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%