Yorkshireman in SE20

Rock

2012-01-30T15:03:00.004Z

Despite having lived within a couple of miles of him for a decade, I don’t know Robert Rock. However, I’m probably more aware of his career progress than most, despite my aversion to playing the game of golf. Rock is from Armitage near Lichfield, a city with little sporting heritage, which in turn has ensured that his ups and downs on the European tour have been well documented by my former free weekly paper, the Lichfield Mercury, over the past few years. I’m sure this week’s edition will reach a crescendo of congratulation following the 34 year-old’s win in Abu Dhabi.

Much of the comment on yesterday’s result noted him as a journeyman tour pro with one previous career win. But further delving shows a guy on an upward curve, having taken six years to go from club pro at Swingers Golf Range in Lichfield to a top 30 finish in the 2009 European rankings. His first tour victory came in 2011, and he finished joint 23rd on his US Open debut the week following that win. This is a guy making steady but impressive progress. In six appearances in majors, he has missed the cut just once.

So with that build up, I anticipated yesterday’s win on the morning of the fourth round then? Err, no. Maybe I don’t have enough knowledge of Tiger’s form or mindset, but my overriding theory from watching plenty of final rounds of majors over recent years is that the worst job in the game is being Tiger’s playing partner, particularly on ‘red jumper’ final round day. I suggested to Mrs B yesterday that Rock would probably finish joint 34th. The result suggests it’s worth keeping a close eye on Rock ( Mrs B already is! ). It takes bottle to take on the pressure of having both McIlroy and Woods in close attention, and I’m sure this win will give him a confidence boost. Watch the Rock!

Opportunity for dodgy video link!

Singin' The Blues

2012-01-24T08:51:00.003Z

Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas has looked to make his first January signing with an audacious bid for Black Eyed Peas’ Los Angeles-based playmaker, Will-I-am.

I-am, a multi-instrumentalist with an ability to ‘get up and down the pitch’, is in the final year of his BEP contract and is looking for a move to Europe under a Bosman transfer. Villas-Boas, discussing the signing whilst stumbling out of Mayfair’s Annabel’s nightclub, said ‘Will can add that rhythmic beat to our midfield to put alongside the Samba of Ramirez and the Flamenco of Juan Mata’. ‘I’m sure Will can fit into the club. He’s used to working with a load of self-important drama queens within the Black Eyed Peas, and he’s happy to dump the hat and fuckin’ stupid sunglasses.’

One of Chelsea’s main problems will be to calm the waters with defender Ashley Cole. Will-I- am has had a well-publicised ‘professional’ relationship will Cole’s estranged wife Cheryl, and produced her seminal debut album, ‘3 Words’. This may cause strains within the team, although it is believed that Will would be playing on the right of midfield, and right back Jose Bosingwa’s wife allegedly ‘can’t sing for toffee’. At one of the low points of their marriage, Cheryl complained ‘Ashley’s all one foot. Even in the bedroom, the right foot’s just for standing on, whilst Will’s got two good feet and a nice soft touch on the ball’.

It is also believed I-am was shocked to find that Chelsea’s players don’t all live on the Kings Road, drifting from nightclub to nightclub outside of training hours, but prefer tacky warehouse-sized mock-Georgian pads in leafy Surrey. An insider said ‘Will is an urban sort of guy who won’t appreciate driving his 4x4 anywhere near the countryside’.

In a separate manoeuvre, Chelsea are also looking to meet Shaktar Donetsk’s £18 million valuation for midfielder Willian..(pause)……. aww, bugger.

Q dos

2012-01-18T10:43:00.005Z

I first looked at internet bookmakers due to an interest in tennis, and a belief that I could pick winners. It didn’t take long to work out that solely picking winners has little to do with making profit. Since those early days, I’ve been rather wary of tipsters. I generally prefer to have all information available to me, whether it be courtside temperature ( particularly relevant at the moment ), team selections or paddock news. Therefore, it seems like working blindfold to determine selections well in advance of an off-time, and I place most of my bets close to the event start. I appreciate that there are deadlines for publishing information, and pro tipsters have to email out their info in time to allow subscribers time to put a wager on. But those selections are being made without the full picture being available. I’m happy to take on board any tips as part of a build-up of knowledge leading to a final selection, but following tipsters is not for me.

So, obviously, I’d now like to big-up a tipster! A free one at that.

Amongst the morass of rubbish on Betfair forums are a few names that are respected and followed closely. When the thoughts posted on the forum back up a regular column on an established national industry website, we have a poster worthy of note. And when that information not only picks winners regularly but also details how an event may unfold and how most of its participants may fare, I’m sold.

The forum poster is Mr Q, also known as Manchester-based US horse racing pundit Paul Quigley, who writes a column for the At The Races website two or three times each week and often appears on the Betfair US racing forum with some interesting insights. He describes himself on his twitter header ( @paultheq ) as a full-time gambler on US racing, specialising on the tracks at Presque Isle, Sunland and Zia Park, and a writer on the subject. Certainly, his regular Tuesday column generally revolving around the above noted tracks is consistently successful, and last night’s performance ( starting with three winners and missing the four-timer by a short head ) brought me to my virtual paper and pen.

Worth a look.

Canary Wharf

2012-01-16T17:15:00.007Z

Those people who have read my earlier post will, I'm sure, have noted the following phrase - 'I seem to be able to make a consistent profit....'.

Plenty of readers of blogs on the subject of betting and trading are searching for help in doing just the same. So it only seems fair that I offer up some of the strategies behind my success.

Let us turn to today's 4.55 at Wolverhampton. Generally my advice for this course would be to avoid - full of horses that really should be being used for pony practise for teenage girls. But today a selection hit me immediately - Canary Wharf. One of my favourite places on earth! Yep, today's biggest win came courtesy of a tenner on a horse with a nice name.

Glad to be of help.

Staying Awake

2012-01-16T12:11:00.006Z

You know you’re getting old when……..

I understand the Football League Show will not be re-commissioned by the BBC after this season. It is deemed too expensive to make, in comparison to its viewing figures. I would like to give a solid
opinion on the worth of the show to the grass roots football follower, but I have to admit that after ‘watching’ for the last couple of years, I’ve never seen one whole episode!

My late Saturday evenings tend to consist of Match of the Day, followed by the F.L.S. My problems start when both Mrs B and I use the two sofas as mattresses rather than sitting upright. The routine then tends to go as follows:

Watch MOTD, watch start of FLS, drift off during the ‘main match’ in the championship section, wake during Yeovil versus Tranmere ( having always missed the Leeds highlights ), occasionally nod in agreement at some of Steve Claridge’s no-nonsense assessments, stay in a semi-conscious state through Sheffield United versus Wycombe, which then somehow morphs into Barnet against Aldershot, bypassing a dozen games. Then, finally, awake shivering to a BBC News 24 discussion on the state of Palestine at around 1.45am.

Welcome to life in your forties!

As a long-term blog reader with a huge google reader list (ooh, err missus), I have come to appreciate those who manage to write on a regular basis over a long period. Many blogs ( my own included ) falter through the writers’ inability to find new topics of interest. My own blog slowed as I struggled to find anything to say on the ‘defined’ topic, and find time for writing.

I’m hoping that my current situation ( both physical and mental ) will give me space to write. One of the reasons for the move to London was to make more of life outside of work. I could probably earn more, but I seem to have found a level of workload that means I have enough energy left on
weekends and evenings to have a social life ( at least until 11.00pm ish! ), and enough money to pay the bills. During the winter months, I’m happy to use time on Betfair as part of my income portfolio. I seem to be able to make a consistent profit when I treat a laptop session as ‘work’, even to the extent of leaving the flat and working from an office base or coffee shop for a defined length of time. When I play around at home, I tend to make bugger all.

I expect workload to naturally increase in the summer, and my time on the exchange to reduce accordingly, so the blog subject matter may drift from sport towards random matters. I’m certainly feeling optimistic coming into 2012, so here’s hoping that the reality matches my expectations.

Conspiracy Theories

2012-01-10T08:33:00.009Z

If you don't follow sports news, this picture will mean little to you. I do, and it struck a chord.

The title of this post reminded me of another Yorkshireman seen around SE20 in recent years, Mr Neil Warnock.

As I noted here, I'm not a fan.

Once again, my emotion towards his recent dismissal at QPR should be sympathetic - it's tough when you take a team beyond it's natural position and then struggle against wealthier and more established clubs. He did a decent job and is probably unlucky that the change in club ownership means that the proprietor has no loyalty towards the existing management.

Yet, I am left with a final image of him having a ridiculous rant at the FA over Joey Barton's latest misdemeanour. Warnock described the FA's decision to throw out Rangers' appeal against the Barton red card as 'disgusting'. He then laid into Norwich's Bradley Johnson for conning referees. The basis of this argument presumably being that Joey's attempted headbutt missed Johnson's nose by at least 2 millimetres.

I'll say it again - Warnock's a tool. I'd be happy to see him go back to to his original trade (dentistry) rather than put up with any of more of his paranoia-filled rubbish. Bye, bye Neil.

Yawn

2012-01-09T09:49:00.009Z

Aaagghhhh…

Where did that 10 months go??

Well, sole remaining reader, welcome to the rejuvenated 2012 version of the blog – new title, new template, new location, new random thoughts!

It’s been a busy time, and thankfully we’ve (Mrs B and I) managed to achieve most of what we wanted to from 2011. Lichfield is a distant memory, the city crashpad is presumably re-let to someone younger and trendier than I, and the locals now follow The Eagles rather than The Brewers.

So here’s my new South London-based blog. As noted previously, I started the blog at a time when my main income was (hopefully) being generated via the betting exchanges after what is remembered as the 'credit cruch' decimated the housebuilding industry. The blog has changed along the way in line with my life. I expressed my thoughts on blogging in one of my latter posts -

Obviously, the blog seems to have taken a back seat. I started writing at a time when Betfair dominated my days, betting full-time. Whilst I returned to work a month or so afterwards, I've generally had something to write about on a regular basis. With sport ( and Betfair ) taking up less of my thoughts, the blog has suffered. I'm finding that I still have plenty of ideas to write about, but most are off the subject area. Regular readers will have noticed my tendency to wander from the 'designated' subject, and it's been noticeable that I get little feedback when I do stray. This suggests that the 'betting blog' community is really only interested in reading about sport and gambling. So what should I do? :-

i. Carry on the blog and say 'sod it', I'll write about whatever I want.
ii. Keep the blog for occasional posts when I do find something worth saying in the betting/sports field.
iii. Start a new blog, hoping to find a new audience for a more random 'popular culture' themed blog.
iv. Go back to Lichfield and get that Betfair screen working for me.

I'll have a think about it in the next few days. ( I'm not seriously considering iv. )

Well, the blog returns, and option 1 it is. I may be leading myself into writing for no-one, but I enjoyed blogging, yet simply don’t have enough worthwhile points to make on one subject. With my life hopefully now settled, it feels like a good time to resume writing. So I’ll be led by whatever interests me, and hope the results are enthralling enough to gain a readership.

I’ve regularly noted my enthusiasm for rock music, particularly new music and artists. So let’s begin with, er, a song from 25 years ago!

Suspended!

2011-03-07T00:04:00.003Z

Rather than just let it disappear off people’s listings, I thought it better to let readers know that I’ll be suspending my blog for a while.

In the main, I’m not spending enough time on Betfair and, probably more importantly, not spending enough time thinking about sport and betting to come up with much interesting to say at the moment. Like a few bloggers recently, I’m finding interesting things to write about difficult, but it’s mainly the case that my daily routine is very different from when my blog was at it’s ‘peak’.

It was reading back my own blog that brought me to this decision – I was surprised how good it used to be! Recent posts have tended to be just occasional updates, with not too much variety or insight. They’ve been written whenever I get a chance to write, just for the sake of updating everyone. When my routine was different, I often had ‘future posts’ sitting around in my head waiting to be written. Recently, life and work have taken over that spare brain space. Most of my better posts were written around midnight after a day’s Betfair session was finished – I’m usually tucked away in bed at that time nowadays.

I’m still badgering away on the exchange when I get time, looking to maintain that elusive £1k bank where I feel I can play comfortably ( my bank currently sits at £886.43 ), and trying to stick mainly to football. My life hasn’t stayed constant for very long over recent years, so it may well be that things change again. The blog is therefore suspended, not closed.

Until the next time, good luck to everyone.

Overdue Post

2011-02-09T11:35:00.003Z

Ahh, my blog finally springs into 2011 action. Well, ‘action’ is probably not the most appropriate word - stuttered into 2011 fits the analysis better.

My major issue has continued to be lack of internet access. I’m struggling to justify paying for a phone line for the limited time I spend at the London flat, and the internet dongle was, as expected, rubbish. So I’ve had limited access to Betfair, but enough to give me a nasty loss in January - within fifty quid, a complete wipe-out of December’s profit. How? – being ‘unlucky’.

I’ve mentioned ‘unlucky’ before. This is an alternative word for ‘inconsistent’ or ‘reckless’. January was an unlucky month in that a few lays at large odds went down, and a couple of footy games went unexpectedly, leading to all-red trade-outs. But the decision to place the lays was in most cases ill thought through, and often was just a lazy push for quick profit. On a couple of weekends, an element of panic seemed to set in. I’m playing with a fairly small bank and the results will have no material effect on my life. Yet instead of leisurely nudging my P&L forwards, I felt the need to use every rare minute of internet access to make hefty profit, often well beyond a natural level for the bank size. I’ve proved to myself so many times that, with a little time spent on research, the bets will come to me. But often my impatience leads me to search for ways to gamble. I also tended to stray into laying at higher odds, which is dangerous on two counts, firstly the damage each failure does to your bank balance, but also the psychological damage of having hours of small wins evaporate in seconds.

One bonus from January – a profit from tennis. The last twelve months left me disillusioned with the sport as a betting medium, hit hard by my poor trading skills and an evolved market that made my profitable years seem long ago. But I had a near 100% record picking winners pre-match. My only loss came from a rare in-play trade when, as so often happens to me, I chose to go all-red when things swung against me. I seem to have little trouble holding my nerve during football trades, but the speed of turnaround in tennis continues to fray my nerves.

A note of caution for bloggers not aware of Google Reader. A successful blogger of recent times, John O’Dwyer, has hit one of those inevitable bad spells. Presumably in a fit of despair, he posted an ill-advised blog a couple of days ago, and then promptly deleted it, along with it’s predecessor. However, the post still shows up on Reader, so many of his followers can see the deleted posts. Best to post only after a moment for reflection!

The photo? I was around the Wembley area yesterday afternoon, and as my own team are unlikely to be participating in a cup final any time soon, I thought I’d have a walk up Wembley Way. It’s a pity the legendary Twin Towers have gone, and the arch isn’t as impressive in daylight as under floodlighting, but worth the ten minute detour. I’ve never had much inclination to attend an England game, but I may have to look for an opportunity to see some sporting event at the stadium.

And finally, minor celeb spotting update. Er, celebrities don’t come out in January – it’s cold. So just the one name for my roll-call – Spurs slightly iffy left full-back, Benoit Assou-Ekotto. Hopefully, the remainder of February may be stronger, celeb- and profit-wise.

Minor Celeb Spot ( Midlands Area )

2010-12-31T01:50:00.004Z

Guess who I came across in Birmingham earlier today? Yep, you cracked it – only the previously mentioned Central TV weathergirl Emma Jesson!

I nearly commented upon how I felt she and Ken Barlow made a lovely couple. But didn’t.

Little new to say on the Betfair front. On the basis that New Year’s Eve involves a trip down the M6 and M1, followed by a couple of hours stood in the cold in the hope of seeing the Thames-side fire works, then my current P&L will become December’s final figure. I can’t be bothered to count the total number of transactions, but the final profit comes in at £476.99. I’ll put together a post summarising ‘where I’m at’ betting-wise after the holiday, but the overall feeling is positive.

May I wish a happy new year to all, and good luck in 2011.

Quiz Answers

2010-12-28T11:21:00.003Z

Current king of the sports betting blogs, Cassini, is also smart enough to land the spoils from my quiz.

Q1. The Brown’s superb response was as follows :

Q2. Bored of those multiple choice questions where one of the possible answers offered is patently rubbish? Well, this is the opposite. Yes, the answer is Ken Barlow. Or, more accurately, 78 year old actor William Roache. To paraphrase someone wittier than I – what attracts Emma to the millionaire Mr Roache?

Q3. The club founded in a district within the Isle of Dogs, East London, that subsequently moved south of the Thames to Bermondsey, was Millwall F.C.

Bored?

2010-12-27T10:25:00.012Z

For those struggling to fill their ‘twixtmas’ days whilst wading through a sea of turkey and chocolates, I offer you my ‘Nameless Bank Holiday’ 3 part quiz. Answers in my next post.

1. The following letter of complaint was sent to American Football giants the Cleveland Browns back in simpler times in 1974. Just guess how the Browns responded. ( Thanks to the Frank Turner twitter feed for spotting this ).

2. Here’s Central TV weathergirl Emma Jesson. I’ve been following her progress closely for ten years or so. Which of the following is she currently dating ?

Jonathan Trott?

Marcus Bent?

Ken Barlow?

3. There is a metal plaque embedded in the pavement outside my new apartment block denoting the place where a football league club was founded in 1885 by workers from J.T. Morton, a food processing plant and cannery. They moved to their more famous (infamous?) home in 1910, and on to their current stadium in 1993. To get from their place of origin to the current home requires a trip one station along a tube line, and a short walk, or a slightly longer walk and a precarious swim for the more adventurous. Name the club.

Good Luck.

Bye Bye Hotel Room

2010-12-14T18:22:00.005Z

The Basildon Travelodge is history, and I now have what is known as a ‘London crashpad’. Whilst it would be nice to see myself as being the occupier of both a ‘London home’ and a ‘Country home’, finances ensure that I am much more aware of being the owner of two whacking financial commitments each month. Whilst the income from my current contract covers my costs, the next stage will hopefully be to sell up in Lichfield and make a permanent move to the South-East. I’ve no guarantee of ongoing work, but my feeling is that there are more long-term opportunities in the South than the Midlands. My big pain at the moment is that I’m committed to some Saturday work in the Midlands for the next few months, so I’m trecking up and down the motorway on Friday and Sunday evenings. Mrs B has coined a nice positive phrase for it – ‘investing in the future’ – better than my idea – ‘flogging my nuts off'.

The flat has been an internet-free zone so far, and as I’m only looking to stay in this particular location for a 6 month period, I’m not looking to have a fixed phone line. So I’ve obtained a Mobile Broadband dongle, with low expectations based on various web reviews. If it turns out to be hopeless, weekday internet use may be limited to the free WiFi at McDonalds and Café Brera.

In turn, my Betfair usage is at it’s lowest level since I opened an account. My actual December stats to date are as follows :

Markets entered : 52
P&L : +£202.56

Anyone reading the blog regularly will have worked out that this has therefore been a fairly decent spell, taking into account my relative inactivity. Certainly, I have been pretty relaxed and patient during my limited time in front of the Betfair screen, and that does seem to be my recipe for profit. None of my sessions have been particularly long, and history suggests that over a longer day I become frustrated and my judgement wains. So maybe this lack of Betfair time may have it’s benefits in terms of profitability.

One side effect of London living is the tendency to come across minor celebrities ( this NEVER happens in my home village near Lichfield ). December’s roll-call to date – James May, Rav Wilding and Big Brother’s Chantelle Houghton and Victor.

I’ll hopefully be back soon with more minor celeb spots and minor exchange winnings.

Like Buses

2010-11-30T18:35:00.004Z

Yep, three weeks without a post and then two come along at once.

Having spent three and a half hours in the car due to the snow today, and achieved little work wise, I now have a long evening on my hands, back in the Basildon Travelodge, so a good opportunity to get in a November review. I’ll try to remember to put anything I achieve ( or, er, cock-up ) tonight into December’s sum up.

Firstly, the sanitised version, in the style of Robert Maxwell.

A final P&L of +£490.71. I had wagers on four sports, and all were profitable. Tennis was straightforward – one bet, +£2.21! Football finished at +£301.89, Greyhounds at +£154.05 and Horse Racing at £32.56. With considerably less time spent in front of the laptop, a good month. My profit per hour rate was certainly as good as any month this year.

Er, now the slightly amended and ‘audited’ version.

Well, same as above except that on one weekday mid-month I happened to be sat in my car awaiting a delivery. Slightly bored, I opened iBetmate on my iPhone. Checking my bank balance, in a moment of brain fade I decided that it would be nice to get a nice rounded up bank balance by making a quick £23. Having spent the last couple of months nudging away at £4 and £5 wins, then with hindsight ( both immediate and long term ) it seems pretty stupid to go for £23 in one go on a horse lay. It doesn’t seem any cleverer to stick this liability on an outsider in a handicap. But, hey, I’d be damn unlucky to hit a 21/1 shot, particularly one with shocking form……

You guessed the rest? So amend two figures above. Horse Racing came in at (£431.44), and total P&L at a small but worthy +£26.71.

It’s hard to understand how the thought process can be so inconsistent. I generally only use the iPhone to monitor bets I’ve put in place with the aid of a multi page laptop screen. But, hey ho, I’m not the greatest learner in the world ( ask my teachers at Royds School, Leeds ’77 – ’82 ), and I do seem to be prone to these occasional meltdowns.

Sadly, I’m not the only one. Crotig has been battling away for a couple of years with small stakes, struggling with discipline. But his blog has shown a definite improvement of the last few months, to the extent that he had built up a £1k bank. However, his most recent post reports a major blow-up. My advice would be to review his recent P&L’s. There’s enough green there to show that he can be profitable. Just avoid the brain-fade. Easy, really. Umm.

Pondering

2010-11-29T19:41:00.006Z

A record three and a half weeks since my last blogging effort, consistent with what I suggested in the final paragraph of my previous post - work taking over potential Betfair time.

I'm currently sat in a McDonald's in Basildon, Essex. If things go to plan, then East London and Essex may be my new place of work ( and home ) in the long term. For the moment, home is a Travelodge, but I'm hoping to find a rental pad shortly. Logically, with potentially lucrative income available ( albeit with longish hours ), then any Betfair time I have should be used as a relaxing hobby rather than income generator. I would, however, note that my most profitable punting spells in the past were made at a time when I had a good income - the combination of no pressure to win and a healthy sized bank worked well for me at that time.

I'll do a November review shortly, but I have a small green at the moment after a limited month, and would have had a decent month but for one brain-fade.

Obviously, the blog seems to have taken a back seat. I started writing at a time when Betfair dominated my days, betting full-time. Whilst I returned to work a month or so afterwards, I've generally had something to write about on a regular basis. With sport ( and Betfair ) taking up less of my thoughts, the blog has suffered. I'm finding that I still have plenty of ideas to write about, but most are off the subject area. Regular readers will have noticed my tendency to wander from the 'designated' subject, and it's been noticeable that I get little feedback when I do stray. This suggests that the 'betting blog' community is really only interested in reading about sport and gambling. So what should I do? :-

i. Carry on the blog and say 'sod it', I'll write about whatever I want.
ii. Keep the blog for occasional posts when I do find something worth saying in the betting/sports field.
iii. Start a new blog, hoping to find a new audience for a more random 'popular culture' themed blog.
iv. Go back to Lichfield and get that Betfair screen working for me.

I'll have a think about it in the next few days. ( I'm not seriously considering iv. )

October - Cut And Paste

2010-11-03T09:42:00.003Z

You don’t have to go too far back through this blog to find a month with a profile approximating to the following :

Start badly
Become frustrated
Chase
Lose focus
Lose money
Reset head mid-month
Recover steadily
End up close to where I started.

A regularly occurring theme, and October was no different, albeit that I remained £150 or so in the red come Halloween. The month’s main frustration was that I allowed a couple of chases to wreck the P&L of a potentially profitable system, and in the process made Greyhound Racing this month’s big loser ( see September ! ). The horse racing bets have been moderately successful, whilst analysis of my football bets in the month shows that I would have been considerably better off if I had placed my original selections and let them ride, rather than trade during play. The word ‘tentative’ has been regularly used in this blog, and years of football betting have knocked a little bravery out of my mindset.

I’m glad I’m not reliant on football betting for my income. It seems a tough sport to prevail in, with pretty efficient markets. The guys at Trading Football Markets seem to have it sorted, but their type of trading looks like extremely hard work to me, and not how I wish to spend my evenings after a day at work – too much concentration required. Maybe that’s the point – as a recreational trader I firstly want to enjoy my pastime, and if a profit arrives, great. As a full time career, the effort and concentration just have to be put in, and if that means time-consuming multiple trades and constant monitoring, so be it.

Any impulse I may have had to get back into tennis trading has been put aside by the recent dodgy betting patterns in the East European tournaments. As numerous blogs have pointed out, if the ATP remain as toothless as it currently seems to be in situations where warnings have been received in advance, there is little incentive for anyone to bet outside of the grand slams and ATP1000 tournaments. Maybe some guys will see it as an opportunity, but I still have the bruises from last year’s Kim/Istomin game. More importantly, the sport’s reputation will go the way of cycling and track & field unless something is done quickly.

Things are looking interesting on the work front, so Betfair action is likely to be low key in the coming month. I’m currently sitting at (£7.57) for November, so that’s my first target!

Standing Still

2010-10-25T21:02:00.003+01:00

Last week’s ATP tournament winners were the Serbian Victor Troicki ( in a piss-poor line up in Moscow ) and Federer in Sweden. Whilst reviewing the results, I was aware of the lack of ‘breakthrough’ players who have made their mark this season. Only a few years ago, Nadal, Murray and Djokovic charged up the rankings to dispel the theory that Federer would be simply wiping up trophies for a decade. But recent times have shown little movement in the hierarchy. So I went on a mission to find ‘the next big thing’ from within the ATP rankings.

Starting with the top 50, a couple of the big movers in 2010 are injury related – David Nalbandian from 64 to 31 ( up 33 places ), and Mardy Fish ( up 37 places to 18 ). It’s also been a good year for Berdych, Baghdatis and Melzer. The former, along with Robin Soderling, can now be seen as a serious grand-slam threat. The Cypriot and Austrian have been on the circuit for a long time, and may be viewed as dangers to the top players rather than potential champions ( although I’d have said that about Francesca Schiavone a year ago ).

There are a few experienced pro’s who have moved up the rankings without being likely to make too much further progress – Llodra (32), Lu (34), Chela (41) and Niemenen (44) – and a couple who’ve been in the ‘promising’ camp for a couple of years and are now putting it together more consistently – Ernests Gulbis ( up 66 places to 24 ) and John Isner ( up 19 to 15 ). Both have an important 12 months ahead of them - if they are to be the breakthrough players, now is the time.

It’s in the lower reaches of the 50 that the most interesting candidates appear. Three players have really pushed on this year, and all are in the 21 to 23 age group, so should have potential for further improvement. Could the next big thing be one of the following -Andrey Golubev of Kazahkstan ( up 97 to 36 ), Thiemo de Bakker of Holland (up 47 to 49 ), or the Ukranian Alexandr Dolgopolov ( up 82 to 49 )? All are worth keeping an eye on. Outside of the above names, it’s pretty static.

It’s no more satisfying to trawl through numbers 50 to 100 in the rankings. There are few who seem likely to make a quick jump towards the top twenty. There are a couple of experienced pro’s who could ‘do an Ivanisovic’ and have an impact in a major if things fell their way – Fernando Gonzalez ( 61) and Ivo Karlovic (71). The rest are mainly journeymen, clay-court specialists or underachievers. It may be worth keeping an eye on the 22 year-old Lucas Lacko (75), and 23 year-olds Daniel Brands and Leonardo Mayer shouldn’t have their careers written off yet. But there is little to excite.

Below that, there are a couple of former junior champions who’ve failed so far to make waves at senior level. The 19 year-old Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov must have a decent chance of making a breakthrough soon, whilst 21 year-old American Donald Young looks to have had plenty of chances and may have to be placed in the box marked ‘no thanks’. There may be someone lurking in the lower reaches of the rankings who will explode into the stratosphere – it’s happened before. But a quick view of places 101-200 throws up only a couple of names worth mentioning – Richard Berankis of Lithuania is a 20 year-old on an upward curve and Bollettieri Academy graduate Kei Nishikori of Japan has already made an impact, despite injury problems. There are a few names that have yet to come to my attention, so maybe I have a surprise in store in the coming months.

But I wouldn’t bet on it.

Rare Occurance

2010-10-21T10:15:00.003+01:00

So to the latest in what is becoming a series of increasingly occasional blog updates.

Whilst I still have a regularly used laptop, more time seems to be spent on work matters of late rather than Betfair. I noticed last night whilst watching the Inter/Tottenham game, with laptop on lap, that I had seven windows open. Betfair, BBC Sport and five work-related sheets. Not the environment for concentrated betting. I was happy to end the evening with a £25 gain thanks to a lay of Spurs, although Mrs B’s input had ensured that I only viewed the first half, giving way to an hour of Lord Sugar’s latest motley crew of high-ego, low-common sense ‘high flyers’. The ‘Apprentice’ intro suggests that these contestants are some of Britain’s best young business talents. Not likely. The producers have simply found a batch of cocky sods who they know will make twats of themselves on national TV without any awareness of their own failings. It’s all about the ratings.

Anyway, back to Betfair business. My October so far has a similar feel to September ( disappointing ) rather than August (progressive ). This may also have influenced my reduced hours. There has always been a straight correlation between my enthusiasm for spending time on Betfair and my P&L position. I suppose this is better than the opposing correlation ( the road to ruin ). The £1,000 bank I felt comfortable with is being eroded by six weeks of small losses, and a cheeky withdrawal to cover some unforeseen expenses. So the benefits ( monetary and psychological ) of August’s successes have begun to slowly unravel.

I ditched my greyhound system, not because of it was proven to lose, but rather that it opened me up to the temptation to chase losses. Two moments of mental failure have cost me all of the profit made, and as I spent most of the first half of this year feeling utterly frustrated, any system which risks putting me back in that frame of mind is not worth continuing. The horse racing ‘system’ has developed into a way of spotting certain signals in the market, and looks like it is worth continuing with. Beyond that, my Betfair time is spent with the evening football.

My aims – well, just protect that bank. Small gains can soon add up to a worthwhile sum, without too much effort. Just as easily, those small profits can disappear in one frustrated chase. Nothing I haven’t written before, and probably will write again.

Keeping It Green

2010-10-05T23:04:00.005+01:00

I'm sure all you guys out there are happy to see a little green.

Enjoy.

September - Stumbled

2010-10-03T10:24:00.002+01:00

Back in the red after August’s successes, although my outgoing feeling is that I’ve been tripped up by events, rather than regressed in concentration or mood.

Two issues dominated my betting month. Firstly, my inability to find time to spend in front of the Betfair screen ( mentioned previously here ). Secondly, the first major month of the football season was tough. From reading a few blogs, I think I’m not alone in finding results going against me. As Talkbet pointed out here, September may be too early for the season’s form to settle down. I hope so.

With regard to the English Championship, before yesterday I was beginning to believe that it may have been early June before results settled down. It looked like a pinsticker league to me. QPR are in hot form, and I like the look of Burnley and Cardiff. The rest looked fairly evenly matched. Having sat through my own team’s embarrassing collapse at home to Preston during midweek, I had decided that the Championship was a no-go area for the coming weeks at least. Looking at yesterday’s results there seems to be more sense of form lines developing, but I still think it’s a league to be wary of.

Most successful sport of the month? Greyhound racing!! Whilst looking for ways to inflate my P&L within the limited evening hours available to me, I’ve been testing a couple of simple systems ( one horse racing, one greyhounds ) which rely on information from websites, cross referenced to the odds available approaching post-time. Nothing too clever, and staking to win a fiver or so each time. Both are currently profitable, but it’s way too early to determine their likely medium-term success. Both systems are odds-on based so could easily be wrecked by the inevitable losing run. And like all systems, they have little likelihood of long-term success ( IMO ) simply because the market corrects itself.

Any optimism I have moving forwards is based upon a belief that I can start to pick up steady profit from football. Unfortunately, this probably means plenty of evenings with the hard slog of trading correct score and result positions. Not my preferred punting method, but probably the safest way of accumulating profit. If I can eke out further profit from the racing and greyhounds, great. But my expectations are low. And Tennis? Off my radar at present as the tournaments head to the far east. With results like Nadal’s failure against Garcia-Lopez yesterday, that may not be a negative outcome for my P&L.

Top Man

2010-09-21T22:48:00.003+01:00

I’ve never really taken to Jonathan Trott.

When Kevin Pieterson qualified as an English player, there was a sense of anticipation – a star to add to the Test lineup – as there had been a decade or so earlier with Graham Hick. But Trott, Cape Town born, slid into the Test side off the back of some decent county performances without creating a dent in public awareness. He’s subsequently become an effective part of the England line-up – stubborn, level-headed and tidy with an ability to compile big scores. Not too exciting then. Off the field, we’ve never really had much opportunity to find out if he had a personality.

But Mr Trott has risen hugely in my estimation. I know exactly how I’d have felt yesterday morning if I was an England player. And I’m sure it would have involved a wish to throttle someone from the Pakistan set-up. So top marks to Trott for having a whack at Wahab Riaz, and for showing an element of passion and aggression that we’ll need in spades this winter in Australia. Whilst I’m not condoning ‘Joey Barton’ style fisticuffs in most sporting situations, in this case I’m with Trott.

Missing in Action

2010-09-20T08:59:00.004+01:00

Best laid plans........

So August was excellent, as my P&L headed upward and a calm (and profitable) betting routine took hold. The onset of the footy season could only improve matters. Well, theoretically.

The day after posting my last blog, I came across a couple of decent work opportunities. One of these involves Saturday work, but at an income level I can't afford to refuse. The major negative is that Mrs B, whilst happy to see additional income into her purse, is less than chuffed to see me then spend Sunday in front of the Betfair screen. So after last weekend's 'false start' on the footy betting, this weekend saw not one bet placed. I have no problem with limiting my trades to weekday evenings with a little weekend top-up, but I'm irritated that after months of struggling, the rhythm and routine I found last month has ground to a halt.

Whilst I dislike target setting, to see your P&L increase at a fairly steady rate on a daily basis is comforting. With my available hours limited, I think my preferred mindset moving forward should be to protect my bank balance, and let the P&L look after itself, for the moment.

An interesting post from Stephen Maher regarding whether successful Betfair trading is a good career choice. Most full-time traders have dropped out of their previous career, generally because they were unhappy in their role, and I'm sure appreciate the flexibility of their lifestyle, and not having to answer to anyone but themselves. I find self-employment has similar benefits. Stephen's issue is that he's never had a career. Personally, I would go back to college, finish my course and find work if at all possible. Even if that job isn't the 'big money, stress' type. In life, I think you need as many 'strings to your bow' as possible. Unforseen things happen, and a decent back-up plan is worth having. Five years ago, if I'd have been asked how I saw my coming years, I'd have been miles off in my prediction. Stephen has learnt the skills to be profitable on the exchanges and at the bookies. That's a useful tool to have. But I'd rather have it as one of a portfolio of skills in my pocket.

Poor Start

2010-09-13T09:45:00.004+01:00

Having built up Saturday in my head as the notional start of a season of profitable footy, I was quickly brought down to earth with a bump. I suppose I should be grateful that I wasn’t involved in the games at Everton, Burnley or Barcelona, but I still managed to pick out a batch of games which didn’t go to plan. My major difficulty was that my strategies tend to involve scratching out early if things start to go against me, particularly on a Saturday when there is so much happening. And time after time, the first goal went the wrong way. Man City, Newcastle, Copenhagen, Moenchengladbach. All offset. The killer was my error of the day being punished – I left a position on the Newcastle / Blackpool game where I had a £50 risk if Blackpool scored a second goal, and I could have easily covered this for little outlay with five minutes to go. I didn’t, they scored.

The remainder of Saturday didn’t improve. I’d expect to have a few results go my way to counteract the losses, but nothing. I should have been profitable on the Fulham/Wolves game, having tipped up Wolves in my last post, but I didn’t back my judgement with cash. They scored first of course! As the evening wore on I realised I’d forgotten how difficult I’ve found Saturdays in recent seasons. The accumulation of negative moments leaves me open to chasing, particularly in the evening. Fortunately, a spell of decent results over the last few weeks has helped my attitude, so the laptop was turned off at the point where I felt vulnerable to the chase ( and left off on Sunday ). I will take forward the need to be a little more selective on Saturdays, and hope it was just one of those days.

Yesterday I watched the first episode of Alan Davies’ Teenage Revolution ( ‘taped’ from during the week ). I had read a review in the papers before watching the programme, and the reviewer thought the programme was boring – just Davies’ ramblings on his teenage years. However the reviewer was probably born sometime in the seventies. I was born on 2nd March 1966, Davies on 6th March 1966. So for me it was fascinating viewing. So many of his reminiscences matched my own memories. His first bedroom wall poster, as was mine, was Debbie Harry. Paul Weller was my idol, and his. Whilst there were plenty of differences ( his public school was hated, I quite enjoyed my comprehensive ), many of the experiences rang a bell. I particularly related to his description of the skill required to flick through albums in a record shop at high speed, and the fear of the skinhead gang from the rough side of town.

So that’s my Thursday evening viewing sorted for the next three weeks.

There’s a decent amount of European football on tonight, so I’ll hope to put my September P&L back onto an even keel.

Risky Business

2010-09-06T09:51:00.002+01:00

A quiet start to September for my Betfair exploits, caused by a two day trip to London, followed by my final music festival of the year over the past weekend. At least UEFA had the grace to put the international games on Friday evening, which gave me a weekend free of I-phone checking . My P&L for the month is currently showing a small green, and tonight’s sparse football fixture list means it will stay that way until tomorrow evening at the earliest. My involvement in the US Open tennis hasn’t really taken off. I’ve no Sky Sports at the moment, and I haven’t had the enthusiasm to get involved.

So the festival summer is over. Boo, hiss. A summer that began with on the Isle of Wight in early June with a fair performance from Doves, and ended with an entertaining set from the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain on a chilly September evening in a park in Moseley, Birmingham. Glastonbury was the highlight ( helped by a magnificent five days of warm sunshine ), and no festival disappointed.

Think you like to take risks? Spare a thought for Leeds/Reading Festival organiser Melvyn Benn, who booked both Pete Doherty’s Libertines and Axl Rose’s Guns N’ Roses for his main stages. This seems a little like taking Ledley King and Jonathan Woodgate as your central defensive pairing to a World Cup final with no back-up. In the end, Doherty was a success, Rose a slightly embarrassing failure, and Benn a relieved man. I’ll soon be working out next year’s festival itinerary. Although Mrs B has given me a nudge to suggest that annual holidays do not have to consist of six weekends sat in a field eating takeaway food. Umm.

So I’ve no excuses now for not buckling down to the footy season ahead. I’m looking ahead to the coming weekend. As I noted previously, I expect the season to settle down now. So time to profit ( hopefully ). I like the look of Bolton and Wolves in the Premier League, and think there may be value in following them through the coming months. The remainder of my bets will rely heavily on Soccerway.

Sense Of Achievement

2010-08-26T08:40:00.004+01:00

On the last day of July, I lost £168.29 on Betfair. It’s happened before, it will no doubt happen again ( although hopefully not as clumsily ). But, not for the first time, it put me in a position of holding a two figure Betfair bank. As documented previously, I chose to deposit £1,000 of my hard-earned income. As February was the last time I made a noteworthy profit, this may not have seemed my most sensible option. Particularly as my blog will testify to the frustrating time I have incurred over the intervening months.

Maybe it’s that period of failure that makes today feel better. Who gets the most satisfaction from a victory – Chelsea or Barnet? Following last night's Betfair session, I was able to withdraw £250. This follows a couple of previous withdrawals totalling £750. And I have a Betfair account balance of £1010.56. So all objectives achieved – fully refund my initial deposit, average over £50/day over the days I opened the Betfair screen, and create a decent bank balance to take forward. Tick.

The skill is of course to maintain this level, and not get frustrated when the inevitable losing run comes. But the confidence gained from a month of success, rather than a few days, reduces the likelihood of meltdown. It’s way too early to believe I’ve turned a corner, but hopefully I’ve stopped my slow slide down the hill. I’ve still been frustrated ( I think it’s an unavoidable side effect of gambling ), but my frustrations have been in not taking potential opportunities, rather than placing losing bets, and they are fairly easy to exorcise if you have a nice green P&L to check regularly.

I notice that John O’Dwyer has had a rare bad week on the exchange. I started following John’s blog at the start of the year, when his published P&Ls looked very similar to my own. The subsequent months have seen wildly different progress – John’s profit increasing exponentially as he has shown an ability to profit from a wide range of sports, whilst I’ve struggled to put profitable days together and have lost confidence in most of my previously successful strategies. I was struck by how his worst spell of the year has coincided with my best performance. At least he can console himself with a trip to the US Open. My September highlight will be a trip to the Moseley Folk Festival!

A good point to have a few day’s break from the Betfair screen. I’ll be back after the bank holiday.

End of the Phoney War.

2010-08-24T09:14:00.002+01:00

This is my new donate button. If I maintain August’s success, I’ll soon be posting tips which people will be flocking to follow. This obviously requires a batch of new readers who are uninterested in reading my previous 213 posts of woe and indiscipline, but here’s hoping.

The turnaround is due in the main to the old ‘D’ word*, added to my favourite ‘C’ word*, but I’ll save the regular mental analysis for a month-end post. Having ‘abandoned’ horse racing in a previous post, I’m actually in profit on the month on racing – a lesson in taking on selective opportunities, rather than getting into a groove of daily laying sessions. My tennis betting remains limited, if mildly profitable, with the WTA almost abandoned – not deliberately, I’m just not seeing value opportunities pre-match, and my days of following the women’s game in-play are gone.

I’m following my view from previous years that August is a month for watching football rather than betting ( apart from the Scandinavian stuff ), and getting my fingers burnt with my largest bet of the season so far only confirmed my opinion - a lay of ‘Any Unquoted’ in the correct score market in the Newcastle / Villa game! I scratched at 2-0 and took a hefty all-red at 3-0. Bah. I can’t see there being three 6-0’s each week once we get into the season, although the early games have already thrown Wigan and West Ham to the bottom of the PL, and I fear they may remain there throughout the season.

I’m away this weekend at the Leeds Festival, so for me September will bring a start to taking football seriously. Another couple of batches of games in the remainder of August should hopefully help to ease out the early season anomalies, and there are already plenty of clues for the season ahead. With my mates ‘D’ and ‘C’ in tow, I’ll be joining plenty of others looking to find that illusive edge in the footy markets. Good look to all.

*Discipline, Concentration.

But Seriously.......

2010-08-13T09:30:00.003+01:00

I came across a blog post from the unoriginally named but consistently successful Betfair Trader, from which I take this excerpt, which rings a few bells with me at the moment.

It's one thing winning but holding onto those profits to let them mount to a decent profit is another kettle of fish. I've seen plenty of part time traders’ blogs who have a much better strike and ROI than me but soon get bored at winning small amounts and either start taking unnecessary risks to up the win rate or just get bored because they really don't need the money with a full time job. You'll see a lot of full time gamblers/traders make it work simply because they have to either thru losing a job or wanting to get out of their crappy job it's that single mindedness that will get you a long way in this business.

Like most things in life if you want something badly enough you'll do your best to achieve it, that's not to say you won't be able to make a few quid trading a few hours here and there but it's a damn site harder when all it is to you is a hobby and becomes a very dull one if you manage to make any profit from it. For a lot of people the fun is in the chase and you may find that fun disappears once you get close to cracking it so you'll end up subconsciously sabotaging yourself to get that fun back into it.

I can particularly relate to the last sentence. Just check how many times the word ‘frustration’ appears in my blog over the last six months. Also consider how my profits have disappeared over the same period.

The main relevance to my own trading is that my ‘Festival Summer’ (Glastonbury, IOW etc ) has had the side effect of reducing my work income. Welcome to the world of self employment - don’t work, don’t get paid. So having taken a quick look at my actual and potential income for June/July/August, it struck me that Betfair trading profit was now, if not essential, certainly advantageous. So August started with a £1k deposit, earlier than I suggested here, and a determination to get back into the mindset I had during my ‘full-time’ stint in 2008/9. The last six months have shown me the implications of treating Betfair as a hobby to take lightly. The only way to make profits, however sizeable, is to follow the rules you set yourself consistently, regardless of the result of the previous trade or the previous day’s trades.

Things have gone well so far. I’ve only had one losing day ( of £10 ) in the month, and there has been a definite reduction in my sense of frustration and the related overstaked bets. I’m aiming at making around £50 a day, and I’m probably limiting my potential profits by doing so. But the current aim is steady income over a period of time, not maximising profit. If I can turn a twelve day spell of success into a sixty day spell, I can consider freeing up my staking. For the moment, simply having any spell of success will help my confidence after the roller coaster of frustration and piss-poor decision making that has been my 2010 on Betfair. And ‘single mindedness’ has a big part to play in my success or failure.

Anatomy Of A Loss

2010-07-29T09:39:00.003+01:00

I easily recognised the sentiments of this post from Handy Andy, regarding the post-loss mindset. Whilst everyone feels the temptation to go on-tilt to make a quick recovery, and hopefully learns strategies to overcome it, the analogy to ‘oxygen-deficient’ decision making is a good one. Post-loss, my brain comes up with all types of, er, brilliant strategies for recovery, but after a short while subsides back to normal thinking. The skill is to avoid betting at all until it does. A task that I often fail.

I’m occasionally prone to the obvious huge bet which recovers in full your previous loss ( or whacks a big chunk of your bank ). But more frequently, I can convince myself that I’m not chasing, but am just using a different strategy. In this period of weakness, often the typical stakes rise and the odds increase. So my risk profile is considerably higher than during a period of steady trading. I read a slightly flippant post from Curly a while ago that suggested that ‘Discipline’ was simply a code word for sensible staking. But regardless of staking, taking on bets without research or based on an out-of-date opinion is as dangerous to your bank as overstaking.

On Tuesday, three bets on the morning Japanese football matches gave me a potential £60ish profit. Unfortunately, leaders Kashima went behind to Niigata, and I redded out that trade(a lay of Niigata). Therefore the £60 became £0. My frustration probably came from the subsequent Kashima recovery to lead 2-1 before eventually drawing.

My mindset as I began an evening session seemed ok. But when my first small bet lost it brought up those frustrations from the morning. There was nothing wrong with my next bet, £60 on Taiwan’s Kai-Chen Chang to beat American Christina McHale in Stanford at odds of 1.87. As Chang won the first set, I had a potential £30 profit. This is WTA, and any profit is good profit. I should have greened up, but instead I ‘needed’ the £50 profit to offset my earlier frustrations. McHale won the second set 6-0. I could have still have traded out for a £15ish loss. But I made the decision to let my bet run. Bad decision making. £60 gone. Yet without the influence of the Kashima trade, there’s no doubt I would have snapped up the £30 profit.

Oxygen-deficient trading.

All traders should be aware of a couple of great little tools which can be used to avoid chasing. The first is a small button on the side or front of a laptop or PC, generally marked with a circle crossed through with a vertical line. It’s called the ‘on/off’ button. Secondly, in the kitchen can be found a utensil with a similar ‘on/off’ switch, plus an engaging red light. It’s known as a kettle. Both of these tools can seriously improve your trading during times of stress.

Taking It Easy

2010-07-21T10:45:00.002+01:00

Reduced betting ( and blogging ) of late. It’s been a decent summer weatherwise, and my time is better spent in the sun ( or pub ) than in front of a laptop at a time when my profits have dried up. I don’t recall a particular slowdown in betting activity over the last couple of years, but I don’t recall the summers being great.

The last couple of weeks’ punting activity has resulted in my usual routine – lose, studiously recover, lose concentration, cock up, studiously recover again, end up back at square one. I can look back on the past few days in particular with a fair amount of comfort, despite the lack of forward movement.

Tennis has been tough – however good your trading technique, starting with the wrong selection leaves you on the back foot . My selections, both winners and losers, seem to be consistently losing the first set. So lots of scratching and small all-reds, and the sort of results that have so often put me in a mindset of frustration, and led to horrible losses. Yet if focus can be maintained, it’s surprising how quickly a series of small losses can be recovered. Additionally, I’ve found a couple of Scandinavian league games going against me, and have managed to escape with little damage. I’m convinced that my declining performance is all about concentration and frustration, so it does me little harm to have to deal with results going against me, and coming out of choppy waters without going on tilt can be taken as a positive at the moment.

It’s going to be a while before my tennis bets will be at any more than loose change level, and I think I’m going to keep my stakes low for the rest of the summer on all sports. A by-product of the hot summer is that I’m pretty knackered on most evenings, and even if my mindset is good, I don’t think I’ve got the sharpness to be risking substantial sums. I may redeposit in September once the footy kicks in seriously, although I’d rather try to build up a bank steadily again from my current lowly levels. However, this requires me to make profit, something that’s eluded me for a while.

I noticed this useful trading tip on Slipperytoad’s blog. I’m sure Cassini has posted it before, but it arrived at a moment when I was contemplating my overall aims in front of the Betfair screen, and it all makes good sense.

Slipping into my ‘random thoughts’ mode, I’ve been following the Tour de France coverage on ITV4, and it’s been good stuff. I think the camerawork makes it, plenty of helicopter shots of some amazing ( and scary ) bends along mountain tops. The commentary team are excellent, and the daily highlights show is nicely packaged. I do hope that Schleck can somehow beat Contador come the ride into Paris, although the current 1.22 on Betfair for a Contador win suggest that those in the know feel that the defending champion will prevail. I also enjoyed watching plenty of last weekend’s Open Championship. Mrs B has suggested that these new finds are less to do with my sporting interests, and that I simply like slouching on the sofa watching TV.

Conspiracy Theories

2010-07-09T23:41:00.000+01:00

Following Richard Bloomfield's quarter final victory over Ryan Harrison today, I understand that doubts have been raised by the CIA as to Bloomfield's nationality, based on information supplied during Abu Hamza's recent extradition hearing. It is alleged that Bloomfield may actually be a sleeper Soviet agent by the name of Sergei Federov. Bloomfield had ingeniously embedded himself into the ATP Challenger tour with a cunning plan of losing in first round matches on Mondays, giving him 5 days each week to infiltrate the Tennis establishment before travelling on to the next tournament.

The same source has also suggested that England's pre-World Cup trip to Austria was not actually for altitude acclimatisation purposes, but rather an aborted attempt to swap six players of doubtful nationality or talent - Bent, Huddlestone, Parker, Dawson, Walcott and, er, Mariner - for two dual-nationality Brazilians found playing for CSKA Moscow.

'English Man Wins Tennis Match' Shock

2010-07-07T21:50:00.005+01:00

My earlier post may have suggested that Richard Bloomfield's two career ATP main draw wins may not have been completely due to his own brilliant performances.

So I'm happy to publicise a victory tonight in Newport, Rhode Island, for our new tennis hero over the number two seed, 56-ranked Colombian Santiago Giraldo. In straight sets! 6-3, 7-6. In the quarter final, he now faces the 18 year-old Bollettieri Academy pupil Ryan Harrison, ranked 262, not an impossible task.

So best wishes to Bloomfield - we have to grab these rare opportunities to celebrate. Andy Murray's successes have rather hidden just what a disastrous state British men's tennis is in at the moment.

Lightning Strikes Twice?

2010-07-07T09:58:00.002+01:00

1.28.

It’s quite possible that this sum means nothing to Richard Bloomfield, the 552-ranked British number 12 tennis player. But, for the twenty-seven year-old’s first ATP match of the season, these were his odds as he commenced play yesterday in Newport, Rhode Island. Maybe it was his recent stunning victory in Spain against world number 1468 Adbullah Magdas of Kuwait that swayed the odds? The Betfair forum thought otherwise.

His opponent was the 160-ranked Belgian Christophe Rochus, and the forum backed it’s opinion that the game was dodgy with plenty of cash, lots of it on a 2-0 scoreline to Bloomfield. Bloomfield won 7-6, 6-3. In the Twitter age, it’s likely that info got out that Rochus was in no form or fitness to win a match. But, frankly, it should be an embarrassment to the ATP that a middle ranked player is allowed on court if he’s incapable of beating a player ranked 552. It just leaves the sport wide open to accusations of match fixing.

So it must have been a unique situation for the lowly Bloomfield? Er, no. At Wimbledon in 2006, the markets went into meltdown before his first round match against Carlos Berlocq, the considerably higher-ranked Argentinian. Win and 3-0 set markets had absurdly large sums placed. Bloomfield won 6-1, 6-2, 6-2.

Unfortunately for Bloomfield, it’s hard to make a career on expectations of your opponents throwing in the towel before the game starts. His other ATP wins are best described as ‘infrequent’. On a brighter note, he’s always got the chance of being drawn against Daniel Koellerer or Denis Istomin.

I was interested in the 1.28. In a couple of ‘dodgy’ matches last year, starting odds settled around the 1.20 mark. So 1.2 – 1.3 is obviously the mathematical zone where punters will take on the price, even in the knowledge that the result may well be predetermined. The price is also held up by any counter-belief that the rumours could simply be conspiracies to skew the market. In most of these games, the price tends to remain constant as the match goes in play, regardless of the scoreline, until there is clear evidence that the rumour-mill is wrong, at which point all hell breaks out in the market. I blogged last year on the Kim v Istomin match in Indianapolis. I lost heavily that night, as plenty of others did.

I followed my own advice last night, and stayed well away.

Dumping The Horses

2010-07-04T14:41:00.004+01:00

It’s time for a rethink on my Betfair antics, as my P&L deteriorates on a monthly basis. My June betting was limited, but too many times I was ‘unlucky’. This is betting’s most dangerous word. It tends to hide the fact that you have put yourself in situations where you are left at the mercy of a single kick of the ball, or a couple of points in a tennis match. My World Cup P&L is in the red, simply because of the last kick of a game – Slovakia’s penalty against Holland. But I had plenty of opportunity to reduce my risk, so it’s a mistake, not unlucky. Similarly, my Wimbledon P&L is also in the red, because a player went from match point on serve, with a break in the final set, to lose 9-7. But, delving deeper, I backed a mid-ranking female player to serve out in a pressure situation – big mistake.

So I’ve packed in my horse racing lays.

Er, haven’t I just illustrated football and tennis losses? Yes, but a bit of analysis shows the following :

•My overall profitability has reduced since I started regularly betting on horse racing.
•I’ve made sod all on horse racing, and have struggled to find the expected improvement as I’ve gained experience in the markets.
•I’m much more susceptible to chasing losses with racing – there’s always another ‘opportunity’ available to recover ( or make things worse ).

The major reason for the change is that I’m simply less effective than I was a year ago. I seem to be much more impatient, looking for immediate opportunities, when historically I’ve been able to succeed when letting opportunities arise. It’s noticeable that given the option of trading a couple of football games, I’ll take on the alternative of a batch of evening races. The racing offers more ‘potential’ profit, and the results are immediate. Yet my P&L says that the football is more profitable. I’ve been romanced by a couple of months, where my racing profits have been excellent, into a belief that I can make that profit regularly. But P&Ls don’t lie ( unless you’re a Photoshop expert ), and a return to profits needs a return to the methodology and attitude I had when making them.

The cock-ups illustrated above come from an attitude of frustration and almost panic, needing to make profit at every opportunity. It just doesn’t work for me. And it’s surfaced more in the last six months. So the coming weeks will be about trying to find the mindset I’ve had on the past. As I’ve commented previously, I also need to spend some time researching tennis form. Until recently, I followed all results on a daily basis, and I need that base of knowledge to make tennis profits.

I’ll take this opportunity to start the ‘second half’ of 2010. Let’s put the first half down as ‘disappointing, better expected in the second period’. Although I think England were in the same position last weekend.

Got The Blues

2010-06-29T10:17:00.004+01:00

No, not a football hangover, but the ‘post-Glastonbury Blues’.

The high point of my summer gone, no England world cup triumph to look forward to, and a return to work today, with tired eyes and body yet to fully recover.

On a more positive slant, the festival was excellent, helped by perfect weather. Glastonbury rarely disappoints. There is always something new to see or hear, and the organisers avoid many of those things which can jar at other festivals – long queues, heavy handed security, cross-stage noise. We even managed to travel to and from the festival without any traffic hold-ups.

I watched the England – Slovenia game on the big screens on Wednesday, but decided to miss the Germany game. It was screened in two fields on the far edges of the festival site, and getting a decent position would have probably involved missing most of the afternoon’s music. My view was that if England won, there would be a further game to watch, and if they lost, I’d regret missing the music. Good call.

There are plenty of more informed views than my own, so I’ll keep my comments simple –

i. For England to have won the World Cup we required our best player to be in scorching form. He wasn’t.

ii. The team will kick themselves about that dismal performance against Algeria, particularly as the draw unfolds – a Ghana / Uruguay route to a semi doesn’t look too daunting.

iii. If our players look carefully, they’ll spot plenty of other Premier League-based players who’ve had a poor time in South Africa, and not many who’ve been successful. Are we paying the price for having such a competitive league?

iv. Daftest comment so far. The FIFA spokesperson who suggested that, after the Lampard ‘goal’ and Tevez offside, the authorities may have to look at removing pitch-side screens. Missing the point?

For any music types out there, here’s a list of the bands that I managed to see over the festival weekend.

The Magic Numbers
Lissie
Frank Turner
Mumford & Sons
Carl Barat
Biffy Clyro
The National
Laura Marling
The Lightning Seeds
The Hold Steady
Slash
Teddy Thompson
Ray Davies
Richard Thompson
Ash

It’s only upon writing this list that it’s occurred to me that I currently have a very ‘white’ musical taste. I’ve never thought of myself as a ‘musical racist’, but at a festival showing a huge range of music from around the world, I seem to have a ‘Caucasian bias’. I’m sure the ‘guitar bias’ is more relevant.

I’ll try to have a look at Betfair at some point today. I quite like the look of Paraguay and Kim Clijsters, but the odds may be prohibitive.

I’ll finish with another YouTube clip – a band whose festival performance did nothing to diminish their standing as my favourite current band – The Hold Steady.

Between Festivals

2010-06-18T23:33:00.008+01:00

This World Cup lark, it’s just a re-occurring headache every four years. I’m watching my seventh England finals effort, and most seem to start depressingly. Maybe it seems worse this time because four years ago, almost uniquely, we breezed through the first stage. The final game against Slovenia coincides with the opening day of Glastonbury, so I’ll probably find myself listening to the Five Live commentary on the car radio whilst stuck in a thirty mile traffic jam.

I watched the USA game on the big screen at the Isle of Wight Festival, and the Algeria game on the sofa at home. The experience was worse tonight. Maybe the England performance was inferior, but having the banter of a few thousand fans to listen to is certainly more uplifting than the commentary of Andy Townsend and Clive Tyldesley. Additionally, on Saturday the crowd quickly moved away back to the Festival stages, whilst tonight I was stuck between the pointless ITV post-match analysis, or eviction night on Big Brother. Gloom.

My World Cup winning run came to a grinding halt last night with a trade on France (Draw No Bet), although I recovered a chunk of my loss back today with a lay of Any Unquoted in the Germany/Serbia correct score market. I may try a similar bet on the Holland/Japan game tomorrow.

To lift the mood, I’ve found one of the highlights from last weekend. Pink isn’t the sort of act I’d normally be drawn to, but the programme write-up promised an exciting spectacle, and she didn’t disappoint, climaxing with this display. The 1970 Isle of Wight festival may have been legendary, but I’m sure no-one on that bill matched this for theatrics.

Missed The Boat?

2010-06-17T09:07:00.005+01:00

I made a belated entry into the World Cup markets after a few days away, and so far it's been straightforward and profitable. Six trades, six wins, with my profits restricted only by my tendency to green up too early. I'm left with a feeling that the first round of matches may have been the easy pickings, and that things may be a little less predictable from now on. I feel there may still be profit in my view that people are betting based on reputation ( often four years out of date ), but as the competition progresses, current form will become the dominant factor.

Obviously, 'unders' has been the place to be during the initial batch of games. I think a few fingers may get burnt in the coming days if people believe that this 'easy money' outcome will continue. It should be worthwhile spending some time looking at the possible permutations in each group, there are still a few games where a 'don't lose' strategy will be employed by the coach.

I haven't spotted much of interest today. I've laid 0-0 in the Argentina game, despite the fact I'm working during the match. So a simple strategy - I'll check the score at 70 minutes and take an all-red on iBetMate if it's still 0-0. I've also had a few quid on Taylor Dent and Rick De Voest in the Wimbledon qualifiers.

Best thing about the World Cup so far? That John Motson has been relegated to reporter. Like Rod Stewart and Carlisle United, his best days were in the Seventies. Subsequently, I've become increasingly irritated by his need to find a 'story' in each game which he will constantly reference throughout the match. I'd be perfectly happy for Motty and his sheepskin overcoat to be permanently sent to join Ted Lowe and John Barrett in the home for retired commentators.

Status Update.

2010-06-10T23:04:00.001+01:00

Rob The Builder

Come on England!

St George.........and another R.I.P.

2010-06-07T18:39:00.008+01:00

It’s that time again, seen every couple of years, when the cross of St George appears from bedroom windows and car roofs. Unfortunately, I have a bit of a problem with this. I tend to cringe. I’m sure the residents of most countries around the world can happily express their patriotism with a flag, but our English emblem has been hijacked too often. Driving around over the last few days, I’m simply reminded of a number of council estates, notably Castle Vale in Birmingham, where the flag represents a no-go area for ethnic minorities. I’m reminded of Nick Griffin and his band of racist twats. And I’m reminded of the flag being draped over pissed-up knobs throwing chairs around in various European city centres whilst following our national team. So I’ll be supporting my team just like the rest of us, but there’ll be no emblem in sight. Pity really.

I was quite surprised by how much I was saddened by the death of Stuart Cable earlier today. Maybe the death of a fellow forty-something struck a cord. But mainly, I have good memories of his time in Stereophonics. The band’s image has not fared well in recent times, dulled by a series of pretty average albums, but there was a time, at the end of the last century and the start of the current one, when they were one of the best bands in the world. Off the back of their initial two superb albums, they headlined the Reading festival in 2000 and Glastonbury in 2002. Cable was sacked from the band in 2003 – it may be coincidence that they have never hit those heights since. He also had a spell as a DJ on my local rock station – Kerrang Radio – and had a great radio voice and personality. He will be missed, particularly in Wales. I’ll add a couple of you-tube videos which (IMO) show Stereophonics at the height of their powers.

Talent Spotting

2010-06-05T21:01:00.004+01:00

A lovely summer’s day, particularly when spent in the pleasant surroundings of the Edgbaston Priory Club. I popped over with Mrs B to watch the first round of qualifying for the Aegon Classic, and had a great day out. The weather makes a hell of a difference, and free admission also improves the mood.

We watched some fairly competitive games in the morning and early afternoon, before having a stroll across Edgbaston to Birmingham’s best ( and priciest ) fish and chip shop. On our return, we had a look at a few of the higher-ranked players practising, and arrived back at the courts in time to see Britain’s great hope, Laura Robson, play a tight three-setter against a decent Russian opponent, Nina Bratchikova. Robson lost the first set but came back to win. She hasn’t played much this year ( I presume she’s concentrating on GCSE’s ) but looked fairly solid for a sixteen year-old, with a good first serve to get her out of trouble when necessary. The other top junior, Heather Watson, has a wild card into the main draw so, with the draw as a whole looking stronger than the last couple of years, I’m hoping for another good day when we return on Tuesday.

There was a blatant courtsider in attendance ( East European, mid-size laptop, dongle ) presumably checking out his seating position for Monday. He was, however, also obvious to the WTA supervisor, who had a sharp word in his ear. He'll need to be a little cleverer than he was today.

I obviously like to check out all the players on show and pass on my inside knowledge to my loyal blog readers. From today’s play, the outstanding talent on show was clearly Heidi El Tabakh, the 23 year-old Egyptian-born Canadian. I’ve no idea if she’s any good at tennis………

May - A bit rubbish, really

2010-06-04T09:49:00.002+01:00

Well, performed a little like Theo Walcott in May – lots of promise, a couple of charging runs forward, but a crap final delivery leading to ultimate disappointment.

Despite the entertaining Cassini’s claims, I finished with another red month, despite only having five losing days in the period. I think I’m heading backwards at the moment. I’m more prone to loss-chasing than I ever have been, unsurprisingly leading to my worst results for a couple of years. My losses have been limited only by the restricted sums kept in my Betfair bank. And one simple reason – I don’t follow my own rules and advice. Therefore, June looks a great month for a break – I’m spending a couple of days at the women’s tennis at Edgbaston, and will also be attending the Isle of Wight and Glastonbury festivals. So I’ll limit my June betting to the World Cup and Wimbledon, and use the remaining time to clear my head of recent frustrations, and try to regain the mindset I’ve had in profitable times.

It Was Bound To Happen (1)

I’ve commented regularly about the flaky mentality of the players at the top of women’s tennis. I was pleased to see the returning Belgians, who I hoped might show a little more consistency. The rest are just not trustworthy. On the next (lower) level of players, Stosur, Schiavone, Shvedova and Peer have been much more consistent and mentally tougher, if unlikely to win any major tournament – there would be always be one or two of the big names in form on each occasion. Until this week. The 26 year-old Sam Stosur and 29 year-old Francesca Schiavone are two tough and solid pro’s. They haven’t the talent of a Wozniaki or Dementieva. But I’ve certainly placed more money on them in the past, in the knowledge that at least the towel wouldn’t be thrown in, or the game end in floods of tears.

I’d expect Stosur to win. The only pity is she probably won’t make it to Edgbaston next week if the result goes her way.

It Was Bound To Happen (2)

Returning readers may have spotted my less than favourable comments on Mr Rafael Benitez. I remain surprised at how much support he retained to the end from Liverpool fans. He made a great start with a team mainly put together by Gerard Houllier, and bought Xavi Alonso, Pepe Reina and Fernando Torres. That’s the positives. But there were too many negatives – headscratching tactics, poor purchases ( too many to list, but consider Josemi, N’gog, Voronin ) and a tendency to get involved in spats with opposing managers and the press. He lost his regular number two, Pako Ayesteran, in early 2008 and it’s been downhill ever since. Coincidence?

Liverpool look to be in trouble. Would the top managers suggested for the role ( O’Neill, Hodgson ) work for a club owned by Gillett and Hicks, with little money available to overhaul a poor squad? If Gerrard and Torres were to go, they would be left with a team unlikely to even challenge for a Europa League spot.

Indignant

2010-05-28T10:54:00.004+01:00

I see that the king of the blogging sceptics, Cassini, has suggested that my regular repeated waffles on the subjects of inconsistency, discipline and carelessness may be a front, and that I should be put on a pedestal alongside those heroes, Adam Heathcote and Psycoff, on the ‘winners’ platform. I maintain that my only association with the above named is that I too have the talent for drinking plenty of liquid during betting sessions. He even suggests that my lack of P&L evidence is not recoverable, due to the simplicity of P&L forgery.

As a humble builder, I have neither the software or computing ability to carry out such mischief. Therefore, the occasional P&L’s I produce are simply to illustrate the issues within my post. As you can see from the above, I had yet another frustrating day yesterday, only saved by my great skill in the field of clay court tennis. Cassini and his cohorts, ‘Anonymous 1’ and ‘Anonymous 2’, do a great disservice to our completely honest blogging community.

My status as a winner can only be confirmed from my stellar performance in Stephen Maher’s just completed ‘Gamblers Anonymous’ fantasy football league, finishing second in a fifteen player league. To be fair, I had the tandem talents of Stephen Gerrard and Fernando Torres in my team for most of the year, and it would be extremely difficult to create a poor team with those two giants in it. Umm.

No betting today, as I’m in Birmingham this evening to see Natalie Merchant at the Symphony Hall. In celebration, here’s a bit of classic archive from the days when Jonathan Ross was an up-and-coming talent at the BBC.

Dusting Off Cobwebs

2010-05-26T09:09:00.003+01:00

My last post seems but a distant memory. It’s been a while. I can only blame work, although the warm weather may also be relevant. Any blog-obsessed nutters out there would have noted that most of my posts are made around midnight. That’s been well after my bedtime for the last couple of weeks.

The time I have spent on the laptop has been fairly normal. My recurring themes go on – start the month with aimless bets and carelessness, make things worse with frustrated chasing, have a head-clearing break, come back with a disciplined and structured recovery mission. End month back at square one. I’m currently in the red for May, but a couple more decent days should put me back where I started from.

I’ve dabbled a little with the French Open with no success. My previous tennis profits were founded upon a base of knowledge gained from closely following tournaments throughout the year. Without that, it feels like stepping out into heavy traffic. Worse still, I still have opinions on players that are probably nine months out of date. I’ve been limited to placing bets for each day’s play on the evening beforehand, and then monitoring with my I-phone, with iBetmate used to close out bets. It’s a little cumbersome, but I’m aware of the limitations when I place the bets. More limiting is my lack of confidence. I’ve scratched a number of winning selections during play (Rochus, Beck, Zeballos) and haven’t improved my mood by taking all-greens on the winners (Melzer, Giraldo, Lacko), whilst leaving open first set winners who went on to lose (Querrey, Kvitova). Bah.

Maybe this is the main issue I have to resolve – is this a hobby to make money from, or an interest in punting that I hope to keep self-funding? The stats say that my tennis bets have simply reduced my monthly P&L by £100, and I’d be better off leaving the sport alone. Yet it’s my number one sport to follow, and I enjoy the challenge of finding winners. Certainly the market has moved against my style of tennis betting in the last couple of years. A favourite who I’d have backed at 1.15 three years ago is generally priced around 1.09 now, and I’ve moved to looking at higher risk opportunities above 1.4. Logically, I should be laying at 1.09, but it’s a big shift in mindset. Ever the optimist, I’ll compromise by writing off the clay court season, and try to put some time into researching form for the grass court and American hard court seasons ahead.

In the meantime I'll console myself that I've developed a fairly unique betting blog. Many blogs come and go when the task of winning is found to be harder than planned. Other blogs are written by the habitually successful. I've developed a fairly longstanding blog, yet have made bugger all for many months! The stubbornness of the Yorkshireman I suppose.

The 2010 'RTB' Awards

2010-05-17T09:58:00.016+01:00

Following the huge success (umm) of my 2009 end of season thoughts, it's rapidly come around again to that time to choose my 2010 players of the domestic season. Same rules apply - those who've impacted on my impression of the season, and those who've exceeded expectations.

Wayne Rooney

Simply the outstanding player of the season ( domestic, not world, there was some lightweight Argentinian who also had a decent time ). I've little more to add to the plaudits already passed out, but still a worthy if unimaginative inclusion. Ronaldo was history, and 'Our Wayne' filled the void. Here's hoping he has something left in the tank for June.

Bobby Zamora

The season's most improved player. Around January, I started to think that I was seeing something that everyone else had missed, but by the season's end Fulham's journey to the Europa Cup final ensured that everyone who follows football could see the impact Zamora has had. Unfortunately, he had a sad end to the season with an achilles injury which stopped him performing effectively in Hamburg, and scuppered a probable training squad call-up from Fabio Capello. A talented goalscorer in his Brighton days, he never managed to put his whole game together regularly at West Ham or Tottenham, but it came together spectacularly this term. A target man with a superb first touch, a strong teamwork ethic and calmness in front of goal. What are you waiting for, Mr Wenger?

Graham Dorrans

Last year, I noted how Burnley's Chris Eagles had stood head and shoulders above his Championship opponents whenever I had seen him. I expected him to make a fair impact in the Premier League. He didn't. This year's 'head & shoulders' award goes to Dorrans, an attacking midfielder whose 13 goals pushed West Brom towards automatic promotion back to the Premier League. An unsung £250k purchase from Livingston, Dorrans ended his second season in England as a Scottish international, for whom West Ham ( if not their then manager, Zola ) were prepared to offer £4 million. I'll suggest that you keep an eye on Dorrans, although I'll not go as far as tipping success.

Andy Carroll

Maybe it's my age, but I occasionally reminisce about a time when footballers were real people, rather than astronomically paid automatons whose whole existence is controlled by dieticians, fitness coaches, media trainers, agents and business managers. Step forward, Andy Carroll, local hero. Old fashioned nightclub punch-ups - Carroll's your man. Teammates stepping out of line in training? Give 'em a whack! And despite his tendency to aim for the front rather than back page of the local rag, Carroll managed to score nineteen goals for his hometown club in Newcastle's promotion charge to the Premier League. Playing for a team where the number nine shirt will always be associated with Shearer, Milburn and MacDonald, Carroll's style is probably closer to another Newcastle front man, Duncan Ferguson. At 21, Carroll is a potential big improver - his style of player is often more effective at 30 than 20. He will have to make another big leap next season to be a success at the top level.

Frank Lampard

It was Chelsea's season. But it wasn't always straightforward. The major teams rely upon a solid core of top class players around which play revolves. As Liverpool found, when that core isn't in place, everything goes awry. Yet Chelsea found their previously indestructible skipper having a shocker of a season, and their goalkeeper regularly looked like his form and confidence had deserted him. Keeping it all together was Lampard. He scored twenty seven goals, including twenty two in the league, from midfield, performing consistently whilst the remaining midfield positions were chopped and changed due to injuries. I've always been on the red side of the 'Lampard/Gerrard' debate, but it was Frank's season.

Joe Hart

Chelsea won the title scoring 103 goals. Hull City and Portsmouth were relegated after scoring 34 each. Doesn't sound illogical. Yet Birmingham City scored 38 goals and finished in 9th place. They did this with a tight and well-drilled team, two excellent central defenders and the finest loan signing of the season, Joe Hart.

Hart was consistently outstanding, and leaves Manchester City with a difficult decision for 2010/11. Sam Allardyce had a big moan about the omission for Paul Robinson from the World Cup squad, but in my view Hart and James are the country's outstanding keepers, and Robert Green is Capello's current number one and has yet to let his country down. So who does Sam think Robinson should have replaced?

And the bozo award goes to :

Clarke Carlisle.

I noted Clarke's appearance on Channel 4's 'Countdown' here. Sadly, from that moment Burnley's season fell apart, as did Clarke's form for a short spell, including conceding two penalties in one game. He was dropped by Burnley manager Brian Laws shortly afterwards. In addition, his intellectual antics didn't go down too well with the Burnley fans when he had a dig at them on his personal blog after crowd trouble at the game versus Blackburn. Advice - stick to playing football, and stay quiet.

Dodgy

2010-05-16T09:14:00.008+01:00

Missed opportunity, or best avoided? I've never had much success with the Italian second division, but every year the end-of-season games throw up odds which suggest results are determined beforehand. So how should you react? Pile in with the crowd or lay the low odds in the hope that there is a rumour-led odds shift? In my case, keep away. But I'm still left with the feeling there was free money on offer.

Isn't it time for UEFA to start handing out a few big points deductions for this sort of thing? It seems to be accepted - 'Oh, it's the Italian way'. I've commented before on similar oddities in the Greek second division.

It's just not cricket.

Ups and Downs

2010-05-10T10:38:00.002+01:00

So Leeds scraped into second place in League One, contrary to my prediction. It wasn’t an additional Leeds success that made the difference, but Millwall’s defeat at Tranmere in the penultimate round of games. So despite a loss at Charlton, Leeds were left with their fate in their own hands on Saturday. They still nearly blew it. I watched Sky Sports ‘Soccer Saturday’ throughout a tense afternoon, with no internet diversions to relieve my worries ( see below ). Jeff Stelling gave a great example of the footy fan’s Saturday life, going through the tortures of Hartlepool’s last-day battle for survival, as their fate was left in the hands of others ( Exeter and Gillingham ). Meanwhile, Leeds managed to concede a goal and have Max Gradel sent off before Jonny Howson and then the fan’s regular pantomime hero / villain, Jermaine Beckford, managed to bring home the necessary victory. Things went ok in the end for Jeff and for me, so a happy ending.

I will admit to never attending a League One game. The second relegation suffered by a team I had only recently watched in a European Cup semi-final was a step too far for me. I’ve preferred the occasional less stressful visit to Conference games at Burton. I didn’t attend one game this season, probably only the second time that has happened since my first visit to Elland Road in 1974. But I should be able to find a few Championship games worth a visit next season.

Down at the Pirelli stadium, Burton saw its first ever major incident of crowd trouble. I regularly struggle to understand the mentality of fans. Grimsby came into the final game of the season with their league survival dependent on others. Their travelling support must have known that they were probably about to be relegated. Their actions were indefensible. I hope they ( and Luton ) start next year’s Conference season on -20 points. I’m fed up with huge points deductions for financial failings and a slap on the wrist for crowd violence.

I pay a monthly sum way in excess of the market rate for internet access to AOL. I do this because, whilst hearing plenty of horror stories about others’ problems, my own line has been trouble free for many years. Last week, my speed dropped drastically, and I was forced to contact AOL to resolve the problem. This developed into a four hour three-way conversation between Lichfield ( me ), somewhere in India ( AOL ), and somewhere else in India ( Belkin ). Result – I’ve totally lost connection, and AOL and Belkin both assure me that the problem is the other’s. The whole experience was one of the most depressing I’ve encountered – I’m not tolerant of any situation where I feel helpless. I’ve today spent £80 on a new modem to resolve the issue. I shouldn’t have to, but if it works I will have avoided the stress of more helpline hell.

Worried?

2010-05-06T18:33:00.001+01:00

Is the financial world pressing on your shoulders? Has the turmoil of the last two and a half years left you worried about the future? Does every viewing of Newsnight leave you fearful that everything may cave in around you?

Give a quick thought to Angelos Basinas. He’s just spent the last fifteen months playing at Portsmouth. Tempted by Tony Adams to give the Premier League a try, within hours of signing Adams had been dismissed. Within a couple of months the team’s owner, Alexandre Geydemak, had sold up to the first of three subsequent owners. You know the rest.

At least it will soon be all over for Angelos for another season. He can go home for a relaxing summer break. To Greece.

I can’t confirm reports that Basinas has sheltered his irregular Portsmouth salary payments from potential financial meltdown at home, by holding an account with the Kaupthing Bank in Iceland.

April - Quiet

2010-05-03T19:23:00.004+01:00

Back home from London, in need of a quiet evening. The weekend didn’t quite go to plan. With crap weather forecast, the thought of two whole days tramping around Camden venues in the rain didn’t appeal to Mrs B, so I came up with an alternative itinerary involving Sunday at Camden Market and around Brick Lane, and Saturday evening at the Half Moon in Putney to see the ‘semi-legendary’ John Otway, self-styled ‘Rock n’ Roll’s Greatest Failure’. A good show in front of a packed house of Otway fans, with highlight’s including the 57 year old Otway stage-diving off a step ladder.

So a delayed April review, and a short one, on the basis there’s not much new to say. I finished at (£16) for the month, having been in profit around £250 at one point. I succeeded in spending less time on Betfair, with a reduction in the feelings of frustration that have plagued my year. But obviously a red month meant a failure in my aim to increase my betting bank. I think I needed a break from the intensity and pressure that had built up through a difficult couple of months, and I’m left with a fairly positive state of mind at the end of the month, so some success, if not in monetary terms.

I only had four losing days in the month ( three being substantial ), two involved chasing with stakes way too high, and the other a worthy punt that didn’t come off. I ended in profit on all sports apart from horse racing. I’m going to stick with racing for a little while longer, as the losses were chases rather than fair bets. But racing remains the sport most likely to cause me to chase, simply because there’s always an opportunity to recover almost immediately after the loss. I finished last month’s review with a point about mental strength, and I suppose that’s the overriding issue above all my other tweaks and adjustments. I can grumble about a small bank, but there’s a straightforward answer. And frustration is part of betting, not an excuse for blowing away my profits. Patience and discipline remain my foe. I’ve read a few blog posts about the journey through betting, which ultimately leads to success. They suggest that you can tick off each stage of the process, and move forward to the next. My own progress has been a lumpier journey, but maybe I’m just more determined and more optimistic than those that fail once they can no longer move forward a level.

There is an alternative answer – I’m destined never to make consistent profit. So maybe it’s no bad thing that I keep a small bank.

I’d like to finish on a positive note, but my first short session of the month on Betfair ended in a loss. An avoidable one - I’m too tired to bet today, so I’ve closed Betfair and will hopefully return tomorrow with a good mindset. At least I offer an alternative to those bloggers piling in the cash at the moment.

More Random Thoughts

2010-04-30T00:55:00.004+01:00

Chalk and Cheese

What an enjoyable experience viewing the Fulham / Hamburg game turned out to be. There’ll be plenty of plaudits heading Roy Hodgson’s way, all deserved. I was particularly struck by the huge gulf between how the game was played, by both teams, in comparison to the previous night’s Inter / Barca game. No ‘hands to face’ cheating, no theatrics, just twenty two players playing football to win. Even a bunch of Germans ( Sir Alex must have been pleased ). Superb. I’m not sure where the ref found three minutes to add on at the end, it seems to be the default digit given to avoid getting a roasting from either manager after the match.

Acting

Mourinho polarises opinion. I’ve generally been in the ‘pro’ camp, but also appreciate Barca’s flair, so began the match with an open mind. Yet I spent 70 minutes willing Inter home to victory. I applauded the time wasting, I cheered each clearance from Lucia and Samuel. Why? I dislike the gamesmanship, I enjoy seeing attacking football, so shouldn’t I have been supporting the Catalans? Simply, I detest one particular element of the European game – feigning injury. Sergio Busquets took a soft palm against the underside of his jaw. His reaction caused a red card. He wasn’t shot between the eyes with a starting pistol, yet his actions suggested he had been. It’s sad that the higher up the hierarchy of European football you delve, the worse the play-acting becomes. If any team, whether it be Barca, Inter, Real Madrid or United, wish to be seen as the iconic team of world football, wouldn’t it be great if their standards of behaviour were as high as their levels of talent? Maybe it’s just the first sign I’m getting old – harking back to times past.

Red and Average

I’ve had a few digs at Liverpool before, so I’ve little to add following tonight’s game. A two-man team with only 0.5 playing is always unlikely to succeed. I only wish the two Europa league semi-finals had been played consecutively, to allow the viewer fair comparison between the two English teams. I’m guessing that Fulham would have won on the counts of team spirit, organisation, heart and determination to win. A new broom at Anfield come summer time, me thinks.

Manipulation

Gambling’s a dangerous pastime sometimes. It doesn’t surprise me that it wrecks lives. I’m pretty level-headed, relaxed and averagely educated. I’ve been betting for a number of years. Yet the stress of losing still occasionally plays with my head. However much I strain to avoid chasing a loss, it’s often not until the next day that my ‘unlucky’ bets can be seen as flawed by a calm head, even if I had convinced myself at the time that I wasn’t chasing. A great example yesterday, as I blew away my horse racing profit for the month in one supposedly ‘researched’ lay. I ended up placing a 16.0 lay ( Sweet Clementine ), right at the top of my price range. The error? Yes the odds were too risky, but I’ll live with that. My major indiscretion was to abandon a simple rule I’ve had for months. That’s the manipulation that goes on in your head – ‘oh, I can ignore that rule just this one time’. Then, whack, kick in the nuts. A week of disciplined progress in tatters.

The rule? Don’t lay Jim Crowley at Kempton.

Bigotry

I’ve avoided spending more than token time following the election coverage, I’m way past the age where I can be swayed by soundbites. But one thought occurred to me that’s not been mentioned regarding Mr Brown’s celebrated faux pas yesterday. Senior politicians spend so much time in London, I think that all the party leaders are a million miles away in ideology from people living in towns like Burnley and Rochdale ( sorry Mully ). As someone living close to an urban metropolis in Birmingham, I would suggest that anyone local to me having a dig at Eastern Europeans probably is a bigot. Without their influx, our local economy would grind to a halt. London’s no doubt the same. But Mr Brown clearly has no idea of what living in many northern towns is like. When skilled manufacturing jobs have been bulldozed over many years, then there is a real fear from ordinary people that immigrants will take away job opportunities from local people. It’s not bigotry, but genuine concern.

Oh, before anyone takes my comment the wrong way, I’ll admit to being pro-european, and idealogically well to the left of any of our major parties. A festival hippy, I suppose.

Which brings me to music. It’s the Camden Crawl this weekend, so I’ll be heading south tomorrow evening for two nights. Hopefully, I’ll sneak a spare hour on Betfair at some point tomorrow to ensure that I end the month in profit – it’s tight at the moment.

Enjoy your extended weekend.

Free Gift

2010-04-25T17:29:00.002+01:00

As I've noted many times before, it's tough to make a profit at this game. So it's nice when you're offered a free gift.

A minute before post time in the 5.20 at Bath, the Racing Post 'live reporter' box offered up this comment from trainer Ron Hodges on his Kyllachy Storm, favourite for the race at 5/1.

Only a small lay for me ( I'm in 'discipline mode' ), but an easy improvement to the day's P&L.

So thank you to Mr Hodges.

Down To The Wire

2010-04-25T11:09:00.012+01:00

Two games to go in League 1, and Leeds remain in second place, on the verge of automatic promotion back to the Championship. Two wins required, and with a decent home record I’d expect a final day win at Elland Road against Bristol Rovers, who are nicely unpressured in mid-table. However, next Saturday involves a visit to fellow promotion-seekers Charlton, and with a mixed away record I fear that the second win may be beyond Leeds.

Four teams can still realistically take second place ( Huddersfield would require a bizarre set of results ) – Leeds, Millwall, Swindon and Charlton. In addition to the Charlton/Leeds clash, there remains a final day contest between Millwall and Swindon to keep things interesting. It may be the result of that game that will eventually determine Leeds’ fate.

I've had a little dabble at guessing the remaining results, and resulting placings. This gives me Millwall taking second place by a mere 1 goal difference, and Leeds heading for the play-offs. Maybe it’s just a supporter’s pessimism, but I’d then be backing the form team ( Huddersfield ) to come through the play offs, having won five of their last six games. But May really is silly reason, so don’t discount anything. And keep your bets small.

Spot The Difference

2010-04-22T22:27:00.005+01:00

Jose Antonio Reyes

Kelly Jones

David Ngog

Mule

Greville Starkey

2010-04-19T11:21:00.004+01:00

An item I missed in the sports press, but spotted due to my subscription to the Lichfield Blog, was the recent death of Greville Starkey at the age of 70. Starkey was Lichfield-born, one of the top flat racing jockeys of his time and, as the Telegraph obituary notes here, one of those sportsmen who will be remembered as much for one high-profile failure as a lifetime of success. I’m sure there are a few examples – Terry Fenwick springs to mind ( for his dismal attempt to stop Diego Maradona in the ’86 World Cup quarter-final ).

I had a short-lived interest in racing in the seventies, brought about by visits with my grandparents to meetings at York, Ripon and Thirsk, and remember the Starkey / Guy Harwood partnership as a main player in racing in a time of Eddery, Piggott, Carson, Hern, O’Brien etc.

To win 1,989 races and be remembered for one that didn’t is a sad memorial.

Handcuffed

2010-04-18T23:42:00.005+01:00

Just back from watching Robyn Hitchcock at the Birmingham Academy. He’s been around for years, but he still has an enthusiasm for the job and, as usual, an entertaining night was had by all. I can never go straight to bed after driving, so I thought I’d post an update of my less-than-exhilarating recent Betfair performances.

I started internet betting simply because of the challenge of picking winners and beating the bookies. I only became serious about winning money when I was put in a position where I needed an income. And I’ve always found it tough. Yes, I make profits more often than losses, but it’s rarely easy. The last week has been a slog, but necessarily so. Having had a poor March, I needed to build up my bank with minimum risk. And that has meant bypassing loads of potential opportunities, and placing small sums on the supposedly ‘safe’ wagers I’ve taken on to win £2’s, £3’s and £5’s. It really is like betting in handcuffs. It’s dull as hell, and needs plenty of discipline. It’s hard to maintain any great enthusiasm with these sort of amounts, but as I’m not prepared to deposit cash into Betfair, it’s the way forward for me for the coming weeks. But I’ve regularly had to check myself from sticking the lot on a punt just to relieve the frustration. I’m currently a huge £212 up on the month, but as that’s nearly doubled my bank balance I suppose I should see it as a success, even if it doesn’t feel like one! It wasn’t that long ago that I would think nothing of placing a 4 figure liability, but my betting has to be self funding, so if I’m to get back to that level I’ll have to earn the profit.

On a positive note, there have been enough weird football results in the last couple of weeks to make me think that my limited bets may have saved me from a major blow out. I lost £16 laying Tottenham against Chelsea, but apart from that have remained unscathed. I noted from today’s forum that £132 was matched at odds of 500.00 and over on a Wigan win. Ouch.

Finally, the Leeds United steamroller which ran out of gas in mid March is now limping towards the finish line in Division 1. Pressure continues to be such an important factor in sport. Both Swindon and Millwall were unstoppable during their rise to overtake Leeds in the table, but having reached the summit, both have now found winning much more difficult. So with three games remaining, Leeds simply have to win each match to gain automatic promotion. Simply? I doubt it. This will go down to the final game. Pity I’ve no nails left to bite.

Tired?

2010-04-11T22:56:00.003+01:00

Oh, to be able to have relaxing days at home, with just a laptop and the IPL for company as you use your skills to make a couple of hundred quid each day from Betfair.

Ok, as I’ve previously pointed out, it’s not quite that simple in practise ( I’ve tried it ). But generally, when your main income generator is trading on Betfair, during the time you spend in front of the screen, you’re in a decent mental and physical state to take on the market, so have every opportunity.

Those in this fortunate situation should spare a thought for the majority, whose attempts to profit are often made after long days working. A well-tuned brain can overcome adversity, keep wins and losses in perspective, and maintain concentration and objectives. When tiredness is added to the mix, the lessened mental ability brings to the fore those enemies of profit – frustration, momentary lapses in concentration, despondency, overconfidence. I’ve noticed that when work has been more intense, my ability to make profit declines. In response to my dismal results in March, I’ve tried to spend a little less time on Betfair, and have shorter spells in front of the screen. I’m hardly pulling up trees in April, but my time has felt more like a hobby than a chore. So that’s a result. And my eyes look better for it.

Two successive weekends away have put an enforced reduction on my Betfair time ( and my blogging time ). I certainly now feel refreshed and ready for my next task – to rebuild a bank without getting frustrated. Any regular readers will have spotted that once I get down below a couple of hundred quid, I tend to lose interest and often throw away money. But I also detest depositing money into my Betfair account – betting is low down my priorities of how to spend my hard earned cash. So I’m hoping to spend the remainder of April just nudging forward towards creating a bank within my comfort zone.

My main excuse for a lack of blogs is slightly odd – for some reason I generally bet whilst stood up, yet write blog posts slumped on the sofa. No, I haven’t a clue why, just habit. And with a sciatic nerve playing up a little when I sit for any length of time, I’ve had no wish to write. So a secondary task for April – train myself to blog whilst stood up!

March - Magic

2010-04-01T18:54:00.005+01:00

Magic, as in ‘how to make money disappear without a trace’.

Probably my worst month since starting the blog. There are many similaries with my feelings at the end of January, and much of that post (here) still applies. Unfortunately, whilst January was a small green month, March was a whacking red, wiping out February’s profit to leave me with a small deficit for the year. Three months to make nowt!

I think my mindset is currently best compared to climbing a steep hill. You spend your early attempts at the bottom of the hill, climbing a little and rolling back to your starting point. With more experience, you climb further up the hill, but still roll back a little, meaning that progress is slow. As time goes on, you reach higher up the hill, and get acclimatised to the thinner air near the peak. But the section approaching the peak is tough, and having climbed most of the hill, it’s frustrating when you can’t quite reach the top. So you take risks, and end up rolling all the way down to the bottom.

I generally review my performance by sport, but this month tells me little about my strategies or strengths. My only profitable sports were basketball ( 1 bet ) and tennis ( where I was extremely cautious ). My losses were on football and racing. The racing losses were mainly incurred on one Saturday when I lost the plot and went chasing, with horrible results. I really should be past this stage, I’ve learnt that chasing doesn’t work, but just occasionally a grumpy mood coincides with early losses, and then it’s meltdown. It’s what I now call a ‘DLF Maximum Fuck Up’. My saving grace is that I only maintain a bank of a few hundred quid nowadays, so I avoid financial carnage, if not mental carnage. Football was disappointing, just too many strange results, and I became tentative as the month went on, leading to too many all-reds being taken ( what I now call a ‘Citi Moment Of Panic’ ). I took Rangers’ recent 4-1 thumping at St Johnstone as my sign that ‘silly season’ is now with us, so forget the form book and just look for what each team has to play for.

My only progress came in the last few days of March, when I took a day’s break before making my second cash deposit of the month. I came back with low expectations, kept my bets small and tried to avoid setting any sort of profit target, just playing the opportunities as they arise. I made £119 back over the last four days of the month, without spending hours in front of a screen. I’ve tended to think of a £30 day as a failure, and have been aiming at bigger wins. Yet I’d be ecstatic if I made £900 in a month at the moment. I need to bridge this inconsistency during April.

I’ll attempt to spend a little less time in front of the laptop in April, particularly if the temperature improves. I need to get back to enjoying betting, it’s my hobby. Scratching around for positives, I can say that the month has only confirmed everything I’ve learnt over the last few years. However, inability to follow your own rules is a quick way to the poor house. All March has proved is that success or failure is all in the mind, and I’ve got to be mentally tougher.

On a positive note to end, my fantasy football team is doing ok, off the back of some cracking points scored by my two star players. Wayne Rooney and Cesc Fabregas……..

Grumpy

2010-03-23T19:30:00.003Z

I kept away from Betfair yesterday as I felt a little under the weather. Fortunately the expected cold symptoms have not appeared today, so my emergency diet of fruit and hot tea seems to have done the job. It seems obvious to avoid the laptop if you’re unwell. But we’ve all done it, you’re in the house, there’s little to do, so why not try a make a few quid? In the past, I've had to learn that lesson the hard way.

I watched the Mumbai / Kolkata game yesterday afternoon, tucked up on the sofa with a duvet. I had watched a previous Kolkata game, and ( like Ronnie Irani in the ITV studio ) had been unimpressed with Sourav Ganguly’s performance with the bat – too slow, lacking in awareness of the match situation. He was no better yesterday. An under a run-per-ball innings, on what turned out to be a decent pitch. He must be the only player in the IPL who’s looking to improve his batting average.

I once had a celebrity encounter with Ganguly – in a Pizza Hut at Fosse Park, Leicester. I think the Indian squad were based in the area for the 1999 World Cup. I remember his disdainful smirk as he avoided any eye contact with the locals, many of whom were from the local Indian community and clamoured for his autograph. Nothing doing. That same smirk was constantly on his face throughout yesterday’s game. He seems to be more interested in Sourav Ganguly than in the Kolkata Knight Riders.

I’m now further in the red than I was at my last post. I had a couple of successful hours on Friday evening. Easy money. I went out on Sunday, but managed to sneak a couple of hours on my return, making over £100. I spent another couple of hours on Monday evening. More easy money. But Saturday…… ( silent groan ).

I am hopeless nowadays during long sessions. Whilst I know that you’re going to lose a few bets if you spend a long period betting, I just seem to get grumpy and my technique and tactics deteriorate. I then move into a semi-zombie state, watching my bank disappear down the plughole with what at the time seem like a series of unlucky bets. It’s only when you step away and come back the next day that you realise how crap many of the bets were. I must learn to break up these long weekend sessions, they just don’t work for me. Fortunately, spring is with us and I’m considerably more likely to get out of the house at the weekend in the spring and summer. I’ll be glad to see the back of March.

Still In The Red

2010-03-19T00:05:00.001Z

A quick thought. Who would you rather have managing your team. Roy Hodgson or Rafa Benitez? Thought so.

Haven’t posted for a while. As Cassini pointed out recently, it’s no fun writing about a losing pastime. And since my last post, I’ve done more losing than winning. So March is turning into a crap month. I’ve only really been involved in racing and football betting, and both sports are showing a loss. The racing deficit is not yet a concern. I have commented on my failing to stick with a strategy for any length of time, and following last month’s successes I’m happy to keep moving forward in the hope that the short-term loss is a correction that will, in the medium term, still result in a profitable outcome.

I seem to be heading down a cul-de-sac with my football selections at the moment, probably due to the sort of loss of confidence which condemned my tennis betting to a spell in the wilderness recently. In the same way that I got into a routine of taking all-reds too early when tennis games started to go against me, I seem to be in the habit of going all-red in games where my selection is eventually successful. I did it again tonight with a lay of Werder Bremen. So I think my weekend will be better spent reviewing where my profits and losses have been made on football over the last year, rather than piling into more losing bets.

My limited bank is also an obstacle at the moment. I try to be cautious by cashing out profits on a monthly basis, but it leaves me open to a losing spell coinciding with a withdrawal. It happened over the weekend, meaning the dreaded ‘deposit’ button had to be pressed. I was fortunate that a bad start to Sunday was halted by a prior engagement ( Fun Lovin’ Criminals at the Leamington Spa Assembly ), before I managed to blow all of the newly deposited funds in frustration. I’ve now accepted that March is going to be a losing month, as I’d rather make a few steady steps forward for the rest of the month than increase my level of risk just to reach an arbitrary figure.

I’ve been following Cheltenham with interest ( for the first time! ) but it’s of little use for my laying methods. Most races seem to have live potential winners out at 25’s and 33’s. I’ve laid a couple, came a cropper with Weapon’s Amnesty in the RSA, but also had a fiver on Big Zeb in the following race. Overall, my Cheltenham P&L currently sits at +£54, so no complaints.

Finally, RIP Alex Chilton. Influencial in the States, unknown over here, I only know him for one song, but it’s a hell of a tune, from the 1974 album ‘Radio City’. May I introduce you to Big Star’s ‘September Gurls’.

Dabbling

2010-03-09T00:23:00.005Z

dabble – to take a casual or superficial interest.

I should have stuck to my word and avoided Betfair yesterday. Instead, I dabbled. And for about an an hour this afternoon, I dabbled. The result – after the first week of March my monthly P&L sits at ( £101 ).

The actual bets are not that significant, a couple of European football games going against me, and one of those ‘three in a row’ racing lay disasters. But the mindset behind them is. I just wanted to make a few pounds easily, without putting in the effort to analyse and research. Which leaves you wide open to the unexpected result or, more accurately, the superficially unexpected result. I laid Polish side Odra ( bottom of the table ) away at Legia Warsaw ( third place, unbeaten at home ), at odds of 16.5! Not odds I would regularly be involved with, but I was just looking for easy money. So no consideration of a two month winter break, no consideration of Odra’s relegation situation, no consideration of the likely odds in the event of the away team scoring first. A crap bet basically.

Again, at first glance, my main racing lay loss ticked all the boxes in terms of my decision to lay. But my stake was too high ( following a previous loss ) and, more irritatingly, there was another horse in the race which fitted my lay requirements, and was at lower odds. But I was looking for a quick fix, so didn’t bother to delve deep enough.

I have no problem with losing money if I have analysed properly. This is sports betting – the unexpected happens. But throwing away hard earned money, and learning nothing in the process, is pointless.

Most Betfair traders and gamblers want to make a profit. For many, it’s a hobby that may make a few pounds each week. For others, there is a wish to obtain a regular additional income. Many bloggers have indicated an aim to trade on a full-time basis if they can remain successful. And of course, there are a few who rely fully on their Betfair income to live. Whatever your motive for betting, it seems a straightforward objective to maximise your profit to a point limited only by betting bank and time. A tip to help you do this - spend a minute before you connect to Betfair. Decide what you intend to achieve, and what rules you wish to apply to your betting. If you come away from a session having made no profit, but have learnt something, it’s been worth it. I’ve learnt nothing new in the last two days, and lost money.

I have a bit of a problem with ‘challenges’. I see many appear amongst the betting logs, but I think they’re generally misguided. What’s the point? Most deviate away from the objective noted above – to maximise profit. Why tie one hand behind your back? Whilst I accept that using a limited bank of say £100 can be useful during a learning stage, it’s only realistic if the same rules are applied regardless of bank size. Many challenges make huge initial returns on small banks, but they’re unsustainable. If you’re betting in an artificial environment, you are missing out on opportunities to learn. This game’s tough, so unless you’ve got hundreds of thousands in the bank and play on Betfair purely for fun, forget challenges and concentrate on improving your performance.

Why I Hate Mike Ashley

2010-03-07T10:57:00.005Z

I have nothing against Newcastle United, the team owned by Ashley. I admire the fan’s dedication to their club through the regular ups and downs, and always looked forward to Leeds/Newcastle games – my first ever visit to a football match was a game against Newcastle at Elland Road in March 1974.

My ire comes from a rare visit to a ‘Sports Direct’ store. The chain is also owned by Ashley, and on a previous visit to a store I came away with an impression of a disorganised place selling third-rate rubbish. However, requiring a cheap top for work use, I made the unfortunate decision to visit their Birmingham store yesterday. It must be the worst shopping experience available. The place is a disaster. Most of the stock is on the floor, the remainder is just thrown on racks, with no sense of showing off goods at their best. ‘70% off’ labels adorn everything in the store – I doubt anything has ever been sold at full price. There are various cardboard boxes and step ladders left on the shop floor. Payment is made at a back of store counter, where clueless shop assistants couldn’t even work out who was at the front of the queue ( which was informally put together by customers as there is no obvious queue position ). It’s a craphole.

The customer is given a variety of brands to choose from ( Dunlop, Slazenger, Donnay, Lonsdale ) which are all owned by Sports Direct, and all appear to have similar design quality ( bugger all ). Yes, there are a batch of leftovers from Nike, Adidas and Reebok, but it’s basically set up for mug customers who continue to buy crap in the belief they’re getting good value. Avoid.

I did my regular Saturday football punt yesterday, as I was out all afternoon and early evening. I picked out ten matches, generally staking to win around a fiver. I managed to scratch one bet on my I-phone, leaving me with seven winners and two losers. The result – a red £1.68. It’s amazing how many times I arrive back near zero.

The main culprits were Austria Vienna, previously unbeaten at home, but turned over by LASK Linz ( no previous away wins! ). I was struck during analysis of the Europe-wide results that we are heading into the latter part of the season, where previous form is less important than league position in selecting winners. It’s time to be wary of those sides under relegation threat, and where those in safe mid-table positions are hard to predict. I will only bet on football for another month, once April is upon us it tends to become a lottery as the promotion/relegation issues are resolved.

I’m a little gutted to find no All Weather racing card today. This seems to have become the mainstay of my profits in recent weeks. So I think betting will take a back seat today, I’ll be watching the two FA Cup ties and sorting out my business finances. Enjoy your day.

Thoughts Of The Day

2010-03-04T23:03:00.003Z

Guess where I’ve been working today? Anyone who can identify the mystery town from the picture I took on my I-phone on a glorious morning earlier today get’s a free lay of the week (worth about 7p) from me.

I’ve noted that both Cassini and 70k have been having a little stick from various ‘Anonymous’ types in comments to recent posts. In my year of blogging, I’ve never received any negative ( or even anonymous ) comments to my blog posts. This is clearly because I’m such a great guy, and the fact that I never seem to make any money is purely coincidental.

I was interested in the GB line-up for the upcoming Davis Cup tie in Lithuania announced earlier – James Ward, Dan Evans, Colin Fleming, Ken Skupski.

The Lithuanians must be shitting themselves.

Career Change?

2010-03-01T23:24:00.009Z

A flying start to March. Not.

I think it's going to be a slow week, as I won't be having any more than token interest in the international football.

Driving home tonight, I was sorely irritated by the amount of 'public service' adverts on my chosen radio station, Birmingham's rock channel Kerrang Radio. In the good old days, you'd be bombarded by DFS sale adverts, but now the retailers are all hanging onto their cash and we're pounded by information on the ill-effects of smoking, chlamydia, truancy, teenage abuse and, er, obtaining a provisional driving licence.

On one hand, we're told that our teenagers are brighter and better educated than ever, but then it seems that those in authority think they're incapable of any common sense whatsoever, and need to be force-fed information.

Best of all, I heard a recruitment ad for MI6! On a brummy rock station! I know the days of Oxbridge 'funny handshake' recruitment have long gone, but I wasn't ready for that. Anyway, I've sent in my application form.

February - Racing Certainty

2010-03-01T01:03:00.004Z

It’s noticeable how my attitude towards betting is changed by one decent day. The month has been mixed, but started with a good day ( +£86 ), and ended with a good one ( +£131 ). So I can analyse from a positive viewpoint, which saves my readers from another longwinded moan about my inconsistency and indiscipline.

The month started well and I reached my P&L high point on the 11th of the month ( +£851 ). It started to unravel a little when I decided to increase my staking on a couple of tennis matches ( having made a cautious start to the year ). I then had three successive losing days of tennis betting, ending with a substantial hit when getting involved in a flip-flopping WTA game between Sybille Bammer and Aravane Rezai. This just brought back too many memories of the stresses ( and losses ) I’ve incurred over the years when getting on the wrong side of WTA matches. And as I don’t seem to pick enough regular winners nowadays to offset the hits that a bad trade can bring, I subsequently backed away from any more serious tennis betting.

My football betting went reasonably well for the first three weeks or so of the month, but most of my profit was wiped out by one bad weekend. After that, I just had one of those spells where every selection went wrong, and I seemed to spend the latter part of the month taking all-red positions. I don’t believe there was anything particularly wrong with the individual bets, so I’ll put it down to a bad run, and start afresh in March.

I was pleased with my discipline in keeping away from the ‘sundry’ sport punts which have sometimes tarnished my monthly P&L’s. My monthly total for all sports other than my main three ended at + £1.96, from considerably less bets than in recent months.

And finally the month’s success story. Horse Racing. In my last monthly review, I identified that I needed to be a little more selective and reduce the quantity of bets, having suffered a loss in January. And it made a difference. Upon reviewing my P&L breakdown, I was surprised to find that I had made the highest monthly profit on one individual sport since commencing the blog a year ago – well over £1,000. I had only four losing days in the month, and am feeling pretty confident in my ability to lay losers as the month-end arrives. I also tweaked my average lay odds in the month, looking to shorten the odds, with a lower average liability which would be offset by a lower strike rate. This was mainly psychological – I’ve gone backwards in recent months in my ability to take a loss without going on tilt, and felt that if I could have more losses without it affecting my overall P&L, this would make me less likely to sulk when each inevitable loss comes along. And that has probably been my major success of the month – taking a loss without emotion remains the holy grail of gambling ( in my humble opinion ), and I seem to have taken a positive step forward.

So I’m reasonably satisfied with a month where I incurred overall losses on football and tennis, yet had a final profit of just under £750. Particularly as my expenditure in the month exceeded my income ( note for the self employed : January is a shit month for earning money ). Whilst I prefer betting as a hobby, it’s handy to have a little income stream when needed.

And finally I must thank a number of bloggers whose insights on horse racing have helped me along over recent months. With limited personal knowledge, I need every piece of informed opinion I can get my hands on, and there has been plenty of useful ( and free ) information out there in blogland.

Psychological Scars

2010-02-28T00:35:00.004Z

It’s all in the mind, this betting lark. I ended the day picking out a couple of successful lays from the US horse racing, rather than following the evening’s football. On a day when I’d not even bothered to check the tennis fixtures. I wouldn’t have put money on that happening six months ago. But it’s instinct to follow wins and back away from losses, and I’m currently being pulled towards racing.

Last weekend, I laid an away team in the Italian Second division. They won 5-0. So why did I open today’s betting with another away team lay in the same league ( Crotone )? They won 4-0, and it took me the rest of the day to bring my football P&L back to zero ( -£1.14 actually ). But having also taken a small loss on football on Friday evening, the losing start today left me in no mood to take on my usual Saturday afternoon football session. I’ve written before about placing bets with the expectation of losing, and starting the day with another loss put me in a negative state of mind. So I switched focus to the day’s racing, and a winning day followed.

I’m still struggling to understand how I’m being more successful with a sport I know little about, over two that I’ve been following for thirty years. But money talks, so racing will be given priority whilst it continues to give me profits. I’ve got a few ideas about my current mindset with different sports, but I’ll leave them for my month-end post. Which is coming soon – surely it’s not a month since my last summary?

Countdown

2010-02-24T18:03:00.001Z

Congratulations to Burnley’s former England Under 21 international Clarke Carlisle on his winning first appearance on Channel 4’s long-running quiz show ‘Countdown’. Clarke scored an impressive 89 points to his opponent’s 55. He previously won ITV’s ‘Britain’s Brainiest Footballer’ back in 2002.

Ashley Cole’s upcoming appearance on Sky 1’s ‘Are You Smarter Than A Ten Year-Old?’ remains unconfirmed.

My Weekend

2010-02-22T18:07:00.003Z

In my last post, I wished for an easier betting day. So what happened? Two hideous days, too many hours in front of the screen, and a weekend where a final overall loss of £57 was a fairly decent result.

I’ve talked of a three-pronged approach, but it’s not helpful if you have two wonky prongs. I’ve backed away from tennis again over the last week, apart from the odd £20 back. I’m still too liable to be sucked into getting onto the wrong side of a flip-flop trade, and as soon as I upped my liabilities in an attempt to regain my confidence, I was immediately caught out. So back to square one. Then the weekend was a football nightmare. It started badly ( this is a recurring theme ). My first two lays ( Salernitana and Vicenza ) went down – Vicenza won 5-0! I struggled to make much headway on Saturday, but regained a little on Sunday until I was undone by a silly mistake – I forgot I’d placed a bet. The result went away from me, but instead of a probable £15 all-red, I ended up with a £44 hit. Three hours later, I took a three figure bath. I took my eye off the ball ( not literally ), failed to green up an unders trade and two late goals in the Zaragoza / Gijon game were too quick for me – ‘suspended’ market as I tried to trade out. That was the majority of the month’s football profits gone.

Fortunately, Saturday’s racing lays went like a dream. A 100% hit rate on the afternoon’s card. So overall, I can look back on the weekend as an escape from a potential bank meltdown. And, theoretically, there is more to be learnt from a tough day than an easy one.

What timescale should you use to determine your success with any particular type of bet, or any sport? My decision to curtail my tennis betting is based upon around 5 months of failure. Before that point, tennis was my dominant and most successful sport. But if I based my aims upon this February alone, I should pack in tennis and football and concentrate on racing. If I base my decision upon January, racing would be binned and football and tennis were profitable. For the whole of 2009, tennis looks better than football, but for the latter 6 months only, the reverse applies.

And I now have a 100% all-time record on BAFTA betting ( I layed Avatar in ‘Best Film’ ) so maybe I should concentrate on Specials?

Sliding Doors

2010-02-19T00:10:00.005Z

The following episode is completely fictional, and any resemblance to any real characters or events is coincidental. It does, however, take into account real situations which sometimes arise in the author’s life.

A rare day off, so over breakfast I peruse the day’s sporting day ahead on Betfair. The morning consists of a couple of tennis tournaments from Doobuy and Marsay. The afternoon brings jumps racing from Camberwick Green and Trumpton, and all-weather on the fibresand at Chigley. The evening is dominated by the return of the UEFA Leyland-Daf Trophy games pitting the, er, 'quite good' teams from Europe’s top leagues against each other.

I review the women’s tennis fixture list, but decide that my time is better spent catching up with a few jobs around the house. I return to the Betfair screen around 1.30, and open up my usual websites for horse racing info, before checking out a couple of blogs for any useful tips. I decide that I’ll keep my stake between £4.00 and £8.00 for each lay. I give the first couple of races a miss, and start with a lay of a favourite on the all-weather, based on the comments on the Racing News website. A nice £8.00 win to start. I work my way through the afternoon, finding seven more races to participate in, six wins, one losing lay of a favourite, and I’ve got a decent day’s profit to take into the evening. I have a break for a few hours, and come back half an hour after the start of the evening’s first batch of football matches. I decide to just keep my eye on the scores and look for any small opportunities. I nick a couple of quid here and there, before reviewing the fixtures for the later kick-offs. Decide on a couple of lays of teams from perceived ‘weaker’ leagues, and settle down to watch the televised game where West London’s Brentford are taking on a Brazilian team with a number of Ukranian players in their side. I have a scare when one of my lays, Henin-Ardenne, take the lead but I hold my position and the Athletic Balboa equaliser is not too long in coming. Two winning lays, and a decent day allows me to happily turn off the laptop at 10.00pm, job done.

Sadly, this fictional text is more hope than accurate reflection of a typical day. Whilst I regularly finish days with a successful final outcome ( for me that’s a P&L in the £50 - £100 range ), it rarely seems to go as simply as the above suggests. The first problem is that, given a choice of jobs around the house or following the tennis, I find myself pulled into the WTA mire ( that’s the ‘Sliding Doors’ moment! ). And often I seem to have an ‘out-of-body’ experience when following women’s tennis. Part of my brain is telling me to lay low, but the instinct to back my selection is too powerful. By the time I finally regain control of my body, the odds have swung against me and I take a disgruntled all-red. My selection immediately fights back and goes on to win in crushing fashion. By the time the racing starts, I’m already chasing profits after a losing morning. I now place £10.00 to £20.00 stakes, and to avoid risking too much of my bank I’m looking for shorter priced lays. And rather than finding eight decent opportunities from three race meetings, I’m now involved in fifteen races. And I’m still in a bad mood from the morning! I therefore endure a stressed afternoon, simply because my liabilities are too high. And if I’m unable to regain my position in the afternoon, I often take that high intensity mindset into the evening’s football.

There’s often satisfaction to be gained from fighting your way to a decent profit. But it would be nice to have a few more easy days along the way.

I’m sure most readers will have seen this latest Visa TV commercial. I’m particularly drawn to it because of the music track – ‘Isla de Encanta’ from the 1987 debut EP ‘Come On Pilgrim’ by the mighty Pixies. Cracking advert.

The Anniversary Post

2010-02-13T10:25:00.005Z

Yes, one year ago today I wrote my first blog post. I’ve managed nearly a post per two days over that time and hopefully a few of them have been worth reading ( or if not, had a nice picture ). I’ve seen plenty of other blogs come and go, and many people seem to stop from disappointment at a lack of feedback rather than blown banks. Whilst I appreciate any input from fellow punters, I also enjoy writing the posts – if you don’t have an urge to write, you’ll soon get bored of posting into what occasionally seems like an empty void.

A year ago I was struggling to make an adequate living from full-time betting on Betfair. This ‘full-time’ status was not particularly by choice, but having had my plans for the future knocked off course by what is now universally known as the ‘credit crunch’. I had done a 25 year stint in the housebuilding industry, generally working for major national companies, and had come to a point where I needed a change. I finished work at the end of 2007, but the world changed pretty quickly and 2008/9 became a really bad time to start up a business and risk all the capital I had built up over my career. So I gave the Betfair route a go to tide me over, and I have never regretted that full-time stint, even if I achieved more from an educational perspective than a financial one. I didn’t make a conscious decision to go back into employment, but offers came my way and I happily took on work which has generally been less lucrative than my former career, but has often been more rewarding and certainly had more variety. And with the benefit of not having to deal with bleedin’ accountants all day – I’d chuck ‘em in the same deep well as the bankers.

I’ve certainly reached a point where if work dried up completely, I’d be back in front of the Betfair screen rather than at the Jobcentre. As any regular reader will know, my inconsistency and lack of concentration mean that I have spent much time recouping losses during the year. But, when I set myself properly for a session, I am capable of making steady profits. And those spells of good results do seem to be getting longer. If I could guarantee that I could avoid those careless and grumpy days where I tend to throw away chunks of cash, I’d be onto a winner. But I remain a work in progress. And I’m still at a stage where it’s easier for me to earn £100 working than through trading on Betfair.

I do scratch my head at the amount of bloggers for whom full-time trading is the stated goal. Yes, there are traders out there doing very nicely, but as well as trading ability you need many other attributes to succeed. It can be a pretty solitary existence ( this may be why so many choose to blog – communication with the outside world ), and when results are going against you there are few around you to chat things through with. One of my own failures during that period was to get sucked into bets I should have avoided, simply because of the pressure to make a profit. Whilst the experienced will tell you to avoid daily targets, if you need £3k a month to live, it’s obvious that you’ll wish to achieve a £100 profit on most days. Some days it’s just not possible, and that’s the time to turn off the laptop and paint a fence ( or a landscape if that’s your thing ). But the opportunities to bet are still there, although often in areas of sport you know little about. I have lifetime losses on sports as varied as handball, volleyball, ice hockey and snooker. I certainly don’t see full-time trading as an easy option – the stress of watching a WTA 6-1, 5-1 lead disappear to one-set-all is more stressful than most days I’ve worked in my career.

I suppose the major changes in the last twelve months have been my introduction to horse racing ( despite my first attempt here ), and also a bad spell of tennis results in the latter part of the year which knocked my confidence. Tennis has been my main betting sport for much of the last four years, but I’ve never found it as difficult to pick winners as I have in the last six months. So I’m moving into 2010 with a three-pronged approach ( tennis, footy, racing ).

As I write this post, I’m feeling confident. But that may be just a couple of weeks’ decent results making a difference to my mood. In twelve months time things may be very different, but at the moment the blog ( and me ) will keep plodding along steadily.

I tried to find my favourite song from the last twelve months to finish the post, but got down to a shortlist of two I couldn’t split. So I have included them both.

100% Committed?

2010-02-12T15:47:00.002Z

This, as I'm sure most readers will know, is Miss Ana Ivanovic, from a recent photoshoot for Sports Illustrated magazine. With a world ranking which has gone from 1 to 23 in just over a year, and a dismal start to the 2010 season, have we seen the best of Ms A ( in terms of tennis )?

Presumably S.I ( and plenty of other magazines ) will pay decent money for similar photoshoots. This seems like considerably easier work than spending six hours a day practising two-handed backhands. With Henin and Clijsters back on tour to up the level of competition markedly, it may be that at the age of 22, Ivanovic may head in the same direction as Anna Kournikova, with more calenders than trophies in the cabinet. Right at the top of any professional sport is a place for the determined, committed and seriously talented. Without all three of those factors in place, it becomes a slippery slope downhill.

With a regular batch of injury issues, including that serious shoulder problem, I'm guessing that Maria Sharapova ( currently ranked 16 ) may also never reach those heady heights again. It's a pity, but pro tennis is tough, and these girls have got millions in the bank and the opportunity to make millions more without having to swing a racquet.

So we need some new glamour in the sport. Kleybanova or Suarez Navarro anyone?

Variety

2010-02-11T10:26:00.005Z

I’ve read on a few blogs recently how guys are expanding their range of sports beyond their areas of expertise, often simply because of the daily betting opportunities available – I’ve done the same with my toe-dipping into horse racing. My own experiences suggest caution, due to the differences in how each sport operates in terms of markets.

Occasionally, when I am away from home at the weekend, I will have a look through the Saturday three o’clock fixtures, and have a small punt on a few matches, usually around six or seven. It’s probably not that surprising that the outcome is often a profit hovering around zero. However, I generally only bet on football matches when I’m in a situation to trade out as events unfold. I’m regularly cautious, preferring an early all-green, but I’ve also learnt to give myself cover positions which limit the size of any all-red positions I take. I’m sure many football punters do likewise. I pick a starting point based on what I think is likely to be the outcome of the game, and then with each goal scored ( or red card shown ), I re-evaluate my trade and sometimes switch my liabilities based on the current situation. It seems to be a profitable approach.

I have found that using a similar approach in tennis can put you in a heap of trouble. Without having completed a detailed trawl of my betting records, I can confidently say that if I had always held my initial back in place to the completion of matches, I would be considerably better off than I have been when trading my positions. As I noted recently, no sport is more likely to turn an initial £20 bet into a £50 loss. The problem – decent players tend to be able to get themselves out of a hole. But in three set matches, it takes nerve to hold your position when the first set goes against your selection. I have commented regularly on tennis trading ( and why I’m not very good at it! ), and I believe that for someone with a pre-race trading background, tennis could be a very profitable area. The profit should be made in anticipating what may happen to odds throughout the match, rather than the eventual outcome. Often the initial back may be on a player you expect to lose. That’s a tough mental swing from picking winners, but reasonably straightforward if you are a trader by instinct. But like anything, a new area takes time to learn. Take care.

I had an early finish to work yesterday, and was home in time to have a look at the 4.10 at Southwell. The favourite, Rebel Rebellion, was priced up at 1.15. On the Racing Post website, trainer Charlie Mann was quoted thus ‘There are no dangers to this horse. He’s the best bumper horse we’ve ever had and all being well he’ll be going to Cheltenham’. Unsurprisingly, he romped home. But I couldn’t bring myself to put money on at that price, even with that ringing endorsement from the trainer, and he knows considerably more than I do. I suppose you have to keep in mind that one in seven of these mega-jollies will fall over. And it’s bound to be the one I’ve lumped on. Many will stay completely away from this sort of price, but I’ll happily take one on in football matches if I think there’s value. But I’m still a novice (early promise, may need blinkers) at racing, so I’ll keep away for the moment.

Being A Football Fan

2010-02-06T20:05:00.004Z

It’s bloody stressful. I follow the fortunes of my local club, Burton Albion, and they’re in a tidy mid-table position, 20 points ahead of the relegation zone, just where a newly promoted club would wish to be. However, my main allegiance is with my hometown club, Leeds. Great, you may think, with a win over Manchester United under our belts in recent weeks. But the season is all about getting out of League One, and we’re reaching that point of the season where you keep an eye on not just your own team’s results, but of those teams around you in the league table.

I think the recent exposure in the FA Cup has made things worse for a naturally pessimistic fan. Everyone I talk to assumes we’re all but promoted, based on televised performances that won’t matter a toss at the end of May. But Leeds left Victoria Park, Hartlepool today with a single point, and would be pretty relieved to see both Norwich and Charlton fail to win. This is Leeds’ third season in League One, and they have begun the last two seasons as favourites for promotion. The main concern would be that the energy used in those titanic cup ties may take it’s toll on the squad, and a bad run could suddenly bring Norwich and Charlton level. Then it becomes a nail biting last couple of months of the season (again).

I held a view that the team’s key players – Snodgrass, Kilkenny, Kisnorbo, Beckford – should have been left out for the cup games. Simon Grayson has had plenty of plaudits for the cup performances in the last month. If Leeds aren’t promoted, he’ll be on the scrapheap. Let’s hope that the early season form can be reinstated now that the diversion is out of the way, and that his decision to play full-strength teams against United and Spurs doesn’t backfire.

As a gambler I’m naturally optimistic. I generally start each Betfair session expecting to win. As a footy fan, I spend all my time waiting for the wheels to fall off. Maybe it’s just from many years of yo-yo results and trauma. It isn’t that long ago I watched a Champions League semi-final at Elland Road!

The play-off system has improved football in this country. But it’s certainly put more fans in a position to have shredded nerves and fingernails from April onwards. So, if your team is in a tight spot, positive or negative, good luck. And it might be worth getting in a few packets of Kalms.

Laugh Or Cry?

2010-02-01T22:39:00.004Z

A decent day. If you wish to know why I come away from it with a feeling of frustration, refer to the first paragraph of my last post.

January - Waste Of Time?

2010-01-31T23:01:00.003Z

At the end of a month where many hours were spent in front of a laptop screen, I end with a P&L of +£79. I’d hate to work out my hourly rate, it’s probably not much over a quid per hour. But at least I’ll have learnt some worthwhile lessons? Er, no, not really.

My gains in the month generally came from my strengths – knowledge of sport, identification of value, research. My losses from my old shortcomings – inconsistent staking, chasing losses and lack of concentration. I’ll add a new shortcoming – lack of respect for my bank money. As a few bloggers have found, the problem with having a longish period without making progress is that it can lead to frustration – the ‘what’s the point?’ mentality – and when you’re controlling a bank only equal to a couple of day’s wages, it’s easy to just throw in a couple of bets using big chunks of that bank simply to relieve that frustration. Oh, and they often lose!

If I delve deeper, I can find a few positives to carry in to February. My losses were restricted to three short spells, and two of those were simply reckless. Whilst I will have to admit to chasing losses on both occasions, my mindset was less about loss recovery and, as I mentioned above, more of frustration at my carelessness. So most days of the month have been profitable and I have generally kept my concentration levels up. The obvious learning outcome – a long period of consistency can quickly be undone by a short period of brain-fade.

I was profitable with all sports except racing and snooker. I was particularly pleased with my tennis results, having deliberately avoided the overnight matches which made up the bulk of the month’s opportunities. I ended last season with a pretty negative attitude towards tennis betting, so I’m pleased with my start to the new year. My most profitable sport was football, a decent turnaround as I was in the red as at the 11th of the month. And snooker is definitely blacklisted – four bets, three losses.

The big hole in my P&L was horse racing. My initial impression was that racing was simply the sport that happened to be available for me to take my frustrations out upon. It was certainly where I targeted my loss-chasing and inconsistent staking. But having done a little analysis, I find that if I had laid to a fixed stake, I would still be in the red. Only by about half of my actual loss, but still a noteworthy sum. In addition to the inconsistent staking, it is likely that I am simply having too many bets. Many bloggers with considerably more expertise in the horse racing sphere than I seem to limit their trades to where they feel fully confident in the selection. I will look to reduce my quantity of bets, and hopefully I may see an improvement in hit rate.

There’s no doubt that much of what I’ve said in previous month-end posts still applies. I continue to be inconsistent, and I continue to perform at my best only when recovering from losing P&L positions. I know that future profits are simply reliant on consistency and concentration. Doesn’t sound that difficult, does it? Maybe I’m just a slow learner!

No Bet?

2010-01-29T15:39:00.002Z

Two superb contests in store at the Australian Open this weekend. Whilst having a quick look at the odds it struck me that I, like many others, spend too much time analysing form and prices, trying to find an angle where it doesn’t exist. I’m sure the profitable punter is adept at realising that ‘no bet’ is often a sensible solution. If your convictions are not strong, move on. For me, ‘on the fence’ would be a fair description of my feelings towards the two finals. I’d like to see a Murray / Henin win, but that means opposing two of the most successful champions of all time.

Roger Federer is 1.65, to Murray’s 2.50. The major factor is probably Federer’s grand slam history, but for each argument in his favour, you can call an opposing claim. Federer has won slams – Murray probably wants the slam more. Murray has a good recent head-to-head record – Federer therefore has a revenge motive. Federer had the easier semi – Murray has had an extra day’s rest. I could go on….

The Serena / Justine odds currently sit at 1.92 / 2.06. That probably says it all. The outcome is all about Serena, who’s level of play and temperament fluctuates wildly. In her press conference she noted that a win would put her level with Billie-Jean King in slam titles. A good reason for 100% commitment then. She then followed up with ‘but I don’t really care about that’. No clues on offer there. She’s generally up for slam finals, but would you put your money on it?

Henin is much more predictable - talent/good temperament/graft - but hanging over her is the effort of reaching a final so soon after returning to the sport. Her form has been patchy through the week, but she’s mentally tougher than anyone. Whilst the men’s match will probably be a tight, high quality contest, the women’s match could be 6-1, 6-1. I just don’t know to which player.

I’ll stick to enjoying the sport, with a fiver each on Murray and Henin just as a supportive punt.

Repeating Patterns

2010-01-21T19:52:00.005Z

Guess who laid ‘Any other score’ on the Villa / Blackburn game last night? Not my best ever pre-match analysis, although I noted that Alan Shearer’s thoughts were similar to my own on the BBC coverage. I managed to escape with an all-red £13, so no great harm done.

The repeating patterns I refer to are the manner in which my success or failure on particular sports seems to work in circles. My post ten days ago commented on a bad spell on football leaving me with a loss on the month, whilst my most successful sport had been horse racing. Since then, the racing has been horrible and, despite the Villa game, the football’s gone ok. Total impact on the month – football in profit, racing in the red, and an overall monthly P&L sat at a paltry +£86!

The ‘Robin Hood’ technique I’ve mentioned previously is a good example of how I seem to operate. A real problem for me is that I tend to lose confidence in a particular sport after a couple of bad results, and make subtle changes to my betting techniques, whether in staking or type of bet. During one week, my emphasis is on football. The next, racing. The next, tennis. And because I’m not consistent for a long period, I don’t give myself the chance to prove whether a particular staking plan or type of bet will be successful in the long term. Whilst I have learnt huge amounts in the last couple of years, I think the wide range of opportunities opened up to me has actually got in the way of my potential profitability. If I can ever bring myself to knuckle down and make a serious effort to turn my knowledge into profit, ‘consistency’ needs to be put right up there with ‘discipline’ in my betting mantra.

My recent betting has been pretty low key, not helped by my own lack of foresight. I did a spot of arbing last week, resulting in a fiver gain, with the side effect of moving £500 from my Betfair account into Bet365, leaving me with £150 in my Betfair account. Unfortunately, I only had £150 in the old bank account I use for deposits and withdrawals, so I unintentionally limited myself to a £300 bank which I then proceeded to blow over the weekend, courtesy of a few racing lays going astray and a petulant back of Ronnie O’Sullivan with my last £75 on Sunday night. So I left myself with a couple of free days before I could fund my Betfair bank.

The major impact of this was that I missed the Australian Open first round. I had not intended to get heavily involved in an overnight market anyway, and have limited my subsequent bets to a few £20 punts and a little morning betting. I’m in profit, so I’ll continue to take it easy. I got involved in the Montanes / Robert game this morning, and whilst I was always with Montanes, and came out on top, I was certainly aware of those thoughts of flip/flopping which the game brings, and that have given me so much heartache over the years. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m not cut out for major in-play tennis trading – my odds-on lays generally storm straight to 1.01, and I’m instinctively an odds-on backer. But I’m good at finding winners, and if I can use in-play betting to compliment pre-match bets, I’m sure tennis will soon be back at the top of my agenda – it is my favourite sport. I’ve just got to avoid getting sucked into in-play shenanigans. There’s nothing more frustrating than ending up with a £200 loss on a bet that started with a £50 liability, and there’s no sport more likely to ensnare you than tennis.

I noted in a recent post about how I felt relaxed with my betting. I still do, despite the crap P&L. Tennis is the sport with most potential to increase my profits. But also the most potential to give me stress ( and losses ). I’ll keep the kid gloves on for the moment.

Slightly Embarrassing.

2010-01-16T18:40:00.007Z

I've been unfortunate enough to witness Rafa Benitez' last two post-match interviews. I've felt a little sorry for the guy. He's come across as a chump, with no ideas, no answers and no confidence in his team's ability to turn things around.

He's had the bottle to give a commitment that has become a potential resignation letter - 'we will finish in the top four' - but his ability to motivate the large batch of substandard players he's purchased seems to be withering. He should also be slightly embarrassed by today's lineup, after denying that he runs a two man team. Er, what more proof do you need?

It does look like we're reaching a stage where it's simply a question of whether he goes now or at the end of the season. Although the other candidates for fourth spot aren't exactly motoring away into the distance.

Skin Deep

2010-01-15T22:58:00.009Z

I've noticed that a few blog lists show photos alongside the latest blog post. Unfortunately, yesterday's post incorporated a not particularly attractive photo, which may therefore distress viewers of any blog which incorporates my own offering on their blog list.

As an apology, I update my blog with an alternative picture of a female tennis player.

This photo is of the 59 ranked Russian, Maria Kirilenko. She has a career high ranking of 18, and is a five-times winner on the WTA tour. If you wish to find out further details about her playing record, you've probably got problems with your eyesite.

Feeling Lucky?

2010-01-14T23:30:00.003Z

This lady is Naomi Cavaday, ranked 204 by the WTA, which makes her Britain's number 5 woman player.

Obviously she's unlikely to make much impact in the latter stages of the upcoming Australian Open but, like a few hundred other lower ranking players, she was no doubt aiming to reach the first round proper of the competition by winning three qualifying matches. Everything started well, with a three set win over the world number 142, Alexandra Panova of Russia. So who's next? Number 160? 110? 95?

Er, no, number 16. Yep, Belgium's number 2 ( for the moment! ), last year's US Open semi-finalist, Yanina Wickmayer. WTF.

An unfortunate overflow from the Flemish anti-doping tribunal over-reaction involving Wickmayer and Xavier Malisse during October was that Yanina was serving a ban ( subsequently overturned ) at the point of entries for the Aussie Open. She was later given a wildcard into the qualifying tournament.

So, for Naomi, there's always Wimbledon. Oh well.

10,000 Up.

2010-01-11T00:09:00.009Z

Many thanks to all who have brought me to 10,000 hits on the blog. I’m sure there are other blogs with hits many multiples higher than this one ( particularly those who make much more money than I do! ), but it’s certainly more than I expected when I started eleven months ago. It’s an average of around 62 hits per post, and as I never bother to publicise the blog, I’m happy with that – it certainly makes it worthwhile writing.

A shocking weekend on the betting front. I’ve never been able to make profits from my three main sports simultaneously, and this weekend it’s been football that’s kicked me in the nuts. I managed to develop a new skill – turning a win into a loss. I took two big all-reds on games where the final result would have given me a profit – a lay of Everton, and a back of Inter Milan. Both games had late goals – too late for me, and I’d bailed out well before the goals came to kick me in the teeth. So football goes into the red for the year, and as much as it pains me, recent P&L’s suggest my time is better spent on horse racing! Maybe I’ll just be a little bit more cautious with the football betting for a while, certainly until I’ve managed to raise my bank balance a little.

After a further couple of setbacks today, including two successive winning lays at Southwell and another all-red taken on a football result that finished up in my favour, I packed in for the a few hours to avoid my punting becoming reckless. I had a session reading a few blogs, and found a few pictures of interest on failblog.org. The quality on the site is a bit hit and miss, but I liked the few I’ve added below.

Top Gun?

2010-01-08T22:16:00.005Z

Could this be the number one tennis player on the planet? And the least charismatic?

Nikolay Davydenko ended 2009 by defeating Nadal, Federer and finally Del Potro in the London end-of-season championship. He seems to have brought the same form into 2010. Today's match against Federer in Doha was won by the better all-round player, and it wasn't Roger. One of Federer's great strengths has been to create a barrier of invincibility against opponents he has continually beaten in the past. Davydenko had a 0-12 record against the world number one until London, but now seems to have the upper hand.

It certainly helps to you have can go through a set with a 100% first serve record. I captured this screenshot at the end of the first set. Add this to a dogged determination and great speed around the court, and you have a formidable package.

So tomorrow Davydenko will take on Nadal in the Doha final. Rafa's form has certainly improved, but I think the value is with the Russian at 2.24. I don't see him as a potential future multi-slam winner, but at this moment in time, he's right at the top of his game.

Quiet, and White

2010-01-06T20:15:00.002Z

The picture was taken with my I-phone this morning from my bedroom window. Actually, we’ve suffered less than many parts of the country, with the main roads into Birmingham being clear this morning, although I chose to shorten my working day with a mid-morning journey into the city, and an early escape as the skies began to darken to avoid any freezing up of the roads.

I’ve had a quiet start to the betting year, and today continued in this vain, with much of the available sport falling during the period noted above. Yet the lack of bets has made little difference to my average P&L. A couple of thoughts spring to mind. Firstly, I seem to have found a way to take away the pressure I tend to put on myself, and am finding that opportunities are arising, rather than having to search for them. I’ve no particular aim at the moment except increasing my bank balance, and possibly I’m most effective when I don’t feel the need to make substantial profit. The confidence gained from the fact that I’ve been profitable for most of the last couple of months also helps. Secondly, I’m finally finding the best way to use Betfair Mobile. I’ve never recorded a separate P&L for I-phone bets, but I’m certain it would show a red result. Having Betfair open to you 24 hours a day seems a great opportunity, but it also leaves you open to lax bets. I’ve placed plenty of bets on the I-phone with considerably less research or information available to me than I would consider whilst using the laptop. I’ve now realised that it comes into it’s own for closing out bets placed pre-match. If you do your research, you can confidently place bets in the knowledge that you always have a back-up to green out ( or red out ).

I’ve returned to tennis betting with a little trepidation after the hellish end to last season. Things have started ok, but I’ve no intention have following matches into the early hours. The last two Australian Opens have ended up as big reds for me, so I’ll just pick around the edges of this Australasian season and make sure my body clock is in proper working order – better a decent hit rate from few bets than long sessions to feather someone else’s pocket. I’m not taking many risks, and seem to be taking all-greens at the earliest opportunity, but I’m £117 in profit in the year so far on the sport, and the words ‘profit’ and ‘tennis’ have rarely been mentioned together in recent months.

I’m currently in profit on football, tennis and racing. I had a losing punt on Pakistan to beat Australia in the 2nd Test, but I’ve made a couple of quid on darts. The BDO tournament did seem a little mickey-mouse at first after watching the PCD big guns at Alexandra Palace, but it does make good television – Stephen Maher beat me to the punch with a couple of posts here and here about an amazing performance by the Aussie Tony Fleet in the first round – embarrassingly bad, he’d have been laughed out of a pub playing like that. The standard seems to have picked up, and whilst there’s nowhere near the depth of quality in the BDO, Waites, O’Shea, Chisnall and Adams are decent players at any level. Hankey – he’d sink in the PDC, because he loses his rag too easily.

December - More Promise Than Profit

2010-01-03T11:50:00.002Z

Back in front of the laptop for the first time in 2010, having had a good break in London. We had an excellent view of the Thames firework display on New Year’s Eve, and I was then cajoled by Mrs B into watching the New Year’s Day Parade through the city ( a few worthwhile displays, but too many American marching bands – dull ). For the rest of the visit, I spent a little time looking cool around Camden Market and Spitalfields. Well, ok, I would have looked cool except that I tweaked my knee on New Year’s Eve, so instead I was just a bloke with a stupid hat and a limp.

I’m now heartily sick of frothy warm beverages, whether it be from half-decent cafes or the worst culprit of the chain coffee shops, Starbucks ( 40% liquid, 60% froth ). Anyone attempting to add even a bubble to my January hot drink order will be dealt with via a kick in the nether regions.

I’ll keep the December review brief ( it seems long ago ). The month started well, and I settled into a nice routine of short sessions in front of the laptop, concentrating on one sport at a time (racing or football). By mid-month, I was looking in a good position to achieve my best monthly P&L since I reduced my bank and started work again in March. The second half of the month was less successful, as I lost that routine and, as I regularly seem to do, threw in a couple of horror days to peg back my profits. Having had a red day after laying three successive winners at Plumpton, I managed to reach Christmas in decent shape and took a nice bank withdrawal to contribute to the costs of the festivities. My first day’s betting after the break was a disaster ( I posted my thoughts on the day at the time ). My heart is imprinted with the frustration of post-cash withdrawal days – the great punting god always seems to punish me for taking out money, as if to scald me for assuming I will continue to make a profit. And, of course, this always leaves me where I hate to be – with an inadequate bank. So, a modest P&L result for a month that promised much, and another hill to climb for the start of 2010 to bring my bank back into my comfort zone.

I’ve had a delayed start to my 2010 betting, but I’ve a 100% record so far, courtesy of a few FA Cup bets placed on the I-phone. Maybe it’s the start of a huge breakthrough. Umm.

Nothing Left In The 2009 Tank

2009-12-30T22:26:00.001Z

I’m slowly bringing my betting 2009 to a close with a whimper, before a two day trip to London for New Year. I made a disastrous return to the laptop following the Christmas break, with a ‘session from hell’ on Monday evening. Tired, slightly sniffly and frustrated from a painful journey home, I attacked the evening’s sport with the thoughtful application of a bull terrier full of turkey leftovers. It was almost an out-of-body experience as I piled into each transaction, dull old thoughts like ‘bank management’, ‘exit strategy’ and ‘risk reduction’ left far behind, instead just backing my, er, judgement. Result – a predictable meltdown. Not exactly tarnishing my December P&L, more dousing it in paintstripper.

I’m sure you can find a more detailed comment somewhere in my blog about the dangers of betting when in the wrong frame of mind. And probably another one about not learning lessons. Bah.

So two rather more circumspect days to finish the year. Considerably less exciting, but both with a green end result. Typically, my last bet of the year lost. So lots to take into 2010, positive and negative, from an interesting 2009. I’ll prepare a couple of review posts, for the month and year, when I return. Until then, Happy New Year!

More Sherwood Forest Capers

2009-12-21T23:11:00.003Z

Bloody cold out there! My main concern when I grabbed a couple of hours during the day to follow a little racing was that my laptop would freeze over in a scarcely heated office.

The day started well, with a few successful lays at Kempton Park. My main win of the day was achieved with thanks to the Racing Post website. In the 2.30 the favourite, Rondeau, was trading at around 4.0, when the live reporter noted some negative comment about the horse from trainer Pat Chamings. If he didn’t think the horse would win, that was good enough for me. It finished tenth out of eleven.

My other notable success was a little scarier. In my limited time following horse racing, I’ve spotted two distinct types of steamer. The first tends to be a no-hoper, often local to the track, backed in from big numbers to 9 / 12-1, which then holds its own in the market behind the favoured horses. These horses are often worth taking on – there may be stable whispers around, but if it was a crap horse in the morning it probably still is at race time. The second type of steamer is one that just keeps dropping over a couple of hours up to the start time, often from high odds right down to favouritism. These are seemingly backed by serious insider money, and regularly storm home.

I noted Fuzzy Cat in the last race as a potential lay – 25/1 in the Racing Post, and sitting at around 11.0. As it moved to 9.8 I placed my lay, but then watched as it quickly stopped being a ‘steamer to take on’, and piled down to 3.8 favouritism. I could only watch and hope. It finished third, not far off the winner. Gulp.

So I came into this evening’s sparse football card with a decent profit on the day, looking to simply nudge a few additional quid. Unfortunately, the Augsburg / Kaiserslautern game went completely differently to my assessment – the away team had lost one game all season, and had only conceded nine goals in sixteen games. They lost 4-1. Two hits ( match odds, correct score ) and the Robin Hood technique was working brilliantly.

Anyway, I finished the day ahead (again), so it looks like I’m ending the year in good shape. I may be able to make some time for a few of the Southwell races tomorrow, but think I’ll leave tomorrow’s football alone! Then it’s time to head north for a family Christmas.

So good tidings to all, and remember – a sign of a gambling addict is someone who opens Betfair on Christmas Day, just to check if there’s any obscure sport to have a punt on.

Enjoy your holiday.

New Betting Technique

2009-12-17T22:02:00.005Z

For the last two days, I've been developing a new technique I'll call the 'Robin Hood' style, whereby I take from those villainous racing backers, and give back to the needy football punter.

Note for 2010: Europa League = bollocks. Just leave alone.

I escaped fairly unscathed from last night's football action, although I scratched most of my Europa League punts. It turned into a good night for an odds-on backer in the domestic footy, so I finished with an overall profit.

Tonight - car crash. I tried to avoid teams with nothing to play for, and still managed to lay winners with unerring accuracy, starting with Timisoara in the early game, and following up with Levski Sofia and Salzburg in the second batch of matches. I scurried around for a couple of hours to trade out my losses, but still ended up giving back most of my racing profit from earlier in the evening.

Just to complete a frustrating evening, during a weak moment I spotted an in-play tennis match - some pointless French exhibition tournament - and was sucked into backing Julian Benneteau ( read through my blog for previous cock-ups involving Benneteau ) against no-hoper David Guez, as the game went into a final tie-break. I soon came to my senses, cancelled out my bet to leave a potential £30 loss on Guez, and a 42p profit on Benneteau. Then I had a lucky break as Guez faltered a couple of times at match point, and Benneteau wrapped it up.

JS commented on my last post about how I deal with losses. It strikes me that I'm still susceptible to chasing a loss, but only for a short time. If I can hang on in there for a few minutes, the need to chase quickly subsides, and I can move forward positively. The Benneteau back was made at that moment of weakness. Until I can totally extinguish this failing, I'll underachieve.

Anyway, the day ended green. Although I'm not sure it was worth the shredded nerves.

Rage

2009-12-17T18:42:00.003Z

Just spent 99p of my daily winnings ( that's a big chunk gone! ) on a download of a song I already have on CD.

It's great to see an old-fashioned chart war going on. Remember Blur and Oasis going head to head in '95? The fuss caused by Frankie Goes To Hollywood and the Sex Pistols going to number 1?

Sorry to sound like an old fart, but today's singles charts tend to be filled by loads of RnB that holds little interest to me, and the majority of the general public. Hope there's a Xmas Day 'Top Of The Pops' if RATM reach the top!

Oh, and Simon Cowell's a twat.

End Of The Roll

2009-12-15T19:21:00.005Z

So my winning run ended at twenty seven days. Not too concerned really, it was difficult to get a sense of how much of my betting was good strategy, and how much was luck, when everything seemed to fall in my lap.

Sunday started badly – I was always on the wrong side of the Spanish game between Cartanega and Salamanca and was happy to escape with a £60 loss from what could have been a larger thumping. I did manage to reach break-even around mid-afternoon but, as tends to happen, my losses came in a short sharp hammer blow – two successive racing lays followed by an error ( with hindsight ), trying to be oh-so-clever with the correct score market in the Siena / Udinese match – the odds looked value, but I forgot that the Siena defence are shite. So well into the red, and I settled for keeping my bets tight and just tried to minimise my day’s loss. All taken calmly and serenely, with a shrug of the shoulders.

I was considerably less calm and serene at 2.10 yesterday after laying the first three winners at Plumpton! At these moments, it’s difficult to maintain any sense of calm, particularly as the mega-December I was having was suddenly looking very ordinary. The experiences of the last couple of years have certainly given me the ability to brush myself down, reset my aims and move forward. So, after a break to concentrate on work, I came back with seven successful lays, and a mindset to concentrate on making December profitable and worthwhile, rather than a huge money-spinner. Disappointing, but the strategies of the last month or so seem to have worked, so I’m not going to change everything because of two bad days.

I had in mind a lengthy post regarding mindset in the face of such events, but much of what I had to say was covered by two posts from Cassini and Robbie Fowler which appeared around the same time as my Plumpton fiasco. So I’ll leave the philosophising for now, and move forward with the attitude that has held me in good stead over the last month.

I’ve always had opinions on cover versions. Generally, an original song is hard to top, with the raw creativity surpassing the often more polished but sanitised cover. But occasionally, I just can’t split the two – so in my own tribute to X-Factor, I give you Joe McElderry and Miley Cyrus – The Climb.

Or maybe not.

You Know You're On A Roll When........

2009-12-12T21:50:00.005Z

..... you post a quick blog post before going out for the day, and then get distracted by Mrs B's indecision regarding her choice of coat, make a late decision to also lay Bolton and Everton, but forget to place that £100ish lay on Aston Villa.

Two months ago, I'd have forgotten the Portsmouth lay rather than the Villa lay. That's betting life for you. It may all even itself out in the long term, but luck (good or bad) does seem to come in chunks.

Incidently, the horse racing profit came mainly from a lay of Cesare, in the 1.00 at Doncaster, taken on with assistance from the PG's Tips blog. I may be no racing expert, but there are a few out there in blogland who know considerably more than I do. I use Google Reader to keep track of a large number of blogs, and there's plenty of helpful information available if you're prepared to spend a few minutes each day reading updates.

Defensive Tactics

2009-12-12T08:45:00.003Z

Having brought my run of profitable days to a record ( for me ) twenty six, I've devised a cunning plan to extend it to twenty seven - I'm going Christmas shopping. I'm already £8 up today ( courtesy of the early Aussie footy ), so a day in Birmingham awaits.

Just two bets today - lays of Portsmouth and Villa - and I'll have my I-phone on board in case of emergencies.

Wish me luck, it's hell out there.

Numbers, Numbers

2009-12-09T20:43:00.002Z

Just worked out that the Arsenal shirt numbers for the game in Olympiakos add up to 259.

Maybe I need a new hobby.....

Old Fashioned Values?

2009-12-09T13:39:00.001Z

I spent last night watching 120 minutes of Leeds against Kettering in the FA Cup second round replay at Elland Road on ITV4. A decent spectacle, and the 5-1 final score rather misrepresented the game – the goals flooded in at the end, against tiring part-time opponents. But I was left with one overriding impression.

The game was important to both teams, particularly with a trip to Old Trafford as a third round prize. Yet in two hours of action :

· No malicious challenges.
· No ‘simulation’ in an attempt to win penalties or free kicks.
· No backchat to the referee, or constant whining to pressurise the ref.
· No calls to have an opposition’s players booked or sent off.
· No sendings off, two bookings, for fouls, and with no complaint from either player.
· No constant verbal sparring between players.
· No farcical penalty box wrestling matches at each corner or free kick.
· No outraged managers having a go out the fourth official – indeed the Kettering assistant manager, John Deehan, was pictured repeatedly apologising to the fourth official for an expletive.
· No loss of temper or frustrated lash-outs from the away team once the match was beyond them.
· A player-manager happy to chat to a reporter as he left the pitch at half-time.

Yet the game was entertaining and full-blooded. Regular viewing of our top clubs would suggest that this level of behaviour is impossible to achieve. Last night showed it can.

It’s a pity the board of Kettering don’t have the same standards of behaviour as their players. After the game they sacked Deehan, supposedly because of the substitutions he made during extra time! They didn’t bother to consult the manager before doing so. Farce. There are still plenty of muppets in the game.

In A Good Place

2009-12-06T10:31:00.001Z

Following a decent start to December, I am now on a satisfying run of twenty successive profitable days. My betting state of mind is in a very different place to where it was only a short while ago, when each bet was placed with trepidation. I had reached a point at the end of the tennis season where each in-play move I made seemed to swing against me, often within seconds. A few bets were placed with the expectation that I would get clobbered! Clearly, this mindset will lead to being tentative. Suddenly, instead of looking for value, you look for certainty. That is not an easy element to find in the world of sports betting.

Yesterday gave a great example of how confidence affects performance. Having had a couple of horse racing lays go against me, the swift turnaround in the Wigan / Birmingham game left me £80 down on the day at 5.00pm. Yet four hours later, without resorting to any lump-on bets, and with consistent staking intact, I had a decent profit. A few weeks ago, by 5.00pm I would probably have been feeling sorry for myself, and plotting a way to recover my money in a couple of big gambles. With a decent bank in place and the confident expectation of profit to come, it is considerably easier to move forward with a consistent mindset. It helps when you back Almeria at big odds against Real Madrid when 1-0 down, and lay them off at 1-1 and 1-2!

There will be losing days to come, so the aim will be to maintain that confidence when they do. The easiest way to a setback will be a slack lump-on bet just to recover a frustrating loss. Whether I’m feeling low or high, the discipline mantra still applies. If only I could find that confidence factor in tablet form, the future would be looking bright.

Warm and Fuzzy.

2009-12-03T23:17:00.004Z

A bet’s a bet, right? No, there are good and bad bets. And then there are the one’s that feel really good when they come off. Often the amount of satisfaction bears no relation to the profit involved, but generally the sense of having found an edge gives a warm and fuzzy feeling.

So after another decent day, how come a £5 win was my bet of the day? A bet placed on my I-phone, in a supermarket car park, no less.

The early in-play game was a Hungarian league game between Debrecen ( whipping boys of Champions League Group E ) and MTK Budapest. Not a game I’d normally rush to get involved in. I just happened to check Flashscore.com around 6.15ish to check the evening’s Europa League fixtures, and spotted Debrecen leading 2-0 with about an hour played. Stuck £100 on at 1.05. It finished 2-0. Result.

That doesn’t seem clever, you may think. And normally, with a 2-0 scoreline with half an hour to play, 1.05 is a less than attractive proposition. So why the bet?

During my session on Sunday, I came across a bizarre game between Debrecen and an unpronounceable team we’ll call Zagzag. Debrecen were 3-0 up after 17 minutes. Five minutes later, it was 3-2. At half time, 5-3! Both teams must have got a major hairdryer session at the interval, because the game finished 5-3.

So, what message did those Debrecen players have ringing in their ears when they took the field tonight? A clean sheet, or bollocks on the block, no doubt.

Best fiver of the week.

Couldn’t see much value in the Fulham game tonight, so switched over to watch ‘Gavin and Stacey’ on primetime BBC1. Lots going for it – decent cast, decent dialogue - but I eventually sussed that, sadly, it just wasn’t funny. An unfortunate missing element for a comedy. Anyway, great theme tune, by a top bloke, Stephen Fretwell.

November - Smile, It's My Monthly P&L Graph

2009-11-30T23:26:00.004Z

I did note in my October review my certainty that I would be profitable in November. So, task achieved? Well, yes, but not without my customary early-month losses, followed by the now familiar hard-earned recovery.

Looking at my P&L, there are similarities with October, in that most of the month was spent in the red. But there were two major differences to the previous month –

i. There was no last-day disaster, meaning that I ended November with a modest profit of £325.
ii. I spent less time beating myself up about losses.

A number of the month’s reverses were simply down to the unpredictability of sport. I think this helped me to move on and avoid chasing.

I went into negative territory on the 4th of the month, courtesy of a couple of horse racing lays going astray, and reached a low point mid-month following a period struggling with a limited bank, topped off with a bet on Vincent Van der Voort to beat Anastasia Dobromyslova in the Grand Slam Darts – I can always find a shock result to kick me when I’m down.

So that brought about a hardening of attitude, helped by my blog commitment noted above. Fifteen successive winning days later, I can look back on the month in a positive light.

The star sport for the month was horse racing. My method is straightforward – lays, no magic system, just review the information available to me on a race-by-race basis. I’m sure these things go in cycles, but I have certainly had a hot streak over the last few weeks. I generally stayed away from tennis, making just a small profit, but had a tough time with football – I still can’t believe some of the results that went against me. My sundry sports bets were less successful than of late – losses on darts, basketball and cricket.

Once again, when I’ve been in a hole, I’ve had the focus and determine to dig myself out. It would be nice to transfer that focus towards making profits rather than just recovery missions. I could do with a cash injection as Christmas approaches.

Developing Bad Habits

2009-11-26T23:31:00.005Z

There are a multitude of betting blogs out there at the moment, including plenty of ‘start-ups’, with guys ( this does seem to be one of the last great male-only clubs! ) learning the game using small stakes with the hope of developing towards a goal of full-time trading. A recurring theme is the thought that once the basics are learnt and mistakes made using smallish sums, profit will quickly begin to flow. This is probably why many blogs disappear after a short time. It simply isn’t as easy as that!

Let’s do the basic maths on the workings of Betfair – the exchange take their cut, the rest of the wagered sums are shared between winners and losers. If there were huge amounts of people making a regular and substantial profit, there would probably need to be a similarly huge amount prepared to lose consistently and regularly – I’m not sure there are that many mugs out there.

So there are probably plenty of people in a similar situation to myself. Two years or so into my Betfair adventure, I’ve learnt plenty. My betting methods bear little resemblance to those I used at the start of the journey. I often make worthwhile profits, but the aim of consistent profit remains an arm-length away. I’ve gone past the beginner stage, and I’m sure I’m going through the period where many give up – the basic skills are in place, but I’m still liable to error ( with associated losses ). Only the determined will survive this stage. There remain plenty of disheartening days, and I rely on my undiminished belief that I will eventually succeed to keep me plodding on.

My current irritation is a couple of bad habits I seem to have developed.

· Becoming tentative after a day has started well.
· Rounding up

A P&L from a successful Tuesday illustrates my first issue. Having made a decent sum from a spare couple of hours following the afternoon’s racing, I spent an evening session concentrating on soccer. It seemed to me to be a fairly successful and satisfactory session, but a view of the P&L at the end of the evening surprised me – a largest win of £2.83! I’m unlikely to make much contribution towards the cost of Christmas with too many more sessions like that.

Maybe I’ve got a touch of OCD, but I do like to close a day with a nice rounded up sum, whether it be daily profit or bank balance. But I’m also prone to careless bets, simply to reach a rounded total. There is little more frustrating than throwing away a day’s profit on a risky punt around 11.00pm with the aim of winning £2.50!

I’m in this for the long haul. I’m sure a few less determined will fall by the wayside. Those who succeed will learn from their mistakes. I remain hopeful I’ll be one of them.

Leaving It Late

2009-11-24T21:55:00.003Z

Trying not to be too smug, but for purely statistical interest I'd just like to point out that Max Gradel's 89th minute winner at Elland Road tonight was the fifth time this season that Leeds have scored the winning goal beyond the 86th minute.

I think it's since we started hiring in the same referees who usually officiate for Manchester United home games.....

Hobby? More Like Hard Work.

2009-11-21T21:59:00.001Z

Six winning days since Monday, so surely I’m enjoying a nice easy pastime which keeps me out of the pub? Not exactly.

Bets this week included :

· Vincent Van der Voort to beat Anastasia Dobromyslova in the Grand Slam of Darts ( she’s only a girl! ).
· Phil Taylor to beat Van der Voort on the following evening.
· A lay of Hull with the score at 0-2 to West Ham in today’s Premiership game ( taken all red just before a Hull sending off at 3-2 ).
· A bet on the German 2nd division leaders Armenia Bielefield ( unbeaten in nine ) to avoid defeat at home to the strugglers 1860 Munich ( three successive defeats ).

You can guess the rest.

So how do you recover from chucking chunks of your bank down the drain? Simply by putting the hours in. I suppose I’ve been fortunate that there have been a couple of evening race meetings to supplement the sparse football fare on offer this week, and I’ve also stolen a few daytime hours for some horse racing lays – a benefit of self-employment. And now I feel knackered.

So please dear Lord ( I must be desperate, I’m an atheist ), can I have a nice easy Sunday with no further cock-ups to give me a profitable week that can be consigned to history and remembered only for the final P&L.

World Gone Mad. Part 73

2009-11-19T20:22:00.002Z

Let’s start with the simple statement – I feel sorry for Ireland, losing just one step away from the World Cup finals is hard to swallow, and any debatable refereeing decision only makes things worse.

However, today’s huge over-reaction leaves me shaking my head. Yes, it was a hand ball. But there are probably five decisions as bad as this each weekend in the football league. I listened to Liam Brady pleading for France to ‘do the right thing’ and have the game replayed. The FAI have now formally asked for a replay. Tosh.

Sadly, plenty of teams have felt cheated, and I can’t remember too many games being replayed. As Crystal Palace and Watford fans will know, recent times have seen goals given that never went near the line, and goals which were clearly fired into the net, yet disallowed. If every game with a dodgy decision was replayed, we’d have to abandon the June / July break and play for twelve months per year. I bet Terry Fenwick and Peter Reid are dusting off their old kits right now, ready for a rematch of the ‘Hand of God’ game – they might catch Maradona this time. Celtic must have a great case for being back in the Champions League, after Eduardo’s dive ( oh sorry, he was proved innocent. Ahem)

And Thierry Henry? Heard a couple of comments along the lines of ‘I used to respect him….. but now he’s just a cheat’. Sorry, but Henry could fall over in the penalty box as well as anyone during his Arsenal career. Last night, he handled a ball. It’s really a minor misdemeanour compared to the regular over-the-ball challenges and stray elbows that occur on a weekly basis, so why suddenly pillory Henry? Name me the player who would have owned up to the incident and asked the ref to disallow the goal? Thought so.

All last night has proved is that it’s tough to lose unluckily. We all have plenty of experience of that!

Go North!

2009-11-13T14:39:00.002Z

Ok, I will then.

I'm away for the weekend in Durham, and it sounds like I'll have howling gails chasing me up the country this afternoon.

So no betting until Monday. I'm just leaving one open bet - a lay of Exeter at 7.0 away at Colchester. The home team have looked strong under Adie Boothroyd, and it's a long trip from Exeter.

Hope all have a profitable weekend.

Au Revoir....and Do svidaniya.

2009-11-11T18:35:00.009Z

The end of the road for two of the ATP’s, er, characters – Fabrice Santoro and Marat Safin - who’s defeats in Paris bring retirement at the ages of 36 and 29 respectively.

Santoro could certainly be described as a journeyman, with a highest ranking of 17 over a twenty year career. But he has become better known as ‘The Magician’, due to his ability to cut ball-girls in half during changeovers in matches. Er, maybe I’ve got that wrong. The nickname came from Pete Sampras, and is more likely to be due to a playing style involving great variety and craft. In turn, this style was required to overcome his comparative lack of power, when opposed by bigger and heavier-hitting opponents. The Frenchman holds the record for grand slam appearances – 69 - and also won two grand slam doubles titles – at the 2003 and 2004 Australian Opens.

Trivia time – Santoro won his first Challenger title in Telford. Glamorous life, eh. And he remains one of the most famous people ever to be born on Tahiti.

Safin – where does one start. Massive talent, massive underachievement. He turned pro in 1997 and by 2000, at the age of twenty, he was world number one with seven ATP titles in the season, and became US Open champion by defeating Pete Sampras in the final at Flushing Meadow. After that, injuries and a baffling temperament saw him yo-yo up and down the rankings, but he never regained the heights of the 2000-2002 period, although a second grand slam was earned in Australia in 2005. Maybe Federer’s consistency and the emergence of Nadal hindered his progress, but his inconsistency was often head-scratching.

Personally, Safin became the first male name on my ‘avoid completely’ betting list. I also tended to keep away from Santoro – would he be overpowered, or bamboozle his opponent? But it’s sad to see the end of anyone on the ATP Tour who could be termed ‘charismatic’ – the sport is sadly lacking in such men.

Finding The Edge Again

2009-11-08T19:52:00.008Z

I think yesterday was one of the most demoralising I’ve had on Betfair, not because the amount of money lost was significant, but simply because I kept to all the self-imposed rules I’ve put in place to overcome a sticky patch, yet was simply battered by results going against me. Fortunately, each day ends and things always seem brighter in the morning.

Having abandoned tennis for the year, I settled down to a Saturday afternoon session, looking at the day’s football and racing. Things went ok in the early afternoon, with some fairly predictable Premiership games helping me towards a decent day. Everything seemed to go awry from the moment I placed my biggest horse racing lay of the day ( Kelso 4.05 ), and had my only loser.

This has always been my moment of weakness, so time for a deep breath, accept the loss and move on. I’m actually worse than ever at achieving this – as my strike rate improves, I lose less often, but seem to take the losses badly. In this case, I took the loss calmly, abandoned the racing and concentrated on rebuilding my profits with the day’s soccer. But everything kept kicking me in the nuts – I laid three away sides with solid reasons for doing so (Lens, Waalwijk, Mouscron ), kept my nerve when they all went ahead early ( I’m regularly scratching bets that go on to win ), and watched as the bets sailed down the river. I then topped it off by laying second-bottom Guimaries against the unbeaten Portuguese table-toppers, Braga. Again, Guimaries scored. Again, I held my bet in the expectation of a Braga equaliser. Again, it never came. Bollocks.

So by yesterday evening, any belief in an edge I may have had also sailed down the river.

My mood improved today by spending a little time analysing my three-month results. My impression has been that horse racing and tennis have been crap, soccer adequate, and sundry opportunities successful. In fact, regardless of sport, my post-loss selections have been crap and everything else is perfectly acceptable. Cut out the chaser bets and disgruntled OFI selections, and I am capable of achieving decent profits on my three main sports. So that put me in a good state of mind to start a Sunday afternoon session, which passed by without calamities and pulled back a decent chunk of yesterday's losses.

My day was also brightened by watching ITV’s coverage of the FA Cup second round draw. Remember Tony Woodcock, the former Nottingham Forest, Koln and England striker from the late seventies and early eighties? He can be forgiven his perm of that period, a fashion statement shared with his peers Kevin Keegan and Bryan Robson. But his 2009 haircut – WTF!!

I’ll finish by using the excuse of Jay Z’s stellar performance on this week’s Jools Holland show to bring out my favourite corny joke. Sorry to any non-music fans for whom this may miss the spot completely.

‘What did the ice-cream seller say after falling out with his confectionary supplier?’