@Shannon-Townsend

one today and a 1st for me as it is in Saudi, didnt realise that league had been added -

19882824-9586-4cd1-8af6-4cfbcf7ac564-image.png

December wasnt overly festive, registering a 4 point loss. 34 wins from 53 games for a 64% SR. Cant even blame the champions and challenge cup which cancelled each other out for a scratch result. December last year was a scratch month so not a good month to be trading rugby possibly!

@Martin I know youve suggested 1000 trades before you look for trends and/or take anything live but with rugby being probably less than a third of the volume of football it may take me the rest of my life to get there! Im at 477 trades recorded now and am seriously considering changing things up when I hit 500. What ya reckon?

Month 24 of trading.

November was a break even month for me. After 2 years of learning and trading I have decided to take a step back from some of my strategies and just collect the data to get a better idea of performance before trading them.

In the last 2 years I have learnt and figured out a lot. Had I had this information at the start of the process I think I would be much further ahead - but that us part of the process. So, what I have I learnt about myself and trading after 2 years of giving it a go?....

The type of trader I want to be..... I want to be a predominantly Set and Forget trader. I don't want to be sitting in front of my comp on weekends. This means I need to find enough good quality selections that I can make some decent money off that fit the way I want to trade. I have begun this process and will hopefully be able to share the fruits of my labour soon.

Quality over quantity..... for the last 2 years I have chased anything that seemed to make money - even if it was 2% ROI and having to place 50+ bets on a Sat morn. I value my time a lot higher having reflected on this. Therefore I want strategies that have an over 5% ROI as a bare minimum with a decent number of selections each month.

Data collection is key... I have found myself getting frustrated at strategies that seem to work when paper trading then as soon as you go live they fail. I had a rule about going live after 3 months of collection. This I think is too ambitious and can lead to false expectations. I plan to now collect a few hundred results before even using small stakes. This will save time trading and ensure that when the time is right I will have more confidence in my strats.

Give myself credit.... it can be very easy to look at my overall losses and think "wow, what a waste" - but I need to take the long view and understand that like setting up a new business the chances are you are going loose money on your first year or two. Compared to a uni degree or college course I have spent a fraction. And I know the long term gains will pay for that with ease.

Overall I am happy with where I am - I'm still in the fight and have some very exciting strategies that will work better for how I want to trade. After two years of finding my feet I'm ready for the big leagues - let's do it!

@Ryan I have 4 versions of this strategy I'm paper trading at the moment, I record the odds for back under and lay over 0.5 ht goals and whichever gives the best profit from backing £5 or laying max liability £5, is the bet I choose.

Version 1 (12/06/24)
509 games, 23% s/r, profit £11.86

Screenshot_20240909_172955_Sheets.jpg

Version 2 (04/07/24)
176 games, 41% s/r, profit £56.47

Screenshot_20240909_173003_Sheets.jpg

Version 3 (18/07/24)
1649 games, 33% s/r, profit £193.72

Screenshot_20240909_173054_Sheets.jpg

Version 4 (18/07/24)
66 games, 49% s/r, profit £63.67

Screenshot_20240909_173104_Sheets.jpg

In August I went on holiday to Egypt for 10 days so I couldn't record the true odds for them 10 days while I was away so had to use average odds, I know some of the trades that won would have had higher odds than the average i recorded, so I know that the profits for each version should be a bit higher than they are now.

@Craig-vaulks No worries at all, great to have you back 🙂 you missed us all? 🙂

Wicked we will happily help.

Goal too early in the America MG game so no entry.
I missed off a lay away game yesterday for FC Dallas v St Louis City which won.
+1 point.

No SHG games.

1 Lay away

16:00 Sandviken v Oddevold

Sat 15/06/2024 Selections.
IMG_1061.jpeg

4 selections today,

Sonderjske 13-3 under 0.5fhg 3.80-2.60 over 1.5 fhg
Asane 5-0 3.90-2.56
Lyn 4-0 3.35-3.05
Magallanes 7-1 3.40-2.98

These are the qaulifiers for today,

Gornik Zabrze v Stal Mielec 1.39 lay under 0.5 fhg 3.55
Kuressaare v Tammeka Tartu 1.36 lay under 05 fhg 3.75
Ross Co v Motherwell 1.37 lay under 0.5 fhg 3.75
Asane v Start 1.33 lay under 0.5 fhg 4.00
Waldhof Mannheim v SV Sandhausen 1.33 lay under 0.5 fhg 4.00 (might not get matched on this one)
Shakhtar v Dynamo Kiev 1.39 lay under 0.5 fhg 3.55
Ludogorets v CSKA Sofia 1.35 lay under 0.5 fhg 3.85
FCSB v CFR Cluj 1.33 lay under 0.5 fhg 4.00 (might not get matched)

@simon-topper sounds like you have really grabbed the discipline by the balls! Well done mate, looking forward to the next update

@Dan-MacKinnon said in Fortune Favours the Bold:

A new month, a new "fun trade". This time I'm using the xG feature on the football software and gone with the following. I intend to close the trade at HT.

Lay Bournemouth @ 2.98 (£2 liability)
Back U1.5 FHG @ 1.5 (£2 liability)
Back U1.5G @ 4.5 (£1 liability)

FH xG is
WHU 0.51 vs BOR 0.59
WOL 0.34 vs UTD 0.25

According to the software the most common HT scores are 0-0, 1-0, 0-1 or 1-1. The only difference is there are no scorelines that have Bournemouth winning at HT. I've checked Soccer Stats and West Ham have not been losing at HT this season.

Soccer Stats also have Man United as the 3rd worst offensive team. Worse than Palace!

Well, that backfired! Strike two, if next month is a losing one that'll be the end of my fun trades. And heads up, next month definitely will be because I'm saving it Cheltenham festival!

I blame the software. Where's that YouTube video?! I need to leave a comment saying how this xG is broken and BTC is a rubbish tipping service! 😈

@Ryan Thanks. Nice one, i will take all this in to account. Yes, I’m not keen on high draw odds and like to be in 4.6 and below too. Not paid too much attention to the home odds as perhaps i should though, mainly just working on getting a decent number of trades at draw odds I’m comfortable with.

Small update in that I am also trialling a strategy which consists of backing the B2L selections 30 minutes before the off and trading out just before the race starts. Back testing for this show a very nice return, the price goes in my favour quite frequently. Nothing in the criteria and settings have really been selected for this, it's just by chance. One I'll be keeping an eye on.

This will run alongside the B2L and L2B strategies.

@simon-topper thanks for doing this and look forward to the next entry!

Sunday 30 Dec 2023.

Seems strange that this may be the last time I enter 2023 on anything! Happy new year if you're reading this!
So, No trading today, went out for food with my oldest, +25.89 points this week, a nervy 4 days where I only got back to staking my usual 2.5 points yesterday.

Been having problems since the big loss! I seem to have lost the courage of my convictions a little? had I not, I might be more points up this week but taking 15 points from Friday with no big losers this week has made the week look ok.

Looking foreword to next year it's going to be more of the same until March when I'll close my years accounts and reset for the next business year! The hope is that I can be profitable by then? As far as BTC is concerned, I'm still having a crisis of confidence with the strategies and I also don't like being tied to a position where it becomes a chore? I like the freedom of not having to trade if I don't feel good or if there's something more important to do!

I'm teaching the kids that when they play their games on the Switch or PS5 they must collect all of the loot, Tommy is well trained and if asked he will tell you the most important thing is to "Collect all the money"
I want them to learn that money is very important, not as important as family or health & well-being but having it gives you access to other things which are very important like good nutrition, education, possessions etc. etc.

Anyway, I've managed t claw back to -38 points since 7th July 2023 and if I can cut the losses or even just the big ones, I should be profitable by the end of the trading year (3 Apr 2024).

If I'm not, I'll have to re-think!

@Mark-Maguire thank you! Will start tracking those now too 🙂

@Nick-Segura for better or worse I just do mu own stuff now like you.

If I follow someone else's trade and it loses I always feel worse than if I lose on one of my own.

@Jamie-Bourne fantastic read, always wanted a TT myself but it's not practical with the kids, when I retire I will get one or something better!

Good luck with the trading, sounds like you have a sound strategy! Keep us updated

@Mikael-Nordstrom if I was new to Betfair Trading in 2023 I would be looking at set and forget automation, basically doing the same thing I am now using strategies that have worked and tweaking them if neccessary.