The Sports Trader

Wednesday 13th December 2006

I couldn't get into my UK horse racing trading today, partly because I had a visit from my 20 year old son, Oliver, and partly because I was just not in the right mood. Most days I really look forward to my job but today  I seemed to lack that spark to get stuck in there. I started off with the 12:05 at Lingfield where I backed Saucy for £80 @ 1.19 in the final furlong for a £15 profit. I then had a small trade in the 12:15 at Newbury by backing Pauillac for £71 @ 1.10 on the run in to give me a £7 profit. Next was the 12:50 at Newbury where I backed Irish Raptor for £88 @ 3.50 whilst he was tracking the leader Heltornic and looking very strong with about 6 furlongs to go. I then layed back £88 @ 2.38 after about 1 furlong, when I should have held on. This trade left me with a profit of £98. The next race I traded was the 13:55 at Newbury where I back Jack Fuller for £47 @ 2.96 just before he was headed at the last fence and could not lay back, I therefore suffered a £47 loss. Next I backed Ballynashig in the 14:05 at Downpatrick for £154 @ 1.50 again just before he was headed in the run in to cost me another£154. I then backed Artzola in the 14:15 @ Lingfield for £146 @ 1.10 as the head waiter brought the horse from last to first easily and went on to lead in the last furlong to give me a profit of £15. In the 14:35 at Downpatrick I had put up a lay on the favourite, Stepping Out Well, early on for £500 @ 2.00. I took a phone call and by the time I had managed to get rid of the caller this horse looked to be going a lot better and I cancelled my lay just as someone took £100 of it. I was at this stage kicking myself for not cancelling earlier, however within 20 seconds it became apparent that the favourite would not win and I, by mistake, made £100. In the 15:30 @ Newbury I backed Mistress To No One for £58 @ 1.40 whilst well in front approaching the final furlong, only to see the favourite go past and cost me £58. My last race of the day was the 16:50 at Wolverhampton and here I layed Benny The Bat for £45 @ 1.59 soon after the start where he reared up and was left well out the back of the field. I never thought he was going to win until it was too late to back him so I lost £27. This left me with a loss for the day of £52 on my race trading.

With a few options on the football to trade tonight I decided to watch the Wigan v Arsenal game. I wish I had made the same mistake tonight as I had on Sunday and I would have been celebrating Christmas early. I started by backing the under 2.5 goals for £170 @ 1.80 just seconds before the kick off. I waited until the price was down to 1.52 before I very gradually started laying off. I also bought the unders again for £250 @ 1.43 when the price was too high for the match situation. At this stage I had only layed off £20. Then I waited until the price was down @ 1.36 and proceeded laying for £25 every 0.05 fall in the price. By half time I was all out of my liability and praying for goals to let me back in at reasonable odds. By the time a goal did come it was too late to effect the odds very much so I turned my attention to the match result having locked in a profit of £91. Here with such an evenly matched game I decided it was risky to back Arsenal to win outright so I just had a very quick in and out trade on them by backing £203 @ 1.62 and laying off within seconds @ 1.54. I then waited until there was just 1 minute left on the clock plus injury time and backed Arsenal for £1400 @ 1.06. I layed off £200 @ 1.02 and held on to the rest to net me another £80 for a few minutes work. This left me with £171 profit from the match and a total profit for the day of £119.

Tuesday 12th December 2006

Another day, another dollar, I am on the come back trail. I only traded 8 UK races today as I had to take one of my daughters to the dentist in the afternoon. I started with the 12:20 at Sedgefield where I started by laying Programme Girl for £90 @ 2.10 around 4 furlongs out and backed £48 @ 2.50, later I layed her again for £2 @ 12 to leave me with a profit of £43. In the 12:40 at Folkestone I backed Chaim for £31 @ 3.30 at the second last hurdle thinking he would win but he was headed at the last hurdle to cost me £31. The next race was the 12:50 at Sedgefield where I backed Kilty Storm for £186 @ 1.40 around two furlongs out whilst in front and looking OK. A P McCoy was doing just enough to keep him ticking over and, as usual, when needed AP just asked for a little more and Kilty Storm opened up nicely to win easily and give me a £74 profit.

I had another couple of small profitable trades before the 13:20 at Sedgefield. Here I backed Good Citizen for £196 @ 1.60 going over the last fence and for a moment thought I had got it wrong, however, he just managed to keep going to the line to net me a further £118. I had two more small trades  one profitable and one not to leave me with a profit of £212 on the days racing.

The live football tonight was the FA Challenge Cup Second Round Replay between Notts. Forest and Salisbury where Notts. were firm favourites to win. As Russ Wiseman predicted in his Exchange Views Blog this morning the under 2.5 goal market was the most attractive market to trade. I started trading about five minutes before kick off with a back of the unders of £100 @ 2.90. I was fully expecting 3 goals or more but as I was trading to smaller amounts than normal, I  decided to hold off before laying back my trade until the price was down to 2.70 and then held off until 20 minutes had been played when the price started to drop very quickly. Here I started laying again @ 2.32 and 2.25. I didn't back after the first goal as I believed the odds on offer were not good enough. Once the second goal was scored I backed the unders again for £54 @ 1.60 and layed off within a few minutes @ 1.44. I later layed more to green up @ 1.13 to leave me with a profit on the match of £53. This finished my day off with a total profit of £265.

Monday 11th December 2006

The events of yesterday have culminated in a massive response from fellow traders, bloggers and readers. I am totally overwhelmed by the messages of commiseration, advice and good luck. Just reading all the comments on yesterday's blog makes me feel very humble but proud. Proud to be a part of this online community of fellow traders where we can swap trading strategies and give each other support when needed. After reading other forums over the years I didn't think it would be possible to have such a positive meeting of minds between traders. But we have, and I only hope we can keep it like this. So a very big thank you from me to all of you.

Now down to business where I have had a profitable day. I started in the 12:20 at Ayr where I backed the favourite, The Abbots Habbit, for £480 @ 1.38 two hurdles out when in the lead and did not see the need to lay off so netted a nice £182 profit. I had three more small winning trades before the 13:55 at  where I layed Fearless Foursome about half distance for £50 @ 4.00 when he was mid field and not looking to be going well. My phone went, I answered and was trying to have a conversation whilst watching the race and just as I managed to finish my call I saw my layed horse romp home to win. Another example of an interruption and lack of concentration which this time cost me £150. Deja Vu. With my confidence still a little low I had 6 more small winning trades by the end of the racing day which left me with a profit of £115.

The football match tonight was the premiership clash of two struggling teams Sheffield United and Aston Villa. The stats pointed to a fairly low scoring match but again with my confidence low I decided to tread carefully. I backed the under 2.5 goals for £100 @ 1.67 pre kick off. I hadn't started to lay when the first goal was scored. I then managed to back the unders for £89 @ 2.74 and a further £104 @ 2.61. These odds where a little on the high side and within a few minutes I started to lay off for £200 @ 2.28 and the rest @ 2.12. So I now had a profit on the unders of around £90 and no liability on the overs. I was just watching this game now with about 5 minutes to go before half time. I tried to green up some of the profit during half time @ 1.55 but didn't succeed. After half time the odds started to go up again due to the pace of the game. In the 50th minute Sheffield scored again and the odds now jumped up to 2.82 where I backed the unders for £178. within a couple of minutes I started laying off @ 2.47 down to 2.43. I had layed off all but my last £50 when the third goal came so I had been caught with a £50 loss. I looked for options to get back this loss and in the end I backed the draw with 2 minutes on the clock for £153 @ 1.13 then quickly layed off when a corner was given @ 1.11. After the corner was taken and now into the three minutes of injury time I backed the draw for £275 @ 1.07 and layed all off one minute later @ 1.01. This left me with a profit on the match result of £24, to leave me with a loss on tonight’s match of £26 and a day’s total profit of £88. Not  great but a profit is really what I needed after yesterday and hope tomorrow is better. I must just say that the match tonight was a brilliant game with so many shots on goal and brilliant saves.

Sunday 10th December 2006

This will go down as Black Sunday for me. It has been my worst trading day of the year, but the loss is just over half of my biggest profit in a day, which was only 3 weeks ago, so I can still have a positive outlook. It's strange how these things, like all statistics tend to level out in the end.

I started in the 2:20 at Musselburgh where I backed Black Chalk for £30 @ 2.00 and layed back @ 1.60 to leave a gain of £12. My troubles started in the 12:50 at Mussleburgh where I backed Wee Forbees for £388 @ 1.90 and proceeded to lay back @ 1.53, it looked like my lay would all be taken but he hit the last fence and could not find enough stamina to get to the line in front. Just £12 of my lay was taken and I was therefore left with a loss of £376. I had another 4 small trades in the next races, with all but one returning small gains, and the other losing less than a pound. Then came a calamity in the 13:50 at Musselburgh where I backed Lets Roll for £900 @ 3.00, which looked a very good price as I took this back just before the last hurdle with him in front, however he hit the hurdle and then proceeded to hang left and was headed on the run in. I did try to lay off but again only got £6 matched so I was left with a big loss of £895. In the 14:15 at Cork I traded more than usual and mainly because I was worried I might make the day even worse. I firstly backed Chicago Vic, before the off, for £522 @ 2.20 and then layed back again before the off @ 2.18. I then backed the same horse for £885 @ 2.50 around mid distance of the race. He was going well but I decided to lay off @ 2.00, this left me in a position of around £450 profit if he won and no loss if he lost. I then decide to lay him for another £100 and was matched @ 1.70. In the final two furlongs Chicago Vic was not looking to run well and I then managed to back the eventual winner, Lala Nova for £52 @ 2.80 to leave me with a profit in the race of £195. Next up for me was the 16:00 at Kempton where I backed Bowl of Cherries for £31 @ 4.28 around one and a half furlongs out when he was just challenging for the lead, he duly won and gave me another £100 profit. That was the end of my racing day and left me nursing a loss of £951.

I had one of my elder (22) daughters round for dinner so I did not get to trade the big match of the day from the start between Chelsea and Arsenal. I did just have a little trade in the last 10 minutes as I backed the under 2.5 goals for £290 @ 1.04 to give me a profit of £12.

Now comes the trade that I am ashamed of and am finding hard to even put into words as I feel I have let myself, my family and my readers down. You all know I like Spanish football and tonight I thought I would trade fairly aggressively on the Valencia v Deportivo match. I backed the unders before kick off for £2400 @ 1.62 and intended laying around two thirds of this back before kick off. I had to go out of the office to sort out a problem with the kids, which took a lot longer than I had intended, when I got back the game was already under way and Valencia were firing on all cylinders with the price to lay back still above my back price. By the time the first goal came I had only layed back £400.

Now I was in the position that a lot of traders get into with a bigger liability than we feel comfortable with, bearing in mind I was meaning to have around £800 liability at kick off. At this point I would normally back the unders for as much as I had already, to lower my exit point for break even, but due to being over exposed to the trade already was reluctant to do that and I only backed another £200 @ 2.53. Now I had a break even exit price of 1.70 against 2.07 if I had traded my normal way. The next goal was scored, from a very dubious penalty award, almost 30 minutes later at a time when I could have got out at 2.07 or better, but as I had to wait for 1.71 I had not got out at all. I now still had a liability of £2400. When the market reformed I did back the unders for £75 at 4.00. Again I should have been in there for a lot more but was well outside my comfort zone with this poor trade so I now had £2475 with a break even exit price of 2.13, instead of probably being out of the position. Even at this point if I had doubled up my exposure at the 4.00 price I would now be on an exit price of 2.85, which I could easily have traded out at. I did lay back in £50 lots at 3.00 down to 2.19 for £300. So you see I could have got out if I had traded in my normal way. Now I made many mistakes here and by saying I should have doubled up at the goals, I don't want you to think that I even considered going in heavier than I did. I have already explained that I was only looking to be at a maximum of £800 at kick off and because of that first mistake I was unable to stick to my strategy. This is a perfect illustration of a common mistake that traders make. If you trade outside of your comfort zone, whether that is £50 or £5000 you are just asking for trouble if the trade starts to go against you. As I stated earlier, this has left me with my biggest trading loss of the year by far at £2889. My weekly total is also my worst for the year at a loss of £1568.

I will not be chasing to make this up. I will trade as usual with the thought that within two weeks I will have made this back again and some.  Another lesson learnt today just reinforces the advice I give to most people about this job that I do. You need 100% concentration with no interruptions at all. I was left in the position today of having no Au Pair as mine was off ill. I did get help some of the day but I was up and down from my desk all afternoon and evening when I should have been rooted to the desk. I can not work this way and I doubt anybody else can.

Saturday 9th December 2006

The first thing I must do is apologise to all of our wonderful female jockey's as in my list of links to sites offering racing enthusiasts gifts for Christmas I made a big omission as pointed out to me by one of the regular readers of this blog, Nathan. It is of course The Lady Jockey's Calendar and I must say that at just £13.15 it would make a really good present for any red blooded man.

I had a strange day with many interruptions to my trading but I did manage to turn in another profit. I started off with a very small profit in the 12:00 @ Southwell and then got into a mess in the next at Market Rasen where I backed Indian Pipe Dream just after the last hurdle for £105 @ 1.30 to see him just touched off in the photo finish by the minimum distance. I then had two very small trades before the 13:05 at Southwell where I backed Aphorism for £148 @ 1.40 at around the 2 furlong marker which I thought was a tremendous price considering the SP was 1.44 and she was in front and looking all over the winner. Next up I had two very small but profitable trades before the 13:50 at Market Rasen where I backed Roman Ark for £50 @ 2.47 at about half distance and then layed back within a minute @ 1.30 to leave me a profit of £61. It was at this time of the day when my visitors came so I missed some of the best racing of the day, although I did trade in another 6 races for very small stakes whilst talking to my visitors. These where all profitable but I would have traded for bigger amounts if I had been on my own. I noticed in the big race of the day, the Boylesports Gold Cup at Cheltenham, that again Betdaq traded more money at £1.8m than Betfair at 1.7m. Good luck to both companies, it is great to see liquidity at levels like these. With my visitors away I turned my attentions to the 15:45 at Cheltenham and this proved to be my best result of the day. I backed Flight Leader for £51 @ 2.00 around 2 furlongs out and then again for £600 @ 1.20 just over the last hurdle and with no need to lay off netted a further £171. After this race I had to start making the evening meal and I had my Sister-in-Law coming to join us so I had little time to trade. I finished the days racing with a profit of £250.

I am pleased that Angela did come for dinner because I had intended to trade the early evening football match between Bolton and West Ham as the stats pointed to this being a very low scoring match. In the end Bolton knocked in 4 goals, having said that there was only 1 first half goal so I may well have been out with no loss. Later I had a look at both Spanish matches but these where both looking like quite high scoring so I decided to help my 6 year old daughter with Christmas cards and other things. I did have a few very small in and out trades on these matches which netted me just £4 in the Barcelona match and £31 in the Sevilla v Real Madrid game.  So I ended my trading day with a total profit of £285.

Friday 8th December 2006

I have had a traumatic experience today, that feeling that you get when you can not communicate with the world. No I hadn't lost my voice, hearing, eyesight or any other of my senses. It was my internet connection. I felt totally hopeless and suffered withdrawal symptoms. I switched on my computer, as normal, at around 7:45, went and got the children up and gave them their breakfast and then went back to the computer to have a look at my emails. Nothing was happening. I did all the checks to see if there was a problem at my end then decided to call Bulldog. Give them their due, they were courteous and soon discovered that my local exchange was down and dispatched engineers. I was even given a text message to confirm what I had already been told and with a number to call back for updates. After getting the children to school I tried my computer again - same result. I then rang the update line and was connected to a recorded message telling me their was a fault at my exchange and to find out more information please 'log on to Bulldog Broadband' How the F**K could I do that. That type of thing really gets to me. I had a lot to do and just could not get on, so I resorted to doing all the house work like us single parent family fathers have to do from time to time. Please don't any of you husbands out there be conned by your wife telling you that it is hard work, this house work lark, it's not. Anyway after trying to connect several more times and getting no answers form Bulldog I decided to track down my local exchange and speak to the engineers to see when I might expect to be reconnected. No engineers in sight, so I then started to think that perhaps they hadn't even been sent to repair the exchange. I went back home and guess what? I had a connection, so I fired everything up and just managed to see the last two furlongs of the 13:55 at Cheltenham and to compensate me for my bad day to date the gods were on my side as I backed Spot The Difference for £100 @ 3.75 just going over the final fence, so I started the day after missing the first 10 races with a profit of £275. The next race I traded was the 14:30 at Cheltenham where I backed Pilca for £776 @ 2.75 just after the second last fence and to me looking to clear away from the field. But then Border Castle came tanking along so I tried to lay my liability with Pilca still well in front @ 1.55. I only got £45 matched and then backed Border Castle for £200 @ 1.10 to leave me with a net loss of £710 - ouch! Next up was the 14:55 @ Southell and here I backed Sir Bathwick for £400 @ 1.46 in the final few yards as Burntoakboy was challenging but lucky my horse kept his nose in front to give me a £184 profit. The next race for me was the 15:05 at Cheltenham where there was a great deal of liquidity, indeed in a lot of the big races today Betdaq liquidity was very close to that on Betfair. I layed the favourite, Jockser, at about half distance for £500 @ 6.00. This was an unusually large lay for me but the horse just did not seem to travelling so I went with it. Shortly after I layed him I backed back partially @ 8.10 for £22, £3 @ 16's, £5 @ 25's and £20 @ 50's and finished up with a very nice £448 profit and all commission free. I had one other very small profitable trade in the 15:20 @ Wolverhampton and this left me with a profit of £196 on the day's racing after trading just 5 events.

I didn't think I would trade any of the football tonight as both games were being  traded on the Betdaq unattended basis where there are no suspensions after goals, red cards or any other event that might take place. I had a quick look at the Bayer Leverkusen V Hertha Berlin and did have one very small trade to give me a £3 profit and then I switched channels to the England v Scotland U16 match. The match was in the 65th minute when I started to watch with the score at 2 -1 so my favoured market of under/over 2.5 goals was already finished. I then had a look at the match result market and in the 75th minute I backed England for £285 @ 1.20 which I thought were brilliant odds considering this is an Under 16 match that only lasts 80 minutes. England duly held on to their lead and I made another £57. So I have finished this shortened day with a profit of £256.

I would like to say that although I was not best pleased with Bulldog, (or Pipex as it is now), this morning, I have had a very good service from them for nearly two years and this was my first outage with them.

With Christmas just over two weeks away I thought I would put together a few links to sites that are offering some very good present ideas for us racing enthusiasts. I know my family never know what to buy me and I am sure many of you find the same so you end up with presents that you will never use. Just direct your loved ones to these links on the bottom left of my blog and I am sure you will find some very useful gifts. In particular no racing enthusiast should be without the Form Calendar at just £12 and which I have bought for myself already. In John Francombe's words it brings a mixture of glamour and fun to a sporting calendar that gives all the main racing dates and locations and also helps support The Countryside Alliance.

Thursday 7th December 2006

I am nearly famous - well I have a famous person that reads my blog. If you look down the left hand side of my blog there is a section entitled 'Recent Readers' . These are recent readers of the MyBlogLog community and at the moment just under that Smilingassasin you have the lovely Abi Titmuss. I have even received a personal email directly from Abi today, now that really perked my day up especially given my marital state at present. In fact my blog is turning into a glamour show given that I have that very nice photo of Hayley Turner on yesterday's blog. Now I see where John was coming from when he called me a Betdaq pimp, only joking The Gambler, he is a decent friend and colleague and I wish him the very best of luck with his trading.

I have had an up and down trading day today and with no football tonight I had to make sure my racing trading turned a profit, which it did. I had a great start in the 12:35 at Clonmel where I backed Island Life for £490 @ 1.50 approaching the 2nd last hurdle and layed back £500 @ 1.10 within 10 seconds to net myself a profit of £195. In the next the 12:40 at Ludlow I was a little to eager to back the leader Rapscallion for £50 @ 1.75 around 3 fences out only to see him fail to stay on and eventually come in 3rd to lose me £50. I then had a couple of very small profitable trades before the 13:05 at Clonmel where I laid Shuil A Hocht for £25 @ 12.00 when third and looking well held to give me a £25 profit. In the 14:10 at Ludlow I backed Rosses Point for £15 at 2.00 and laid off @ 1.74 then I backed again for £82 @ 1.20 and partially laid off @ 1.05 to leave me with another £16 profit. Then came the down part of the day in the 14:40 at Ludlow where I had a quick back then lay on Lake Imperial and then managed to back Castle Frome when in the lead approaching the last for £265 @ 1.10 to leave me reeling with a loss of £266. I calmed myself down and had three small profitable trades before the 15:20 at Taunton. Here I was still a little hesitant to make an even bigger mess of the day. There was someone trying to lay Jolly Boy for amounts of £3000 at a time, at prices of around 3.00 which seemed to be far to big, anyway when I had decided to take the plunge and get some of it by backing £1000 @ the 3.00 on offer, I only got £22 of it. Then back came the big layer with another £2K @ 1.88 and this time I got £138 matched. I then went on to lay £161 back @ 1.12 to leave me with a nice profit of £148. That was so very nearly one of those really big wins that come along every once in a while. After this race I had three more small profitable trades to finish the day with a slightly disappointing profit of £111.

Wednesday 6th December 2006

A reasonable day today although my football let me down tonight after I broke one of my golden rules. I started the days racing with a couple of very small profitable trades and then I had a real stroke of genius, or was it luck, in the 13:10 at Kempton where quite close to the end of the race I backed Davids Mark for £20 @ 8.60 just as he drew level with the then leader, and Hayley Turner , I like her even more now, managed to keep him going and pull away to win by just over a length to give me a very good £152 profit. Next up was the 13:20 at Hexham where I had backed Double Default for £100 @ 2.30 when he looked like taking the lead but just couldn't overhaul the eventual winner Chief Dan George on which I managed to back for £22 @ 1.60 to limit my loss to £87. The next race I traded was the big race of the day at Fairyhouse. A competitive race with a short priced favourite, which sounds like a contradiction, where I traded around £1800 in total. I started by putting up backs on Asian Maze for £200 @ 1.65 and £570 @ 1.57 and layed all off @ 1.62 and 1.48, this secured me a decent profit if the favourite won, but I liked the way Brave Inca was travelling so I layed Asian Maze for another £40 @ 1.42 and then backed Brave Inca in the final 50 yds for £100 @ 1.50 to net me a profit on the race of £103. The next for me was the 14:00 at Leicester where I had a few very quick back and lays on Neysauteur and then backed and layed the eventual winner for £40 @ 2.00 and 1.50 and again left myself a profit of £40. I had a couple more small but profitable trades in the next two races before having to take a break to pick up the kids from school. On my return I traded in the 15:30 at Leicester where I backed the winner Westgrove Berry in a frantic few seconds as she came over the last hurdle for £117 @ 1.30 and £120 @ 1.11 to leave me another £48 profit. I had one more very small and profitable in the 16:10 at Kempton and that was the last I could manage today so I finished my racing day with a nice profit of £304.

It was Champions League night again and with 8 live matches it was a job to select one. I know all the talk was for a 0-0 or 1-1 draw between FC Porto and Arsenal but with odds on the unders down as low as I have ever seen for a match in this competition at around 1.37 I decided I would look for more value elsewhere. This is where for some strange reason I broke one of my golden rules, the one that states 'I shalt not enter into any financial involvement in a match where either Celtic or Rangers are competing'. As you know I am a Glasgow Rangers supporter and always find that my heart takes over from my brain when either of the two Glasgow giants compete. Anyway, I did get involved and only after the first goal was scored. I took the view that as there was nothing much to play for in this match that not many goals would be scored. How wrong can you be? So I backed the unders for £230 @ 2.30 to 2.35 and had just started laying off @ 2.23 for £25 when the second goal came. As usual I then went back in to back the unders for £100 @ an average price of 4.90. At this stage I had a liability of £300. I started to lay off in £25 lots at 3.60 down to 3.13 when the 3rd goal came and caught me with a £175 loss.

Just here I would like to try to explain my thinking behind going back in after the 2nd goal, as many people ask me why. After a second goal has been scored, and in particular when it is quite early in the match, as happened tonight, my main and first objective is to get out without a loss. Normally after this set of circumstances combine, you have most people taking the opposite view to me, where they think more goals are inevitable and therefore keep gazumping each other with higher prices. This normally means that, for probably 5 to 10 minutes, the back price on the unders is too high. The calculation I look at here is how much higher than fair value is the price and how long do I think it will be before another goal is likely to be scored. It is all just really a matter of time. In tonight's match I had two thoughts that distracted me from what I should have done. 1) I should not have been on this match as Celtic are playing and, 2) I have had a good day up until this match so I do not want to have to go on to my blog and report a loss. Yes I do blame my blog partially for this loss and the reason is that I have notice that everyday I am very mindful of the fact that later I will reveal to the world my result. This has the effect of making me a little bit more cautious than I would normally be.  What I should have done tonight after the second goal, was to go in an back the unders for at least as much and often up to twice as much as I already had wagered on the event, in this case £175. This would have meant that instead of having to get out at an average price of 3.15 to break even as I had tonight, my break even price would have been around  3.40. I had already layed down to as low as 3.13, I could therefore have been out all clear or even with a bit of profit. The time difference between the price being 3.15 and 3.40 was around 10 minutes. So what I am trying to say is that in football, although it can happen,  goals do not normally come all at once. This strategy has worked well for me and I will be sticking with it. What I find is that I will get caught two or three times and then have a good and fairly lengthy spell where good profits can be made. I do not advocate that everybody follows me with this strategy as clearly it can be costly if three quick goals are scored.

Anyway getting back to tonight's football match to partially offset the loss that I had in this match I had a couple of very quick trades on the correct score market where I backed 3-1 for £470 @ 1.66 and layed off at 1.49 and again backed for £361 @ 1.49 and layed off at 1.33. This left me with £92 if the scored remained 3-1. I then layed a further £80 @ 1.14 to give me £80 profit what ever the score. So I ended the match with a loss of £95 and finished my trading day with a profit of £210.

Tuesday 5th December 2006

If I had stopped at 15:45 I would be reporting a very good result. But this game is full of ifs and we all know they count for nothing. It all started for me in the 12:50 at Sedgefield where I had backed Cloudmor about half distance for £13 @ 3.00 then layed Emperor's Monarch in the run in for £15 @ 14.5 to leave me nursing a small early loss of £12. In the 13:10 at Fontwell I backed Jades Double in the final 100 yds for £89 @ 2.00 when approaching the last hurdle and she duly went on to win leaving me with an £89 profit. Then came the 13:30 at Southwell where I managed to get a lay on Further Outlook for £96 @ 5.70 whilst being ridden hard about 3 furlongs out, again giving me a profit of £96. Next up was the 13:40 @ Fontwell a competitive Beginner's Chase. I started backing Hoh Viss for £101 @ 1.98 and then layed off @ 1.40. I made a covering bet on Flintoff for £9 @ 4.00, just in case and then further backed Hoh Viss for £25 @ 1.30 which in total left me with a profit of £58. In the next race, the 13:50 at Sedgefield I layed the struggling Stoneriggs Merc for £11@ 8.20 and then I put a back up for £150 @ 1.50 on That's Racing as he went over the last hurdle. I didn't think this would be taken but someone did take £100 of it leaving me with another £61 profit. the next race was the 14:30 at Southwell and here I was lucky to back Larky's Lob for £118 @ 2.00 early on in the straight just as he challenged for the lead and he went on to win netting me another £118 profit. I missed the next few races as I went to pick the kids up from school, so my next race was the 15:40 at Fontwell where I managed to back the eventual winner whilst coming up the hill in the final furlong for £555 @ 1.29 and again for £110 @ 1.20 to give me a further £185 profit. This is where I should have stopped for the day as it was mainly down hill from here. In the next race at Kempton I backed Heavens Walk for £145 @ 2.00 whilst in the lead and looking like the winner to me but I read this wrong and didn't see No Time coming up fast in the final 75 yards or so, which cost me my £145. That was my last race for the day and I had finished racing with a £449 profit.

In tonight's Champions League matches I looked for the game where I felt least goals would be scored, and guess what, I got this wrong as well. I chose the Galatasaray v Liverpool game and backed the unders for £193 mainly before kick off at and average price of 1.70. I held off longer than normal before putting my lays up at 1.40 to 1.46. My lays where next to be taken when Liverpool scored, so I waited for the market to reform and, luckily for me the next goal came within 2 minutes so I could not back anymore. After this second goal I put up an opportunistic £50 @ 10.00 and again none of this was taken before the third goal was scored. I now turned my attention to the under 3.5 goals market and backed the unders for £50 @ 4.20 which would have covered most of my loss on the under 2.5 goals trade. I put up lays at 2.10 and again just as they were to be taken and with only 1 minute of the game left, the fourth goal was scored, so I am now down £243. With no prospect of trading on this game to make a sizable profit I turned over to the Barcelona v Liverpool game and quickly backed the under 2.5 goals for £24 @ 1.21 and then £309 @ 1.11 in the final minute. This gave me a £40 profit for a couple of minutes work. At the end of this match I went on to the final few minutes of the Chelsea v Werder Bremen match and again backed the under 2.5 goal market for £40 @ 1.25 and £95 @ 1.11 all within the last three minutes of the end of the match. This netted me another £20, so I ended my football trading with my first loss for a long time of £183, leaving me with a still reasonable profit for the day of £266.