Simon's Blog - Year of the Grind (2024)
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Title explanation
So this year my aim is to just rinse and repeat everything and not interfere too much so it’s going to be a grind. I am hoping by doing this I can setup myself up for the long term.
My baseline for this year is to make £100 month, this will cover all my costs and a little bit extra (as everything is automated it doesn’t really require much time). I think I will easily manage this but don’t want to put too much pressure on myself.Current setup and costs
I use a HP 800 G2 mini PC (cost £90 off ebay) I already have a monitor mouse/keyboard, but I just connect to it via RDP normally.
Excel for spreadsheet/recording.
Subscription to BTC Platinum
BetFair bot manager licenceSo about £85 month in software.
Strategies
I have 3 stable strategies and 3 in forward testing.
Lay distance winner: LDW Back testing results.json LDW BFBM export.json LDW bot.gz
Back 4th Favourite: Back 4th Fav bot.gz Back 4th Fav.json
Lay away team (from member filters): Lay away team bot.gzBack 5f (testing): 5f Back.json5f back bot.gz
Lay all weather (taken from John Folan in forward testing thread): Lay all weather results.json Lay all weather BFBM.json Lay all weather bot.gz
Lay 7f (testing): Lay 7f.json Lay 7f.gzMy Back 4th Fav, Back 5f & Lay 7f are setup completely in BFBM and require no interaction from BTC software.
Each of my strategies has a bank attached to it and I have set stakes accordingly.
Below I will put an updated screenshot with my monthly results, and post weekly results with a quick explanation.
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@simon-topper sounds like you have really grabbed the discipline by the balls! Well done mate, looking forward to the next update
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9 days of following my plan now.
Here are the results for April:
So I have stopped the lay and back away team on the football for now, I think once the backtesting is in place I will feel a lot more confident on these.
On the Horses I have now stopped the lay all weather, only made a profit 1 month out of 4.
I have also come up with a new strategy which is loosely based on how I manually bet, it's quite speculative as I can't back test it but forward testing over the past couple of weeks shows promise.
Not going to change anything this month, just stick to my plan and see how it goes. -
@simon-topper nice work how many days so far?
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So bit of a delay reporting, this is due to the fact I couldn't face it last Sunday.
Had a complete nightmare of a week trying to recover money which all ended up hinging on a 93rd minute goal by Real Madrid, otherwise I would of really been in a hole
So shook myself down this week and tried to keep on top of everything, and had 6 out of 7 winning days. I am just seeing if this works, but I have a piece of paper with the title no. of days I have stuck to my plan with a mark for each day, hoping it will give me a bit of focus to actually stick to it.
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So while the P&L isn't great, mentally another good week. Have decided for the football, I seem to be better at finding value bets so will follow that philosophy for now rather than using specific strategies.
I have also created a framework for my manual horse bets in the horse racing software and found what I do should be profitable over the long term which is reassuring even if it can't be automated (think it might be but will take more research).
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@simon-topper absolutely amazing and great to hear! Well done
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So my best week ever, definitely seem to have turned a corner with regards to my attitude. Had a couple of losers and just brushed it off, will just have to make sure I don't get to complacent and approach everything the same way. It helped that this week I had plenty of time to sit down and focus.
Had another bad week with the Lay away team strategy, going to pause it for the moment while I work out what's not quite right. After listening to one of Martin's video/podcast I have a hunch I am placing my bets too late and losing all the value there was. If that is the case should be easy to fix, but I still feel that without back testing I lack confidence with any football strategies.
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So March and the quarter have come to an end. Small loss this week, but the Month was really done in by a terrible week when Cheltenham was on.
One of my stable strategies has had a shocker -48 points this month, it has had this a couple of times before so need to panic. I think setting up an individual bank for each strategy is the way to go as it doesn't kill your entire bank.
None of my testing strategies have had a great time either, so will just keep them on minimal stakes for the time being.
Having a lot more faith in my ability to control my emotions, so hopefully my manual trading will continue on the right path.
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So a steady week by the end, had a bit of a wobble on Thursday. Just had to walk away before I did anything stupid.
I am still down this month but hopefully be able to break even by the end.
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@simon-topper did a video on this going out next month but I will be doing the same!
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Pretty rubbish week, don't know if Cheltenham had anything to do with it. Think I might just turn everything off next year, but you are always worried it's just a blip.
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@simon-topper might be worth trying just setting the rule to stick to your original plan, come hell or high water, no room for manoeuvre.
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@Martin I know I shouldn't take them at the time, still have discipline issues around that. I though I could shrug off losing trades but maybe I need to take a step back and just do a couple of trades a day again.
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@simon-topper good work, do you know you shouldn't take the trades at the time or does this come later?
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Not a terrible week overall, but still trying too hard which means I am taking trades I shouldn't when I look back. Need to try and work on just taking a break and resetting when things go wrong.
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Another solid week, just need to keep plodding away and make no rash decisions.
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@simon-topper that's what we want to hear! Had a good month myself especially on the horses, onwards and upwards!
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So February done and dusted and a very successful month. My racing strategies are really still recovering after the battering in January.
My manual trading was my star, I haven't done much different than last year but my attitude is so much better. Can take a loss now and just see it as part of the process rather than beating myself up. Hopefully I can keep it up next month.
So next month just rinse and repeat, I am going to start separating out my manual horse bets but leave the other in testing (few footy and cricket trades that I pick up from the forum).
I also have another strategy in testing from now, it's a derivative of my 4th lay fav that was inconsistent last year. Hopefully the changes I have made will make it more profitable.Last but not least a quote I saw yesterday which resonated with me:
The decent method you follow is better than the perfect method you quit. -
@simon-topper easily done! Still positive to see it went well when sticking to the plan.
