Deeply Frustrating

There are times when this game is deeply frustrating and the last few days have been one of those times. While feeling relatively positive as to how things have been going I now feel downhearted and annoyed as a few different things happening would have added a couple of hundred quid to the account for the month. Football Elite had a good weekend just after I've dropped it, and yesterday I missed a few bets as I was on a training course and then missed a final bet because I looked at the wrong email. Oh and yes of course they were the winning bets!

Hey Ho it's all swings and roundabouts but its just annoying!

So the first month of 2012 is over and things are in profit (which is an improvement on this time last year) but I'm just not making money. The final total ending up being £158 for the month. Simply not good enough.

Anyway here are the figures;

And the graph showing the volatility of the month;

So I know I said in my previous post I was wanting to strip further services out of my portfolio and at the moment I see my streamlined portfolio being;

Systematic Betting

Northern Monkey

4PA

Piecost

The Football Analyst

This would mean stripping out;

* Steve Lewis Hamilton - serious problems with the service over the last 7 months and no great shakes since 2009. It feels like a gradual decline and while I'm delighted to see the exchange service doing well it sticks in the throat a bit. Subscription costs are obviously a factor. Still 50/50 on this one.

* Equine Main Account - there's a lot of talk of Equine Main having "run its course". Impossible to get on at odds, relatively poor performance over last couple of seasons and very high subscriptions against my low stakes make this one poor value for me. Similar situation to SLH here with heavy promotion of a new service while the flagship main account goes down the pan. Definitely stopping at end of this season.

* Equine Turnover - I suspect there will be changes to this service in the close season and that subs will probably go up or the turnover account will only run for the summer and not include A/W - this has already been suggested. Makes Turnover expensive if that is the case. We wait to see and again 50/50.

* Market Examiner - I like Market Examiner, it's cheap, the communication is 2nd to none and Sam comes across like a top bloke but the reality of it is that I haven't been able to make it work. I think my timing for joining was wrong - been a long good period and the inevitable losing run kicked in from the start of my subs. It feels like it'll take a while to make the money back and it might be time for me to cut my losses and run. I suspect I will run for another couple of months and see where that takes me.

Think I hold on for too long waiting for the big turnaround with some services and I pay a price for that - my dogged pursuit of Tipping Legends / Roger Green Racing being prime examples of that behaviour.

Anyway I've got a couple of other irons on the fire as well - one following JP's lays on a trial basis and the other working on a wee Forex system that I hope will bear some fruit. Additionally I've always talked about getting trading but that really has taken a back burner for now as I continue to get stuck in to my new job.

Priorities

January has been a bit of a topsy turvy month - started off very well, took a double dip and has built back up into profit.

Up until Saturday 28th I'm sitting £291 in gross profit so a decent turnaround since the last update. It's still not net profit though and once subs are taken into account it will be another net losing month.

A lot of promise though...

4PA has had a great month with 20 points profit and the underlying basic system continuing to deliver, topped up with a separate account bet winner.

Piecost remains in cracking form with approx 35 points profit - after an awful start - things have certainly improved and I've increased my staking to £10 per point.

Systematic continues to deliver with 13 points profit.

Equine Main has done well to turn things around with just under 10 points profit for the month. Well below the par for the season but good to see now turning a profit.

Market Examiner has delivered the first ever monthly profit for me - hopefully this is a sign of things to come!

Fair to middling....

Equine Turnover and The Football Analyst both having flat months so no damage done but no profit!

And not so good....

Northern Monkey had to give some money back I suppose and down 20 points on the month brings us back down to Earth - we had to wait until the 18th to get the first winner of the year. A blip I'm sure.

Steve Lewis Hamilton really is in trouble - there's no doubt its been a rough few months and the jacket is on a shaky peg. Down 15 points this month compounding the problems.

Farewell to...

I've packed in Mr Gekko Bets - really going nowhere and time to draw a line under it, accept losses and move on. Additionally I've surprised myself by pausing on Football Elite as well. Decided that while subs are low, I'm not willing to commit a big tick up in stakes and without that there's never going to be huge profit. Performance hasn't been great for a year and while in the grand scheme of things (in terms of bet volume) the period I'm talking about is quite short its not for me.

So down to 9 services from 11. I want to cut 2 or 3 more out to make things more manageable. Equine Investments Main will definitely be one of those for reasons I've already covered on the blog.

The others will be decided on return + potential.

Feel positive about the year - getting my priorities right and feel more in control. It's all about making money - pure and simple.

Will be back as and when the rest of my life permits (priorities again)....

Still Here!

I am still here - will post an update later.

Thanks for all your comments - some of which are certainly not publish-able though!

In short

4PA - On fire

Piecost - On a roll

Equine - recovery mode

Northern Monkey - giving money back

SLH - downward spiral

Portfolio - some changes made

Seriously though - will post a full update later

Weekly Update - 15 Jan 2012

Will aim at the very least to do an update once a week. In this update I'll cover off the first couple of weeks in Jan.

The account is sitting at -£308 so it's been a poor start to 2012 with 10 losing days out of 15. No major damage done overall but it's always preferable to rack up some profit at the start of the year - means that I'm swimming uphill already!

A good time for... It's been a good start to the year for both 4PA and Piecost with some healthy profits made on both services. 4PA account bets have performed well as the basic system. I'm playing minimum stakes on the non basic system bets - and missed out on a big payout on Saturday because of that - however based on previous results it is the right decision. Great to see Piecost doing so well - I think we were all despairing at the end of November with 3 losing months (of which I'd seen 2) but December went well and January is up 30 points. A few more winners and I'll start to be in profit.

Nice also to see The Market Examiner in profit for the month with the wins topped up with 14 places in the month.

A bad time for... Not a good start to the year for Northern Monkey - Wayne is yet to find a winner this year, but I suppose we were due some form of drawdown after the previous stellar performance of the service. Poor start from SLH, Equine Turnover, Systematic and the Football Analyst. Nothing to worry about for most of these in the long run, apart from Steve Lewis Hamilton who has been treading water for too long now with no movement on the account since late June. I've been here before with SLH but we really need to see some winners soon to restore full confidence.

Clearly Equine Investments continues to worry and interesting post on SBC Forum from Laurence re the service. It does feel that the main account is needing serious revamp if it is to continue. My thoughts on launching a new service while the main hasn't done so well are documented!

Anything else... I continue to debate how to move things forward and increase profit and am just need to stop talking about doing stuff and get on with it. With a full time job the biggest drag on what I can and can't realistically achieve is time. There simply isn't enough of it to try to achieve everything. The bottom line is the job comes first and this is next.

Lets see if we can get the 2nd half of January into profit!

Struggle

After what looked like an excellent start to 2012, the last 7 days have been awful with over £900 wiped off the account. I've not totted up the scores on the doors per tipster but everyone seems to be performing badly - after the highs of late 2011 it is back down to earth with a bump!

Not totally unexpected I suppose but would be nice to (a) either have the odd winning day or (b) at least one tipster performing well.

Interesting to note that Piecost have had 17 2nd places in January which is quite incredible. The wind will change and our luck will be in again.

Appreciate all the comments. I've not published all as I've mentioned in the past that I'd prefer non-anon and constructive comments! But I do understand frustration!

2011 into 2012

I've finally managed to bring my stats up to date so have a clear picture of what 2011 looked like and how well I finished - the problem being that I have writers block at the moment and am trying to put everything into words so I will just start and see where we get to.

December finished strongly with a total profit of £1,621 made in the month making it the 2nd most profitable month of 2011. This brought my overall profit to £5,179 for the year. Whoopppeee you may say and quite rightly so, however taking subs into account left me with a negative £46 on the year.

So for all that work and effort and scramble I lost myself £46. Theoretically I should be banging my head against the table and wanting to throw the towel in after that but to be honest I'd say 2011 has been a fascinating year - even though I've been doing this for 3 plus years now I think I've really learnt more this year than any of the previous years and if this means I've only broken even then so be it.

What I can't let happen is for the same to happen in 2012 and that has got to be my clear intention. I'm not laying out an agenda or mission statement or whatever the phrase is but I've got to make a net profit or there really is no point in doing this (no matter how much I enjoy it).

Regular readers to my blog will know that I set myself a notional figure of £20 a day and I'm sticking to that as an aspirational goal but really all I would like is something that will pay for the holiday this year and some nice treats that we couldn't usually afford... Lets what and see what happens but I will set out some thoughts over the coming weeks as to how I address this.

Back to December - it was another great month for Systematic Betting with £1,168 profit made, also was delighted to see Piecost back in the game with £213 taken off the losses and hopefully this is the start of movement into profit. 4PA, Northern Monkey. The Football Analyst and Equine Turnover all providing good returns with Steve Lewis Hamilton propping up the rear with a small positive.

Dreadful month for Equine Main Account with not a single winner found in the month. While drawdowns are part of the game the performance of the main account has been woeful - especially considering the cost of the service. Poor also for Mr Gekko Bets and Market Examiner (on the prices I got). Headline rates for Market Examiner suggest a profit on the month but I was well down so need to find out where things are going wrong.

If anyone is interested in me reviewing any particular service from 2011 give me a shout and I'll provide some detail - otherwise I'll pull together some summary paragraphs on performance over the next few days.

Back in Business

Happy New Year to you all. Hope the festive break was good and here's to a prosperous 2012.

As I mentioned I was away for most of the time so while I managed to get bets on I didn't manage to update spreadsheets etc so the constant battle to keep up to date continues. Also haven't had much time to gather my thoughts etc for plans for 2012 so hope to do that throughout the month.

2011 ended on a high lets hope the good run continues well into 2012.