Yep, August will be the month were I crack the £1k day barrier.
Now here I'm talking about getting at least one day where I make more than £1K and not £1K every day ... although that would be nice!! I have a strong feeling that it is just on the horizon. My recent form has been quite good, my condfidence is increasing and accordingly I've been gradually increasing my stakes
Most of my good wins in July came from the info that I had compiled on my Gruss notes, so I'll be looking to keep right up-to-date with my replay watching this month.
Over the past few weeks I've realised that I can improve my results in 2 ways -
Entering a trade with a much larger stake when I feel that the conditions are right:
This means that if the market moves in my favour I can exit my position at an earlier point and quickly lock-in a bigger than average profit. Currently I'm trying to stick with £200 as an entry point and I'm starting to get quite comfortable with using that sort of stake. However, I think that I should be using maybe £400 - £500 as an entry point on those trades where my notes give me a strong indication of which way I expect the market to move. Now obviously at this point I'll need to choose my races wisely as it would be quite foolish to try and go in for £500 on a wanky hurdle race at somewhere like Ballinrobe on a Monday evening. There no sicker feeling than trying to bail out and there's no fucking takers!
With regards to bailing out of a losing position, well I'm getting pretty good at realising when I'm in the shit and I'm rarely hesitating to take maybe a £50 - £60 loss if I realise that the market just ain't gonna go in my direction! To be honest a fair percentage of my losing trades have been where I have blatantly disregarded what is actually happening in the market (and sometimes this can be SO fucking obvious even before the off) and decided that I'm the only fucker who has spotted this opportunity and I'm going to make someone pay.
In these scenarios I'm the twat who normally pays for ignoring the fact that the market isn't about to go where I want it to go ... the signs are there right in front of my eyes!!
Holding on to my trades for a bit longer and setting appropriate exit points when a fancied trade moves in my favour:
Normally when a trade moves in my favour I tend to fairly quickly phase out my stake at close to the available price or a few ticks higher/lower (depending on if I have backed or layed as my entry point). Now this creates a nice safety net, but also means that I don't come anywhere near to maximizing my potential profit when I'm sitting in a nice position and I'm expecting the market to swing even further in my direction. For instance, I've spotted a potential pace angle to a race and also have a note that indicates that I strongly fancy this horse to a) lead and b) stay on strongly and possibly win. Now maybe I have backed at 5.0, the horse has led and I have layed off my stake at between 4.0 - 4.5. That might leave me with let's say a £100 green on that selection, which I can sit on and phase out, hopefully, at much shorter prices, lets say sub 2.0. Now if this works then it's been a nice safe trade, but in an ideal scenario I would have set my initial phase-out exit points at maybe 1.5 - 2.5 and then would have sat and hopefully watched the market move in my direction as expected. Obviously this is a bit riskier as you can often be staring maybe a £50 green in the face only for it to go to a £20 red a few seconds later! This sort of technique makes you wish you were a frog as you need to keep a very close eye on the market AND the race at the same time.
However, there have been MANY instances during July where I could have been a bit more patient and taken a much bigger green.
Now this goal depends a lot on identifying good trades. That means that I'm going to have to make a super human effort to watch quite a few replays that I have recorded on my Sky+. It's a long and boring process but I really need to knuckle down and get it done. Taking breaks to the coast is great but it means that I have maybe 150 additional races to watch when I get back home and that takes a lot of patience and willpower.
01/08
+£59.50. I wanted to make a really good start to the month but ended-up fucking about with my car most of the day! My oil cooler had arrived in the post a couple of days earlier so I thought that I'd better get it fitted in time for my next trip to the coast and hopefully not have to crawl up hills at 40MPH to avoid my engine exploding into a ball of flames!
So on with the old t-shirt and shorts - check
Assemble all of the required tools - check
Remove grill .... well eventually after a bit of swearing and brute force - check
Remove bumper ... well eventually after using copious WD40, even more swearing, berating the Japanese for putting bolts in fucking stupid inaccessible positions and some slightly more aggressive brute force which also involved a hammer! - check
Anyway you get the drift, I'm fucking about doing this when I should be preparing myself for the afternoon racing. Unbelievably I'm still fucking about with the ATF cooler hoses in between races! My hands are black, my back is covered in gravel, my leg is bleeding where I caught it on the edge of a bucket (now destroyed by hammer as a reprisal) and I'm sweating like a fucker. Despite this I'm cruising up to the £200 mark and then I run into a couple of late losses and end the day at just over £50. However, I did get my oil cooler fitted and put my car back together again so it wasn't too bad!!
PS and then my missus asks 'why did you smash the fuck out of our bucket with the hammer?'
02/08
+£28.60. Saturday and I felt quite confident although I was a bit behind on my notes. I had a quick power nap between 12:00 - 13:15 and was then ready for action. Much like yesterday I seemed to cruise along and I was heading for £200+ and then I ran into a couple of £50+ losses which halted me in my tracks. I managed to scrape a profit and although it hadn't been a great day I actually felt as though I had learnt quite a lot and hopefully I can take that forward in my quest for that £1K day.
03/08
+£168.41. A few wins later in the afternoon made the difference to an otherwise pretty quiet and unspectacular Sunday.
I actually managed to drag my lazy arse to the gym this morning.
If I can show this much aggression in my trading then I'll be a rich man!
04/08
-£89.08. One of those days where I just couldn't get matched quickly enough and struggled all day in an attempt to claw back an early £50+ loss. Made a silly trade early evening and paid the £80+ fine for trading like a twat. It seemed as though I had spent most of the day bailing out of positions that initially went in my direction only for them to do a quick about turn and take me straight from a green into a red zone.
At various points during the day I thought about lowering my stake, but hey I ain't going to get a £1K day by doing that! A modest win late on took my below the -£100 so considering it felt like such a bad day it wasn't THAT bad in hindsight and once again I still feel as if I'm learning quite a bit, so the bad trades and losing trades are actually making me a better trader.
05/08
+£94.27. Now today was the complete opposite of yesterday. I didn't feel as if I was going anywhere and then suddenly realised that I was £100+ and gliding along. A couple of late losing trades put me just under the £100 mark but psychologically it was good to recover yesterday's losses.
06/08
+£380.86. Today was REALLY enjoyable. Once again I quickly found myself £100+ and in the zone. I had plenty of relevant horse notes and actually misssed a few good trades where I was just a bit too slow to act. Things did seem to quiten down in the late afternoon as my BF live video seemed to be playing-up and this was effecting my concentration as I wasn't too sure whether I was further behind the normal lag.
I did give it some large in the last @ Kempton as my missus and eldest son were sat watching and about to go to the local shop. I said 'if Bombardment leads then I'm going to smash it and go 'round the shop for you' (I never go around to the local shop as I'm too lazy! As it fended off the challengers in the final furlong I was giving it the 'oi oi, who's the daddy!' (sad I know but sometimes you have to let off a bit of steam) just like the old days at Hackney and Walthamstow. The neighbours must have thought that I'd gone mad!
So now it's a cuppa and back to the notes for tomorrow's racing. I've almost caught up with watching the replays and hopefully the guys over at Gruss are going to make a software change in the next release that will allow me to access the previous day's cards so that I can much more easily update my notes.
07/08
-£139.52. I set the world record for shouting, screaming and swearing today. Everything that I touched turned almost immediately into a bag of shite and it felt as though I was being continually kicked in the bollox by someone wearing size 11 steel toe capped Dr Martins!!
I started the day by doing £150+ in one of the early races. My entry trade was £200 and the market moved slightly in my favour .... all good so far! I then switched my concentartion to my Geeks Toy screen and fired in my exit points of £10 at various prices. However, when I glanced back at the race and then subsequently up at the pointy end of the ladder I was shocked to see that the market had moved violently against my position. I scrambled for a £50 red and missed it, then for a £100 and missed that and then finally got out for the £150+ loss! Thus began my first tirade of screaming and swearing!
Now 3 races later at Brighton I back the beast that springs out of the stalls and once again the market moves in my favour and I start to fire in my exit points. As I'm doing this the commentator screams 'he's pulling like a motherfucker', or something to that effect and the price goes through the roof and I wave goodbye to £80+. I take my level of screaming at the screen to a new level.
Four races later and I set light to another £70+. At this point I lost control of all of my senses and bodily functions and felt like throwing one of my monitors through the front window! I was rapidly spunking all of my profits from yesterday. Now the ironic thing is that I had posted on Facebook that today could be 'the day that I win £1K', what a fucking MUG! I was feeling pissed-off, skint and like a right proper cock! At this point my missus, somehow sensing my angst, suggested that maybe it might be wise if I knocked it on the head for the day and started again tomorrow. Well that just sent me into a further tirade of abuse along the lines of 'what's the fucking point of leaving it until tomorrow, I'll still have spunked my money and will need to somehow win it back, what a fucking stupid idea, shut the fuck up or you'll get a slap' (well I didn't actually say that last part as if I did then she probably would have killed me using extreme violence).
So now I'm actually thinking that this could be the day where I actually LOSE a grand!! Then, when all seems lost, I finally make a decent trade in the last race of the day, a bumper in Ireland, which somewhat eases the pain.
08/08
+£475.28. I had the chance to watch the replays of my losing trade races and to be honest only one of them was slightly poor, the other two started as good trades but went bad very quickly. I was back on the notes early doors as I really wanted to be on top of my game today.
The first three hours were a massive struggle and to be honest I was starting to get a bit pissed off again. I finally had a £60+ win but then promptly gave most of it back in the very next race .... cue the screaming and swearing again! Then, finally, my notes came to the rescue and provided me with three cracking trades and the rest is history. I had the feeling that I was maybe £350 in front so it was a pleasant surprise when I saw the £475.
09/08
+£144.32. Saturday again and to be quite honest I was feeling fucked from this morning's effort in the gym. Because of this I gravitated towards playing a safe game and pretty much dropped back down to £60 a click in most races. I started with a £50+ in the first race and was then quite content just to chip away and head for anything over £100. I was quite happy that I avoided a few races where the pre-race market was strong AGAINST my opinion, in particular Underwritten in one of the evening races. For me he was guaranteed to get a soft lead, yet despite this all of the money was on the lay side. I decided not to play and hey presto he declined an easy lead and although I hadn't played I had to vent my spleen with screams of 'cheating fucking midgets, that was fucking obvious!'. Now some may disagree, but I'm seeing this more and more often where it seems to be as though certain jockeys are deliberately changing the running style of horses in order to get a horse beat. In my opinion it's a lot easier to mask than dropping your horse out 20 lengths behind, finding trouble and leaving your effort too late?
10/08
-£75.76. I don't think that I traded badly today but it was just one of those days where a couple of things didn't go my way. It was another typical Sunday where I didn't really get involved in that many markets, but at the end of the day if I can keep my losing days to sub £100 then I'm not too fussed
11/08
-£28.74. I was nicking a few pennies and then knocked out the best part of £200 in one race! It was one of those where I had backed a front runner and as I started to put in my lays all four of his legs fell off and the price just went mental, obviously for me in the wrong direction! When I encounter this kind of loss in one race then I give myself some time to re-focus and then the aim is to chip away, and in this case I had a mental target of getting my loss down to sub £100 as per yesterday. So I wasn't too phased and gradually pulled back my losses. So apart from that one debacle it wasn't such a bad day.
12/08
+£253.24. A nice steady day saw me recoup my losses for the last two days.
13/08
+£342.73. Once again my notes came to the rescue and I had a lovely win mid-afternoon and gave it the big 'oi oi whos the fucking daddy' again, accompanied by a little dance around the living room which then prompted my grandson to join in (juvenile I know and the neighbours must wonder what the fuck is going on in my house!). I then had the missus and my daughter telling me not to swear in front of the grandchildren ,,, whoops sorry!
That win was most welcome as the rest of the day was pretty uninspiring to be honest.
14/08
+£59.87. Just as I sat down to trade I said to my missus 'I have a feeling that I'm going to lose today'. Now this wasn't me being negative it was just that I felt slightly un-prepared and maybe a little tired, combined with the fact that my initial glance at the cards didn't feel me with excitement. I then spent the day playing pretty much minimal stakes, that's £60 at the moment. I did jump in with £200, my max stake at the moment, on one race and duly lost £110+ in the space of 10 minutes. I backed something that looked as though it was pissed and seemed to be stumbling all over the shop and changing it's legs every 5 strides. The strange thing was that I later watched it's last run and although it looked pissed in that race as well it pulled clear in the final stages and won by a fucking mile!
So to be honest I was happy just to finish in front today ...
15/08
+£186.66. I updated a few horse notes this morning but come 12:30 I was feeling so tired that I had to take a 60 minute power nap. Once again for some reason I wasn't feeling super aggressive and I played a pretty cautious approach throughout the day. I actually felt as though I had won more at the end of the day but can't be unhappy with the total.
There's one or two improvements that I can make to my general approach and the way that I trade and I'll probably highlight these in the next few days
16/08
+£74.90. It was the wife's birthday today so we booked a table at the local Gordon Ramsay boozer (she is a big fan). I didn't really want to go there on the back of a losing day so I played cautiously and scraped a few quid. We had an early table booked so I jumped in the bath and was ready to go by 17:30 ... and this is where the fun and games started!
One thing that we hadn't realised was that West Ham were playing at home and we live near enough to be affected by the traffic. So we call a cab, wait ages for it to arrive so then we're already running late but no big deal. The driver explains that the local traffic is in gridlock so we'll have to go the long way round ... no problem there mate. Unfortunately the guy then takes us on a meandering route down the back streets of Upton Park and 20 minutes later we find ourselves not at Wapping but at ..... you guessed it .... right outside Upton Park!! I was fucking dumbstruck!! My missus was not a happy bunny and jumped out of the cab telling the guy he was a pratt! Now for some reason I was lost for words during the whole journey and felt like a bit of a prick because I didn't say fuck all! So a fifteen minute walk now sees us back where we started ... outside our fucking front door! So then we argue, book a later table, call another cab and finally get to The Narrow.
So now we've ordered a beer and are seeing the funny side but then I notice that the menu is a bit on the thin side and there's nothing that particularly catches my eye .... so I've got the arsehole again. Then I spot the sirloin steak on the specials at £25 a pop so I order that ... big mistake! My fucking jaw was aching trying to chew through that fucker! So now I have the proper arsehole but instead of complaining there and then I just sulk ... a bit silly really. When the waitress comes over I tell her that it was crap and upon her return she offers me a free dessert. Now instead of telling her to stick the bill up her arse I just told her no thanks and bring the bill.
So we fucked off back to our local and I sat there miserable for an hour until the booze kicked-in and then luckily we had a good night.
If I could go back in time I could have told the cab driver which way to go and I should have refused to pay for my steak ... but hey that's life.
There were in fact quite a few really good opportunities today but as I was playing ultra-cautious I managed to miss most of them!
17/08
+£227.37. Sunday today and I got lucky in an early race where someone must have backed the wrong horse so things went in my favour.
18/08
+£93.19. I got lucky AGAIN today and was coasting to £200+ but then dropped £100+ in the last race of the day ... DOH!! Now this was purely due to lack of concentration. I traded the 20:20 @ Wolves but then skipped the 20:50 as I was watching TV. I then jumped back on the PC for the 21:20 and backed something in the place market @ 1.03 that finished fourth ... what a pillock! At the end of the day it just offset the luck that I had earlier in the day I suppose.
19/08
+£108.31. All ATR tracks today so I probably did quite well to get to 3 figure territory ...
20/08
+£227.63. Another pretty steady day ...
21/08
+£100.90. Another unspectacular day where there was only one RUK meeting and Ffos was unplayable as it was SO far behind ...
22/02
+£220.17. There were 8 meetings today so I decided to try and push for £500+ but I made a poor start to the day and was quickly £70+ down without really trying! I then made the mistake of chopping down on my stakes as we had planned to spend the Bank Holiday down on the coast with the family and I didn't want to go on the back of a losing day. I then played steadily and managed to get to £200+ which helped pay for a couple of the bar bills!
25/08
+£132.22. Back from the coast and not feeling too bad as I cut back on the drinking last night. Chipped away and once again nicked afew quid here and there ...
26/08
+£342.03. I actually didn't trade many races today, but the ones I did trade I traded quite well. There's still plenty of potential of far greater profits as my two main wins came from entry stakes of only £100 and £40 respectively.
27/08
+£7.29. I encountered an early loss of £70+ and then lost £90 by chasing a price in Ireland, which was a bit silly. The later win of £70+ @ Lingfield should have been a lot more as I had a good note for a horse but at that point I was on the defensive and just looking to scrape back into profit for the day.
I've been spending a LOT of time catching up on the race replays and I'm almost up to date on the RUK replays. I'm getting to that stage where at the start of most races I can identify quite a few of the running styles without even having to look at the notes. I feel that this is really giving me a nice edge.
As stated previously the actual process of keeping my notes up to date is rather time consuming and boring. Some of you may have noticed that I have asked both Gruss and Geeks if they can update their software so that the previous days cards can be retrieved. I could then just scroll through the cards as I watch the replays and update the notes accordingly just by point and click rather than having to scroll through the horse note list every fucking time ....Aaaaagggghh!!! I'm really hoping that this can be implemented as it would save me so much time and grief.
I have quite a few ideas and updates that I want to add to my blog but I'm finding that I just dont have the time at the moment. Hopefully I will have my notes fully up to date and all replays watched in the next few days as I'm probably going to hit the coast again for a romantic 2 or 3 days with the missus as the weather is supposed to be OK. I think that after that break it will be heads down for the NH season and skinny winter months and back to the gym to lose the layer of fat that I have built over the last two months!
28/08
+£301.45. I struggled on the early meets at Ffos, Stratford and Fontwell but then things seemed to pick-up in the early evening. Once again there was much more to be had but I'm still struggling to push myself to use bigger entry stakes. It's easy to see how I could push my profits up to £1k on good days, it's just that it's taking me some time to adjust to using bigger entry amounts.
I was just shy of £300 at the end of racing so had to trade the dogs and even a couple of late USA races to break through the £300 mark!
29/08
+£150.30. I learnt another lesson today, well actually it was something that I knew but had conveniently forgotten. I backed a front runner, Dalgig in the 20:30 @ Wolves. Well I know that it's still a maiden but fuck me it couldn't have had a softer lead, yet the price just took off in the wrong direction when the stalls opened. I scrambled out for a £40+ loss but it was a great reminder that racing at Wolves is super volatile, both the in-running and pre-race, and in my opinion can sometimes be as bent as fuck.
PS Now Dalgig actually looks like a lovely horse ...
Coming on the back of months of Summer flat racing it's obvious that the markets at Wolves are just so fucking different, and I don't even think that the bomber has turned up yet! The good thing is that getting your fingers burnt for relatively small amounts can allow you to see more clearly what is going on and can help you avoid it in the future.
I mentioned it in one of my previous posts that the pre-race betting patterns can sometimes give a blindingly obvious clue as to what is about to unfold in the race. Despite this fact even now I'm often tempted to enter the market against the flow because I think that I know better! Just by posting this fact here will make sure that I don't fall for that again!
Now I know that the BF forum isn't exactly frequented by those of a high IQ but I can guarantee that you'll see a steady rise of posts usually entitled 'has it's fucking leg fallen off' whenever a Wolves runner drifts like a barge and then runs like a hairy goat. Now I'm not saying that I dislike the racing at Wolves, it's just that it needs to be approached in a slightly different manner than your normal run of the mill flat race.
Now there's also another thing that can make your job as a trader harder, and that's the constant bollox spouted by the RUK and/or ATR presenters/guests. Now let's face it, in general they are a fucking useless bunch. If they were any good then they would be sat at home on the machine making a fucking fortune. I know this, and you probably know this, so why is it then that they can sometimes alter your view of a race or selection just by one throw-away comment? I fell for one earlier today when they gushed about Travis County getting an early lead and then being practically impossible to pass. Now my notes didn't indicate this fact, yet I still jumped aboard when he decided to make the running. Well it's lucky that I bailed out early as after a few furlongs it decided to morph into a scabby goat and the price went through the roof!
Anyway I'm going to try and increase my entry stakes, fuck off to the coast one more time, get some teeth taken out on Monday, visit Steve in Brighton before he moves, get right up to date on my horse notes just in time for the NH season, get back to the gym, update my mindmap (which I haven't forgotten) and sort a few other things which seem to have escaped my mind at the moment!
30/08
+£174.85. I started the day quite well and was heading towards the £200+ mark but then floundered close home.
31/08
+£82.74. Well a boring Sunday with all ATR tracks to finish the month so I suppose that £80+ wasn't too bad ...
