£100 to America

I'm looking at booking another trip to the USA in mid to late June and as a result I need a little extra spending money. I have enough at the moment but it would be nice to have a bit more in the coffers come summer time. I have set myself a challenge. Build that £100 into as much as I can over the next month or so. It is really about all I can set aside for trading because I do plan on eventually moving to America and I need most of my money to even begin setting me up over there. I have no idea what I will do make the move but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I have a lot of time to dedicate to trading at the moment and really I should give myself a bigger starting bank of at least £500 but as we all know there is an element of risk to trading and I am not prepared to risk that at this point in time.

It's 5.30am , this post is shit and I need sleep. I will start with this tomorrow and am already looking forward to it with the eagerness I had when I first started the blog. Hopefully it will keep me posting more frequently. I have set myself some rules and have what I consider a very ambitious target in mind. I will start tomorrow by only trading the ATP Rome Masters. Maybe the same again Friday with some Rugby Union thrown in there Saturday Morning and the Players Championship might get a look in also.

I must apologise for the poor quality of this post. It is 5.30am and the birds have been singing for at least an hour now. I will report back tomorrow with my first days profit, fingers crossed :)

A winning return

April P/L to date: £34.15

Trevor Immelman was the eventual victor of the US Masters and he did it convincingly. He lead from the outset and except for a small blip toward the end never really looked in danger of letting it slip. Like I said in my last post I didn't get involved in the last day and it was good to just watch and not really have to worry. The highlight of the last day except for Immelman getting presented with his green jacket was a Brandt Snedeker interview where he burst into tears. As for Immelman, he is a humble and very worthy champion.

I enjoyed trading the event but £34 profit for 4 days work is a bit less than I was expecting. I am obviously pleased that I have a little more money now than I did on Thursday but I was expecting bigger things. Maybe I should have traded a bit more during rounds. I will just get myself back into the swing of things anyway and see where it leads.

There is Championship League Snooker on Betfair Live Video over the coming week so I may look into trading some of those matches depending on liquidity and a few other factors. Just took a quick look in, the liquidity seems ok but the matches are 4 frames only. I will have a little dabble and see what happens today.

Green Jacket, Green-ish Book

I don't think I will get involved today too much. I think I've traded the tournament ok this far. I haven't really got involved much as rounds progressed and I just opted to trade between rounds to a certain extent. So going into Sunday here is how I will end up should each player win;

Immelman (-11) +37.57
Snedeker (-9) +52.01
Flesch (-8) +28.07
Casey (-7) +49.92
Woods (-5) +5.80
Cink (-4) +20.00
Mickelson (-2) +38.52
Goosen (-2) +93.62
Poulter (-2) +54.67
Karlsson (-2) +29.97
O'Hair (-2) +28.07
Harrington (-2) +41.37
Romero (-2) +44.22
Johnson (-2) +72.72

There a couple of others who are green and my liability is around £22.55 should none of these win. I am probably going to do some last minute adjustments before they set off for their final rounds so these figures will be roughly where I stand. I will probably looking at getting Woods a little greener and generally potching round until I'm happy. So barring a big upset or a Woods victory I am happy enough that my first venture back into trading has been a good one :)

Edit (14:06): Just backed Woods for a couple of quid and now have around £20 green on him. I will definitely not get involved any further and so my book is complete. Here's hoping for a good final day!

Update

I think I got a little too heavily involved on a couple of players just now but that can easily be put right should they get off to good starts. I didn't get out of my Rose position and now I'm sorry I didn't as he tumbled down the leaderboard like a swatted fly. I thought he was losing it a little even before he hit an 8 late on in the round. I've set up a lot of small backs this morning and now my current position is:

Woods -60.65
Mickleson +54.15
Immelman +53.50
Snedeker +106.40
Casey +65.55
Goosen +109.25
Rose +89.06
The field 0.00

I've reduced my liability on Woods because I'm scared of him! I seen that unreal 4 he made at 18 last night after playing another distinctly average round and it puts into perspective how much of a genius he is. I thought for sure he was going to drop at least a shot. The figures today take commission into account whereas yesterdays didn't. I will between now and the end of play Sunday be looking at greening up all round for around £50, which from where I stand now is a very difficult situation. Any profit I post I will be happy with though.

Getting back into the SWING of things

Trading the golf...now do you get it?! Swing...golf. Ah well never mind. I decided to start trading the golf last week some time and could not wait for it to start on Thursday. I didn't however want to be too eager and jump straight in. I took a watching brief all day yesterday and decided my plan of attack for today. I watched Amen Corner for a while today before making my first few plays of the tournament. I've only made a few trades so far and I am letting them run a little. They are all currently in winning positions but I am looking at bailing from the Justin Rose back I made before he went out. My book so far stands like this:

Woods -122.50
Mickleson +137.50
Rose +126.25
The Field +32.50

I am pretty happy with the current state of affairs and am playing only for small stakes in general. Got a bit carried away laying Tiger mind. He was full of optimism yesterday saying he had played great but not had the results to match. I thought his play was at best average but I am preparing for his assault over the weekend and am ready to back for a loss if it starts going tits up. Rose normally likes to fade away over the last couple of days but if he can put in a strong round today I'm prepared to have a little faith in him and let the back ride a bit longer. Mickleson was one of my pre-tournament picks but I held off backing him until earlier today. Whatever happens over the next few days I am ready for this rollercoaster I have stepped back onto.

The Great National

Tomorrow will see hundreds of thousands of once a year punters flock to betting shops around the country. It is of course The Grand National. I studied this race for over 2 hours and still had a shortlist of 7! I know already what's going to happen. My mother and sister will pick a random name and get closer to the winner than my hours of studying ever will! Saying that I did manage to back last year's winner which I tipped here on the blog :)

I've narrowed the field down from 40 to 14, from 14 to 7 and gradually whittled it down to 3. As Sod's Law would have it the winner will be one of the other 4. More likely than that though is that the winner wasn't even on my original shortlist of 14! It baffles me why all these people have their only bet of the year on one of the most difficult betting races of the year! The good man that I am, I will help them out and offer my very rare tips.

Seems all I do is tip on the blog lately. There is a reason for that. My aim to start trading at the beginning of April hit a blip. A technical one. Laptop failure. Again. If the laptop is going to be out of commission for a while I have decided to go back to straight up betting for a while. I find that to be much tougher though so that might not be such a good idea but we shall see what happens when I take the laptop back. It's only a few months old but it took a fairly hefty fall when the dog tripped over the lead and sent it flying. It seemed to work fine for a while but then gradually got worse. I'm wondering if he has loosened something inside. I will of course not be telling them this! If they make me fork out more cash then so be it.

Anyway on with the tipping. Comply Or Die and Snowy Morning are my two main fancies for the race. Comply or Die's last two runs have been a couple of fine efforts with a win over 4m 1f at Newcastle the last time out and a 2nd behind market leader Cloudy Lane showing that he has the stamina to win at the longer trip and is able to compete with the favourite on less favourable terms than he will have tomorrow. It seems the blinkers have made him made a new horse and I hope they will be the first set over the line tomorrow.

My other main fancy is Snowy Morning and if anything I fancy this a little more than Comply Or Die. He finished second to Denman in last years Royal & Sun Alliance Chase at Cheltenham and stayed on well up the hill. He finished only 1/2 length behind Turko a couple of outings ago and finds himself 9lb better off in this race. He was also only 3 lengths behind Hedgehunter in last time out who finished 2nd behind Afistfulofdollars but he is far, far better off tomorrow. There was apparently a little breathing problem but the vet reported everything as fine. The thing about this horse is he's a dour stayer and will plod on all day. In my opinion he is weighted up very well and should run a big race if everything is ok with the horse.

My outside squeak is Backbeat. He has run a couple of decent races this year since coming back from a long lay off and could run a big race at a massive price. So the prices available at the moment are:

Comply or Die - 11/1 @ SportingBet - 1st 5 E/W
Snowy Morning - 22/1 @ SportingBet
Backbeat - 100/1 General

It is advisable to seek out the best Each Way terms you can. Some bookmakers will only pay the standard 4 places however a lot of bookmakers are betting 5 places. Whatever you're on be lucky!

Cheltenham Summary and a Welsh GRAND SLAM

As always Cheltenham was a bit of fun and very entertaining for me. Also as usual I have come away from the meeting showing a loss! The last day of the Festival was of course the Gold Cup and the head to head battle between stablemates Denman and Kauto Star. I was in the Kauto Star camp but the horse never really ran its race and Denman cruised to victory denying us all the head to head coming up the hill we wanted to see. I wasn't helped when my father sent me a text which read "Kauto Star, my arse!!!!". This coming from a man who never studies form and picks a random name toward the top of the betting. Mind you I can't say a lot about his selection method as mine wasn't all that much better for the Festival! He was of course on Denman and if that wasn't enough he had bet Shane Williams to be 1st Tryscorer in the Wales v France GRAND SLAM clinching match.

Ayway this is how the Festival turned out for me...

Day 1: -8pts

Day2: 0pts

Day3: +13.88pts

Day4: -14pts

Total Festival P/L: -8.12pts

The highlight of the Festival was an absolutely sensational Champion Chase win by Master Minded. In my eyes this horse could go on to dominate this race for a long time.

The highlight of the weekend however was a Welsh victory over France earning us the GRAND SLAM for the second time in four seasons. Bearing in mind the World Cup we had, Warren Gatland and Shaun Edwards must take a lot of credit for turning what is virtually the same squad of players from losers into the nation's sweethearts and GRAND SLAM champions. I thought there were a couple of unsung heroes within the team who will not get nearly as much praise as Shane Williams, Ryan Jones , Martyn Williams and Lee Byrne but worked just as hard and for me played almost as well. Jonathan Thomas was sensational for the whole tournament and Ian Gough has been awesome in every game, hitting ruck after ruck. This is without even mentioning Shanklin and Henson whose partnership in midfield both in attack and defence was superb.

My plan at the moment is to begin trading in April. I hope to have a decent amount as a starting bank by then and will be looking to post significant profits for the following few months before I head off back to America in the summer.

Cymru am byth :)