Simon's Manifesto - Consitency (2023)
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Bit about me:
I am a married father of 2 living in the South East. Been playing games in one format or another since I can remember.How did I get here:
Was match betting about 6 years ago, but lost all interest after a while and the bank got used up on normal life. Tried to get into trading a few times but eventually busted out each time.
Since last year been trying to get back into it, watched loads of you tube videos and decided that 2023 was the year I was going to give this a proper try. I bought the bet angel software and started in January. Jan-Mar went ok, but kept making the same mistakes (chasing losses, random trades).
I then stumbled upon BTC. Was impressed by the consistency of the message, not trying to sell a get rich quick scheme. The main thing was the stats software for horses which was my focus.What am I doing now:
So got a subscription and started putting the software to use, found that the general strategy I was following was profitable it was just my ill discipline, that was my downfall. A week in had a wobble trying to chase a loss, couldn’t seem to handle seeing losses.
Using Richard Coxon's Video automated the 2 strategies I am using ATM(I have used my daughters old laptop, just about runs Minecraft for reference) I have deleted the Betfair App off my phone and deleted the password. I have it saved in a password protected ZIP file, so it takes a bit of effort to retrieve. Hopefully enough time for me to realise I am being an idiot and calm down.
I have also reduced my stakes to a bare minimum and only using 20% of my bank. If I get to the end of the month without any further setbacks, I will put 30% more back in but still not increase my stakes. At the end of May I will have another review, and hopefully feel confident enough to put the rest of my bank in and increase my stake (only by a small amount).Where do I hope to be:
For me I have a job I enjoy that gives me a pretty good wage, but there is no further room to increase it by a lot. I want to use this as a side hustle to augment my wage so I can carry on being happy at work and not have to pursue something I don’t enjoy.
The eventual aim is to have a set of strategies which don’t take a huge amount of time and earn me 50 points a month. Then use compounding to increase my stake to (£50-£100) as the strategies I use should support this level of stake.What to Remember:
This is a marathon not a sprint.
KISS Keep It Simple StupidI am going to try and update this every Week.
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@simon-topper thanks for doing this and look forward to the next entry!
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End of year review:
So has not ended quite the way I wanted it to, but have to remember we sometimes put arbitrary markers in (like end of month/year) and as long as the general trajectory is upwards who cares.
I found my trading diary from Jan-Mar before I joined BTC, and I was a lot more profitable than I thought. My discipline and emotions made it feel worse than it was which can be seen from some of the comments.
I have had 35 strategies that I have tried this year (which is far too many!) going forward I have settled on 3 core strategies and 1-3 in testing (£1 stakes) personally I can’t paper trade.
I am trying to automate everything, and the results are easily collated in one place saving me loads of time.
So as an exercise I put the backtesting results for 2023 for my core strategies for next year into a spreadsheet to see how it would perform and it was shocking how big the number was. Just need to exhibit patience and let it build naturally.
I am going to start a new blog for next year, onwards and upwards.
Anybody else aware of this on Betfair: https://profitandloss.betfair.com/
Gives you a quick snapshot of how you are doing. -
Merry Xmas to everyone.
So another poor week, think I am just trying too hard to find a new angle and pursuing it too quickly.
1 more week this year, would like this month to end in profit.
So in 2024 will be starting a new blog, January looks a tricky month historically so will just keep things ticking over.
I am looking at more strategies, but this time quite specific so not many trades but hopefully more profitable.
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And then came the downturn!
I think if I hadn't had such a great week before I might not be in the same place, but still in profit for the month.
Hopefully it won't take another dive like that next week, at least my results are in line with the back testing so just the way the cookie crumbles.EDIT: Found a mistake when going through my results so £60 better off!
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@simon-topper outstanding work mate!
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Well what can I say, everything just came in this week, now have to steel myself for the downturn.
So changed a few things this week, stopped my lay away team as it was losing quite a few points, not quite sure why. I have now flipped it to back the away team and see if that makes a difference. Only small stakes just trying to get into a routine of trying to get them all automated at the moment.
I have worked out how to write a macro in excel so I just export the filter and a couple of clicks and it will import into BFBM.
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@simon-topper The amount of abandoned races this week was an absolute pain!
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So overall a rubbish week, think a lot of racing being called off hadn't helped. hopefully a better week next week.
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@simon-topper those darn bots!
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Thought I would put my end of month in. Strategies highlighted in Yellow are my main ones.
Lost 26 points on the last day of the month!
I have found looking at a graph is much better as it shows a general upward trend, think we can get too fixated on weekly/monthly results.
So now 3 months straight profits.changes this month:
I am dropping the Lay 3rd Fav, after 475 results over 100 days it's down 27 points.
Lay 4th fav is on it's last month as well if it doesn't improve.
I have been a bit ill disciplined this month and some bad habits have crept in, so my password is locked away again and I can only place bets through BFBM.
The area recorded manual bets is opportunities I see, I don't see it as a long term solution but will hopefully use it to boost my bank. -
Not quite the end of the week I was hoping for, on Friday I was in healthy profit. Part of this is down to me not checking my Lay away team bot (it was using draw odds not away odds) to place selections so had a couple of big losers. That's all resolved now!
Hopefully by Friday I will still be in profit, making it 3 months in a row.
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Well a good week this week, was even better till the last 2 races of the day. Hopefully the rest of the month is at least break even, then will have had 3 months of profit in a row.
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Well a week of contrasts:
Wednesday best day ever profit wise, Thursday worst day of losses.
Had a wobble and started overtrading, luckily I managed to bring it back to break even but the tendencies are still there if I have a bad day (even though it was just the loss of gains from the previous day).
Yesterday went through some strategies old and new and managed to find a couple which I will track for the rest of the month.
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Well another profitable month in October. Although the beginning of November isn't looking to great.
just need to keep thing nice and steady, although the Lay 3rd fav isn't performing very well at the moment.
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So much better week this week, a fortuitous mistake gained me some extra profit. Got to the bottom of another issue I was having as well (will explain on forward testing thread).
looks like another profitable month unless something shocking happens over next couple of days.
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Well my main strategy has had a shocking week. Some manual trading has kept the overall losses acceptable.
Hopefuly it will recover now, will have to look through the data at the end of the month to see if there are any lessons to be learnt.
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So decided to cull another couple of strategies which aren't performing as I would expect.
Have a backing strategy which is following the back testing very closely so giving me confidence, will keep tracking for the rest of the month and then I can up my stakes.
Onwards and upwards.
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So started doing some manual trading, this weekend shows why it's still a bad idea for me. The overall results don't show the volatility or stress, just need to not get too greedy.
