Team Simmonds Journal!
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@Neal-Simmonds I love how you casually drop in +100pts!
Well done take some good well earned family time
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24 Sept 2023
Not done any trading in the last 2/3 days! Got the kids over for the weekend, had back to back losers on Thursday (21'st) I'm still in profit for the week but nothing to write home about!
Not sure if I'll do much today, I seem to be losing money on the 2 year old short distance runners of which there seems to be an inordinate amount of currently!+100 points since 7th July 2023
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17 Sept 2023
A hit & miss week for me. Been dabbling with In-Play Lays again with plenty of success! The Dutching has not been good though! I don't know if its the time of year with the flat season coming to a close or something else but its been difficult identifying where the winners will come from!
I tried to tie in the selections with the favourite strategies by changing the 'Favourite' parameter to 2nd, 3rd & 4th to get a total hit rate for the top 4 in the market, but the returns were not as expected! Perhaps its something that needs that bit of intuition?
I'll be spending the next few days back in the 'Strategy Builder' trying to come up with a way to select races that are candidates for Dutching!
So I've not been following any strategies for a few months now and and downloaded my last 3 months trades from Betfair & been keeping tabs, since 2 July 2023 I'm around 100 points up even though I'm 10 points down on this week! So, I'm clearly doing something right!
I'm tracking all of my trades and I'll spend some time trying to identify where I'm going right so that I can cut the losses!On the life side. Nathan has almost got his pay statements up to where we need them for a house purchase, he's also reached the place on the housing association list where he no longer has to bid, they will just offer a place. Only problem is they don't seem to have any empty 4 or 3 bed property's?
Gary's court case is Monday, he's fully expecting them to take his keys. fingers crossed!
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8 Sept 2023
Well, on Wednesday 6th Sept and Gary's birthday went pretty much to plan and the same format as normal, went over to the Gosport Pool Arena at 2pm opening time, played pool, drank Guinness till we were pissed up then went to the casino! Was hanging a bit Thursday morning, he enjoyed it & that's the main thing!
I've done his statement for the court case on Mon 18th, I've done all I can and now its up to the courts whether they will force him to hand the keys to his house over to Olly the bastard or if they will let the official receiver deal with it being as he is now declared bankrupt.
Not done much on the trading front! no new testing, I did get a few Lay bets on and did a little Dutching and well. I didn't lose money!
Flying back to Edinburgh on Sunday morning and I'm ready to go home, intending on doing a Bet Angle trial when I get back!
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1 Sept 2023
Mixed results on the Dutching! I tried double & even treble dipping! That is to say placing a 2nd & even sometimes a 3rd Dutch into the market. Rather than placing the whole bet in one position! it works really well especially since you can ensure some cover on the 2nd dip to the runners that didn't get covered on the first due to shortening in!
I may be asking for too much ROI though? asking for less would mean more runners covered! & I have had a few bigger priced winners in the last 2 weeks that were not covered in the Dutch!
I think I'll be looking to cover more for lesser ROI, but perhaps a higher Strike Rate? I'll let you know how it goes!
In the meantime, I'm back in Portsmouth, Gary told me last night that he'd had another court summons, this is the one where they try to take control of his house! and apparently in spite of his application for Bankruptcy accepted so he's now officially insolvent?
That case in in court on 18th of this month! if being bankrupt doesn't hold them off, he'll have 7 days to hand over his keys and vacate the house! I've seen murderers get treated better than this! Not good
and his hopes are now pinned on a miracle! -
@Neal-Simmonds how has the dutching been going?
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26 Aug 2023
So, we ended up filing him for bankruptcy! It's the only way now to stop them taking control over Gary's house and selling it off without him having any control over the sale! and I just know that bastard Ollie will end up keeping it at a massively reduced price so, at least now all new legal actions against Gary are stopped and an Official Receiver will sort out the mess! whilst Gary has time to breath.
His house is lost but this way, he keeps some control over it!
I know for a fact as well that Nathan's not been trading any strategies the last 2 months! He's still on the couch, I don't see him going back to Lisa & we got the kids this weekend so there's 4 of us in a 1 bed flat! Nathan is working as much over-time as he can to get his pay up so he can qualify for a bigger mortgage but its becoming a bit of a strain!
I've not been trading (obviously) any strategies lately! but in-between para-legal work I've been investigating Dutching both Laying & Backing!
The laying is complicated and for now best left alone I think? The Backing however; has yielded promising results!
The selection process is completely intuitive and it might be more efficient if I could figure out how to tie it in with actual strategies!But, I'm still having trust issues with the strategies which in my mind are just past trends that may or may not continue, in fact it's not even that! My problem with following a strategy is that I feel bound to it, tied to it's fate? I feel i cant miss a single event or some chain is broken?
Dutching however doesn't give me the same issues, I really think if I'm going to make this a permanent working thing! I'm going to have to move away from simple betting type strategies?
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@Neal-Simmonds when I read these I think my life is so dull compared to yours!
hope you are having a great summer -
8 Aug 2023.
Well, this is the first time I've logged in since I left for Portsmouth last Thursday 27th. I've not looked at any kind of trade, I had hoped to be able to use some time in testing but Gary had another letter from the courts literally the day I arrived so, I had some more para-legal work to do on that!
Then there was Phong, Ant & kids over from Thailand who I had to commit time to, its not often were all in the same country! They fly back tomorrow & I had planned to be back home by now, but the travel situation is a bit tricky so, one more night here at least! if the car isn't ready for collection tomorrow I'll just have to take the train!Had a really good time though, Gary & I had a little road trip over the weekend, we had a night in Stratford Upon Avon and stormed and sacked Warwick Castle, then a night in Caernarfon where we saw and concurred, then a night in Liverpool before heading back for meetings with the solicitors earlier today.
Looking foreword to going home though!
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27 July 2023.
It would be a bit disappointing to go down now! I'm being more selective about my selections! So making a loss would be a bit hard to swallow when you're taking such care in where you put the trades.
I've had 2 fairly slack days 9 trades, and I'm 9 points up with no losing trades!I think I finally figured out that you can't force something to happen and that it's ok to leave a race alone!
You have to take the opportunities when they present themselves and not try to make a silk purse from a Sow's arse!The next couple of weeks I'm going to be mostly testing I think? We're off out to dinner with the kids today, I head off to Portsmouth tomorrow for at least a week! Got some friends over from Thailand to see, amongst others.
I'll be working on some bots and learning about the stop loss feature withing FairBot while I'm away!
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Monday 24th July 2023.
So, for the last 10 days or so, I've been looking at Dutching! we've done some testing in simulation mode & went live with it yesterday.We were covering as much of the field as possible asking only a modest 0.5 point return from each event,
the first 4 results went our way & we were up 2.5 points before the first loss took us to down!
and that's how it was for the rest of the day, me clawing my way back towards scratch and being knocked back.
But after about 7 hrs of trading I managed to work my way back to just -0.25 of a point.It was a great learning day! fixed a couple of selection issues and bot errors and finished feeling very satisfied with the days learning.
Went to write up the results on Sunday morning to find that the very last race had been adjudged to have been dead-heat between our pick and a runner we didn't have covered fully! meaning Betfare took off about 5 points!
I guess its just one of those things that happens!
We had a simulation test day yesterday (Sunday) as there were only 2 meetings going ahead and managed to iron out a few other what-if's
Looking foreword to todays trading.
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@Neal-Simmonds I think comfort matters so maybe you could develop something that makes you more comfortable even on the bad days?
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@Martin I'm not sure Martin, I went along with the Short Odds Lays and there weren't many to be fair! Most were too high for the 2.4 rule. Lay The Beaten Favourite didn't work great for me but then I didn't stick with it for long.
I think that's my problem! I don't like that I have to stick with a strategy when its not winning? I feel obliged to keep betting and waiting for the turn around! With the method I'm currently using, the Strike Rate is so high, and even though the winning positions don't return a huge amount, I feel within some comfort zone which I don't feel when I'm straight up back betting!
I think I do need to sort out the risk/reward balance though, and I think I also need to learn to trade out! or how to implement the Stop Loss within FairBot.
My biggest problem has been that I've been trading every race! Now I'm using the Stagey Software to make more informed choices!
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@Neal-Simmonds I wonder if we should change some of the presets as the high lay odds ones are definitely harder to swallow on the bad days!
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13 July 2023.
@Martin Thanks for those Martin, I will read through them, I do understand the importance of Bank-Roll protection & Management but the current living situation and a couple of winning days clouded my vision!
So, the clouds cleared up a little last night after I had spent the day trading some Back Bets and Lay Bets from pre-sets and my own picks! I finished the day even thanks to the Lay Positions I took, but afterwards I came to the realisation that I have to leave the backing alone for now! at least until I'm an established successful trader who knows much more about the automation than I currently do!
I'm ok with strategies that don't produce that many picks and even have long losing runs! We have a Long Shots strategy that can go days, even weeks before it produces a pick and sometimes months before you get a winner, yet I'm ok with it; even though it has a very low strike rate! The problem I'm having with back strategies (especially Set & Forget) is that I have this notion that you just cant miss a day! especially if your last day was a losing one! For fear of missing the winning days! I have the feeling that its a psychology issue? but its led me to a choice that from now on, until as I say, I'm successful, I'm going to concentrate on the Lay Side which has a much higher strike rate.
I know the losses can hurt, but I feel more in control of being able to walk away at a moments notice to go do other things! and I don't feel the same control when I'm placing backing positions!
I've also been doing a bit of laying to back or revers dobbing if you like! and generally thinking a bit more about taking the green to protect a stake! and it feels good to be in charge, I feel like in spite of a rough time & stormy waters that I'm heading the right way!
The last 2 days have been scratch days, I've probably made a point in 2 days but each day I feel there's an improvement in my trading and I'm working on the strategies which will help identify the markets I'll go with rather than just loading the days racing up and checking each race, I'll have a clearer set of rules to follow!
I feel pretty good!
Outside of trading, Nathan & I are still crammed into my one bed flat, we're taking steps to buy a place, it means Nathan has to work his nuts off for the next 8 weeks to bump his earnings up which will help to get the mortgage amount he needs, which means I'm looking after the kids a bit more (which is great) the main thing is, we have plans, and were acting on them, and not just on Betfair Trading.
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@Neal-Simmonds have you read my articles on stake management? if anything they should smooth out the roller coaster a bit, especially while learning as your ups and downs sounds dramatic!
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12 Jul 2023.
@Martin Its a good question Martin, The simple answer is 'Too Much'
Back bets are not an issue with staking, I'm staking £10 on a back positions which is less than 5% of my current BetFair balance, however; not all of my bank is in Betfair and I've not been back betting much recently because I'm having trust issues with the back strategies!Hence, I've been laying, and Its lay bets where I've suffered some big losses, I've been Lay Betting in-play and waiting for signals on the price-action that a runner is not likely to win, the issue has been getting in at the price you need to make the whole thing profitable!
My thinking is that It can be a very high liability but very low risk?The big problem is has been violent price changes which I think is down to lack of liquidity on the pick! I found the Irish Racing very prone to this. I'm refining my picks and being a bit more careful about jumping in, I've been trying to make things happen instead of waiting for them to!
So the biggest loss has been 10% of my bank which on my worst day happened 4 times! (I Know)
I did have some good days where I made 10% and since I started this strategy I'd say I'm 80 points down and to put that into context, that's about £800I've been going back through the Pre-Set strategies this morning, the 'Back the Favourite 4.0 looks good but the others? I'm going to take some convincing!
The last couple of days have been ok (Small ok) I've been doing more foreword research on runners that have higher liquidity and checking the Race Card to find class changes, trip changes, weight issues etc.
I'm feeling fairly confident I'm on the right road! I've also gone back to the Strategy Editor to see if I can find some further solutions!
I'll not go on Martin except to say I'm determined to make this work for me!
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@Neal-Simmonds how much % are you staking per trade?
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10 May 2023.
The main issue with the current trading is that you can go 3 days profitable but have it all wiped out and then some with one bad trade!
Still at the drawing board! this is very frustrating and perplexing.
