Firedave trading Betfair with Bet Angel

It's true...@firedave1 is now on Twitter.  Come and share your daily trading experiences with me and spot those opportunities on Twitter.  Add me using the twitter image on the side of the blog or search for my username @firedave1.  I'm just starting out but enjoying the experience so far!

Look forward to hearing from you and if you're keen to get your hands on an Apple iPad then the offer on the right is genuine. All you need to do is complete one of their offers and get a few referrals.

I'm exhausted just watching, and to be honest I thought Mahut had the better chances of winning today. It was a well played match and fitting that the All England club presented the players and umpire with a momento for the occasion. I think the match will be talked about for a long time to come. One thing I've noticed a lot more this tournament is that the organisers may want to consider where they have placed their microphones. A few times I have been looking around the room trying to locate the person panting, and muttering "That was close!" I finally tracked the culprits down...those pesky ball-boys!

I thought there was nothing wrong with Murray's bow by the way. He played well too...

So, did they buckle or rise to the challenge? Will they be playing the 4-4-2 and will Gerrard be stuck on the left wing. Will Fabio insist on playing an out of form player above the leagues top goal-scorer for England. All the questions and more have been answered today, and although I can say I was not alone in thinking that the manager hasn't proved us wrong, the result is what matters at the end of the day.

Today is my girlfriends birthday, and we watched the match on the big screen in Newcastle.  The comments on the way in were along the lines of "Is that it?" and "You call that HD? More like HB!" which made me chuckle. Since it was a little difficult to make out the time on the screen this had been pre-empted by putting the screen next to the clock!  The atmosphere was very healthy and with the crowds packing in made for a great win to the last 16.  As things stand at the time of writing, we will be facing the Germans in the knock-out stage.  I think the team will be much more relaxed now they have made it through the group stages and it will be good to see where they can get to. No pressure England!

Just a quick look at Wimbledon, (I know, another tournament on at the same time as the World Cup!) bad light has stopped play when the score (in games) is 59-59! That is an obscene score! Bad light and fresh legs tomorrow could see more unbelievable scores being achieved!

Another cracking day at the all England club (ironically a year where no English men are in the draw).  Nadal looked on song and Murray made me hover over the mouse in the first set and then breezed through the next without breaking into a sweat.  He even looked to be enjoying his tennis again...did I speak to soon.  Well I don't think so, he was tested in the first set and this was a guy that wasn't that good. I can't help but see weaknesses still. Granted he has got more physically strong and he has some awesome shots that he can call on to use when he needs them but there is something I can't put my finger on...It made for good viewing though, and I was happy to watch someone playing the game well which I can only imagine will be a million miles away from what I'll be feeling watching the England game tomorrow.

On that note, nothing less than a win En- ger- land!

What a start!  I was late back from work in the morning and my mate texted to check what side I was on the Federer match. At this point I'm thinking back to Nadal's exit at Queens...Surely "The Feds" can't be nearing being knocked out, AND why am I late to my computer?!

It wasn't that Federer was playing badly he was just against an in-form opponent. By the fifth set he had managed to tire Falla and was comfortable. By 2-0 in the fifth set you couldn't even get 1.01 on Federer.  The early backers would have been sweating a bit on this one.

Richard: What are Murray's chances? Well I'm thinking he's not going to do too well this year I'm afraid. I could be wrong, and really want to be. He looked out of sorts at Queens which he's normally pretty solid at. He's losing a lot of ATP points as he hasn't hit the form he had last year.  Having said that, if/when England get knocked out the country will be looking to him to perform (which is actually the way Murray prefers it).  It would be foolish to look past Nadal and now Federer getting through a tough opener to take the glory.

I'll be very interested in any other opinions...in the comments! :)

What a day of soccer, uh football, so far! Germany will have to hold their tongue on England's current form if they're dropping points in their group, and missing a penalty...who would do that?!

With all the real focus being on Group C we wanted to see how the US would play against Slovenia to see what we could glisten from the performance. Well it turns out that we might have a match on when England faces Slovenia. When the USA pushed in the second half they started to get better chances and their 2-2 draw is probably fair. Slovenia's first half goals were very impressive though and I do feel a little sorry they couldn't hold onto the win.

England can take the fight to everyone else in the group tonight with a comfortable win against Algeria. Moyes has predicted a Rooney hat-trick and since he got the goal scorer and final score correct in the USA match I am feeling confident too!

There were goals aplenty today.  Argentina still looking a promising force and potential champions and picking up a match ball to take home when Gonzalo Higuain scored Argentina's first hat trick at a World Cup in 12 years.  Messi was at the heart of things but it was Higuain tapping them away.

France were looking pretty battered by another promising team, Mexico. The other match of the day saw an unlucky Nigeria being beaten by Greece.  Going down to 10 men did the damage as they were leading but had the chance to take home the spoils and didn't take it. Another keeping incident stole Greece's win. The more goalkeeping errors makes Green slightly less green...lets see what we can do tomorrow!

Is anyone trading the football, it seems a bit bouncy this tournament?

Thank you to all those who kindly left a comment on Delivering Happiness and were entered into a draw to win an advance reading copy of the book.

I can announce today that my lovely assistant drew out of the hat....George Palmer.  If you could email me your address I will stick the book in the post to you.  I hope you enjoy the read, and feel free to leave a review on here or on your own blog!

Many thanks to everyone, and I hope I have more goodies to give away in the future.

Don't forget to leave a comment on Delivering Happiness posting if you want a chance of winning an advance copy of the book. I'll keep on reminding each day until the 14th as I know the posting has slipped down the page now.

So what is all the fuss about? How much would you spend on a watch? At first glance I thought he was just wearing a casio. It turns out that he has a custom built watch costing in excess of $500,000!


Designed especially for Nadal by high-end Swiss watchmaker Richard Mille, the Tourbillon Watch RM 027 sports the lofty price tag mentioned above, as well as a number of other one-of-a-kind features:

RM 027 is said to be the lightest mechanical watch to be ever made. Its movement base plate is made from Titanium and Lital alloy, a high lithium content alloy containing aluminum, copper, magnesium and zirconium with a density of 2.55. The alloy mixture also includes Lithium which is considered as one of the lightest elements is expected to provide strength without added weight. The watch is considered one of the world's lightest mechanical tourbillon wristwatches with a movement weight of just a mere 3.83 grams. - Pinoytutorial

All I can say is that he did win the French Open wearing it.  He is now out of queens but with 3 sets and first games on grass he still looks in great form. A bit of a shock that he is out...I was definitely on the wrong side of the market! I'd be happy with a far cheaper Breitling if anyone would like to donate one my way!

Having just announced that Roddick was in blistering form, it came as quite a shock as I watched his price of 1.03 drift out and out to 1.25. At this point I was looking to change my position and wrestled back my loss.  Was Roddick really about to be beaten by Sela?  For anyone who trades tennis at all, they could've, should've made a killing. Watching Roddick's game completely fall apart was just amazing for the trader - plenty of opportunities to make money. I managed to turn my loss into my best profit on the week.  What shocked me most about the game was the fact that Roddick never really tried anything different. He was content to keep hitting the ball in and wait for mistakes, which were just not coming. Yes, he did lose. In 2 sets.

Nadal is on court - already have a nice bit of profit...but the rain is coming. Nearly forgot to mention the best joke of the day. When play was suspended the commentator said he was going in to get an anti-Istomin!

Don't forget to leave a comment on Delivering Happiness posting if you want a chance of winning an advance copy of the book. Rollup, rollup! Only 3 of you have entered to win so far.

Don't forget to leave a comment on Delivering Happiness posting if you want a chance of winning an advance copy of the book.

I remember when Queens was sponsored by Stella Artois and was red and green. This blue that was introduced last year for sponsors Aegon just doesn't seem quite right!  Having watched the first couple of rounds of tennis on the grass there have been some interesting revelations. Djokovic doesn't look comfortable, he'll keep on winning whilst the games are this easy but he won't win this tournament, and he doesn't look likely to win Wimbledon in his current form. Nadal looks awesome - and as he is now world number 1 he will definitely collect more than his 0 points from last years non-entrance to Wimbledon. He maybe at number 1 for a while!  Roddick looks quite likely to take the spoils at Queens with the form he showed but Nadal could prove too much for him.  Murray isn't looking great to me - as I said yesterday, his knee is a concern.  I would doubt he can keep his title here.

Some interesting price movements on Djokovic's match today, although he was clear favourite, and got an early break the money always wanted to try and drift. I didn't go with any of these drifts as they were ludicrous but it meant I only notched up a small profit on the match overall - if when the price came in to around 1.05 I looked to lay occasionally I would've benefited much more often. This must be due to how uncomfortable he looked on court as he always was going to win this match.

Don't forget to leave a comment on Delivering Happiness posting if you want a chance of winning an advance copy of the book.

Today had some good trading opportunities, especially on the tennis. I went pretty conservative when I saw Murray gripping his heavily strapped knee and got out whilst I was ahead. I needn't have worried as he then went into cruise through the latter parts of the match. I would've been kicking myself if I had just held onto my position whilst watching him struggle. There were definite opportunities for Navarro to take the initiative and he will have given Murray something to think about.

The geegees were pretty good for me today as well, these weren't as often as usual and I completely forgot about a meeting I had to attend this afternoon which somewhat spoilt most of my afternoon. I was pleased with what I managed to get out of the day though.

Competition to win an advanced reading copy of the book Delivering Happiness: A path to profits, passion and purpose will be at the end of the review...if you would like a chance to win a copy then please read on!

If you have not heard of Delivering Happiness, I suggest you check them out at  http://www.deliveringhappinessbook.com/ for a bit of background on the review.  The book can be purchased from amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/deliveringhappiness

This book follows Tony Hsieh's journey in the business world, from badge making from home with a high IQ to his selling of Zappos to Amazon for a figure above a billion dollars. The journey for happiness involved some ups and downs in business startups, the hunt for money, the loss of money, the hunt for the secret to corporate long-term success, and some input from partners and employees along the way. Zappos' leadership eventually decided to emphasise sterling customer service as the key to their own corporate culture.  The idea was to infuse ten larger values (with numerous sub-meanings and applications) into every aspect of every department of the company.

There are plenty of great tips on building culture. Paying new employess $2000 to quit. It also gives some insight to the company training program which encourages employees to constrantly grow and develop.   Make your employees happy and they will be more productive and stay with you.  This isn’t the first book I’ve read where poker is used as an analogy to business and life choices but I was pleased with the way Tony presented this topic.  The way the book reads is that most decisions are made quickly without a level of preparation that might have been expected for such a successful person.  This came across in Zappo's case, smart people with the ability to quickly change direction after recognizing a mistake can be successful without the need for detailed analysis.

In general the book is a very light read. It is destined to be given out to employees for free, and to serve as a sort of corporate diary and the documentation of the corporate methodology. The last few pages are a little more thoughtful, where the author tries to relate his business experience to a philosophical discussion of life, the universe and everything.  The biggest idea to take from the book for me was that whichever sector your business sits in make sure it really goes for it. In the case of customer intimate sector, Zappos upgrade customer’s delivery to overnight for free. Doing this extra is going to make the customer happy and they are going to talk about the service to peers and help the companys bottom line.  I’ve now added a new phrase to my business language “Bet the farm on it!”

Competition

Alright, here’s the deal.  I sent away for an advance copy of Zappos CEO’s book Delivering Happiness.  I was lucky enough to be selected as a recipient of an advance copy.  I was unaware that they were sending two copies of the book…one for me and one for a blog reader (you).

I would like anyone interested in winning an advanced reading copy of Delivering Happiness to leave a comment. To qualify you must be signed in and leave a way for me to get back in touch with you.  The comment can be about anything site related, delivering happiness, Zappos, upcoming book releases anything.  Your name needs to be legit and filled out fully.  The comment must be placed on this posting otherwise it will not be included in the draw.  All comments will then be placed in a hat and 1 lucky winner will receive a copy provided by Tony Hsieh himself.  The draw will take place a week from now on the 14th June.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote. The poll is now closed and the results are in. The question was

Would you be interested in additional charting functions for BetFair?

A few didn't think it would be of use or didn't know but the majority were open to something being provided mainly if it were free. For me to go down the free route, I can and would do this but like my blog give the opportunity for adverts to be displayed. This means that the application would be free to use but also generate some revenue for writing the application. I haven't taken much time over the last couple of months working through the charts as I wanted to get an idea of how popular they would be, and as only a small percentage of my readers have voted I guess that the majority are happy with the functions provided by their choice of trading platform of BetFair website.  I will endeavour to get a first release together over the upcoming few months and provide screenshots of what is on offer for your perusal!

I have been asked to do a book review as well - I am always open to do these if you have a book waiting to be published and would like some extra exposure. This book in particular is called "Delivering Happiness" by Tony Hsieh. He co-founded LinkExchange which he sold to Microsoft for $265 million. He then joined Zappos as an adviser and investor, and eventually became CEO.  I will be doing a review of this book next week and running a small competition to give away an advanced reading copy which he has kindly donated for his upcoming release.  Rules and how-tos will be coming up next week!

If ever momentum was a decider in tennis just take a look at the Petkovic vs Kuznetsova 2nd round match at Roland Garros yesterday.  I couldn't believe what I was watching when Petkovic kept making shot after shot and went to a 6-4 5-4 lead. With four (4) match points how could this have gone any other way than a win for Petkovic?  I would have loved to have seen the odds on this match - if anyone has the betfair odds I would love to see it. Anyway, Kuznetsova decided to string a few shots together and turned the whole match on its head. From watching this match initially you couldn't tell Petkovic plays practically on "full tilt". When shots started to miss the lines though you did sense that she didn't really have any other game. Kuznetsova did have a more reliable middle game which saw her through to the next round. I don't think I have witnessed anything quite like the turn around in fortunes before.

Anyone else getting the feeling that there has been more rain delays at the French open than at Wimbledon with its new roof...however, back to watch the 8th replay of Murray vs Gasquet. I wonder who wins this time?!

"Captain Paul Collingwood said England's World Twenty20 triumph rivalled the 2005 and 2009 Ashes Test series successes over Australia." BBC Sport.


I'm not too sure about that but a great win none the less. Hopefully England can take some of their form into the Ashes. I could say here that the players who actually won this match were all born outside of England, but they claimed their allegiance to England and that's all that matters. Come on South Africa... I mean England!

Trading carried on in a similar vein as yesterday. Managing to take good early positions and close out quickly. A few times the money went away from me I was sitting on the right side of it for once. Makes a change but I think these things even themselves out overall. My biggest loss on the day was a £4 bet I put on for a mate (he'll be coughing up later!) The interesting thing with that race is I tried trading it and ended up with 0. There were 2 horses that had a personal reference to him and neither came in the top 4.

I'm not trading the evening races today, as I am far too tired. I've learned from previous bitter experience that trading whilst tired is a recipe for disaster. Not only are you not in any good positions but your reactions become much slower and you're not as ready to change your opinion on what is good value. Better to be safe and sorry whilst the bank is growing. The main aim is to grow in confidence to continue to exit bad positions and keep taking good positions. All other times just be patient and WAIT!

There was plenty of money sloshing about in the markets today and this proved to be helpful. I still had a few scares, but I dealt with them calmly and still took profits away from them. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the day didn't show any negatives but I know this is the exception rather than the norm! Hopefully similar tomorrow as the York trials continue and Newbury gets under way.  I thought since it has been a while that I had posted my profit and loss I would do one so as to show I am still working away.

One of the biggest things I have learned is that the accumulation of small profits does soon add up to a decent day, as long as you manage the losses. Being willing to scratch a trade and change your mind is key to long term profitability.  Emotions seem to be the biggest player in losses. Humans get attached to a particular price representing value, and if this then turns against us it becomes much more difficult to take a loss...how can we be wrong?!

I recently attended a course on how to trade (profitably) in Madrid with Jack Birkhead.

I've now got a much clearer strategy on how I am going to increase my bank and stakes over time.  I have been using the techniques over the last week and have had some success. There are a few key things that I fall into quite regularly which for me would help a huge amount if I stopped these. I could and probably will write a full post on things I would like to cut out of my trading to give me something to look back on and rate myself by.

It was nice to get some sun and to speak with someone who actually makes money from trading.  I don't think I am trading in an incorrect manner and see a lot of similarities with what I do to what Jack does. There are a lot of little things that when tweaked could make all the difference between success and failure. The line really is that slim.

It's been a few days since I've last posted, and I wanted to let everyone know that things are still going well! I was often getting to the end of the day pretty exhausted and not wanting to see the computer for a little while and started to chill out for the evening. This meant I missed out on posting to the world and receiving your comments. Thank you to everyone who emailed me asking what had happened though, as I don't want to lose the committed followers I have.  This image is the best trading situation I've managed to put myself in. It shows every outcome greened up to £9.70.  I mainly wanted to post this as a target to beat and remind me that I can achieve good results if I set my mind on it.

Another project I have been working on is a software application to provide additional charting.  This was to show traditional trading indicators, oscillators and such on the real time data feed from BetFair. This showed some really interesting trends and patterns emerging.  I was wondering what the interest would be for me to share the application to other traders. I have set up a poll on the right hand side of the blog for you to give me some feedback as to whether I should polish the application off and make available. Any more detailed comments you would like to leave please leave them on this post as a comment.  I know there are a few applications out there that let you show additional charting however, most of them require extra software to use and not just your BetFair login. Any comments are more than welcome.

With the flat season under way now there are a lot more sprints, and a lot less favourites being turned over. Or are there? Today some very short favourites were beaten by miles (figuratively speaking)
From a trading angle, the markets are still quite sporadic, but I managed to make a small profit. Confidence is slowly growing, hopefully the bank will follow suit!

I enjoy watching the masters, and this year was no exception. If you managed to watch the final day's play as well you had a real treat. Hole's in one, plenty of eagles, and a near albatross were the order of the day.  I was really rooting for Lee Westwood to bring the green jacket back to England but it wasn't to be. Phil Mickelson was playing some remarkable golf. He definitely deserved the win.  I'm glad the level of golf was so high, to take away from what would've been a masters talked about just for Tiger Woods. After 5 months out, I was wondering why it hadn't affected his golf. His final day showed more signs of it, and he missed a couple of, easy for him, putts. Despite this, he still ended in fourth which just shows what a class player he is.

Trading today was good, despite making a mistake and not greening up a loss. This meant that naturally it went on to win and took the full loss. However, I had still made more on the day and ended positive.  

BetFair is pretty close to being an efficient market however, it is not totally efficient. There is always an element of error due to the ever changing opinions and money going through the markets. The most efficient time is the start of the race as all money to either back or lay has been matched at this point. This doesn't make it the best time to trade though, the market can change violently just before the start.  This is because traders are trying to get out of their positions in the last few seconds before the off and any trend that may have formed will be disrupted. This is another reason to make sure you are out of the markets at this point and not to let it go in-play.

The book overound is a piece of information we get from BetFair and will vary according to the number of runners. What value will my "efficient market" be? Well, each runner should produce 0.1% error/margin/profit so you should expect a book as follows:

12 runners = 100% + (12 x 0.01%) = 101.2%

4 runners  = 100% + (4 x 0.01%)   = 100.4%

When the book is moving towards 100% then something is going to have to shorten in price to push the book back towards efficiency and likewise if it is moving towards the upper limit something will have to drift to pull it back into line.

The move to correct the book usually revolves around the favourite as that is where most of the money is. A collective drift or steam on multiple runners can have the same effect but if you watch the favourite's price you won't go wrong too often.  This isn't a piece of information you can use on its own but does help give some confirmation when making a decision to enter, or exit a trade.  This is a good indicator when there is only one clear favourite in a race. When there are multiple favourites, it is unclear which runner will move to correct the book.

Hey traders! It's my birthday! Good times, though it does mean I'm edging ever closer to 30 :-S

So Aintree started today - much more volume in the markets, with £2 million matched on the first race! The extra liquid in the Aintree markets meant that the other markets were far more volatile, which caught me out early on. After this reminder, I made good progress and ended up with £20 of profit at the end of the day. Typical of trading, I did manage to lose £98 overall, but fortunately my total gain reached £118 so positive experience on final review!

How did you do today then?
No real reason for the picture other than it amused me. The markets were a little crazy today and it felt that it was being manipulated quite a bit.  I had some very good positions only to see the market turn with a couple of large orders and then it never really settled again afterwards. I had a lucky market today where I made £5, but another unlucky where I lost the same so on balance the day was average. Another positive day overall, which is the current target at the moment.

With Aintree festival starting tomorrow, we could see the markets being a bit more readable. Then the grand national is on Saturday.  A pretty difficult market from all accounts. At the moment it looks as though anyone could win it.

Hopefully many eggs were consumed over Easter - they certainly were here.  I did a lot of event watching rather than trading over the weekend. Some football, rowing (The Facebook millionaires will have to stick to that), Grand Prix (with all the fast cars at the back of the grid) and a bank holiday packed race card for horse racing.  The problem with so many events, is that they tend to overlap and it only takes one of them to be delayed to put the whole day into a bit of shambles from a trading perspective. This meant that I had a good catch up with family and friends and left worrying about an income until today!

Trading today was pretty good. Very nearly, very good.  I had one race go very against me but being disciplined I cut the trade out. The other races all made up for this loss and the day was profitable overall. Without the large loss from the one earlier on it would have been even better. I am slowly but surely learning the lesson that you can't win them all and that taking a loss in the short term will make greater returns in the long run.  Lets see if I can keep it up for the rest of the week.

The new month hasn't brought that many opportunities unfortunately. Another racecourse was abandoned today and the weather has meant that a lot of the punters may be staying away. I'm still using my reduced stakes and I have regained a lot of confidence. This was helped by making sure I haven't been going in play. Today I took a £2 loss instead of going in-play. This was immediately rewarded with the next race where I made £4. No other negatives on the P&L today so happy overall. There is no UK racing tomorrow, and bank holidays are notoriously busy to try and trade, so I won't be trading horses until Tuesday. I may try and get something out of the grand prix or have a look at some of the football over the weekend.  Have a good Easter!

Today was a confident day trading. It didn't feel much different to my other trading days except that I made a decision to enter, if it didn't work cut the loss or scratched for 0. Then re-evaluated and went in again. This definitely seems to be the way to do it. At the moment, I would still say I hold onto a losing position too long and  slightly more annoyingly, cut my profits before they run.  A couple of positions today had a nice move, I only let them run to about half before expecting the trend to turn and getting out. This will come with experience I am sure. My objective at the moment is to cut losses and make a profit on the day.  As I get more familiar with how the market changes, which I feel I am slowly understanding, I will be able to start setting expectations as to how much to make in a day. The idea of the target for the day has been my downfall in the past, as accepting the loss might have made me miss the target and put me into a loss-chasing mind frame.  For now, I would much rather gain confidence in cutting the loss, and quicker as this then presents many more opportunities to get back into the market with more information.

Slightly concerned that I noticed there was a premium charge on my BetFair betting history.  I would have thought that with my P&L being negative overall I wouldn't qualify for this. I will read the rules again and give a clearer indication on whether I am now paying the ghastly PC!

Tonight there are a couple of Champions League games, which I may dabble with although with Arsenal playing you can never really predict the score or how many goals will be scored.  Last nights action with Manchester United, I had been reading how Bayern Munich were going to mark Rooney out of the game. I was laughing at this when he scored, then they had the last laugh when he comes off the pitch injured!

I came across this article the other day and always get slightly excited about these types of discoveries. Admittedly it hasn't been taken to the logical conclusion just yet but it does start to show different possibilities.

Scientists have created the first device to render an object invisible in three dimensions.

The "cloak", described in the journal Science, hid an object from detection using light of wavelengths close to those that are visible to humans.

Previous devices have been able to hide objects from light travelling in only one direction; viewed from any other angle, the object would remain visible.

This is a very early but significant step towards true invisibility cloaks.

Newcastle racing was cancelled today due to being waterlogged. The lack of racing and the smaller fields running today presents a few challenges to the trader. I had a few trades turn against me but I noticed them quickly and cut the losses.  The end of the day was still positive (just) but my trading was good.  For tomorrow, I could get even more involved in the markets with the confidence to know that I am cutting bad trades.

This weekend was very enjoyable. We went to Wembley to watch Carlisle play Southampton in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy. It was one of those weekends where, although we did a lot of travelling, everything was perfect. We met up with a lot of our friends we hadn't seen for a while. Had a good trip round London, and had a superb meal.  What more could we want!

Admittedly we were cheering for Carlisle - so the score could've been better!  Wembley looks great, and with the 73,000 spectators there yesterday the sound was brilliant. The acoustics are shocking, but the atmosphere exuberating.  Burger, chips and a soft drink all under £8!

Trading today was good and steady. A couple of races were profitable, a couple I had to cut at a loss and overall a small profit. Fingers crossed the rest of the week will be as successful, if not more.

McLaren managed to predict the weather conditions to record the fastest practice sessions. This normally worries me as the fastest in practice tends not to be the winner of the race - Hamilton must still have had his racing shoes on when leaving the track as he managed to get his road car impounded!

Trading today was okay, managed a good P&L but still let a couple of ugly positions run a little too long. I need to figure out a good way of managing multiple trades at once. For example, looking at my What is trading post I go through an example of a single trade. Often though I have many trades waiting to be picked up, and if these go wrong then I need to be more ready to cut the loss.  If too quick though, the trending pattern often returns to the position and any profits can be cut.

Quite a solid day trading today. Made sure I was cutting my bad trades early and holding on to profitable ones. I  found some of the markets quite difficult to read today and was expecting a lot more reversals. In fact what tended to happen were huge steamers or drifters. I was left wondering why I wasn't on one of these. By the time the whole ladder had been gone through I always feel that it is a little late to join the party.

There were a few humorous moments (even trading can be fun!) when someone thought it was amusing to put £14K bets into the market.  The strange thing was that it had very little influence on them, despite the fact that it was several factors bigger than anything else available. I just found myself having a chuckle thinking that if that actually got taken up someone would be having a headache.

I've been working on some longer posts, which are nearly written and just need some images which I will be sharing in the next couple of weeks.

Another good day today trading-wise. However, the day's P&L was down today through no fault of my own. The BetFair API went down. I have been aware they've been having issues and wasn't surprised that it happened but I did think they may have resolved their issues since the last couple of months record is not good for them.

A new trick learned today, have another copy of Bet Angel open in non-API mode (mode 1), make sure auto-refresh is off so not to incur additional charges.  This means that when the API is down you will still be able to close out your position. Too bad for me today but thankfully it was a manageable amount. I will definitely be using this trick going forward!

Exeter saw the horses start, then disappear, then one would be announced the winner. This was today's amusement due to the heavy mist that was experienced at their race course.

Looking at a new strategy and there may be some promise with this.  BetFair graph reading, entry points are still the same but exit points and especially when to take the exit is my emphasis at the moment. I can get a high percentage of moves correctly in the past but the occasional wrong move would put me disproportionally out for the day (or month!)  Having previously decided what my maximum loss for a single race is I can make sure to cut any losses before they become big. The issue with this is a lot of profit can be cut in choppy, more volatile markets.  Today I made sure I was out of all markets before 10 seconds before the off and had a happy, no heart attack day of trading. Yesterday's trading went well although overall the P&L was -£1. Today was positive and is re-enforcing the new attitude. As I have indicated in previous posts, if I can get the consistency which must be from the discipline then this may have a chance of working. I'm a long way off at the moment, but understanding that is at least a rung on the ladder!

Happy trading! :)

I have now managed to track down what happened on Thursday last week and will be a useful hint for those traders just starting out and something to watch for. One thing in particular to do with trading is making sure that all trading has been finished before going in-play for horseracing. If you have been on Peter Webb's course then you may be aware of a little trick to help with this.  Ideally, if you have pictures you can see when the race is about to start and make sure all trades are exited in sufficient time. If like me, you're still trading without pictures then it is essential to make sure you are out of all trades at 10 seconds before the off on the timer. Actually, very rarely do the races start on time which brings in this ill-discipline of closing out at the correct time.  One tactic to squeeze out some extra seconds would be to select 'Take SP' which if the price hits the requested price then fine, but if it strays and goes in-play then the Betfair starting price of the race will be used instead.

Great I hear...well, it always, always pays to read the rules for whatever market you trade on.  The reason I say this is that if you use this particular tip to help out in tricky situations, then make sure you're using big enough stakes. If you are just short of a back at a certain price you will almost always get this filled at the current SP. However, if you're looking to lay and take SP you must have a liability of over £10. So if you're using small stakes to learn, then £4 at 3.20 odds would only have a liability of £8.80. This would cause the bet to lapse when it goes in-play rather than take the expected SP which could've been odds of 3.8.

This post is from an original article that was published in 'CTCN' by "Anonymous Trader".

I found this article whilst looking over other trading forums and it amused me so wanted to put it up here for feedback from other traders and observers. I quite like the steps and feel a lot of it is true. I would say that I have definitely got to step 14 but feel I am at or around step 24. I really am looking forward to reaching step 38 but at the moment it feels a distant dream!  The difference between success and failure in trading seems to be a really thin line.  Over confidence is as bad as no confidence and fear is terrible for situations that require clear thinking. It is interesting that according to the steps that you have to learn about yourself before you can be successful. Another post I saw is that there are actually only 3 rules to trading, discipline, discipline and lastly discipline.

1. We accumulate information - buying books, going to seminars and researching.

2. We begin to trade with our 'new' knowledge.

3. We consistently 'donate' and then realize we may need more knowledge or information.

4. We accumulate more information.

5. We switch the commodities we are currently following.

6. We go back into the market and trade with our 'updated' knowledge.

7. We get 'beat up' again and begin to lose some of our confidence.

 Fear starts setting in.

8. We start to listen to 'outside news' and to other traders.

9. We go back into the market and continue to 'donate'.

10. We switch commodities again.

11. We search for more information.

12. We go back into the market and start to see a little progress.

13. We get 'over-confident' and the market humbles us.

14. We start to understand that trading successfully is going to take more time and more knowledge than we anticipated.

Most people will give up at this point, as they realize work is involved.

15. We get serious and start concentrating on learning a 'real' methodology.

16. We trade our methodology with some success, but realize that something is missing.

17. We begin to understand the need for having rules to apply our methodology.

18. We take a sabbatical from trading to develop and research our trading rules.

19. We start trading again, this time with rules and find some success, but over all we still hesitate when it comes time to execute.

 20. We add, subtract and modify rules as we see a need to be more proficient with our rules.

21. We feel we are very close to crossing that threshold of successful trading.

22. We start to take responsibility for our trading results as we understand that our success is in us, not the methodology.

23. We continue to trade and become more proficient with our methodology and our rules.

24. As we trade we still have a tendency to violate our rules and our results are still erratic.

25. We know we are close.

26. We go back and research our rules.

27. We build the confidence in our rules and go back into the market and trade.

28. Our trading results are getting better, but we are still hesitating in executing our rules.

29. We now see the importance of following our rules as we see the results of our trades when we don't follow the rules.

30. We begin to see that our lack of success is within us (a lack of discipline in following the rules because of some kind of fear), and we begin to work on knowing ourselves better.

31. We continue to trade and the market teaches us more and more about ourselves.

32. We master our methodology and our trading rules.

33. We begin to consistently make money.

34. We get a little over-confident and the market humbles us.

35. We continue to learn our lessons.

36. We stop thinking and allow our rules to trade for us (trading becomes boring, but successful) and our trading account continues to grow as we increase our contract size.

37. We are making more money than we ever dreamed possible.

38. We go on with our lives and accomplish many of the goals we had always dreamed of.

With all the Denmania hype and Kauto Star's incredible record, who was going to be this years Cheltenham Gold Cup hero?

Imperial Commander

Okay, I am being slightly harsh and the race was great fun to watch. Kauto Star wasn't jumping well at all and took an ugly fall. Denman looked like he might have got it but ran out of steam at the end.  The amusing thing from a trader's point of view is that of the £10.8 million traded on the race, £7.4 million was matched on Kauto Star alone. This is ludicrously out of proportion.

I've been given a few tips on how to manage my account - this is to hopefully prevent the large losses that I encountered and instead of thinking about how much to make from each race my focus will be more on how little to lose on each race.  Having said this, today I've hit another interesting area of Betfair and their starting price calculations. To make sure I wasn't going in-play I accepted to take the SP on the lay side for £16. I know I did this as it is very clearly in my Bet Angel logs. When trying to find these lay bets though in Betfair they appear under the lapsed bets. The only thing I can think that has happened here is that there wasn't enough back bets to cover my £16. I find this highly unlikely and will continue investigating. In the meantime I'll not be using the take SP button though!

It has been really good fun watching Cheltenham races and seeing how friendly the jockies are to each other even though they're racing against each other. A really nice touch was when AP McCoy handed over his armband to Ruby Walsh when Ruby had just landed another win.

From a trading point of view, I have been doing well but getting frustrated with the smaller stakes. Another day of no in-running trades so I think it is worthwhile forcing and emphasising this habit. I can't see that the trading is really any different from more volatile meets with small stakes, as the way the money is moving around it is a lot easier to get out of difficult positions if only a small amount of money needs to get matched. The experience is fun still and confidence is slowly being rebuilt!

The festival is in full swing and it is totally awe inspiring seeing how much money is traded on these races. Before it was a good race if £700k is matched by the end of the race. The first race of the festival had £8 million! It is still good to see that the races vary even with the higher levels of liquidity.  Some stuck to their trending patterns and took a while to get matched but you knew the price wasn't going to shoot off.  Others the price fluctuated much quicker but again you knew that the true punting money was making sure the price didn't go too far.  Both of these extremes were much easier to read and I managed to get money through the markets but with reduced stakes whilst I get used to the feel.

I got to the bottom of my difficulties I was having, and in essence I was right with my previous post. The underlying issue, which is obvious when thinking about it, was to have greened up at the current price it would've exceeded my total bank as liability. Therefore, if the runner did manage to get over the line first I wouldn't have had sufficient funds in my account for Betfair to have settled.  To regain some composure and think things through I have reduced my stakes again.  This will give me a solid base to try out differing tactics and really work on closing bad positions and changing between speculative and aggressive styles. Today I used just £2 stakes, right back to basics. I managed to get these through the market more than ever before and had a positive day.  Nothing like the losses I have incurred, but a 2% increase with those stakes.

I was asked the other day whether an increase in stakes would result in bigger P&L. This is a multi answer question, but based on my particular progress to date, is that the bank must be sufficiently large to allow for the bigger stakes.  The positive here, is that I am readdressing the basics to help with an increase in stakes.

This post is difficult to write, whenever I hit a bad day I don't particularly enjoy telling everyone about it.  Especially as the day was shaping quite nicely in time for Cheltenham festival starting tomorrow.  I was taking the day cautiously as previous Mondays haven't been that kind to me and had £10 after the first 5 races. The next two were negative and I made a mistake that I thought I had drilled out of me of keeping a bet over into in-play. This resulted in a £60 negative bank. I made this up over the next 6 races and was actually going to record a £15 day which in hindsight I should've taken. Ever wanting more practice though, I took the next race on and had everything fine until the software wouldn't green up. I crawled through the logs to find out that to have placed the hedge (greening) it would have exceeded my liability that I had set to stop myself getting into expensive positions. This actually backfired - as it part hedged leaving me a negative £360, my biggest single loss!

If this wasn't bad enough, there was only one race left which I traded - and very well, but again when trying to close, couldn't and took another loss. Back to back, worst ever losses - leaving me a pretty depleted bank with one of the biggest festivals of the year tomorrow. Total loss on the day was £703.27, but I can't bring myself to think I traded badly.  I am very concerned about the greening and will be looking to see how I can make sure that particular error on my behalf could've been avoided.  An expensive day, and one that really is making me wonder about the longevity of trading for me.

Best named horse today was: Googoobarabajagal

I was always rather impressed Christine Bleakley had decided to do the Channel crossing on water skis for Sport Relief, and today came with better weather than yesterday.  Rather amazingly she only fell off 8 times and completed the distance within 100 minutes! A big well done to you!

On the trading front, I took things a lot more cautiously today and had tallied up a steady £16 half way through the day. I got a bit lucky on the last race but I felt it was what I was expecting and it happened in front of my eyes. The day finished on a £60.91 profit which again is higher than I would've really expected. I was on course for a high £30 finish until the last race which is more in the region I was expecting. I will keep being this cautious for Monday's racing and then see what Cheltenham has in store on Tuesday.

I had a feeling yesterday was a lucky run and after the first couple of races today I was being proved right. I cannot understand how to read these markets they seem to be really erratic. Throughout the day there was overall more drifters than steamers, and when they went they disappeared. I was on the back foot from the off and took me the whole day to make even. I don't like this one bit, as I take far more risks than I should and it doesn't feel as comfortable as some of the earlier weeks felt. Overall I would say this feels like I'm just starting again and my results look similar to that of week 1 and week 2.  I was positive on the day overall but as it was so random and again more luck than any kind of skill I am not going to put the figure up as it would be misleading; it was less than yesterday though!

Tomorrow I am going to play safe and cautiously enter the markets I feel have some structure. This will result in a smaller P&L but at the moment it is capital preservation that is key.

Last night we had the pleasure of attending Dave Gorman's stand up routine at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle. My girlfriend and I have been fans of Dave's for a while.  I first was introduced to him by another Dave in his Astrological experiment. If you get the chance to watch his BBC 2 series it is a definite laugh.  He then wrote a couple of books you may have come across, his first "Are you Dave Gorman?" and then the Googlewhack adventure.  His sense of humour and his friend Danny Wallace are two people I have been itching to see and when they came to Nookassia we jumped at the chance.

He's asked us not to talk too much about the performance so as not to spoil it for others but the basic premise is stand up comedy. I hope this doesn't spoil it for anyone. :) Another interesting thing is that his cardigan was definitely purple - and that looks blue, so either I drank too much or he was standing under a red light?!

From a trading perspective - today I had decided to use slightly larger stakes and my first couple of races saw a few issues with this. I made a couple of losses totalling £117.  I felt a little phased at first but got down to trading like normal but with the larger stakes and it started to feel natural again. I managed to claw back most but not all of the loss leaving me with a negative day of -£26.92.  This is going to sound a little silly, but even though it was a negative day I feel like I learned a lot and am raring for tomorrow to have a chance to take profit.

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