Wolverhampton .... Arrrggghhh!

How To Completely Waste Two and a Half Hours of Your Life Every Thursday, Friday & Saturday Night

Is it just me or is it fucking impossible to trade in-running at Wolverhampton these days? We have had quite a few evening meetings there recently, but until last night I couldn't quite understand exactly what the fuck was happening?

This is how I feel each time I try to trade a race at Wolves! In fact I've pretty much stopped trying to play IR in the win market and have returned solely to the place market just to try and nick a few quid here and there!

So last night I thought to myself  'let's just sit and watch the IR betting activity in the win market and see what happens'. It's much easier to have a clear view of what is happening when you are not actually trading. Well I couldn't believe just how low the liquidity has sunk! For anything other than the top 2 or 3 there was just the odd £5 or £10 sitting in the queue on both sides! Now I've been playing for £150 a click and this is small fry on a  'normal' race but for Wolves it's just way too fucking big .... I'm really shocked!! I know that liquidity is down but this is a fucking joke! How on earth can the track players keep their heads above water when there is fuck all to be hoovered?

I'm going to keep a close eye on the markets over the next few days so that I can really see how bad things have become, especially at gaffs like Wolves and Dundalk.



09/10

+£112.83. Another steady day that wasn't really helped by the shite markets at Wolves in the evening (see above!)

  

10/10

+£73.82. Another unspectacular day that once again presented limited opportunties due to the fact that we had Wolves & Dundalk in the evening which are pretty much both dead in the water as far as playing in the win market are concerned!

  

11/10

+£157.82. A steady Saturday. I suppose that I should always be gunning for £500+ on Saturdays but it's a bit harder now that we are out of the summer months where there is much more on offer.

 

12/10

+£132.83. The racing on a Sunday can be so fucking depressing at this time of the year. It's usually shit wanky racing with low liquidity and no option of maybe nicking a few quid in the evening.

The tedium was only alleviated by a good win in an early race ... the rest of the day I was bored shiteless!!

13/10

Good old Betfair was totally fucked today and to be honest I was quite HAPPY as I really couldn't be bothered ...

14/10

+£82.32. Another day of banging my head against the wall trying to trade ATR tracks like Newcastle and Leicester!! Once again it was pretty boring and on days like this it's hard to keep the commitment and concentration high. Sometimes I just prefer to do the washing and/or washing-up instead of trying to trade when you're a mile behind the track and live pic players.

15/10

+£2.76. I had a hospital appointment right in the middle of the day so I was allowed out of the house for a few hours! Luckily I managed to get back in time for Kempton and almost won £3!!

16/10

-£38.69. The obligatory losing day today!

I wasn't going anywhere fast and then had 2 small losing races. I persevered with Wolverhampton but as you can see I obviously didn't have a clue as to what the fuck was going on!




17/10

+£150.99. As I thought .... the IR win market at Wolverhampton in the evening is officially fucked!! There's peanuts being matched during the race and if you hold on too long you're going to be screwed by the track or fast pic boys. We're all DOOMED!!

As mentioned before I'd probably be better served going out on the piss on Friday evenings! If I lived down in Ramsgate then I'd be out most nights as there is a fair selection of different pubs. The boozers around here are few and far between and generally shite, so normally I can't be bothered.



18/10

+£106.26. A steady day followed by another effort at Wolverhampton which didn't quite work out! Call me mad but I'll persevere until I find a way of winning some cash there even though the liquidity is pants!!

19/10

+£163.95. Quite possibly a world record for a Sunday!

20/10

+£70.89. Had a good start to the day and then seized up like a rusty old engine!

21/10

+£69.92. Scratching around for a few crumbs on a pretty boring Tuesday ...

22/10

+£24.40. Not much that can be said about today ...

23/10

+£58.44. I lost the best part of £100 early doors so I did quite well to get back in front for the day. I still find that every now and then I make a silly mistake and this usually involves not reading the race correctly, normally in the first few furlongs. The good thing is that it's very easy to spot where I went wrong, so it's not too hard to correct the bad habits.

24/10

+£121.84. I had an early loss of almost £50 and then had an unblemished day so it was good to get back into 3 figure territory ...

25/10

+£177.83. I had a good steady start to the day, traded planty of races and even won some money at Wolverhampton!

26/10

+£82.00. Strangely enough it didn't feel like a typical Sunday today. OK, I didn't set any records but it felt quite busy and I quite enjoyed the trading today.

27/10

+£44.19. An early start and an early finish today! I managed to drop £60 in an early race so once again did kind of OK to get back in front, albeit for small money.

28/10

+£73.00. Another pretty unspectacular day where I just chipped away a few pennies here and there ...

29/10

-£12.55. I find that even the smallest losing day gets right on my tits! To be fair I wasn't going anywhere fast but it's still a pain in the ass when you lose your day's winnings in the penultimate race of the evening doh!

30/10

+£147.73. A much better day today. As I have mentioned before it only takes a few medium sized wins to make an OK day.

31/10

+£91.07. Had a poorish start to the day but then managed to scramble back to just under £100 ...

The sun is hanging on in there!

So that was a pretty good Summer weatherwise wasn't it? I managed to get away to the coast quite a few times and a good time was had by all! In fact it seemed to go pretty quickly, although it has to be said that we're clinging on to a nice bit of weather, so hopefully that makes the winter months a bit shorter and therefore maybe a bit more bearable?

And I always remember to pack my suncream, unlike this poor fucker who must have hurt like crazy!!

As I type it's only 10 weeks to the shortest day, and then we start heading into the summer again yeehah!!

Unfortunately we're now heading into the gloomy winter months where it gets fucking cold, miserable and the racing is generally threadbare (although I know that a few out there much prefer the NH).

To be quite honest I don't really have any plans for the winter months so I need to get my arse in gear and set a few goals. In fact that last statement is a load of bollox! I know that I want to get myself in great physical shape, do more reading, practice more on the guitars and maybe even do some general DIY tasks that I've had on the back burner for months/years. I just need to get myself a bit more organised ...


01/10

+£96.13. Another day where most of the profit came from two races on RUK

02/10

+£112.13. It's always good to get into three figure territory, especially at this time of the year where the racing is starting to become a bit thin on the ground. I only managed to trade a handful or races so the result wa OK'ish ...

03/10

+£101.96. Had one of those days today where I was slightly behind after about 3 hours of doing practically nothing. Then fortunately a couple of medium sized wins saw the total go just over £100.

04/10

+£199.50. Just another one of those ideal nice steady days where the profits soon add-up. These are the sort of days that I aim for and with a slightly increased entry point I could easily hit £500+.

05/10

-£33.33. It's always disappointing when you have a losing day although as stated before they are going to happen and the main thing is to keep them low. It was a Sunday and I traded fuck-all races so it wasn't an enire surprise really ...

06/10

+£60.39. A pretty boring Monday (and there's 5 more months of those to come) and I suppose that the only real positive was that I covered yesterday's small loss ...

07/10

+£153.28. I had a rare clean sweep today with no losses! This really does make a difference as you feeel more comfortable as you are trading and I suppose that you feel 'in the zone'. I probably only traded half of the amount of races that I was trading on a typical day in the summer months so I suppose that £100+ is not such a shabby figure for when there are less opportunities.?

08/10

+£17.62. A very peculiar day today where I started quite well and then managed to give it all back in the late afternoon and early evening! I don't think that I took my eye off the ball and it was probably just a case of running into a few trades that didn't go my way? As my missus mentioned 'winning £17 is better than losing £17!'.

If Carlsberg did exit strategies ...

Well I'd buy one tomorrow as today witnessed probably the most inept day of trading that I have experienced for a long time.


12/09

+£14.63. It all started with a £50+ green that I let slip to a £30+ red and then it all went downhill. I spotted a very nice possibility in one of the following races and boldly declared to my missus and daughter 'I could take a grand out of this race, and if I do then I'll treat you both'. The race then panned out as expected and I managed to lose £10 having had an easy opportunity to green for over £500!!

I very seldomly go on tilt but I then had a minor wobble and chucked away the best part of £100 in the next. So instead of being £500 up and cruising along I was actually over £100 down! This was all down to my miserable exit strategy. In particular my stake buttons on The Geeks need changing as I was in a position of trying to trade out of a £2,000+ on one selection using £5 clicks ... fucking absurd. I also never use that green option located somewhere near the top left of the screen ...fuck me I don't even know exactly where it sits!

I think that I then threw away another couple of £100+ opportunities before I finally ended the day slightly in profit.

In hindsight it was a cracking lesson. It proved that my time spent compiling my notes has been well spent and that there are some cracking opportunities available. It also highlighted the fact that I have to improve my exit strategy for those occasions where I have moved £100+ into the green zone. It is easier said than done as the markets become increasingly volatile as the race progresses. It's therefore easy at this stage to spot a nice juicy £100-£300 green and exit slightly too early and lose some great potential profit where the green could quickly go up to 4 figure territory or on the flip side exit slightly too late and throw away a guaranteed green.

So to summarise I'll say it's work in progress ...



13/09

-£8.46. A pretty depressing day of crap racing and very few opportunities ...

14/09

+£138.53. I didn't actually trade that many races but had four mediocre wins which all added up at the end of the day ...

15/09

-£97.44. My concentration levels were obviously low today as I managed to have two races where I made a balls-up on the colours and selected the wrong horse for my entry point! So I said goodbye to most of yesterday's winnings doh!

16/09

+£20.24. Well September has beeen a right fucking struggle so far! I know that things can tend to go a bit pear shaped at this time of year with the flat racing coming to an end, horses losing their form and trying to deal with the puzzle that is AW racing, but it's still frustrating..

17/09

+£44.33. Half of today's profits came from the last two races of the night so weirdly enough I was quite happy with the £40+ .... fuck it's getting hard!

18/09

+£15.51. Yet another poor day with most of my profit coming from the evening card at Kempton.

19/09

+£23.23. I only managed to trade a handful of races today and started with a lovely loss of £120+ so that put me in a good mood for the day!

I wasn't really going anywhere fast until the very last race of the day where I somehow managed to pick up £100+ in the place market which eased the pain somewhat!



20/09

+£166.81. The trading was much more interesting today and I managed to get a bit more involved. It wasn't all smooth sailing but it was good to get back into three figure territory after some pretty boring days over the last week or two.

21/09

+£84.54. A pretty starnge day today. Chipped away as usual and then gave it all back in one race and then won it all back again in the next!

22/09

+£13.24. I'm updating this on 28/09 and to be honest I can't remember what went on today! Suffice to say that I didn't trade many races and I won fuck all!
 

 

23/09

+£225.78. Today was completely different from yesterday. I traded steadily and the few medium sized wins here and there soon added up quite nicely.

 

24/09

-£47.23. Well I was hoping to nick a few extra pennies to pay for our trip back down to the coast but I ended-up spunking the best part of £50!

I was probably spending too much time fucking about and doing things like ironing t-shirts as I only managed to trade a handful of races.



25/09 & 26/09

Decided to fuck offf to the coast with the missus for a couple of days as the weather looked pretty OK for the end of September.



27/09

+£431.94. We had another cracking time down on the coast and the weather was quite good for this time of the year. We did both drink quite a bit during the day and pretty much stayed in the same spot as opposed to going on a pub crawl! However in the evenings we took things pretty slowly and actually hit the sack relatively early on both evenings (00:30 and 23:30 respectively I think).

We left early and got back in time for me to have a quick kip and that obviously did the trick as I had a cracking day that was pretty much centered around one good bet. I did actually have a £90+ loss early in the day so I was over the moon to get up to £400+ which pretty much paid for the weekend.

28/09

+£16.29. Sunday today and I really should have fucked off back down to the coast and got pissed!

29/09

+£98.02. Won £90+ early doors and then to be honest couldn't be bothered as the racing was crap.

30/09

+£141.19. A fairly steady day and I even won some money at Wolverhampton in the evening!

01/10

+£96.13. Another day where most of the profit came from two races on RUK

02/10

+£112.13. It's always good to get into three figure territory, especially at this time of the year where the racing is starting to become a bit thin on the ground. I only managed to trade a handful or races so the result wa OK'ish ...

03/10

+£101.96. Had one of those days today where I was slightly behind after about 3 hours of doing practically nothing. Then fortunately a couple of medium sized wins saw the total go just over £100.

Fat, Toothless, Cold and Depressed IR Trader Heads for Winter!

Well I've been intentionally updating my blog a few days in arrears for what some may find a strange reason. I've been having a run of some good days and when this happens I don't really like to keep track of exactly how much I'm winning/losing during, or at the end, of each day. This means that when I come to update my blog I'm often 'ooh I didn't realise that I'd won that much on that day' or 'ooh I'd forgot about that good day'. This means that I get the good feeling on the actual day, as long as I win of course, but then I get the reminder 3 or 4 days later when I update the blog. It's a psychological thing but it seems to work well if you're having a good run.

Now it would have been nice to have hit that £1k day in August but it just didn't happen. However the chances were definitely there and I've no doubt that with natural progression I'll achieve it pretty soon.

The end of August usually marks the decline of the number of races per month and therefore your ability to make as much gets put under pressure. It also see's the increase in NH races and this always occurs just as I'm getting to grips with the flat season! Now on top of this the weather changes and the days get shorter which all contributes to a feeling of gloom and despondency, unless of course you are an avid NH fan in which case you're cock-a-hoop!

I love the summer, the long days, the hot weather and the chance to earn more and also get away for some fun in the sun. So for me this time of year is quite depressing.

I'm so sad in this regard that I have a mental count down of the number of days until the shortest day, December 21st, at which point I start to see the light at the end of the tunnel which takes us back into summertime next year!

It's currently the 05/09/2014 and I suppose that my gloomy mood is not helped by the fact that I'm still recovering from having a few of my teeth extracted on 01/09. I currently wouldn't look out of place in between these two fine specimens ...

I also haven't been to the gym for quite some time now so my weight and general fitness levels have all gone in the wrong direction.


So now I find that I have quite a bit of catching-up to do in quite a few areas of my life including my trading:

Trading - I've been working hard to catch up on the watching of all of the race replay recordings that I have on Sky+. I record the race replays from ATR and RUK and in an ideal world I would watch them in the evening or following day and update my notes accordingly. Now I did fall behind quite badly so I've had to spend countless hours on the play, pause and fast forward buttons to get to the currents stage where I've nearly watched them all!


Weight/training - I'll be getting back down to the gym and back on the diet once my gum swelling and pain has eased. I'm not too sure what weight I have reached but I'd expect to be back down to the 85.0kg mark by the end of September.


Mindmap/personal development - it was good to identify those areas in my life where I need to make a bit more effort. That was a few weeks back so I need to revisit my notes in order to make sure that I continue to make progress. I also have a few books that I purchased in Michaels Bookshop in Ramsgate. These are Blink, Teach Yourself Meditation, 59 Seconds ...





01/09

+£67.36. I spent 3 hours in the dentists chair up at the London Hospital this morning having some of my gnashers removed so it's a miracle that I won anything today. I played a few of the early races and then hit the sack for a couple of hours as the effect of the injections wore off. I then played a few late races but my mind wasn't really on the task at hand.

02/09

+£256.55. I had a good trade early doors but once again hit the sack mid afternoon as I was feeling fucked due to a restless night.

03/09

+£278.45. It looked as though things were going to be very lean today and then I came across a race where I had a good note for one of the runners and once again it paid dividends.

04/09

+£133.60. Well there wasn't much happening today and then once again I had a good pointer for one in the 20:10 @ Wolves. A nice win saved the day but it SHOULD have been at least £200 more. Unfortunately I repeated a mistake that I made a few days back and didn't have enough exit trades placed! I could have easily added the £200 as I had backed first and the price went down to 1.1 for plenty of money. In my defense it does get quite hectic when you are in a nice position and trying to place various exit trades while still keping a close eye on the final stages of a race.

So although it was a relatively nice win on such a wanky day I was still left feeling a tad pissed-off as I had really just thrown away £200. Hopefully that's a bit of passion and greed kicking-in as I'm still way short of showing the aggression that I need to take it to the next level.



05/09

-£35.20. I upped my maximum entry stake to £300 and as I went through my note update process it seemed that the day should produce some good opportunities. In reality it was a bit of a struggle, especially trying to play the ATR tracks with head-on views of the early part of most of the races. It seemed that the turning point was the 17:50 @ Kempton were I passed on a £100+ green and ended up taking a £40+ red! ... what a pratt. To be honest I couldn't believe that I was actually behind and although it wasn't by a great amount it was really pissing me off!

  



06/09

+£86.84. As I was drinking my early morning cuppa the thought crossed my mind that I quite fancied another couple of days back down on the coast. Now strangely enough it wasn't the thought of gallons of Hoegaarden that fuelled my drive, it was actually the thought of a bit of relaxed cycling along the coast and maybe sitting down with one of my new books. The weather looks fine for Sunday - Tuesday and the racing looks like crap on those days, so if I can win maybe £300+ today then I might well go pump some diesel into the old motor, grease my bike chain and head down south.

It's 09:34 as I type and I'm flying through the latest recordings so I should be well prepared for todays racing and £300 should be in reach if I play well. I hope so as I'm actually now quite excited about winning that cash and then fucking off for another couple of chilled days in the sea breeze ....

In fact I'll do one of my daily updates today ...

15:54 and fuck me it's hard today ...

15:57 although there is loads of racing it's mostly big fields and the markets are relatively strong. I've actually had a few close scrapes with minor disaster but have somehow managed to reach about £60+. Physically I'm still not fully recovered and I'm obviously fighting an infection but the lure of the coast is strong! There's plenty more racing to come so it's a case of staying patient and focussed ...

17:07 trying to make a profit today is tougher than that piece of steak that I had at that poxxy Gordon Ramsay restaurant the other weekend! I actually just had to check my Gruss settings as every time I press a button I'm getting fuck all matched!

20:56 my notes for each horse at Wolves tonight are fucking worthless! I'd be better off printing them off and using them as shit rag. This has now put me in a bit of a mood and to my eyes every race there now seems to be bent as fuck! We did have a guy in the exchange who was an ex jockey's agent and he claimed that every now and then there would be a 'jockeys race' where all of the jockeys in a particular race would conspire to get one home. In my current frame of mind it seems that every fucking race at Wolves tonight has been a 'jockeys race'!!

To make things worse tomorrow's forecast of glorious un-interrupted sunshine down on the coast has now had a spot of black clouds and rain added!! Is this a fucking wind-up or what?




07/09

+£123.78. Well I had myself prepared to hit the coast again this morning but when I woke up I still felt tired, had a headache, the weather looked grey outside and strangely enough for the first time ever I didn't really fancy it? However, the weather looks set fine for tomorrow so I might just fuck off in the morning for a couple of days. Going on a weekday at this time of year has it's advantages as it's a lot quieter as everyone is back at work so it's a good time to go, drink, chill and relax with a beer and a book or two.

I wasn't expecting much on the trading front today but the early wins soon saw me up over £100+ so it didn't feel too bad for a Sunday. every time I nicked a few quid I saw it as spending money for tomorrow!

10/09

-£1.94. To be honest I couldn't really be bothered today. I had a couple of cracking days down on the coast and I spent the whole of yesterday on the piss from 10:00 onwards with only a short break in the early evening for a quick change of clothes.

I joined a few of the locals for a cracking time drinking Hoegaarden and playing/listening to at least 4 or 5 guys playing guitars outside of The Belgian Cafe.  I can't quite remember all of the evening but I think that it was a good one! It's no wonder I felt a bit jaded today!

11/09

-£13.00. Oh the joys of trying to trade Doncaster and Chepstow! ATR pics were a mile behind so it was another frustrating day ....