Lack of concentration leads to loss

Daily Result: £90.52

Made a classic mistake today. And one that's all the more funny because I mentioned how silly a mistake it was to make on the Betfair snooker forum the other day. So I'm feeling pretty stupid right now! But can see the funny side of it and at least the mistake didn't cost me too much money.

Made the error in the Hendry v Dott semi-final. Was tired but had small green positions on the outright and 4th frame markets. Had made some money in each of the other frames earlier in the day and was going to quit at the first session interval around £45 up. I knew I was tired and not really concentrating properly so went to make a cuppa and came back to simply watch the end of the frame and close down.

And that's when it all went a little wrong. Dott was lining up a pink and Dennis Taylor, who was commentating, said he needed the pink to win the frame. Dott took the shot softly, missed and left it set up. I'd rushed in and bet £50 on Hendry to win the frame. Of course, as soon as I got matched at 34 I knew something was wrong. As was confirmed by the scores. Dott didn't need the pink. And I'd just thrown away my profit for the match. Still, the green I had next to Hendry's name looked pretty! (Just click to enlarge the image)

The really annoying thing is Taylor had done a similar thing the other day when commentating. Worse in fact. He'd been something like 12 points out when he'd called the frame for someone. And at the time I'd said anyone not double checking before betting £600 (as was the case that time) needed their head examining. Well, that mug guy today was me. Enjoy my cash whoever got it. Just pleased I only did £50. If I wasn't still messing around with smaller amounts and learning the markets it could have been a lot uglier!

So, I got a good reminder about the importance of concentrating when trading and why it's not the smartest of moves to jump back into a market without checking everything first, despite what a commentator says. And it was confirmed that Taylor needs a fecking maths lesson!

And that should have been that. But I was annoyed. And so despite being tired I continued. And managed a small loss on another frame. And to screw up my outright market book. Realising too late that I just needed to leave it I did. The outright red would have been easy to turn round if I was in for the evening session but as I was off out for dinner with Emma and friends I simply just levelled it out, had a quiet word with myself and turned the computers off. The Frame 4 mistake was dumb. The losses after were dumber. Not rocket science. And I hope I don't do it again.

Earlier in the day I'd made a little on the final ODI between Pakistan and the West Indies. I didn't bother getting up early for it as knew all the liquidity would be on the Ashes test from Perth. Unfortunately the Betfair site and API went down during the key part of the game I didn't really bother getting involved once everything was back up. For starters I tend to leave it a while incase it goes down again. But also the Pakistan price had shortened quickly and there was little point in continuing with it.

As ever it's so annoying when the Betfair site goes down. I was lucky. I had an ask in the system which wasn't matched. It's worth knowing that when these outages occur unmatched bets in in-running markets are cancelled before the markets are reopened. Still worrying though until you see it has been cancelled. And of course, that doesn't help those who are matched and are desperate to get out. Who are left running to other exchagnes (though there was, understandably, next to no liquidity over at the purple place on this market) or trying to level their positions with traditional bookmakers.

---

Popular links: Betfair trading software .....Bet Angel..... Free software trial