3rd to 5th April - Total Profits £510.

Friday and Saturday - I traded normally and made a profit of £90.

Sunday - I only traded on only 4 matches -

Q. When did goals get scored?

A. About 5 to 10 seconds after I had placed a trade - that's when.

Looking back at my last post - I didnt think I chased profits, or gambled and I definitely was not greedy.

Just not a very good day and it has set me back a number of weeks as I once again rebuild.

2nd April - Total Profits £778

Having recovered the Saturday losses, I proceeded to lose on the tennis a sum of around £28.

Wednesday and another round of world cup qualifiers presented themselves as opportunities for me to increase my bank roll. It worked out well with a total of £90.29 add that to the £12 I made on the footy the night before and I got a bankroll which is just over £1200.

Looking back at what has happened when I have reached this amount before gives me a chance to learn from my losses:

24th January - loss of £968 when I backed the wrong team twice to win at half time when they were losing to Man Utd.

20th February - loss of £243 - Trading on the Williams Sisters in tennis and doing it badly.

24th February - loss of £91 - Huge outsider taking a set of a top 10 tennis player.

26th February - loss of £153 - Gambling took over from Trading and it cost me.

5th & 6th March - losses of £168 - This time bored and lost on Rugby League, the next day was back to back losses on the footy markets led to another £130.

17th & 18th March - Greed turned a £65 winning day into a £100 losing day and the next day the chasing of a further loss created even larger losses.

So with those days behind me I look forward to a weekend of football and the lessons learnt are:

• Dont chase losses.
• Dont get greedy.
• Avoid all sports other than Football - since January I am down £460 on rugby,tennis,darts snooker etc...
• Stop the gambling.

It's easy to recognising the errors, it's harder to avoid them.

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%

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%