27/03/10-28/03/10

P&L for 27/03/10-28/03/10

Football : 6.83
Tennis : 1.90

P&L since last post : 8.73


Nice to see some green.

Football.

39 markets over the same number of matches. No reds thankfully. I missed out on some trades from not paying attention. I was a bit out of sorts over the weekend.

Tennis.

Just the one match this weekend. Nadal v Nalbandian. I wasn't tempted to back Nadal pre-match, still grumpy about the loss on him last weekend and remembering his bank destroying flip flop v Nalbandian last year. Indeed it looked bad for him at one point but when he broke Nalby in the third I jumped in for 20% stake. I wasn't really tempted by any other tennis over the weekend.


I stayed away from the nags this weekend although I am trying out on paper a lay the favourite system for a fixed liability. Looks okay over the first couple of days but will need at least 30 days results to see how it gets on. Probably won't amount to much as it seems too easy.

Keep it green everybody.

22/03/10-26/03/10

P&L for 22/03/10-26/03/10

Football : 10.99
Tennis : 10.95
Horse Racing : -41.06

P&L since last post : -19.12

Another good week that fell apart on the last day from nothing more than greed and impatience.

Football.

46 markets over 44 matches. 1 red of £1.37 no biggie. I was able to keep myself in check this week on the football at least.

Tennis.

4 Sony Ericsson matches this week. Nadal, Almagro and Blake all bringing green so far. I did back Djoko prematch but the rain came and I decided to lay out for a tick loss so my money wasn't tied up waiting. This turned out to be fortuitous as it was another Djoko loss. He's off my list till he stops this losing crap.

Horse Racing.

Here is the real disaster of the week. Up until Friday I had layed 8 horses all good and was posting an overall green of £28. I was asleep on Friday afternoon as I usually am after an early and I awoke to find the race I wanted to lay in was in running. The horse I had selected beforehand was totally blown odds wise and there was about a third of the course left to run. I should have left it alone and just shrugged my shoulders about missing out on the lay but I got convinced that I had to lay SOMETHING in THAT race. I chose a horse lagging behind whose odds were rising and layed it. Of course it won the race. How could it not??. Almost as soon as I had hit the submit button it charged through to victory. £42 gone from bank. Aghast at my stupidity and the injustice of it all( as seen by me) I did 2 chasing lays, one came good, the other cost me another £21.

So not covering myself in disciplined glory this week either. I was taking liability outside of my staking plan on the horses and Fridays spur of the moment lay was ridiculous as was the chasing afterwards. I should count myself luck that I still have a bank at all.

I noticed that I had missed the 1 year anniversary of my blog at the start of this month. I went back and read the first post and I'm horrified at how little I have changed. I'm still making all the same mistakes that I made back then and if anything I'm further behind financially. It's made all the more painful by the fact that I know how to make progress, I just keep screwing it up out of nothing more than greed, impatience, and a lack of discipline. Probably a theme in my life.

I must get back to the taking my reds on the football when they come, even if it means taking several one after another. I must stick within my staking plan on all sports rather than taking big liability on things because my strike rate is high. I must be patient with the progress of my bank and not endanger it with greedy gains.

I know this can be done if I can distance myself emotionally from the green and the red.

Keep it green everybody.

20/03/10-21/03/10

P&L for 20/03/10-21/03/10

Football : -66.07
Tennis : -27.77
Horse Racing : 19.00

P&L since last post : -74.84

OUCH!!!

Football.

42 markets over 41 matches. 4 losses totaling £92.03, 2 of them full stake losses. Discipline was not part of my being this weekend. Saturday went fine with no losses and a reasonable total at the end of the night but Sunday was a disaster. 3rd match in on Sunday I get caught out and have to take a red. No sooner than I've taken it when another trade gets blown and I'm staring at another red, and I can't do it. I know I should but I can't. I know it's madness to let it ride but I do. Another goal and it's stake loss.
Extremely miffed I decide to do a first 10 mins trade on Man U v Liverpool. For what reason I'm not sure. Thankfully I only used a 10% stake. The market was one tick above my lay point when the goal came in the 9th minute. I do take the red this time.
Things go reasonably well until the Barcelona v Zaragoza where I get caught out and can't make myself take the red and an IT goal costs me another full stake.
What the hell is wrong with me?

Tennis.

The loss came from the Nadal v Ljubicic match. I backed Nadal with 20% stake after he took the 1st set and the sat in horror as it went wrong. So many opportunities missed. Ljubicic did play well but not that well. I got caught up in the 'It's NADAL!!! for chrissake' of it and didn't red out thinking he would pull it back in the tiebreak but he didn't. Full stake loss.
Small green on Roddick v Soderling. Didn't touch the final on Sunday.

Horse Racing

The only thing to go right this weekend. 10 horses layed, 3 Saturday , 7 Sunday, All came good.

So what the hell happened?

I think I got a bit caught up in the success at the start of the week, seeing my bank rising above the £200 mark and then drop below again. In trying to stay at that level I pushed harder than I should and lost the full stake on Friday night. Losing a full stake again on the tennis on Saturday undoubtedly affected me as well and when the losses started coming so early on the Sunday I struggled to deal with it properly. I was on tilt as they say in the poker world. I had been doing so well over the last few months at taking my losses when they come it's a bit hard to see a weekend like that. If I had taken all the reds on Sunday I would have come out approx £3 green for the weekend on football. That is the lesson I need to take away with me from this. It's always better to take the red. Also stay away from the later stages of tennis tournaments.

I am going to continue with the Horse lays ,but cut back to 2 or 3 a day. I'm sure I can find that. If I'm not confident in a race or a lay I leave it alone. No picking for the sake of it.

A bit of setback but I can recover if I stick to what I know works.


I know I'm overdue for a weigh in but my schedule has been thrown a bit out of whack with time off and return to drink. I should have weighed myself on Friday so I'll do it next Friday and continue from there. Give me some time to undo the damage.


Keep it green everybody.

15/03/10-19/03/10

P&L for 15/03/10-19/03/10

Football : -31.08
Tennis : 32.56
Horse Racing : -21.19

P&L since last post : -19.71

A fantastic week turned into a good week and then turned into a shit week. Here's how...

Football.

40 markets over 39 matches. 1 red of £54.45 on 2nd last match of Friday evening, total stake loss. Herenveen v NEC Nijmegen. I had gone in near the end as always and when my back was taken I stuck my lay in and I'm certain it entered. When I saw the red card and then penalty goal on the score sheet at 90+3 I looked back to the market to check I was out only to find I wasn't. I don't know what happened to my lay, perhaps one of those phantom suspensions cancelled it, I should have paid more attention. When the market came back and I saw how low it was I figured only 30 seconds left on the clock So I let it ride. STUPID STUPID STUPID. Taking the red would have meant £1.93 loss but my head was elsewhere clearly. Another goal with 10 seconds to go cost me my stake. Yet another discipline lesson.

Tennis.

Traded 12 matches. Only 3 stand out. Djoko V Kohlschrieber on Monday was a nightmare. I backed Djoko and could have taken green when he went ahead in the first set but didn't and it rapidly fell apart after that. I sat looking at red all through the second but couldn't bring myself to take it. I saw green come back again in the third when he took the lead but felt I should have more and so didn't take it. When it seemed defeat was inevitable and I was looking at total loss Djoko managed to save 3 MP's and then go on to take the set in the tie break. So I got full green out of it but a foolish risk.
Federer v Baghdatis was late on Tuesday night but I thought Fed would have no trouble so I stuck a blind trade in and went to bed. It was a full day later that I realised that Fed had actually lost that match. I guess his price must have gotten down to 1.01 at some point and greened me out cause I just assumed he had won when I saw it on the P&L then next day.
Murray V Soderling on Friday. Stinging from the losses I'd taken I was tempted to go big on Murray and do a bit of chasing but I restrained myself and just stuck 10% on. How bad was he in the 1st set. I redded out at the end of it for a 50% loss of stake and went 20% on Soderling ot recover. A bit of chasing yes but It could hardly get much worse. Soderling played the 2nd reasonably well until he had MP on Murray and blew 2 of them on Murrays serve. "No probs" I thought "He's been serving well should take it here". OMFG!!! WTF!!!. What the hell happened to him. He had 2 high balls come back from Murray during that game and he just hit them both straight to him. He ended in a tie break which thankfully wasn't that close but I could have done without the Drama.
Too much finger crossing and hoping for the best this week. I should have greened out on the occasions when it was available instead of waiting it out. I'm bad for that in tennis.

Horse Racing

I made a big effort to find lays in the nags this week. Started well with 7 on Monday and 5 on Tuesday, all came good. None on Wednesday cause I was busy all afternoon. Thursday went bad from the go with my 2nd and 3rd lays losing and wiping out all my green and then some. It's always great when a horse with mediocre form romps home to victory by a country mile against horses of apparently much better caliber. The rest of the day was good and Friday was going well until near the end of the afternoon when one of those underdogs claimed victory again. Maybe I'm not cut out for the nags. I probably knew that already I was just bored in the afternoon. My red on the horses totalled at £55.46 so I should count myself lucky I came out with as little red as I did.


By the end of Wednesday I was looking at a great green with still 2 days to go. After the losses on Thursday I still had a good green but it was Fridays football loss that really stung and all because of lack of discipline. In fact the whole week could be characterised as a bit reckless. I should be thankful that it wasn't catastrophic bank decimating red I posted. I'll try to learn my lesson and get back to the slow but steady pace that has gotten me this far. For tomorrow is another weekend. LOL. Early start with the Japanese matches.

Keep it green everybody.

13/03/10-14/03/10

P&L for 13/03/10-14/30/10

Football : 8.44
Tennis : 8.63

P&L since last post : 17.07


Football.

58 markets over 56 matches. 2 reds totaling exactly £20.00. A long weekend with an early start for the Japanese matches on Saturday.

Tennis.

Only the one match on Saturday for me and that was Nadal v Schuettler. It was a bit laughable because of the strong wind and Nadal seemed to be complaining a lot to the umpire when bottles were being blown about at the seating area. I didn't have the sound up though. I traded out at the end of the first set and went to bed.
On Sunday I started off with Murray v Seppi. A bit nervous about Murray and indeed even though he seemed to start well with a break of Seppi it was very back and forward. Again I traded out early unwilling to risk a long wait. I kept an eye on the matches until Soderling took a strong lead over Korolev in the 1st set but had to sit on it until he won the second which made me nervous. A quick opportunist trade on Gruel as Monfils was looking knackered/sick at the end of their match and then a blind Fed trade to end the night as I was too tired to stay up and wait for his match. It was running really late.

So a good weekend in all. A few risks perhaps but nothing out of the ordinary. I'm off work this week so I'll be able to follow everything.

Keep it green everybody

08/03/10-12/03/10

P&L for 08/03/10-12/03/10

Football : 7.21

P&L since last post : 7.21


Football.

26 markets over 24 matches. 1 red £5.66. The curse of Man U strikes again when I had to take a red during their late goal against AC Milan. This possibly had something to do with letting the trade run too long but Ho Hum.

No tennis this week or Horses as I was working late and only had time for the late Football. Indian Wells 2nd round men's kicks off today and there may be an opportunity or 2 there. The usual full weekend of football to occupy us all.

I'm so lazy. Could not drag myself out the door on Monday for a pre weigh in walk and so kept putting it off. Eventually on Thursday I made myself step onto the scales and was shocked to see 117kg. I had to redo it a few times but it was right. This give me a 3.4 kg loss from 3 weeks(and 3 days) ago. I'm not sure how as I've been a bit lazy and haven't walked at all over the last 3 weeks. I've still kept cycling every day and healthy eating. Still I'll take it where I find it. I may move my weigh in to Friday morning as this will be after a week of exercise and healthy eating rather than on a Monday after a weekend of sitting on my backside and stuffing my face. LOL.

Keep it green everybody.

06/03/10-07/03/10

P&L for 06/03/10-07/03/10

Football : 20.34

P&L since last post : 20.34


Football.

42 markets over 42 matches. A no red weekend. Waheey!!.

I did not go near the tennis or the horse racing this weekend as I was too busy trying to fit the football in around playing the new Supreme Commander 2. I'm a sucker for all the RTS games like that i.e. Command and Conquer , Stronghold, etc.. I can play for hours at a time and it can fill the spaces between trades but sometimes you find hours have passed without you realising it.

I did not pour too much alcohol down my throat with this being the first weekend back drinking after my eight week abstinence. I dread to think what the scales will say tomorrow at the end of week 9. The lack of walking will once again put a dent in any expected loss.

Late shift this week and a quiet week expected on the trading front.

Keep it green everybody.

01/03/10-05/03/10

P&L for 01/03/10-05/03/10

Football : 6.91
Horse Racing : 0.96

P&L since last post : 7.87

Football.

35 markets over 34 matches. 1 red of 10.70 and it had to be the last match of the week, of course, but at least I still came out with decent green.

Horse Racing.

What's this?. Horse Racing?. Yes I was feeling speculative this week and tried a few lays with just a quid. 10 out of 11 were successful but the one that wasn't wiped out almost all my green. It was fortunate that it was the shortest of the odds I had layed or it could have been worse. The horse that won was the worst form of the field but somehow won by a fair distance. I'm crap with horses.

Missed all of today's Davis cup matches, may see if I can catch a few tomorrow. The usual weekend of Football ahead, let's hope for a good one.

I have had quite enough of winter at this point. Every sodding morning this week at 4am when I'm cycling to work has been ridiculously cold. Mon -7C, Tue -8C, Wed -5C, Thu -6C, Fri -4C. ENOUGH already!!!!. It's March, start getting warmer. I'm not a hot weather person and generally don't mind cooler temps but even I'm struggling in this.

Keep it green everybody