Monday, August 14, 2006

Sussex v Essex Pro40

Daily Result: £69.09

I guess after the big wins on the Twenty20 cricket at the weekend I was always going to come back to earth with a bang. £70 is £70 though. A 7% return on my bank for the day. And for a part-time "hobby" I guess I should be pleased. Afterall, do that every day each month and that's £2.1k a month tax free. And, of course, it all helps build the funds for the big day which is just over a year away.

The truth is I should have won more on this one. At one point I could have taken well over £200 each result though as the game progressed I kept the majority on Essex. Screwed up twice near the end though after raising my stakes to £1k per trade. Ended up bailing from a back and a lay of Essex at 1.1ish as Sussex variously looked like they'd both fail and make the required run chase. Annoying when that happens. And as I fancied Essex to hang on I should have just left it rather than trying to nick a few more points via quick trades and costing myself a fair sum.

As for the game. Well, Essex batted first and set Sussex a pretty competitive 271 to win at 6.75 runs an over. Irani made up for his Twenty20 final failure with an impressive 100 though I'm still not convinced about bringing Gough in at number 3. Just seems to slow the run rate down. Bopara looked solid again. Been impressed with him and Broad recently. Good England prospects.

Sussex have made some impressive chases recently but they collapsed to 23-3 and with the exception of trying to nick a few ticks each way the game was over as a contest really.

After recent losses following big wins I'm happy to just pocket the £70 even though it should have been more. Small consistent wins is what it's all about for me. And that's another one logged. Let's hope there's more to come!

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, Great Blog, wondered if you could answer me these questions if you don't mind, :D

Are you currently employed or is trading your sole source of income?

How many bets do you place on a match that you are trading, for example the 20-20 on sat?

If you pick a trading opportunity in a match does the value of your liability depend on how good a trading opportunity you feel it is or is your initial liability a certain percentage of your trading bank, i.e 25% or 50%

thanks for your time and good luck with the wedding funds

The Betfair Trader said...

Hi - cheers for your good wishes. tto answer your questions:

1) I've been self-employed in the gambling industry since early 2002. I work from home but do have a proper taxable income to keep the bank manager and taxman happy. I make a good income from various trading activities but if I was to do it full time I would look to use a larger starting bank on each event than the current 1k I use. There's more info on this here.

2) The number of bets I place on a specific event varies quite a lot depending on what is happening in the market. I like to get in and out very quickly in general, making a few ticks and keeping exposure to a minimum. Sometimes, especially when already nicely green, I'll leave a position open longer and run with it - having a cut off point in mind if the market moves against me. I've started doing this more recently following discussion with people who've commented on the blog. Basically I'm letting the winning positions run a little longer while making sure they don't turn to losing ones.

In general this means I'm usually happy with making around 1% profit on turnover as I'm always in and out. The Twenty20 markets on Saturday were like a dream for the way I trade though. My total turnover on the first game was just £8,209.88 for the £432.72 profit giving me a 5.27% profit on turnover. The second game I only traded £3,612 giving a 12.2% figure. The final match gave a figure of 3.61%. These figures were possible because I let the positions run a little longer and, in general, they ran the way I wanted them to.

3) I've discussed my bank and staking strategy a little in this post. In general I always use the same stake to trade which is £500. In low odds and low volatility situtions I will up this to my full 1k trading balance. As I only get involved if I think the market will move in my favour getting involved for different sums doesn't appear to make sense though I am spending some time looking at this. A basic rule I have is the most I am willing to lose in any event is £500. I have done this once since starting the blog in May.

Most important of all is when I do lose I try to remain calm and not chase. I've discussed my outlook on this in this blog entry.

Hope this answers everything.