The road to full time

[A Former User]

Thanks a lot guys, away to sit and watch these midweek games purely for enjoyment and FPL points, no need to be waiting for trades. A nice relaxed period. As i say still tracking the LTD/1.5s start of everyday and then just getting on with other things. Thanks for the kind comments, i enjoy this blog and being apart of a community that is designed to help other traders. Hopefully this next year can see even more traders get to profitability from my posts or advice. I genuinely enjoy that the most in trading right now, because as most of the longer term traders know it can be very robotic trading same scenarios overtime and when you get to help work with people to help them improve it feels fresh and you get to see new things. While im not personally trading ill be hopping on from time to time when i check the stats software to see whats happening so feel free to post or message me and ill get back to you when i see it

[A Former User]

Merry Xmas @darri

[James Woodroffe]

@darri have a great Xmas bro and a happy NY thanks for everything you give to so many on this site. I’m sure Santa knows you haven’t been naughty so enjoy.

[Akiva Anderson]

Merry Christmas @Darri

May this Christmas draw you closer to your Mashiach and may 2022 bring upon you and your family; peace, love and prosperity.

[A Former User]

Have a good chrsitmas mate

[Matt Wood]

@darri Enjoy your break Darri, have a great christmas with family and friends. Thanks for all the help you have given to me and others this year. Look forward to more blog and trading come the new year

[A Former User]

With the build up to xmas well and truly here, im deciding to take a small break from trading. Ill still be updating the ltd and 1.5 data and will update on this blog as to whats happening with them. But ill no longer be posting trades or shgs for the next 4 weeks. I want to be fully present when im around people at this time, because im not doing set and forget trades at present im sorta needing to be watching football scores as and when and thats something im not keen on doing in the next few weeks.

What this all means is that we have come to the end of my year of trading. On march 21st this year we started with a £1k bank. My aim was to see if i could rebuild a bank back to what i stopped at last time. Trying to see if i could do it faster and more efficiently. We have now turned that £1k into £3.1k, thats a bank rise of 210%, not many places in this world would you get those kind of returns in such a low risk way. Its also 153 points profit

I hope people have managed to get on these when possible. This isnt the end only the beginning so dont worry if you feel you have missed out. Hopefully my trades are giving people ideas on how they could tackle their own trading. Im not doing them just for people to make money but to show transparently what and why im trading in the way i do. I was always looking for that when first started.

Come january we will be back to LTD/Ov1.5s as set and forgets. Over the course of this break even tho its been a short period of time, they have been ticking along very nicely. It will seem like a short term loss but for me its a long term gain. There has been a few days were iv had a bit of fomo looking at the sheet thinking damn wish i traded this day. But thats the whole point. Im not willing to take that risk. If im not wanting to risk it im also not going to post them up. Ill only post when im trading it.

Iv really had a great time this year. Im very excited about firming up these set and forgets. Turning to a truly passive income from trading is definitely something i under appreciated. Ill try to pop up with a few posts after any significant tweaks have been made. Explain the way i tweak filters and data. Seems many dont understand that part of trading based on the messages i get, hopefully over time and when i have an example to show it can do a decent job of answering here.

But lastly please enjoy this xmas period. Stay safe with the amount of games on, protect that bank. Ill be back posting regularly come jan but in meantime pop up when i can with updates to the main strats

[Martin]

@darri yes it is amazing how different people can follow something and have different results. The cardinal sin in this respect is to jump on someone's selection (or maybe even your own) at worse odds because you missed the initial value price.

[A Former User]

Its always been a geeky fascination to me with trading that individuals doing the exact same strategy, with the exact same games long term can all have different results. We all see things differently. That could be value, opinions/bias, level of risk taking, bank management and control on mindset. Its why i still am always confident in saying building a strategy is the easiest part of trading and most fun.

The hard part is the rest and is truly the biggest reason for success and failure at this. We neglect the other things and think as long as we have a good s/r we are safe. I had that opinion myself. In fact id say even the early stages of my own blog here i was like that still. I cannot express how wrong i was to think that and perhaps it might be something you overlook with your own trading.

Its very easy for people to isolate topics, explain them individually and go this is how easy it is. The thing is tho we cant just lump everything into one convo. If it were that easy we would never have failures. The thing with trading is that all those things i mentioned above all need to click. You need to be on top of each area.

You need to have the ability to find good games to trade (pre match or inplay or both). You then need to understand what is value and what is not. Remember value is when you deem that the market has got the probability of an event happening wrong and the greater the gap between your % chance to theirs is your edge. Never be afraid to go against the market, also dont let the market bias put you off. Often when a game is a low scoring FH the likelihood, if the 2 teams are not european giants, the price will be higher than average. For me thats my ideal type of trade. In fact thats when id be tempted to go harder on them in terms of bank used. See the funny thing is if your controlling how you read data youll understand that the games your selecting fall within your own range. Each game is valued equally. Your essentially putting the same % chance of that event happening. So if a price is trash move on. If a price is good jump on. I get that in an individual game liverpool have a better chance than brentford of scoring against newcastle, but the markets tend to be aligned to that in fact would incur more bias, so if both liverpool or brentford appeared on my filters 10 times id be far more bullish on taking brentford at better prices, with less of a s/r needed. Actually your filters are likely picking games based off same criteria. So stop thinking about individual games/opinions, just care about value to your strategy.

I can easily get into price/value/edges all day but for me i take opinion out of it entirely. I treat trading like a game, it was martin who said this a while back actually and i liked how he put it. In it im the manager. Iv set out a plan of action based on all my data. Iv been careful to note what is and is not value. There is nothing more i can add, its upto the trade to play ball. Sometimes if we interfere too much we negatively impact P/L, ever made a disastrous tweak to a tactic on football manager and realise later should have kept it the same Trying to adapt in that individual game corrupts our data. I trust my data, computers and data is more efficient than we are at making the same decision. A while back a good example for me was how team sky won the tour de france. Bradley Wiggins. Lets take away from the meatgate conspiracy. They basically transformed cycling in that race. Instead of worrying about other riders, they focussed on being as efficient as possible. How to get the most out of a race time rather than the inner tactics of an individual race. Essentially focussing on the big data. If froome had attacked on that mountain stage they would have lost the yellow jersey, instead they stuck to the bigger picture, not just a one race pump.

What that really means for trading is forget about worrying about the perfect trade. Dont get hung up on individual trades that went against you. Dont react to it. Big data should always allow for losses, no strategy is immune to losses. Value over time trumps this.

Like iv been saying its not just one part of this. So you can find games, find good value, manage mindset, but if you fail with bank management you undo the other stuff. Everything needs to be solid. Its actually easier than you think when you get your head around it. If you break it into simple parts you can do this. Keep everything stupid simple (KISS), a good strategy for long term is something basic, repeatable and easy on the mind. I get why we want to find optimised tweaks, we endeavour to find the best strat. But actually there is something to be said in the people that just pick something basic that makes consistent bank. Think of all those s&p 500 investors, while everyone has been looking for the next tech boom (metaverse) they have been steadily making gains and growing wealth. Thats boring as hell. But its something thats basic, easy to understand, easy to explain, repeatable and easy on the mind as it got a proven history.

Now i get it iv just said easy and basic countless times, i know its not at first, but for those traders who reach profitability its typically because they went down these ways of thinking. The best version of myself has been since i went to this passive only mindset. Once you accept that making steady gains is the goal instead of spikes or the potential to make a huge amount in a short period of time, thats when you change as a trader. Like i keep saying its not the strat building, its the mindset that is the reason for success or failure. The ones that get to that realisation first win long term.

For clarity im up early cause of this damn weather, its mental up here

[A Former User]

Due to the stinking weather ill be free this weekend to post some SHGs when they happen. Ill post them on the football thread when im in. Been good with these since i paused everything else. 9/9 shgs that i posted and personally (because i missed posting 2) im 11/11. Im never too much into posting runs, but they give you a nice feeling. I still only care about long term and making sure this period remains as risk free as possible. Then get to work in jan 2022 with a fully up and running portfolio again. Hope some have managed to get on

[A Former User]

With the start of old favourite leagues like AUS starting up again its perhaps a healthy reminder for people to be cautious early season. This is particularly true for people who rely on filter selections. For me there are a few ground rules with trading with data.

1. Only ever current season games matter. Last years performance means nothing. I really dislike people trading with past seasons data. People need to have in mind that teams ambitions change and styles of play change. With new players it takes time for them to gel. New formation changes etc too.
2. Wait until at least 5 games at home and away have been played. You want teams to have played at least 10 games each. Anything less and your playing risk here with s/r.

All my strats are set to have current season data on and to have played at least 10 games. This gives me a better understanding of how they are looking this year, because im trading in the now, not past.

Thought this was a good bit of advice that you should look to add to your filters if trading in a similar style to myself. Past performance is still no guarantee of future but going too far back is not advised especially in modern football and how fast we are seeing changes in data occur. Think about how covid affected stats, how crowds have altered away results and how fast teams change year to year (leicester for example this year).

This is just how i play it. Obviously some people will have strats for certain leagues and comps but for me always understand the variables to your data and anything that could corrupt it or change it. Some variables are less important but this is typically the first move ill make with any filter and how ill trade any league for my strats. Just trade within settled leagues, consistency comes from simple and safe trades.

[A Former User]

Managed to jump on 2 trades today. I was busy with meetings about a potential project so iv been jumping from zoom call to zoom call. Was on both Serie A games. On the sheets. I dont normally like adding games to results when i havent actually posted them, i dont like the feeling of lack of accountability but on this occasion i had zero chance of posting for everyone to get on. Ill be greedy for this time only, im very rarely going to be placing trades without me being able to post but in the run up to xmas and me wanting the bank to be in a good spot for turn of year, every trade counts.

Over the weekend iv had fun going back to my old way of trading. I think going forward when all my stuff is back up and running this balance will work really well. LTDs as set and forget and trading value games when i can around them. That was always the plan but even just looking at my sheets i can tell i started to get too into the extra trades and they started to eclipse the simplicity of my LTDS. They should be value add ons not full out strategies.

In a happy place now. According to my sheets between the 3 strats LTD, ov 1.5 and SHG these are the results since sat:

SHG: 7/7, p/l = +4.25 points/% of bank
LTD: 5/6, p/l = +2.4 points/% of bank
Ov 1.5: 5/6, p/l = +1.54 points/% of bank

From these as you have seen posted on the football thread all iv traded are the shgs. This will continue until january. So for those following the ltds and iv seen a few blogs saying they are then just know that it will be quiet between now and then. Just doing it for data collecting reasons. For me the above strats are my plan for next year. While old readers might ask where is cricket? Iv decided that cricket takes up a lot of my time, yes more than makes up for it with profits, but im not wanting trading to be my only thing. I need to allow myself time to work on other things. For me trading isnt as scalable as my ambitions. Ill absolutely keep doing it for as long as possible but iv other itches i need to see to. Ill not bore you lot with that just yet however.

This break although only 1 weekend long has already made me realise im still on track with everything and the control element is maintained. Easy to say after a green weekend but there is more to trading than just pure short term results. This for me was a needed break and we keep thinking long term than short.

Also iv said this before, but its fantastic to see some of the traders iv helped seeing green these past few weeks. Some might think its stroking the ego, but if you read pretty much every time iv helped people iv not done it to be boastful im doing it to help them. Ill only be happy with my advice once that goes into seeing them take profits. Words are cheap and its why i like the balance of me showing how i trade and implementing my own advice for everyone to see and then also sharing that with individuals when needed. Those that really get on board or come to me for help really seem to get the results they want. Not everyone will stick to the advice and sometimes those people will take step backwards. I suppose thats still a hard thing for me to realise (working on it) is i cant help everyone and not everyone wants my advice, but i try and if they do stick to it and get behind the advice they seem to be doing well. Its not about telling people how to trade its about showing them, words are cheap, but its about opening doors for them and them deciding to jump in on it. Thats the only reason for me staying on this forum

[A Former User]

In the background im quietly testing away with a few strats, seeing if i can adapt my current strats. Im liking the look of a couple LTD tweaks, one of those tweaks has resulted in 43/43 LTDs winning within the last 3 months. There is also scope for brining in a over 1.5 and SHG (bot) into all this. While systems are good it does detract you from the thinking that value is value. You end up just trying to get on any game that fits your strategy, peope start to base value on their strike rate etc. I was doing this to a degree, obviously i was getting on games with an edge but perhaps iv not been maxing out the profits on these strats. Yes i know a boastful type statement that given its profitable but thats the point of all this. Maxing efficiency. When really you should be going hard on value and not just the ones that only just fit into your set. Needed this wake up call. Feel like im bringing back the old me that most remember and now bleeding that into an improved version of a system approach. Hopefully i can find a good middle ground. In the meantime ill be scouring looking for value at weekends and champs league nights.

Im going to keep doing these over the winter break, if we come out of the break with 3 very nice tweaks ill be even more excited about 2022. My feeling is iv been resistant to change the ltds because in all honesty there hasnt been a need it been ticking along nicely. But sometimes fear of changing it can cause you to lose sight. This break allows me to freshen up and make sure im trading the best version of a filter and strategy i can, without bias.

More updates to follow as break goes on

[A Former User]

I have been contemplating this already, from each post in the last few weeks or so iv almost been nagging at myself to think about it further. This upcoming period is something of the unknown for my 2 strats. My LTD and ov1.5, they have never faced an end of year craze. The sheer amount of fixtures upcoming is unreal, which will play havoc with players and rotated sides, based on my strats needing teams to be firing this brings a slight negative and a cloud of the unknown. Because of this im not going to be trading my 2 strats between now and january. The LTD later tonight will be the last of this year before i pause it. This will allow me to test the strats and see how they cope. Obviously from my data I have a lot of leeway in terms of it would take a massive amount of games to be wrong before it eats away all the profits, but because im compounding the bank im worried about a potential drawback.

Taking the pause will allow me to build a dataset for this time period and allow me to have an idea of how many games will be traded/how much bank is at risk during the period (something i think many disregard)/how much points P/L wise is. These are at present, questions i do not know. While many will see me as an aggressive trader in terms of when i know a game is good ill be bullish, when it comes to finding games im actually ultra defensive/cautious.

My plan for Nov-Dec is to just continue with matched betting. Ill also be trading the champs league so ill still be active on here and the forum. Over the course of this pause period ill still be updating on how the LTD would shape up, i know long term people would like to keep following them, im just not happy risking posting things im not trading myself, it would be criminal of me to be doing that given all this blog is about transparency. I hate when people post a trade and then it loses and they go oh yeah didnt qualify for me, its why i wait to post till im actually on, talk is cheap if you know what i mean, prefer to see actions. Im more than happy with the amount made this year. There are not many ways to make that amount of gains for as little effort. +200% of the bank and 150 points from trades. Im not hiding from sharing the amount made, people can begrudge and say im a cocky t**t for showing off, but i earnt it in front of all of you. I explained every trade/shared them. Im entitled to be boastful.

Ill still be doing champs league so ill still be around. Drop us a chat if you are up for talking or need advice. A sensible trader has to wear many hats and this time calls for me to be ultra cautious. I see danger approaching and im holding my strats with a small unknown prediction so this increases the risk factor. Which is something we should all factor into our trading. If any doubt, dont trade it. Only trade with conviction. This will also allow me plenty of time to spend with fam and get on with things so that 2022 can be a huge bank surge. The BBL is also around the corner so this could work really well seasonality wise. Its all about risk/reward. Im just not prepared to risk when there is a hint of doubt.

[A Former User]

Loss in the LTD earlier, nice way to start the busy period

Here is the overnight game:

Argetinos (argentina)

Lay to win 1pt

Hopefully can start ticking along with both strats and finish strongly this month

[A Former User]

LTD for today:

Hannover (germany)

Lay to win 1pt

Update this later tonight as there is a potential over night game too

[A Former User]

@chris-osborne said in The road to full time:

@darri 40+ hrs a week staring at spreadsheets sometimes literally

I thought it was just me that stares at spreadsheets for that amount of time.

[A Former User]

There is a potential LTD for tomorrow so will post around lunch time if it qualifies odds wise or not. Enjoyed the int break if im honest. Always good to recharge the batteries. Being able to help a few traders in that time too so all good from my point of view. Big push to end of year and see how far we can stretch the bank numbers for this year!

[A Former User]

@darri 40+ hrs a week staring at spreadsheets sometimes literally

[A Former User]

@chris-osborne Spreadsheet Heaven