A little of this, a little of that

A good week's work in all, especially considering I was away for the weekend so missed out on the majority of trading. I wasn't particularly devastated though, as Cup weekends aren't my favourite, especially the later rounds where there aren't many ties but still too many to have a Premier League fixture list. Anyway though, the week went well, and I finished £23.36 in profit, which isn't bad from a bank of £100. The main source came from the 0-0 half time lays, which have not yet had a losing bet (though I conveniently managed to sidestep the losing bets over the weekend when I was away). I realise they won't always be winning, but as long as they're profitable long term like their results suggest, then that will do me.

The tests of my own are going well, finishing with small but steady profits for the week. With the dutching, I am having a bit of trouble figuring out which is the best method for it. At present I am looking to dutch around 4 or 5 results for a total of £5 stake at over evens odds, and usually I look at games which are predicted under 2.5 goals. For the majority of the matches, if it is 0-0 at half time I will trade out for around 50% profit on all outcomes. I'm not sure whether I prefer this, or whether I prefer to dutch matches with a clear favourite, as this allows me to go for a higher profit. Last night I tried backing many outcomes throughout the match so I was covered on most outcomes instead of just taking a small loss at half time like I should have. I ended up 20p in the green, but I didn't like how much red was left on the unlikely (but not impossible) scorelines as it was well over double my original stake. Luckily I didn't lose out on this occasion and I have decided I will not use it again.

My other system is still in early stages. It is just a simple laying method but at the moment it has no real structure but I am slowly developing it. Also this week I have had a rejuvenated appreciation for laying the draw (mainly due to the success of a version of it on my Laytheodds review) and have been dabbling with it a bit. Many people have many different things to say about laying the draw, and I'm still unsure as to whether it can be profitable long term. I know a lot of people are very successful with it, but I also know that many have lost a lot with it, so I am going to test it out for a while and see how it goes. Still only small stakes so it shouldn't hurt me too much. I have also put a small poll on the left of the page to gauge what the most common opinion of it is, please feel free to vote but only serious votes please, and try to only vote if you have a basis for your answer.

Another milestone in my trading life is properly documenting all of my results so that I can see what has been working and where I'm going wrong. Last week I started this and have three different sections; the first is recording my Correct Score Dutches, the second is looking at my Lays, and the third is 'Other'. Each one has a bank of £100 but in actual fact I am only using £100 overall (as you know), so I am just doing this for eases sake, hopefully it won't affect me. Good luck this week, happy trading one and all.

A Review of the week

Well what a cold week we have had! Great for an excuse to stay in and trade, but not so good when all the games are being called off! Luckily though we had a full bill of Premier League action to entertain ourselves with, and it was a fairly successful week for me. Things are a bit confusing at the moment though because I am still doing a spot of matched betting, and this really confuses the P+Ls in Betfair. From what I can tell though, both of my systems are in profit for week one of the trial period. System one, which is a lay-to-back technique, had many ups and downs throughout the week as it can be used on nearly every game, but finally finished in profit of a whopping £1.71. This was after betting on 21 games, and using stakes of *on average* £3.50. Not very much I know, but I'm pretty happy that I am in profit in the opening week, especially as I am still working out proper guidelines for myself and looking to establish a bit of consistency with my stakes. My profit could be about £5 better off but for a mistake in the early kick off yesterday which made me pretty annoyed. Basically Arsenal went one up very early against Blackburn, so I layed Arsenal for £22 and was hoping that Blackburn would score. They did, and I could have taken a £5 profit on all outcomes. For some reason though, I was waiting for a couple more ticks before trading out. I waited too long and Arsenal shot back straight away before banging in another 5, leaving me with a loss on Arsenal. Another lesson learnt, trade when you have the chance and don't ponse about trying to make an extra 20p. In addition to this, I took today off as I was out for the Newcastle game (which would have shown a profit) and I try to avoid betting on United when I can (and that would have returned a very large profit). So if I can become more consistent with this it should be able to reward me.

System 2, which is simple correct scores dutching, was much more profitable and brought in £13.10. With these selections I am much more selective, so throughout the week I only dutched 9 games, having 7 winning and only 2 losses. Trading the results throughout the match meant that I experienced lower profits, but it was a much safer way of doing things, as I try to make my maximum loss 50% of my initial stake (similar to how Lambretta does it on http://thoughtsofafootballtrader.blogspot.com/). My biggest loss was £2.44 using this, which is pleasing given that I'm using stakes of £5, (biggest win was £7.09).  

As for the Bonus Bagging, the cogs are in motion and I'm just working on making a hundred or so on free bets. Tomorrow will be another chance to take advantage of Bet365s free in-play bet, where I should be able to make about £30. Not too shabby for very little effort, especially as I made less after a whole weeks work.

My review of Soccer Betting HQ on Laytheodds has resumed and you can find the link on the right of this page. I hope you all had a good weekend, and I hope it gets a lot warmer this week! Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

The ASP System

The ASP system is something which I have been covering for a while now, and as my review of it has been pretty patchy, I thought I would set the record straight. As it happens, during the midweek I have used it on a number of games and it has thrown up some completely new things to say about it, such is the nature of this system. I have read a lot of reviews on it and they have all been mixed, some people love it, others hate it and the rest don't really understand it. The best review which I have been following is this: http://laytheodds.com/tag/assured-soccer-profits/ where the reviewer Richard outlines how the system is more of a core strategy, and each individual should adapt it and change it how they please. This is probably the most accurate description of it I can find, as this is exactly what I have done, by adding in a few techniques of my own, whilst ignoring a couple of the instructions laid out in the manual. To begin with I did try to follow the manual word by word, but even the creator says that it is not necessary to do this, and it certainly didn't suit me to do so. Interestingly, despite finding a way of using the system which seems to provide a regular profit, the reviewer Richard does not really like the product personally, as it is a huge time drain for a very small return. This is something I can sympathise with as, not only does it usually take the full 90 minutes to complete the trade, but it also uses a huge proportion of your bank during this as you do not receive your liabilities back until the end of the game.
Up until this week, regular readers may have noticed the upsurge in ASP profits, particularly last weekend, as I went on a 19 game run with no losses. In this time I had been trying something different but it would leave me highly exposed if the game ended up with no goals, something which I experienced midweek, where things turned for the worst. With 2 games finishing 0-0 and one finishing 1-0 after a late goal I recorded some big losses, with the addition of another big loss from a game which threatened to see too many goals. The latter of these I could not do too much about, although I could have recorded a smaller loss had I remembered an extra thing I should have done (too many games without a loss was the cause of this memory slip), but the first few games gave me an idea which I think should help reduce deficits in the rare case of a goalless game.
I shall persevere with the system as I am determined it can work, particularly as it is perfect for someone like me who is just looking to make small but regular amounts. It can be frustrating at times, very frustrating, and I wouldn't be altogether surprised if I knocked it on the head one day, but that certainly wouldn't be without trying! It certainly has a good theory and the manual is very extensive so I would recommend it, but be warned it isn't for everyone!
As for this weeks trading, it has been another poor midweek but tonight's shift certainly helped matters slightly. I am currently sitting on -£28.06 and am slowly clawing it back as the weekend gets closer. The majority of this was caused by the ASP system, though the Paper chaser hasn't been bringing in great profits either. Tonight was a better night as my new strategy on the ASP took two large wins and a small loss. I will look towards the weekend as I did last week to recoup my losses and hopefully make a profit. Below is my P+L for this week's trading as well as my P+L sheet for the ASP results.

I hope everyone is well.

Golden day

Everything I touched today turned to gold and I did not lose one trade all day. Proceedings began in the early kick off with Chelsea and Arsenal where I traded the 3.5 goals market for a bit, but decided to get out quickly as the game was too open for my liking, this turned out to be quite wise in the end! The three O'clock kick offs continued very well as I used the ASP on three games of Norwich, Sunderland and Nottingham Forest, taking a profit in all three. They were all fairly straightforward, except the Nottingham Forest game which lacked the depth in the market, which was strange considering it had a lot of liquidity. Nevertheless I chose to back out of the market very early in the game to seal a profit on all but one extremely unlikely event. In addition to this I traded the unders markets in the Wigan-Fulham game, which was always destined to be a bore fest, as well as laying the draw in the Swansea-Bolton game and the Southampton-Middlesbrough game - neither disappointed. The only other action was my decision to lay Exeter at half time (2-1 up at Sheff Utd), a trade which would have eventually won, but I bottled it as the liquidity in the market wasn't good enough and I had a chance to get out at a good price and broke even.

In the late kick off between WBA and Liverpool I had a small scare with the ASP system as Liverpool took an early lead, but their flair soon petered out as per usual so I took a small profit. In my one speculation bet of the day further success ensued as I took a small amount from an over 1.5 treble. Overall I took a profit of £54.11 which is a fantastic sum given the awful midweek I had. This means that I am no longer at a loss and am even in profit of £12.34. I'm not sure how much trading I will get to do tomorrow as I have a bit of work to do at uni for Monday, but I will be trading a few games on the ASP system.

It was also a successful day for the SBHQ systems and I will be updating on Laytheodds soon. Below are the P+Ls for the day, you might notice a couple of half time score losses, but that was part of my ASP system, so as a whole they were all wins.

I received quite a few votes of confidence this week as I began to experience my first real down point of this blog, and I am very thankful to those who sent kind words. Good luck to everyone tomorrow and enjoy your weekend.

Weekend ahead

Tomorrow I have an interesting day of betting with speculation being my main form of potential income. The United-Liverpool game is on early so any trading I do won't begin until the three o'clock kick offs as I can't watch United and trade at the same time, especially when playing Liverpool! My biggest bet of the day will be reserved for the unstoppable Frankel, mentioned before his last race, as he takes on the Queen Elizabeth II stakes at Ascot. Due to the unattractive odds of 1.35 I will be doubling him up with an early KO of 08.00 in the J-league between Nagoya and Gamba Osaka - to go over 1.5 goals. This will give me around £23 profit from my £40 stake. This is just under the £25 target for weekend days so I'll have another over 1.5 accumulator on of: C-Osaka vs Kofu (J League 05.00), Exeter vs Huddersfield (Eng Lge One 15.00) and Lillestrom vs Stabaek (Tipplegaen 17.00) at odds 1.7. I will have £5 on this, in order to win £3.51.

Obviously I am accounting for if these two bets are to be successful, but in the case that they aren't I have a couple of other games to use. I will use the ASP system to trade Evian TG and St Etienne at 18.00, as well as Catania vs Inter at 17.00 and possibly a few more yet, I am still researching those. As for the three o'clock kick offs I will probably leave them to trade with the Soccer Betting HQ instead for the first time over a weekend. You can keep updated on this by following my review on lay the odds. One last ditch money making attempt would be to trade the goal markets in the Ceara vs Flamengo match at 22.00. Should my double and treble come in, however, I will not use the ASP or the Brazilian match. Although it would seem like I have a lot to lose for tomorrow, I have a number of Bonus Bagging stakes to be returned so I should be in for a big day tomorrow regardless.

That's all for tonight. Have a good weekend everyone and be profitable.

11th October International dullness

Thankfully the international break is now over, though it has actually treated me pretty well today. The ASP system works a treat when the less interesting teams get together to see what they can do, which is normally nothing. I missed out big time when I got home too late to enter the Greece match, as it would have panned out perfectly for me, but as it happens it didn't matter too much. I used the Slovenia-Serbia and Bulgaria-Wales matches and was saved by a 45th minute goal in each game to turn decent profit of £9.97 and £4.54. It's good to savour these moments because I'm sure I'll be wishing for that last minute goal plenty of times when it won't come. Incidentally, I started a new P+L sheet from Sunday for the ASP as this is kind of a new start, and the old sheet was on -£1 anyway, so practically even.
Aside from this, I made a few quid here and there doing a bit of scalping, as well as some pre-match trading which I have mentioned before I am very interested in. I'm going to look into developing this as the season goes on. The Betfair P+L sheet below is distorted somewhat as it shows £66.10, this is because of the large wins on the Georgia and Poland games which were part of the matched betting from Bonus Bagging, so it isn't all profit. The actual profit amount for tonight is a more modest £16.80, but it is at least well over the £10 per night target for weekdays.
On the subject of Bonus Bagging, it has so far been going well though I am yet to lock in profit, due to the games being selected for me being ages away! Yesterday, due to a mistake from the owner on an outdated bet, I lost £8 (which will be subtracted from the weekly total) but I am sure I will make that back soon. The system itself could not be more straightforward, with 'Mike' laying everything out on a plate for you to do, and the only real ball-ache is registering with loads of new bookies - but for £10+ a pop, this really isn't much of a big deal. My only concern to date (apart from the out-of-date bet) is the obscurity of the bookmakers which are being thrown up, but I shall trust Mike's opinion that these are all secure and good enough.
That's it for now, my review on laytheodds.com should be up and running soon as I have had a look through the manual and have written the introduction to the system, which I can now reveal as being Soccer Betting HQ (http://www.soccerbettinghq.com/). I wasn't blown away by the manual but it does have some interesting techniques and I will look forward to reviewing them nevertheless.
From Monday 11th October my weekly total is £8.80. My overall total is £26.18. Can't see that I'll be doing much midweek trading with the non-existent fixture list available, but this weekend should bring good things. Have a good midweek all.