STEVEO - The diary of a determined newbie

[iamsteveo]

REAL MONEY DAY £2 - £10 STAKES ..... ( £50 STARTING BANK )

Happy with my £130 from the dogs the night before I withdrew it so as not to give them anything back, I will be investing my winnings back in to my trading just not as money to trade. Again just like the day previously i wanted to replicate a reasonable day of constant profit trading small real stakes things started steady up until the point the software just total froze for about a minute unlike any other time it annoyed me some what and i was lucky to get away with just a .04 loss to be honest. the rest of the short day with only 2 meetings went fairly well apart from one huge error on a drifting favourite didn't cut my losses hoping it would bounce back and ended up having to make a calculated risk in play on another horse who i researched there style of running and it paid off and got me out of a fair bit off doo doo.

TOTAL PROFIT FOR THE DAY £11.62 Id be happy with this on a daily basis for now given the stakes and bank I've got its not really about the money value though just the consistency.

[iamsteveo]

Latest reading, A fictionalised account of a stock trader in the early 1900's from child enthusiast to wall street, I'm about half way threw this book at the moment and I'm enjoying it which is good as Ive said before Im not a great lover of books or reading them. Its not always easy to find a quiet moment amongst the noise of everyday family life.

[iamsteveo]

A day off from trading for me today betfairs down till 10am so early price trading out the window so i took the time to write this article for another forum I'm on its ref to how i go about reading greyhound form for which I've been doing fairly successfully for many many years now it may be of use to someone out there,

HOW DO YOU READ YOUR GREYHOUND FORM

Thought it would be interesting to learn how everybody goes about reading there form,where they source it from and how they go about putting it together to come up with there play in the race.

Personally I find the racing post my weapon of choice as the dogs complete history is available to look at at at a glance. What I'm trying to do at first is profile each dog and by that I mean initially find out what grade the dog is sitting in is it running in its usual grade has it been upgraded is it going down in grade. From then on i will be looking how it performed previously in this grade has it won every-time its gone down to this grade, Has it struggled every-time its gone up to this grade. it's amazing how many dogs you can whittle out even at this early stage as having little hope.

Next up I want to be building up a picture in my head of what is going to happen on the lead up to and going round the first bend as this will shape up the placing for the whole race what trap is the dog running in is it its usual trap and how it has performed in this trap previously some dogs who usual run from trap 1 may not do so well in trap 2 when they have a dog on the inside to clear you get the picture. going back threw the history is the dog breaking at present as fast as it always has is it getting faster is it going threw a slow breaking spell from this you can get an average of it break times to the first bend. armed with an average of start times you can start to build a picture of where every dog will be entering the first bend in todays race. I read somewhere that the average greyhound at the run up only will be clearing 1 length in 0.08 secs I don't know if this is true but its kinda helps to see if a greyhound can clear its back end round the inside dogs because if it can't you could be looking for some first corner broadside as its back quarter gets taken out.

so by now your entering down the back straight your looking for the dog in the front can it hold on is it a short runner by that I mean is it treading water coming upto the line leading of the final bend in front and his positions at the bends read 1114, 1115, 1112 this would indicate this dog wheels fall off and dusnt get home. your looking for fast finishing dogs who read ran on, very strong finish, or ran on well. as it may not matter if this dog gets in to trouble round the first few bends as long as it finishes with a rattle.

So by now you know how a dog is entering the first bend and how they finish. The last part of the puzzle for me is to determine trouble in running is the dog going to get a clear run or if it does get into trouble is it a strong dog who's used to crowding, getting knocked and how good its track craft is some dogs just love playing bumper cars they don't seem to have a steering wheel. When you put all this info together you will have a good picture in your head of the race make up, I personally do not care what price a dog is if its going to win its going to win and im always using averages when picking races stats i do not like to back a hound on the strength of one great break or one great time if you can find a dog who averages are better than all the others then your onto a winner if theres uncertainty in a race I will not play it.

Quick word on different types of races, Open races I don't like these as there are to many unknowns Im not clever enough to know how one grade correlates to another tracks grade and how it corelates to another tracks times, its definitely not just a case of times as different tracks run in different ways much the same as horse racing tracks. So for that reason I can't know how every hound is going to perform with no past data for this track. Another biggy is track craft for this track, Dogs hitting rails running wide and throwing away 6 lengths off the last bend running into the carpark almost its just a minefield of too shorter odds on prices and uncertainties this is when you need inside info from trainers which I certainly don't have access too.i find grade 1's and 2's the best bets as the form is the best and often you find the same dogs running against each other as theres no where else for them to go no higher grade. I also like handicap races when most people don't I find them relatively easy to read but i would like to know from anyone on here how many lengths they assign to each dog for each second in the race over different race lengths i personally use 1 length per .10 of a sec over 480m and go from there depending on the length of the race e.g. 280m, 480m and 640m.

Well thats it for me I hope this is of use to some people and I would love it if anyone else could share there thoughts and how they go about things I'm always willing to learn off those on here theres some great people on here with a huge wealth of good information, its always good to have your own opinion thou to confirm others selections.

[iamsteveo]

So I've spent a lot of time recently watching different videos and researching different aspects of trading and the subject of support and resistance keeps popping up, Im glad to say the penny finally dropped today and I can't actually believe I've been trading successfully short term with out even using this skill, well i say skill it just appears to me that your checking the back and lay column and kinda quickly doing some addition to see which side is top heavy and therefore pushing the price in the that direction seeing where large sums of money are sitting. Got kind of engrossed in it though watching the money bouncing around and i now realise this is just another tool you have to look up and take a look at the bigger picture now and agin otherwise you get sucked in and get stung for a large quick swing in the wrong direction because the money does arrive quickly and can change in the blink of an eye. I witnessed today a stake arrive that was 6 or 7 times bigger than all the other stakes around it today and the end result was it pushed the price 4 tics in the wrong direction for me. I feel I have learnt something very helpful going forward to day :-)

[iamsteveo]

REAL MONEY DAY VARIED STAKES ..... ( £131 STARTING BANK )Total days profit £87

Never thought the day would come when I wasn't happy I made £87. What an absolute car crash of a day the profit and losses are erratic to say the least if you take a look at the profit and loss sheet Ive posted everything from £36 wins to £60 losses I'm so angry with myself the discipline went well and truly out the window going into play way to many times, most were planned but I was just putting myself into stressful situtaions and on one race I was staring a total bank bust bar it for a particular horse not quite getting up is was in contention coming over the last fence, I should never be in situations like that ....EVER !!!

[iamsteveo]

Well this is a difficult one to type admitting losses, It would be easy for me to just not insert this one into my diary, But without honesty how can you learn and go forward, Following a good night on the dogs recently Id felt good and decided to have a mother night on the dogs that went terribly wrong sometimes the difference between a great night and a poor night in profits comes down to just a few photo finishes not going your way but this was also littered with dogs not starting well as they should and getting smacked around the first corner cut along story short I lost £127 I wasn't best pleased but got over it by the next day and decided to be a little more shrew with my trading yesterday with my remaining £90 in my account things were going well for the first few trades accumulating a £1 here and £2 there and then i made the fatal error of not keeping an eye on the count down clock i'd also forgot that i had pulled out the audio lead from monitors so the was no audio warning either I was now in play with unmatched bets rather larger than I wanted to be and well we all know once you get into them situations its not always easy to get out of, what i should have done was just excepted the loss i could have easily greened up for a loss of about £10 and gone on to trade the next race but for some reason I just could press the hedge up and just sat there like an absolute dick watching the red get bigger it wiped out most of my bank by the end of the race and the rest of the short lived afternoon went down hill form there gambling just to try get my money back what followed was a small fight back and then two more heavy losses wiped me totally. I was in a right rage couldn't believe that I had been so stupid how hard can it be to just accept a loss apparently way to hard !! .... So having now calmed down the next day I have some thinking to do Im going to look into stop losses which Id previously overlooked thinking I didn't need them, I need to look into setting up some hot keys within geeks and some sort of controller to activate them, pissing about with the keyboard and mouse is clumsy and time consuming, I need to look into the graphics card in my pc or the settings because the bet fair video is stuttering therefore I was using my mac and 48" screen to blow the bet fair video up so i could see it better this needs looking into as messing about with 2 screens is the reason I took my eye off the pre race clock counter yesterday. At the end of the day its not the end of the world I was actually down £80 which isn't a great deal of money but its all I had at the time, it will probably be a week before I get up and running again this will give me time to do more research and fix my few problems going forward ...

[Morgans Choice]

Hi S,

shame about that, still, the honesty is a point strongly in your favour.

I use a trailing stop loss quite a bit when I'm trading trends/swings (it helps me not only in cutting losses but also in letting profits run). If it's of any interest to you here's a short example with micro stakes (sorry about the music, heaven knows what possessed me to select that)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To2mu_4fRZk

cheers, MC

[helplessone]

all pictures here are too little, small, I cant read anything.

[helplessone]

Hi S,

shame about that, still, the honesty is a point strongly in your favour.

I use a trailing stop loss quite a bit when I'm trading trends/swings (it helps me not only in cutting losses but also in letting profits run). If it's of any interest to you here's a short example with micro stakes (sorry about the music, heaven knows what possessed me to select that)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To2mu_4fRZk

cheers, MC

shame on you for that music!

[iamsteveo]

Hi S,

shame about that, still, the honesty is a point strongly in your favour.

I use a trailing stop loss quite a bit when I'm trading trends/swings (it helps me not only in cutting losses but also in letting profits run). If it's of any interest to you here's a short example with micro stakes (sorry about the music, heaven knows what possessed me to select that)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To2mu_4fRZk

cheers, MC

Il watch the vid when i get in my office later on the bigger screen just heard the music thou on my iPhone hahahaha funny .....

yeah sorry I'm not sure how to edit pictures and stuff I'm an audio man il have to have a look a it for helpessone ....

Yeah stopp loses are something I'm going to look into today theres definitely a few things I can do to take away some of the future pain until I'm confident, Still £80 not an expensive lesson to have learnt from Ive heard of very profitable traders being £8,000 - £10,000 down before hey got the hang of things than for the reply's

[kawasaki]

eheh good old times, im like reading my own story again, thanks steve

(lol music )

[Morgans Choice]

Cripes, what a set up you've got S, makes me laying on the sofa with a laptop on my chest look very plebian,

cheers, MC

[iamsteveo]

Thanks Morgans choice spent sometime looking into trailing stop losses yesterday, can't say Im totally understanding them just yet but I've got the just of whats happening set them up in my inlay template they will come in very handy on a Back to lay for a front runner for sure as if it dusnt go off in front or dusnt break from the stalls as anticipated the stop loss and hedge up will act faster than me giving for the shortest 2 sec delay on betfairs video as-well..... Also took the time yesterday to re-record some sound clips for geeks software as them simpsons noises do my nut in, can't say the sound of my own voice is doing it for me either but at-least they mean something e.g. 5 min to post time, 1 min to post time, official race time is now due and the race is off I think i recorded, it be a little clearer for me given I got caught heavy in-play the other day ......

Question for everyone - I have a backup mac for safety on a separate internet connection but say bet fair actually goes down whilst I have open positions what is every body's procedure is it a case of ringing bet fair some how to close them could anybody explain to me exactly what they would do and the number if handy and had it happened to anyone ??

[helplessone]

oh, a great theme/fear: api-down on betfair.

1) api-downs will happen and happened to us all.

2) ringing betfair is useless:

a) if the api is down, also the service-team cant do anything.
b) the service is totally clueless what traders are doing. saying "hedge all my positions!" they will ask you: "äh? what? wait, I take a coffee, then you can tell me.."
c) anyway, if you are interested in the phone, you can find the number in your account with a phone-code that you have to use to identify yourself.

3)

a) if you have positions on the lay side that you could cover with back-bets, have a look on the sportsbook of betfair. when the api is down, it could be that the sportsbook is up, and there you can take the bets to cover. you will have a loss anyway because prices on sportsbook are bad.

of course, back bets you can take on every bookmaker.

b) if you have positions on the back side and so you need cover on the lay side, the sportsbook and bookmakers seem to be useless. but of course with math you can find a nearly-solution, more or less.

4) some pro's here have an account also on betdaq. on the exchange there you could take the positions you need. but for that you need more or less 2 bankrolls.

5) my worst scenario was a liability of nearly 95% of my bankroll 2 hours before the off of a man city match. I waited nervously minute for minute, but the outage was too long. 5 minutes before the off I wanted to take many many bets on the sportsbook to cover all. then I noted that I had not enough money to take all these necessary bets.. a nightmare. at the end I had 200e losses, but I was happy with that. otherwise I would have lost much more.
a sentence that you hear often here is: dont risk more that you can bear to lose..

could be that I forgot a solution or that I dont know all.

[iamsteveo]

oh, a great theme/fear: api-down on betfair.

1) api-downs will happen and happened to us all.

2) ringing betfair is useless:



a) if the api is down, also the service-team cant do anything.
b) the service is totally clueless what traders are doing. saying "hedge all my positions!" they will ask you: "äh? what? wait, I take a coffee, then you can tell me.."
c) anyway, if you are interested in the phone, you can find the number in your account with a phone-code that you have to use to identify yourself.

3)

a) if you have positions on the lay side that you could cover with back-bets, have a look on the sportsbook of betfair. when the api is down, it could be that the sportsbook is up, and there you can take the bets to cover. you will have a loss anyway because prices on sportsbook are bad.

of course, back bets you can take on every bookmaker.

b) if you have positions on the back side and so you need cover on the lay side, the sportsbook and bookmakers seem to be useless. but of course with math you can find a nearly-solution, more or less.

4) some pro's here have an account also on betdaq. on the exchange there you could take the positions you need. but for that you need more or less 2 bankrolls.

5) my worst scenario was a liability of nearly 95% of my bankroll 2 hours before the off of a man city match. I waited nervously minute for minute, but the outage was too long. 5 minutes before the off I wanted to take many many bets on the sportsbook to cover all. then I noted that I had not enough money to take all these necessary bets.. a nightmare. at the end I had 200e losses, but I was happy with that. otherwise I would have lost much more.
a sentence that you hear often here is: dont risk more that you can bear to lose..

could be that I forgot a solution or that I dont know all.

Thanks thats an awesome response will have to read it a few times threw to digest the information, as it a scenario we are all going to find our self in at one time or another, I was finding my api real sticky until I connected my desktop pc to the internet hub via a cable rather than wifi. But the ultimate like you say is betfair going down I will look into it more and take in what you've said thank you for an excellent response