King Calzaghe

Daily P/L: £43.16
Monthly P/L: £634.81
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The man went and did it and yet again I failed to follow my own advice! You may remember that in this post I mentioned that following Joe's demolition of the Viking Warrior, Mikkel Kessler, his odds to win the Sports Personality of the Year award were still a very tempting 23's on Betfair. Yet again though, I decided that my punting days were behind me so I let the opportunity pass me by. Skip forward a month and what does the champ go an do? He romps home by 50,000 votes! I suppose that's the way things go and it's my own fault for not having the courage of my convictions but the worse bit was that even after Hatton's convincing defeat to Mayweather he was still available at 14's yesterday afternoon :-(
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Well, you can't win them all so I'll have to console myself with a steady gain for the day. It was a mixed bag of results and despite taking an early set back in the game between Glasgow and Biarritz, I was able to claw my way back. It just goes to show that by keeping your losses small you have every chance of making them back on the next event you trade.
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My trading results for today were:
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Rugby Union
Glasgow v Biarritz : £74.06
Stade Francais v Cardiff Blues : £86.66
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NFL
NY Giants @ Philadelphia : £30.56
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On a completely different topic I've been highly amused recently by something a friend brought to my attention on YouTube - what would Star Wars have been like if the cast had been Welsh? Find out by viewing this but beware, the language is shocking but the sketch is very funny!
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Up, Up and Away!

Since Last Post P/L: £18.97
Monthly P/L: £18.97

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We've decided to go - tomorrow morning, myself and Nic will jump on a plane heading for Gran Canaria to take a well earned week's holiday and I can't wait. It's a chance for us to recharge our batteries and forget about everything for a while although I have purchased some gambling books (The Smart Money & Bets And The City) just in case I get any withdrawal symptoms! We'll be staying at the Hotel Gloria Palace Amadores in Puerto Rico which looks just the job :-)

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My weekend on the whole as actually gone quite well. I've got quite a lot done which always helps to unclutter the mind so I'm now feeling quite positive. I'm trying to accept that some things you just can't control so worrying about them isn't going to help one bit.

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On Saturday I was up quite early to go for a haircut as I knew I had to be back by 11am for my appearance on the Man of Mystery's WUBT Ronbot Radio show. I think it went quite well but I'll let you be the judge of that, so if you missed it you can visit the archive here. This area also has access to previous interviews with John 'The Gambler' and Ray 'The Sports Trader' and both of these guys know their stuff so be sure to take a listen to what they have to say.

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My afternoon was then spent doing some research and development on the horse racing markets (where I ended up losing £17.55) and trading the Newcastle v Dragons rugby match (where I ended up making a £36.52 profit). My intention here was not to get too involved as I didn't want to take the emotional baggage of any big losses away with me.
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My time today has all been tied up with getting ready for tomorrow so I'm off to bed now but before I go I'd just like to say a big 'well done' to Joe Calzaghe. His performance last night against Mikkel Kessler was awesome and he deserves every accolade he gets. Odds on him winning the Sport's Personality of the Year have now shortened to 23 on Betfair and that price still looks very interesting to me!
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Have a great week and I'll back to business from 12th November.
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A Mixed Bag

Since Last Post P/L: £85.15
Monthly P/L: £174.81

I traded poorly over the weekend as I was trying to 'push it'. Luckily, I managed to stay on the right side of my profit & loss but it does concern me that a lack of discipline crept into my approach. I know why this is - I was forced into trading sports I'm still learning to trade but my expectation levels were the same as if I was trading all rugby and darts matches. As my results weren't hitting my expectations I felt the need to force things and 'over-trade' which we all know is the wrong way to go. I now need to spend more time analysing cricket and golf to come up with an edge that will see me through the summer.

Bristol v Worcester
After the treat of European rugby over recent months it appears the good times are over as the liquidity in this game was very low. This meant less opportunities and therefore a smaller profit. I was out of the game by half time with an all round green figure of £20.62.

Enzo Macaranelli v Bobby Gunn
Saturday night promised a boxing extravaganza and even though it didn't live up to expectations I thought I'd spotted an opportunity in this fight. Macaranelli is an excellent boxer but to me his trading price of 1.09 before the fight was too short. As the fight was going in-play my strategy was to get out after 5-6 rounds when I'd try and back him for around 1.20. It didn't turn out this way as Bobby 'The Machine' Gunn turned out to be more of a 'Tumble Dryer' and fell to the canvas soon after the fight started. My low liability meant I only made a small loss of £9.90.

Australia v England
I convinced myself that England had a chance in this one and that proved costly. After posting a score of 247 the general opinion on the Betfair forum was that England hadn't scored enough and even though I agreed I didn't think it was as bad as many thought. I'd previously jotted down that a par score would be around 265 so if England could take a couple of early wickets it'd be 'match on'. They didn't and they also struggled to peg the Australian score back (mainly due to an expensive Mahmood) and once Ponting got settled an English victory was never on the cards. My delay in realising this meant a loss of £30.84.

US Masters
The course at Augusta is a beast. It's very long and very difficult and this meant it was impossible to identify a winner until the final holes. The key point for me was Zach Johnson's shot to the par 3 16th. As soon as it landed 10 feet away from the pin I lumped on him at 1.80 and this proved to be a wise move. The 16th hole has ended many dreams in the past and as soon as he made birdie I guessed he'd done enough to take the green jacket. Tiger Woods made me sweat a little but it wasn't to be his day and even though Johnson made a bogey on the 17th he'd done enough to take victory. I ended up with a flattering profit of £105.27 on the tournament.

I'm doing the garden tomorrow and it's back to the day job on Tuesday so my next trading action will be the darts on Thursday - where am I going to make profits after that finishes?!?

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