Thursday 21st December 2006

A pretty decent day for the Sports Trader today but it shouldn't have been. The first race for me was the 12:30 at Southwell, and it, along with all the rest at both Southwell and Wolverhampton were run in thick fog. It's at times like these that I wish I was using the Sports Trading Workstation along with the brilliant invention known as IRIS. Just imagine being able to see exactly where each horse was and knowing which was accelerating the fastest and most likely to win. With IRIS, even in the thick fog, that is exactly what you could see. In this first race the favourite was Stanley George with a starting price of 1.50. I backed him, in running, when clearly in the lead for £186 @ 2.00 then laid it all off @ 1.55, to give me the perfect start to the day and a profit of £83. I then had a small profitable trade in the 12:40 at Ludlow.

My next race was back in the fog at Southwell in the 13:00. I made a mistake here. As I had got matched at far too big odds in the previous race on this track I put up a back of the for £50 @ 3.00 on the favourite, Rafferty, in the hope someone would take it. Then in my eagerness, peering through the fog to see the position of the horses, I  tried to back the leader Shrine Mountain and forgot all about my back that I had set up. By the time I did realise and hit the cancel all button I was too late so I lost my £50.

In the 13:10 at Ludlow I started with a small lay of £5 @ 5.00 on the favourite, Kaldouas. I then backed Art Virginia for £135 @ 1.83 when going into the lead with about 4 furlongs left to race. I put up a lay of £60 @ 1.10 on the run in and got matched, to leave me with a profit of £111. Next for me was the 13:20 at Exeter where I backed the favourite, Never So Blue, for £33 @ 1.40 whilst in the lead about two hurdles out, only to see him fade badly on the flat to cost me £33. I then had 5 more small winning trades.

My last race of the day was the 14:50 at Exeter where I took £43 @ 5.00 on the favourite, Zanzibar Boy when staying on well and in the lead. Later, in the final few yards I backed another £46 @ 1.07 to leave me with a profit of £175. Now you see why I said that I shouldn't have had such a good day. To get 4/1 about a 2/1 favourite whilst well in the lead is obviously extremely fortunate and almost certainly a mistake by someone. A lot of mistakes are made in the frantic trading that goes on, I should know I have made plenty, but it is part of the game and that is why you need absolute and total concentration at all times. So I had finished my race trading day with a profit of £307.

Tonight's football match was the Spanish clash between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid at the Camp Nou, where Barcelona were clear favourites, and a high scoring match was expected. I had seen the odds for the under 2.5 goals earlier in the evening at around 1.95. By the time I had got the kids in bed etc there was only 10 minutes to go before kick off and the odds had dropped to 1.86, which I considered to be a little on the low side, so I decided to wait for the match to start before getting involved. I waited until 10 minutes were on the clock and backed £250 @ 1.85, which I considered better value than 1.86 before kick off. I was still of the view that goals would come and started laying off quite quickly. I laid in £50 amounts from 1.78 down to 1.60 and was all clear of liability by the time the first goal came with 41 minutes on the clock.  I had a few phone calls to make and decided not to re-enter the market after the goal had been scored. Later in the match and in fact with 1 minute of the 3 injury time minutes already played I backed the unders for £154 @ 1.13. Within 60 seconds I laid back £170 @ 1.05 and 1.06 to leave me with a profit on the match of £43. So I finished a decent day with a profit of £350.

Comments

[mick]

Hi Ray
I see you have been promoted now to "The Betdaq Trader" Well done! Have a lucky day.
Mick

[Ray]

Thanks Mick

[humble]

Another good day ray well done,its also makes me feel better when i hear you are still making mistakes,the thing is in this game when we make a mistake it always costs us money lol. thanks for keeping the blog going i am sure there are a lot of people who are learning from your posts.

[Ray]

Hi Humble,
Thanks, as always, for your comments. There is often so much going on for that 5/10 seconds of a race that really matters that miatakes are inevitable. The knack is keeping them as few and far between as possible. Good Luck.
Ray