Sunday 3rd December 2006

Not a good day and I had to rely on the football to get me out of trouble again. I started with the 13:00 at Kelso where I backed According To John for £300 @ 1.25 about two thirds distance when he appeared to be toiling a bit and layed off @ between 1.11 and 1.25 to leave a profit of £43. In the next race the 13:05 at Fairyhouse I made my first purely trading mistake where I had backed Clopf around two furlongs out for £156 @ 1.51 and thought he would go on and win, however he just plodded away one paced and was over taken just before the final hurdle to leave me nursing a £156 loss. Next up was the 13:10 at Warwick where I backed Character Building on five occasions throughout the race for a total of £500 at prices from 1.10 to 2.65 and layed off £70  @ 2.40 to leave me with a profit of £86. At kelso in the 13:30 I layed Jimmys Duky for £21 @ 4.00 and backed Fearless Foursome for £307 @ 1.10 in the final furlong to leave another profit of £52. In the next Kelso race, the 14:00, I had several not very good trades on Ever Present that left me with a £10 loss but also managed to lay Rambling Minster for £117 @ 4.00 on the run in when it looked like Ever Present was going to throw the race away ,so I got out of this race with a £110 profit. At this stage all seemed to be going not too bad but in the next two races I had a couple of sizable losses. In the 14:30 at Kelso I backed Leprechaun's Maite for £66 @ 2.20 and thought the horse would win but he was beaten on the line by a short head. In the photo to follow I did manage to reduce my loss by backing the winner for £322 @ 1.10 to leave a loss of £34 on the race. Then came the last race of the day for me and the one that left me wishing I had finished just one race earlier. I had backed Killard Point around two furlongs out for £245 @ 1.60 when he seemed well in control but for the second time in the day was just beaten to the post by a short head so I suffered a big loss of £245. This left me with a loss on the days racing of £140.

I missed the first half of the Everton v West Ham match so I just watched for a while and as soon as the first goal was scored I started backing the under 2.5 goals for £570 @ 1.40 and then gradually layed off from 1.30 down to 1.06. by the time the second goal was scored I was clear of any liability and went in again and backed the unders for £180 @ 1.12 and again layed off between 1.08 and 1.02. This left me with a profit on the match of £104. The next match I traded was the Real Madrid v Athletic Bilbao game where Real were definite favourites and where a few goals where expected. I therefore adopted my cautious trading approach. I had missed the start of the match but managed to get on the unders for £352 @ 1.90 and proceeded to lay off quite quickly at 1.80 down to 1.66. I still had a liability when the first goal was scored, I managed to back the unders again for £100 @ 3.08 to 2.70 and continued to lay off. The second goal came whilst I still had a £100 potential loss and I took another small back of £30 @ 2.10. I had a £35 liability left when the third goal came and therefore looking at a loss I turned my attention to the match odds and with just 1 minute left on the clock and Real in control I backed Real to win for £1470 @ 1.03 to give me a £44 profit so I managed to turn a small profit on the game of £11. The final match of the night was the Real Zaragoza v Osasuna game where over 2.5 goals were predicted. I got on before kick off with a back of the unders of £770 @ 1.80 and then quite quickly started to lay off in £50 chunks @ 1.76 down to 1.62 for about £400 when the first goal was scored leaving me with a potential liability of £370. I took another small back of £71 @ 2.45 and then when the price had fallen to about 2.15 started to lay off again all the way down to 1.30, then I started to green up on both sides and ended up with £85 what ever the result before the second goal was scored. Not content with this I had a small back of £33 on the under 1.5 goal market, which is something that I rarely do. I had intended to lay back within a few minutes to leave a small profit but was caught when the second goal was scored therefore costing me £33. So   ended the match with a £52 profit. This left me with a profit of just £27 on the day, which is not good considering I have probably spent the best part of 10 hours trading. In fact this has been one of my worst weekends for profit but I have gone right through the week with no losses and a total profit of £2003 for the week, so in the end I am pleased with the weekly result.

Comments

[Prekladatel]

Interesting stuff as ever, Ray. Do you not think with hindsight that 1470 @ 1.03 Real was chasing?

[Ray]

Hi Prekladatel,
Thanks for your comments. I do not think that I was chasing in the Real match as I was already up for the day at this stage. I do take quite a few bets like this in the final minute of football matches, often when I see the ref putting his whistle to his mouth to blow up for the end of the game. I see that you are from Slovakia, do you get a decent service on the exchanges or do you find you have a little time lag between placing trades and them being accepted?
Ray

[Prekladatel]

I am a hobby punter, but profitable, and I play mostly in obscure fairly illiquid markets, so time lags are not an issue. No Sky, no satellite. I lay overbacked basketball favourites using scoreboards, bowls is a nice little earner, there is always a way to nick a tenner here and there.

[Ray]

Hi Prekladatel,
Good luck with your punting and please do keep in touch.
Ray

[Account Deleted]

By the looks of things we both trade in a similar way. I've been a beta tester for some new software from Autobet called Autobet Insight. You should try it out as its helped me no end. I don't know when its due out but I know its soon.
Do you have a table of your P&L each month so far ? That could be a handy addition. Keep up the good work.

[Ray]

Hi Alan,
I will take a look at the new Autobet product when it is out. Thanks for your comments. I do keep a detailed P & L for each day,week and month along with moving averages etc. I am not sure that I want to put all that on here at the moment and even if I did I am not sure how to do it, but it is something that I will consider. Good Luck with your trading.
Ray

[Alan]

Thanks for getting back. I wasn't thinking of a particularly sophisticated P&L, just a simple table which showed the weekly and/or monthly P&L. How much d'you think you're up so far in total and over what period ?

[Rob]

Ray,

I undestand your reluctance to switch from the normal betdaq interface. I was the same with betfair until I persevered with some trading software. I have a link somewhere to some free software that allows you to increase the refresh rate on the normal betdaq interface and that along with the one-click option on betdaq should be as good as most trading software. If you're interested let me know and I will dig it out.

By the way, you must have balls of steel for the 1.03 backs!

Rob

[Ray]

Alan - When I work out how to submit a graph or table I will do it. In this calender year I am up £46K but what I have noticed is that recently the profits have been growing faster.

Rob - That link to a Betdaq auto refresh would be very usefull and save my mouse from a lot of abuse! He who dares - wins, no Rob when taking very low priced backs it is normally within seconds of the whistle and if I get caught once I will probably stop doing it.
Ray