Wednesday 13 August 2008

Training like Rocky!

I was emailing Andrew this morning about the whole tipping thing and we were having a good laugh about it. I was saying how much I’m looking forward to it and I really can’t wait. I’m so confident that the next month is going to be a lot of fun and I’m really looking forward to showing off my race reading skills! I’m always winding Andrew up about how great I am, so it will be good to prove it to everyone else….

Andrew sent me a few horses to look at this morning and I said I wouldn’t have the time as I was too busy replying to emails of readers who had got in touch! Andrew then made the point that it’s not much good having a list to send tips to unless the tips win……

So, we agreed that I needed to get in training. I have a tipster competition next week and therefore, I need to get in top shape. It reminded me of the moment in Rocky II when Adrian wakes up from her coma and calls Rocky across and says “Win, Win!”, the music then starts and you see Rocky chasing a chicken etc!

Well, I knew Andrew was right, so I got stuck into a few races. Amazingly, my work has kindly agreed to unblock the Racing Post website for me (if only they knew – amazingly, I’m the only person in the office who can access gambling related sites – God works in mysterious ways!) So, I got stuck into looking at a few races.

Andrew told me to use the staking system I’d use next month, so I came up with 4 selections for today. My best bet was Divine Spirit in the 3.15. I said I’d have 2 points win on this and I was pleased to see it won easily at 5/1. Nice start to my training.

My next selection was Sphinx in the 3.45 for 1 point win. I was between Let It Be and Sphinx and I plumped for Sphinx since the ground was forecast to be very soft. Annoyingly, it appeared it wasn’t as soft as I thought and Let It Be managed to win at 9/2. Sphinx ran well to be a never nearer 4th at 11/2.

In the 5.10, I plumped for 1 point win on Outer Hebrides at 8/1. The horse finished 2nd but was well beaten I see, so no real excuses.

In the 5.20, I put up Edas at 16/1 this morning as I couldn’t believe it was available at this price. I said to Andrew I’d have 1 point Each-Way on this and he slagged me off for being a wimp and betting each-way! Anyway, the horse went on to finish 2nd and wasn’t beaten that far, so I would have made a profit from this bet. :p

So, my first day’s training went OK. A profit of 10 points or so after staking 6 points. 1 winner and 2 seconds. As I said to Andrew today, I’d be willing to bet a fair amount that I pick plenty of winners between now and the start next month but we’ll see…..

Since Divine Spirit was my best bet today, I had £5 win on Betfair Mobile which worked out well.

Just for the traders who read this, I managed to trade 1 race tonight. I had a quick look at the race for 5 minutes and I fancied the Prescott horse to win the last at Hamilton. However, it was put in at 4/5 which was a joke in my opinion and I laid it for £100 at 1.9 on Betfair. I love these sorts of trades as there wasn’t a hope in hell that this horse was starting below 2, so I laid it and didn’t even look at it for 10 minutes. Interestingly, I did see £900+ waiting at 1.92 and I did think to myself that if I was using a full trading bank, I would have laid my whole bank at that price.

Anyway, it’s history now. The horse started at 3.1 on Betfair and I did choose to green up. As luck would have it, I was right though and the horse went on to win the race. Obviously, if I was using my brains, I shouldn’t have greened up as 3.1 was a great price IMO as I had it down as a 2.5 chance, but I won’t complain.

So, 1 gamble for £5 and 1 trade gives me a profit of £63.01 for the day which is nice!

Thanks for all the emails concerning my last post. Some of the comments in the emails have been quite touching to be honest and I can’t believe I get so many nice people who read the blog. I think it’s great that so many people enjoy the blog and as I’ve said to a few of you, I’m actually enjoying the banter with the readers at the moment, so that’s why I’m writing so many posts!

I’ll issue a note to everyone at the end of the week with a few details concerning next month.

If anyone else is interested, drop me an email!


7 comments:

Iranian Giraffe said...

very nice return on your bank today m8.

From what I'm reading will I have to close your memebership to the "I can't scalp for shite" club?.
I've cut my bank right back as well as I've not had time to trade myself for a while but I have currently been trading very nicely on the Big Brother winner (I think these reality TV shows are the best thing since sliced bread, don't get me wrong I can't stand watching them and never do but trading wise they are basically a licence to print money, I'm currently up £50 on every selection using my £100 bank), hey still not as good a return that you got today but I can live with it

regards
Mike

Graeme Dand said...

Hi Mike.

I saw your Big Bro position on the blog. Well done. I read that Mark Iversen laid Darnell at a low price after a few weeks and I did think about following him in. I also thought about backing Mikey at 10 and laying Kat when she was far too short but I didn’t bother.

I’m actually a huge Big Brother fan and I’ve watched every show. Each year, I always say that I’m going to get involved in the betting on it but I still haven’t yet!

Kicking myself now obviously but I can always look forward to next year….

It’s maybe too early to remove me from the “I can’t scalp for shite” club just yet. I’ve been practicing for 2 weeks or so now and I’m doing OK. However, I’m still playing about with very small stakes (apart from last night’s wild trade on 1 race!), so the true test will be when I step up the stakes a bit next month.

I think the one thing the last 2 weeks has taught me is how I was attempting to do the impossible before. Trying to trade using the BF interface and manually submitting odds and stakes is nearly impossible. The fact I won so much in 2 months means I probably missed out on at least double this from not being able to trade properly!

Next month promises to be the most exciting month yet with my new tipping experiment and trying to put my new found trading skill to good practice. I’m really looking forward to it.

Cheers,

Graeme

Anonymous said...

Graeme,

This is all very well but it's not much good to us if you are making 10 points profit and not puting them on the blog is it.

Post up your thoughts on here so we can all see before the day's racing.

Stan

Iranian Giraffe said...

Hi Graeme,

you may want to look at the 'Dutching' and 'Bookmaking' option within BetAngel for trading on Big Brother it's how I get all my money from Golf/F1/Big Brother it's really simple to do and unlike trading on just 1 person if done correctly even if 1 price on a person goes against you it's still possible to make a profit, not only that but you don't tie up money for anywhere near as long as you would if you traded on just 1 person (well I don't anyway) TBH if I don't get over £100 from Big Bro by the finish I'm going to be disappointed.

Mike

Anonymous said...

Hi there, I'd be interested to receive your tips. I buy racehorses for a living and try to make a few extra quid punting and betting in-running. I'd like to see how your tips get on. Thanks, Matt - mn6mpc@yahoo.com

Graeme Dand said...

Stan,

I've answered your comment with a post.

However, I don't want this blog to be about posting up ideas for races. As I've said in the post, there are forums for the sort of thing. Also, as I said in a comment on the previous post, we even set a forum up a few months ago and no one was bloody interested in it!!!!

Godo luck with your punting today!

Graeme

Graeme Dand said...

Cheers Matt,

I'll add you on the list.

Graeme