A busy end to October

Well October has seen quite a few changes in the IR market. The slow down of the SIS pictures and the associated severe lack of liquidity in the place market has really made it a hell of a lot harder to win nice sums of cash. Luckily I did kinda see this coming (back in March I think I mentioned on this Blog that the IR game would possibly implode at some point in the future). So now I'm really starting to focus on the pre-race markets. By moving into these markets I'll no longer have to worry about paying a premium for the SIS and TurfTV pics and I'll also be moving into a market (the pre-race win market) where I believe that the liquidity is still good enough for me to make cash. OK, I know that some tracks can be light in pre-race cash, but I still think that there's more than enough to meet my meagre requirements.

Accordingly I've beem immersing myself in the content of Jack Birkhead's training site 'Trading for Freedom'. I've already whizzed through his 'Journey' videos and they're great. I've traded a few races (with mixed results!), but now I'm pretty sure that I'm beginning to get the basic hang of how these markets work. Jack and Caan also presented a really interesting Webinar in the week and I found this really useful. The guys will be running these on a weekly basis and I think that they will be a great success, with like-minded traders meeting-up once a week for advice/chat/inspiration etc. PS Im not financially involved in any way with Jack's website, I just mention it as I think that it's a great and pretty unique way in which to learn a trade.

So I've been having a bit of a shop around on Gumtree, eBay and Amazon and my home setup now looks like this:

I have 2 Viewsonic 23in LED monitors attached to an Acer slimline running an i5 processor with 6gb of RAM. My SKY+ HD box (for ATR and RUK) is connected to a HDMI splitter which sends one signal to my TV and another to my left monitor using a HDMI to DVI converter. Sound comes from the audio outputs on my Sky box to speakers on my desk. All of this is completed by an emergency bottle of Hoegaarden (only to be opened in times of stress and/or excitement!).

As from the start of November I'll be trading from home. Obviously it's going to be a steep learning curve and I'm going to have to see if I can combine a bit of IR with a bit of pre-race trading. I would imagine that I'll pre-race trade on the SIS/ATR meetings and see if I can still nick a bit of IR money using RUK.

You never know, I might become the new Adam Heathcote!

Mid October .... and the wheels have come off!

What the fuck is happening to the IR markets eh? I just took a look at my P&L for September and October to date and I nearly fell off my chair! I knew that things were getting tough but fuck me it's becoming near on impossible to win anything. One noticeable change is that the SIS pics have slowed down even further and there are reports that we're as much as 5 seconds behind the live action at certain tracks. In my book that makes IR playing pretty much a non-starter on a lot of tracks, unless you know the form like the back of you hand. The only way to try and compensate for this delay is to know the general running styles of certain horses in each race an to play relatively early, as the thieving track mongrels generally wait to the later stages of each race, where they feast like rabid hyenas over the scraps of money still in the market.

Therefore I've decided to try a few days playing from home using BF live pictures and Racing UK, with more of an emphasis on using smaller stakes and playing earlier in the race in an effort to get involved before the market gets raped by the above mongrels. This means I'll have to get a Racing Post subscription on the go and start watching some of the race replays again, although as mentioned previously I don't want to spend too much time watching the replays as it's as boring as fuck. I'll also be making much more of an effort in the pre-race market so that I don't have to be dependant on the fast SIS and TurfTV pics.
It's still early days in my pre-race career, but I think that I've already learnt a lot just by playing a few races in the past few weeks, mostly what NOT to do! I know that there are a few good pre-race judges out there who make it pay, so that gives me the confidence that it can be done. I've just joined 'Trading for Freedom' which is Jack Birkhead's new training site. I know Jack from a few years back and I have to say that his pre-race training videos are great. I'm going through these at the moment and they should fast-track me into the pre-race markets. All I'll be looking to do for the next few weeks at least is to nick a few quid while I'm trying to learn the game.