Another reasonable day

Trading bank £245.09 - Daily P&L £12.92 - June P&L £45.09
June Free Bet profits £163.89

Finished the VCBet free offer with a £42.22 trade, which after subtracting the 2.16 loss from the qualifying bet this leaves me with £40.06 profit, not bad for just 10 mins work backing and laying 2 races.

So my June trading profits are quite small, only £45 but that is from just 1 week of trading with a £200 bank. I'm pretty happy with the combined £208.18 total for this month.

Todays trading started with an instant £10 loss... lol

managed to get £8.91 green in the 2nd race and figured woohoo I can get it back in one race, only to knock it straight back down to 0.25 by not paying attention... should have just left it at £8.91 and moved to next race... lesson learnt!

3rd race I was too cautious and missed a couple of good trades, which I possibly wouldn't have done had I not wiped out my profit on the 2nd... But still ended up £1.74 green

From there on it was business as usual and I found the markets much easier to read today than yesterday, I was going for 2-3 ticks on most trades and usually getting at least 1 or 2.

Finished up £12.92 for the day despite the initial £10 loss.

One More Trade

Trading bank £232.17 - Daily P&L £12.54 - Total P&L £32.17
Free Bet profits £123.83

Added an extra trade after dinner, another quick £1.74 but then not happy with the next race, nothing to trade, so I called it a night and went back outside with a bottle of wine.

Crazy Prices

Trading bank £230.43 - Daily P&L £10.82 - Total P&L £30.43
Free Bet profits £123.83

Crazy price movements today, so I just did 1-2 tick scalping placing both sides at the same time to try and get near the front of the queue each side.

Ignore the £47.84 in the BF P&L picture as that is a qualifying bet for the VCBet £50 free bet offer, once I get the free bet placed in my account I'll cash that in. Should be about £40 profit once I finish it off.

Only 6 races today, back tomorrow...

Not bad

Trading bank £219.61 - Daily P&L £7.49 - Total P&L £19.61
Free Bet profits £123.83

Another steady day, made about £1.50 per race over 6 races, couldn't do more as invited to sunday lunch and didn't want to miss out on a good meal with proper vegetables and yorkshire puds etc.

Bet fair went really slow and laggy at one point which took a £3 green down to £1.29 but at least it was still green. Reset the router and it seemed to clear up, virgin media cable has been a pain in the arse recently and needs resetting most days.

Also had a slightly lucky lucky escape on one trade where I went -£3 but eventually managed to trade my way out of the red and close for £0.01.

Am finding it much easier to trade £50 than £5 on the higher odds as it means I can focus on one or two entry points rather than trying to string together lots of 10p's. I think there's something to be said for quality over quantity, and the higher stake also makes me focus on entry and exit points.

Although it's tempting to go up to £100 or £200 my bank won't cover laying £200 at anything but short odds, and I think I need to get a few weeks at least of £50 trades before moving up to £100

I have plenty of free bet offers to sign up for as well so they should keep some extra cash coming in for the next few weeks.

Consistent trading

Trading bank £212.12 - Daily P&L £8.90 - Total P&L £12.12
Free Bet profits £123.83

Managed to fit in 8 races today, 1 before and 7 after going to the zoo.

Pleased with how the trades went, and also didn't let the loss go into play, whereas in the past I would have been tempted to green up after the off.

£8.90 from 8 races, and much more consistent. I found today quite easy to trade apart from it being a bit laggy at one point. Hopefully a sign that I'm reading the markets better. Also didn't bother with £5 stakes today, all the trades were done with £25 or £50 which meant rather than having to do 10 winning trades to get to £1 profit I could do it in 1 or 2... Much better.

I think today was a good step towards my goal of making £50 a day from the pre race horses. Certainly had a lot more confidence in the trades I was making and had a reason for every entry and exit.

Zoo

Trading bank £203.22 - Daily P&L £0.00 - Total P&L £3.22
Free Bet profits £123.83

Going to the Zoo today (woohoo) so no trading unless I get back in time for some evening races

Anyway...

It's a bit confusing using the same bank for trading and stealing (can't think of a better name for it) from bookies free offers. So I'm only going to record trading in the trading bank figues (starting from yesterdays £200 bank) and keep a seperate running total for the free bet profits.

More free bets

Trading bank £203.22 - Daily P&L £3.22 - Total P&L £3.22
Free Bet profits £123.83

June Trading Bank starts here!

Joined Billy Hill today and did the first £50 of the £100 free bet offer
Made £42.40. If I can make another £40 of the rest that'd be cool, although it's more work as the first £50 free bet was cashed in by doing 2 trades, a qualifier and then the free bet, but I need to trade 30 races 5x£10 for £10 free bet five times, so not sure it's worth the hassle...

I haven't included it in my P&L as I want to record just my trading P&L and not the guaranteed free money trades. Would be nice if these were available every day...

Trading was ok, didn't trade every market, made a few small loses and one £3 win and one £3 loss (at least I redded up quick instead of letting it get worse)

Henley regatta qualifiers tomorrow so will be having a day off trading.

Just two free bet offers from bet365 and William Hill have so far made me £123.83 which is nice :)

Arbin

Bank £200 (£272.92) P&L +£81.43

Have withdrawn £72.92 to take my bank back down to £200

No trading today, was all made on the Bet265 £100 free bets offer.

Make a £25 bet get a free £25 bet (stake not returned)
Make 5 more £25 bets get a free £25 bet (stake not returned)
Make 5 more £25 bets get a free £25 bet (stake not returned)
Make 5 more £25 bets get a free £25 bet (stake not returned)

Took all afternoon, plan was +/- a few pence due to betfair comission and/or odds differences with lay/back, aiming to break even or not lose more than 90p on the qualifying bets and make £20-£22 on the free bets.

Was quite hard work checking odds and calculating stakes (luckily the the bet72 calculator makes it easier, but still takes time during which odds can move), took about 4 hours and a couple of times I layed on betfair only for bet365 odds to drop so had to close out the trade on betfair and try again. But anyway £20 an hour tax free isn't too bad and not much risk unless the internet or one of the sites goes down.

Free Bets on 365

Have just noticed that you can get £100 worth of free bets on bet356 and basically all you need to do is back on bet356 lay on betfair at lower odds to complete the qualifying bets, and then on the free bets you back at £25 on bet356 and lay at ((25/(odds+1)*odds) on betfair to make your profit...

higher odds give more profit but you need a bigger bank to cover the liability. Not a problem as you can load up the bank and remove it after, but you'll get £22.50 from a 200 bank at 9.0 or £24 from a 600 bank at 24.0 so it's not really a problem if you don't have a few grand lying about...

£90-£100 ish of free money is always good... will take 20 races to cash it in...

Few quid plus a bit of luck

Bank £191.49 P&L +£21.75

Not the greatest day ever, £2 ish over 10 races plus one lucky trade that made almost £20

Was a bit of a pain having only two meetings and 15 mins between races, need to be a lot more productive if I want to make £25 a day as I won't get lucky all the time.

Few Trades

Bank £169.74 P&L +£2.98

Traded a few races today.

Not done anything for a few weeks, so was quite surprised to find that I instinctively placed a few winning trades with no hesitation. Had to go to work at 4pm so no time to build on my profits, but pleased that it went so well after a bit of a break.

Two of the five races I initially went red and then pulled it back to green by stepping back and looking at the market before chasing the loss.

Was working on lower stakes and only did 5 races, so feeling reasonably confident that I can possibly pull in the £20 a day I need over the summer.

Devastating Loss

Guess it had to happen sooner or later...

I have suffered a massive loss that has nearly wiped me out...

I have lost my sunglasses!

Not sure if this is the right thing to do as many people say don't chase your losses, but I'm going to try and get myself motivated and put myself in a positive frame of mind then go back out there and try and recover them.

Hopefully will have better news this evening.

[update]
Never did find them so I guess I need to buy some more...

Pleased

I had a chance to read the first half of John's book this morning.

I'm pleased to report that it is what I was hoping it might be.

Not spectacular claims and magic formulas, but straightforward useful information, opinions and advice with explanations and examples of a couple of John's trading strategies and experiences.

Has filled in a couple of gaps in my current knowledge and re-enforced some of the things that I already knew I need to get fixed if I'm ever going to make a living at this.

Good Day

No Trading this week but lots of work (which is why it's a good day) and there's plenty of time for trading over the summer.

Still not received John O'Neill's book, is well over due now, so I rekon that's possibly £97 down the pan.

Will have to read trading in the Zone again instead.

Legs are a bit knackered, cycled about 60 miles today.

[Update:]
Received a copy of John's book today :)

So it is real after all, and it just seems there is a problem with the post. I have had things take a few weeks getting to Switzerland before so it does happen sometimes...

No time to read it yet, off to work now.

Rainy Sunday

Bank £166.76

Far too much rain today.

Made a small loss yesterday and quit trading as wasn't concentrating at all, then a profit today of about £20 to give P&L +£16.00 over the two days.

Today was much better but missed the start of the Federerererer match and didn't see any opportunity for trades so switched to the horses and did 10 races.

Accidently let one race go into play which is on my list of 'How not to be a good trader' (ooops) but luckily I greened it up for £2.50 about 30 secs after the off.

Very busy week this week so will be working 7am-9am and then 12pm-8pm. No chance at all to trade. Then I'm in Munich for a few days and then 4 days at Womens Henley for the regatta... So not much trading until 22nd June...

Hope to get John O'Neill's book tomorrow or Tuesday which will give me something to read in the mornings. Not expecting it to magically make me a better trader, but hoping to get some pointers to accelerate the climb up the learning curve.

Feel like I'm making a bit of progress on the horses and I only had one trade go badly against me today and was able to get out quick rather than just staring at the headlights, so pleased about that.

See you in a few weeks, not that anyone actually reads this... :)

Maybe when I'm earning £6,000,000,000.00 a day...

Tennis and a couple of horses

Bank £150.76 P&L +£7.76

Made a few quid £6.50 on the tennis today and about £1.25 on the horses (just 2 races)

Still small stakes, but I'm liking the tennis.

Lost £400 on the car! ouch! Also needs a service and cam belt change in 500 miles...

Needs to be done though as I'm taking it to Spain for the summer next month and I don't want to break down on the way, or the way back...

Tennis

Bank £143.00 P&L -£3.70

Did a bit of trading on the tennis yesterday and made about £5

Pity about the £9 I lost on pre race horses the day before :)

Not really in trading mode at the moment, quite busy the next 2 weeks and then I'm going to have time to trade most afternoons so just ticking over and reading forums etc. at the moment.

Tennis trading looks promising, so might give that another go this afternoon.

Back

Back from Spain, where it was hot and sunny and GB kicked Ass in the 1st round of the rowing world cup.

Down side was that my laptop is quite heavy so I left it in the uk and didn't get to do any trading at all, my gf took hers but it is a mac so none of the trading software I know of works on it.

tbh I'm quite glad I didn't take it, was much better sitting in the sun drinking beer :)

Two weeks of hard graft to do now followed by a few days in Munich and then I can get back into some regular trading for the summer.

Alternater knackered in the car when we got back to airport, which is a pain but at least it got us home ok, so have dumped it at the garage this morning so hopefully be fixed soon and won't be too expensive.

Anyway, might have time for a couple of races this afternoon :)