25/04/11-29/04/11

P&L for 25/04/11-29/04/11

Football : 23.79
Tennis : 5.64

P&L since last post : 29.43

Football.

Only 18 markets this week. 1 red of £52.11. I kept on missing my usual trade points in matches because of the tennis.

Tennis.

15 matches. 2 reds totalling £92.98. Foolishness, greed, and luck once again ruled the week. I'm going to avoid the tennis this weekend.

Glad to have the 4 day weekend. Will I do anything constructive?. Doubt it.

23/04/11-24/04/11

P&L for 23/04/11-24/04/11

Football : 54.88

P&L since last post : 54.88

Football.

45 markets. 2 reds totalling £115.13. The reds came at the end of the weekend annoyingly cutting down my green but I kept it together.

Not tennis this weekend as I prefer to concentrate on the football and not have my money tied up. I watched a little of the Finals but nothing that held my interest.

Keep it green everybody.

18/04/11-23/04/11

P&L for 18/04/11-23/04/11

Football : 17.22
Tennis : -7.23

P&L since last post : 9.99

Still all over the place.

Football

24 markets. 1 red of £79.50. A ridiculous red caused by me chasing after a tennis loss. I laid under 1.5 on a South American cup match for maximum liability at the start of the match aiming to get a couple of big ticks but an early goal caused a massive red. Stupidity.

Tennis.

A roller coaster week. 4 reds totalling £172.71. Started with me attempting to backing Bartoli 2-0 towards the end of the Pironkova v Bartoli match on Monday, only for me to mistakenly back Bartoli 2-1. Total stake loss. Another red out on a bad decision on Tuesday. Things went okay until the Georges v Azarenka match on Wednesday when she retired after the first set. I was able to red out and save some of my stake on that one. A final small red on Thursday followed. I almost had to take a red on Safina on Friday but I rode that match to the end. Madness. It's weeks like this that have me swearing of the tennis. Doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

Not much else going on this week. Lot's of hot sunny weather which is not a favourite of mine but it seems to have cooled off a bit where I am. A 3 day weekend for Easter followed by a 3 day week and another long weekend, 'cause someone's getting married or something, will make work a little more bearable.

Keep it green everybody.

16/04/11-17/04/11

P&L for 16/04/11-17/04/11

Football : 7.36
Tennis : 8.12

P&L since last post : 15.48

Football.

41 markets. 2 reds totalling £125.22. Despite the fact that I came out green I was still annoyed about the 2 reds coming back to back on Sunday. I almost crossed the £200 mark bankwise. Still overstaking a little.

Tennis.

9 markets. 1 red of £13.19. Layed the favourite as the opponent served hoping to catch the rise but instead it went the other way and I took a small red.

A small green but still a green is the thing to focus on here. Still struggling to be patient and disciplined.

I took my laptop through to the other room to keep an eye on the Nadal v Melzer match on Sunday. I had told myself to remember that the battery would only go for an 1.5 hours or so and to not let it switch off. Of course I got caught up in what I was doing and when I looked over it was off. Nooooooo!. Regular readers will know that when that laptop goes off it will not turn back on again for some time (12-24 hours). I ordinarily leave it running 24/7. So it was dead to me for the rest of the day. My 32" TV being dead as well left me with just the 15" monitor on my desktop pc to use for everything. Bloody annoying. It must be a capacitor charging issue like my TV had , also Acer crap, but I don't know which one to replace so I just have to put up with it for now. ASDA have been teasing me again with the emachines laptop I was looking at back around xmas time when this happened before. Down in price to £255. Not a bad spec for a budget laptop. Unfortunately there is no money around for that just now. Fortunately the laptop started up this morning.

Keep it green everybody.

11/04/11-15/04/11

P&L for 11/04/11-15/04/11

Football : 33.49
Tennis : 33.19

P&L since last post : 66.68

Football.

33 markets. 2 reds totalling £26.81. Both reds came on Monday night after a fairly good day and it was a bit of a setback but I soldiered on.

Tennis.

15 matches. No reds, one scratched. I had to be a bit more adventurous than I would have preferred.

Bank is now approaching 3 figures. I'll be attempting to take care and safeguard my bank from recklessness but knowing me...

Lots of DIY done this week. Almost finished my bathroom off bar a few cosmetic touches. Still a lot to do.

Keep it green everybody.

10/04/11-11/04/11

P&L for 10/04/11-11/04/11

Football : -485.54
Tennis : -227.31

P&L since last post : -712.85

Same old same old.

I'll eschew the usual format and just lay it all out.

Saturday started off as normal. Small red nothing major, recovered it. I was doing okay and had a bank of about £550 when I spotted that Starace appeared to have it in the bag against Hanescu and I foolishly backed 1.01 with full bank thinking I'd grab a quick fiver. I have no idea why I do things like this as I've seen 1.01 fall over and over again. I'd also watched none of the match and had no idea how the players were performing. Quite possibly the worst decision I've ever made. Of course Starace pissed away his 2 MP's and then lost the tie break. I should have taken a red the second I saw him not able to take a match point but I held on and had to red out for a massive loss early in the third set. Then began the chasing. I backed Hanescu when he broke Starace only for him to break back and make my red bigger. I ended up taking £312 red on that match. Annoyingly Starace won in the end.
I then immediately blew what remained of my bank recklessly trading football. I began making small deposits(£50) to start the long recovery process but could not get my head straight and kept on doing ridiculous things that saw me losing even more. This culminated on Sunday with me having £62 in my bank and then all of a sudden having £5. WTF!. I had to go to the P&L screen to figure it out. Somehow as I was moving the mouse across the screen I clicked the over 6.5 goals market in the dying seconds of a match and backed it for £57 without noticing. Some layer got a lucky present. I did not deposit anymore and just played with what I had tearing it up to £20 by the end of the night.

So not the best of weekends. Mentally I was all over the place. Even with iron discipline and reasonable staking it probably would have been a red weekend with the results I was seeing but I should have limited my losses. A lot of money down the drain and the cycle repeats. I'm going to carry on just with what I have and not take it so seriously for a while. See where I go from here. I'm clearly still letting external factors push me into bad decisions and riding waves of luck that end up with me crashing.

Keep it green everybody.

04/04/11-09/04/11

P&L for 04/04/11-09/04/11

Football : -13.71
Tennis : 276.27

P&L since last post : 262.56


Football.

27 markets. 2 reds totalling £98.43. A fairly standard week. One of the reds was avoidable if I'd been paying more attention. Ho Hum.

Tennis.

Well so much for staying away from the minor tennis tournaments. 36 markets. No reds but a couple scratched or greened out for pennies. I was very lucky this week and not holding on to positions and biting my nails helped. It could have gone very different on a couple of occasions. It's interesting how ,when one player is an uncertain favourite in the match, the market will rise sharply when their opponent scores even a single point. It might be something I have to keep an eye on.

It may yet be possible to save my tv. I have found a replacement inverter board on the web but it's £130. So do I spend that to replace the board or get a new tv for £250. I know it seems mad to spend £130 on a 5 year old tv but part of me rails against chucking out a device that 99% of works fine because of one small component. I am also planning to downsize my living arrangements and I may not want a 32" tv in 6-12 months time. Firstly I have to get the damn inverter board out though and one of the tiny screws has rounded off so it's incredibly careful drilling time.

I have a week off work(WOOHOO) but unfortunately there won't be much relaxing done. The DIY overshadows everything and I have to get major amounts done this week. I also need to take a day and give my motorbike it's post-winter-total-strip-down service. My mountain bike needs the same. All told I'll be working harder than I do when I'm at work.

I could use a good weekend with no or little reds. I really need to make a withdrawal but don't want to harm my healthy bank too much. Piggies crossed.

Keep it green everybody.

02/04/11-03/04/11

P&L for 02/04/11-03/04/11

Football : 75.84
Tennis : 10.35

P&L since last post : 86.19

Football.

44 markets. 2 reds totalling £164.14. Not a bad weekend. It was going really well till the 2 reds came together on the Sunday afternoon. Kept my cool though.

Tennis.

Just the one venture on Djoko v Nadal. I managed not to get sucked into Nadal's early lead in the first set. I bet that left a lot of people with big reds. A quickie on Djoko as he took the lead in the tie break was all for me. Going to do my best to ignore the minor tournaments this week.

RIP Acer tv. I was able to get the capacitors I needed and they solved the original problem but a new one has cropped up that will be impossible to fix, so it's dead. I'll be rocking the 15" CRT for a while as the money isn't there for a new one.

I did no DIY at all this weekend which was very bad of me. I've got so much still to do.

Keep it green everybody.

28/03/11-01/04/11

P&L for 28/03/11-01/04/11

Football: -61.77
Tennis : 77.90

P&L since last post : 16.13

Football.

31 markets. 2 reds totalling £167.91. A good week brought down by a hasty entry into a crap market with an oversized stake while not paying attention. At least the big leagues are back this weekend.

Tennis.

Yes, tennis all week. Unwise as it is I partook(??) of 11 matches. Scratched 2 of them when they became uncertain but did okay in the others. No nail biting. Don't know if I'll bother with the finals.

Disaster struck on Tuesday. A state of emergency was declared. My 5 year old 32 inch LCD packed in. I use it as a monitor for my desktop PC and watch all video/tv on it. It's been iffy for a while but I could always get it up and running. Alas no more. There is but one chance to save it says the Internet. Replace 2 capacitors on the processor board that have cured the same fault in other peoples same model. I've opened it up and removed said capacitors but am struggling to find a local source for replacements so I may have to order online. I'm using an old 15 inch CRT monitor as a temporary stand in. Doing the job but a bit naff. I really don't want to spend £250 on a new 32 inch HD LCD. My current one cost me about £500 more than that when I bought it and I'd like it to last just a bit longer.

Zero DIY enthusiasm this weekend but must still spend something like 12-15 hours doing it to get the bathroom finished. Oh Joy!!!!

Keep it green everybody.