Amongst Friends

Feeling fine tonight, in the knowledge that many of us are together in a club of Grand National losers. My own loss was a 'housewife's punt' of £16.00 - I know less about racing than the average housewife, and none of my three horses troubled the finish line. I've been out all day ( shopping in Birmingham ) and watched the race in Selfridges technology department. Oddly enough, no-one there won either.

Had a think about my '£2k challenge' and have decided to abandon it after one month. After a loss of £22 on Friday evening due to a defeat for the Irish champions, Bohemians, and with just a couple of footy bets placed today to offset my National punt, I was left with two scenarios coming into Sunday :

A. I am £141 behind target. I need to recover this sum over the next week or so, in addition to my daily target amount.

B. I have made £291 in a month, whilst enjoying a hobby.

I think the difference in emphasis illustrates the problem with targets in the environment we operate in. A couple of bad days suddenly put the target sums under pressure. The obvious way to pull back the shortfall is to increase stakes or risk. This is also the best way to lose money. You are psychologically at your weakest following a loss. In scenario A, the likelyhood is that you will chase to recover your position. In scenario B, you have a better opportunity to shrug your shoulders, switch off the laptop and start again the next day.

I'm still not sure how I'd operate in my old 'full-time' situation - if you need to pay bills and a mortgage from your income, how do you give yourself the best chance of meeting your required level of income? But as a hobby, the most enjoyable and sensible way of operating is to place bets as opportunities present themselves.

So my ambition remains the same - build back up to a £2k bank which I can then use cautiously to make a steady profit. But I now have no target date for achieving this milestone. And therefore no unnecessary pressure.

I'll link to a post which gives a thoughtful and sensible view on this same matter - Cassini's http://green-all-over.blogspot.com/2009/03/trouble-with-challenge.html.

Oh, and the piccy is of Selfridges, Birmingham, for anyone not aware of 'blob architecture'.

Ouch.

I'll start with the positives of this evening. I bet in a calm and consistent manner, I thought through the 'what if' scenarios of each trade, and I didn't over-bet or chase.

Sadly, one error cost me dear, resulting in a (£96) day and putting me £78 behind my target total after 27 days of my £2k challenge.

The error - 'money-buying', a past failing that I have learnt to be very cautious about entertaining. But a 1.01 at 88minutes on 'under 3.5 goals' in a meaningless friendly between Norway and Finland ( at 1-1 ) looked an easy way to start my evening. So on went £158 to win £1.50!

I use Bet365 as my match-time guide. I glanced at the 1-1 score at 91 minutes 10 seconds. No problems. I switched to browse my Betfair screen, and what seemed moments later I glanced back - 92 minutes 50 seconds, 2-2! To rub it in, Norway scored again to win 3-2. At least I was spared that horrible stomach-tightening wait when one goal is scored, and you're left to scramble for whatever recovery you can make. It was a quick, painless death!

Interesting analysis of the £315 profit gained so far in my challenge - £313 is from tennis! I generally become frustrated when reviewing my P&L's. There has never been any consistency to my results which would guide me to change my sport focus or strategies. I can go for weeks finding tennis impossible to profit from, and then other times when I pick off trades effortlessly.

Write a hundred times as punishment - 'No more 1.01's'

You're Fired

A quiet evening yesterday, most live sport having finished by the time I arrived home.

I still had time to have a red day, backing Arevane Rezai at one set up in Miami. She subsequently went all the way to 3 match points at 6-4, 5-4, 40-0 before capitulating woefully against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. My only solace was the knowledge that my loss was due simply to my sometimes lackadaisical approach to low stakes betting. I left the bet open way past a point where I could have greened up, and even went to make a cup of tea at 3 match points, only coming back as Rezai was struggling to hold her next service game. This wouldn't have happened if I was betting seriously, but I have to cut out these beginner's errors if I wish to make any profit, whatever my bank balance.

So at day 20 of my challenge, I have made £238, £14 behind target. I don't fancy my chances of regaining any ground in the next two evenings, but I'll have a good shot at it over the weekend.

I watched the series opener of 'The Apprentice'. I've never followed it closely before, but there had been plenty of promotion in the previous few days. I didn't see much positive in any of the candidates, I suppose this will come across as the series progresses. But why do the participants all need to talk over other people's conversation? Is it that difficult to let someone finish a sentence before having your say? It was bad enough that they constantly interrupted each other, but they wouldn't even let Sir Alan talk.

I've generally found it more useful to listen as well as speak.

Guide rather than target

I am away for the weekend, with a Golden Wedding anniversary celebration dinner tonight in Yorkshire, so I'll leave Betfair alone until Monday evening.

I updated my '£2k challenge spreadsheet' to take out any target for the weekend. I'm currently £24 ahead of my projection, and have a new £2k date of 4th May.

These facts assume I've been looking at the right column, unlike John Dyson, the West Indies coach during yesterday's West Indies / England game (check out Cricinfo.com if you've missed the story).

Anyway, there have been numerous blog postings recently regarding the positives and negatives of setting targets, particularly since Alex's recent challenge demise at 'bettingblog.org'. I used a weekly target when betting full-time, and I often felt a pressure to over-bet, particularly following losses. There can develop a mindset that it is essential to recover losses quickly to maintain the target position. This obviously leads to increased risk.

I believe the answer is to treat any calculation only as a guide to monitor your successes and failures, and learn to accept that one bad day will take a number of days to recover, particularly if you tend to bet odds-on as I do. With my current challenge, I have so far managed to do this, despite a couple of bad days. If I can confirm to myself that a 23% per week 'guide' is feasible with part time betting, then a £2k bank should give me around a £1,000 per month income top-up, even allowing for a few cock-ups.

Whilst this may not be as exciting as an annual £100k challenge, and is a long way from Peter Webb/Adam Heathcote territory, I'm perfectly happy to enjoy my betting and also make a decent profit. And I'm sure a more relaxed mindset will help if I'm ever forced down the 'full-time' route again.

Curse Of The Red Card

A shocking day, from transaction number 1 onwards. The intention was to place a couple of bets early in the day, make my 4% target, and then close down.

Then our heroic referees took over. In a single day, SIX red cards directly affected my results, and I ended up with a ten hour stint trying to minimise the damage to my bank.

The day started with a lay of Murcia in their Spanish 2nd division clash at Hercules. Everything was going to plan until Murcia had a man sent off when 2-1 down. I decided that the game was up, so backed the Hercules home win. 10 minutes into the second half, Hercules made it 10 men per side, Murcia equalised, and I traded out for a loss.

I followed with a simple lay on the Portuguese clash between Olhanense and Portimonense ( sorry if you have a lisp ). Both teams concede little, so lay 'Any Unquoted'. An early red card for the away team, so again I traded out for a loss when a second goal was scored within the first half hour.

I then had a good couple of hours, and just as I was getting ahead on the day our Spanish referees took over. Again, I had layed the 'Any Unquoted' on the Espanyol/Mallorca game, but when a red card was given to the home team when already 1-2 down, and half an hour to play, settling for a loss again seemed the sensible option.

Simultaneously, an ill-advised bet on Malaga to beat Sevilla (£50 at 1.19) was partially offset before yet another red card did for me. Sevilla equalised within three minutes of the sending off, and another £24 washed away.

To complete the carnage, the PSG/Marseille looked ripe for an 'Any Unquoted' lay. At fifty three minutes and a 1-1 scoreline, no problems. One red card and two Marseille goals in ten minutes, and my by now frazzled head could only bail out once again.

The end result ( subject to me spotting anything interesting at Indian Wells ) is a (£63) day. These leaves my bank at £543, £34 ahead of the calculated £509 as at day 9 of my challenge. So I'm quite happy that I've survived today's calamities with my challenge intact.

Particularly having followed Alex at Bettingblog.org.uk, who was sunk yesterday by Liverpool at Old Trafford.

A Funny Old Game

In 'full-time' betting guise, my Saturday regime was generally to have a look around the day's odds from about 12.00, and then settle down for a long session at 2.00ish, only rising from my laptop around 7.00. I found this a difficult and tiring session, but an essential part of my week's profit generation.

In 'part-time' mode, I'm trying to increase the fun element of my betting, whilst maintaining a focus and discipline that will continue to improve my skills and strategy. My start to the day suggests I may have a little work to do on the focus element...

• Place a 'safe' lay - Man Utd v Liverpool score 'Any Unquoted'.
• Take a trip to Derby for a couple of hours shopping, in the knowledge I can always bail out if the score becomes uncomfortable.
• Realise I've left my I-Phone on charge at home, therefore losing my ability to offset my lay.
• Get back to my car at 2.40 just in time to hear the Five Live commentary describing Andrea Dossena's goal.
• Contemplate my £34 loss.

I suppose this would have been a £315 bet a couple of weeks ago, so maybe I'd have ended up with a similar loss anyway. But it makes me look a little 'Mickey Mouse' for someone who was supposed to be making a living via Betfair until a couple of weeks ago. I still think the original bet was valid - I doubt there are too many gamblers, full or part-time, who foresaw today's events at Old Trafford, but I would advise against the 'place bet, go shopping' technique.

Anyway, my new challenge is going ok, with 8 successive winning days, and today has been the first day I've been under my daily percentage target. I'm sure the challenge will become harder once my bank/target increases.

Cashflow

Ok, so my personal finances are in better shape than those controlled by these guys. But I hadn't really considered that an income gap would occur between the point where I cut back my betting activities and when I would be paid. Doh.

Something had to give, and my Betfair account has been raided. This means that I started today with a £383 bank. It's tough to get motivated to play with limited money and no target. It felt like I'd turned up for a five-a-side game to find that I was playing against a team of 9 year old girls.

I had a float around the betting blogs looking for inspiration and found a number of guys attempting challenges to build a target sum from a small starting bank, generally by daily or weekly percentage increases. I'm a little doubtful that most challenges won't end in disappointment.

Its pretty easy to make percentages on a small bank. In the last four hours I've made over 6%, despite also reading a batch of blog updates. But whilst I was happy to put £20 on the draw between Roma and Udinese at 1.21 with a few minutes left, and then leave it open beyond the point where I could have traded out, would I be happy to put £300 on a similar bet to achieve the same result? I doubt it.

But as a short term solution to keep me interested, and more importantly disciplined, I think a challenge may help. This seems contrary to my last post, where I noted that my daily targets were a problem to me. But with a three figure bank and a conservative percentage target, those pressures shouldn't be too great. And I can also experiment a little. It's tough to concentrate on the mechanics of trading techniques when you've still got another £90 to make in the day.

So I'm aiming to get to £2,000 by 2nd May, with a daily percentage target - 3% Monday to Wednesday, 2% Thursday/Friday, 4% Saturday/Sunday. Hopefully, at that point I can take things a little more seriously. I've knocked up a little spreadsheet similar to that used by BingBang (http://bingbangblogg.blogspot.com/ ), though not quite as colourful.

Oh, and the principles set out in my last post still apply.