The Sports Trader

Sunday 31st December 2006

The less said about today the better. It's the last day of the year and I am looking forward to next year. Having said that it looks like I will have limited trading opportunities for the next few days as we have experienced very stormy conditions in Glasgow tonight and my Sky will not work.

My racing day was very limited and just as well, as I made a right mess of things. The first race of any trading significance was the 14:40 at Punchestown, I laid Deutschland for £10 @ 4.30 at about half distance as I just did not think the horse was travelling well. I was wrong and he went on to win and cost me £33. I had a small profit in the 15:05 at Warwick.

Next was a complete disaster in the 15:10 at Punchestown where I had laid Best World for £111 @ 6.00. I think this was due to a rush of blood as again I was totally wrong and by the time I realised it was just too late to trade out so I lost £557. Next for me was the 15:25 at Wolverhampton and here I laid Soft Morning for £74 @ 3.35 and a further £22 @ 3.05 to give me a welcome profit of £96.

My last race of the day was the 15:35 at Warwick and again I messed up with a lay of £240 @ 2.40 on Alternator and then proceeded to back him for £115 @ 2.50 and a further £2 @ 2.40 to leave me nursing a loss of £162. This was not the way to finish my trading year with a days racing loss of £657. Over the past couple of weeks I have noticed a change in the way that I have traded horses which I will have to stop. I have been going into the market much earlier than normal and I think the reason has been due to the lack of trading opportunities so I have been guilty of forcing the issue.

I had one other trade later tonight on the New England v Tenessee game where I backed New England for £500 @ 1.45 and laid back within a few minutes @ 1.33 to give me a profit of £60.

And that was that for 2006. I finished the day with a loss of £598 and the weekly result was a loss of £1350. This month has not been a great one but I still finished with a profit of £2840 even after having my biggest single days loss of the year within the month. I have also now completed a full year as a full time Sports Trader and have thoroughly enjoyed it.

I would like to wish all my friends, colleagues, fellow traders and readers a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Saturday 30th December 2006

It has been a slow but profitable day for the Sports Trader. Either my reactions are getting slower, or other people using the Betdaq website are getting faster, as I can not get matched as often at present. Liquidity is down on all exchanges also, which is not surprising at holiday time.

My racing day started with five races where I netted, in total, just £2. So my first reasonable trade was in the 14:05 at Haydock where I laid Good Citizen for £13 @ 5.50 as he made a mistake at the 9th fence. I then backed Sharp Beline for £250 @ 1.10 just as he cleared the final fence and looking good to finish in front, to give me a £38 profit.

Next for me was the 14:15 at Lingfield and here I laid Don Pele for £10 @ 2.50 in the final furlong to net me a further £10 profit, but only after making me sweat for a hundred yards. I then traded the 14:20 at Ascot badly and somehow managed to back Four Schools for £2 @ 2.00 and Witness Run for £10 @ 1.20 to see both lose and cost me £12. In the 14:40 at Haydock I also got it wrong by backing Sunisa for £15 @ 2.00 and £3 @ 1.28, although I did back the eventual winner, The Kop End,  for £100 @ 1.01 just before the line, so in total I lost £17.

In the 14:55 at Musselburgh I backed Snowy for £2 @ 2.00 with around four furlongs left and again for £60 @ 1.30 in the final furlong to give me a profit of £20 on the race. I then had two very small trades which lost me £3 before my final trade in the 17:20 @ Wolverhampton where I laid Leonard Charles for £100 @ 5.30 at half distance and backed him for £40 @ 5.30 about a furlong later to net me my best racing result for the day with a  £60 profit. My racing day had finished with a profit of £98.

I intended trading the Sheffield United v Arsenal game but missed the start as I had to go and pick the twins up. When I got back the game was into the second half and the score was 1- 0. I had a very small in and out trade on the under 2.5 goals to give me a £1 profit before getting the twins ready for bed. With six minutes left and no trading possible on the under 2.5 goal market I had a look at the correct score betting. I started here with a instant back on the 1 - 0 score for £40 @ 1.80 and a lay on the under 1.5 goal market for £40 @ 1.66. I then backed the  1 - 0 score for £127 @ 1.49 and laid back @ 1.23. Well into the five minutes of injury time I backed the 1 - 0 score for £125 @ 1.16 and laid back @ 1.06. So my few minutes of trading netted me a decent profit of £53. To give me an overall profit of £151 for the day.

I have been watching the two PDC World Darts semi-finals but have not traded them. It's good to see the dream final come to fruition and fully expect Phil  ' The Power'  Taylor to win his 14th World Championship.

Friday 29th December 2006

Back to basics for the Sports Trader today. No big liabilities just steady trading to get me back on track. I attended a funeral this morning of one of my neighbours and it's at moments like this that you get a chance to really sort out life's priorities. As you all know by now I am a fifty year old man that still feels like I'm in my thirties. I am recently separated from my wife who has been suffering form manic depression for twenty years and who was secretly taking vast quantities of alcohol and drugs, both legal and illegal. I have been left looking after my three young children and also have 3 older ones from my previous marriage who still need my support from time to time.

So my main priority in life is to ensure all six children are supported to the best of my ability and that means I need to make regular profits and cut out as many losing days as possible. In reality I normally have 1 losing day for every seven to eight winning days, so my task is to ensure the loss on losing days is of the same magnitude, or lower, than my profit on winning days and then my future as a trader will be secure. The very nature of trading means that losing trades are quite often much larger than winning ones.  This means that my proportion of winning to losing trades must also be high.

I have had a very good year but it is essential that from here on each year has to be as good if not better. I hope that the readers of this blog will now realise that I am just a typical bloke with a real life and not doing this as a hobby. I do not have an income from any other source. I started out as a part time trader and quickly realised that I could make a good living doing a job that I really love.  I know at this time of year many people look to their future and make New Years resolutions, I would encourage you to try trading, to supplement your income for at least 12 months before taking the plunge and going full time. If after this period you have proven to yourself that you can make this pay, then consider going full time.

I started todays trading with the 12:30 at Newbury where I backed Fair Along for £100 @ 1.50 with about two furlongs to go. This gave me a good start to the day with a £50 profit. Next was the 12:40 at Taunton and here I backed Little Rort for £120 @ 1.80 at the two furlong marker and laid back @ 1.20 in the final furlong to net a further £72 profit.

The next race I traded was the 13:10 at Limerick and here I backed Shuil A Hocht on the run in for £67 @ 1.30 to give me a £20 profit. I then had a more small profitable trade in the 13:15 at Taunton before the 12:55 at Leopardstown. Here I backed Pedrobob for £40 @ 2.25 and laid off £24 @ 1.70 and a further £16 @ 1.25 to net me £29 profit.

I had two more small profitable trades before the 14:20 at Taunton where I backed Pepporoni Pete for £125 @ 1.60 when making good headway through the field and looking likely to go on to win. Unfortunately he soon emptied out and left me with no chance of laying off. I therefore lost £125 on this race. I traded a further 7 races, all to small stakes and broke even on them. So I finished my racing day with a total profit of £57.

I missed the start of tonight's football match between Birmingham and Luton. The match looked like  a high scoring match according to the SoccerStats site. I did trade very tentatively on the under 2.5 goal market after the first goal had been scored and was in a clear position when the second goal was scored. During the half time interval I backed the unders for £300 @ 4.30 and quickly laid back at the start of the second half at prices from 3.90 down to 3.35. I then started to green up @ 3.00 and 2.60 before the third goal was scored and finished with a £35 profit. So I finished my day with an overall profit of £92.

Thursday 28th December 2006 continued

I would firstly like to apologise for not writing my daily report last night. As I said my son has the chicken pox, he is not too bad but just could not settle last night and wanted me to take him into my bed so he could sleep. So I had a relatively early night and feel refreshed and raring to go today. Leo is also feeling much better today, thanks to all you well wishers.

Yesterdays racing was cut short for me due to a family get together that always happens between Christmas and the New Year. I started the day with the 12:20 at Catterick. I backed Marine Life for £100 @ 2.00 with two furlongs to go and laid off @ 1.20 within a few seconds to give myself a decent start to the day with a profit of £80.

In the 12:55 at Leopardstown I backed View Mount Prince for £6 @ 3.00 at about quarter distance and then backed him again with 4 furlongs to go for £50 @ 2.22 to leave a further £73 profit. I then had a very small profitable trade in the next at Lepardstown.

Next for me was the 13:50 at Catterick where I backed Pevensey for £183 @ 1.97 when negotiating the 2nd last hurdle and laid back @ 1.20 going over the final hurdle, this left me with a £140 profit.

Then came the 14:30 at Leicester where I had backed Mandingo Chief for £67 @ 1.50 going over the last fence and then again on the run in for £228 @ 1.20 when I thought he had it in the bag only to see him beaten approaching the line and with no chance of trading out to lose me £295.

The final race for me was the big one at Lepardstown, the Lexus Chase, where there was a field of 6 excellent horses. I was expecting Beef or Salmon to win, however, the Listener was given a great front running ride and at about two furlongs out I backed him for £107 @ 1.78 to give me a profit of £84. So my horse racing day had finished with an overall profit of £83.

In the evening I started watching the PDC darts and got involved in the Terry Jenkins v James Wade game. With Wade 3 sets to 1 up I was laying Jenkins from 1.60 all the way out to 4.50 for a total of £420. I kept thinking that James Wade would come back to form and held on to my trade. I was wrong and eventually ended the match losing £418.

I then watched the Phil Taylor match but didn't trade as the odds where so short on Phil and of course he went on to win 4 - 0, then the fireworks started with Phil threatening not to play in the World Championships next year if he has to keep on taking abuse from other players. I do like Phil he is a great player but when you are as good at a sport and as dominate for such a long period, there is bound to be a certain amount of jealousy and it all just spilled over last night. I hope they manage to settle their differences and am sure that no darts player would value winning a World Championship that had the best player, ever, in the world not taking part.

The final match of the evening was the closely matched game between Dennis Priestly and Andy Hamilton. This was an ideal game to trade and I had a total of 28 trades with a final outcome of a profit of £161. I also had a small profit from the match between Askew and Tabern from the night before that had finished into the early hours of Thursday. So my total result for the day was a loss of £156.

Thursday 28th December 2006

The Sports Traders tale of woe continues but due to my youngest son, Leo, being ill with chickenpox, I will have to leave writing up my blog until the morning. See you all soon.

Wednesday 27th December 2006

It is a lot easier writing this blog when things have gone well, but today they have not. I got off to a flier due to the last match in the PDC World Darts Championship last night between Caves and Askew. I had already finished my blog last night and decided to watch the darts. I then decided to have a little trade. I started trading in the final set and backed Askew for £388 @ 1.16. I then laid off @ 1.12. Next I backed Askew again for £500 @ 1.18 only to see him lose a leg and the odds drifted right out to 1.90, where I decided to back him again for £644 @ the 1.90. Askew had by now regained his aim and the odds started to drop down again so I laid £500 @ 1.60 and a further £ 250 @ 1.53 and £458 @ 1.19, to leave me with a profit on the match of £184.

Todays UK horse racing was a very slow affair for me. I just could not get matched. It was one of those days. Early on I had missed, by probably a millisecond, a profit of £1800 but a miss is as good as a mile. In total today I traded in 15 races and all but two were profitable. The losing races cost me just over £3 in total. The winners all gave me less than £10, except one, the 14:55 at Wetherby, where I backed  Fearless Foursome for £500 @ 1.01 when safely over the final fence and well in the lead. I also laid Been Here Before for £16 @ 7.20, to net me a total profit in the race of £21. So I finished my race day with a profit of £37.

Now for the football. Do I have To. I had a disaster for two reasons. One, I was extremely unlucky, twice, and two, I did not stick to my game plan. I had analysed the match and decided that there would not be too many goals. So I backed the under 2.5 goals market for £200 @ 1.75 pre kick off and then a further £105 @ 1.68 soon after the kick off. I had laid off £130 @ 1.60 before the first goal was scored.  So  had a liability of £175 at this stage. Once the market had been reformed I backed the unders for £320 @ 2.60, this was my first deviation from my plan as I should only have gone in for £175. I hadn't even started to lay off when the second goal went in. So now I had a liability of £500.

When the market had been reformed I tried to get matched around the 7.00 - 8.00 level but couldn't do so. I eventually got matched with £160 @ 5.75. So I now had a liability of £660 at a break even trade price of around 3.25, which was the price just before the third goal was scored on the stroke of half time. I had traded out of £30 so I was left nursing a hefty loss of £630. This is where my luck first gave out, if the goal had not been scored I would have traded most of my liability through the half time interval.

I now looked at the under 3.5 goal market and backed it for £95 @ an average price of 2.70 and laid off the £95 @ 1.36 which would have given me a profit of £130 if the 4th goal didn't come. In the last three minutes of the game I also saw  £112 @ 1.70, £114 @ 1.50 and £116 @ 1.30 available on the no 4th goal market so I took all this as well. I immediately set up a lay for this £342 @ 1.10 on the under 3.5 goal market as there was no liquidity on the no 4th goal market and as both markets mean the same. Well you no the rest , a very poor bit of defending in the 90 seconds before the final whistle cost me my liability. This is where my luck gave out again as I would say if that goal had been defended better the lay I had put up would have been taken within a few seconds. I would have clawed back the £342 from my 4th goal trade less the lay of £34 and £125 from my under 3.5 goal trade so I would have been down an acceptable £200. Instead I now have a loss on the match of £972.  Well that's how it goes some days. I am lucky to be in the position that I am, to be able to accept this loss as a part of my trading. I hope some of the readers of this blog will learn from my mistakes. I have ended the day with a total loss of £751.

Tuesday 26th December 2006

With two days off from sports trading I was a little trigger happy today. These days with so many races are not normally very good to me as there is no time to learn the jockey colours between races. Liquidity also suffers as a lot of people will decided to trade just certain meetings and leave the others out for the day. I was just too keen to get a score on the board and tended to start trading too early in the races.

In the 12:00 at Market Rasen.I laid Seafire Lad for £36 @ 2.55 at about half distance and was just too slow to back him to recover my stake, I therefore started with a loss of £36. Next was the 12:15 at Huntingdon. I had ten trades in this race and all on the favourite, Christdalo, with my opening trades a lay for £100 @ 2.10 and a back for £100 @ 2.20. I continued like this until the last two furlongs where I managed to back him for another £114 @ 1.88 when I meant to lay and that was that another loss of £85.

I then had two very small profitable trades before the 12:35 at Kempton where I laid Kicks For Free for£28 @ 1.74 quite early in the race for my first decent profit of £28 for the day. Next was the 12:40 at Towcester, and here I laid Ask The Umpire for £14 @ 4.50 in the first half mile when he was not travelling well, for a profit of £14.

I then had another two very small profitable trades before a run of losing races for me. The first was the 13:10 at Kempton where I backed Yes Sir for £54 @ 2.81 and again for £25 @ 3.00 whilst thinking that A P McCoy was just holding him up and come with one of his great finishes, but how wrong could I be so I was down another £79. In the 13:15 at Towcester I backed Oscar Jack for £94 @ 2.25 whilst in the lead and approaching the third last hurdle only to see him over taken soon after wards with no chance to trade out to give me a £94 loss.

Then in the 13:40 at Market Rasen I backed Mr Woodentop for £81 @ 3.00 again when in the lead and with the same result as he was soon passed and lost me another £81. In the 13:50 at Huntingdon I laid Ma Furie for £100 @ 4.30 and backed her for £55@ 4.70 to give me a much needed profit of £45. In the 13:55 at Wetherby I laid Aston Lad for £25@ 7.50 and backed him for £15 @ 10.00 to net me a further £10. Next was the 14:00 at Leopardstown where I laid Savitha for £33 @ 11.00 when well beaten about two hurdles from the finish to give a profit of £33.

Then came the big race of the day The King George V1 Chase at Kempton. I have always liked Kauto Star but he does have a problem with his jumping so I was just watching and set up a lay on him for £510 @ 2.00 just in case he hit a fence hard. As I had thought he did hit a couple quite hard and eventually went straight through the final fence but his balance was brilliant and he kept on his feet to win. It was the third fence from home that he hit quite hard and stumbled, and at this point I hit my submit button. When I realised he was going to survive I tried to cancel but to no avail my £510 was gone for my biggest loss on the day. Funnily enough I was not too upset with this loss because, 9 times out of 10, I will win this type of trade.

In the 14:25 at Towcester I backed Blaze Ahead for £80 @ 3.50 at around 3 furlongs out and laid back £80 @ 1.60 very shortly afterwards to net me £152 on the race. Next for me was the 14:30 at Wetherby where I backed Bestofthebrownies for £55 @ 2.80 about 4 fences out when in the lead, only to see him blunder at the next and cost me a £55 loss. My next race was the 15:00 at Kempton and here I laid Craven for £25 @ 10.00 and Gentleman Jim for £19 @ 15.72 to give me a profit of £45. In the 15:05 at Wetherby I backed Jimmy Bond for £88 @ 2.03 to give me a profit of £91.

Next was the 15:10 at Leopardstown where quite early on I laid Mansony for £5 @ 4.00 but managed to back him for £326 @ 1.20 on the run in to net another £50 profit. Then came the 15:15 at Wincanton where I laid He’s The Gaffer for £66 @ 10.00 at about half distance to give me another profit of £66. I had three more small and profitable trades before the end of my racing day. I finished with a total loss of £472, not a great start to trading after the festivities.

Tonight's football match was the Premiership clash between Watford and Arsenal. I was quite busy with cooking the evening meal before the start but saw the odds for under 2.5 goals at around 1.95 so I put up a back for £500 at 1.95 about 30 minutes before kick off and went away to prepare the meal . I kept coming back into my office to see if I had been matched. The odds were continuing to drop but I decided not to move my odds down. By kick off the odds were down around 1.85. I watched the start of the game for a few minutes and then served the meal for my kids and I . When we had finished and I had done the washing up I went back to my office to see that now the score was 1 -1 and the odd for under 2.5 goals was 7.00 and I thought I would have a little play on the market by backing the unders for £9 @ 7.00 and a further £8 @ 5.00 a little later. I laid back this liability @ 1.85 to leave me with a good result if no more goals were scored. Then with 10 minutes left I backed the unders again for £67 @ an average of 1.80. I had put lays up to get out of this position just before the third goal was scored and was not matched therefore I was left with a loss of £67.

I turned my attention to the under 3.5 goal market and with just 4 minutes left on the clock I backed under 3.5 goals for £1000 @ 1.38, which I considered to be very generous odds. I laid back £223 @ 1.01 in the second minute of injury time. The final whistle went and I managed a profit of £382 in this market and a total for the match of £315.

Next I turned my attention to the PDC World Darts Championship. I just caught the end of the Ovens V Tabern match and managed to back Tabern for £27 @ 1.30 just as he threw for the match to net me a very quick £8 profit. So I have finished my day with a loss of £89, which considering the start I had is not too bad.

Monday 25th December 2006

No trading today but I am looking forward to a busy day tomorrow with 11 race meetings and plenty of football matches. I have enjoyed spending plenty of time with my children but I, like many others if you take a look at some of the forums, have missed my trading.  So it is back to work as normal tomorrow.

Sunday 24th December 2006

With no UK racing and no televised football the Sports Trader has had a trade less day. It's been an odd day with that feeling that something is missing. I did however go for a meal at a restaurant in Stirling in the late afternoon on one of those very rare occasions when all 6 of my children and I get together. We all had a great time and the Christmas Spirit was alive and kicking.

So, as it is Sunday, all I have to do is report my weekly result which ended up as a very respectable profit of £2411.

I now have my Santa duties to perform so I will be busy wrapping presents for the next hour or so. I will therefore leave it at that for tonight but not before wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas and many thanks to all the contributors to the comments of this blog along with all the readers.  

Saturday 23rd December 2006

I have had a very slow an interrupted day today. It's holiday season and family matters had to take priority over my trading. My first trade of note was in the 12:50 at Bangor where I backed Secret Ploy for £133 @ 1.83 on the run in only to be touched off by the eventual winner Shrewd Investor, so I had a bad start to the day with a £133 loss. In the 13:00 at Fontwell it was a similar story of woe. Here I backed Alcatras for £16 @ 1.82 only to see him beaten to lose me a further £16. I think a lot of traders, and straight backers were Christmas shopping, as liquidity on all exchanges appeared very low for a Saturday which makes it very difficult to get out of a trade that looks like going against you.

In the 13:20 at Bangor I backed L'Antartique for £100 @ 1.30 on the run in to make my first profit of £30 for the day. Next for me was the 14:10 at Hereford and again I made a loss as I backed Hoo La Baloo for £15 @ 2.50 around the 2nd last fence where he was challenging for the lead only to see him lacking in the final furlong to cost me £15.

The next race for me was the 14:55 at Bangor. Here I laid After Eight for £40 @ 2.20 when weakening with two hurdles to go, to leave me with a profit of £40. In the 15:15 at Hereford I laid Captain Windsor for £42 @ 7.00 just as he blundered at the 12th fence, and later I backed the winner, Howrwenow, for £35 @ 1.20 to net be a total profit of £49 in the race.  In the 15:25 at Bangor I had several trades to net me a loss of £45.

My best result of the day was when I put up a large lay on Nation State for £500 @ 15.00 just as he blundered at the 7th hurdle and got matched for £100, which saved my day. This left me a profit of £100 in the race and left me with a total profit from my racing day of £12.

So I pretty  much waisted my day but I did end up on the right side. I couldn't concentrate today as we had many people, mainly my children, coming and going all day long. It looks like tomorrow will be a day off for me as there is no UK racing. So I would just like to wish all fellow traders and other readers a Very Merry Christmas.