A day of two halfs

 

Todays lessons Today started quite well with a bit of trading on the tennis and the cricket, nothing fancy just backing serve and laying a player that was a recommended trade so not too much effort there. Trading on the horses was good in general i am seeing more patterns in the market and getting it right acting on them, i'm also better on taking losses which proved useful later in the day, although im still falling for spoof money and mini reversals today i was mainly waiting for a big old order to come in and following that for a tick or two. I had also seen something on the 19:50 race so i put a small position in there with meaning to monitor it untill the race which was still nearly an hour away at that time Now a couple of days ago i had placed positions on the england game, both on laying england and laying over 2.5 goals. When i last check they were in green and i thought to let them to to 10 minutes or so, which seemed a good idea at the time. I got involved on the roi match which was kicked off earlier than the england game (was that impatient / or didn't i want to miss out on something (hello greed ... bad boy) either way i made two trades on this both angling for a goal which didnt come nevertheless my stops were hit and i took my losses like a good boy. Now the ROI game would have finished about half past eight and because i was waiting for a goal or my stop loss to hit then my attention was on that when i should have closed then and switched my attention to the england game, during this period i was also cooking something to eat and then the phone went... oh and yes i lost track of the 19:50 (:@) so i had to take a loss on that when i got to look at it Now remember those bets on the england game, i got back to my pc and it pronounced 20:00, and i thought phew went in to close my positions and you can probably imagine what had happened... :( now with englands odds shooting down i had lost most of what i would have on a one way bet so i instantly redded up for a loss on england, scratching on a draw or belarus (who?) so now i feel really patriotic :( the loss on unders was an interesting one, with the market where i found it settled but i was faced with a red of 30% of my original liability - should i wait or should i close, i closed out and of course they were no more goals at least at the time of writing so i could have hung on but i didn't like the risk factor of two (by the amounts) for no goal for the next xx mins - i feel a bit miffed that i feel i panicked a little bit and closed too hastily without thinking it through, but i do not feel that emotional thing when you do something silly but feel happy i took the loss if that makes sense. That being said i decided to quit for the day then when i should have been looking for other opportunites on the england game but i decided enough was enough So what have i learn't today, discipline comes in many forms for many scenarious and that cutting losses is only part of it so. Dont trade events that run into each other Dont trade 4 different sports in a day, you cant (or at least i cant put full focus into them) When you are in the market, the market matters most so dont allow yourself to get distracted Always have a plan and a schedule With all the media and communications out there, sometime a big old clock on the wall is better If you cant put your full focus into trading then dont trade, dont feel bad about taking a day off There is no excuse for not being organized!

Todays adventures - 13th October 2009

Trying to get into the hang of updating this each day but it may be not as easy as saying! Today was an overall good day with a few ups and a few downs, of the downs they wern't painfull as recent lows but a reminder of this game Started off trading a couple of tennis games, that were given the heads up by tradeshark and then i moved onto the roddick game, i was making pretty good at the time with about 10 ticks green on each of them when Roddick seemed to be injured and the game was called off. I had also put my green from Stan as a back on Roddick when his odds sht up like bilyo, i was able to trade part of it back before the match was called off and all bets were void :( the next race i traded was one with the fav at around 2.64, i thought that the market was good for a swing so i put a laybet in as it seemed to be thinking about it, the market went epileptic for a few seconds and then drifted to around 3.35, the trouble was that my stop loss had been triggered. I realise now that i should have got back in on the way up as it was doing what i thought it might do, but i never think of that at the time its more "'@~! " - also i have a daily battle with stop losses but i use them to reinforce discipline but are getting wide enough to avoid the "noise" i found that missing that drift played on my mind for the rest of the day at least for the horses and i couldn't get the focus thats needed for the rest of the afternoon, that being said i still got a few pennies but a lot of trades were scratches. "scratch trade is a winning trade" - i owe Mr Todd 20p now :) Im finding that i will trade less and watch more now how the runners interact with each other the overview screen on bet angel is great for that. I will have more of a plan when i get in the market rather than thinking "that looks tasty" i am generally feeling more calm and less intimidated by all the flashing numbers now A bit of footy in the evening (speaking of which checkout Brasil U20's goal in the final, absolute peach of a goal and made me money - its true what they say) A few unders trades cleverly i had left the profit on unders waiting for the odds to come in to green up but dimly i waited too late and i bollocksed myself rather than enjoying a field of green. but we have to look at this as a long term thing so no worries I admit i could have put more effort in today which would have affected the result but i'll admit i was sidetracked by other things tomorrow is a new day tho and i still feel i am progressing (however slowly it may feel at times)

hello! ... its been a while

I started this blog initially to help with my discipline, it should have stood to sense that as i haven't updated it for nearly a month now that my discipline would be rubbish.

Unfortunately this has been the case, i'm embarrassed to say my discipline truthfully for the last week has been shocking, culminating in some very big losses last night and today

as though i tell myself it is one aspect that cannot be taught, one that can only be learned. I know we all know the most important rule in this game is to cut looses or to take them when they are small before they bite you on the ass

I have printed out a list of mistakes to stick on the side of my monitor, so far the list has two items Be glad to take your losses when they are only small Do not let races go inplay, you will win for aa few times which makes you think that this might not be so bad to do, but then you get caught (and you cry)

Now before i go hang myself there are some positives to report

I have found a lot of absolutely sterling people, both comrades and mentors, all with an interest to improve themselves and others.

It seems that my skills and interests with data gathering / manipulation could be useful to me so that is something that i am looking into, with a few projects up my sleeve - i think its important to try and do things that are a little outside what you think that you can do

I have joined Exchange Secrets and also ProXTrading, so far the only regret was nearly choosing not to but then a considered decision took me the right way. I'll do a separate post on both at another time but a mention for now.

I'll do a separate post on both at another time but a mention for now. I would strongly recommend the guys at ProX there's so much knowledge and experience available there then its a no brainer for anyone else on this road.

D Day

Well that was fun :( yesterday in work was a strange one... for many reasons but upwards and onwards as they say.

So feeling a little bit tender today but will look at some of the advice on exchange secrets to see if those guys can see anything to help me look for oportunities

Bank Holiday racing...

We have a busy day today 9 cards (of which 7 UK) normally very exciting but its a cacophony of low quality races with horrible timing and the volumes looking a bit thin on a lot of them

theres still a few gems in there so i'm going to concentrate on them rather than try and go through them all. Espicially when you think the Open is starting today although there may not be too much action on the opening day

Blog

Well, I seem to be able to create a blog... (which is good as i am a techie by trade) it may not look how i want be im sure i'll figure out more as we go on