JOE BLOGS TRADER

17 January 2008

No trading last night as I went out for dinner instead and I am having a bit of a rest. I havent been in the right frame of mind to trade the football recently after a couple of poor results. I am still looking at this market but since I am way ahead of my daily targets, I think a rest is the best option. I did play a bit of poker when I got in though and picked up two bad beats to finish -7% down. After the other night though, I think I deserved them. :)

Im going to post a bit later about a couple of punts I have going on.

Result -7%

16th January 2008

I did not involve myself in any football trading last night or poker as I already have a quite a liability on a few of the new manager markets. I will talk about these in a later post because so far they have been very interesting to watch. Instead, I did manage to trade a little on the Australia v India test match even though with the time difference it is very difficult for me to trade.

Because of the time difference I cannot trade this as well as I like which is annoying because the test matches so far have all been great trading opportunities. Therefore I decided to have a bit of a punt with half stakes and lay Australia at 1.39 with 5% of bank before the test had begun. It was a bit of a punt because I would not know the outcome of the toss or how the batting team starts. However, my reasoning was in a five day test match this is a trade with plenty of upside but little downside. (even if india start poorly - aussie odds may not drop that much). I woke up to find that on a fast wakka track, India were not doing too badly and aussie odds had drifted to 2.5. I then traded out my position to give a 10% profit whatever the result. Considering I am unable to watch the first five or so hours of each day I may well leave the rest of the test alone, although if i see another trading opportunity tomorrow morning I may go back in to try and increase the profit. Ill include the result when the test match is concluded.

Before the end of last year, I was undoubtedly a losing punter at cricket trading. In fact out of all sports, it was cricket where I lost the most amount of money. It is clear I used to 'chase' matches - I would keep taking the odds on offer in the hope that they would run in my favour and then trade out. However, Ive found that chasing the market in this way is a very wrong thing to do. Ive still got a lot to learn, but by taking a stand with what i believe are low risk trades, I seem to be doing a lot better.

15 January 2008

I started this blog on the first of january 2008 with £100 in my betfair account and had the intention of trading and playing poker to earn 1% a day. I felt that this was a manageable target and if I can acheive this then I will have earned £100,000 in less than 2 years as a result of compound interest.

To update on my current position, my bank now stands at £150 after I have traded on approximately 12 out of the 15 days of January giving a return of 50% and I am therefore nearly a month ahead of my target.

I decided to try a new strategy on the football markets yesterday as I feel that the price movements on the under 2.5 goals are not moving as quickly as they once did. This strategy proved to be fairly successful and I made 1% on the match between Leeds v Crewe even though using small stakes. This, however, was negated by a small bet I had on carlos moya where I was looking into a tennis trading strategy. So all in all no movement on the day.

Finally, his blog is entertaining and inspiring and my thoughts and condolences go out to the gambler after his sad news.

11-14 January 2008

Apologies for no updates over the weekend but firstly, I have not been feeling so great and secondly I have been battling hard to prevent my great start from becoming completely decimated.

I have been trading poorly, my discipline has gone out the window and I have been betting with stakes far too high for my bank and it is only due to luck alone that I can report another profit. The way I am going it wont be too long before my bank is wiped out as I know that the way I am playing is not sustainable. Therefore I am taking a few days off trading and rethinking my entire strategy.

I began where I left off on friday by making a series of poor trades and stupid mistakes. First of all, I backed the under 2.5 goals in the bristol v tranmere game without checking whether the game was going in play. I cannot believe I did this as I always check this before going in but needless to say luck was on my side and I pocketed 6% from a stupid mistake. However, at the same time as this game was being played I decided to trade on pacos fereirra v maritimo match. I didnt trade this match too badly however instead of taking a small green in the first half I held on a bit too long and when four goals came flooding in before the end of the first half I was left nursing a loss of -16%.

The losses didnt end there when on saturday i got in to see newcastle v manchester united 0-0 and with not a lot happening in the match. With half time approaching I felt it was too late to enter the under 2.5 goal market. I decided to enter with 8% after the first goal went in and of course you can guess what happened next.  As per the strategy, I kept re entering the market after each goal but as manchester united managed to score 6 second half goals there was no point where i could reduce my losses. I finished the match with a loss of -50% and my bank nearly in tatters. Although these results are rare, the way I have been trading this loss was always on the cards and I am going to rethink my entire strategy over the next few days.

With trading not working out over the weekend I turned my hand to poker and managed to win most of my losses back. I played for about 5 hours on sunday afternoon and with the help of two outrageous bad beats- I managed to (luckily) recoup all my losses and end the weekend up 10% taking my bank to 150 which makes me nearly a month ahead of my target to £100k in 2 years. Got a feeling, however, if I keep going like this I'll end up with nothing so as I said a few days rest for me.

Result +10% Bank 150

10th January 2008

A difficult couple of days recently. I've not been feeling my best which has manifested in some bad trading but luckily I have managed to come out relatively unscathed. It all started on wednesday evening where, after I had got home from work not feeling too good at all, I mistakenly laid instead of backed Sam Allardyce at 3.6 to be the next manager to leave their job. Slightly aggrieved at this mistake, I decided to turn to poker and ended up losing 10%. Decided to get some rest at that point and had no idea what would happen the next morning. Well, woke up in the morning not feeling good again so decided to take the day off work. Then, switched on my computer to find big Sam was gone and another 5% was down the drain. I took some more rest, ate some lunch then without thinking i was back on the poker and had upped stakes - therefore breaking several of my rules.

In as little as half an hour I had won over 25% back of my bank. i played aggressively and well but crucially a coin flip that could have gone either way went mine and i won just under $50. Well to be honest its about time I had one of those go my way but I shouldnt really have been playing at those stakes. I quit the game shortly after but the bad trading didnt end there. i moved on to the mallorca v real madrid and managed to lose 7% almost immediately on the under 2.5 goal market. I turned to the under 3.5 and managed to reduce the lost to only 1.5% after making 5.5% on this market.

Then, I started making backs and lays on harry redknapp in the next newcastle manager market and before I knew it I had over exposed myself to the tune of 18% of my bank when I decided to back a number of different runners. I wish I hadnt done this because if I hadnt Id be in a very good position today. However, Ive had quite a lot of success in these markets before and even though im over exposed on a few of the candidates, they dont look too bad and I am still +5% since tuesday so I have to be pleased.

Result +5%

Poker Sites

A reader asked me what poker sites I can recommend so I thought Id put them down in a quick post and say why I like them. Ive played on most poker sites out there so I think I'm a decent enough judge but of course, these are just my own opinions.

Betfair Poker - I play on betfair poker fairly regularly. There is always a game to be found and they have a good selection of my favourite type of game (heads up no limit). The software is excellent and the standard of play is pretty low mainly due to there being an abundance of 'sports bettors' who are not as clued up on poker.  Con: It may be an advantage to some but if you like to bet as well I think it can be unwise to keep your poker bank mixed up with your sports bank.

Full Tilt Poker - An excellent site which I also play on regularly, especially during the day as there seems to be a lot of action (mainly from the other side of the world) as compared to other sites. You can always find a game and the tournaments are the biggest and best of any ive seen. On the downside, the standard is a little bit higher and if youre accustomed to the high stakes you may even run into the top pros like phil hellmuth and phil ivey.

Pacific Poker aka 888casino - I thought Id include pacific poker simply because it has the most number of new players and hence 'bad' players on the net. Probably as a result of the huge advertising campaigns 888 attracts lots of new players. There's always a game to be found and has some great tournaments. On the down side it doesnt cater for heads up cash games.

If youre interested in playing poker Id advise to sign up through the loyalty program Rakeback before you sign up to any of these sites because otherwise you may not be applicable. As I said in the post on 3rd january with rakeback you can claim back money that otherwise would have been lost to the casino. Click here to find out http://www.rakeback.com/?referrerid=10406

9th January 2008

Bit of a see-saw at the moment. I managed to win 1.4% on the chelsea v evrton game but lost 5% on poker. I began trading on the under 1.5 goal market but unfortunately I was only able to trade the second half. I made 0.4% on this market then turned to the under 2.5 goal market. I entered the market straight after the second goal then laid off in chunks of £1 to make another profit of 1% whatever result.

Didn't play badly at poker but that is the nature of the beast. It goes in swings and roundabouts so I'll probably play a bit more tonight in order to win some money back then give it a rest for a few days.  That seems to help.

Result -3.6%

7th January 2008

I made my target today, though my football trading had another losing day.
When I got in from work I was surprised to see that Internacional were trading at 1.63 to win their match against Inter even though they were 2-1 up with only 12 minutes to go. I thought this was a very high price seeing as there were only 12 minutes left on the clock and I expected the price to drop quickly as the minutes ticked by. This proved to be the case and I managed to lay off my 10% stake in a couple of minutes to make a 1.3% profit whatever happened. To be honest, Internacional are probably my favourite team in Brazil (mainly because they have won me money in the past :) ) and had I known that they were trading at 6's from the off to win a friendly that was based in a country (Dubai) where conditions would be more favourable to a brazilian side than a european side I would have had money on them from the start. I probably would have made them as low as 2.5 to win! I have seen matches like this before where south american teams are underated against big european sides. South Americans love football just as much as anyone!

Next up, I traded on the Torquay v Burton match but was left in a small red position when Torquay equalised shortly before half time. I backed back at a price of 4.7 and had the opportunity to green out for a tiny profit but made the mistake of hanging on for a couple of minutes too long. Burton took the lead straight after the break and I took a loss of 8%. I turned to the under 3.5 goal market and managed to reduce my loss by making 6.8% profit on this market.
I have had a couple of losses on the football recently and I think this maybe down to me raising my stakes to 10%. Im going to return to 8% for the meanwhile as this seems to work more smoothly when I am trading out. Possibly because 8% requires fewer trades to green out gradually. Maybe I will look into using 10% but increasing the value of my lays so that they can green out quicker.

I had made a loss of -0.4% on my football trading so I decided to play a few hands of poker to try and hit my target. I only played for 15 minutes but ended up making 4.2%. Hopefully Ill be able to make some profit on the football tomorrow night

Result +3.8%

6th January 2008

Today was a loss of -2.9% after I traded on four football matches. The first match I got involved in was Liverpool v luton where I got caught out trading the under 1.5 goal when luton equalised. I had entered the market just moments before and ended up losing 7% of bank. I switched to the under 2.5 goals and managed to reduce my loss winning 4.8% on this market.
I was also trading the lyon v creteil match which proved to be a bit of a mistake. I was in a small losing position when the second goal went in but backed back at odds of 5.6. Unfortunately, liquidity was not good in the match and my lay of 5.2 never got matched even though there was some time till the third goal. The 3.5 goal market was not open therefore I lost 4% on this match.
I turned my attention to the stoke v newcastle match where i backed at an average price of 1.79 and laid off at an average price of 1.59 to result in a profit of 2%. i traded the porto v naval in a similar way and ended with 1.5% from this match to reduce my losses.

Although I have had my first losing day I'm still feeling good as I am already 21 days into my quest for 100k after only 6 days

Result -2.9%

5th January 2008

A decent result today with just under a 5% gain on bank. There were lots of fa cup games to choose from and I decided to start with tottenham vs reading who were trading at a very high price of 2.9 for under 2.5 goals before kick off. I backed this price with 13% of my bank, half of which I had laid off before kick off for a small profit. I laid off the rest before the first goal went in. I continued trading this match to result in a small profit. I then switched my attention to the bristol city v middlesborough game just after middlesborough equalised. I entered the market at 3.16 and laid off at an average price of 2.88 to result in a 2% profit. I also managed a couple of very quick and small trades on the ipswich v portsmouth game and mallorca v barcelona for another small profit.
I also had a green position in the west indies v south africa second test match which concluded mid afternoon. My main trading was done on the first and second days where I laid south africa at an average price of 1.37 for what i considered to be a low risk trade when the west indies were building a large total in their first innings and backed back at an average price of 1.51 to result in a profit of 2.3%

Result +4.8%