10th January

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

Today I going to do this chronologically:

Villa vs WBA live on sky sports 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

Results: 19.39% - £172.72

9th January

Tsonga and Gasquet started the Tennis and I joined it with Tsonga looking excellent as he closed out the first set, a quick in and out of the market for a little profit. Gasquet had given up on the first set and had saved himself for the 2nd and third sets - this giving up on sets is something that some players do and it is not a quality you will find in any world number ones. Got some more cash as Gasquet finished off Tsonga in the 3rd set.

Tennis got interesting when Roddick and Monfis matched up - remember Monfis had beaten World No.1 Nadal yesterday in an excellent performance and today he returned to his prince clown of tennis, his self doubting is costing him matches and Roddick took advantage of Monfis as Monfis failed to serve out in the first set, hit some dodgy shots in the tie-break. Monfis recovered and played some good stuff in the 2nd and 3rd sets and Roddick looked on the ropes but Monfis then inexplicable surrenders a game to Roddick - totally shocking how he played that game and the shots that he played during that game - Roddick took full advantage and went on for the win - an undeserved win and he'll get stuffed by Murray tomorrow (by stuffing I mean a 4-6 3-6 match - I over exaggerate a lot).

Backed Murray on one of his serves at the start of the match against Federer and traded straight out after he won the first point.

Football:

Reading v Watford - having watched both clubs live when my team played them this season - I expected Reading to be comfortable winners, fortunately Reading didnt score for a while and allowed me to trade on the Over/Under 2.5 market, followed by Half time and Full time markets - a nearly perfect match and a damn sight a lot easier than the Tennis - only criticism is that I traded out of the Reading full time result a little early - I usually like to hold a position of being on the bet side of a trade when the favourite is leading - I did so going in at 1.24 but by the time the market had got to 1.19 I had a greening up value of £5+ and with £125 at risk I decided to green up. When the odds get to 1.19 they seem to stay there until about 10 minutes left to play - so my logic is that I can always go back in with 10 minutes to play at 1.18/1.17 compared to the trading out figure of 1.19 from 10 minutes previously and then try and keep an open bet until full time with the advantage that if they do score again then the odds would collapse - of course as soon as I traded out, Reading FC decided to score again - I tried to get in at 1.05 but all I could get was 1.02 (quite confident Reading wouldnt relinquish the lead in this match as they have the best clean sheet record in the division) as soon as I had placed the bet the score went to 3-0 and from a position of £5 I made £11.

Results:
6.87%

Pictures:

8th January

And an early finish today - dont fancy trading on netball! and my wife might start questioning my motives of watching tall athletic ladies in short skirts.

Did I learn much today - I better had - I made some errors that I shouldnt have but it's all good provided I learn from them.

Women's Tennis - doing my head in again today - after watching a match for a long time and predicting the way the market was going to go in my head - bout 40 times in a row I predicted wrongly so I had to put it to the test and subsequently got it wrong for a loss of £6.50. I then proceeded to watch the young Japanese tennis player who looked good yesterday, he was against Mathieu who is a solid tennis player but i think vulnerable to other solid games. Short of it I got it wrong again and the market went against me and I lost again but this time £34.

Watching tennis on the internet is a bit of a daft thing to do if the screen is always buffering or stuttering and after this mornings losses I decided to remove and reinstall flash player - it works a lot better than it did this morning and so did my fortune.

Roddick - number 4 seed, former no.1 in the world with one of the best serves in the game was playing a chap who again I did not know but a bit of research showed he was mainly a clay court player had a losing streak against Roddick and is about 50 or more places lower in the rankings than Roddick - so answer me this then why the f...k was a 2 sets to nil result trading at 1.72 pre-match - I dont know but I do know what to do when it is - I backed once and then returned a few minutes later to find odds of 1.77! - So I backed again.

Roddick won the first game of the first set and his odds went to 1.66ish and an immediate profit of around £16 - not for me though, I wait and see - his opponent holds and Roddick starts his next game and is love - 30 down - I trade a little out at 1.67, Roddick gets to 15-40 his odds drift out, he does his big serving and it's Deuce and hte price is at 1.82 - I have a little of that - not too much as I got over double of what I usually have exposed and £50 went in. Roddick breaks the other guy who looks well out of place against Roddick and Roddick's odds plummet and at 1.27 I traded out for a nice chunk of cash, I dabbled again at 1.08 and traded back out at 1.06 when Roddick broke in the second set and I traded out for over £62 to make up for the morning.

Nadal and Monfis played their match in a difficult game to tell who was going to win I only had one bet and I traded out at the same price and just watched Monfis do what he is capable of doing, if he puts his mind to it.

Wasnt really watching the Federer and Kohlschreiber match but when I did look up and load up the trading software, Federer had just broken for a 4-2 lead in the match and I looked at the +4.5 handicap and did the maths and promptly 1.26 and 1.27 odds that were being offered and traded out for £34 profit when the others did the numbers. I mentioned installing the latest flash software on to my machine and the lack of problems on the stream - the stream was about 2 seconds ahead of Eurosport and once Federer hit the winner at the end of the match for a +5 games win on a 4.5+ handicap, I hit the back £500 at 1.01 odds - to my surprise the trade went through before the other trader who presumably was watching on Eurosport and not only that but it went through at somewhere between 1.01 and 1.02 for an extra £8 profit.

Finally the Murray match and a man o watch out for is his opponent - I had thought that Murray would want to go through in straight sets as he has got Federer tomorrow and needs all his energy for that match - so I got a trade in at 1.18 and from the first thump of his serve, I knew my bet was in trouble - his name is Stakhovsky he comes from the Ukraine, he is young and he has been tearing the challenger tour up (apparently) and boy did he give Murray a run for his money - I was glad to just have been down about 64 pence with him. Having won 6-4 in the first set then I thought the over 17.5 market was trading at the wrong levels - but after the umpire gave Murray a bit of a talking to after Murray received some comments from his coach, and the new young upstart Stakhovsky had done to Murray what Murray does best in the world i.e. playing really disguised drop shots and got Murray a bit cross with the young upstart - Murray did his best to scupper all plans of me winning my over 17.5 games bet. by winning the first five games in the second set meaning that if he holds his serve or if he gets broken and then goes on to break the new chap then he would got me scuppered - I did my best to find a lay bet but the market didnt have any liquidity and I had to settle for a loss of £64 quid...

Leaving the results for the day at.... Minus 21 pence.

Here's the pictures:

7th January:

Football: fairly straight forward and uneventful, Derby took the lead against a Man Utd 2nd XI who lets face probably have never played as a team before and it showed.

Tennis: Federer, Nadal and Murray - all straight forward and profit locked in. Women's Tennis trickier and I still need to learn how to trade this effectively. Wozniacki who won 6-0 6-1 last time out was up against Craybas (a lady I hadnt heard of before but is aged 36, thin and I underestimated), Wozniacki was the better player and I was confident she would win 2 sets to nil, when she broke earli in the 2nd set I had a bet on her at 1.11, I was just waiting for her odds to drop again when she would inevitably break through, there was an open lay bet of 1.09 so I could lock in at any time but Craybas just coninued to be resilient and wouldnt give up. I eventually traded out at 1.09 (I could have gone to bed 45 minutes earlier) and Wozniacki then horror of horrors lost her own serve and the relief of having trading out was a good decision. Finally another ladies match which I initially managed to trade up a profit of £12 but eventually lost a tenner on it:

Results:

11.73% for the day

6th January

Out to lunch with my wife meant that I missed the first tennis of the day and left me with a challenge of trying to make money out of Nadal vs Santoro (a 36yr old guy who has a good record against Federer and has achieved a reputation of being an awkward so and so due to his ability to spin the ball, mix up his shots etc... With odds of only 1.11 for a 2 sets to nil victory, I backed it and backed it and backed it again - having watched Nadal and Murray play last week there was absolutely no way Santoro would have enough to win a set - being the chicken I am I got out of the bet at the soonest possible moment at 1.06 and a £20 win - had I stayed with the bet a bit longer I would have relaxed and watch as Santoro only won 4 points during the first set and somehow avoided a 6-0 6-0 scoreline due to a net cord that gave Santoro the only game he would see in the match.


Football was football for the first match and only a broken stream stopped me on betting further on the match - the stream stopped at half time and although there was another streaming source available it was 5 minutes behind play so kinda useless.

Spurs v Burnley - Burnley played really well in the first half. The match started off with overs/unders 2.5 over 2.00 - I didnt want to get involved straight away as I like to see a couple of minutes play to assess the game. A lot of trying to feel out the opposition happens in the first 5 minutes of the game and gives a good opportunity to get some trades in, this coupled with the fact that the match is a coca-cola semi final played over 2 matches also means that there is no rush to score and build up a decisive lead from the off - so with some lolly made before a goal is scored and not in a trade when Burnley scored, I turned the O/U 2.5 market off with a nice little profit.

When a goal is scored the market is suspended and then switched back on meaning that punters have to either to create a market and be one of the first ones in on the new market or alternatively wait and see how the market settles. I am in the first camp as it can give a nice little profit straight away and this is how it was in this match - I came in with a back at 1.77 for Burnley to be ahead at half time and within 30 seconds I had traded out at 1.7 for a nice £3.50ish profit. Then as the first half was developing it was a matter of finding the right times to go in to the market and getting back out for profits.


As I mentioned going into a market just after a goal has been scored is a judgement call and when Spurs came out in the 2nd half and very quickly got 2-1 ahead I thought the right price for them was 1.15 to 1.16 and the market agreed but to my surprise the market kept rising. At least two things affect the market when you are backing a team who are winning to go on and win the match , the first being whether the opponents are capable of scoring - if they cant then the market goes down if they are capable and threatening then the odds go up, but this is countered or also affected by the time left to go in the match as the match goes further and further there is less time for the opposition to score and thus inevitably no matter how brilliant the opposition is the market will start to fall. To my surprise the market kept going up and I kept backing the Tottenham win - there was one chance for Burnley to score and then it sunk in that I had pressed the back button 8 times and the lay button twice (or rather only 2 of my lays had been matched) and I thought well the market cant keep going up and in the next minute or two I am going to have to trade out of this position even if it for a loss as I had £450+ on the back side of the market. It was just the size of the loss I was prepared to accept was the question and with a loss of only £3.50ish I thought yup can trade out for that and start again on this market at over inflated prices. Well the Russian spurs striker dummied to come inside on his right foot, flicked the ball to the left, left the defender flat footed and shot for a goal in the corner and the score was 3-1. I had a big smile and decided that I would let the market settle and see what price I can get for the lay bet and how big the profit was going to be. Of course the market settled at 1.06 - 1.07 and although fairly happy with the profit, I did think I was being a little bit ripped off but with over £450 still exposed and a nice tidy profit sitting there, I decided to get out, Spurs were on the attack and I was going to trade out as soon as the goalie had the ball in his hands, the next time he had the ball in his hands was to pick the ball out of the net and the price dropped down to 1.01 and I traded out for a very nice but very fortunate £89.62.

Finally I watched some bloody awful tennis being played by two ladies, neither of which could hold on to their serve, being new to trading tennis I didnt quite understand how I could make a profit out of these circumstances and only dabbled with £2 bets to get a feel of how it worked. I think I have sussed out a strategy for this but it took me deep into the 2nd set to work it out - i made £0.02 !

Results:

22.84%

5th January:

Football:

Portugese football - 1st half bit of non event - Braga better team but the two teams were playing an expansive game and had chances at both ends but the finishing of the strikers made it look like it was going to be a low scoring game - I dabbled in the under/over 2.5 goals until I sussed this out but with both sides getting chances it was a market I didnt stay in there for long. Missed the start of the 2nd half was surfing the net and noticed that Braga had scored just before I returned - this gave an oppertunity to do some trading on the match score and eek out one or two ticks of profit. With the ticks of profit behind me I backed Braga to win the match but with the knowledge that if the other side looked imminently to score I could trade out with a profit in hand - with a bet on Braga to win, they got a penalty, scored and their price plummeted and I traded out at low odds for a nice profit.


Blakburn v Blyth Spartans - with Rovers fielding a bunch of reserve players against a bunch of semi professionals who were going to work their nuts off not to concede a goal the obvious market was the under over 2.5 goals (especially when the starting price was 2.26 compare this to the 1.63 of the Braga match) and I did this for a nice bit of profit for only 5 minutes at the start of the match at which point Blackburn had started to start clicking and producing opportunities for their forwards.

Tennis:

I had £6 from the early hours in the bag and the games at lunch time were Monfis - who is a dodgy player - looks very very capable but not sure he has the work ethic to get to the top - he was playing a player who I didnt know a lot about - the other guy looked ok but when I realised that he was not in a month of sundays ever going to break Monfis then a 2 sets to nil win was most likely to be on the cards - went with my convictions and traded out in the 2nd set after Monfis had broken his opponent. Roddick - I looked at the odds for a 2-0 sets win pre-match they looked overly generous - I confirmed this compared to the bookies and backed him, pre-match I put a lay bet in which was duly taken and I walked away with a profit without actually watching the match.

In the evening Wozniacki an 18 year old lady was playing a 28 year old Italian that I never have heard of - straight forward win for Wozniacki who was short odds to start of with and won 6-1, 6-0.

A good day 14.99% return

Why no blog posting until today - embarrassment in one word.

I was having a fairly good day on the 28th December and then I got greedy and got on the wrong end of a trade, I decided to risk the bank roll on a fairly reasonable bet (I thought at the time) - the stupid thing was that after a few days of relatively good results I didnt want to show a loss for the day - the loss had I decided not to enter into the final bet of the day was only £8 but being a pigheaded, always wanting to be proved right kinda of guy I thought Blackburn vs Man City 2-0 with 4 minutes to go what's the bet to get the £8+ back - looked at the full time result - pointless - odds were pretty damn bad - I know the Under 3.5 goal market - well all I can say is that I thought Man City were stupid to let Ishmail Miller go but that Sturridge guy is the reason - he comes on with 3 minutes to go as a sub, scores and then threads an eye of the needle type pass to Robiniho who duly knocks it past the Blackburn goalie with one of the last kicks of the match the result was a £502.02 loss for the day - the bankroll went from £658 to £156 - devastating.

Always eager to get back on the horse I chucked £174.45 from other betting accounts into the betfair account and got going again. Won a bit on the american football and started the 29th with a bankroll of £362.

29th December - on the wrong side of a few trades left me with a loss for the day of £65.28. A bit of thought had to happen and I think the reasons for the losses for the 28th is obviously not sticking to my rules and being a greedy sod but the 29th need a bit more in depth soul searching and the answer was that I was too busy trying to trade rather than watch the match and marry that up with the market - it's a combination of what is actually happening and how it relates to the betting market that is so important and I decided that was the key to the future - ensure what I am doing is not going to lose me a big chunk of my bankroll and not to put the whole bankroll at risk ever (famous last words).

30th December - made 6% of my new diminished bankroll.

31st December - away with family for the day.

1st January - more trading and pleased with the 9.47% return especially true as I there wasnt any football trading going on. First dabble in to the tennis trading - have been looking forward to the tennis trading for a long time - I have watched a lot of tennis in the last year for betting purposes rather than trading purposes and I just envisage that my read of a tennis match is fairly good and could trade quite well - as there is tennis on tv most weeks then I hope that tennis and football will be a big part of my income.

2nd to 4th January has been great lots of football and plenty of tennis.

Results:

22.31%, 9.54%, 13.45%

27th Dec

Glad I got to watch the footy today - no surprises - just predictable football - well saying that I did stay out of the Rangers v Celtic match until after half time. The footy experts had said that Rangers went closest to scoring in the first half and although that was true in one way (dis-allowed goal), Celtic's defence looked a lot more solid than the Rangers side. So I shut down the lid to the laptop and turned over for a few minutes - I decided to stay out of the market as betting for and against a draw felt wrong as I thought that at least one of the sides would score and I would be caught out like I was yesterday. Celtic scored when I looked and thought that they could hold the lead for the remainder of the match and trading in and out would be a good idea. Note the trading in and out of the market - this isn't gambling in the traditional sense, it is taking a position for the next 30 seconds - 90 seconds, getting vindicated and greening up.

Anyway scores on the doors: 10.85% and it looks like I will be trading with a stake of £98.71 tomorrow.

26th December and a football fest if ever there was one.

All going well and Man Utd go and score just after I try to trade out and I missed - setting up a sizeable loss - so in my own tiltish way I gamble my way out.

All going smoothly up a fair percentage I try to take advantage of Arsenal 2-0 scoreline and a side that looked comfortable at 2-0 - in steps Gallas when I have £500 on them to win @ 1.11 and gives away a stupid penalty - in steps the gambling mode and I put another 60 quid on arsenal to win.

I trade out with the score at 2-1 and £30 loss - Villa scores with 2.5 minutes of the 4 injury time minutes. So taking advantage of the remaining 90 seconds I lump in a £500 bet at 1.13 for the draw and with nothing noteworthy happening (other than Wenger scowling) I manage to finish up for the day.

With two matches on setanta today (27th) and no subscription in the second room I decided to give them a ring to get it sorted - I ask - subscription team say "cant do it - phone customer services", phone customer services at 10.00 a.m. only to be met with a "please call back between the hours of 9 and 5" - Setanta gotta luv their amatuerist ways.

Anyway results:

7.08% but more down to gambling than trading.

Bad news was the Darts I thought was going to be on wasn't and the Good news being that Thailand played Vietnam at football with a live stream being available.

So 2.p.m. and that's me done for the day.

Results 4.68%.

What? No Football? what is there to trade on?

Darts of course - first time trading in darts and it seemed all right, but it was predictable stuff with the favourites winning their legs and taking the occasional leg from their opponent.

With no football again tomorrow then I guess it will be darts that I will be trading on.

Here's the results: 1.87% profit.

Frustrating day for a sports nut like me - did a little in play trading with new software I'm trying out and won a whopping £0.06 on the horses - with the tv being watched by the family it was again an internet stream of football that gave me the opportunity to trade.

A disallowed goal in the 3rd minute of extra time had no effect as I was out of the market at the time and all greened up.

4.13% profits today and although the stakes are getting higher than I am normally accustomed to, the first bet of the day is all important for me not to get wrong - fortunately I saw the price for under 2.5 was a little too high and got a couple of trades in before the match even started.

Next few days have very few footy matches on, I noticed a FA cup replay but not sure if that is being shown on the tele, so I'm going to have to wait for Boxing Day that has no been established as a day of footy in our household.

Results:

A festival of football and I missed the last game due to family getting frustrated with my monopoly of the tv.

It started with Man Utd in the world club championship, followed by West Brom, Celtic and PSV all playing at 1:30 and 2:00 followed by Arsenal Liverpool, then Barca v someone and real betis is the match I didnt bother with.

On the wrong side of a draw with Wayne Rooney scoring a cracker from the left edge of the box, left me £41 down, however I was very confident Man Utd would prevail I chucked the rest of my bankroll on them to win - with +£400 exposure it was a risk but a risk that paid off. Now the rest of the day there was very few scares and I finished a cracking 11.69% up - now considering I have been on the wrong side of the trade a few times since I have done this blog, it's about time that a team I have backed will actually increase their lead and I can green up with a big profit.

Anyway here's the scores on the doors:




p.s I watched the tv with family then realised I could stream the Real Betis match and also found a stream for Porto with a little success:

Saturday before Xmas

And it as out of the house at 11:30 and didnt return until 10ish - this limited the live sport I could trade on.

Espanyol was on Sky vs Ath Madrid with Ath Madrid up at half time and a Portugese match that I managed to get a live stream on - Sky was turned off by my wife so she could watch the taped Strictly come dancing and cut short my trades on that market as I wont trade unless I am watching via a stream or on tele. Then I found a stream for the last 7 minutes of the Sky match on the internet.

So the results 2.12% in about 35 minutes.

After a disaster on the snooker yesterday I decided to go back to my strategy of only using 15% of my bankroll as a trading stake.

A 30 yard strike into the bottom left hand side of the goal screwed up my trading on the under/over 2.5 market as I was on the wrong side of the bet.