trading on horses - I hated it as I didnt know how to read markets and still dont understand the nuances of horse racing. I opened up a race to trade on and having had a lot of experience of markets on the football markets it must have taught me a few things and I traded a couple of times to make £4.43 on one race.

Looking forward to going back to what I know i.e. football tomorrow but for a day of inactivity on that front and a night of nice food and good company, I am pleased with some profit for the day.

Results:

£10.34 - 1.03%

11 February - Total Profits - £565

It's that time again when league football stops and world cup qualifiers and friendly internationals are played - it's Wednesday so most will be played today.

So we start with those giants of Asian football Japan v Australia - yes Australia in Asia, ridiculous isnt it - couldn't qualify via the oceanic confederation, they upped sticks and moved to Asia the move of the biggest island in the world seems has to been missed by the leading cartographers but that's the Aussies and Fifa at their finest. Top 2 teams qualify from Asia and it's most likely to be these two world cup after world cup from now til someone points out Australia is not in Asia. Well the good news is that neither of these sides are any good and that's the argument Australia put forward to Fifa we're crap we know we are and playing New Zealand and Tonga and the likes will never improve us - so if Fifa is really interested in the game being competitive all across the globe then let us move to Asia, we'll improve the competition over there so their standards will go up as will ours. Any way 0-0 and £40 into the bank.

Iran v South Korea and Uzbekistan v Bahrain were two other matches being played and they hoped for a Japan/Aussie draw as they might catch up some ground on the top 2 sides - they are already 4-5 points behind at the half way point of qualification and they must be totally chuffed with these Aussies gate crashing their qualifying group - I lost a total of £1 in these matches as Betfair decided to protest at the Aussies and crashed.

Tennis

This beauty (Schiavone)was playing this brute (Jankovic)

the number two seed won the first set, went three nil up in the second set and then lost five games on the trot. There are two things to remember in tennis, firstly you have to trust the server's serve and in the women's game there is only one player you can rely on and that's this girl (Sharapova) and she's not playing at the moment as she is injured. The other thing about women's tennis is the whole lot of them have confidence crisis's and thus have to beat themselves first before they can beat their opponent - it's good to know who can overcome their demons. Anyway the trading was short and due to my own demons and not being convinced by Jankovic I only traded with £17 stakes but made a couple of quid.

Poland v Wales football played in another annoying scenario - they played the match in Portugal, just like Brazil and Italy played in London last night it's not right, it isn't clever and shouldnt be allowed but hey I can profit from it so who cares - £43ish

England are playing Spain and currently being taught a lesson by the Spanish - I traded on the first half only and only until the odds got to around 1.36ish - I am getting the distinct impression this is a point where I will probably trade out for most matches - I cant see another goal being scored, it's the 51st minute and Spain are 1-0 up.

No trading yesterday - daughter was in a play and no trading tomorrow - out celebrating my son's 18th tomorrow. I made enough today for yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Results:

£91.69 - 10.09%



p.s. if you want to take a look at Jankovic in action take a peek at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU264zVpKXU

10th February

No trading today.

9th February - Total Profits - £473

Not much to say after a long blog yesterday. Kidderminster was due to play got rained off leaving just Leeds v Millwall and that all important bottom of the table Pacos Ferreira v Belenenses (Portuguese league) matches.

Few trades on under/over 2.5 on the Leeds match until the odds got below 1.50 then easy trading on the half time draw until Leeds scored and then full time is showing a loss but that is due to having an arb in place with a bookie so I lost £4.28 on betfair but won £4.55 at the bookie.
The Pacos Ferreira v Belenenses first half was very open and a goal a piece at half time - I was glad I had the Leeds match to trade on and the reverse was true in the 2nd half - Leeds match - low odds and not much movement on prices whereas the draw and two teams hoping to avoid losing any points in a 6 pointer meant that it was a quiet 2nd half and fairly easy trading.

Results:

£22.70 - 2.56%

8th February - Total Profits - £451

Football all day - lets face it Sunday's there isnt anything else on the box.

11:30 Vitesse v Ajax - came to the game a little bit late, the score was 1-1 Vitesse looked the more dangerous of the two sides but Ajax are Ajax, you know the team of total football, Johann Cruyff and all that. Just because a side has a big reputation and are a well recognised team doesnt make them automatically any good and this Ajax side is a pale comparison of their former selves. I had traded up a nice £9 on the half time market and thought I would try and get in early on the full time result as the odds were getting too low on the half time result and the odds usually take a dive at half time. I got caught out and took a £30 loss - now I have several windows open on my software and a few open on the computer too and I started arranging them, I noticed that at 2-1 the price for Vitesse to go on and win was 1.85ish which bearing in mind they looked the more dangerous and better side was too big, whilst I was arranging the windows Vitesse scored again - I was kicking myself big time as I had wanted to get on the big price with a third goal looking possible - ah well - so 3-1 up before half time and playing at home - that reputation that Ajax had still let Vitesse odds at initially 1.39 but gone in a flash down to a still way over priced 1.32/1.33 (which is where I backed) and within a minute to a still too high 1.26 which settled down at half time to around 1.23 - I had backed with double stakes and traded out at 1.26 which brought the loss from £30 to £15 and a total loss on the match to only £6. This game highlights to me why it is so important to watch a match and gauge how teams are playing.

Spurs v Arsenal - I had a suspicion it might be low scoring or put it another way, I thought that when these two teams match up there usually is a lot of goals but I had a feeling that they come late i.e. from the 2nd half onwards. They battle each other for 45 minutes and then the gaps start to appear as legs start to get tired around the 60 minute mark - that was what I was thinking pre match. After watching for a while it appeared to me that the Arsenal defence is too good and disciplined for Spurs and Arsenal lacked potency - This was further underlined when Adebayor got injured and Arsenal got a player got sent off - made for fairly straight forward trading - I was talking to a mate and he was saying that in your mind you should have a preconceived idea of how an event will pan out and if it pans out that way then get your money on however if things are not panning out the way you thought then you should tread carefully. £32 profit - £26 for the day and target made.

West Ham v Man Utd - I didnt trade at all in the first half - I wanted to just enjoy the match - I underestimated West Ham and their defensive qualities, pre-match I thought Manchester United would rip them apart - I was expecting a 3-1, 4-0 win, my preconceived idea of what I thought would happen didnt transpire and it was the 2nd half that the realisation that all of Man Utd's huff and puff was getting solidly met with an excellent West Ham side - I had seen them before against Hull but for all of their good work which was impressive they were playing Hull and not Manchester Utd - my view has been changed on West Ham.

So with a confidence that this was going to be a draw and the draw odds dropping by 3 ticks per minute - I had to have a slice of those profits. Literally as you place and get filled at one price you can lay at 2 to 3 ticks below and get them filled almost immediately, you can wait and see what is happening in the match and decide not to lay immediately, for example if West Ham had a goal kick, then what's the point in laying them at that time when no goal is likely to happen or danger occur until the ball is in the air, headed a few times, midfielders gain control etc... all of this takes time so you lay when you think the danger becomes more immediate or when the profit is acceptable.

It was the former that led me to my trade of the week. I had backed at 2.20, the ball was in Manchester United's half with no imminent danger, the ball went out to the right, the price had dropped to 2.16, was fluttering at 2.14, a long diagonal ball to the left which the defender headed out for a corner - he shouldnt have put it out as he could have left it for a goal kick - would have suited my strategy better as the price would have dropped to 2.12/2.10 instead the price went out to 2.20 - I traded out at 2.20 when I could easily have left it as the defending was good, as proved as the ball was cleared out, Scholes picked out Giggs on the left wing, cut in once, cut in twice, kicked the ball with his right foot towards goal, went through a packed penalty box and into the goal - my trade out is my trade of the week. I used to play poker on line (not very well but good enough) and I draw on a lot of advice gleaned from poker - one of them being is this: Do you want me to increase the profits by making you win more or would you prefer me to increase your profits by stopping you losing as often - doesnt really matter does it - more profits is more profits but people tend to forget that a good save on losses will effect the total profits. £6.80 in profit from this game - could have been a £60 to £80 loss.

Sporting Lisbon v Braga - again reputations - Braga better side - match was 4th v 6th - £26 profit and last time I looked Braga were winning 3-1.

Marseille v Bordeaux - French football - I suspect I have an opinion of French football but I haven't watched enough of it to confirm it (thank god) £8 profit.

Osasuna v Valencia - Spanish football a lot more fun and a £10 profit.

I wasnt going to do trading Sunday evening but the family decided to watch Demons for the 2nd time - live streams on computer lets me off this and when my wife decided to watch the Baftas it was enough to send me upstairs to watch football instead. Having made a good bit from trading I decided to stop and relax and watch 32 minutes of highlights of my club's weekend's match - I like football - there are clues about what I like...

Results:

£79.21 - 9.82%

7th February - Total Profits - £371

With a match on now, I could be trading but I decided to give it a miss - I have had a good day and want to relax for the evening.

Rugby

I watched the England v Italy match and it looked to me that Italy would struggle to score points against England and when England had scored in the first few minutes - I backed England minus 7.5 points at 1.25 and then promptly layed it and greened up for £1.48.

I then decided to look at the England minus 15.5 points market - I backed for £31 at 1.5 and layed shortly after at 1.20, I then continued to watch and my suspicions that Italy were finding hard to score against England were confirmed in my mind - England went 12-0 up and I back England to win by 15.5 points, to me it felt that England had 50 - 60 minutes to score a few more. So with my re-found confidence I backed £111 at 1.24 again £111 at 1.27 and a further £111 at 1.29 - now with Italy on the attack the odds went out to 1.5 and there was £50 waiting for me to take but I thought I had too much invested to add a bit more - so I chose not to and with in 2 minutes England had scored again and the odds tumbled to 1.16 so I layed and greened up for £30 and a total for the rugby of £32.

Football

Man City v Middlesbrough

Now for me this sounds like a low scoring game, same as say Everton v Fulham or Stoke v Aston Villa - compare that to Man Utd v Hull or Barcelona v Numancia -those games sounds like high scoring goals. So with about 90 minutes before the match I checked the under 2.5 market and backed at 1.94 and with 30 odds minutes left before it went in play I layed for 1.90. Nice to have £2 or so without it even going in play and bearing in mind my target is circa £22 then it makes a dent already. The match was all right but I didnt enter the market until a full 10 minutes of the first half, I know there is an urge or adrenalin rush to get into a market but today I just felt Man City could score at any time for the first 6 to 7 minutes as they had chance after chance, Middlesbrough found their feet and started defending properly and I started trading - about £8 on the under 2.5 market, another £8 on the half time result and then only a couple of quid on the full time result - Man City had gone 1-0 up and the odds were low - I figured there would plenty of opportunity to make the money during the day (rugby hadnt started yet).

I traded a negligible amount on the Leicester v Oldham match as it coincided with the Portsmouth v Liverpool match. I had a chance to trade on the Leicester match but with Dean Windass in goal I thought better of it and stayed with the Liverpool match which was eventful and with about 10 minutes left to go Portsmouth were leading 2-1 - my thoughts went back to an earlier match in the season where Portsmouth were leading 2-0 against AC Milan with only injury time left to go - they either lost or drew - so I knew Portsmouth were dodgy and I decided to trade out and just watch - Liverpool won 3-2.

Results:

£66.79 - 9.03%

5th & 6th February - Total Profits £305

5th February

A severe lack of confidence dented my trading today - not sure why but my mate told me it's probably down to losing the £920+ the other week and not wanting to lose again. Now that mistake was a mistake in so much it was clicking twice on the wrong market - I knew what I wanted to do but being a bumbling fool I cocked it up big time. Any way how did the lack of confidence show it's self?

Stakhovsky v Karlovic - I had a strong feeling that the opening odds of 3.10 to 3.25 were too large - I couldnt figure it out. Stakhovsky had beaten Karlovic last year in the same tournament and he was the guy who I went for in the Aussie open (only for him to fall at the first hurdle to lose in 5 sets to A. Clement) in contrast Karlovic lost in the 2nd round of the aussie open and had only played 3 matches this year - for someone who got into the top 20 last year his odds of 1.33 were way to small (well that's what I thought) - so the first game comes up Karlovic (6 foot 10 inches) Ace followed by Ace and then Stakhovsky got going and it took 3 or 4 deuces before Karlovic finally won the first game, however the first set went to Stakhovsky - so how did I exploit this trading situation? Firstly I traded with only £13 stakes! and had traded out by the end of the first game - told you the confidence effected me. The lack of self belief also spoke to me by saying "don't bother trading the Barcelona v Mallorca game, Barca will stuff them so that means the under 2.5 market is a waste of time and when Barca scores the odds will be pathetic" - so I didnt trade at all on the match and the under 2.5 goals would have given me good profits had I watched to see barca play poorly and only score in the 35th minute - so writing this and talking it over with a mate made me a bit more determined for the 6th February.

6th February

Just remind myself that low liquidity markets are probably far too risky for me to trade.

Tennis : Veic v Cilic

Croat v Croat so no dodgy line calls today - both 20 yr olds, Cilic a good player up against a player I never heard of - the market I plumped for was the Cilic minus 3.5 games - first set and Cilic looked very dominant and won 6-2 - so he's 4 games up and if he wins the 2nd set I win and if Veic wins the 2nd set then it doesnt matter as my theory was he couldn't break Cilic so it would be a 7-6 set, which reduces the games to 3 games up and then Cilic will win the 3rd set and thus will be at least 4 games up. Genius so I looked at the odds and there was £5 sitting on the 1.04 and several thousand on the 1.03 - so easy money and renewed gained confidence I chuck the £106 stake on it to win £3.07 net - didnt really mind as it was easy money. So 2nd set starts and Veic breaks and goes 2-0 up in the 2nd set - by the way did I mention that the total matched on this market was £220 and £212 of that was due to my trade - Anyway, told myself dont panic, just watch the next few games and see where we go from there - Cilic breaks back and it's 2-2 and then the players hold their serves to force the tie-break - confident that Cilic would win as he had a few break points against Veic and so it was 6-2 up in the tie break and Veic wasn't done forced it to 6-5 and then Cilic boomed a huge serve out to the left, Veic manages to get it back but it's an easy put away from the net for Cilic.

Dont play with stupid no liquidity markets and I have to try not to live and feel every point of a tennis match - hopefully these lessons will be learnt but knowing me it will take a while.

Football

Al Shaab v Al Ain - another low liquidity match but at least there were traders trading - 77 pence and wow was it really worth sitting through a terrible match for peanuts.

Bielefeld v H Berlin - Hertha took the lead, nearly scored the 2nd but hit the crossbar and Bielefeld equalised - all this in the first half - now German football, not watched much of it before but really enjoyed the match, good technically, good defensively and good atmosphere - anyway finished 1-1 and I made 27 quid.

Confidence has come back and fingers crossed I will trade in a very disciplined way.

Results:

5th Feb - £3.41 - 0.48%
6th Feb - £31.17 - 4.40%

3rd & 4th February - Total Profit - £270

3rd February - went to the football and no trading was done

4th February.

Having not traded the day before and wary that the day before that I had lost money then I felt a little apprehensive when the trading started.

Sporting Lisbon were playing Porto and the green of Sporting looked as if they could win this quite comfortably, Porto scored and a quick dive into the half time market once the market was unsuspended saw me get backed at 1.41 and then layed a few seconds later at 1.34 - shame only £16 got backed. Anyway Liverpool and Everton were back at it and I concentrated on that match instead.

Everton v Liverpool

The under 2.5 goal market started at about 1.56ish and I opted out as it was close to the 1.50 level that I always close the market on anyway. That left me the half time and full time markets. I didnt start on the half time market until 20 minutes into the first half for a couple of reasons; low liquidity and the odds hadn't started to move quickly enough. At half time I had made around £4.

Half time - I quickly looked over to the Spanish game that was on Sky which started at the same time. I got a back in at 2.02 with about 30 seconds left to play until half time - knowing the price is likely to fall at half time - a minute later I traded out for £1.52 profit when the price had dropped to 1.99.

2nd half - toss up between Everton match or the Spanish match to trade - both live on tele, both had good liquidity but which to go for, well the Everton match was scoreless and the away team were 1-0 up in the Spanish match. An easy decision, the draw market is most profitable, it has higher odds to start with and will come down at a rate of around 0.03 a minute whereas the Spanish game would drop at around 0.015 to 0.02 ticks per minute. The Everton match did what it expected to do and dropped consistently with a hiccup when a Liverpool player was sent off - the sending off did nothing to the market - I was expecting some sort of jump but nothing, when the market got suspended it was at 1.58 when it returned it resumed at 1.58. I stopped trading with about 5 minutes left of normal time left to play - I have started doing this recently, opting out of the skirmishing on the markets at the death of a game as it can produce a nice little extra but it is not only putting your stake on the line but also the profits that have been gained. Profit :£17.77

Extra Time: Traded the draw until about 5 minutes left - made £8.33

Tennis - I traded a little on the Zagreb match for a £2.52 profit - just an observation here - Ljubicic is a Croat and Troicki is a Serb and they are playing in Croatia. The line judges kept calling the young Serb's shots out - without hawkeye and on live stream it was obvious that the calls were incorrect - it took 3 sets but Troicki finally won out.

Results:

£35.15 - 5.25%