Daily25

Just for info - I had a link on my webpage to a site called "Daily25" - apparently (according to Google) the site is distributing malware so Google had temporarily blocked access to my site.

I've removed all references to Daily25 from here now so should be ok now. Just worth being careful if you have it on your blog lists or if you come across the site.

Game Changer?

don't pretend to know a lot about horse racing - far from it in fact but I do wonder if what happened today in the National will be a bit of a game changer for the race itself and maybe to a lesser extent for National Hunt racing as a whole.

I am a big fan of the National - I grew up watching it - it was the one day of the year that my mum and dad ever went close to a bookies and we all picked our horses and then watched the race - I remember winning 87.5p one year and being so delighted!!

However, the race has become a bit tainted, even for me, a diehard supporter of it - last year it was quite horrific to see the two horses down and covered up while the race went round them and this year similar scenes with According to Pete and Synchronised both being fatally injured. Synchronised particularly tragic with the pre-race problems and the fact the horse was jumping without McCoy on board when it injured itself. High profile as well of course with Synchronised winning the Gold Cup this year.

I just wonder if the more horses are bred to go quicker the less likely they can cope with races like the National with the massive fences and huge field. It's becoming a tainted spectacle. Don't take my word for it - read the article here from someone who knows far more than me.

http://steeplechasing.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/is-radical-change-the-only-answer-for-the-long-term-survival-of-the-grand-national/

I fear for the race - while I don't agree with some of the article - is this the only way for it to continue? If I feel a bit queasy about what has happened over recent years how are the one day a year racing public feeling? Maybe because we follow the sport we analyse the detail and we worry too much - maybe the one day-ers watch the race and switch the TV off and forget about it for another year?

As for the betting - well I got beaten by a nostril today on a small personal bet but was pleased with 2nd place. 4PA haven't really made any progress since Cheltenham and it's been a frustrating time following the service - certainly getting harder to get the odds quoted and when profit is being scraped half a point here and a point there odds make a massive difference and I'm always on the wrong side of them. I do still think 4PA is a profitable service to follow, even without the odds, but we could do with a good winner (or two) in the coming weeks.

Back to Basics

Many thanks for all the comments on the last post - much appreciated and interesting to hear some others in the same boat. I will reply to the comments in a separate post later.

So a few more days gone by and certainly still feel I've made the right decision. I've more time on my hands and am certainly a bit more relaxed in life and focused on what is important to me. Amazingly I am sleeping better so maybe it was all troubling me more than I thought.

Anyway I don't want to bore you anymore with that sort of nonsense.

So what am I doing now - well as I mentioned in the finishing post I am continuing to follow 4PA and will play the occasional personal bet through analysis / stats etc.

So 4PA were back in action at the weekend with 3 tips. Wasn't a good start to my new regime with 2 losers and 1 non runner. 3 points lost. Big drop on odds on Josh's Dreamway - by the time I managed to get out of bed (8.30) the price had already dropped from quoted 22/1 to 11/1 on most bookie sites. It's always been a problem getting bets on at the prices advised - not impossible though (well that was until my William Hill account was restricted). Will try to get a bit sharper though - with less to worry about this should be easier.

Had a small side bet on Sooraah in the 3.25 in Lingfield as well but came 5th.

So 3 bets, 3 losses but no massive damage done! Positive thinking eh!

Back soon!

The Finishing Post

Much apologies for not being on recently - I've had a lot of time out to think about how to take things forward.

Thanks for all the comments as well - nice to know I've been missed.

Before I start - Cheltenham went pretty well I think - I haven't totted things up but some tipsters came good and there was definitely an upward spike in the bank. However I haven't added up the figure - let's just say it was nice to end on a high....

read on.....

On the last post a regular poster Baz asked the question "Is it all worth it?". It's funny to think how much that question had an impact on me and for once I took a step back and asked myself that very question.

The conclusion I reached at the end of the first day of Cheltenham as I frantically tried to get al my bets on was that it wasn't worth it and I decided that with pretty much immediate effect that I was stopping. I haven't placed a single bet for a few days and boy does it feel good.

So why did I reach that conclusion? A number of reasons which I will try to articulate below in my usual rambling style;

1) Time. I've been in a new job now for a number of months which involves a lot of time on the road visiting people as well as working from home. While I thought this may work to my advantage the reality is that it's had the opposite effect and more often than not I'm scrabbling around on my iPhone trying to get bets on at every free opportunity that I have. This has meant (as you have seen) that I have missed bets, am late with bets so miss the best prices and end up having to use betfair due to speed and efficiency. Clearly my real job has to take priority and I am spending far too much of my working day checking, placing and getting bets on.

2) Effort. I've been slogging away at this for longer now than I care to mention and am simply not making any progress - I've made a large number of mistakes but which ever way I've cut my back data there's not a huge amount to made from this game and I'm kidding myself that there is. Looking bet I'd have been better sticking my betting banks into an ISA and let the investment do the work while I actually enjoy life.

3) Relentless. The endless, 7 day a week, nature of the business has taken it's toll. Not only does it impede on me doing my real job (see point 1) but it has also impeded on my family life and that has got to stop. I'm constantly stepping out of the room to get those bets on and whenever we go on days out or off to the shops or whatever I've got to be by my phone getting things sorted. There's never a break and I can't be bothered with that anymore - I've got a young daughter and I want to get on with having fun with her when I do have spare time!

4) Enjoyment. When I first started this I absolutely loved it. I thought this is great - it's going to be work - but I can make some money out of it. Over the last 12 months it's been nothing but a hassle and all the joy of the job has slowly sapped out of it for me and there's no fun in what I do and it has just become a relentless slog, a battle against the bookies, against time and against everything else!

5) Love. I used to love horse racing - all things about it - I knew naff all about it but loved it - watching on TV, going to the race course - the smaller the better in my book - watching all the pre race prep, enjoying the flutter and loving the racing (NH in particular). But I've grown to despise it - the constant let down when things don't go to plan and gut wrenching feeling when you see race after race going against you. I stopped watching a long time ago. I'd started this business because I enjoyed racing - and I've lost that and want to get it back.

6) Psychology. It's pretty clear (as you can tell from the above and probably all my posts) that I haven't got the psyche to deal with long losing runs or bad days when they come fast and frequent. I can't detach myself, I don't enjoy the positives enough to deal with the negatives and it's better that I stop as what's the point if that's how i feel?

7) Money. You've got to have a lot of money down and tied up to make this work, you've got to bet decent sized stakes to make even the lower cost services work and you've got to be prepared to lose money (and large amounts of it) if you make the wrong choices (I have with some services) and to be honest I've got better things I can be doing with my money (other than sticking it in an ISA) than put it through this merry go round.

So there you have it. I've had enough - the betting portfolio way isn't worth it for me. Whichever way you look at it I just can't face making the decision and putting the effort in to make a portfolio of services work. Admittedly I overstretched myself towards the end in terms of number of tipsters but I did that on purpose to make a decision - I just didn't realise I'd end up where I've ended up.

I've been pretty dedicated to this over the years and determined to make it work but I think you need to know when to draw a line under it and I've reached that point and that's it.

So what now? Well I am continuing to follow one tipster (4PA). Why 4PA - well simply as it's easy to follow and ROI is excellent and it's very very light effort. I hope to make a few quid over the year from the service to spend on good stuff! I'll do more research (horses to follow for example) on my own to make personal bets as well but in my own time and in a way that will be enjoyable.

As for the blog... well I'm going to keep going and posting to let you know how things go and I'm also going to use my freed up time to do some analysis of services that I always meant to do but never having the time - will hopefully be of use to you guys.

Thanks for reading up to now. Comments / questions / thoughts welcome!

Weekly Review

Well there's no doubt it's been a God awful week this week and not really what I needed or wanted the week before Cheltenham. Today capped it all off with a complete whitewash on the horse racing bets with 0/11 across the tipsters putting bets up. Woeful.

Anyway so what did the stats look like - overall down £542 on the week which puts March in a heavy negative position of £505. Not surprising 5 losing days out of 7 with only Monday and Tuesday posting profits (and small ones at that).

Good week for.... Hudson Horses with a cracking winner yesterday which I managed to get at 38's on betfair when it was tipped up at 20's.

Bad week for... Systematic Betting unfortunately having a tough time of it - dropping 15 points.

Not a lot more to say.

Here's to next week - good luck to all at Cheltenham!

Cheltenham Fever....

The excitement of Cheltenham seems to be building all around!! Lets hope it lives up to expectations... I for one am dreading it! The huge volume of bets already placed has made me nervous and there will be many more on the 4 days the festival runs for. I am worrying that if I've go 4-5 tips in one race then they will cancel each other out at the very best - the worst being of course that they will lose and heavy losses occur!

Cheltenham last year was, of course the turning point of the year last year. Here's hoping it will be the same this year as the poor start to the year continues. Some of the wounds this year have been self-inflicted although Thursday was out side my control but overall performance of many hasn't been good. Steve Lewis Hamilton and Northern Monkey are the two that stand out as having poor 2012's so far. Correspondingly the year is going well for others and Piecost in particular is doing well and continuing to show promise.

Today it was the turn of football to let the account down with Formlab giving back some of previous profits. Excellent results from Piecost and Hudson today.

As you know I'm following an excessive number of services up to the 31st March to help me make a decision on how to proceed. It's worth giving an update of where I probably will get to;

Steve Lewis Hamilton - as has been well documented its been a dreadful few months for Steve and the recent run was only broken by a short priced winner on Thursday (less said about that the better!). However I've been there before with SLH and things have invariably picked up again. Ultimately though it's about subscription fees for me - with the subs coming in at the best part of £900 - then there are better or equivalent services out there that are available at less than half the price and it feels like time to move on.

Equine Main / Turnover - as I've mentioned before the service finishes up for the season at the end of next week and I won't be renewing with the new re-combined "pay as you play" service as the costs are too high for the level of subs on offer and again they are better or equivalent services available at much much lower prices.

Northern Monkey, 4PA, Systematic and Piecost - will definitely continue with these four services. Northern Monkey haven't had a good year so far but I don't think this time of year is Wayne's strongest period. The only issue in these four for me is the cost of Systematic but based on past performance even at £20 per point it delivers.

Market Examiner - my subs are paid to June for Market Examiner but I'm not sure where to go with this one - it's been a rough period since I joined - a fact confirmed by the SBC tipster report which doesn't show much progress over the last 6 months. I think it could be the end of the road for me as I can probably get more out of other services.

The Football Analyst - am likely to continue into next season - results, ease of getting bets on and communication all excellent. Although there does seem to be a question mark over the performance over the 2nd half of the season.

New boys Formlab, Herbie Fogg and Hudson... Formlab is great and I need to get tucked into the data analysis as well as following the daily reports. Hudson - very impressed with so far. Herbie Fogg - a good service in terms of communication and past results speak for themselves (although obviously I joined during a poor spell - surprise surprise). My one question mark is over the varied times of the bets - although I could rectify this by paying more to get the texts.

I'm also following the TVB blog which has been a profitable exercise so far!

As you know have already ditched Football Elite and Mr Gekko Bets.

To be honest it's been harder than I thought in making a decision as I do believe all the services I do follow all have strong positives but I do need to reduce and it may end up being a table and I take the top 5-6 no matter how service 7,8,9 etc perform.

Nothing nowhere

I read in a magazine yesterday that orange's new 4g service will be called everything everywhere or something similarly awful. Well their sometime shocking data coverage cost me the best part of 350 quid today. I was on a training course and had time to cover all early bets during lunch. No such luck as down goes data and I missed 5 bets and all 5 were winning bets. When does that happen? One of those from Steve Lewis Hamilton! 19 losers in a row and the one day he picks a winner I miss it through no fault of my own. I think the modern thing to say is FFS! The other winners were from Equine and Systematic.

Of the 14 bets I have managed to get on today only 1 has won.... There are a couple still to run but instead of being 200 quid up on the day I'm £130 down. I've not had a 200 quid winning day since January.

It would be nice to get a break maybe once!

Weekly Review

Bit of a nothing week really with 2 steps forward, 3 steps back and over £100 down on the week. Since the month moved to March though things have picked up.

Profit so far this month has come from Piecost - with a stunning few days adding 18 points to the account, Equine Main with 1 winner out of 1 returning decent money and special mention to Formlab Game Notes who had a very good weekend this weekend. Indeed without Formlab balancing out horse racing losses it would've been a poor weekend.

Feels like a superb service - with excellent info and customer service - I sat in on a webinar earlier this week to learn a few things on how to use the functionality.

Disappointing again from Steve Lewis Hamilton who have managed a depressing 17 losing bets in a row. Something I've come nowhere near with the service since I joined all those years ago. Sad to see.

Beginning to draw some conclusions as to which services I'll be picking post this period of review and it looks like I'll end up with 7 services maximum. Equine are finishing up on the 17th March so as I've mentioned before I won't renew - based on cost - rather than performance - and that's the 13 services down to 11. So we're getting there!

Sloppy Bet Placement

Well a £97 profit made on the day started the month of March very well. I wasn't going to post tonight as I didn't have much to say but I realised I normally post on bad days only so thought I should be more positive and let you know when things are going well.

Winners from Equine Main, Systematic and Piecost all contributed to the profit - disappointing day from Herbie, Equine Turnover and Market Examiner.

Profit would've been £60 higher if I hadn't placed my bets in a rush when i got back to my office after being out and about for my proper job. Isn't it always the winning bets that you miss!! Grrr... annoyed at my sloppiness!

On another note sat in on a Formlab webinar this evening which was very interesting indeed - good tuition on how to use the data - just wish I had the time!!

And finally... A nice £10 profit on the financials - seem to be going 2 steps forward, 1.9 steps back but slowly beginning to see the potential!

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....