August - Successes....and Failures.

My primary aim for the month was to maintain focus and discipline. As a secondary point, I suggested that, in the event I was successful in achieving the above, my bank should allow me to make around £35 per day. I also noted a three-prong attack on tennis, soccer and horse racing.

I ended the month with a profit of £916, from 22 available days of betting ( I managed to have at least one bet on each of these 22 days ). This equates to £41 per day, so success on that particular point. I tried to avoid turning the month into a £35/day target chase, although I will admit to being particularly cautious this evening with my U.S. Open session – didn’t want to wreck my P&L at the death!

My other major success was in one particular element of discipline – dealing with losses. Only once did I go well above my staking levels following a loss, and that on a selection I intended to hit heavily anyway, and I just pushed a little further due to an earlier loss.

Maintaining focus was less successful, due to an appalling start to the month with my tennis betting. Whilst I recovered my poise during the Cincinnati tournament in the latter half of the month, by mid-month I’d reached a point where I was placing bets with the expectation of losing. I backed away from a number of opportunities during this spell, and any sense of a consistent strategy went to the wall. I’m happy to say that I ended the month with a profit on tennis, something I doubted I would achieve two weeks ago. Although, if I had in mind around £1k per month overall profit, I would have expected £400-£500 to come from tennis. Fail.

I had little expectation from soccer in the month, and achieved little. My intention is to put more emphasis on soccer from September onwards, having kept away from the season openers. The exception to this has been in the Australian wallet matches. I’ve found it easier to select bets on morning matches, whether soccer or rugby league. I think that I tend to get a little edgy during evening betting sessions, but on a morning I’ve had time to assess my overall position, and seem to be more confident. My routine has been to check out the matches the evening before, make a mental note of what I think may happen, and then keep an eye on the in-play score using Betfair Mobile. It’s been a successful source of profit during August.

I’m still scratching my head a little about my horse racing results. I’m simply picking horses I think will lose. There’s no great detail to my strategy, just use what I can find from the Racing Post website and various blogs I have bookmarked. I wouldn’t like to rely on this strategy to pay my mortgage, but I’m very pleased with a £284 profit. A major concern is that the majority of my racing profit has come from evening meetings. To continue with racing bets through the winter will mean either forfeiting soccer opportunities at weekends, or attempting to cover both, and this on the limited weekend days I have available for betting. It may be that racing becomes my summer sport to replace soccer, leaving me to concentrate in the main on two sports during any given period.

A goal of consistent staking seems a step away. Maybe I should be looking more for a consistent thought process. My confidence levels vary throughout a month, and my staking levels differ accordingly. As long as I have some semblance of a staking plan, I’m happy to have a little flexibility in the actual numbers. I’m not a record keeper, so I’ll continue to rely on my usual mix of control and gut-feel.

I have to be concerned that a large proportion of profit came from weekday daytime bets. Whilst I’m fine with the technique outlined above, it can’t be relied upon for regular profit – if a particular position materialises at a point I’m free to check and use Betfair Mobile, great, but that’s luck of the draw. Any strategy I have should be based around the hours I’m likely to be online ( weekday evenings, some weekend days ).

So nothing particularly new for September and beyond – keep concentrating, take the losses, and try to pick more winners ( or losers if betting on the horses ). The fact that a chunk of my winnings have been removed from my Betfair account to top up my work earnings gives me an incentive to continue in this manner – I need to win! ( Ok, I don’t, but it pays for some of life’s non-essentials ). I’ve got a healthier bank than at the start of the month, so a similar percentage on turnover should allow me to make a nice monthly sum. It would be helpful if a higher proportion of that sum came from football and tennis, but as long as it’s green, it’s good.