Managing Your Positions





21/01

State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.


Hi, my name is Dave. I'm a fucking good trader and it's about time I grew some bollox and started to give myself the chance to win some proper cash.


+£69.22. It felt nice to have a winning day today!





Managing Your In-Running Positions

It might be an obvious thing to state but managing your entry and exit positions is the one of the main factors in making this game pay. At the moment I'm pretty sure of the best times to enter the market (for my particular style of trading), and I tend to follow these rules:

identify the selection(s) that I'm looking to trade: this depends on a horses running style (I keep abbreviated notes on Gruss), where it is lining-up at the start of the race, it's demeanour on the track and also horses whose prices are fluctuating wildly during the race (especially in NH races where there is more time to jump in and out of the market).

enter the market at the right point: I tend to enter the market just before the off, or as soon as possible when the market has gone in-running. In shorter races on the ATR tracks it's sometimes very hard to get matched early at the correct price, as the track players have that 2 or 3 second advantage, but it is sometimes possible. However, much like the pre-race market it's pointless chasing a price in the early frantic rush as you'll nearly always end-up with a bad entry point.

As an example, you want to lay a horse that is usually slow away or held-up over 7F and it's trading at 4.0 pre-race. If, at the start of the race, the horse does indeed miss the break then you want to lay as close to 4.0 as possible. If you miss this and the price moves to 4.5 and you try again only for the price to move to 5.0 then it's pretty pointless in trying to get on at all costs and maybe laying at 5.5 as you have already missed the value. Also remember that the traders who have layed at 4.0 are looking for the right time to bail-out of their positions and throw in some back bets. If the selection then improves it's position it'll possibly go sub 4.0 and you have just layed at 5.5! I do sometimes succumb to this problem, as in the heat of the in-running battle it's easy to chase that price and instead of backing something early at maybe 10.0 I find that I've chased the price and backed at maybe 7.0, which is a big difference!


I'm still wrestling with my exit points. I do tend to phase-out my positions, but I seem to be missing quite a few greens in the £5-£30 range as I tend to hold on to my position maybe a bit too long? Even on a day with only 3 meetings you only need to get 6 or 7 of this type of trade to regularly earn over £100 per day. I think that the solution is to increase my initial position and then take my stake plus maybe £5-£10 out of the trade and then phase-out the remainder?

 


22/01

State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.

+£69.42. Another day of just chipping away. With a bit more effort the £100+ days will soon start rolling in!






23/01


State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.

+£100.79. Well that was quite an enjoyable day after my recent poor form. I'm still excited about the potential of trading in the win market, so it would be nice to string a few good days together. I finished the day just short of the £100 mark, so jumped into the evening dog markets to get the extra few pennies that took me into 3 figures!






24/01

+£121.26. Traded well today, but I'm still on the cautious side, when in fact I should be getting stuck-in. However it would be nice to achieve just a gradual increase in daily profits and gently ease up to winning £150+ per day .... as always we'll see how it goes.

I always love looking at Adam Heathcote's spreadsheet (see below). OK, it was back in the day where making money was MUCH easier (but fuck me £2K a day!!), but it's still good to see, and don't forget that Caan is having a similar sort of progression in the pre-race market.




I didn't do particularly well last Saturday so we'll have to wait and see how the markets play tomorrow.


  

17:30: I'm sitting here updating my notes for the evening racing and fuck me it's SO boring! I'm not going to complain, but it is very tedious going through the form of EVERY runner and then typing the abbreviations into Gruss. It's not too bad if you're winning, but if you're having a mediocre or bad day all you want to day is grab a beer from the fridge and watch the TV!

I suppose that we have been quite lucky with the weather so far this year, but it looks as though we're going to lose a few meetings this week due to tracks being waterlogged and more rain forecast, so it could be a lean finish to January. Let's hope that we don't lose too much as I have to pay the bills!

 

25/01

State of mind: cautiously optimistic.

11:56 and I'm a bit behind on my horse notes for today, but luckily I'm only having to add a few notes here and there as I've made a good effort over the last few weeks and a large percentage of runners already have a note.

I think that I'm going to play somewhat cautiously today. There are quite a few big fields at Leopardstown so I might be able to spot a few big priced selections over there and hopefully nick a few quid.

+£43.77. I did in fact play cautiously today and before I knew it the racing was all over. Once again I missed a few great opportunities by a gnats cock where the track players were beating me to the punch by a nanosecond and I passed on an early £50+ green in Ireland where I'd backed one at 1000 and it seemed to be going well, so I held on expecting a lot more ... then it's legs literally fell off!





26/01

+£8.57. Sunday today and dragged my arse down to Tesco's. Now I'm an Asda man, and fuck me Tesco is a fucking rip-off! Everything was more expensive and I only got dragged down there by my wife and youngest son who are both vegetarians. I said to them 'why not cook some fucking nice fresh vegetables instead of eating that packaged shite?', but they're obviously too lazy and don't have enough time between drinking gallons of beer and smoking marijuana.

Anyway, the trading opportunities were poor and I was a bit behind on my notes so had to settle for any profit.

 




I have been trying to get back into the diet and training regime but I've been obsessed with trying my hand at making curries over the last couple of weeks. After viewing a few YouTube videos explaining how to make the type of curry that you get in a British Indian restaurant I've made a lamb and spinach curry, a mince vindaloo, a chicken bhuna, mushroom bhaji, a vegetable curry, bombay potato, sag aloo, bhindi bhaji and a today I made a chicken korma. I must say that they have all tasted fucking brilliant and quite a few portions have ended up in my wife's workplace where the feedback so far has been positive. Next on the list is a chicken balti.

... and I might just have loads of time to cook curries this week as it looks as though the rain is going to continue with some snow and ice thrown-in for good measure!



27/01

State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.

+£6.27. We only have 2 meetings today (that's 14 races) so it's going to be a case of taking what's available and not trying to push too hard to make up for the loss of the cancelled meeting.






28/01

+£3.69. There wasn't much happening today, as seen by my P&L, and I've just had a look at tomorrow's cards and there is only one meeting left standing .... the AW meeting at Kempton tomorrow night. So what the fuck am I supposed to do during the day?





29/01

+£17.48. Well we only had the evening meeeting at Kempton today so I spent most of the day doing the houseld chores (pretty much like I do every day). I'd like to say that my missus does her fair share ... but I can't. She often finds it hard to squeeze in any domestic duties between sleeping, drinking beer, shopping for clothes or watching DVDs.






30/01

State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.

+£84.10. We had a preety normal day's worth of racing today, despite the bad weather, and I managed to snaffle a few quid.





31/01

State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.

+£80.78. Nearly hit 3 figures today but took a small loss in the last race






01/02

State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.

11:55 and a bit behind on my horse notes for today. I assumed that we would lose the jumps meeting to the rain, but they are all on, so I should have dragged myself out of bed a bit earlier

12:34 there's like 40 odd races today so I'm going to get stuck in and average at least £5 per race .... let's see how it goes.

+£76.61. I tried really hard today and pushed quite a bit but I found the races coming a bit too quickly and I found myself rushing a few times. It seemed like a case of 2 steps forward 1 step back. I also missed a great opportunity when the wankers at Lingfield didn't wait for the completion of the previous race and I missed the start by a few seconds and therefore missed a great back to lay. They can never seem to decide when to hold races back and if it's the BHA who control this then all I can say is that they're fucking useless!






02/02

State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.

12:43 I'll press again today and see what happens ...

+£39.13. Well I chipped away as usual and then made a balls-up and threw away almost £90 backing something in fifth thinking it was in fourth .....doh what a prick! I cracked-on though and eventually moved into profit after a good trade in the last at Kempton.






03/02

State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.

Hi, my name is Dave. I'm a fucking good trader and it's about time I grew some bollox and started to give myself the chance to win some proper cash.

12:11 Have almost updated all of my horse notes for today and I'm ready for some action.

+£84.57. Dare I say it but it felt quite easy to win today and I chose my races and selections quite carefully. I also think that I could scale up to at least 2 or 3 times what my stakes are at the moment and still have no problems getting matched.




I do rely quite a bit on my horse notes so I'd like to get tomorrow's cards done tonight so that I can get out in my jungle of a garden tomorrow and try and complete what I started last year!

 


04/02

State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.

10:25 I think that today's racing should carry a wealth warning. I've never seen so many races with horses that have wildly variable run styles, horses switching from the jumps to flat, unexposed horses, those having there first run, those having been off the track for ages and all mixed in with the fact that I hate Southwell as an in-running track! I think that a cautious approach may be in order for today.

+£35.18. As expected today was pretty pants but I suppose it's better than geting frustrated and losing eh?








05/02

State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.

10:56 Just finished updating my horse notes for today and it only took about 30 minutes which is a relief as it's fucking tedious. I still need to do Kempton's evening card but that shouldn't take too long.

As for today I need to make a bit more of a push and see if I can start to string a few £100+ days together as I really need to start winning a few more quid.

+£64.42. I tried to push a bit harder today, but maybe I need to push a bit more?







06/02

It could be another lean day today with only 3 meetings and some races with not a lot of form to analyze. What I have been doing though is to make sure that I'm updating my notes after every race has been run, either by watching the replay or recording the race and then replaying it in between subsequent races. My notes are coming together nicely now but I could imagine that come the start of the flat season I'll be up to midnight each night adding all the new runners and updating all the turf runners.

+£91.79. Had another day of nicking a few quid here and there, and although there were only 3 meetings it soon adds up, so I'm relatively happy.





07/02

+£1.62. To be honest I wasn't really focussed on the racing today. We only had one meeting during the day and 2 meetings in the evening and I still managed to miss a few races when I was cooking or washing-up ... so can't really complain about the result






08/02

State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.

Hi, my name is Dave. I'm a fucking good trader and it's about time I grew some bollox and started to give myself the chance to win some proper cash.

13:00 I feel like having a real good crack today .... so let's see how it goes ...

+£396.70. So there I was chugging along nicely and then I ran into a nice one late on at Wolverhampton. In fact there was much more to be had and in the good old days I probably could have taken closer to £1k out of it, but I hesitated as I thought that I was about to make a mistake before clicking a few times. As I say, there was over £1k sitting there waiting to be taken, literally for a few seconds, but this sort of scenario hasn't happened for quite a while and I had to double and treble check as I didn't want to dump a grand in one race!







09/02

+£100.63. I tried to continue where I left off yesterday and didn't do too bad. My main win actually went to £140+ green but I though that it had a bit more upside in it and probably failed to enter enough well positioned exit bets.







10/02

State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money, although not expecting much today as we only have 2 meetings.

+£6.78. Only the 2 meetings today so I'll take this opportunity to record each race and update my notes for each runner, although most of today's runners already have notes, so it's just a case of keeping them up-to-date.




There's not much on offer tomorrow, possibly only Southwell on the AW, so I'm off to the scaffold yard to get some tubes so that I can put my heavy bag up in the garden and start smashing the fuck out of it!



11/02

+£42.13. We did actually have 2 meetings today and I nicked enough to pay for my scaffold tubes! All I need now is some dry weather so that I can get them in place, hang my heavy bag and get those left jabs flying.





12/02

State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.

13:12 We have 3 meetings today and I have all of my horse notes updated so it's time to try and win back the PC charge that BF took at lunchtime!

-£37.69. The IR markets seemed kind of strange today as they moved against me pretty much every time I entered. The losses weren't that great but it was still annoying to have a losing day!







13/02

+£46.90. I must admit that I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about today's racing. I struggled to get some of my notes done as it was just too fucking boring and then Kempton this evening seemed unplayable, so I'm just happy that I covered yesterday's losses.




Apparently the weather is going to be OK on the 16th so I'll be able to get my erection up and have a session on my bag ..... ooooerrr missus.




14/02

+£20.69. My BT Infinity has been fucking useless every evening for the past few weeks and it's obviously a DNS problem. BT support are a bag of shite and are always looking to blame it on your PC. Now I was a MCSE back in the day and have worked in the IT industry for over 20 years so I know when they are trying to blag. In the end I had to change my DNS server to Google at 8.8.8.8 but how the fuck would anybody with a limited knowledge on computers be able to do this themselves? Strangely enough BT still claim that there is no problem with their DNS server(s) .... pillocks!






15/02

State of mind: apprehensive.

13:08 I'm in that 'can't be bothered' state of mind at the moment. I don't find Saturday's lucrative, interesting, or suited to my style of trading and they can become rushed if you don't pick your races. So basically I'm not expecting much today and will probably be cautious and play tightly and nick what I can .....






+£65.11 No world record but happy since I wasn't expecting much today.



16/02

+£52.13. Sat here all day watching that bumpers for jumpers shite and won fuck all, but then got some free money in the last so it wasn't too bad.




It was a great day weatherwise today and I managed to get the frame for my heavy bag setup so I'll be out in the garden punching away for 30 minutes each day (when it stops raining) in order to fight the flab!



17/02

+£27.29. Not much to report from today as the racing was a bag of shite again. Oh roll on the Summer where it's nice and hot and we actually get the chance to win some proper cash!
























Time to Step Up


14/01

-£303.88. I learnt a hard lesson today .... never try to trade with screaming kids around. I got to the last race and had chipped away a few pennies and then my grandchildren started going apeshit, screaming and crying. I told my daughter about a dozen times 'shut those fucking kids up, I can't concentrate'. I should have just missed the last race. Instead I played, fucked-up and dropped over £300 in one race ... happy fucking birthday!. I am not fucking happy!




It must be someting to do with my birthday? Let's have a flashback to January 14th 2012 ...




So as punishment I'm going to sit here and go through all of tomorrow's races and update my notes. I have a hospital appointment tomorrow afternoon, so I'll only be able to play a handful of races

I find that the besy way to deal with a relatively big loss is to see it in terms of just setting you back a few days. The money will be won back eventually, and the loss will be a distant memory, so there's no point beating yourself up. In fact it makes me realise that I should be pushing on a bit so that any loss like this only represents a loss of 2 or 3 days.

I stumbled across Paddy's blog over at the Geeks forum. It's a harsh reminder of the downside of gambling, and one of the things that he does every post is to re-affirm his status, that despite being a compulisve gambler, he is endeavouring to stay 'gamble free'. So here's my own take:




Hi, my name is Dave. I'm a fucking good trader and it's about time I grew some bollox and started to give myself the chance to win some proper cash.




15/01

+£7.03. Only played a few races today as I had a hospital appointment in the afternoon. I took the opportunity of popping into the boozer near my old workplace and not surpisingly the same old faces were propping up the bar (yes that's you John and Ian!). We indulged in a few beers and my 'lightweight' drinking buddies soon fell by the wayside. John disappeared and left his Pinot Grigio (fucking poove) so I finished my Stella, knecked his wine, made my way home and devoured a suasage and bacon sandwich (there goes the diet again!).





16/01


State of mind: confident and ready to start giving myself the chance of winning some decent money.

+£72.53. Must say that I traded well today. I played a bit heavier and didn't really worry about my profit and loss during the day. More of the same tomorrow ...





17/01

+£3.32. I had quite a haphazard day today as I had a few things to do so I didn't really get into the groove. I took an early loss of £50 when my selection fell at the first but strangely enough I thought that I traded quite well after that, despite not actually winning anything at the end of the day! I also had a horse earmarked for an early back in one of the later races at Dundalk. It went off at 18.0 and actually won the race, so I could have taken quite a nice profit, but my internet went loopy and I couldn't get the BF live video working, just my fucking luck eh? I ended up chatting online to BT, in between the chat window disconnecting every 2 minutes, and then hey presto it all started working again. Fuck knows what he did, maybe pointed me to an alternate DNS server, but it seems to be working OK now.






18/01

+£57.54. I started with a couple of losses and was about £50 down but I kept on at it and ended up on the day ... so an average kind of result.



 

19/01

-£119.09. I don't really know what happened today but suffice to say that everything I touched turned to shite! Towcester live video was behind ATR and I didn't realise that until my second loss there! I gave up after the 15:00 and went to bed for an afternoon nap!



 


20/01

+£6.44. There were only 2 meetings today and I missed most of the early races and couldn't really be bothered trying to win cash on the remaining AW meetings at Southwell and Wolves.





OK .... Here We Go!



02/01

Just back from the coast and fuck me was it wet or windy or what??

We arrived early on the morning of the 31st and it was blowing a gale! We bravely battled the elements and made our way to The Belgian Cafe and settled in for an early morning Hoegaarden. The morning's fayre consisted of beers in The Royal, The Sovereign, Jacksons Wharf and The York Arms.

Following a nice afternoon kip we entertained The Red Lion, The Port and Anchor, The Belgian Cafe, then back to Jacksons Wharf to see in the New Year, and then after tucking the misssus up in bed at 01:30 I ventured out solo and ended-up back at The Belgian Cafe. I finally called it a day at around 04:30 and claimed my crown as the last man standing in Ramsgate harbour.




We smashed into it again on New Years day after a late'ish start (10:40) and added The Horse and Groom to our list. We dragged ourselves out of bed for the evening session and ended-up watching the darts final in The Port and Anchor and then onto The Belgian for a few late ones and finally got back ataround 01:30. All in all it was a fantastic couple of days and it was quite an experience being down on the coast in that sort of weather!

State of mind: apprehensive as I'm slightly jaded from the last 48 hours of binge drinking.

+£25.38. Stumbled my way through most of the racing but then hit the sack for an early evening snooze as I was knackered.






03/01

State of mind: confident.

+£32.46. Didn't really spot and great opportunities and I don't think that the heavy ground and general slow pace of many of the races suited my style of trading.





04/01

State of mind: confident.

+£43.22. The wet weather has started to take it's toll and Sandown and Towcester were abandoned today. That left three remaining meetings and the fuckheads who run this sport managed to let the races at Cork and Newcastle go off at exactly the same time all day long. What a bunch of twats! It looks as though quite a few more could fall victim to the rain in the next week and maybe further into January, but it's not unexpected and it's a case of soldiering on as March and the start of the flat season are just around the corner.






05/01

State of mind: confident.

+£15.85. A day of dire racing where I never really achieved any decent trading positions so had to settle for a minsicule win.






06/01


State of mind: confident but again not expecting much today.

It's 12:00 and I'm just going through the form for today's races and some of the races are so woeful that the form is practically non-existant. I might have to tread carefully as we could see plenty of fallers today.

+£0.13. I know that the weather has been terrible, especially in some coastal regions, but it's almost like a Sping morning here today ... the birds are chirping away and it's really nice out there. Roll on the Summer and a trim muscular body ready to soak-up ice cold beers!





07/01

+£8.93. We only had two meeetings today and the live pics from Leicester were well behind so I spent most of the day preparing my base curry sauce and then making a bombay potato, which if I say so myself was fucking fantastic! I was so hyped that I nearly smashed through the £10 barrier!!






08/01

State of mind: confident but not expecting much today.

+£110.63. Had one of those days where everyting seemed to go well and chipped away to just over £100.





09/01

State of mind: confident.

+£13.70. Missed a few chances by a gnats cock today so although I won fuck all I wasn't too unhappy.






10/01

-£28.43. My concentration and enthusiasm was poor today and I got what I deserved.






11/01

State of mind: confident.

-£0.58. Kids screaming, missus screaming, grandchildren screaming, trying to paint the kitchen in between races ... oh dear!






12/01
 
State of mind: confident.

My concentration has been very poor over the last couple of days. I don't think that I have made many mistakes but I've missed a few good opportunities and I seem to either be hanging on a bit too long on some selections when going into the green or coming out too soon. I'm maybe looking for a bit too much profit, but on the flip side I don't really want to bail out too early. So despite the poor results I can still see a lot of potential, I just need to focus a bit more and spend less time painting the kitchen and cooking curries!

It's Sunday today and we only have two meetings so I'm just going to concentrate on my trading and let the wins/losses trundle in and out of my BF account.

So I've just traded the first at Wolves and have already thrown away an easy £40+ green by not really being on the ball as I didn't have enough lay bets in the system ... DOH!




OK. Here's a later race where I did OK but it could have been so much better if I had a few more lay bets in the system!




+£113.26. It turned out to be an OK day, especially as there were only two meeetings, but it could have been so much better and could easily have been a £250+ day if I'd been concentrating a bit more. However, the potential is there so I'm pleased and so enthusiastic that I'm going to dive into tomorrow's form and update my notes this evening. It's a lot easier to go through the boring and time consuming task of compiling the notes after I've had a relatively good day. If you're an in-running trader it really does help knowing the general running style of each horse before the race starts. In fact I think that it is a big edge as I don't think that many traders have the willpower to compile this sort of info as it's so fucking hard to do on a daily basis, especially after a day of trading where all you want to do is sit back, drink beer and watch the TV.



This is a cracking time of the year as we're only a few weeks away from Spring, the days are getting longer and we're only 9 weeks away from the start of the flat season. So it's time to knucle down and earn some cash so I can go on the south coast drinking/cycling tour again this year. I had some great days down on the coast last year and one day that sticks in my mind is cycling along the coast at Whitstable and stoppping for an early morning beer on the beach ... was fucking fantastic!


13/01

State of mind: confident but slightly apprehensive as I don't want to undo yesterday's good work.

+£42.33. A steady day today and traded quite well.




There are only two meetings tomorrow which makes it easier to keep on top of the horse notes and eventually it becomes easier as the notes then just need to be kept up-to-date and I usually do this either during or after each race.


14/01

-£303.88. I learnt a hard lesson today .... never try to trade with screaming kids around. I got to the last race and had chipped away a few pennies and then my grandchildren started going apeshit, screaming and crying. I told my daughter about a dozen times 'shut those fucking kids up, I can't concentrate'. I should have just missed the last race. Instead I played, fucked-up and dropped over £300 in one race ... happy fucking birthday!. I am not fucking happy!




So as punishment I'm going to sit here and go through all of tomorrow's races and update my notes. I have a hospital appointment tomorrow afternoon, so I'll only be able to play a handful of races

I find that the besy way to deal with a relatively big loss is to see it in terms of just setting you back a few days. The money will be won back eventually, and the loss will be a distant memory, so there's no point beating yourself up. In fact it makes me realise that I should be pushing on a bit so that any loss like this only represents a loss of 2 or 3 days.

I stumbled across Paddy's blog over at the Geeks forum. It's a harsh reminder of the downside of gambling, and one of the things that he does every post is to re-affirm his status, that despite being a compulisve gambler, he is endeavouring to stay 'gamble free'. So here's my own take:

Hi, my name is Dave. I'm a fucking good trader and it's about time I grew some bollox and started to win some proper cash.




15/01