Day 22

A lot of action on Saturday as you'd expect, although not as profitable as Friday, mostly because of Real Madrid!

Again things went great with the horses. Only one red at the end of the day.

 

As you can see I had a big red there on Real. As I mentioned in my previous post, sometimes you'll get caught by a goal trading the correct score market. That is exactly what happened. I noticed Atletico had scored  (although I only did so a few minutes later) and thought it would be a great opportunity for scalping as the market would probably be all over the place unsure of how to react. And so it was, I actually scalped a few ticks quickly and had a profit of around 5 euros when I decided to go for one last scalp. I got greedy and decided to move my lay bet one tick down just seconds before being matched - and seconds before Benzema got tripped in the area by the Atletico goalkeeper. Greed got the better of me again there - I had a very good profit already, and now that the market was becoming less jumpy I should have just moved on to another match, especially with Real playing. Anyway I still managed to recover some of the loss after the other Real goals.

Here's the bank at the moment:

I am surprised by myself really. I wasn't expecting this challenge to go anywhere as well as it has so far. These last 3 days have been excellent, and regarding the horse racing in particular I definitely feel as if something has clicked and I feel like a robot now as opposed to overthinking all my moves and almost taking a market move against me personally! I don't want to jinx it though so onto those 500 Euros...

Days 20 & 21

Thursday was not a very eventful day:

Not much to say about the football, there wasn't a lot of action. I was quite happy with the fact that I had only one red in the horse racing though.

Friday was my best day trading the horses though:

Not a single red! I actually really feel much more comfortable scratching a position or taking a two or three tick loss now than when I started the blog. I guess it's just a habit. Before I was afraid of a red screen, now I know that it's better to take a loss early when I see the market turning against me - not only will it avoid a bigger red screen most of the time, it also gives me more time to turn it around.

A decent day with the football too. I have to say although HT scalping is low risk, scalping straight after a market reopens (after a suspension because of a goal, red card etc) is much more rewarding. Generally I am in for only a few seconds and can take advantage of the huge gaps. I know people who scalp the correct score throughout the whole match but this was is simpler and less stressful for me - I hear a goal on live score and act as quickly as possible. Obviously I'll get caught a few times but hopefully way less times than I manage to win. Anyway...

 Friday was by far the most profitable day since starting the challenge. Not a bad way to start the weekend...

Day 19

Today if all goes well I will be able to reach 200 Euros after a good day at the office yesterday:

The horses went well - again, when I am patient enough to only enter the market at the best times it usually goes better as you'd expect.

I was watching the Porto match last night - they needed a win and got it - and traded a few others, the most successful being Milan - Barcelona. There were many good opportunities for trading with so many goals scored but I kept it simple and with only 2 or 3 trades made a decent profit. Regarding the Celtic match I wasn't sure on whether to trade that one or not. I decided to do it and got caught by a goal when I had an open position backing the current score at the time. I actually got my back bet matched at a great price, but due to the low liquidity couldn't get all of my lay bet in. Perhaps I got too greedy as there were prices available that would have guaranteed a decent profit.

Not a lot of footy on today, so I'll trade the horses in the afternoon and then see what happens in the evening.

That's my bank this morning. I've been thinking about my end of year targets. I think I'll be a bit ambitious and aim for 500 Euros until December 31st, with view to withdrawing 100 Euros and officially leaving this blog in profit - it stands as a scratch right now as I already withdrew the original deposit as you know, so at least a no loss position is assured. I say ambitious because the bank won't grow as fast from now on (if it keeps growing at all of course) and also because I don't expect to have a lot of time in the last 2 weeks of the year, with family duties and a lot of work coming.

Day 18

Didn't have too much time yesterday for the CL football (only watched the 2nd half of Man Utd - Benfica) and the horse racing trading was not ideal, red followed by green followed by red, but still ended up with a small profit.

I ventured into the greyhound racing again and again I think it's not worth it. It's just too stressful and I can't act quickly enough most of the time. As for the football my only loss came from the straight back of Inter I suggested here yesterday: I decided to stick with my original plan of trading out with 20 mins left if Inter were winning, so when they took the lead in the first half I let it run, although I knew a draw would be enough for them. As you will know it ended 1-1 with Trabzonspor getting the equaliser shortly after.

That's how the bank stands at the moment. Think I'll stick to the scalping tonight as nothing appeals to me in the evening games for a straight bet.

Day 17

A good start to the week with a decent profit in both the horses and the football:

It's not unusual for me to start the day with a relatively big red on the horse racing. More concentration is needed from the start there.

Everything went smoothly with the football. Only one red as the market at half time barely moved so I was forced to take the loss before the restart.

Here's the bank at the moment:

Champions League tonight should mean that there will be a lot of opportunities for scalping. I've been doing well without any punting / CS dutching lately, however a straight back of Inter looks appealing tonight at odds of 2.7. They have beaten Lille and CSKA away and Trabzonspor have been rather poor since their opening win in Milan. Inter should put out a strong team as they're not through yet and a loss here might make it a nervous last day. I will look to trade out if they are winning by one goal with 20 minutes or so left.

Days 15 & 16

A profitable weekend, although it was rather frustrating at the same time. A couple of silly mistakes wiped away a big part of the profits. This is what happened Saturday:

A big red on the horses there due to one race in which I was convinced there was some spoofing going on, so I let the red grow expecting the money to disappear on the lay side and to secure a healthy green. The money just kept coming in though and when I decided to red up (around 1 minute before the start) the numbers were already fairly high. The slight plus is that again I didn't let it go in running.

An excellent day on the football made sure I finished the Saturday with a decent profit. However it could have been a much better day if not for the Academica - Porto game as you can see. Academica were leading 1-0 and I was following the game on a live score service. Around the 81st minute it shows 1-1, however the market stays suspended. The live score correct it to 1-0 - as it turns out Porto had a goal disallowed. The market reopens shortly after and I'm quick to back the 1-0 to get a good position in the queue. However, as the 8 seconds start counting I see that someone already wants to lay it at 1000. I go to the live score and see it's 2-0. What happened was that Porto had a goal disallowed on 81 minutes, and Academica scored in the following attack. I should have waited for some money to show up in the ladder and not to follow the live score so blindly, especially as the suspending was behaving strangely and taking too long. Anyway, things like this will happen once in a blue moon probably (or so I thought) and I carried on.

Thankfully the Vasco game was like free money (I love Vasco games!!). As you can see I had a big green on that game straight after the Porto game. And there was no chasing involved whatsoever - the price was simply bouncing between 9s and 7s throughout the whole half time. It was all done scalping at half time. What happened was that there had been a red card in the first half, so I think the market didn't know how to react to it. After a very unlucky moment in the Porto match, I got very lucky to take advantage of this one.

Then this happened on Sunday:

I'm still not sure what happened in the Valenciennes match. I just noticed some money missing on my Geeks Toy and went to check my bets. As it turns out I had backed the 0-1 at a time when the score was already 2-1. I must have clicked it by accident surely, as I remember opening the market at one point to see what was going on and deciding not to do anything and move along.

Other than that everything went well, but I definitely wasn't happy at another costly mistake following the Porto match! Someone will be happy out there having taken the free money...

Anyway, onwards and upwards! Here's the current bank at the start of this week:

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