26/03/2012

Well, relatively quiet P&L this week.. Windies v Aus has still been extremely difficult for me, thinking about it I dont think I've done anything differently to normal, havent broken any rules etc, just cant make it work - but some series' are just like that I suppose. Still, if you cant be good, be lucky..






Was very happy to take a tie and a void market, I cant recall the last time I had a tie go in my favour so delighted with that. Leaving aside me, Windies had 3 balls to score 1 run for the win, and ended up with a run out with two balls left.. patience!

I had more or less the same books during the week with zero on one team and profit on the other and theyve just been getting turned over.. I forgot to take a screen shot last night (it was mental!) but ended up with +€1,300 Windies and -€10 Aus, but the market was never giving Windies a fair chance IMO, I dumped red at 1.38 and the momentum stopped at around 1.44 - but I was never thinking of going equal at the time so no point complaining about it after when it doesnt go my way.

The Asia cup was hit and miss this week too, I went equal after catching a good position on Bangs, they went on to win in a 1.01 train so maybe I left a few quid behind on that one, hard to know, but it went fairly quickly to 1.01 and then when I did leave all green on them, they buggered it up.. even though that seemed a very hard match to trade and was happy enough not to lose more than anything.











Its been 100% me rather than any particular thing going against me or being out of my hands, just not in fantastic touch, its been a slow March after having two weeks where there was nothing on and then Cheltenham was tough because I've fallen so far behind on the horses, but its hard to have full confidence in teams like Windies and Bangs anyway and confidence in teams/players is very important to my mindset trading and always has been. I decided to give SL v Eng tests a miss for getting my full attention too, I dont feel in great form to be getting up at 5AM anyway, it'd kill me to get up and lose you know, plus we have the IPL clashing with the 2nd test so I'm fairly happy to not change my natural hours.

I'm back to school tomorrow at 7PM for trading stocks so hopefully that goes well.. And the weather is amazing atm in Ireland, played Citywest golf course today and I have to say its probably the best course I've played, apparently its in receivership and someone said its going for 10M, better buy a Euromillions ticket, I've found something to spend it on! Great to see Tiger back winning last night too, I cant wait for The Masters, best week of the year IMO.

Thats It For Another Year

Well, thats Cheltenham over for another year. If anything this year it reminded me how out of touch I've become with trading/punting on horse racing, it seemed to go on forever and it was a real struggle - I suppose I dont really have the tools for in running anymore anyway having got rid of RUK (replaced it with BoxNation) and in general I was just rusty with the speeds you have to go at anyway. Sizing Europe hurt the most - I backed him at 1.9+ and was looking at 1.25-ish thinking (you know that negative mindset) hes going to get done here I can feel it, but at the same time I thought 1.25 was too big to even lay off the stake, let alone go equal green, so I let that run only for the farce at the last to take place and sure he may not have won, but that did hurt and left a lot of 'what ifs' which is generally the worst feeling after a market has closed. Big Bucks was my highlight of the week though, and rescued the week back to level, I had said beforehand on Twitter that after the race we'd be commenting on the 1.9 either thinking WTF were the layers at or saying they knew, turned into a very exciting race though, and sure whats left to say about Big Bucks. I finished up -€1.59 for the week anyway, having not had a bet on Friday, it was pretty stressful, I know why I dont do it anymore every day, every so often I forget and try again, and it only takes a few hours to remember.

I should just stick to cricket really, which I do, but its hard to ignore things like Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown. I'm finding it very hard to get a handle on Windies v Aus atm but hopefully that will pick up a bit better as the series goes on, you just cant trust Windies and trust while trading has always been a huge issue for me, more times than not it leads to a lot of small chopping and changing when even the slightest thing goes against, and sure you only end up giving away ticks all over the place, its not like when youre confident and can sometimes top up on an overreaction or whatever. The Asia Cup has been better, I still cant believe Sachin got his 100th 100 only for Bangladesh to chase it down - slightly embarrassing game for the history books!






I'm looking forward to the next few weeks, all are jam packed so thats always positive. My horse Kitty Dillon is running in the 2-40 in Limerick today too, not too sure how she'll go over 2M3F and it looks a fairly strong race for a mares race, hopefully she'll be involved in some way shape or form, I still havent backed her yet at all..!

I finished reading AP McCoys autobiography at the start of the week too, amazing some of the stories, would highly recommend it to anyone interested in racing. And I registered for a stocks trading course with Ava FX - I dunno how that will go but sure I'll give it a bash and see what its like, chatting to the guy over the phone he said a fair bit of people come with a sports trading/odds background and he knew what Betfair was when I mentioned it so thats a huge plus, youre always on a loser trying to explain it to people who dont know what it is. It might clash a little with cricket games but its only Tuesdays and Thursday for an hour at 7PM, hopefully I learn a few things, back to school! And who knows I might be seen wearing a suit heading to an office yet, in the mean time I'm happy hitting golf balls out the back, this is on Amazon for around 50 quid, bargain.

The Drought Is Over

I was filling in my calendar on Friday and finally there seems to be plenty happening, although there was one slight head in hands moment, one of the Tests between Sri Lanka and Eng overlaps with one of the Tests between Windies and Aus while, wait for it, the IPL is on too. FFS I've had two weeks of doing nothing and then theres more on than I can handle..! But its nice to be busy rather than doing nothing, and the discipline held up well over the two weeks and that seemed to be the main thing heading into it, but it wasnt really a big worry because with the calendar if theres nothing on it on a certain day I wont be on Betfair anyway, I never had a discipline problem to begin with but it keeps me away from even thinking it.

I did do a small bit on Sri Lanka v Aus on the three finals, the 3rd final kind of slipped away a little, I had every chance of going equal at the flip flop but decided to let it run, I thought SL should have been shorter at the time but it was close enough, Aus ended up winning and I thought I was probably being a tad greedy really, I had laid 1.3s and then to get it down to just under 1.6 the other side - should have got at least a little something, but c'est la vie.





I've had a busy weekend with Kitty Dillon running too, I was fairly gutted when she got in to Naas on Sunday over three miles not to take that option up and instead head to Gowran over two, because the idea was she'd be far more suited going right handed first time over hurdles after doing it slightly while schooling. Interestingly enough when I was reading AP McCoys book he was of the opinion that when a horse does that they are protecting themselves in some way shape or form with their muscles or something. But anyway, just my opinion but I'd have rather jumped right at a left handed track over the right trip than jump 'correctly' over a trip where she had zero chance of winning, but at least the RP seemed to pick up she could be half decent (which I think too) when she does finally settle and get a trip, I actually thought she settled quite well yesterday and I love the way shes made up lots of ground down the back straight in both her runs, before obviously not having near the turn of foot needed for two miles. Fingers crossed for the future anyway.


















More good news is that its not a million miles away from the English summer and handy trading hours (bar SL v Eng at 5AM-ish), the clocks change soon enough too, and its then time for flip flops and shorts..

(Also just for transparency the screen shots from Betfair are for the last two weeks not the usual because I skipped last week, but sure nothing happened anyway!)

Everything Has A Price..?

Well, not everything apparently. Fernando Torres. The bookies have finally copped on..