STEVEO - The diary of a determined newbie

[iamsteveo]

So a bit about myself for starters, Im a young looking 43 yr old who been gambling traditionally in the bookies since I was 18 my first bet ever was a horse called ok coral and it won at 33/1 I had a massive 50p on it lets just say I was hooked from that moment onwards. For years that followed I spent my wages every week losing, throwing my money away it caused a lot of heartache pain and ruined some good relationships, I gave gamblers anonymous ago but if Im honest I felt I was better than them and quit it after a couple of degrading weeks of Hi my names steve Im a gambler I haven't had a bet since well bout half hr ago I really didn't want to give up i just wanted to stop losing my money. More recently the past 5 years Ive got quite good at gambling greyhounds mainly my form reading is as good as you'd expect it to be after 20yrs+ and if Im totally honest with myself I probably break even over the long term but it's not winning is it. So last year I came across an article about what I now know is bonus bagging with the free bets and then using betfair exchange !!! Bet fair exchange id never heard of it so more research and I started reading blogs about various sports traders wow this was a whole new exciting world after watching few videos I discovered like everyone has Caan berry his video's didn't make any sense at all just a bunch of figures bouncing around in a big ass complicated table but to be fair to him I loved his approach his manner and the honesty that came threw in his video's.The more I read about the exchange and bet fair the more I thought this is my ticket to freedom money and an easy life. i bought a trading station its pretty shit hot to be fair a pc dedicated solely to trading hooked up to 4 screens cost me a grand I thought it money well spent given how much money I will be making, taking Caan advice i bought a years subscription to Geekstoy as it made sense as I was following his videos so much my trading template is the same as his more or less, I bought all the books he recommended in his videos and I've started reading them. I learnt how to use the software and suddenly his videos started to make some kind of sense. This is when I thought I'm ready to try this so i did £30 was quickly turned into £300 thats it I thought i was a trader this was easy ...... Hahahahahaha er NO !! I wasn't we've all done it straight in to play and got stung wiped everything out reality check time ..... For anyone interested follow my journey the year as I try to rid myself of all my bad gambling habits and addiction to becoming a successful full-time disciplined trader, Wish me luck :-)

[iamsteveo]

February 10th - Its the wifey's birthday today so I thought it best I didn't indulge in any betting activities today, I did manage to finishing reading my first book though " Trading in the zone " i started it about 4 weeks ago and have struggled to get into it as Im not a fan of reading what with all the videos and internet available books seems such bore. I did persist thou as I am determined to succeed. Its a heavy read to be honest an I did struggle with it as first, it goes quite deep into the psychology needed and the mind set needed to succeed in this game albeit centred around and written with stocks markets in mind but all info is transferable to any kind of trading. Its the type of book you will have to read many times and I'm sure overtime you will take something different from the book, if you don't mind marking the book id recommend highlighting certain information and quotes within the book or at the very least have a pen and paper handy and take notes and pin them on walls or write them on white boards in your trading space as there are rules and quotes that need to be adhered to if you want to be successful ...... I have made a decision today to go back to practice mode for a few reasons my starting bank of £3k is not available for 3 months yet and I feel i need to learn a lot about managing losses and also how to get out of difficult situations as the race time nears. I will be starting with a £1000 bank everyday and using £25 bets as this will simulate what I intend to start with when i go live full-time in a few months. I know people say you should use small real stakes instead but I've tried both and there dust seem to be any difference in the way the markets react the graphs will still react the same and I will still earn alot ...... Il also start my second book tomorrow " Fooled by randomness " again recommended by Caan berry, The man really is my inspiration and defnatley my go to for information his videos are very well presented and explained .....

[iamsteveo]

Didn't trade much today due to stay of mind was in abad mood. I did make a concious decision though I have decided seeing as I'm in practice mode that there is absolutely no reason to go into play to suffer big losses so I'm taking the chance whilst there no money or emotions involved to get into the good practice of hedging up for a loss no matter what it is because lets face it, its going to be a smaller loss than getting hit by the horse winning that you've layed and then got caught with in running. If this becomes good practice i should never go bust in 1 hit for a few hundred quid thats the idea anyway. Started reading and managed to finish half the book " Fooled by randomness " another recommendation from Caan, Again finding it heavy going as I'm not a reader by heart but the message seems to be slow and steady there are many folk out there making huge sums of money quckley but they are the folk who seem to come unstuck at some point due to there dangerous maverick strategies, slow and consistent seems to be the way forward for longevity. There is a forum i have been invited into just before christmas as I have a good understanding of dogs and have been posting my front runners up on for back to lay opportunity's. I found it interesting at first but it does seem to be targeting gamblers who likes to place wins on the nose so I have found it distracting more recently as I have been trying to steer clear from gambling and become a trader.The one thing I have taken from the forum though is a particular tipster if I was following his tips Im sure I'd be down but his does win a fair few and I have discovered there seems to be some reasoning behind most of his selections and therefore getting on early on the exchange on his selections seems to be paying dividends as nearly all have started off at much lower prices I will keep an eye on this over the next 3 months. On a separate note I have started back in the gym and have been running 10k 2-3 times a week healthy body healthy mind the will tell.

Finally the picture below was one of the tipsters selections today and getting on early as you can see proved to be very profitable a good swing trade

[iamsteveo]

My recently purchased trading station dedicated pc to run geeks- toy software via windows 10 on 4 x 24" screens. I need to look into the graphics cards within because the bet fair video dusnt seem to want to play smoothly on it maybe crappy graphics cards il update very soon. The station is connected to 30mb virgin media broadband and I found the api was sticking a lot so to fix this problem I connected the hub via cable rather than relying on wifi which seems to have solved the problem getting caught with a lay bet going into a race that goes on to win is not desired I know from experience. along side my station I have my music production studio which doubles up a s back up. That consists of a macbook pro connected to my 42" tv and running audio threw some Genelec monitor speakers, Aswell as providing back-up should my pc crash it runs on an independent separate sky internet so that should virgin media go down i have a way to close down unmatched bets, Its also great for watching channel 4 racing, ATR and blowing up the bet fair video should I want to watch a sporting even or race on a 42" screen. It may very well be over kill for a newbie but as I stated in the title Im a very determined newbie and want to give myself the best start possible. W e all want to be caan berry .... Right ?

[iamsteveo]

12/02/2016 - Traded 15 races today with £25 stakes and greened up on all 15 races ranging from .10p - £15.45 total profit for the day £77.14

Some consistency, but still going into play on the odd race just to pull back a couple of ticks lost in pre race trading, Its difficult not to when your almost certain at the very start of the race it will bounce up and down and match your bets. Today I got away with it and I could get away with it all week but if a horse didn't come out of the stalls or fell i'd have been in the deep doo doo and that worries me for surviving in this game I need to get better at pre race trading watching graphs is the only skill I have at the moment. Overall annoyed with myself for not accepting losses if Id accepted the losses I think I would still have been up today but maybe only £40 or so.

[Bakeman]

Hi Steve,

I've been trading very unsuccessfully for about 20 months now. Determination got me to 20 months, but I think I'm ready to throw the towel in now.

If there's any advice I can give you, please don't start with that £3000 bank.....Start with £300 and just use £5 - £10 stakes, prove to yourself that you can sustain some consistency over the long term before you increase stakes. The limited bank will stop you from over staking, and believe me you will. You may think your disciplined, but you have already proved your not by going in play. You have got lucky with your in play bounce as you put it, but believe me you feel as sick as a dog when your bet gets taken and then goes away from you and never comes back.

I started with a £2000 bank and so wished I didn't, I was throwing £50-£100 around like I knew what I was doing. It doesn't take long to get into trouble.

Please don't ignore my advice even though I haven't shown any success, I'm sure others would back up my points.

I really do wish you luck in your trading, it was yet another bubble burst for me.

Good Luck

Dan

[iamsteveo]

Hi Steve,

I've been trading very unsuccessfully for about 20 months now. Determination got me to 20 months, but I think I'm ready to throw the towel in now.

If there's any advice I can give you, please don't start with that £3000 bank.....Start with £300 and just use £5 - £10 stakes, prove to yourself that you can sustain some consistency over the long term before you increase stakes. The limited bank will stop you from over staking, and believe me you will. You may think your disciplined, but you have already proved your not by going in play. You have got lucky with your in play bounce as you put it, but believe me you feel as sick as a dog when your bet gets taken and then goes away from you and never comes back.

I started with a £2000 bank and so wished I didn't, I was throwing £50-£100 around like I knew what I was doing. It doesn't take long to get into trouble.

Please don't ignore my advice even though I haven't shown any success, I'm sure others would back up my points.

I really do wish you luck in your trading, it was yet another bubble burst for me.

Good Luck

Dan

That is a shame to hear mate, 20 months is a good amount of time to give it a go aswell, So what happened poor discipline or just wasn't happening for you ?? Maybe it came across wrong in the diary Ive had a go with real money for a couple of weeks went from £30 - £300 but I've gone back to practice mode on the geek £1000 everyday with £25 stakes and I won't be going back in with my money till possibly may but your right yeah the lack of discipline does scare the sh*t out of me because I don't wanna get this wrong .... Its clearly not easy as only 9% of people get it right making the other 91% rich I guess, Ive got 18 months to get this right before i have to return to a crappy dead end job, so that is my motivation

My advice to you is Don't give up bud record your trades find out where you made the mistakes any particular type of race or trade nail the problem down and then work on it, I wish you well

STEVEO

[kawasaki]

as already mentioned zillion times on the forum here, practice mode is for getting familiar with The Toy, not for trading pactice. if you want to learn to drive a car, you practice on a real car, not on pc simulator.

and i stay with my opinion here, if you cant make profit with minimum stakes (2-3£), you cant make it with bigger ones either. start from the ground and climb this ladder step by step. whats the point to play with 100£ stakes, you just loosing your available bankroll faster. fear of heights seriously impedes your ability to make right decisions (under fear of heights here i mean too big stakes, which ones you cant afford to loose cool as a cucumber)

[iamsteveo]

as already mentioned zillion times on the forum here, practice mode is for getting familiar with The Toy, not for trading pactice. if you want to learn to drive a car, you practice on a real car, not on pc simulator.

and i stay with my opinion here, if you cant make profit with minimum stakes (2-3£), you cant make it with bigger ones either. start from the ground and climb this ladder step by step. whats the point to play with 100£ stakes, you just loosing your available bankroll faster. fear of heights seriously impedes your ability to make right decisions (under fear of heights here i mean too big stakes, which ones you cant afford to loose cool as a cucumber)

Thats precisely what I'm doing getting familiar with the toy, whilst watching how graphs perform until I know it inside which most people don't and start using way to early even with smaller stakes then your just throwing your money away, I've already used it with real money successfully for a week , it behaved exactly the same way I may have just got lucky. I don't have a fear of using large stakes been gambling for 23 years putting £300 on greyhounds that get Ko'd at the first corner, until I have my discipline and how I operate nailed ( which I don't at the moment ) i will not be using real money again and as stated i don't have my starting bank of 3k until may. I appreciate your feedback its obviously whats worked for you but i have a different situation and my own way of doing things all the best with your successful trading thou, lets hope I'm not crying come the end of may.

[iamsteveo]

I forgot to say I use £25 stakes in practice mode because thats precisely what il be starting off with when i go into live mode and I want to get use to seeing the same figures and working with the same numbers. I feel this is what will work for me I believe there is no right and wrong way to do things again thanks for your input thou hope the diary dust offend you, Atleast if I fail your be able to use me as another case to support your theory ha ha

[Morgans Choice]

Good luck, Steveo,

MC

[iamsteveo]

Got it all wrong today the only thing I had planned was a back to lay on BALLISTA who trail blazed and i greened up for £45 green even with that and 11 greens out of 14 trades I completely got it wrong on a few, A few lessons learnt today don't listen to anything the commentators have to say on At the races. I was also at fault for pre race trading too many horses in one race should stick to 1 not 3. And a huge error was made thinking a horse thats already trading at 1.25 wouldn't get any lower .... Errrrr wrong again !! these are all lessons that I learnt for free in practice mode, Im just not ready for going live yet even if i had my funds in place I have way to many things to iron out .... Total loss for the day -£69.14 :-( ( basically everything that i was up last time I traded friday.

[napshnap]

I've heard that if you'll say "Caan" three times infront of a mirror, he'll finally start to make real money on his merchandise. But .... Good luck!!

[iamsteveo]

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

Decided to have a day with real money today varying amounts £2 - £10 stakes with a starting bank of only £50 so i didn't have much to lose if it went tits up, I wanted to see if I emotions were any diffrent they weren't I guess thats down to £50's not a life destroying amount of money . 16 trades in total of which 14 greens and 2 reds. Something became apparent today Im not that good at pre race trading went into running a few times to pull back small losses after some truly disastrous trades that went horribly wrong, found myself backing inplay during races on horses that were clearly not feeling the race and were struggling to go the pace putting on £2 for £40 liability's to make £2 profit seems ludacris but was paying and seems like ridiculously easy money ( i know this is definatley frowned upon and bad practice just asking for trouble ) . Finished the day on a total profit of £9.20. ( PROFIT 1 - DISCIPLINE 0 )

The only thing I can take from today is that Im little more controlled inplay now where as before i was thrashing around with buttons I now know what I'm doing that said I still shouldn't be doing it.

[iamsteveo]

4 wins from 7 greyhound bets from 7/2 - 11/2 total profit bout £130

These are the bad habbits Im trying to give up going forward as a trader greyhound gambling but when your half decent at it, It dust make it any easeir 4 from 7 races lowest price winner was 4.7 and upwards on the exchange. I was kinda hoping my ability to read greyhound form and races would help me with trading but it dust I find the market far to volatile and i find the prices do not relate to the greyhounds I think will win.