Post on A Punters Year

Good reference to the blog on A Punters Year site - always nice to know people read my rambles and that they make sense - just posted a comment on the site in response but thought it was worth recreating here;

Thanks for mentioning my blog and what I am trying to do on here. Thankfully my ramblings seem to make sense as I think you've pretty much captured my aims. Long and the short of it is that I didn't make a net profit last year despite posting over £5k in winnings. Think I am trying to achieve a few things;

1) Cost vs. Staking - my stakes have been too low for some of the "big hitter" services. I'm unlikely to be able to increase stakes so need to reduce costs.
2) Practicality - I have 12 services which I follow - a number I increased recently to live test a couple of perceived good services. Following 12 services is not practical in the medium to long term.
3) Improved Diversification - I have far too many services which means that I am having 3-4 bets in the one race which is diluting the profit. By reducing the of services I believe I will improve my diversification.
4) Availability of odds - some services shift prices within seconds making it impossible for a full time worker like me to get on at best price.

I wanted to run everything to end of March to get a good gut feel of how things are and then make a rational (rather than emotional) view on who the 6 services are.

I do agree that you should never switch services due to performance but you do need to bite the bullet eventually (like I've done with Tipping Legends, Roger Green Racing, The Mathematician etc).

Cheers and keep up the blogging - it's a great read!

Farewell February

Well the 29th of February and the month goes out with a.... whimper.

A massive £4 profit today but at least it wasn't a negative figure!!

Nice to see Systematic Betting back on song with 5.5 profit and Market Examiner turned their poor run around. No luck again from the big hitters with Steve Lewis Hamilton and Equine Turnover failing to deliver. I think SLH have had 15 losers in a row now. Yikes!

Am working on my figures and will review February shortly. So we're into March and the racing is usually dire in the run up to Cheltenham so it's going to be tricky.

Interesting to note Equine are changing the structure of the service for the up and coming season to a pay per profit type service with the main and turnover recombining. The fee's don't stack up against my staking so Equine Investments Main and Equine Investments Turnover will be disappearing from my portfolio from the end of this A/W season. That's 2 down from my list!

The Daily Grind...

...continues!

No joy today with Equine Investments, Systematic and Market Examiner impacting the account the worst today taking the account down another £132 on the day. Only Piecost posting a positive return today and that was for a massive £5.32.

Would be good to have a long series of winning days. I would be surprised if I've had more than a handful of positive days in February.

Brightly I made a whopping £4 on the financial trades today. Market slippage cut my profit from the usual £10.

Maybe the extra February day will bring me joy!

Monday!

I've just read the post I blogged on Saturday night - I'd had a few pints by then so it was a bit of a revelation that I'd written that! Thought it was quite coherent nonetheless...

Any way after a bit of a nothing weekend (no real gain / no real loss) we're on to another week. I'm a bit behind with my figures so not sure where Feb has gone but I know it won't be good. Betfair is showing me down £850 for the month which will be the worst month since August 2011 and really not how I wanted the year to start.

It will be good to get into March and forget about Feb!

As for today, good winners from Equine Turnover and Hudson. Poor day for Systematic and Piecost (who had another whitewash), down £60.

My financial trading continues and I posted a £10 profit today - still not made a huge amount of progress with this but it's a learning experience.

I've responded to comments for those interested.

Reflection

I'm on the train home from Newcastle after watching a rather dismal game of football where I'd thought we'd sown it up and then we put our feet up and let them take the game. Annoying.

One of the guys commented last night to say as long as you have the right betting bank then why are you stressing. And he's absolutely right, there is no stress. However I spend my betting life treading water and I'd like to change that.

Dismal

It's been an exceedingly depressing week on the horses this week with another £300+ lost from the account which brings losses for February to well over £700. While in itself is not unusual unfortunately its hard to get up and going to get the bets on.

It would be fair to say I've never been closer to jacking it all in but need to update my figures and make a rational decision rather than an emotional one!!

Phew

Ceepeegee tipped by Systematic and Riverside Theatre tipped by every man and their dog saved the horse racing day from being utter carnage but still not enough to bring profit to that side of things and it was very close to being another dreadful day with tips in many of the same races (3-4 in some cases) not delivering. It does still amaze me that that happens but it probably shouldn't.

Anyway overall I did end in profit on the day thanks to excellent performances from form lab and the football analyst. Two services that already look like securing their places in my slimmed down portfolio.

Volatility

It's certainly been a volatile week and while I expected bigger swings as I was betting more during my experiment I hadn't expected this. It doesn't seem that I'm swinging in the right direction though unfortunately.

No major damage done though and here's to a good weekend!

Just to let you know I'll only publish comments in future from followers of the blog or if you are logged into your account. Would like to try to create debate and chat on comments rather than moans about particular services. !

Pummelling

Well racing is back in business and I'm not particulary sure that is a good thing as the old account has taken a bit of a pummelling over the last 48 hours with nearly £400 dropped. Highly unusual for midweek and highly disappointing. The wry observation that I might lose my bank with so many services may have more truth than I thought. A long way from that though.

I noticed also today I have over a grand sitting in ante post bets on betfair - will be flying high if those deliver!

The only bright spots being Formlab and The football analyst bringing the goods home yesterday!

Thanks for the comments - I haven't had a chance to review or reply just yet.

So my experiment hasn't started too well but my observation is there's a lot to like about both Hudson and Herbie Fogg.

On the financial side - case of two steps forward one step back at the moment. Didn't follow the rules today and lost a tenner. My own fault as I wouldve made a profit otherwise.

Tomorrow is another day - although it is Thursday - which are usually stinkers!

Hudson

Looks like I got into Hudson just in time. Doors have closed to new members from today.

I've been late getting bets on and noticed big price shifts so looks like I will need to be on the ball. So far so good though.

The clock starts now!

A small profit over the last couple of days has helped move the account in the right direction but still no real progress on the year but with the weather improving I'm hoping things will continue to pick up.

Have made some changes that look to the future and will help me make the right decisions over the next few weeks.....

I've said repeatedly that I needed to minimise my subscription fees and aim to reduce the number of services I follow so... I've signed up to two more services.... on top of the formlab trial I've taken.

WTF you are probably saying... well there's method in my madness....

The two new services are Hudson Horses and Herbie Fogg. Both who charge very very reasonably subs (especially with the SBC discounts).

So why add more services you may ask... Well the aim is to effectively live trial these services against the services I have running at the moment over the next few weeks and pick the best at the end of the trial taking into consideration subs, performance (both over the long term through my results and for the new services from SBC proofing and short term in how they perform over the next few weeks), and service such as message delivery etc....

Why not just looking at proofing? Well the reality is that proofing is a good indicator of how a service is performing but the proof is in the pudding s when you are at the coal face yourself putting bets on, struggling with prices / fighting restrictions / doing your own job / timing etc etc.

Remove sentimentality... functionality, performance and price are the only things that matter!

So I now have 12 active services (which is completely ridiculous) but want to whittle this down to 6 by the end of March / April and what happens between now and then will finalise my decision.

The clock is ticking....

A nothing week

Quiet week on the horses as the deep freeze in the South continues. A couple of inches of snow and the whole place grinds to a halt!! LOL.

There's been a bit of activity from Equine, Systematic and Northern Monkey but nothing to write home about and I sit with a small deficit to the week.

Difficult week on the financial spreads this week with Mon-Wed all losing but a nice return to winning ways today with a 22 pip profit - to you and me with my 50p stakes that's £11 up! Trying to build my bank here before jumping in with bigger numbers.

I am mulling over an idea that will take me to the end of March / April and will help me revamp my portfolio. Will keep you posted once I've made a final decision.

One thing it's worth mentioning is that I've joined Form Lab Lite SBC which gives me access to the highly profitable daily reports and lets me do some analysis for personal bets. It's a free trial for 28 days and then £150 for three months. If things are as good as made out then I'll easily be able to make some money on the back of this info. (Famous last words!)

Will keep you posted on that as well!

Day after Day....

Another poor day on the betting front with the only bright spot provided by the Market Examiner with See The Legend doing the business for us.

Market Examiner are the only service in profit for the month from 2 bets - lets hope we can maintain the 50% strike rate. Lol.

Disappointment from my 2nd financial trade with a £21 loss - I think the phrase walk before you can run would've summed up my shenanigans on that front today. Every day is a school day I suppose.

The poor weather continues to mess up the race cards so not sure how this week will pan out.

Anyway thought it was a good opportunity to roll out the 2011 days of the week analysis to see where we ended up on that front;

Monday +£1,215

Tuesday +£1,664

Wednesday +£1,402

Thursday -£822

Friday +£1,661

Saturday -£469

Sunday £526

Compared to where I was in September both Thursday and Saturday have ended up in a better place rather than increasing losses. Interesting though still losing days. The blame originally was lying firmly with Systematic Betting but this is no longer the case with a healthy profit on Saturday by the end of the year.

The culprits really have been Mr Gekko Bets and Football Elite, both of course performing poorly and both with the majority of tips on a Saturday. Roger Green Racing didn't help either.

However looking at Thursday things get a bit more interesting as the big negatives have been from SLH, Piecost and Systematic Betting. Why Thursday? Is racing poor on a Thursday or just a weakness for system based betting. Equine Turnover on the other hand bizarrely looks like half their profit has come from Thursday bets..... Go Figure!

Perhaps once we look at 2,3,4 years data then things will even out but worthy of a debate anyway. To early to make anything of 2012 figures yet but I will keep an eye on!

Correction and Update

Probably worth starting the update with a correction. Got my Steve Lewis Hamilton figure for January wrong as it should be -8 points and not -15 as stated. Was still dividing by my old 1 pt = £25 calculator when of course it's £50 level stakes for me now.

Quiet week due to the weather but very disappointing with £194 dropped from the account bringing year to date total to £36. Bit of deja vu going on here! Hopefully Cheltenham Festival can be good as last year!

Was a good feeling to start on my financial trades, after a winning start there was nothing happening on Friday as you are advised not to trade on "Non Farm Payroll" day although I did observe that I would've had a winning trade if I'd got involved - but sticking to the rules is the right thing at the moment. Learning all the time!

Hopefully things will pick up in the coming days both in terms of activity and profit!

If only all days were like this....

2 bets, 2 winners.... thanks Equine and Systematic!

Spreading Success

Well my first foray into the financial markets proved to be a success with a nice 10 pip profit on the day. At 50p a pip as I get used to the markets it gave me a minuscule £5 profit. However from small acorns grow mighty oaks....

Couple of races to run today at Southwell with action from Equine and Systematic hoping to add to my £5 profit!

Follow Who?

Interesting to note that if I'd only followed the services I mention in my previous post in 2011 in my streamlined portfolio I would've made £5.5k gross profit (or £3k net).

Does that make the decision for me??