Started From the Bottom (Almost)
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So, I've been planning on starting this thread for a couple of weeks now. Those who are in the football thread may have seen me mention it a couple of times, well here I am to put my thoughts and musings all in one place and hopefully document my journey from being a kind of okay trader to a very good possibly pro trader.
I suppose I should do a short introduction to kick things off. I posted elsewhere on the forum recently that I'm really starting to get in to the mindset of how a pro trader acts and thinks but I still expect bumps along the road. I've recently come off the back of my most successful month yet in terms of both mindset and profit however my post about that was the kiss of death on that slightly, but more on that later. I am still in a good place with my trading, despite a rather heavily red start to November.
I trade football pretty exclusively. I've looked at other sports and honestly, I just don't understand the markets enough to be able to make it worthwhile trading them. I've mostly been using the games that Martin sends out each day and choosing my selections based on some further research, this worked really well for me last month and is something I'm looking to stick with moving forward.
I've also got a couple of ideas in the very early stages, an under 2.5 goals filter that I'm starting to track and a potential set and forget strategy that was kind of born out of me just messing about with in-play bets on bet365. I only had the money in there so I can watch the streams that aren't on Betfair so hopefully something good can come out of that. I won't exactly be re-inventing the wheel with either of these but hopefully as they develop over time they will start to earn me consistent profits. I will go into these in more detail over the coming days and weeks but I'm aware this post is already on the massive side and I've not even finished yet.
Now on to the disastrous start to November. I mentioned the other day that I don't really think I've been doing much differently to last month and it was mostly due to variance. However, after having a think in preparation for writing this post, there are perhaps some subtle differences to my approach. I think this was largely brought on by having a run of 4 or 5 consecutive losing trades on 2 separate occasions over the last week. Annoyingly in at least 3 of these, there was an opportunity for a scratch at some point in the game. That's not to say I wasn't doing the same in October, because I would have potentially played those trades the same way and they would have resulted in a profitable trade however, the November trades may have been clouded by the run of losses and therefore I didn't consider the trades in the full context of the game.
I was also quite strict on the games I traded last month, already a couple of times this month I have traded games that I've just been watching on the TV that hadn't flagged up anywhere pre-game. I LTD at HT in two games, one I made profit on, the other was a loss. So not too much on those isolated trades, but when coupled with the above, it soon adds up. Having said that, I don't think they were bad trades, they were just outside the plan I'd set myself in October that saw me be so successful.
So with that, I'm going to end on a positive. I'm determined not to let the last week affect this weekends trading. I do genuinely come into every day's trading in a positive mood now, which is something I hadn't been doing in previous months. I'm going to keep this weekend simple, LTD's and ELO's only and only games that I've flagged before hand. That was the deal in October and that's what the deal will be now.
I'm probably going to leave that there and check back in on Sunday with the weekend's results. I've rambled on far too much. I'll try and attempt to post in here weekly rather than daily. I need to start thinking longer-term and I think a weekly round-up will help me with that rather than a daily deep dive. I'm going to try and take Ryan's advice and do my own personal review quarterly, taking stock of bank and stake size every 4 months will take the monetary value of each trade away and allow me to focus on what's more important.
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-1.5 pts yesterday.
Only three trades all day, losses on the Panathinikos and Sparta Prague games. Clawed a bit back from the Honved Budapest game. Bloody Saturdays
Busy day again today;
Club Brugge v Standard Liege
OFI Crete v AEK
Lorient v PSG
Ostrava v Plzen
Young Boys v Sion
PAOK v Panetolikos
Cadiz v Atletico Madrid
Lille v Dijon
West Ham v Liverpool
Podbeskidzie v Legia
Napoli v Parma
Slavia Prague v Jablonec
Smyrnis v Olympiacos
Cambuur v Maastricht
Brighton v Spurs
AS Roma v Verona
Barcelona v Atletico Bilbao -
I should probably explain how I go about trading a day like today. So to be absolutely clear I will not be watching all of these games but I will have notifications on flash score. In all honesty I'm not really interested in any of them unless the game hits my criteria at half time. I'm essentially looking for games to reach half time where the games are either drawing or the favourite is losing by no more than 2 goals. It's at this point I will watch the live pictures (if available) until my entry point.
Depending on whats happening I will sometimes watch the game until a goal is scored or until the end of the game but on a busy day like today I'll more than likely move on with the rest of the day. I've said before about how much I love the simplicity of late goal trading, for me there is never really any value in trading out so I enjoy the fact I only have to watch a small portion of the game and then enter my trade if it hits the criteria. I'm really not overly interested in whats happened in the first half unless there's been a red card or an injury or any other game changing incident. All I'm looking for is that desire to score a second half goal, how many times have we seen a game where a favourite has gone in at half time a goal down or level after a poor performance and then after a rocket from the manager at half time they come out and really open the game up? In it's most simple form, that's exactly the thing I'm looking to capitalise on here.
As I'm sure you will have noticed, I'm not really taking a stats based approach here and if I'm totally honest, I can't see me needing to at the moment. For me it's all about using what I'm seeing on the pitch as the basis for whether I should expect a late goal to be scored. My selections aren't based around how frequently these teams score late goals but more around teams who will be needing to score if they aren't already winning.
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Nothing qualified yesterday. Wasn't ready early enough to be able to track the AEL game although it looked like it could have been a qualifier. Poised for goals in the other 2 games however goals game a fraction too early. The Antwerp game was interesting as it fell back to 2-2 before Antwerp scored a late winner. As per my rules, a goal had already come past my entry point therefore no trade for me despite a late winner. Be interesting to keep a track of these the more it happens and potentially there could be a change in thought process, however for the time being it's a no go and with a mahoosive list for today, best to keep my powder dry anyway I reckon.
Time management is going to be so important today with the following list. I can't see me trading all day with the amount that's on. Definitely, feel like I could call it a day early doors if I get a good start. We will see if the Saturday hoodoo continues, but the focus for me today is to be completely happy with every trade I enter, if that results in a losing day so be it. I will only see it as a bad day if I start doing daft things and straying from the plan.
Eibar v Sevilla
Osijek v Istra 1961
Bologna v AC Milan
Bayern v Hoffenheim
Dortmund v Augsburg
Man City v Sheff Utd
Brentford v Wycombe
Celtic v St. Mirren
Real Madrid v Levante
Hartberg v Salzburg
Ferencvaros v Kisvarda
Fenerbahce v Rizespor
Dinamo Zagreb v Sibenik
Sampdoria v Juventus
Sparta Prague v Bohemians 1905
Panathanikos v Lamia
FCSB v Poli Iasi
MOL Fehervar v Honved
Inter v Benevento
Vitesse v Waalwijk -
+1 point yesterday
Just the one qualifier last night. Odds in the Ajax game were nowhere near. Got the late one in the Cluj game.
Surprisingly quiet for a Friday.
Ermis v AEL
U Craiova v FC Arges
Antwerp v Waasland-Beveren -
-0.5 points Tuesday
Nothing yesterdayToday's
Cercle Brugge v Club Brugge
Cluj v Astra
Sion v Basel
Ajax v Willem II -
So I didn't trade at all yesterday. Life got in the way early afternoon and then it dawned on me that I'd not had a day off for a bit so why not take the time to just relax for once and take the day off. Definitely something that I think I've under-estimated since I started this thread and tbh I don't think lockdown is helping either as usually there'd be more things to do meaning I could have set days to trade and others to be social, go to the pub, go to the football etc. etc.
From looking at last nights games, I think only the Cluj game would have qualified if the price was right. 1-1 until the 75th minute so chances are it would have been okay. Posted tonight's potentials below although I may not get chance to trade again tonight :astonished_face: :astonished_face: 2 nights in a row. Not sure if anyone takes my advice on board but it's handy to pick them out purely for tracking purposes.
What a video today btw....
Aris v AEL Larissa
Arges v FCSB
Emmen v PSV
Rapid Vienna v St.Polten
Braga v Gil Vicente
West Brom v Man City -
@matthew-biggins nice update, I pretty much have the same opinion regarding your weekend trading, am at the point where I’m seriously considering not trading Saturdays.
You seem to be going in the right direction
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+3 points yesterday.
Weekends really can be a topsy turvy thing sometimes. I always find Fridays are a bit hit and miss, Saturday's have the potential to be woeful and Sunday's always seem to yield better results. I don't really have any explanation for any of it in all honesty. As I said before, I don't really feel overwhelmed at weekends and for the most part I feel in control. Maybe there's a sub-conscious losing of focus and on some days and I should pick a specific time period in which to trade, however it's sometimes difficult to tell predict what triggers a loss of concentration. For example, some days I can sit and trade all day and not get bogged down with anything, usually on a day when things are going well but then on other days things can be going well and I can feel myself taking my off the ball. Tbf I'm usually pretty good at turning the laptop off on those days though.
So in short I don't really have an explanation for it, maybe it's just one of those quirks of trading. I do think it's important to note that my mindset remained positive throughout this weekend, even after the losing trades on Friday and Saturday. I think that's an over-riding positive to take if I'm looking at the longer term analysis.
Anyway, yesterday was good so I'm not going to drawl on any longer about losses of concentration and red trades. Turkey was good to me yesterday, got to a point in the Galatasaray game where I thought I'd made a bad trade but a goal seemed to come out of nothing, I really need to think about whether I watch games after entering a trade. There really doesn't seem to be any value in trading out for a loss on late goals so there isn't really much obligation to continue watching and once I'm in I'm in. I can sometimes feel the frustrations rising at every wrong decision a player makes or every piece of game management I see, I'm getting better but I think I do at times get too attached to a trade especially if it's off the back of a couple of losers.
Anyway, I digress once more. I was very happy with how the Verona v Napoli and Besiktas v Goztepe games were going and I was really expectant of a further goal in both and I got them. There were a couple of other ones where the goal came to soon but I definitely think less is more over the weekend.
Todays;
Fenerbahce v Kayserispor
Benfica v Nacional
Hapoel Beer Sheva v Hapoel Hadera
FC Hermannstadt v CFR Cluj
Farense v FC Porto -
3 points down yesterday. Went for late goals for Villareal, Leipzig and Inter, all of which I didn't get. Went for an extra one in the Zagreb game which thankfully clawed something back. Something weird happens on Saturday's I swear, it's not even that I find them particularly overwhelming the only trade maybe I would reconsider was the villareal game, but every other one seemed like a solid trade based on the action. Weird!
Todays;
Sittard v Ajax
Juventus v Bologna
Jablonec v Pribram
Atromitos v Olympiakos
Yeni Malatyaspor v Galatasaray
Altach v Salzburg
Verona v Napoli
Schalke v Bayern
Plzen v Paradubice
Vaduz v Young Boys
Elche v Barcelona
LASK v Tirol
Besiktas v Goztepe
Sparta Prague v Mlada Boleslav
St.Etienne v Lyon
Atletico Madrid v Valencia -
Just under 1.5 points down from yesterday. No idea how Anderlecht didn't score, hit the post and a couple of great saves from the keeper so not too concerned over the trade itself. Been on a decent run the last couple of days so was probably due one.
Busy day today so hopefully can have a positive Saturday.
Today's potentials;
Huesca v Villareal
Genclerbirligi v Trabzonspor
Varazdin v Rijeka
AS Roma v Spezia
Mainz v RB Leipzig
Rangers v Ross County
Sevilla v Cadiz
Puskas Academy v Ferencvaros
Gorica v Dinamo Zagreb
Udinese v Inter
Karvina v Slavia Prague
Panathinikos v OFI Crete
PSV v Waalwijk
Basel v Zurich
Alaves v Real Madrid -
Another good day yesterday. Opportunities arose in both selections with goals from penalties in both earning me a further 2 points profit. Had to wait until after the 75th minute before the odds were any good at Anfield, in stark contrast to the Atletico game where I was able to lay the under 2.5 goals market at 1.81 on 68 mins. Really happy with the last couple of days trading which has more than made up for the tantrum on Tuesday night.
Today's offerings below;
Cambuur v Jong PSV
FCSB v FC Voluntari
Anderlecht v Waasland-Beveren
PSG v Montpellier -
4/4 and 4 points up yesterday, in stark contrast to Tuesday's trading where the goal went in just as I was getting in. The prices in all the games were right on the button at the right time. The night started with a very dodgy goal in the City game but let's be honest, do we really care as traders?
I'm not usually a fan of trading without live pictures but I went against that in the Ferencvaros game, it was a top v bottom game and according to flash scores it appeared to be one way traffic in favour of the home team. So I entered expecting a goal to come, and it did......for the underdog. As I've mentioned before, it's the one thing I love about backing a late goal, I dont care a jot who gets it, all it will say on my spreadsheet is +1 point.
2 more points followed in the Leipzig and Antwerp games, again all the indicators were there for me to want another goal. Was also monitoring the Man U game but it came just too early.
Last night was one of those where trades just fall out of the sky and right into your lap, those nights can often be very few and far between and there are some days that are a nightmare and others that are just a bit of a slog. I think it's important to keep that in mind and not get carried away but it's also important to look back at these particular nights in the more difficult moments to show that there's profitability to be made from the late goals.
Just two for tonight
Liverpool v Burnley
Eibar v Atletico Madrid -
@mark-maguire good to hear mate.
still very much in the learning phase with it but it helps that this thread kind of holds me accountable for anything daft
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@Matthew-Biggins as you say its win win because I reckon I'm learning plenty from your strategy too.. all the detail is really appreciated by the way !:folded_hands:
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thing is I don't think I've had one day that's been particularly bad, just a case of just missing out or something daft from me.
The actual strategy seems to have legs so in some ways you're getting the best of both worlds haha.
