The Sports Trader

Friday 17th August 2007

Another very quite day for the Sports Trader but with a hefty loss in one horse race it turned out to be a losing day. I had only traded on 6 horse races all day long.

My day started with 3 small winning trades. Then in the 19:10 at Tramore I backed Tory Hill Lad for £66 @ 1.33 and £667 @ 1.01 before laying Galway Legend for £42 @ 9.00 to result in a profit of £70.

My losing trade came next, in the 19:30 at Newmarket where I had backed the short priced favourite, Familiar Territory, for £329 @ 1.33 when leading with about 2 furlongs to go, only to see him suddenly slow and  cost me £329.

My final trade resulted in a small profit and this left me nursing a loss of £244 on the day.

Thursday 16th August 2007

This was a very quite trading day for the Sports Trader with just 5 horse races and 1 tennis match traded.

My day started with a small but profitable trade. In the 14:30 at Salisbury I laid Dubai Samurai for £20 @ 2.75 to result in a profit of £20.

My next trade was in the 15:50 at Beverley where I backed Fly Kiss for £10 @ 2.24 to result in a profit of £12.

My only losing trade came in the 16:15 at Salisbury where I had backed Olympian Odyssey for £69 @ 3.80 when gaining on the leaders at about a furlong out and by the time I realised that he would not be winning I could not lay off, which resulted in a loss of £69.

I almost made full amends in my next and final race trade, in the 16:25 at Beverley, where I laid Toy Top for £66 @ 6.60 to result in a profit of £66.

My race trading had resulted in a profit of £33.

In the evening I traded on the Federer v Baghdatis tennis match and started by backing Federer for £591 @ 1.10. I did put up lays to cover my liabilities but soon cancelled them with Federer in control of the match. This resulted in a profit of £59.

My day had finished with a profit of £92.

 

Wednesday 15th August 2007

Sorry to all readers for the late updates, which has been due to several personal problems and has resulted in me having to spend more time than normal looking after my children and less time on my trading and by the time I would usually be writing my blog entries I have been in need of my bed. The children are now all back at school and nursery which should allow for more routine in our lives and more time to spend updating my trading experiences.

I am aware that my trading style has changed recently and I often find myself just snatching a few minutes between domestic tasks to have the odd trade. Today I traded on 13 horse races and 1 tennis match, with no losses.

I started the day off well in the 14:10 at Beverley where I laid Hampstead Heath for £100 @ 5.00 to result in a profit of £100. I followed this with 4 small but profitable trades.

In the 16:10 at Beverley I laid Remark for £44 @ 10.00 and then backed back £21 @ 20.00 to give me a profit of £23. Next were a further 4 small winning trades.

In the 20:00 at Hamilton I laid Ptarmigan Ridge for £16 @ 9.20 to result in a profit of £16. Mt last two trades were both small but profitable.

My horse racing had finished with a profit of £161.

Later in the evening I traded on the Dubois v Petrova tennis match and began with a back of Petrova for £688 @ 1.16. I laid off £74 @ 1.14 and £200 @ 1.05 before cancelling the rest of my lays. This resulted in a profit of £91.

My day had finished with a profit of £252.

Tuesday 14th August 2007

The Sports Trader can report a profit for the day but only because of my early morning trading on a tennis match, as today I found horse race trading very difficult and I had one crazy trade at the end of my day. I ended up trading on 8 horse races and 1 tennis match.

The tennis match that I traded on and which finished early this morning was between Dinara Safina and Camille Pin. I started by backing Safina for £500 @ 1.80 in the final set and laid off @ 1.50. I then had several other smaller trades whilst trying to preserve the potential profit that I had made in my first trades. I ended the game with a profit of £193.

My first race trade was in the 15:15 at Newton Abbot where I backed Millards Lad for £70 @ 3.20 before laying off @ 3.00 to result in a profit of £14. My next  6 trades all resulted in small wins.

The final race trade of the day was in the 20:30 at Musselburgh where I laid Mangano for £7 @ 23.00 when seemingly well out of contention, but then what do I know, as the horse duly trotted up to win by a head and cost me £154.

My race trading had therefore ended with a loss of £135.

My day finished with a profit of £58.

Monday 13th August 2007

This was going to be a good day for the Sports Trader until I messed up in a football match in the evening. I traded on 12 horse races 1 football match and 1 tennis match with two losses on the day.

I started my day trading on 4 horse races with small profits in them all. In the 14:45 at Stratford I backed Lusaka De Pembo for £30 @ 1.50 to give me a profit of £15. I followed this with another 4 horse races, 3 of which resulted in small profits and the fourth a small loss.

In the 19:55 at Thirsk I laid Next Flight for £33 @ 9.60 to result in a profit of £33. I followed this with another small profitable trade.

My last race trade of the day also proved to be my best result as I laid Down The Brick for £72 @ 3.00, in the 20:15 at Windsor, and then backed back £17 @ 9.30 to result in a profit of £55.

My race trading finished with a total profit of £132.89.

After racing I looked around for another event to trade and decided to focus on the Kilmarnock v Dundee Utd football match. United were leading 1 - 0  and were in total control of the match so I backed them to win for £20 @ 1.40. Soon after, in the 77th minute,  the referee, Brian Winter, decided to send off the United defender, Christian Kalvenes, for a tackle that was no more than a normal legal tackle. This red card is likely to be rescinded after the ref admitted his mistake. The course of the game changed completely and Kilmarnock equalised just two minutes later. I should just have left things alone but now with 10 minutes left on the clock I decided to back the draw for £181 @ 1.40, intending to lay off as soon as I could with no liability. However just as my lays were about to be matched Kilmarnock scored again, much to my annoyance and I had now lost £201.

Later I decided to have a few trades on the Safin v Kiefer tennis match. The match was already in the final set and I backed Kiefer for £60 @ 1.36 and later with the game almost won I backed him again for £930 @ 1.04 to result in a profit of £59.

My day had therefore ended with a loss of £9. I had also started trading another tennis match that was showing a good profit so I didn't feel too bad about having a losing day, but the result of this match will be in tomorrow's blog entry as it didn't finish until about 2:20am.

I was today contacted by Tony Quinlan about a new blog that he has started named Tony Quinlan Bets. Tony has been punting since 1965 and even had a spell working as a betting shop manger. He now, like me, earns his entire income by trading on the betting exchanges and he specialises in football. His picks on his blog are the ones he uses himself so if you follow his advice you are sure to make money. Good Luck Tony.

Sunday 12th August 2007

It was an interesting day of trading for the Sports Trader. I traded on 14 horse races, 1 tennis match, 2 football matches and the USPGA golf tournament. I finally came out in front but only with some quick trading, after coming home from a night out with my son Oliver in Glasgow.

Horse race trading has been a struggle for me recently and today continued in the same way as my first 9 race trades all resulted in small profits.

It was in the 16:50 at Leicester that I had my first decent result as I laid Fossgate for £66 @ 5.00 to give me a profit of £66.

In the 17:00 at Wolverhampton I laid Hits Only Cash for £40 @ 12.00 to give me another 340 profit. I followed this with my last race trade of the day which resulted in no profit and no loss.

My race trading had therefore produced a profit of £118.

The first of the 2 football matches that I traded was the midday clash between Arsenal and Fulham. Luckily I only traded very lightly in this game as I only watched the last 15 minutes and I had backed the unders for £23 @ 1.40. Soon after Arsenal went on to score two quick goals to leave me with a loss of £23. I did claw back just over half of this loss by backing Arsenal to win in Injury time for £198 @ 1.06 to result in a profit of £12.

The other match I traded was Lens v Paris Saint-Germain. I was less than happy with the mess I made of this one. I had been waiting for a goal before getting involved and with about 20 minutes of the match remaining I had a lay already to submit on the 0 - 0 score line for £250 @ 1.72. Somehow I accidentally managed to press the submit button and although I did try to cancel it was too late my bet had entered the exchange and was matched. I still do not agree with the Betdaq team about this new way of bet placement where if you hit the submit button and then realise you have made a mistake you can not cancel the bet until the time delay has worked through. I think this kills liquidity, I know I am normally a lot more conservative about placing bets in these markets because of the rule. If you have a bet already in the market you can cancel whenever you want so I do not see the need for this protection.  I did back the draw towards the end of the match for £222 @ 1.10 to limit my loss to £158 but it was still a costly mistake.

My other disaster for the day was in the Federer v Djokovic tennis final where I just got on the wrong side of a trade and ended up losing £173. These tennis markets move extremely quickly and if you get one trade wrong you end up in a mess. I did think that Federer would come to my aid but I suppose he had to loose a tournament at some stage in his career.

So after my evening of mistakes and bad trading I decided to meet Oliver for a drink in Glasgow. I was only out for a couple of hours and when I got back I had a look at my days trading. I decided to try and turn around my day and the only event trading was the USPGA Championship. I didn't think it wise to pile in on tiger as by now he was on the 16th hole with a lead of 2 shots and his odds were very low. So I turned to the match result without Tiger and I backed Woody Austin for £750  @ 2.00. Within a few minutes I had laid off £426 @ 1.50 and then a little later I laid him for £142 @ 1.26 and £195 @ 1.23 to leave me with a no risk potential profit of £458. Woody did eventually come in as runner up to Tiger to net me a very good profit of £458, to make me feel a lot better about my day of trading.

My end result was a profit of £235.

This has not been a great week of trading but I did still turn in a profit for the week of £541. In hindsight I could have had the whole week off and traded just the last hour of the week to give me a similar result, but that's trading.

Saturday 11th August 2007

It was a reasonable day for the Sports Trader even after a couple of hefty losses. I traded on 14 horse races and 2 football matches.

My day got underway in the 13:10 at Ascot where I laid Dan Tucket for £10 @ 11.00 to start with a £10 profit. My next trade resulted in a small profit.

In the 14:15 at Newmarket I laid Trance for £106 @ 8.00 and backed back £50 @ 18.00 to leave me with a profit of £56. I followed this with another small profitable trade.

The first of my two losses came next, in the 14:35 at Haydock, where I backed Zaham for £85 @ 2.00 when looking to be in control of the race. Well he was headed with a furlong to go and I lost £85.

I made amends in the 14:50 at Newmarket where I backed Star of Light for £50 @ 3.00 to result in a profit of £100.

Then, in the next, the 14:55 at Ascot, I gave it all back as I laid Leg Spinner for £38 @ 4.20. I had put up a back @ 5.20 but was only matched for £1 so I lost £117 on the race. 

Talk about a bit of a yo-yo session, in the 15:05 at Redcar I laid Observatory for £90 @ 6.00 to claw back a profit of £90. My next 6 trades all  resulted in  small profits.

My race trading had finished with a profit of £83.

I had been keeping one eye on the football in the afternoon and had a few browsers up on my 2nd computer in case I saw a chance of making a profit. I decided to back the under 2.5 goals in the West Ham v Man City football match for £174 @ 1.11 with a few minutes left on the clock. I laid off within 60 seconds @ 1.05 to leave me with a no risk profit of £10.

After racing had finished I started to watch and trade the Aston Villa v Liverpool match. I decided to try a new tactic and waited for what I thought was a good valued price on the under 2.5 goals. In the 62nd minute with the score sitting at 0 - 1 I backed the unders for £1215 @ 1.36. I started to off load my liability almost immediately with lays for £132 @ 1.31 and £587 @ 1.26 the rest I laid off @ 1.24 in the 69th minute to leave me with no liability. Finally in the 70th minute I laid the unders for £100 @ 1.22 which gave me a profit of £100 no matter the result, which was just as well as the game finished with 3 goals. 

In the last minute of injury time I backed the under 3.5 goals for £494 @ 1.03 and £359 @ 1.02 to give me a profit of £22.

My day had finished with a profit of £215.

Friday 10th August 2007

This was not a great day for the Sports Trader. I managed to trade profitably all through the afternoon and up until 8:00 when things went pair shaped to leave me with a loss on the day.

I started with the 14:30 at Sedgefield where I backed Green Day Packer for £40 @ 1.93 and laid off @ 1.10 to secure myself a profit of £33.

In the 14:45 at Lingfield I backed Muraco for £200 @ 1.10 in the final furlong to result in a profit of £20. Next came a small winning trade.

In the 15:15 at Lingfield I laid Snake's Head for £50 @ 3.00 before backing back £36 @ 3.70 and £2 @ 5.00 to result in a profit of £12. I followed this with 4 more small winning trades.

Next was the 19:45 at Newmarket where I laid Snoqualmie Boy for £34 @ 1.80 and then backed back £5 @ 2.00 and £14 @ 2.50 to leave me with a profit of £15.

Then came the first of my losses on the day in the 19:55 at Wexford. I had several small trades on Farmer Brown and had got myself into a winning position on Farmer Brown and a small profit if he lost. Then came the trading on a photo finish. I was convinced that Farmer Brown had failed to get up on the line and therefore backed Tomorrow's Dream in the photo finish for £50 @ 2.00. Well I was wrong and this trade ended with a loss of £48.

My next trade was in the 20:25 at Wexford and here I laid Petite Mielle for £11 @ 7.50 to result in a profit of £11.

In my final race trade of the day in the 20:35 at Haydock I laid Caravel for £200 @ 2.00 when being held up in mid field, with the idea that I would back a little later for a profit. However within seconds of me placing this trade Caravel decided to start gaining on the leaders and I was left with little chance of trading out. I therefore ended this race with a loss of £200.

My race trading had finished with a loss of £130.

In an attempt to end the day with a profit I decided to trade in the Roddick v Djokovic tennis match later in the evening. I laid Djokovic for £1000 @ 1.25 and £50 @ 1.22 early in the second set after he had won the first set. My thinking was that if, as I expected, Roddick had managed to break the serve of Djokovic at any stage through this set then I would of had the opportunity to trade out at around 1.50 or better which would have left me with decent profit that I could then have greened up and ended my day in profit. Well it didn't work out for me and I still can not believe how badly Roddick played. I ended this match with a loss of £260.

My day had ended with a hefty loss of £390.

 

    

Thursday 9th August 2007

The Sports Trader had a busier day today and traded on 13 horse races and 1 tennis match, with 1 losing trade.

I started my day with the 15:10 at Haydock where I laid Mambomoon for £33 @ 21.00 when being ridden with no effect well behind the leaders and resulted in a profit of £33. I followed this with 4 small, but profitable trades.

My only loss of the day came in the 17:40 at Folkestone where I had laid Strobe for £10 @ 5.00 when losing places around 4 furlongs out. Soon after, under a hard drive, he started to pick up and ran on well to win the race and cost me £40.

In the 18:35 at Tipperary I backed Cloone Rocket for £10 @ 1.38 and £42 @ 1.29 to result in a profit of £16. I followed this with another small, profitable trade.

Next was the 19:15 at Sligo where I backed Jadanli for £100 @ 2.00 before laying off @ 1.80 to result in a profit of £20.

In the 19:35 at Tipperary I backed Valamareha for £50 @ 1.50 to give me another profit of £25. Next came another small winning trade.

In the 20.15 at Sligo I backed Shakervilz for £166 @ 3.00 before laying off £122 @ 2.83 and a further £50 @ 2.90 which left me with a profit of £13. My last race trade of the day ended with a break-even result.

My race trading had finished with a profit of £84.

I watched the last game of the final set in the Matthieu v Nadal tennis match and backed Nadal for £367  @ 1.05 and laid off @ 1.02. I then laid Mathieu for £2 @ 100 to result in a profit of £13.

So my day had finished with a profit of £97.

Wednesday 8th August 2007

Yet another very quiet day for the Sports Trader. I had to go out from early evening so I missed all the evening racing and football. I did manage to trade on 6 horse races with no losses.

My first trade was in the 14:20 at Newcastle where I laid Merchant of Dubai for £10 @ 3.55 to start my day off with a £10 profit.

The best trade of my day came next in the 15:20 at Newcastle where, in the final half furlong, I put up a back on Karlani for £17 @ 9.80 and was very lucky to get £6.50 matched @ 24.00 and even luckier that the horse went on to win a close finish to result in a profit of £149.

I came across this photograph that I thought would brighten up an otherwise dull post. It captures all the the colour, power and excitement of a race.

All the rest of my trades on the day resulted in small profits.

I had therefore finished my day with a profit of £160.