September - Car Crash!

I had prepared in my head an extremely long post detailing the calamities of the month, but can thank Alistair at ‘Bet Your Life Sports Trading’ for summarising the main issue for me in his response to comments from his latest post –

‘It seems to me, now more than ever, that having one's head in gear is significantly more important than the mechanics of the trade itself. Keeping the mind in shape should be at the top of our list.’

I’m going to blame rock festivals for my September performance, which was certainly more to do with mindset than any particular bet or trade. I’ve had an enjoyable summer, with regular festival weekends tucked between worthwhile and satisfying work, and fairly steady betting. With the end of the festival season, I think I lost the nice routine I had developed, spent too much time in front of the laptop and struggled to remember what my aims were.

I made an error in removing too much cash from my Betfair account early in the month, which left me with a smaller bank than I’m comfortable playing with. I subsequently went into a pattern of haphazard betting which led to an unsurprisingly loss-making month. I whittled away the bank, redeposited the money I took out earlier, blew that deposit, and spent most of the month playing with a tiny bank, making little progress. I finally deposited £500 into Betfair and had a couple of days away from the laptop to clear my head and start afresh in October.

I’ve made losses in the three major sports traded – football, tennis and horse racing. Probably as these are the sports generally available for me when I wish to throw an ‘Oh-sod-it’ bet. My most successful sport in the month was Australian Rugby League! Gah. There’s little point in deep analysis of the bets placed, nearly all the losing ones were either ill-researched, frustrated follow-on bets after a loss, or simple OFI punts. So probably best to forget September – a losing month where I learnt little to help me progress.

I’ve read plenty of blogs lately, and re-read a chunk of my own blog. It strikes me that there is no formula for success on Betfair, but all the successful guys have their own technique which they follow consistently, and have confidence in their own ability. So my October aim is to get back to doing what I’m good at, and try to keep in mind what I’m trying to achieve during each Betfair session.

It can’t be any worse than September!