23rd March - 29th March - Total Profits £702.

International week for football and the lack of football leading up to the weekend left me with little to do - when I'm making a shed load then this week each year is an obvious holiday week, no tennis either on the tele until the weekend.

I withdrew £429.45 from my betfair account as I have a little cash flow situation on the domestic front.

No trades until 28th where I made £4 on the Irish U21 match.

I was looking forward to the Saturday as I hadn't traded for a while and knew there would be as much football as I could take on the television. I had prepared the family for a "football" day - told them it starts as noon and finishes at nine.

Settled down and saw the Japan v Bahrain match was on live stream. At half time the odds for the draw had just dipped below 3.00, I had got in for 3.05 and layed half of the stake at 2.94 and then the odds started rising to 3.00, which i thought was too high so I backed again and waited for the odds to decrease again - they didnt the 2nd half got under way and the odds now had reached a peak of 3.10 and started dropping. Japan got a free kick, about 30 yards out, I looked at the wall, and the position of the free kick to the goal and thought, no chance too far out - Smack, hits the wall and loops over the goalie. Well Bahrain wasnt going to score and I settled for a £189 loss. Fine way to start the football, I thought.

I traded a little on the NZ v India draw market which netted me £36.

The rest of the weekend was uneventful, I made up most of my losses and after the soft snoring noises had started, I switched over the tele to the Ecuador v Brazil match, initially thinking Brazil was in the yellow and green, until a close up of Ronaldinho in a blue shirt showed me that I was incorrect, yet it was the yellow and green side who had most of the possession but looked like they didnt have the killer touch. So I placed a lay on Ecuador for the following reasons; the odds on them winning was 3.85 - which I felt were too low. The amount of time left to play was about 20 minutes, I could only see their odds going up and lastly the odds were indeed starting to go up and at 0.05 jumps - I placed a lay of £46.50 and continued to watch. Brazil took off Ronaldinho and replaced him with that big old lump Arsenal had on loan from Real Madrid - name escapes me - 80 seconds later and the substitute had scored or rather he shot, hit the post, ball came back, hit the goalie on the head and went into the net. Took the £39 profit and turned over to watch the cricket.

So Saturday morning to Monday morning I traded from a £189 loss to a £11 profit.

Results:

22nd March - Total Profits - £687.

Now where was I...

15th march - didnt do much trading except I decided to test out my tennis predictions and I bet £23.25 on Monfis to beat Isner - I went to bed and woke up to the result. I had managed to get my netbook working and got my trading software working on it - except for one thing and that was the "reverse ladders" function wasnt working and I managed to turn a £14 win into a £4 win after I had sussed out that everytime I went to "back" the software was "laying" and visa versa... £10 lesson now I wont be making that mistake again.

16th March and Monfis had lost, so my next tennis trade was for Simon to beat Ljubicic, I learnt from the night before and decided to watch this one and traded out for a very small win and decided that my tennis predicting isn't what I thought it was. So for the 15th and 16th I had won about £4.50. Fairly relaxed hadn't done much trading and what trading I did wasn't a total loss.

17th March - I had done well on the Asian Champions League matches and was up £65. I decided not to trade that night and feeling a bit under the weather went upstairs to sleep/relax and saw that Hull were leading Arsenal in the FA Cup - I wasnt stupid enough to trade on a Hull win but Hull had held out for so long I didnt want to trade on the other results either. Arsenal scored and I thought hey up lets have a look at those draw odds... with 16 minutes left to play the odds for a draw were high like 1.89/1.93 type and I thought the opportunity was there to make some cash - I didnt think it would end in a draw or rather I wasnt taking an educated guess at what the result would be but rather how much the odds will change in the next 30 to 90 seconds and with 16 minutes to go the odds (with the absence of a goal) should fall by 5.5 ticks per minute and this is what I was trading on - watching the match, deciding if it was safe to back and whether I could lay for lower odds within a reasonable time. The odds didnt change much and with just 6 minutes left to go the odds were 1.68 - so the rate at which they had to fall was huge over a tick ever 10 seconds - you know the rest - offside goal awarded to Arsenal and I lost £165 - so quite annoyed with myself that I had lost £100 - £100 I can live with and accept.

18th March and the Asian Champions League was going to be the main staple of the day with matches starting at 10:00 in the UK and there were other football matches being played in europe too and I could be trading upto 10ish in the night. Quite pleased that so many opportunities were coming my way, I settled down to trade. First match - up £25, goal caught me out and I was down £56 - mutters - found a new way to make money - go back into the under 2.5 market even with the score at 1-0, no goals scored regained £50.

Next match up £5. Next - up £26, next up a bit - cant remember how much but got caught again - down £27. Next match up again but got caught again - down £116 - now this time I thought I would be clever on the next match - so I backed under 2.5 - saw it get down to odds of 1.21 and a possible profit of £58, with injury time of the first half being played, the underdogs scored, grrrrr, not to worry, shit game wont score anymore, 2nd half and I can green up for £30 - no I want my £100 back , feckers score again, more cussing and cursing, not much of the match to play lets see how far I can let it go, I trade out for a £11 loss as the thought of another goal will lose me £186 wasnt a good one. So "just" £111 to make up today, so I back the draw with a few minutes to go - and the third goes in! down £176 on that game alone - completely hacked off I post on the blog. Now what I was watching and how I was trading (the sensible bits of the above) I am in retrospect quite satisfied with, the gambling side and not greening up for the £30 and £58 is stupid but there is nothing I can do about the past.

Last match of the day Aberdeen v Dunfermline - I watched for a few minutes and just traded, didnt double my stakes or anything but just traded like a demon, match was goalless after extra time and I had traded for £164 profit - put me in an upbeat mood as a loss for the day of hell was "only" £129.

Taking time to read blogs recommended to me and reflecting back on the day, I just relaxed and stopped trying to make the money back as quickly as possible, it will take me however long it takes me. I've done it before and I'll do it again.

19th - 22nd March - not much trading again due to family things to do but able to report £115 profits.

Pictures:

Update for 18th.

Aberdeen & Dunfermline played out a 0-0 draw with extra time and penalties as a result yesterday's results are amended to a loss of £129.

Maybe this trading isnt for everyone.

I got back the losses from a month ago, or I did....

Football last night - £65 up - turned into £100 loss.

Today - I have been trading the Asian Champions League all day and I'm down £293.

Total profits to date £402.

I said at the outset that I will stop blogging when either I went broke or when I got fed up with posting - at the present it's the latter.

13th & 14th March - Total Profits £790

13th March - I won on the Gold Cup, I lost on the Rugby League - took a punt but it didnt work out. I made up for it with the German and Portugese football matches - Profit for the day was £38.38

14th March - Finally a football lay that came off - I have watched both Doncaster and Birmingham live in the league and contrary to this wonderful form that Doncaster has had - it wouldn't work against the top sides and Birmingham are a top side in this division when they want to be professional. Anyway as it happened Donny were the favourites! So I layed them at odds between 2.76 and 2.84 and sure enough Birmingham scored and I settled out at 7.6 after the goal for a £55 profit. Unfortunately I had lost money on the Welsh beating the Italians by more than 7.5 points and had to settle for a loss of £21.21 - Wales did win but only by 5 points and the match was one of the worst I have ever seen with the ball being more in the air than in the hands... I made some more out of the Portugese matches and ended up for the day.

Results

13th March £38.38 - 3.40%
14th March £57.86 - 4.96%

9th - 12th March - Total Profits £693

9th March

I tried my laying of the underdog again today and it went wrong again - now this time it was 16th vs 6th in the table and Nacional looking comfortable and looking like they would take the lead. The referee decided to make things interesting by awarding a penalty for Setubal after one of their players had his shirt held at a corner..... I mean every corner there is shirt holding and this time they give a penalty - ah well I learnt something and this is to settle out for a loss and then start trading, I had felt that Nacional would equalise and I would be back - what I did was trade on a Setubal win when they were attacking and laying them off whilst Nacional were attacking and getting a few ticks profit in the meantime - what this did was reduce the liability on Setubal by around £50+ by the end of the match which is unfortunate as had I settled out when they scored I would have settled out for a loss of around £48 - £52 meaning that I would have not lost on this match - as it was Setubal actually scored another goal and I lost £71.33.

I made back some of the loss during the last few minutes by backing the under 2.5 market whilst the score was 2-0 - I made about £19 back.

10th - I went to the football and didnt trade however the cricket finished and I received £8 from previous trading on the match.

11th - Ever tried removing Linux from an Acer Netbook and replacing it with Windows XP - there is no CD/DVD drive so it's all had to be done via usb memory stick - coupled with my copy of XP is service pack 1 and the Netbook only has 0.5 gig of ram so it took all day and some of the 12th too - I only traded on the extra time of the Arsenal match for a nice little profit for 15 minutes of trading - £17

12th - Still working on the Netbook, updating it and finally I have my Netbook to state that I am happy with but needs more ram to work properly - I ordered it and will get someone to install it for me as it is a big job, however I was driving along with my son surfing the internet via an O2 dongle in the car. Anyway went upstairs to do some trading and plugged the Netbook in and turned it on - talk about slow - Man City were 1-0 up by the time I got my trading software going and the odds were 1.14 for them to win so I packed it in and went back downstairs again. I had traded on the internet streamed matches before and after the Man City match and made £45.

Results:

9th March - -£52.24 -4.71%
10th March - £8.93 - 0.85%
11th March - £17.18 - 1.61%
12th March - £45.96 - 4.25%

6th - 8th March - Total Profits £674

Friday - two goals by two underdogs made for a loss of £148. For a while now I have been frustrated by the two steps forward one step back that has been happening and it made me re-assess how my trading has been going. I looked back to the fun times and the seemingly consistency and asked what has changed - I knew the answer but read my blog from January and the thing I have changed is that I have pared down the types of trades and markets to basically Under 2.5 and only trading on the draw in the match markets - looking back when the side I expected to go into the lead does take the lead I would check the odds and have open back bets on them and benefit from a second goal with the option of trading out if the opposition looked liked scoring. Nowadays, when the first goal would go in I would just close the market and stop trading.

So with a renewed trading style, I decided to go again but reverting back to what I did previously.

Saturday - £65 profit and I have starting enjoying myself again.

Sunday - Still going well £28 up and happy with what I am doing, so I tried to do something different, a lay bet on the underdog and fairly happy with the decision until an uncontested cross, met by an unmarked header to a goalkeeper who has come off his line and fails to make the cross miserably and suddenly It's looking like a £75+ loss. Now not sure what to do - my plan was to keep the trade in play as the favourite side would equalise - however the favourites (Braga) were playing shit and wouldnt score if they played like they did in the first half but on the plus side they couldnt play any worse and the manager would kick them into action for the second half - not sure what to do and no guarantees, I took the loss for £70+ and started trading - it took 8 minutes for Braga to score.... So I watched and within a minute the worst side scored again. I reduced the loss to around £35 by the end of the match. With a couple more matches left for the night I traded on them and turned the £7 loss (£35 loss less the £28 gained already) into a £3.50 gain for the day.

Monday and Tuesday - not sure what football is available (none on the box for Monday) and I am going out Tuesday so will miss the Champions League on Tuesday - Not sure what (if anything) I will be doing for the next two days.

Results

Friday -£148.08 -12.46%
Saturday £64.79 6.23%
Sunday £3.65 0.33%

5th March - Total Profits £753

A loss and not really surprising.

Knowing the only football on the tele was Under 18 FA cup quarter final, I was bored and wanted to get some trading in.

So excited at finding some tennis I backed and lost £3.

I found some darts and won £0.71

The rugby league was the varsity match Oxford v Cambridge.... I backed Oxford and left the trade in place as they were within a converted try of drawing the match. Oxford had the better players but Cambridge had the nowse to win - two forward passes and numerous knock ons did for Oxford and I lost £33

Finally the football was found late and I got greedy, I had secured around £20 profit on the draw but went for a little more and the underdogs scored - fortunately they were the big underdogs and I managed to hedge out still for a £1 profit. The odds on the underdogs to go on and win with only 10 minutes left to play were huge - 1.60ish and I took the odds and traded out in the end for a £15 profit.

Results:

-£20.05 -1.66%

4th March - Total Profits £773

All football again today and I deviated from my normal trading pattern.

Kilmarnock were at home to Celtic and the under 2.5 goal market felt quite dangerous as the Killies defence looked a bit dodgy. Celtic had won the last 13 matches at Killies ground and they had a few chances which was the reason that put me off the under 2.5 goal market - so what I did was to back Celtic to win at 1.43 odds. Blackburn and Everton was starting and I just backed with £46.50 with the idea that I was prepared to lose this amount but would green up if they did score first. Twenty seven minutes it took for Celtic to score and I greened up for around £10. I closed the market and noticed that the score was 1-1 a half time.

Blackburn and Everton, I did a little on the under 2.5 market but stopped when the odds got around 1.50 at which point I switched to the draw market. A couple things of note - the market was 3.15/3.10 when I started looking at it and that equated to somewhere in between 2.5 and 3.0 ticks per minute. There was £10,000 being layed at 3.00 and what this did was to delay the price movement - It took a fair few minutes to get through the 10 grand. I did the same as yesterday and grab a back trade before half time and then trade out at half time, there was only 1 minute of injury time in the first half and it was just before they announced this that I backed at 2.70 and then traded out at 2.46 at half time. The first half netted me around £26. The second half was trading at over 3 ticks per minute and it is worth noting that at the start of the game it was trading at around 2.6 ticks per minute. I'm not sure whether this observation is important or not, other than you can be quite certain that the lay side of the trade will get filled quicker than you think.

Results:

£66.34 - 5.81%

3rd March - Total Profits £707

Football

French Cup football isn't that more exciting than their league football. I found a stream of the Guingamp v Le Mans and traded on the draw, it as one of those matches where there wasn't much cash on the lay side so it was grab it whilst you can and hold on until the profits were acceptable or the risk of a goal was high. This match also had the lowest odds for the draw that I have seen for a match, at half time the odds for a draw dropped to as low as 2.02ish - a normal match will have odds between 2.30 and 2.60.

Liverpool v Sunderland on the other hand had odds very high for the draw - which is understandable given the merits of the two sides. Liverpool looked very capable of scoring but without Torres they were relying on players like Ngog to score - who up until last night hadn't scored. This made trading tricky for me as I thought the odds were good value but with the odds at 3.30 to 3.00, the tick sizes are 0.05 which means that against market sentiment the odds should be dropping at about 0.04 per minute and if Liverpool were attacking then the length of the trade could be up to 2 minutes - as Cloughy said it only takes 2 seconds to score a goal. So I rarely traded to start off with and saw the opportunity to make money as half time approached - I felt that if it remained goalless at half time the odds should drop by a few ticks - So with about 90 seconds left to play in the first half, I backed at 2.92 and at half time I traded out at 2.74.

The second half started and I was determined not to rush into trading as I wanted to see how the teams played and how the markets reacted. Just after half time the markets take time to settle down again and wont start the downward spiral until traders are confident that the draw is the most likely result. Fifty Two minutes into the match and Liverpool scored, I hadnt done one trade in the second half and knowing the odds would be very low on Liverpool, I closed the laptop and ended trading for the night.

Results:

£25.25 - 2.25%

2nd March - Total Profits £682.

No live sport on the tv during the day so a long wait for the football.

When the football came from an entertainment point of view it was poor but from a trading point of view it was rather nice - the only surprise was when Oldham scored. They were playing Leeds and neither side looked very impressive going forward but that's third division football for you and both sides did only play 2 days ago.

The last 4 days have recouped the loss from Thursday - now to regain the previous Friday's loss and then onwards to recoup 24th January loss - it's all learning but it is rather depressing that I am still in a recouping phase of this trading experiment and have as much profit as I did back on 17th January.

Results:

£56.46 - 5.32%

1st March - Total Profits £625

Football again.

I was watching the Ajax match "live" on Setanta and the word "live" has that same meaning as Sky's Live Spanish coverage - so from now on the Dutch football is going to be a no no for me.

Shef Utd v Birmingham provided the largest profits with the Bolton v Newcastle match a close second. I traded the under 2.5 on the Carling cup final but with Man Utd playing Spurs I didnt want to trade the draw as I felt the risk of a goal was always viable with Tevez, Scholes and Ronaldo on the pitch coupled with the goalkeeping prowess of Gomes.

Results:

£48.05 - 4.75%

27th & 28th February - Total Profits £577

Friday and Saturday were quiet days due to commitments elsewhere and also choosing which games I would trade on (4 in total)

Football - I have virtually dropped the half time market completely and I have also virtually stopped backing a side who are already winning due to the odds being low and movement on the market being very static and slow to move downwards.

Results:

27th - £25.78 - 2.69%

28th - £28.61 - 2.91%