Chasing ze dream. My road to making money or dying out.

[MaoCat]

Thanks Icredd.

I went out last weekend and long story short ended up randomly speaking to another trader from the betdevil forum at a pub. They happen to be an ex colleague of my girlfriend. It was very interesting. He was tennis trader and not pre horse, but we talked about various things. One of switch being money/bank management but also the length of time this process of learning can take.

So looking back at that last trade that blew my bank, my mistake was using the whole bank like I do during scalping pre race horse racing, and attempting to do the same in football in play. What I was doing in horse trading had worked and been scaled up, I was comfortable with it. It's clear the markets are massively different, and at the specific moment I didn't think. I was in pre race scalping mode where you see the opportunity and need to act quick.

If I could go back I would still have put the trade on as it was a good opportunity - but with less of a stake. Using the whole bank in such an unpredictable situation was ridiculous. It was an expensive lesson. I'm sitting here thinking about how ridiculous it was, almost laughing and shaking my head. I'm no longer angry about it, Ill just have to chalk it up to experience. Hopefully if I can learn from every mistake I make, there will be less mistakes to come across in the future and more success etc.

So I'm not done just yet - I still have that Betfair dream! I just need to write this damn 9000 word essay. Then ill return.

[leonflood]

Hope you come back to this, thoroughly enjoyed reading your "blog" posts, because they are so similar to my results. I do hope that you realise that you can only ever lose, "If you quit". Your strategies and techniques have worked for you in the past and it seems you got to a euphoric state of immortality.

I have been trying to trade now for nearly 2 years and only as of late started to see a positive result. My only explanation for this is experience is key to success.

All the best whatever you decide to do, but some time away from trading has always done me a world of good, especially after a silly mistake (which is inevitable whilst learning).

[MaoCat]

Hey leonflood,

Glad you've enjoyed the story so far. I will be returning, and I often lurk here still. I have this problem of a 9000 word project for university I'm currently working on. Its a huge undertaking, its taking a lot longer than I would like, I may be away for another month at least. I'm a radiography student in my last year, our course runs sometimes through the summer. I've had to lock myself in my room and just force myself to work. If I was still trading I'd never be able to finish it.

I cant see myself trading well with the project hanging over my head, it would always be there lingering knowing I should be doing it yet I'm trading instead. I'm glad you found your feet with trading, its always motivating to hear people got through the learning years and made it to where they are seeing good progress. I actually cant wait to return and start trading again, I've got some new ideas, and strategies I really want to try out.

See you soon!

[leonflood]

Great to hear that you will be returning, I will be looking forward to your updates.

'9000 word project' I certainly don't envy you

[Bog]

MaoCat, I had something similar to do when I finished university. I need it to make a minimum 40 page license project. It's better to focus on that, I postponed until last moment and I put unnecessary pressure on me, I was more focused on betting, and time flew fast. Good luck!

[MaoCat]

Here we go againnnnnnnn. Handed in 9k word project, free at weekends and evenings, dream is alive and well.

Deposited £200.

Long story short. One tick off set scalping with whole bank. 21 races today, +£86. £86/21 = around £4ish a race. Literally my best ever result, very surprising as its been a very long time since I traded last.

Good result, but I felt really rusty. Very hesitant and almost nervous to begin with too. Some races I did better than others, Irish racing might not be for me. I just couldnt get it right no matter what I did. I had been looking more into graphs and candle stick patterns and the like during my time off. I couldnt really implement anything i had learnt today. There were times when I actually forgot to use the market overview and candle stick graphs. It really made no difference to how I trade. My main problem today, was a fear of being in the market too long. I find it hard to let a trade run and see how far it will go, I just want to be in and out as quick as possible. There were times when I would have made significantly more than I did, however I couldnt bring myself to stay in the market. I'm clearly not as confident with swing trading. I think that is were the main money is though and I will have to learn that style of trading in the near future. If you have ever seen the "Adam todd" trading videos, this is literally how I trade lol.

I wont be updating as much, I'm no longer free during the week, although I have evenings but I'm not going down the greyhound route again. It didn't go well last time.

[MaoCat]

Ok day today, +£25. 19 markets. Things were going well to begin with, and then I noticed huge amounts of money moving the price 3-4 ticks. I decided I couldn't use the whole bank. I dropped it down to £50 stakes. Moved from an Adam Todd style of scalping to a more Caan Berry style. This in turn allowed me to put a lay stake in a cue position and then back as the price came to me. Went pretty well for about 15 races just gaining £1-2 a race, and then I got nailed by a huge stake and ended up -£5, I had been about £2 up. There is nothing you can really do about it I guess.

Next stop Tuesday, I believe there will be 3-4 evening races.

[MaoCat]

So once again I've had to let this go.

I'm currently on placement at a hospital 5 days a week, its taking me ages to get home, when I do I'm tired and I miss all the races. Probably not a great frame of mind to be trading either. Its Saturday, I just want to go out and do things. The last thing I want to do it be stick inside looking at a screen all day.

Its gonna be like this for the next 9 months. I've been thinking about it for the last few days and I feel its best to come back to trading at a later date when I have more time and energy. Maybe ill look into automation.

I'll still come back and lurk, but for now, consider this thread closed for a long time. I hope you've enjoyed the ride. Its been an interesting journey and I've found out quite a bit about myself.

[MaoCat]

An unexpected 3 months of Freedom.

Currently back at uni and no longer in hospital due to a timetable error. Should be studying hard at home, and I am. I'm studying graphs and markets lol.

Its been almost 4 months since I last posted. I'm still here, I'm not done. I have to be honest. A couple of days after my last post, I ended up going in play again twice. Usually this ends terribly however I ended up winning a significant amount. It was actually enough to pay my rent for the month. I was really annoyed with myself at the end of the day. I had to ask myself why after over 6 months of trading I couldnt let a small loss go and do something so irrational. I looked a many a forum and saw the same problem over and over. It was ruining people, and there was no answer. So that day I decided to ban myself from betfair for a whole year.

For months I looked into the problem. I concluded I needed to completely change everything I was doing. Scalping one or two ticks just wasnt working and causing me to go nuts when I was suddenly 4-5 ticks in the red, especially with scalping using a whole bank. If I knew i was profitable over the long term, I wouldn't need to go in play. Going in play is not the problem. I'm gonna be honest. I look back now, and see it as just an excuse.

Newbies, if you are reading this, its one thing to know when to trade, how to execute and when to exit, what markets to avoid etc, however its completely different in the moment. This must be worked on continually. The psychology of trading is so important but so overlooked, and it needs to be kept in check every single day.

Where am I now?

After a month or two off, I began looking at markets again but this time on betdaq, I videoed markets and observed at later times without trading them, I began to notice more, patterns for courses, situations that occurred more frequently, so on so forth. I tried to consolidate everything I had learned over this year of trading. This January I started trading on betdaq again. My bank is very small, £20! however I have been using this to test out new ideas on market movement and have been doing well. Typically I have some very small greens and reds throughout the day but also 2-4 bigger 4-6 tick profits which push the days profits right up. Pattern recognition is a real thing! My risk/money management is way better than last year also, as well as my expectations. I know people hate targets, but I like to make 2-5% a day. This is going ok. I still make mistakes, I was up about 10% yesterday only to lose 0.79p on a trade which heavily brought my profits down, I was devastated (lol over 0.79p) but I didnt chase and go in play so I felt like I won a small battle. I feel like every time you acted in a way that you know you should have, you strengthen your character, and the opposite is also true.

The fact is, markets and trends change. What worked back in the days of Adam Todd, Adam Heathcote and a number or others probably will not work now. You have to look for current trends of behavior and act on it, you have to find your own "current time" edge. Then you bleed it dry for all its worth, get your money and go. A lot of material on youtube for instance simply does not reflect how the market behaves now. Whilst inspiring IMO it may not help. Another realisation was the profit margins of many traders, some are working with a +0.25-0.50% margin. This is tiny but when you put through large amounts of money it really adds up. These margins are found through large amounts of analysis, something not everyone.

Feeling positive and hopeful. Feel like I've made some huge leaps and bounds in my time off and time trading on betdaq. The plan? The £20 bank needs to get to £40 then stakes will be doubled. Then when £80 is reached doubled again and so on so fourth. Current stakes are £2-6 depending on the situation. This will take a while but its all experience, the longer I trade the more I learn, so being in the game longer is better. I'll drop by in a few weeks and tell you how its gone.

[MaoCat]

What happened? Where did Maocat go? Did they give up? Did the blow it all in play again? Its been a whole year since I last posted.

I graduated from university and managed to get a very good job. This left me with hardly any time. I would still look at betfair from time to time and look at the markets, their movements. I was however, no longer taking it seriously.

Then one day on a Saturday I had a strange idea. Whacked £20 into Betfair, and managed to do ok. On the back of that success I've been trading pretty well. Been gaining £1-4 a race. My bank has grown to over £400. I'm far more of a part time trader these days. I trade a few races Thursday and Friday night when I get home and a couple of hours at Saturday and Sunday the weekend.


I trade these days, in the words of Timothy Sykes, like a "Castrated choir boy". My risk taking is pretty minimal. By no longer needing money, because of my job, I stopped taking huge risks and blowing banks. My current goal is to win enough money to buy a car. I like Honda Accords, so will need about 1.5k-3k. I cant take the bus and trains anymore but I'm willing to wait until betfair pays for it :-)

[Benedict]

Thanks for sharing your stories

[MaoCat]

Milestone man.