In a nutshell

Since I restarted the blog, I have been trying to articulate exactly where it is I'm coming from with the trading. Frankly, I have found it a struggle. I don't feel that I have been able to explain in anything like a satisfactory manner what it is that I'm attracted to by it and the underlying philosophy behind the trading style and approach that I am trying so hard to learn.

My teacher, Betfair Guru (http://bfglivesportstrading.blogspot.com/), sends out a daily email which outlines potential trading opportunities across a variety of sports but with particular attention paid to tennis. This acts as a useful guide but for members of the Live Sports Trading service, such as myself, the benefit of BG's expertise is available in a live environment with clear trading instructions given at the appropriate time. This is great when completely new to trading, as I was back in the autumn, and it also acts as a great teaching tool on an ongoing basis (and believe me, I still have a lot to learn). I still follow BG's instructions, but I'm now beginning to understand why we are making the trades we make and recently, I have started to anticipate opportunities arising myself, which does feel like a big step forward.

Anyway, I digress. In today's email, the message contained a few paragraphs that laid out in clear terms what it is that this style of trading is trying to achieve; the philosophy if you like, behind the mechanics. It sums up what has so attracted me to this style of tennis trading in a way far superior to anything I could write.

So here it is...

"The underlying theme of everything we do is market dynamics and risk reward. It's very important to distinguish between price related entry and opinion related entry.
For our entries it doesn't matter for a second who wins the match eventually but what we do need is tight closely fought games.

One of the points I push repeatedly in the chat room is I have as much chance of knowing who's going to win the next game as you do. IF we take that approach we are basically guessing and hoping we got it right and that's not a road I want to go down.

Our approach is based on taking good risk:reward positions over and over again as long as the price and dynamics are right. Over time we will win an awful lot more than we lose, but lose we will... repeatedly in fact. And that's just the price you have to pay to have your money in the market with a chance of a big swing. The losses are tiny and the wins are big and that's how we make our money.

The MOST IMPORTANT thing to implement here is patience and discipline..... I cannot make the opportunities arise, they just happen or they don't. When they do we'll make the appropriate entry, if they don't come then there's no way I'm going to advise anybody to put their money in a spot that I am not prepared to. Over time you will begin to make your own entries but it's vital that they are at the right places. "

And that, is the context within which I talk about trading on this blog. I hope that makes where I'm coming from that much clearer and gives an insight into what we are trying to achieve.

Today's Betting

Northern Monkey has had a rather testing start to 2012. A period of adjustment was due after a storming Autumn/Winter period. But had this fallow couple of weeks cowed Wayne (aka. Northern Monkey) at all; led him to be more cautious in his approach to his tipping perhaps? Nope. Not a bit. Bang! - a 1.25pt win bet advised on a 12/1 outsider in a seven horse race. It didn't win, but I was impressed - Wayne had conviction and that is great to see in any tipster, especially when they're not getting the breaks. Losses on the day were only lent too, as a lovely winner was found in the second race played in (Prince Of Burma - Kempton - 8/1). This was the only winner of the day, but proved enough to provide a decent profit as Chasemaster, Winning Racing Tips and On The Nose found each way selections finish successfully in the frame.

Northern Monkey: Staked 2.5pts, +3.5pts.
The Market Examiner: Staked 1pt, -1pt.
On The Nose: Staked 1.5pts, +/- 0pts.
Chasemaster: Staked 0.5pts, -0.2pts.
Winning Racing Tips: Staked 0.8pts, +0.16pts.

Wednesday 18th January: Staked £203, +£88.60.
Month to date: Staked £4,101, +£678.34, roi 16.54%