Saturday 16 August 2008

The Fun Stops Here!

Daily Profit £76.95

As the title states, things are about to get a lot more serious for the next little while, so I need to ensure I get my head screwed on…..

A quick update on today first. I didn’t get any time to look at races beforehand, so I said to Andrew that I’d have a day of scalping to see how far I’ve come over the last few weeks. I was only using £20 stakes all day and I had some very good trades. I had also had some poor trades but lots of times, that’s due to a bit of indiscipline creeping into my scalping due to the stake size.

If I’m trading a 2.4 shot with £20 stakes, every tick is worth pennies. Hence, I end up looking for 10 ticks plus and getting greedy in most cases and instead of banking 5 ticks, I end up with a 5 tick loss by not closing out. I know what I’m doing though, so it’s not like I’m oblivious to it happening. My mind just wanders at times and I forget I’m meant to be scalping and not looking for riskfree bets at times!

Overall, I really struggle to believe how far I’ve come in such a short space of time and I can’t wait to get trading with higher stakes next month. Incidentally, don’t get too carried away with today’s profit. That’s much more to do with luck rather than skill.

I had £3 green in Balkan Knight’s race at Newbury. Andrew said he fancied it to run a good race, so I put my £3 on it. The horse ran well to be honest but never came close to winning. Fortunately, someone with a twitchy finger mistook Balkan Knight for Sixties Icon (colours were very similar!) and decided to snap up everything from 40 to less than 2 in the final furlong. LOL I got my £50 lay matched at 2.08 and Andrew also got a nice large low lay matched to make a decent profit, so we were both chuckling for a few minutes!!!!

I think today sets me up nicely for next month. I’m hoping to increase my trading bank next month, so we’ll see how far my trading has really come. I don’t want to get too excited but it’s looking good so far…….

As you all know, I’m going to have a shot at trying to be a tipster from the start of next month. One thing I’ve realised from reading the last few posts is that I need to be more confident with my selections. I’m probably the most confident person in the world when it comes to selecting horses, but since I’ve agreed to give out selections next month, I’ve suddenly became quite cautious!

One of my key strengths is the fact that I am so confident. When I’m confident, I read races easily and it all seems so easy to pick winners. When my confidence is low, I begin to doubt myself often, struggle to form a strong opinion on races and become very indecisive. I need to be sure that I don’t lose my confidence just because I’m feeling a bit of pressure. I think a good start next month is likely to be key to how the month develops……

Before next month, I have a tipping competition and a holiday to look forward to!

One thing I’m really keen on is working a day in advance at all times to give me enough time to spend on my selections. On the flat, there are 48 hour declarations, so there’s no excuse for me really. So, I’ll instead of trying to trade tomorrow, I’ll spend time on Monday’s form and maybe have a quick look at Tuesday’s cards if I get the time.

This week, I’m going to be trying very hard to do well in this tipster comp. Hence, I’d suggest that everyone pay some attention to my selections. I’ll be posting them on here each morning. As well as my selections, I’ll also give a view on other races taking place. To increase my chances of selecting winners, I’ll look at as many races as I need to before I’m confident I’ve found a couple of decent selections. Hence, everyone should be able to enjoy some decent reading material on here next week!!

Wish me luck………..

5 comments:

Mind Games said...

The very best of luck!

leonthefixer said...

If you can make that much trading just using £20 stakes what have you been wasting your time at? I know you can't do it exactly but scale up the bank just 10x to £200 and you are clearing well over half a grand in one day! It would be better than your third highest ever month!!!

Forget the tipping and get trading!

All the best with both though :-)

Anonymous said...

Good luck:)

Graeme Dand said...

Cheers MG and PS.

Hopefully, I won't need too much luck....

G

Graeme Dand said...

Hi Leon.

Cheers for the comment mate. I meant to write a comment on your blog the other day saying I hope you continue with the blog but I forgot all about it. It’s good to see you are continuing with it though. Good luck with the poker also.

I laughed at your comment “wasting my time.” I’d argue that the past 6 months haven’t been a waste of time and without them, I wouldn’t be able to scalp like I did yesterday. Remember, I tried scalping at the beginning but I hated it and being honest, I’ll never enjoy it mate. I just figured I had to learn scalping to enable to me be much more efficient on Betfair.

Scaling up my trading stakes to £200 after about 5 or 6 OK days of scalping would be pretty reckless in my opinion and I’m assuming you didn’t really mean it!

Your point about the tipping is interesting. If someone offered me the chance to make a decent second income from either trading or betting/tipping, guess what I’d choose mate?

I’ve read on your blog the times you win £35 green on a race and it really ‘floats your boat’ so to speak. You take great satisfaction from it.

Unfortunately, I’ll never share this same enthusiasm for trading that you have and therefore, don’t expect me to get too excited by wins from trading.

If I manage to pick a 10/1 winner though after half an hour of form study, now you’re talking mate…..

We’re just a little bit different. It would be a pretty boring world if we were all the same though!

Cheers,

Graeme