Weekly Update

Sorry there's not been much activity over the weekend - busy as always and trying to squeeze everything is hard work! Anyway here's the update for last week (Monday 21st - Sunday 27th).

Overall... A decent week with a healthy profit made of £457. Five days in positive territory and no major damage done on losing days. Excellent performance from Systematic Betting really driving the profit forward. Takes the yearly profit up to £3,635 and November to date up to £746. With a few days left should be a profitable month after a difficult period. Football services all had a nightmare and Steve Lewis Hamilton had a dreadful week.

A good week for... Systematic Betting stormed back to form with an awesome week which was concluded with Carruthers getting home on Saturday at 20/1 recommended price (I managed to secure 18/1 with an SP of 10/1). Total profit for the week for the service was a stunning £1,038 (just under 52 points) and after what has felt like an eternity of treading water we're over where we were at the previous peaks in July and at the beginning of October. Long may it continue!

A bad week for... The overall profit of £457 vs. Systematic Betting profit of £1,038 shows how poorly other services performed this week and in particular Steve Lewis Hamilton had a stinker with a whitewash of a week and £250 down. 8 losing bets for Steve in a row now and the NH season I had so been looking forward to has been not been forthcoming. While Steve acknowledges the poor run, we've been here before and 1 or 2 decent priced winners will turn things around. So I won't lose hope yet and will re-subscribe. The "mentions" are doing well so is a good way to mitigate main account losses - appreciate that's not the point but may be worth following.

Any other news.... Slightly worrying run of form from Football Elite with 4 losing bets out of 5 on Saturday puts us in negative territory again for the season. I have this service on my "watch list" now along with Piecost and The Market Examiner - three services on my portfolio that are hardly setting the world alight. May be forced into making some decisions at year end if there are no signs of improvement. Not much else to report - Equine is back up and running for the main all weather season but no main bets yet and two losers from Turnover on Saturday - here's hoping for a good winter of profit!

Another good day

Systematic Betting finally on a bit of a role with 6 days profit in a row. Longest run of profit since beginning of May. Market Examiner and Northern Monkey also contributed to todays profit and another very good day despite a poor day from Piecost and two losers from Steve Lewis Hamilton. Disappointing start to the NH season from Steve - and we are running through a plateau in performance of the service with zero progress since July. This does tend to happen with the service although I hope things turnaround soon as we progress into Steves area of expertise.

I've had a look at the stats from 4PA provided by SBC which make interesting analysis. If I had solely followed the basic system bets over 2011 at my current level of £20 per point then I would be £2.3k up on the year! Going back in 2010 this would've been £1.9k. Odds are rarely achievable on the service so lets reduce the 2011 profit by 30% and take the £399 sub into account - which would still mean that I would've made £1.2k net profit year to date.

So why has my profit only been £269 for 2011 - simple reason is that I'd followed the account bets for most of the year rather than the basic system and the official account record (at £20 per point) is only showing a £194 profit.

So what does this mean - well if I just continue to follow the basic system bets than there is decent profit to make despite the cost of subs and the odds of availability. The big question is - could i do it myself for free? The answer is probably not but I've decided to re-subscribe for a shorter period to get the basic system bets and at the same time look at whether it is easy or painful to work it out for myself. I suspect that its the latter rather than the former but will give it a go alongside the subscription and let you know how it goes!

Renewals

A couple of renewals have come up this week - a bit of a surprise but the timing is right - wish I'd planned better for these!

Steve Lewis Hamilton - pretty straightforward this one and will definitely re-subscribe.

4PA - now this one is slightly more thought provoking - firstly the short notice deadline of paying subs - I've got until Friday to decide. Admittedly there has been a long free extension on last years subs so can I really complain - probably not - so I will park my grump there!!

Also the price is the same as last year (but you can subscribe for a shorter period). The question really being - with the under performance of the "tips" vs. the simple "basic system" - is, should the price be the same? Especially considering that you can get the 4PA basic system for free and do the work yourself. Probably not - but could I do the work and get the bets on myself - probably not! So subs price aside, paying to get the basic system bets is probably worth it.

I do have an additional consideration to bring into the mix - what staking is required before I can make money on the service? I haven't made a net profit this year and made a small profit last year so I need to get a bit more ruthless on who I subscribe to and what the net return will be.

So my decision - pending - but the clock is ticking!

Continued Progress

Another good day today with Systematic Betting continuing a promising run and Piecost finally posting a profitable day for the first time in 9 days.

Tuesdays are normally quiet but Systematic delivered 6 winners out of 8 which is impressive after 9 out of 14s yesterday. Here's hoping the run continues - it's been a long time coming.

Got a tough day tomorrow in terms of getting bets on with meetings and travel for my real job taking over again but I can only do what I can do - I read somewhere someone said its the hardest way to make an easy living! Too true.

Couple of things I've been meaning to do and hopefully will get to it in the next couple of weeks is analyse Systematic Betting odds and what strike rates / roi is for different odds horses as well as reviewing my days of the week performance for the overall portfolio.

Weekly Update

Here's the weekly update for the last week (Monday 14th - Sunday 20th).

Overall.. What started as a pretty depressing week with Monday to Thursday providing dismal result after dismal result ended up in profit after a dramatic turnaround over the weekend. Total profit for the week was £114 which doesn't sound like much but when I was £418 down by end of Thursday is a great result. For a change Saturday was the best day of the week - helped mainly by Northern Monkey and bets from The Football Analyst and Mr Gekko Bets. Total of the year is back in the right direction and it may be a sign the treading water is over.... Up to £3,178 for the year by the end of the week.

A good week for... Well a great start really for The Football Analyst delivering me 5 wins out of 6 bets and a £97 profit. Having looked at the systems and reading the reply to my comment - I am following a small number of the systems - 7-21, 7-22, 8-21 and 8-22. Working on a small stake basis of £5 a point - which if I follow these systems could generate up to 4 point bets. Will run with trial stakes for a while and see how it goes. So a good start for once when joining a new service - and all the info is free on the blog - here if you are interested - http://the-football-analyst.blogspot.com/.

A bad week for... Well the wooden spoon goes once again to Piecost who have had another nightmare week with a strike rate of 1 out of 33 this week. Shocking doesn't describe it - and offering up further bets (which admittedly aren't on the account) suggests a wee bit of panic to me. However it's a long term service and I'm sticking with it for a while longer. Pity these runs always happen when services go live. 76 points down in 1.5 months isn't good though.

Other news... I mentioned in an earlier post regarding the success of Northern Monkey - certainly makes me think about the price of subscriptions vs. the success of a service and the two don't necessarily correlate. One of the things I really need to do next year is drive down the cost of subscriptions or increase stakes on the bigger priced services. Suspect I will be doing the former rather than the latter!

Good start to the week today with Systematic Betting delivering a decent profit today - lets hope it keeps going!

Master At Work

I was away for the weekend hence the lack of blog action. Before i respond to comments, complete my weekly update etc I wanted to drop a note in about Northern Monkey. What a service! Struggling to find a service that stakes right, reads races very well and when things go right - spot on! And all for less than £17 a month. Others please take note! Well done Wayne.

Here's the notes for Saturday;

This weekend has been one punters and racing enthusiasts up and down the country have been looking forward to greatly over the past few days - myself included. However, whereas the majority have been poring over the Long Run vs Diamond Harry vs Kauto Star clash in the Betfair Chase, part of a terrific weekend of jumps racing from Ascot and Haydock, I've been struggling to concentrate on anything but the 3 o'clock at Lingfield after seeing the final declarations for this 0-85 handicap on Thursday!

Quite simply, this race has the potential to be run at an absolute hellish gallop and I think there is a very strong angle in looking for a horse that will be delivered late, from off the pace. The fact the race takes place at Lingfield makes the race even more intriguing too because, of the four AW tracks in Britain, you would have to say that it is Lingfield that is most suited to hold up horses, with many runners catapulting themself into late contention after turning the home bend. If we adopt the angle that closers are the ones to be on, LENNY BEE and SUGAR BEET look the pair to focus on.

Lenny Bee has outstanding claims and has a favourites chance. I priced him up at 11/4 before Time Medicean and Bertoliver were withdrawn yesterday and I think there is still a small value margin in his present price. He lost his way when trained by A G Foster but is now trained by the capable Debbie Sanderson and could start to make up for last time as he was a useful handicapper two years ago for David Brown. With an excellent mark in this sphere - he was beaten by a quarter of a length off 10lb higher twelve months ago - I expect him to go very well. He is the most likely winner by some margin.

However, I have decided against backing him as the main bet, purely for reasons of value. I think the better value in the race is with Sugar Beet. Although Ron Harris' charge is a little bit of a quirky customer and undoubtedly deserves to be a bigger price than Lenny Bee, she looks overpriced as, if things drop right, she too has outstanding claims this afternoon, yet can be backed at four times the price (Sporting Bet and Sky offer 10/1 if anyone has an active account with them).

Sugar Beet is a 6f winner at this track but won't mind this 5f trip today, indeed, her subsequent progression has come since stepping back to the minimum trip, over which she won very nicely at Goodwood on her penultimate start. The handicapper reacted with a 7lb rise which demands further improvement from her but, at the age of three, there is good reason to beleive her improvement hasn't stopped and she will be slightly helped by a 1lb drop for her last run at Pontefract, when bumped leaving the stalls and racing out the back of the field in a race not run to suit (also worth acknowledging Lenny Bee finished ahead of her).

There is every chance that Sugar Beet could get scrubbed along out the back of the field and never land a telling blow and Lenny Bee, who I expect to be held-up in mid-division, could win this cosily. However, I am going to stick to my principals and side with Sugar Beet as I think the potential margin for value in her price is considerably greater than that if we were to back Lenny Bee. Rather than going in on Sugar Beet with a big each-way bet, however, I am advising Backing Lenny Bee as a saver as his odds of 5/2 are slightly bigger than the 2/1 from a Sugar Beet place (in a race paying each-way at a quarter of the odds. There are also only 8 runners left in the race and if another horse were to withdraw we'd only get paid out each way on two places) and I also want to have an egg in two baskets, rather than one, in the event of traffic trouble (which is quite possible given the way the race may unfold).

Advised bet: Lenny Bee 5/2 Paddypower, 0.75 pt win

Sugar Beet 9/1 Ladbrokes, 1.5 pt win

And the result taken from Sporting Life:

Pos.	Dr.	Dist.	Horse	Wt	Jockey	Trainer	Age	SP
1	2		Sugar Beet	9-4	L Morris	R Harris	3	8/1
		in touch, ridden and headway entering final furlong, driven to lead final 75 yards opened 13/2 touched 8/1
2	9	nk	Lenny Bee	9-3 t	J P Fahy (3)	Mrs D Sanderson	5	11/4
		in rear, ridden and headway approaching final furlong, ran on, not reached winner opened 3/1 touched 3/1 £825-£300

Enough said!

So Close

The margins sometimes in this game are very tight - the case and point being the 1.05 at Wincanton with Steve Lewis Hamilton Calico Rose coming third missing out by 1/2 a length. Harder to take as I'd also bet on Wise Hawk beaten by a head in the same race. Wise Hawk followed through the great TVB blog by the way.

Then Emily's Flyer failing to win in the 4pm at Hereford for Systematic after apparently trading at 1.01 on betfair topped off another losing day which with those results turning around would have been a bumper day. I am amazed at the difference short heads, heads, necks, half lengths etc make to the profit margins - the problem being that it's more likely to fall on the wrong side rather than the right side!

Lets get the hoof forward for a Fabulous Friday??

This is the losing week!

So the vicious circle of winning spell followed by losing spell continues this week with three losing days in a row contributing to what is turning into a miserable week. The lack of progress is soul destroying at times. The damage has been minimal this week but when you go nowhere you do wonder why you do this!!

High volume services like Systematic and Piecost continue to perform poorly with very little progress being made. While there appeared to be light at the end of the tunnel last week, we're back to square one again.

The lack of bets from Steve Lewis Hamilton is also telling - is he scared to enter the market or is the quality / type of racing just not worth taking the risk and he's doing the right thing in biding his time.

Whatever is going on I'd like to get out this rut!!

As I mentioned I'm starting following The Football Analyst bets from this weekend and am just in the process of working out which systems to follow and how it all works. Will keep you posted as definitely looks like a promising site to follow (and it's free!!)

Back Under

Well back down to earth with a bump today with a losing day - can't win them all!

Quiet day but takes me back under the £3k ytd figure yet again.

Steve Lewis Hamilton has been quiet recently for the start of the NH season but I've started following the mentions again so will see how that goes - was quite profitable last NH season so hopefully a good addition for this season.

Weekly Update

On the ball this week with my update!

Overall... A near perfect week with only Thursday letting me down. 6 winning days out of 7 and a profit of £752. If only all weeks could be like this! Brings the annual total to £3,064 and nice to be back over the £3k mark again!! Which amazingly is the 8th time this year I've been over the £3k level. The month of November is now in profit as well at £157 profit. Doesn't sound much but is good progress! A hard week in terms of getting the bets on as I was out and about quite a bit and used betfair mainly - to be fair prices have held up ok and haven't been impacted too much.

A good week for.... Systematic has performed well this week and put on 20+ profits so is this the start of the turnaround? Good week for Piecost too and nice to see a turnaround for this service with what has been a challenging start. Market Examiner also delivered profit this week and again it would be good is this was start of a change of fortune. Northern Monkey turned around a relatively poor spell, Steve Lewis Hamilton in profit and 4PA continues well!

A bad week for... a clean sheet this week so no one in the betting world to nominate! I'd like to start a rant about Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias but that's not really what this blog is all about.

Other news. I'm thinking about following some of the picks that come through the excellent blog http://the-football-analyst.blogspot.com/ run by Graeme Dand. Certainly looks interesting, and really progresses my aim of diversifying and not relying totally on horse racing. Equine re-start their services the last weekend of November so will be good to get back into that and hopefully will deliver more profit throughout the all weather season.

The blogosphere is awash with betting and trading blogs - many of which are great reads and I keep coming across more and more to nose at. What I don't see many of is blogs like mine where the blogger follows a number of tipsters - Playing It Safe is a good read - but if there is any more out there that someone can point me to that'd be great.

Here's to a good betting week!

In Place

Decent day today and nice to see Saturday being successful.

A rare winning Saturday for Systematic was great to see, as was a good profit from Market Examiner which have finally turned the month into profit! Could I see my first winning month with Market Examiner this month? Here's hoping!

Slightly frustrated with my 4PA bets in the main race at Cheltenham with My Shamwari finishing 5th - and usually I'm very careful with checking place terms on these races but I missed the bet365 5 place offer and put the bet through Ladbrokes instead. So a £40 loss registered rather than a small profit on the bet.

Lets hope the good run continues.

Flatline

Well the title and graph says it all - since 30 June 2011 I have chugged along winning some days, losing other days, winning some weeks, losing some weeks and 4 months later the vicious circle continues.

Why is it happening??

Well i'm often criticized for having too many services so I did some quick analysis tonight on what would have happened if i hadn't been following one particular service over another and while there has been progressive growth with some services like Equine Turnover and Northern Monkey the remainder of services have pretty much flatlined at best since the turning point of the year. This surprised me - I'll be honest I thought Systematic Betting was the cause of the flatlining and while it has contributed to it - it's not the only service that is treading water at the moment. So unless I'd just followed Equine Turnover and Northern Monkey through pure chance then any mix of service would've delivered similar results.

Certainly a few services are due a change of fortune - Systematic, Piecost and Market Examiner are delivering plenty places that surely will bring wins instead over time but other services haven't performed - SLH, Equine and 4PA have all been below par for a long period.

So where do I go from here? How long do I wait for everything to turnaround - whether it is fortune, statistics or performance?

Answers on a postcard...

Weekly Update

A slightly later than planned weekly update for last week.

Overall. A disappointing week with a loss of £569 posted. Only 2 small winning days out of 7. So not a good week and certainly one I was getting thoroughly fed up with - so not a good start to the month of November. Clearly not helped by missing 3 bets on Saturday - all of which won and 3 winning bets from Mr Gekko Bets midweek. That cost me £300 and I only have myself to blame but it's a great example of how luck plays its part.

No excuses for missing the MGBets - I just forgot, but Saturday was an example of luck and also how difficult it is to have a normal life and try to run a portfolio. I was out and about with a few friends at the football and I simply couldn't get the bets on as there was no network data coverage in the ground. I gave up because I actually wanted to watch the match rather than try to get bets on!! Typically they were 2 of the 4 winners from Systematic and the 1 winner from SLH. Argghhhh... But c'est la vie - I've missed plenty losing bets so I presume it all evens out - just frustrating! Well at least Newcastle won and it was a great day out!

A good week for.... no one! Certainly not me. Although it's worth pointing out I use a service called "Racing Angles" for advice and I place small personal bets sometimes on the back of that info. That delivered the winner Zuider Zee in the November Handicap so that offset some of the losses as I had a fiver on at 14/1.

A bad week for... me! See overall!

Other news. Other than the whole thing hacking me off at the moment... I have switched my betting on the Market Examiner to e/w - evidence suggests that a large number of horses place so I'm going to see if it's worth pursuing. Certainly worked today with one place and one winning bet increasing profit.

October Review - Part 3

Final service to review for October;

Piecost Premium Selections -42.33pts (-£212). Dreadful start to my piecost subscription with the service suffering a 2nd hefty losing month in a row. Missed the first month so started October with anticipation that profit will be forthcoming... timing is everything!! An email from Piecost has reassured me that losing streaks are within parameters but the service does need to turnaround if it isn't going to wipe out the 150pt bank that is recommended. I'm only playing Piecost on Betfair as I don't want more cash going through my bookies for now and as I'm taking early prices I'm only 97% off the recommended price so seems to be working ok from that respect. Not sure of the BOG impact though although the service officially lost 35 points so doesn't seem to be that much. Here's hoping November turns things around.

October Review - Part 2

Apologies I have neglected the blog recently for a variety of reasons but am back in business and will complete the October review finally!

Systematic Betting -38.65pts (-£773). A miserable month for Systematic Betting which has is part of a long period of treading water. Since the beginning of June I've made £468 on this service which isn't enough to justify the sub cost for me. Clearly if I was playing to higher stakes that would be fine but I'm not. Admittedly this has been a spell that hasn't been experienced before and the evidence is clear that the long term profit is there - would be nice to get back on the winning road though. There was a decent recovery at the end of the month - at one point the service was down a whopping 63 points on the month. Headline rate suggests a return of -18.4 points - a whopping 20 points difference to where I got to - which shows how difficult it is to get prices on this service (and that best price is often with shocking bookies like Stan James which one has no chance in hell of getting a bet on with). I'd be interested to see what the return of the service was if we took out SJ prices.

Mr Gekko Bets (-£71). I've not put a points figure here as the staking changed during the month following the pause in service. While I was getting frustrated with the service there is no doubt you have to give MrG some praise for taking things back to basics, re-evaluating the service and getting things back out there. The new criteria seem to be working and things certainly have picked up for the end of the month. Would be good to claw back the losses incurred quickly and start enjoying this service again. I changed my stake from £35 a point to £10 a point so will probably keep with £10 until Christmas and then re-assess.

Part 3 later.

October Review - Part 2 - the ongoing saga

I'm having a bit of a mare at the moment as I've lost my charger for my laptop so am now tapping away on my wifes netbook! But it does mean I've no access to my spreadsheets and data so I can't complete a full review of October and needed my stats to complete my thoughts on Systematic Betting in October so will continue with that as soon as I can.

Much apologies for those of you waiting for the update - been a frustrating week for many reasons!!

Looks like today was another losing day but only just. Treading water is probably the best way to describe things!

Nothing much else to report at the moment although the pressure of a full time job and trying to get the bets on has been tough this week and it all becomes a bit wearing when there's little progress in the profit.

October Review - Part 2 - Coming soon

Never got a chance to post last night as a quick trip to the pub ended up with a few pints of San Miguel being drunk! Never go near the computer if I've had a few drinks - would maybe make for livelier posts though!

A struggle today therefore so won't make much sense at this time of night tonight so will post further tomorrow.

November hasn't started too well and frustratingly missed the Mr Gekko Bets for Tuesday night - all three won so lost about £50 profit there. I suppose it is karma for the extra profit I made last week!

As a side note a healthy debate about the BetButler service on the smartsig forum has been keeping me interested over the last few days. Worth a read of the emails if you are a member.