The road to full time
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@keith-anderson Yeah mate ill start to post them if people are interested in them now, 6/6 from start of January
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@darri said in The road to full time:
Mixed bag last few days, very few games to select from and my additional trades on top of my regular ones not really firing right now maybe im being naive with my selections given the hectic schedules teams are having right now. But plus point is that my bog standard LCS and FHGs are both doing well. Iv not been posting FHGs as im not actively trading them anymore, they are now set and forgets just setting an order in and checking end of each day if they get matched.Disappointed in the sevilla game tonight, somehow the market managed to get me matched for a LCS on 60 mins almost a few seconds before the goal came, betfair pictures do tend to be pretty reliable in terms of time delays. I had sevilla as a pretty decent price come the start of the game, something im testing in the background for comebacks. So while it maybe wasnt shrewd to use the profits from the previous trade on a new strategy the game heavily favoured them in play. They had a few chances in the game but on reflection again not focusing on the whole picture and stats actually were not in my favour for another goal. One of those silly mistakes i even wrote it in my notes that it was a only going to be a 0-0 or 0-1 trade at 60 mins.
Some european and aussie games this weekend i hate the fa cup for trading only going to pay attention to the teams that play full strength sides and extremely selective on each game.
Jan 2-3 = +3.5
Jan = +6.8ANy chance you can post your FHG's?!
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Mixed bag last few days, very few games to select from and my additional trades on top of my regular ones not really firing right now maybe im being naive with my selections given the hectic schedules teams are having right now. But plus point is that my bog standard LCS and FHGs are both doing well. Iv not been posting FHGs as im not actively trading them anymore, they are now set and forgets just setting an order in and checking end of each day if they get matched.Disappointed in the sevilla game tonight, somehow the market managed to get me matched for a LCS on 60 mins almost a few seconds before the goal came, betfair pictures do tend to be pretty reliable in terms of time delays. I had sevilla as a pretty decent price come the start of the game, something im testing in the background for comebacks. So while it maybe wasnt shrewd to use the profits from the previous trade on a new strategy the game heavily favoured them in play. They had a few chances in the game but on reflection again not focusing on the whole picture and stats actually were not in my favour for another goal. One of those silly mistakes i even wrote it in my notes that it was a only going to be a 0-0 or 0-1 trade at 60 mins.
Some european and aussie games this weekend i hate the fa cup for trading only going to pay attention to the teams that play full strength sides and extremely selective on each game.
Jan 2-3 = +3.5
Jan = +6.8 -
@gary-brown spot on, obviously its gonna be different amount each month but over the course of a year or block of months id expect the average to be close to that 10 - 15 point mark yeah. i know its different in other sports but in terms of football trading 10 points a month isnt an outrageous target i think beginners just think that 10% return over a whole month is worthless and get impatient at going that slow but actually it adds up very quickly.
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I love your posts Darri so for an average month your aiming for 10-15 points per month on average mate?
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So the other day i did a review of 2019 and how iv changed as a trader. I now want to set a preview and give a base context for future posts about what progress im making towards 2020 goals/targets.
Last year I started the year aggressively staking and on reflection i feel i got lucky that it paid off. Using that money now to support myself whilst i grow the bank professionally instead of forced amounts. I then started this blog to go back to a smaller bank £1k and see if i could regrow the bank the way the pros do it and make a proper go at this long term. The problem with how last year went when predicting growth and targets for this year is it wasnt consistent in terms of staking plans. Iv got that sorted now tho. Iv spoken to a few other traders who are close to a full time income and others who iv private messaged on social media and asked for their opinion about targets.
So 2020, iv set aside £2,500 as a base starting bank. The plan is to use the trading strategies i have and stick to the planned staking % and compound every time i hit set milestones (currently planned at every new £1k). The reason im compounding this year unlike last year is purely based on my historical strike rate and runs. I feel its aggressive but my staking % is low enough to negate the changes in the bank.
The plan for trading is to aim for a minimum of 125/150 points from the year as a whole. So the compounding would still be relative to the bank % so i think thats why it puts people off because it can take a few trades to get the balance realigned to actual growth of your trading performance. Further to this all my outside trading activity on betfair ie betting, challenges, offers etc will all be added to the bank this year unlike last when i just spent all the bonuses and challenges i accrued. I will document all of these however they wont count to towards the bank p/l or point target instead only influence the size of bank used.
The outside influences that can impact differently to last year are, there are more summer tournaments this year which i feel i have a better knowledge on. Last year the women world cup and african nations gave me strong trading performance but i never managed to be as efficient with it as i never had a great understanding of the different levels in nations. This year we have more reputable ones on and this can hopefully increase my summer trading activity. Im going to be getting involved in cricket a lot more this year last year only really traded the world cup now i want to tackle new formats. Not sure how this will affect my bank yet but obviously i wont be a big eanrer or big loser as will be tiny stakes until my confidence rises. Got a good handle on 50 over but t20 and test are all year round and are good additions which compliment the football schedules. And finally im a whole year more experienced in trading, those silly errors will be smaller ill still make them but should be fewer, im better at spotting opportunities and im more wise to what market prices should be and how they work for my trading styles and strategies.
Hopefully 2020 will be a good trading year!
The main header has been updated too just to make it up to date with the progress since i first started it.
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Goal too early in the arsenal game so avoiding trading it and just watching it now. 5/5 FHG trades really helped negate the slow start to my SH goal trades. Iv actually noticed a little bit that now we have a large data the goal markets are slower to drift the odds and its becoming really tight to get on good odds at same entry times. Something to monitor next few weeks once the other European leagues come back see if its same for them. Might be because premier league is far more liquid and given the other leagues arent active so everyone is piling on these markets.1/3 in my posted trades is disappointing but overall happy with today bit of a retraining and refresh and feels good back trading. Im trying to think about how to structure these posts for p/l and how my strategies are doing but think ill do a running p/l count and then end of each week/end of month show the overall of each strategy very much like charles does in his but for football and cricket maarkets.
Not very much in terms of detail today was a very rough start today after last night and really just traded the games simple as i could. Millwal game i was planning a comeback trade and if i was rough i would probably have put a lay on luton but ill take the win and move on, in future ill discuss a trade that had more than just stats to back up a selection. I always found that the most interesting in the blogs iv read before.
Jan 1 = + 3.3
Jan = + 3.3 -
@darri I knew you'd give a good post
couple of reasons I asked that Q.- I knew you'd put a good post up and other members would see this and get inspired
But most importantly 2).... I wanted you to say all this out loud, by teaching others and going over what you think you know it reaffirms what you do actually know.
There's some gold in your answer some you picked up from Martin and I, but one I like a lot is waiting till 55 mins in the second half, this helps because it doesn't make you panic.... love this.
I love the approach that its to keep trading as simple as possible, it doesn't need to be fully complicated
Thank you for opening up so much matey, I don't think you sounded stuck up at all - you went through your thought process and it was great.
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oh dear that last post was a long ramble to a simple question much like a peter webb video. Pre match stats i used to work off the stats software solely and only trade quite robotically those games. Now i research them more find out if outside influences like manager changes, lineups, twitter etc, these all can have a massive impact of trends and your stats history. It was all down to a change in mindset. I now also keep the filters simple. I used to have every filter be soo complex trying to find the PERFECT trade just wasnt reasonable. Pre match stats are now about simple approaches using the software as a base for further research. I now trade far less than i did start of year which is counter productive in the eyes of beginners as youd imagine the more you trade the more you make, however given time and experience thats not how it works and im far more profitable trading less and more quality picks.
In plays havent changed and i stand by what i said in the last post about that. Just keeping in mind what pre match probability suggested and whether the in play action reflects that chance maybe this is for experienced traders as it requires you to take emotion out of matches and some find that hard i certainly did but now this is a business for me so i have to be in that mindset.
Thats a better answer i rambled badly in the last post and sounded like a stuck up person. It was actually a good question and thought it deserved a good reply sadly i cant ever keep it short enough in writing.
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@ryan-carruthers i think earlier on i was very general with my picks, often just trading them because they were on my filter and just relying on the strike rate of that, so in theory closer to betting than trading. Probably the best change for me and lightbulb moment was after watching that day in the life of a trader series you did i would often put that on in the background and just listen to how you would look at matches from an emotionless thought process. The podcast series with martin reaffirmed that mindset for me. And then that saying you have which i have become obsessed with "what has to happen for this to be a successful trade". That line has enough about it to spark a longer convo.
I use the software to find a basic selection of games, my filters are not fiddly and only tend to have 1/2 main criteria. From there this is the main difference, i now research the games further. So if on a busy weekend i get 20/30 selections i now go through them to find team news, form, twitter, manager changes all these things count and can affect the stats. Cause that swhat we are doing really, trading off trends over a given period so anything that can affect stats has to be looked at, i think the perfect example was when Ole went to united turned stats on its head and we are seeing it this year too with nigel pearson at watford and ancelotti at everton new managerial changes influencing the stats. I would say that pre match stats for me now are just a base for further research and shouldnt just be the sole research which is what i used to do start of year solely relying on the filters and taking what they say as gospel. Iv improved my strike rate, its helped me find true value and im finally a profitable trader.
In play stats for me are hit and miss. If i cant watch the game or listen to it, then i take a very basic approach and i think its mentioned elsewhere 4 shots on, 4 off and 50/60% dangerous attack conversion or using sofascore with the pressure indicator. If i can watch the game i dismiss all stats. I tend to not be active in the second half till around 55 mins onwards often much later, so there is no panic decisions as to whether or not i get in i just watch how the match flows rather than base stats. In plays havent really changed for me i just have a mindset of probability and if the odds reflect that. So as im watching the game using the pre match research im wanting to know what probability the pre match stats have of another goal and does the action reflect that chance. Sometimes if a game is on the shortlist and the stats are all qualifying but what im seeing isnt reflecting that then ill not get in, which some traders just cant do and end up losing a few trades profit.
I think i used to treat trading as something complex so my filters would be so in depth but i re thought my process and now just keep everything as simple as possible. I now have only few strats i use, each only has a few criteria so i could in theory do it manually and i honestly cant stress it enough about further research. I said it before but someone argued the odds reflect the changes THEY DO NOT, vardy not playing for leicester only changes the odds by a slight margin but look at the stats he contributes a high % to them, zaha for palace, rashford for united, kane for spurs etc, any of those players missing is a huge change to the stats and the odd movements do not match their loss ever!!
So long answer but to answer your question iv gone full circle in trading from a basic betting background, to trying out complex filters with the software to now going back to basic approach of what actually has to happen for a winning trade. I honestly think the key to trading is to make it as simple as possible. Use the software for selections the further research those pre match stats what are the kinks in them and is there any outside influences on them, you wouldnt invest in businesses or currencies if you knew outside factors could harm your investment so treat trading the same find out if other factors can influence your stats. So basically i used to only trade the selections the software would provide and quite robotically. Now im more hands on and waying up risk reward of it in more detail, but still keeping it simple. I now trade far less as a result sounds counter productive but it gives you better results so its a weird mindset to get to from a beginner thought process. And thanks to btc thats the level and thought process i now have.
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Just a small trade from me today, first game back for me after my break and wasnt the prettiest of games. Red card within 20 mins and should have been another if VAR was in the championship. Had this game as a first half goal trade nice easy winner there, so decided to watch the game further as predicted there would be another goal the way derby were still attacking even with 10 men. derby went 2-0 and had a cheap lay on derby at 1.03 risking at most £5.55 which was just a tiny portion of the profit from the FHG trade. Charlton got it to 2-1, so instead of straight cashout i opted for a good return of £17 locked in profit and leaving a sizeable amount on for the equaliser. Keeper made a great save on 88th minute which would have been a big return but happy to be back trading again and good start 2 trades 2 wins. Normally wouldnt get involved in the game again and it wasnt on my shortlist for a comeback but just felt the value looked stupid given the match circumstances and time remaining. Not counting these to any of the profit tracking as want it to look clean and easy to follow come january proper. -
@gary-brown based on my own personal trading i would say i could work full time with a bank of £10k, just looking at my worst month for p/l i would still be able to support myself and grow the bank with that. But until i reach £20k ill consider this still a testing period. With betfair charges £20k offers enough pl to grow the bank and take home a good average income. Honestly sounds ludicrous to me saying these numbers given how much iv lost in past, but once you have enough time spent in markets you can totally see how people are living off this. As i say its a personal aim, im a student renting a flat in aberdeen so my expenses will be far different to a family man who also works full time hours. I think ryan had a similar start in trading learning while at uni so im taking advantage of the time right now. But yeah to answer your question i think £10k is enough of a start for anyone to get stuck into. My aim is for in the next 2 years which is how long my course has left is to be hitting a bank of £20k and then hopefully if nothing in the industry changes to be comfortable with that. Long way tho and will need to be a good year again.
Also i still wouldnt class myself as a pro trader some of the guys on here are ridiculously good at trading. Hopefully my posts come across as a bit more unfiltered so are seen through the eyes of someone who is also learning. Its something i wanted to do after reading mark iversons blog, he went through the whole learning phase to then pro level hitting the £250k level of betfair charges. Its a good read once he starts to hit consistency and how his thoughts on trading as a whole developed and changed. I like the transparency of my trades as it keeps me from trading games i couldnt back up if asked about on here.
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wow love your post Darri and I must admit it will be really nice have you back here being active as I am not the only one who would say we can learn a lot from you.
Just a question I was wondering what size of bank are you hoping to get before you consider this as your main source of income. Have you a target mate?
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End of 2019 is here and yes this will be a bit cheesy but its truely changed my life. I started to take a more serious approach to trading after only really dabbling at the markets, was more a betting man previous so kind of dragged me back when i first started trading. 2019 tho i joined BTC, i watched countless videos both BTC and other great trading videos such as peter webb, psychoff etc, i started to incorporate all their advice not simply copying but seeing how their way can be used into my thoughts on trading. I started off very aggressive with my trades often putting in more than i should, lucky for me tho it worked and managed to amass a bank that i couldnt believe was possible from the betting/gambling industry.
In april/may i started to improve on my trading decisions i couldnt believe the lifestyle of watching sport and making money. I looked at my trading history and realised that even if i cut my stakes i would still have been doing very well. So having read up on suitable bank management i started to treat it more like a business and as if it was an investment portfolio. I started to look at monthly p/ls and how strategies worked over a far greater sample than i was before, now for 2020 its a quarterly viewpoint i did an updated post on that. I now can rely on 2 pretty solid strategies and have been improving on another. Personally thats all the strats i feel is needed for football, any more an itll be too much work to track and trade and weekends when there is a lot on is hard enough. I feel that a couple of inplay trading strats and 1 set and forget is maximising my efficiency for busy days and not making it stressful, i see others on the football threads choking on 20/30/40 trades at weekends it baffles me how they expect to be consistent and efficient on all them i dont know.
Moving forward Ill be far more active this year my course has moved into practical stage so ill be at home more often therefore able to fit trading into a working timetable for the first time in ages so in theory ill be on full time hours trading which is unreal to think of. Gone are the typical part time jobs in pubs and restaurants now i can fully focus on my course and trading. Im fully supporting myself from my previous bank i built up and the new one iv been documenting on in this thread. I suppose being a student has helped with that i wouldnt have been able to do this if i had to work full time hours elsewhere. If i can keep to the same principles and trading decisions this year coming then i want to aim to have a full time bank by the end of the year. Thatll show 1 that i can achieve a full time bank from going all the way back to £1k if something happened and 2 that my trading process works long term as it will have been 2 years of trading by then. So fingers crossed this year i can set a base for my trading career and betfair can continue to provide this sort of work.
Having found my Football trading to be consistent and now set in place i would like 2020 to be when i include another sport. I had a great success with the cricket world cup, i had new zealand pre tournament as a value pick i think they were 14.00 and ended up trading under evens in the final against england. Match by match was even better the flow of cricket and the thought process behind each trade is really attractive to me as you basically get rewarded for good decisions. I managed to get a few tips and hints from richard and martin via the cricket thread and hopefully with the ipl i can tackle a few of the formats. Im always looking for opportunities in trading and adding a new sport now that im set with football seems a logical move. Cricket has a fantastic timetable of tournaments and could easily be introduced to my trading plan.
Enough rambling, as i said in a previous post ill start to be far more active on here and on the football thread. I took time out in december as for past year iv been unhealthily been trading hours at weekends and other sociable times and not being as active outside of trading with family and friends. This is something ill have to plan out in future. The month off has been refreshing and being able to watch a game for pure fun has been great. Back now tho and the hours put into trading and educating/improving my trading will be worth it once it becomes a full time job. On a side note i completed 2 £20-1k challenges over december was a welcome gift. Always interesting going back to betting after you have been trading for ages you really understand more about how bookies work/scam.
A lot of leagues on break just now so will be pretty quiet for next week or two. Like i said before start of january is a refresh for me so will be back posting updates and trades again and hopefully can continue on from last year.
Hope you all had a great xmas and have a great new year
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@darri I like it buddy, you mention a few things in here I like.
The longer term for me is great because it gives me time to get the variance which comes and sometimes its a solid strat just a rough period, you seen the video I did on how close people are to a winning strategy but give up?
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The consistency of this thread is pretty bad recent months, iv been pretty occupied with other interests. I think the biggest factor in why i havent been posting more consistently is the change of mindset. Iv been given a bit of a lightbulb moment after reading some of charles posts and a recent video ryan posted. It involves a targets and originally when i first started trading it was a daily goal, then into weekly, monthly and now quarterly. Im starting to really ramp up the long term vision of my trading plan. Iv been less likely to view profit and loss screens as often as i was before hence why i normally could just post everyday what i traded and how it went. Now i like the pressure release of aiming for monthly gains and assessing after that how it went. This helps in a couple of ways. Firstly a longer period has gone by meaning it can actually reflect better how your performing. So instead of flukey months, good months, bad months or average months your taking the whole picture of them and having a better handle on variances between all of them. This outlook helps planning for future trading targets/stakes/bank management. You basically get to see if your long term profitable in a far broader sense. Secondly since it doesnt change my approach to individual trades its actually giving me more of a chance to collect data. Normally you would be inputting and then assessing quite often, instead now im giving my strategies room to breathe. They can now go on losing runs without me feeling pressure and we all know that leads to mistakes and bad judgements. Now i get a good sample of data and can broadly see after far more trades if my strategies are working long term. I truely believe this has changed me as a trader, im taking a far more business/investment approach now.
So going forward the plan for me as i still want to be open on this site so ill post all my SHG picks and Comebacks as sometimes getting feedback on them even if your profitable on them really helps to avoid complacency. These will be posted on the football thread. Then ill take a more summarised view end of each week. This can then include a detail of a game either won or loss. That way im giving value to myself for writing it for feedback and others can get value in thought process.
With the run up to xmas and new year coming ill continue with my own trades ill post them up on the football thread but wont update on here. My aim is that on jan 1st ill be starting this afresh so it easier to manage in terms of tracking. Iv been shuffling my bank a bit recently and have taken out a rather large portion of it to cover me for next year so i can let the bank grow. So a new update on my trading will start then for now ill just post once iv entered a trade and can continue from there. Hopefully its not a bore to read but it truly has helped me focus on my trading. Im pretty happy with my trading situation now and i hope to kick on next year after what has been a pretty life changing year thanks to trading.
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@jarratt-perkins Pretty match dependant not going to lie for me and i only pay attention to them if no live video is available. I prefer match flow rather than inplay stats but if i cant watch the game then inplay stats are a solid base to selections. If i was doing a general rule of thumb it would be 4+ SOT and 4+SOF and 60%+ dangerous attack conversion. I would also look for the team i expect to score to be winning stats battle. I really dont look at corners.
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@jarratt-perkins said in The road to full time:
@darri said in The road to full time:
@jarratt-perkins Whats your daily aim? And why are you setting it for daily p/l?
1 point profit - If you don't set an aim then how can you achieve it. Stops me over traded and also means i am not hooked on looking at every game wasting my free time!
I totally get the concept and can see it helping if over trading is your weakness. For me personally i see this limiting your trading growth. Its why i said in my earlier post about why i trade far less selections than average traders. Maybe why your doing the 2 steps forward then 3 back is due to match selections. Im always thinking about potential upside, maybe those still gaining experience are still looking to be defensive. Really enjoy hearing how others view trading, interesting view and look forward to reading your posts pal
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Fantastic post again mate!
This one has my attention
Sunderland vs Burton
In play stats were spot on for average stats per goal and so decided to watch further into the game.what would you look at for the inplay stats? my current preference is 4+SOT 4+corners - but that is about it!
