7 out of 8 ain't bad

I traded 8 games last night and made a profit on 7 of them for an overall profit of £18.40. Three of the games I actually only dipped into at the start and one a Brazilian 2nd Division game I had taken a small £2 profit before it kicked off and didn't touch it after that.

Overall my strategy and concentration last night was actually pretty good. When I wanted to do something else I closed my position before leaving the screen, so maybe I learned from the expensive cup of coffee I had on Saturday where 2 goals were scored while I was filling the caffetiere!!!!

Slow Weekend

Well after a fair bit of trading this weekend I ended up with a truly massive profit of £4.91. Saturday was a bit of a disaster after a promising start in the Falkirk- Hibs game at lunchtime. Sunday saw a recovery with only one losing game being the early game between West Ham and Spurs.

I didn't seem to manage to really get into any game with any level of confidence. Studying this last week does seem to indicate that my best results are when I select a game and concentrate on it. My difficulty is a tendency to get involved just because there is a game on.

I'm off to Anfield tomorrow night for the Liverpool-Villa game so there will be little trading tomorrow, but with the Champions League qualifiers Tuesday and Wednesday nights hopefully I can get down to some serious work then.

Akmal

Akmal was a handy winner for me at York last month at 9/2 and in the first yesterday ran out an 8/1 winner. Even better I managed to take 14/1 on him early in the morning - Happy Days.

I didn't trade at all Wednesday as I was at Anfield for Liverpool's 4-0 demolition of Stoke. Thursday night was an unmitigated disaster in the Europa League qualifiers with what seemed like a goal everytime I entered a market. Although I made a loss of just shy of £50 the positive was that I was disciplined enough to take the losses and avoid what could have been much worse!!!

Solid and Sensible

Quite a lot of choice in the in running football tonight but with all the games kicking off at the same time I decided to start with the Celtic - Arsenal game as I intended to watch it. This proved a good decision as I stuck with this game and came away with a £16.45 profit between the under/over 2.5 and 3.5 markets, opting out when the second goal went in.

The game itself saw Arsenal winning 2-0 and while some might argue that they were a couple of lucky goals I thought they were good value for their victory.

On the horse racing front watched York this afternoon and seen another magnificent performance from Sea the Stars. Not normally prone to backing long odds on shots but do admit to a wee flutter at 1-3 on. Might be termed as money buying that one!!!!

York Ebor Festival

Whilst I am concentrating on football trading these days my attention over the next four days will be drawn to the Knavesmire and York's Ebor Festival. York remains one of my favourite racecourses and scene of my biggest winning day ever when the St Leger was held there in 2006 and I could do virtually no wrong.

I won't make it over this week but I did manage a mildly profitable day there in July and with a bit of luck I will pick a few winners over the next few days. To those who are trading good luck.

With limited games today and a penalty at Tannadice in the 3rd minute I was happy to escape with a profit of £1.93 on the day. Avoided a potentially losing day and with Champions League and Premiership games tomorrow night hopefully better results to come.

Early predictions were all wrong but...

it all turned into quite a good day. Despite my predictions for the days football going to pot I had a successful day turning a £36.72 profit. It was probably a good sign that I managed to have greened up for a couple of pound before kick off in the PSV-Ajax game when the first goal went in after 3 minutes. Decided then to dip into the Man U - Birmingham game and grabbed a few quid, picked up £3 pound on Spurs Liverpool and then moved up a gear with over £10 profit on Benfica Maritimo and a few more good trades on the Brazilian leagues.

Monday has quite a few in play games but most are from leagues I don't follow but there is an SPL game between Dundee Utd and Hearts on ESPN so should get some good liquidity and hopefully a low scoring game.

I'm Back

Well after a bit of business building and a few weeks holiday including some time back at home in Scotland and a profitable day out to York Races last month the return of competitive football sees me back in front of the screen.

Day one of the Premiership season saw a modest profit of £15.97. Could have been more but the Arsenal humiliation of Everton wasn't worth touching and I had little confidence in Hull holding out as long as they did at Stamford Bridge. Surprisingly my two best payouts of the day were paid before halftime which is rarely a good thing but I managed to get out of both the Arsenal and Celtic markets early and wasn't tempted back into either.

Looking forward to Sunday with PSV v Ajax in the morning and Spurs v Liverpool at 4 looking like possible low scoring games. Have a feeling that Birmingham might get a hiding at Old Trafford so I'll probably not get too involved in that one.

I'm basically going to concentrate on football from now on as this seems to be the most likely way of me making small but steady profits. I'm going to use other avenues to have a punt on other sports that I want some interest in while watching, so I'll stick a few quid on Andy Murray in the Montreal final and can have a small wager while watching the baseball on ESPN America.

Wimbledon Day One - 100% Success Rate

Yes I made £2.21 on my single trade of day one at Wimbledon. Ah well onwards and upwards should get some time tomorrow afternoon if all goes to plan.

Weekend Dreaming

Again I have been trading very little, although I did make £6 on the Moscow derby this morning. Having spent Saturday shopping for stuff for the baby, do they really need so much, and then having cut the grass and some other gardening today, I felt it was time for some recreation so went to visit the new Dream statue just off the M62 at St Helens. So I thought I'd share this picture which proves we do occasionally get decent weather in this part of the world

Great - Football on the Telly all Night

Been quiet for a couple of weeks as there hasn't been much football about and I have been busy with other projects, but hoping to make the most of tonights football on Sky.

I made a fiver profit on the South Korea-Saudi Arabia game at lunchtime and am now quite happily trading the Ecuador-Argentina game on Sky Sports just now. Not the best game in the world but I do enjoy a 0-0 these days even if I was out of the market when Tevez missed his penalty.

With Columbia-Peru and Brazil-Paraguay to come this might turn into a long night, luckily now I'm my own boss I can decide when I go to work so it is going to be a late start tomorrow.

Cracking Game On Setanta Now

Just watched the first half of the Copa Libertadores quarterfinal between Defensor Sporting and Estudiantes and what a cracking game it is. Estudiantes took the lead after 12 minutes and since then Defensor have come close on quite a few times. The tackling has been a bit tasty to say the least but Juan Sebastian Veron does play for Estudiantes and is in the book. Couple of players sent off for aiming a couple of friendly kicks at each other. Roll on the 2nd half.

Oh yeah and I've greened up for a tenner on the 2.5 goals market. Already picked up £4.74 on the AIK-Hammarby game early on this evening and I did actually manage to get in on a bit of Tennis today making £12.42 on the Tsonga and Venus Williams games today. So all in all a pretty good day.

At the moment I have a quiet day tomorrow so hopefully I can trade a few more games at the French Open, but of course Andy Murray is playing so that will be a distraction. Tennis was easier when there weren't any Scots playing it!!!!

All Quiet on the Trading Front

I've been rather busy with a few other projects and the visit of my mother over the weekend, hence the lack of recent posts. I'm in the process of setting up my own business so the paperwork and organisation involved in this is keeping me rather busy at the moment. If everything goes to plan everything should be in place for the 1st of June and my life should be in order for at least a couple of months until the baby arrives.

Had been looking forward to the French Open even got the widget fitted, but unfortunately bar a few dip ins have not really had the time to trade much at all yet. Have had a few successful trades on the football, especially the Championship playoff final and tonight's Champions League Final.

With the end of the football season in most of the major markets I'm hoping that I can trade tennis sufficiently to make up the shortfall, I don't follow cricket and feel that any move into that area would be foolhardy. As a former resident of Sweden I do have some knowledge of Scandinavian football , so hopefully that and the World Cup qualifiers can keep me going until the new season gets started.

Does This Count As My Best Day Yet?

Today my profit on the over/under markets came to a grand total of £68.56, but I have to admit that I did make £26.60 of that on the Copa Libertadores games in the wee small hours while I was watching the Detroit-Anaheim game 7 on ESPN America. So I think it should really be added to Thursday's total which meant 2 consecutive days in the £40 profit zone.

This has improved the weekly total immensely as after Monday's loss I only made £9 on Tuesday and whilst a £29 profit on Wednesday did improve matters, until this morning it was looking like a rather disappointing week was in store. However I can now look forward to the weekend with over £100 profit for the week already made.

That said it might be just as well as I have rather a lot of other things on the go this weekend so not sure how much of a chance I might have to trade. I think the on going car hunt will continue and I believe I might actually be going out on Saturday night - wonders will never cease. Sunday prospects looks a bit better, though I have got some work to do that hopefully won't take too long, but I fancy Liverpool and Chelsea to hand out hammerings to West Brom and Blackburn so I think I'll be looking elsewhere for a profit.

Back Down to Earth With a Bump

After yesterday's great result I came back to earth with a bump today with Boro's 2nd minute goal at St James' tonight. Ended up losing 17 quid on the football tonight with a tenner profit on the play-off offsetting some of the loss.

I traded a couple of Tennis matches in Madrid this afternoon for a fiver profit and having decided to trade the Ice Hockey after all last night, which netted another £6, I ended up only six quid down on the day.

So not the best start to the week but at least I bailed out of the Newcastle-Boro game before the equaliser in the 9th minute. Not so long ago I would have hung around and ended up losing more. The ability to accept a loss is proving to be a valuable lesson that I have learned and if I can stick with this new found discipline it augurs well for the future.

Looking forward to the Capitals - Penguins game 6 in a few minutes time, hope Ovechkin can take it back to Washington for a game 7 decider. Think I'll lay the draw and try and trade out early and enjoy the show.

Smashing Through the Glass Ceiling

Well today was the day that I finally managed to get through the £50 barrier with my football trading and this was despite being out for a large part of the afternoon and missing the opportunity of that the Manchester derby provided.

A grand profit of £52.63 was achieved mainly through £20 from the Gillingham - Rochdale playoff, a tenner from AC Milan v Juve and fourteen quid from Porto Nacional. Add in a few £2 grabs elsewhere and this proved to be a great day.

Tomorrow is the start of another week and today's trading has got my weekly profit through the £100 barrier once again. Whilst I don't want to get to used to the extra income I now feel that I am actually improving. I have had a few games that have went against me this week but I have managed to accept the loss and come back to make sure it doesn't effect me to badly. Whether I can transfer this to other sports and markets is the next question that I have to answer especially when the football dries up.

Settling down to watch the Red Wings v Ducks game on ESPN America, probably won't try and trade as I don't want to push my luck to far.

To Boldly Go...

To the cinema on a Saturday night instead of trading. Went to see the new Star Trek movie tonight, and it was brilliant. Very funny, lots of in jokes and the new Uhura is HOT!!!!

On the trading front had a successful day other than getting caught out by Liverpool's early goal making £35.95 on the day. Main successes on the day were the Old Firm game and the Burnley-Reading Play-off game. I got out of the West Ham Liverpool game with only a 40p loss which has to be considered a result after Gerrard scored after 70 seconds.

Currently watching the Washington-Pittsburgh NHL play-off game. 0-0 at the end of the first period, was thinking of laying the draw but still trading at 4.2 so will probably give it a miss.

Racing Come Rain,Hail or Shine

Fantastic night at Aintree where we had an astounding night of weather, literally rain hail and shine with beautiful sunshine punctuated by heavy showers and one astounding dose of hail stones.

As I said before I really enjoy these free nights courtesy of Racing UK for anyone with the Setanta Sports Pack I'd make sure you sign up for the Racing UK Club as the free tickets are well worth it.

Well I didn't quite get 6 winners but 3 winners at 10-1, 4-1 and 11-10 plus the placepot for the first time in I don't know how long meant it was a very profitable night. Maybe I should give up this trading lark and just stick to pure gambling!!!!

Quick update

After yesterday's stunning profit of £2.52, I have almost got as much with a quick £2 trade on the Bulgarian football this afternoon.

Ah well off to Aintree, if I pick 6 winners the next post may be delayed and sent from sunnier climes. Ah well one can dream!!!

So is this Water Polo???

Currently watching the Deportivo Cuenca v Caracas game and the pitch is virtually waterlogged. They got the local fire brigade out at half time to drain the water away. If the game was over here I'm sure it would have been called off long ago, but at 2500m above sea level they don't seem that phased by it at all.

Despite the good number of in-play games today with low scores I've failed to cash in but should escape with a very small profit unless I get something badly wrong in the last 20 mins of this game.

Probably won't be trading tomorrow as I'm off to Aintree with another Racing UK freebie. So if anyone has any hot tips please let me know.

Normal Service is Resumed

After yesterday's loss I got back on track today, made a small profit on the Spain-Italy U17 game this morning then a bigger haul on Chelsea-Barcelona and finally nicked another fiver on the Lyn-Rosenborg game.

This left me with a profit on the day of £32.36, not exactly covering yesterday's losses but it is good to get back to a nice steady daily profit. If I can keep this going I can cope with the occasional setback like yesterday.

So looking forward to tomorrow with the Uefa Cup Semi 2nd legs, an Edinburgh Derby and the start of the Promotion Play-offs. Hopefully a couple of these will throw up a money-making opportunity.

Good Run Comes To An End

Ah well it has been good while it lasted but tonight I hit my first losing day for a while the Arsenal - Man Utd Champions League game proved my undoing and despite managing to claw some back on the 4.5 market at the end I ended up £42 down.

Not overly concerned I've had a few losing games during my profitable streak and the difference tonight was the lack of other opportunities to improve the situation. I have traded a couple of the women's tennis games tonight and have netted a small £7 profit off the Ivanovic and Serena Williams games.

Tomorrrow is another day and I'll start all over again.

Bank Holiday Monday

Was out for most of the day looking for a new car. Our current car is approaching 100,000 miles so with the impending family expansion it seems like a good time to get a car with 5 doors. So after looking at numerous different makes and models absolutely no decision has been made. No doubt a couple of months of procrastination yet before a decision will be reached.

On to tonight's trading and highly successful it was too. Only traded 2 games and after making £13.87 off the Histon-Torquay game I followed it up with another £22.31 from the Villa-Hull match for a grand total of £36.18.

By sticking to football trading I am making steady progress, however with the end of season looming I feel I will have to diversify a bit. My instinct says that tennis is the way to go, although I have been moderately successful with tennis trading to date, I am finding the timing of the European season problematic with my other projects. If I'm going to go down this route I will have to make time to ensure I can trade for a reasonable amount of time as trying to dip in for a quick kill seems to be the route to a quick loss.

The Things That Interupt Your Trading.....

Well I got a new addition to my list of things to prevent my trading today. No laughing please dear reader (that's my job) but I had to leave the PC as the Rangers and Everton games were coming to an end because my dear wife had managed to drop the car keys down a drain!!!

What can I do other than rumage through the wardrobe to find a wire coathanger and get on my bike and cycle off to the rescue. She calls it pregnancy brain, I can't write what I called it.

Having missed some trading opportunities due to this enforced absense I almost ended up with my first losing day in a while having been caught out by Espanyol's late goals against Valencia. However a late rally for £13 off Betis-Atletico and another three quid from the Maritimo-Porto game left me with a grand profit of £3.97.

We're Going Up, We're Going Up, Saints Are Going Up

Today's trading was severely curtailed by St Johnstone winning the First Division Championship. Great back in the SPL next season and live games on Setanta.

Did manage some trading in between biting my nails and pacing the living room waiting on the final whistle and made a modest £22.43 on the over/under markets today.

Disappointing Friday

Had a disappointing night but did manage to make a profit of £8.12 in the end. Fridays are often difficult due to the lack of football but with 2 televised games I thought there might be some opportunities tonight.

Discovered that while there was an Irish game on Setanta nobody was betting on it as there was no liquidity in the market so that was a bust, maybe just as well with the late goal rush by Bohemians.

The Blue Square playoff between Torquay and Histon looked more promising and with the score 1-0 at the 60 minute mark I entered the over/under 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5 markets. Having built up a profit in the region of £20 I got caught out with Torquay's 2nd goal in the 2.5 market and although this ended 2-0 I bailed out with the risk of a further goal too much, especially with Histon's late goal record. Result a massive profit of 8p.

My saving grace was the Rio Ave-Braga game from Portugal a game with 0-0 written all over it when I looked in online. managed to trade the 1.5 goals market and green up for a profit of £8.04.

Not as good as recent days but a profit is a profit. should have the opportunity to trade for most of the day tomorrow and with plenty of televised games hopefully there should be an opportunity to make a decent profit on the day.

Uefa Cup Semis - Another Good Evening

Nice evening's work on the 2 Uefa Cup Semi-Finals. Made a relatively modest £6.71 on the all Ukrainian game between Dinamo Kiev and Shaktar. The 5.30 kick off didn't really suit me too well but I had more time for the all German semi at 7.45, trading from the hour mark onwards.

I traded the over/under 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5 markets on the Werder Bremen - Hamburg game and with another nice 0-1 result made a profit of £22.98 across the 3 markets giving a profit of £29.69 on the day.

With the weather not being to bad and a few other things getting in the way I never got a chance to look at the tennis this afternoon.Much like Rob the Builder I prefer tournaments in the States or Down Under as the times fit in better for me. Think I will have to rethink my schedule for the upcoming tournaments at Roland Garos and Wimbledon, as the opportunities there should be worth making time for.

Well 1-0 Is Almost As Good

Champions League game between Man Utd and Arsenal tonight, not quite another 0-0 but the 1-0 result proved just as profitable having grabbed a few quid at the start I backed and layed through the last 30 minutes to green up for just over £20 on the over/under 2.5 market.

I also managed to grab a few quid on a couple of East European games during the afternoon so overall another successful day. Got to do my research on the Uefa Cup semis for tomorrow night and see if I can keep this run going.

With the weather due to be lousy in this neck of the woods tomorrow I should be able to trade some of the Rome Masters tennis. by being busy I got lucky today I traded the first few games of the Murray-Monaco game and have to say having left at 5-0 to Andy was surprised to see he lost in 3 sets, but my early exit gave me a 3 quid profit.

Don't You Love a Nil-Nil Draw

Been easing my way back into trading this last week and just had a look at my P&L for the last week and my football trading just broke through the £100 barrier for the last 7 days, standing at the princely sum of £104.15.

This has been boosted by the rather boring but profitable 0-0 draws in the televised games between Chelsea & Barcelona and Newastle & Portsmouth over the last two nights. Both these games had 0-0 written all over them from early on and having made some early grabs on both I moved in for a profitable trade about half way through the second half taking just under £20 on both.

My profit for the week was probably helped by being at Anfield for the 4-4 draw with Arsenal last Tuesday and having an enjoyable evening at Haydock races on Saturday which meant I missed my usual Saturday server frustration. With only 2 losing trades on the week, both of which I offset on the under 4.5 markets, my more selective policy seemed to pay off.

Now if there could be a few more televised 0-0's it would make me a very happy guy.

Back to Blogging

Not posted for a few weeks due to a number of issues some good and some bad. The good news is I'm going to be a Dad so lots of changes in store. Less good was I had a change in medication for my various ailments which knocked me sideways for a couple of weeks.

Seem to be back on an even keel now and have tried out a few new strategies since Saturday with some limited success. However been forced to cut my losses on the Liverpool-Chelsea under 2.5 goals market so it will probably finish one all.

Bad Start But Getting Better

Had a bad start to todays trading bailing out of the early French Cup tie for a loss of just over a fiver. However since then I have been having a good evening.

Traded the Wozniacki - Ursula Radwanska game for the first set greening up for what was my best ever tennis total of £15. Switching to the Arsenal Hull Cup tie I traded the 2.5 and 4.5 markets for profits of just over a fiver on each leaving a footie profit of £6.17.

After last nights post I found my self uninspired by the NBA but did net a £3 profit but returned to the Masters tennis to net a £7.40 gain on Simon-Ljubicic game at Indian Wells and a couple of quick lays followed by backs gave me another £3.38 from Federer.

As I right I'm sitting with a couple of quid profit on the Isner-Safin game but feeling a bit unsure of my next move with unpredictable Marat showing some interest tonight. I've also made a quick grab for a couple of quid on the Magic Cavs game in the NBA.

Back in Front of the Screen

Haven't posted for a week mainly because I didn't do much trading for various reasons this last week and what little trading I did do came to nothing. Whilst I had some good trades on the football these were offset by a minor disaster of my own making on the Wolfsburg-Schalke game on Friday night.

With the early change in the clocks across the Atlantic I did manage a few quick trades around 11pm on the basketball making a modest but pleasant £20.

This evening I managed to get back in front of the screen seriously for the first time in a week and managed to turn a £10.34 profit on the West Ham - West Brom game. Currently trading a bit of the Masters Tennis from Indian Wells but my feeling appears a bit out so I think I'm going to quit while I'm all of £3.38 ahead and trade the Basketball.

Back On Track After Black Sunday

Had a terrible day yesterday, it seemed that everytime I entered a market a goal was scored or in the case of the Ajax and Everton games 2 quick goals. Made some money back on the Getafe-Malaga game late in the day but still ended up over £30 down -OUCH!!!

Having taken a deep breath reentered the markets today and having greened up on the Setabul-Nacional game I should make just over £13 on this evenings work.

Next decision is whether or not to trade Cheltenham tomorrow. I love the Festival one of my favourite weeks of the year, but I have been much more successful since I left horseracing well alone.

Think I might look around for some free/matched bets with conventional bookies tomorrow and just enjoy with a few punts and leave the trading until tomorrow nights Champion League games.

Slow Day

Saturday usually means plenty of opportunity on the Football markets but with it being Cup weekend both North and South of the border and a lack of liquidity on a lot of the European games I struggled to find games I was comfortable with.

However watching the St Mirren-Celtic game which I didnt fancy after last weeks 7-0 scoreline I did enter the market late on when I felt that it was going to be St Mirrens day. Also traded the Sunderland-Spurs game successfully and managed to net a profit of £14.60 on the day.

Whilst the profit was acceptable I do feel I spent rather a lot of time scrambling around markets today looking for an opportunity. This was probably due to the fact that I took the view that 'It's Saturday, must be lots of football to trade on.' A bit more thought at the start of the day may have told me that there was going to be limited opportunities and led to a better use of my time.

Took the evening off to go to the Cinema to see Watchmen, which was a great film if a bit long at 2 and 3/4 hours.

Best Day on Football Yet

Today has been my best day trading the under/over markets resulting in a profit of £27.41 making up for not trading yesterday. Traded on 4 games I'd identified as potentially low scoring affairs and proved to be right in all cases which does make life easier with three 1-0 and a one-all draw.

This brings my profit for the week on the football markets to just over £90. I think this justifies my change of focus and I'll be continuing to concentrate on these markets for the forseeable future.

Whilst mt tennis and basketball trading are continuing to go well I didn't find the time to trade any tennis today and will probably give the NBA a miss tonight although the Cleveland-Boston match-up does look a bit tasty.

A Day Off

With my new regime of sticking to sports I can make a profit on, I've had a day off today. Tonights football was uninspiring with the only televised game being the Youth Cup tie I decided to give it a miss. Only 2 NBA games tonight so I'm going to catch an early night.

Turned a profit of £11.94 on Wednesday's Football which is in line with my recent results. I'll be happy if I can keep this up as an extra £60-£70 a week is in tune with what I'm looking for especially as the time commitment is minimal and fits in with my viewing habits.

However, that said, with the Davis Cup ties starting tomorrow I will probably try a bit of tennis trading tomorrow.

More Footie and More Profit

Trying to concentrate on the Football this week and so far so good traded the over/under markets on two games on Monday night Brondby Kobenhaven and Leeds Oldham turning a profit of £12.60. Almost replicated that tonight with £12.57 but this time over 4 games. I was actually further up on the Liverpool Sunderland game but got caught with the second goal and greened up shortly afterwards.

I also briefly traded a couple of NBA and a couple of Tennis matches which netted another tenner so quite happy with how things are going. By staying away from the horses I am making small but steady games for a minimal time commitment which looks like it is the way to go for me.

Weekend Football

Stuck to trading the over/under markets on the football this weekend with reasonable success and a £30 profit.

Traded on 12 games and made a profit on 11 largest profit being on the Carling Cup Final for £6.38. Got burned a bit on the Villa-Stoke game but not as much as the money buyers as Scott points out here.

Currently trading the NBA markets picked up about £6 but thinking of calling it a night as the tiredness is kicking in and I have to admit that I'm not feeling too confident about the midnight games.

Champions League

As indicated earlier I traded the Champions League football tonight, concentrated on the games involving the 2 English teams from halftime onwards making £6 on the Man Utd game and another £3 on Arsenal, happy enough with that considering I'm watching the games anyway.

Traded a bit of Tennis this afternoon for a £7 profit and am currently greened up for a couple of quid on the Gael Monfils game in Mexico, even though I can't help wondering why he isn't in Dubai.

Not sure if I am going to stay up for the NBA tonight. Cleveland offer no value in the midnight tip-off and unless they make a slow start I won't be getting involved. I think there should be some value in the Lakers at 1 as there should be some profit as that turns in play.

Going out for Dinner tomorrow night so won't be able to trade tomorrow's football but should manage some Dubai tennis in the afternoon.

An Update

Been very quiet over the last week as I have been busy with some other projects, I have managed some tennis and football betting with mixed results just about keeping my head above water. The return of the NBA after the All Star break has been pleasant best result being a tenner on the Boston Phoenix game the other night.

Will be trading the over/under markets on the Champions League games tonight and will update on how I get on later.

An Improvement

Well after my disasterous Thursday night and wasted Friday afternoon I was feeling a little bit down and haven't spent to much time trading just dropped in and out a couple of times and somehow managed to make a profit of over forty quid.

Not sure what to make of this I think it may point back to my previous concerns about my concentration levels and this may indicate a need to look spending short periods of trading followed by a break away from the screen.

My new success today was Biathlon, as a former resident of Scandinavia I got to like watching this sport and watching the world championships I laid a number of racers as they dropped in price and happily watched them miss a few targets on the range. Might give this another go tomorrow as the market was reasonably liquid and the betting patterns surprising.

NBA on the All Star Break so an early night tonight.

Technical disaster followed by a wasted afternoon

Last night I decided to have a go at trading the Premier League Darts. All was going well made over a fiver on the first game, and a couple of quid each on the next two games. Final game of the night Wade v King. Despite his jittery display last week fancied Wade to win this one or at least a close game.

First leg and it becomes clear that Wade is not himself, go to trade out/change horses as it were and bang can't get Betfair to work no response main wallet showing as £0.00. panic boot up my other machine take 3 attempts to get in on that by which time it is 3-0 and King looks like making it 4 and Wade is trading at 50's to King's 1.05. Major loss.

Managed to follow that up with a losing night on the basketball, don't think my head was straight and only 3 games, but it has been going well so have to take that one on the chin.

Then this afternoon decided to trade Andy Murray at the tennis. Traded the Set Betting Market was greened up for a minimum win of over a tenner when Gicquel has to withdraw-market void. Think the gods stopped smiling on me.....

Sometimes the Gods....

...Smile Upon Me.

Looking at tonights array of internationals I was underwhelmed by the possibilities, especially as I don't like friendlies as they can prove very unpredictable with understrength sides, multiple substitutions etc.

However I decided to enter the under 2.5 goals market in the Ireland - Georgia market as this was a qualifier which I thought would be tight. Took 1.79 for £55 on under. Then Georgia go and score after 45 seconds!!!

Disaster or so I thought went straight to the market imagining a fraught time trying to recover this position to be delighted to find that the lay I'd put in at 1.72 for a couple of quid profit had been taken before kick off. Relief.

As things stand it is still 1-0 after 68 minutes and the under 2.5 is now trading at 1.3 so I would have escaped but not without expending a lot of nervous energy. No losing trades today so I think I'll take the rest of the evening off and not push my luck any further.

Sticking To What I'm Good At

OK I've been trying to take this seriously for a few weeks now and I have clearly identified some areas of strength.

Now having seen the great results some guys have achieved on horse racing I'm inclined to now wish them all the best and retreat to a large extent from that market. I'm spending 4-5 hours a day most days and not getting anywhere in fact giving money back to the market.

For me there is now a 3 prong attack which looks to be profitable - Basketball, Tennis and over/under Football markets. In the last week I've turned a £66 profit on the footie, £42 on the Basketball and only trading today £15 on the tennis.

Now these results have been achieved without putting in the sitting in front of the screen hours that I have been giving to the horses. So I'm going to see if I can make some money and put in less time by sticking to what I'm good at.

McCoy

Congratulations to Tony McCoy on reaching the unbelievable mark of 3000 National Hunt winners in the UK. It seems to have been a long wait with the weather over the last couple of weeks, but today wouldn't have been believed as a work of fiction.

Also made a nice profit by backing all his horses early and getting out before the off for a nice profit. pity the same can't be said for the rest of my racing trades!!!

Might just stick to Football, basketball and tennis in future.

Quiet Progress

Been taking it easy the last couple of days trading for short periods when distractions are at a minimum with some success. After the quick profit on the NBA Tuesday night I dipped in to 3 games on Wednesday backing the Lakers, Cleveland and Denver took a profit of a couple of quid on all 3 more or less as soon as the game started. The lakers went from 1.33 to getting 1.24 laid as soon as Betfair went in play which was actually a couple of minutes before the game actually started. Not sure what was going on there, possibly an over excited bot somewhere.

Also traded the Merseyside Derby last night, along with the Barcelona-Mallorca game tonight for a nice profit and with a few winning trades on the horses have made just short of £50 the last 2 days. which considering my depleted pot was down to £40 on Tuesday is a pleasing increase.

Only 3 games on the NBA tonight, none of which I really fancy, so might just have an early night or more likely sit and watch some NHL on ESPN America.

Celtics v 76ers 1st quarter profit

An update on last nights basketball, only traded for about 25 mins on the Boston Philadelphia game and greened up at a fiver on both teams, having ended up ignoring the Cleveland game as they started out at 1.18 and were trading about 1.03 after LeBron James scored 16 points in the first 8 or so minutes.

The game I did trade on did vindicate my strategy I feel. At tip off the Celtics were trading at about 1.66 after the first couple of minutes when it was clear that they weren't off to a slow start I managed to grab 1.63 quickly got out again at 1.48 and then when a Celtics spurt seemed likely went back in at 1.4 trading out, greening both sides at just over £5, at 1.26.

The Celtics won the first quarter 32-20 and were trading just under the 1.2 mark and seemed to be cruising to an easy victory. I headed off to watch the NHL game on ESPN America which was just as well as the subsequent 76ers comeback would have probably led to disaster. They pulled back to 1 point at half time led by 7 at one point and were 5 points ahead with 2 minutes to go. Boston won 100-99 with a 3 pointer as the clock run out.

Unfortunately the historic data for this market isn't on http://data.betfair.com yet but I'm fairly sure there were some wild swings in the last few minutes.

So I feel rather pleased with my early exit from this game.

Basketball Trading Taking It Slow

Been very quiet mainly as I was otherwise occupied at the weekend and with the lack of racing done little trading the last couple of days although I did make a £5 profit on the Burnley - West Brom game tonight.

I have been relatively successful trading the NBA markets recently, unfortunately due to the time difference I usually have to call it a day, or is it a night, before the late games start.

I have a few ground rules for trading these games, the most important being that I get out before half time. I do this as you can get some wild swings in a close game in the final few minutes which can really blow you out of the water if a couple of quick scores go against you.

My second strategy is to actually avoid the games with closely matched teams and stick to those with a clear favourite. I do this because even if the favourite starts slowly a profit can be made when they get going again as the market expects a comeback.

Tonights early games suggest an obvious home win for Cleveland who are 22-0 at home this season but will start trading very low and the Boston Celtics who are on a 11 game win streak at the Philadelphia 76ers which is a more attractive game so I might give that one 5 mins before jumping in.

I'll post tomorrow on how I get on.

Reappraisal of Strategy

Spent some time today studying where I am and how I am going to move forward.

The things that are going well are tennis trading, football goals trading and NBA basketball trading. In the neutral camp has been NHL Ice Hockey and American Football, problem with the NHL markets are the lack of liquidity so I intend to sadly drop that from my strategy. With the Superbowl on Sunday the American Football exits the scene until September when I may revisit if I'm still going.

Negative aspects have been 2-fold, the first being my propensity to gamble with certain markets and bets where I have followed my heart (occasionally my brain) and ended up losing moderate but accumulating sums. The second negative has been my trading on horses. Having studied my results I have identified what I believe are the problem areas. These are basic problems, failure to accept a loss and trading to close to the wire and ending up going in-play. More worring is the issue of concentration in as much as I build up a reasonable profit on the day and then become over confident and end up wiping that profit out and worse. My best days on the horses have all involved an early loss and the need to rebuild.

To this end I have decided that I am now going to set myself a small target each day and stop trading as soon as that target has been reached. I will be using betangel and setting a horseracing target of £20 each day for the next week.

If I can achieve this along with some modest trades on the football I can hopefully pull ahead. I'm not setting a specific daily target for football trading but will look for around about the £10 mark which will vary this depending on the number of suitable games to trade on. I'm basing this target on profits of £24.91 (4games) on Sunday, £5 (1) Monday, £9.35 (3) Tuesday and £11.53 (3) today.

Trying Out Some Football Strategies

Early last week I read this post by Ronnie2ticks at Betfair for Fun and Profit. Until this point I had to be honest never paid attention to the over and under football markets. Not wanting to dash in I studied a few games for the rest of the week and by Saturday felt ready to take the plunge.

I identified 3 games at different times I felt were liable to be low scoring affairs Rangers - Aberdeen, Doncaster - Villa and Man Utd - Spurs. Having made a couple of quid each on the first 2 games I was feeling rather pleased with myself as the Man Utd- Spurs game kicked off. Disaster Spurs score after 5 mins with no lay being matched leaving me with a £30 deficit. Unperturbed I ploughed on and managed to reduce this to just under £20 before Utd equalised. Thankfully I hadn't re-entered the market before the third goal went in leaving me with a loss of £19.86. Not the most auspicious of starts.

As the game settled down into the second half I regained my now slightly dented confidence and started trading in the under 4.5 goals market. Backing and laying repeatedly I managed to turn a £6 profit reducing my first days loss to just under a tenner.

Despite this setback I pressed on trading the 2 Fa Cup ties and the Sevilla - Racing and Inter-Sampdoria games on Sunday all for small profits. Another fiver on tonights Burton - BArrow game on Setanta and my profit for the 3 days stands at £20.18.

So thanks to Ronnie2ticks for opening my eyes to the potential of over/under trading on football.

Up and Down the Liquidity Issue

Learned a valuable but expensive lesson about liquidity on Friday morning.

Viewing the Mens Doubles at the Aussie open I backed Huss/Hutchins against the two Poles when they were a set down. Despite the fact that they went on to win the 2nd set I couldn't get enough laid off and ended up with a £20 loss when the Poles won the final set. Lesson learned pay attention to the amount of money in the market before entering the fray.

I manged to claw this loss back and having taken last night off am still the £50 up on the Tennis this week.



Had a mixed couple of days on the horses after racing ahead on Friday following on from Thursdays profits I allowed myself to become distracted with some domestic issues and ended up with a couple of losses and slightly down on the day. Had a losing first race today but managed to turn it around with a more concerted effort that led to a small profit on the day.

Been trying a few new strategies which I'll blog about later.

Good Day At The Office

After a few days of plunging confidence regarding trading on the horse racing today proved to be one of my best yet with a profit of £50.77. This was despite to losses of over £20 each. I revised my strategy slightly today by reducing the initial stake which left a reasonable pot with which to recover any slight adverse market moves. This proved quite fruitful and has done much to restore my battered faith in my ability to turn this trading lark into an oncome source.

After the Mauresmo-Baltacha game last night I only traded one other game that between Serena Williams and Gisela Dulko. Turned a profit of £8 on that one giving a £13.27 profit on the night. I'm now £56.05 up on the tournament.

Quite a few tasty looking matches tonight starting with Del Potro v Muller right through to Federer against Marat Safin in the morning. So hopefully another profitable night in store.

Tennis Trading I'm Beginning To Like It

I started writing a post just before midnight discussing the Australian Open Tennis but unfortunately ran into the update and lost the post.

I had written about the fact that I thought the 1.25 about Amelie Mauresmo looked a bit tasty and how despite the fact I remembered Elena as a young kid when her Dad Sergei played for St Johnstone, I expected Mauresmo to be to strong.

Well 2 and a half hours later I have been proved right but how close to being wrong I was with Elena taking the first set and even going a break up in the third. Mauresmo traded as high as 2.32 at one point before winning the last 6 games on the trot. Fiver profit on that game but there were a few heart in the mouth moments.

Tennis is proving quite profitable to date with another £15 profit on day three and with the latest win my profit for the tournament is just short of £50. Might drop the horses and concentrate on tennis as an income stream. Even though I know that a loss to dent my confidence might be just around the corner.

All Goes Wrong In The Last

A tidy £13.50 profit on the Tennis despite struggling to find good trading matches last night and having greened out at over a fiver on Andy Murray to win 3-0 when Pavel called it a day voiding the market.

The days Horse Racing was going very well was just over £20 up going to the last race at Southwell when a disasterous market plunge cost me all the days profit. This loss was especially annoying coming in the last as it left me fretting about it for hours afterwards as there was no way to get back in grove immediately. Not only that it reduced the pot for trading on tonights tennis.

Good thing is I'm already a couple of quid up on the Ivanovic and Petrova matches. Think it might be time to see if a Safina comeback is on the cards!!!

Australian Open Day One

Well made a profitable start to the Aussie Open Tennis with a £15 profit before I had to call it a night and get some sleep.

Was happy with a small £7 profit on the horses today after losing just shy of £17 on the first race I successfully cut my losses on that one and instead of letting it get to me slowly clawed my way back over the next 7 races before heading off into town to try unsuccessfully to acquire a new phone.

Hoping for some trading tonight on the tennis but not sure about the opportunities on tonights early games. Might try my luck on Andy Murray winning in straight sets.

Day at the Races

Had a day away from the computer screen at Haydock yesterday courtesy of Racing UK. Have to say that the Racing UK club is a nice bonus part of the Setanta Sports Pack, in addition to a few days out at Haydock, I've had free to tickets to Aintree, Chester and Bangor-on-Dee over the last couple of years. Going to try and fit in a visit to Cartmel this year if possible and maybe venture as far as Yorkshire.

A couple of 7-1 winners in Cloudy Lane and Coe meant we came home with more money than we left the house with. Pity the placepot went down by about 1/2 a length but all in all a pleasant day out.

Two words beginning with C

Two words beginning with C have become the centre of my thinking. Concentration and Confidence. Over the last week I have built up a nice profit on the various tennis tournaments down under, not sure if it is the on screen video that helps or not. Basketball has provided a good trading option throughout the week although a mini disaster with Cleveland losing to Chicago in overtime proved costly wiping out much of the gains.

Here is the crux of my problem, despite realising that this wasn't going to plan I failed to get out with a small profit when it was possible and whilst I did eventually cut my potential loss, when it all went pear shaped I lost most of my basketball profit. This then dented my confidence and I cut out of a lot of profitable situations too early on last nights games.

My lack of concentration on the horses has meant that whilst I am making a profit on 70% of races a few spectacular losses have severely dented the pot and affected my confidence. In this regard I think I need to keep at it but cut the losses and ensure I'm out before the off as most disasters happen in running. I am finding myself guilty of going for just one more trade which I don't get matched and then having to recover the situation after the off. This sometimes work but occasionally when a horse shows no interest or falls at the first leaves me spectacularly down.

Back In The Saddle

Not posted for a couple of weeks as I've been back in Scotland for a couple of days. After a few bad days on the run up to Christmas with the UK snooker. Seem to have got things together since getting back in the groove on Sunday.

Made a small profit (£17) on Sunday, followed by a larger (£45) profit on Monday. Hardly earth shattering amounts of money but as I'm not a large pot trader I'm more than happy with that.

Basic premise would be stay away from sports I know little or nothing about ie Darts and Snooker and stick to those I do ie American sports, Football (only leagues I follow) and Racing.

Very happy that I managed to turn a small profit on every race yesterday even if there were only 6 races!!!