Absolutely no complaints today. I traded f***ing abysmally and how I only lost £35 is an absolute mystery to me if I’m honest.
I won £224 in the last 3 races to bail me out and I was lucky to have 2 winners in the final 3 races.
A disaster of a day and this month is proving the month of hell!!!! Some of the highlights were:
I started off in the 2.10 at Worcester laying the fav as I had no idea what it was doing at that price. It then got heavily punted, I was forced to go in running with £50 red on the fav and £10 green on the field and I didn’t want the £25 guaranteed loss. The fav absolutely hosed up on the bridle and made me look quite silly if I’m honest!
Then I did the same in the 2nd race at Worcester as the fav was 1/4 when it is no world beater. I managed to exit this in running for a fairly large green on the field but the fav hosed up again!
I wanted to be against the fav in the first 2 races at Catterick. Both got beat but were absolutely punted on course, so another loss pre-race which was annoying!
I did escape a large loss in the first though. I could see the unraced horse getting punted but it would have to be quite decent to win it I thought. I laid at 9, backed at 10. I didn’t realise it had been backed from 25 and it actually started at 6 and won on the bridle. After that escape, I thought my luck had changed but it wasn’t to be.
My worst one was in the 3.30 at Lingfield. For once I agree with Matt Chapman. Why the hell did this fav start at 1.6? My first play was £100 to lay at 2.1 and then I continued to bail for a loss and then lay again. At the off, I had a large red on the fav and a very small green on the field. Again, I was proved right and won the measly sum of £9.52 for getting a 1.6 shot beat and risking £100. Nice trading Graeme!
I won £25 on Windjammer in the 3.20 but again, it ran poorly and I laid off very early anyway as it traded quite short early in the race.
My best result was in the 5.20 when I really fancied Dan Tucker. Since I was heavily down and a bit annoyed with myself, I decided to trade this as if it is a world beater. Thankfully, for once, the market agreed and it shortened significantly to give me £350 riskfree on it. I passed up on £70 green at the off and was pleased to see it win easily to give me £192 profit on the race after I laid off with a few furlongs left.
I’m not posting my P&L as it is a shambles with 17 races traded, 7 wins, 7 losses and 3 break-even.
I’m trading again tomorrow, so it should be more fun and games!
3 comments:
Unlucky Graeme always a kick in the nuts when we have the inevitable losing run over a few days but stick with it as things are obviously still working just by the fact you made decent profits over the last 3 races and if one of the others had gone your way you'd have been in profit.
You know that your method is going to produce the odd losing day but just because they've all come at once shouldn't put you off as you've a track record now of the previous months posting profits.
I rarely keep track of my p/l thru the day these days as it's so easy to either chase the small losses or get over confident and throw away the odd £10's 20's etc once we're well up thinking it doesn't matter because I've won so much anyway. Might be worth you taking your eye off the running p/l til the end of the day as even though you'll have a rough idea how you're doing I'm usually surprised how those little wins all add up and turn an expecte loss into a nice profit.
Another thing you might want to consider especially as you're trading based on form is missing out the races you haven't assessed properly and spend the time looking at the later races. At the bigger prices you play it may also be an idea to stick some bets up early in the hope of getting filled before the shows come out as the extra ticks will make a real difference and there are always people taking bad value for the later races for a variety of reasons.
Anyway keep faith in your abilities and hopefully you'll be back posting up a run of winning days shortly
Hi Steve.
Thanks for the support. As you guessed, I’m struggling at the moment again with my trading and it’s all a bit hard work for me.
You may have stumbled across something with the form thing. As I’ve stated many times on here, I know I have an edge in handicap flat races. Yesterday, I won £260 in these races. I just so happened to chuck away £300 in NH races and other non-handicap flat races……
I’ve been working overtime with my trading this month trying to catch up and I’ve been trading far more races than I normally would. When it comes off, I do well but very often, I read the race wrong and I get caught out.
I’m probably going through the process of proving to myself this month that I can’t use my trading strategy in non-handicaps and NH races but I had to try it out for myself first.
Yesterday was an easy example. A 2 year old unraced horse was backed from 25/1 to 5/1 and won on the bridle and a Curran horse on the jumps was backed from 16/1 to 7/2 and won. I laid both but got out of both by scratching trades. The NH horse had no form and hadn’t run for a year but hosed up.
I know there are many people out there who don’t trade horseracing for these reasons above and maybe I should follow suit. In a flat handicap for exposed horses, the form is all in the book and with a bit of work, I can follow it. That’s my edge on the market. Without this edge, I’m gambling my limited form knowledge in other races against the market and as I’m showing, the market knows more than me in far too many cases.
I’ve spoken about this with Andrew before but I did think I could apply my strategy to every race but maybe I can’t. My strategy takes a bit of nerve as you need to make horses look stronger than they really are but in handicaps, I know that others will pick up on what I see in the horse and will believe the strength on Betfair and back it causing it to shorten thus giving me my trade.
Trying that in a 2 year old race when everyone in the stable knows the horse is a donkey and I’m trying to make it look strong on Betfair isn’t going to work. My stakes get swallowed up easily and I’m chasing the market then to get out for a loss.
Whatever happens, this month has taught me more than I ever thought I’d learn, so it’s been beneficial even if it’s not been profitable!
Thanks for the comment.
Graeme
Think you'll just have to write off this month as a learning exercise rather than trying to play catch up to post a profit as it's akin to chasing. Try and only play the races where you've an edge as there are plenty of traders out there quite happy to only get involved in 2/3 races a day where they've the edge and can easily make the game pay.
As traders we're always gonna get stuffed when we're on the wrong end of a big steamer/drifter just need to get out asap and either join the momentum to green up or look elsewhere. So many times I've opposed them and they always get you in the end even where you can't see the, ryhme or reason for the gamble/drift. Betfairs data shows long term drifters win and steamers will lose but they only take on board the end price which is hell of a lot different from the price the drift/steam started at as in yesterdays 25/1 - 5/1.
I'd also avoid any new tactics of spoofing markets or trying to move prices as they'll always be someone out there with better connections/info. You'll notice most spoofers have a decent bank to swallow losses and generally get involved when a market is quite settled in the knowledge things aren't going to change drastically in the odds.
Just stick to handicaps or races where you know you've got the edge for now and I'm sure you'll turn around this month especially with 7 days to go. No need to force this month as even if you don't get a profit as long as you learn from it the experience gained will be worth a lot more in the long run rather than gaining a few pounds in the short term. If anything a losing month may do you a lot more favours than if you scrape a profit by altering your winning methods.
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