To qualify all I need to do is have a £50 bet pre kick off with Bet365, which I’ll lay on Betfair to break even (it will probably result in a small loss of around £1 to £2).

Then I will do the in running free bet, probably at half time so the price can’t change too much due to a goal or sending off, etc. After I have done the in-running free bet, I’ll partially lay it on Betfair to ensure a profit.

The way I will do it will see a guaranteed profit, working on a theory that the free bet is an even money shot, I’ll guarantee a profit of around £25, as I would only partially lay the bet on Betfair.

I would stand to win £50 from Bet365 if the bet wins, but my lay on Betfair would only be for £25 of the even money shot, ensuring a profit of £25 no matter what happens.

Bet365 have done a couple of these offers recently. I don’t use them myself these days, but it is always worth having an account for these sort of offers, and the Bonus Bagging service certainly comes in handy for alerting me to the offers.

Results for week 29th Jan -5th Feb….

31/01/12 Everton V Manchester City – Won 63p
01/02/12 Sunderland V Norwich – Lost £9.75
01/02/12 Fulham V West Brom – Won 78p
01/02/12 Mirassol v Paulista – Lost £3.50
05/02/12 Chelsea v Man Utd – Won £3.32
05/02/12 Zaragoza v Rayo Vallecano – Won £4.27

The obvious spanner in the works is the Sunderland V Norwich game. I traded this pretty much by the book and took action when it went 2-0 fairly early on. When it went 3-0 early(ish) in the second half I managed to get myself in a position that seen me half my starting liabilities whether it finished 3-0 (as it did) or Sunderland went on to score a 4th.

On the flip side I was quids in if Norwich had managed a goal, on another night I may well have ended up with a nice win here.

The other loss in the Mirassol v Paulista game was down to me following the market in the belief that Mirassol would score again. I could have traded out at half time for scratch, but I followed the market and stayed in waiting for the equaliser – which ultimately didn’t come.

Thursday and Friday didn’t present any trading opportunities for the system, while I also didn’t use it on Saturday as I just did a bit of good old fashioned gambling in a back to basics fashion.

Onto Sunday and I got out of the Chelsea trade at 1-0, thankfully. And I also did exactly the same in the Zaragoza match.

As a result of a rethink of late I don’t intend to be trading using this system all the time any more, I’m going to be far more selective with my ASP match selections and just use it more sparingly going forward. The main reason for this is because I intend to go back to basics a bit more with my trading and not over complicate things.

Now I check my account almost daily, for example there is an offer on this weekend to play Iron Man 2, and if your £5 losses, Hill’s will give you it back.

And it’s not just weekends that you get these offers either, only last week there was an offer on for Australia day, they seem to be popping up all the time.

See below for an example of where to find it on your login homepage page (I’ve seen tweets from people who struggle to see where they are), this screenshot shows you where to look for the offers… they are usually about half way down on the right hand side….. and they are often emailed to you, just click on ‘My Account’ and the emails are in the ‘Messages’ section.

I won just under £5 playing the ‘Iron Man 2′ offer tonight, I’m obviously not going to retire on that, but I almost doubled my money and it was risk free. I can’t stress how worthwhile these offers are. I’ve only won about £15-£20 overall so far, but it’s all risk free. Imagine you did drop a big win on one of these offers…

One final footnote about these offers, always make a note of the offer you played through and the day you played it. I have noticed that the money hasn’t always been returned to my account after I have lost, on every occasion I have contacted Hills through their live support and on every occasion I have been credited with the money immediately. I’m not sure how I might have got on had I not had the information available though, so it’s always worthwhile to keep a record. Good luck…

More information on Pre Match Trading can be found here.

23/01/12 Southampton v Leicester – Won £3.09
24/01/12 Juventus v Roma – Lost £5.80
25/01/12 Napoli v Inter – Won £2.09
26/01/12 Levante v Valencia – Lost £13.20

Ended the week £13.82 down

I didn’t do to many games last week as I ended up taking a break from using the system due to a lack of confidence and discipline. The loss of £30 the week before in the Leicester V Notts Forest game knocked my confidence and as a result I lost focus and panicked this week in both the Juventus and Valencia matches when they both went 2-0 up in the 1st half of their respective matches.

This ended up in quite a combined loss and I decided to leave the system alone for a few days, instead I ended up trying out new techniques and ultimately just recklessly gambling and losing money over the weekend. So it was a loss that created a knock on effect.

So over the course of Monday evening I have re-watched some of the videos explaining the system in an attempt to get me back on track and also to maybe remind me of things I have forgotten when it comes to trading the system. I also needed to look into ways of how to react better when a game goes 2-0 early in the first half, instead of my recent disasters.

I have now decided to put a limit of £20 on every game I trade for the immediate future. I know this will result in smaller wins, but it will obviously result in smaller losses and it should help prevent panic from setting in if things start to go wrong. It also gives me the chance to slowly rebuild confidence and belief in the system.

I have to be honest and admit I did start to doubt the system, but watching the videos again has showed me that the problem is me and my discipline rather than the system that was wrong.

For example, I was getting two of the most basic things of all wrong. First I was laying differing amounts, it might be £30 on one game and £60 on the next, that’s one of the main reasons why I have decided to set a maximum amount for the immediate future, something which you are advised to do in the videos.

The second point kind of relates to the first point, but could be interpreted as greed and lack of discipline also. As I pointed out, I was laying some games at £30 and some at £60. Why? Well down to trying to win big, in other words, greed. This is another basic failing that has to stop.

Anyway, I’ve had a good long hard think about things and topped up my betting bank yet again and have decided to give it another go. As I said, I’ve imposed a maximum amount to trade (yes,trade – not bet) on each match, and I will be watching the videos over and over again this week to try and improve my use of the system.

One further point I’d like to make is that John Duncan has announced that he will be closing membership to the system to new members fairly soon. I don’t know why he is doing this, he said in the email that it is so he can concentrate on the website and on the system’s existing members which is great for us already using the system, but I do find it a touch strange as it sounds like it is a good seller.

So why stop selling something that’s apparently making money? Doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s not my system to sell. Maybe it will come back again in a few months with improvements and be re-branded, I don’t know.

So if anyone reading this is considering buying the system, it might be worth investing sooner rather than later.

17/01/12 Leicester V Notts Forest – Lost £30.00
18/01/12 Wrexham v Brighton – Won £2.04
18/01/12 Wolves v Birmingham – Won £1.95
21/01/12 Erciyesspor v Bucaspor – Won £3.73
21/01/12 Wolves v Aston Villa – Won £2.33
21/01/12 Espanyol v Granada – Won £2.18
21/01/12 Betis v Sevilla – Won £4.08

A week’s loss of £13.69

Because I followed the link on the Top Cash Back site to get to the Ladbrokes site, I not only guaranteed myself a return of £28.50 out of the free bet, but I have also ensured myself a cash back of £20.60 – meaning a nice overall profit of £49.10.

And the best thing of all – is that it was all risk free.

Instead of just gambling the £50 free bet and hoping for a win. I hedged (also known as Matched Betting) it on Betfair to ensure a return of £28.50 whatever the outcome. I prefer doing it this way.

Basically, with my £50 free bet I found a bet that was 9/5 on Ladbrokes, I then layed it on Betfair (at around 2/1) for £30 and ended up with a profit of £28.50 after commission.

At the moment there is that many free bets around, that you can build up a handsome amount without taking a risk at all, and if you can get a free ‘cash back’ into the bargain, it’s a win, win double.

There is a slight downside to the Cash Back sites, and that is that they can take a while to pay out. But it’s free money and it arrives in the end, so I certainly won’t be complaining.

I don’t think it hurts to sometimes take a step back to try and re-evaluate things, or just so I don’t get bogged down, bored or complacent – all of which can lead to bad decision making that could cost me winnings.

Anyway, not sure if it was down to the 2 day break, better match selection, a change in strategy or just simply a change in luck, but I managed to record a welcome profit of £23.79, from the 9 games traded.

Here is the list of those 9 games….

10/01/12 Cambridge Utd v Grimsby – Won £3.15
11/01/12 Tottenham v Everton – Won £1.57
11/01/12 Birmingham v Ipswich – Won £2.14
14/01/12 Blackburn v Fulham – Won £2.37
14/01/12 West Brom v Norwich – Won £8.55
14/01/12 Sevilla v Espanyol – Lost £4.77
15/01/12 Newcastle v QPR – Won £7.98
15/01/12 Gijon v Malaga – Won £1.85
15/01/12 AC Milan v Inter – Won 95p

Taking a brief look at some of those games, I traded out of Tottenham V Everton for a small profit at 0-0 just before the opening goal. It was partly down to the fact that an easy green was available at the time and I was rebuilding my betting bank, and partly down to the fact that I expected Spurs might slip up here against a struggling Everton side probably happy to leave with a 0-0.

Birmingham V Ipswich was fairly routine with an early goal, but I was worried about Ipswich’s recent record of letting in goals, so I closed out my position fairly early in the first half.

I reduced my 0-0 liability in the Blackburn V Fulham game as soon as the sending off happened as I felt it could result in Blackburn going defensive. I left a small red on 0-0 and a small green in the middle. Luckily for me I completely closed out my position at HT (it was 1-0 by then), otherwise it would have been a hairy last 10 minutes or so with Blackburn scoring a 3rd in the 79th minute.

The West Brom and Newcastle matches were perfect with a goal coming in the nick of time in both games. In the Gijon and AC Milan matches, I covered my 0-0 liability in the first half as I smelt 0-0′s.

The Seville match was the only lose of the week. When having my rethink at the start of the week I decided to cover 0-0 by around the 35 minute mark in games which I thought had potential to be low scoring.

The flip side of that was that I also decided with games in which I was fairly certain there would be goals, I wouldn’t be so cautious with covering 0-0, instead just significantly reducing my liability, while making sure I didn’t get caught at the other end of the trade with a 2nd half goal rush.

I believed that Seville fitted this bill. I thought that there was bound to be a goal in this match, so as a result I left a bit more green in the middle and left myself with a £4.77 red on the 0-0 (as opposed to no red, like in AC Milan game, etc).

In the true fashion that is ‘Sod’s Law,’ Seville was the only game that finished 0-0, and all the games I thought might have a chance of ending 0-0 and thus covered that particular score – had bloody goals in them.

So in a way I was a bit annoyed that what ended as a good week, could have been a much better week had I been a bit less cautious.

Having said all that, deep down I believe that I did the right thing here. This is the method that I think is going to be most productive in the long run. As I have wrote on this blog many times before, this isn’t a get rich quick scheme, it involves patience and discipline – something, which sadly I generally lack in a bad way.

Onto my Assured Soccer Profits results page and I’m pleased to say that profits are back above the 3 figure mark – hopefully there will be no going back to double figures this time.

This now leaves me with an overall profit of £102.05 from 117 games traded, still well below where I’d like to be, but I feel I’m now heading in the right direction (why did I just write that – I can see next weeks review already).

I’d also like to mention that I intend to try and update my site more regular. If all goes to plan I will try and update in midweek when things will be fresher in my mind of games I have just traded, rather that waiting until the weekend, when I have generally forgot why I did certain things during matches.

Anyway, onwards and upwards is hopefully the way, so good luck to all and let’s hope for a successful weeks trading.

As I pointed out in my Assured Profits System weekly round up, I had a bit of a stinker to say the least on the Saturday. So what did I do to rectify that? I chased on Sunday, and with a hangover so I wasn’t completely thinking straight – all in all, a total f—ing recipe for disaster.

I’ve looked back at the offending bets and to be honest the bets themselves weren’t the problem, it was the vast amounts staked, as I stepped way outside of my staking plan.

The games in question were Doxa Dramas v Olympiakos, and Ankaragucu v Besiktas. Both games seen a heavy odds on favourite, both games ended 0 ‘f—ing’ 0.

I started off laying Under 1.5 goals in the 2nd half of the Besiktas match (Besiktas had a SP of around 1.42). When no goals came, I topped the lay up, then still no goal arrived. So I played my last hand and layed 0-0 to cover the lot (not a mistake I’ve never made in the past!!).

And not a mistake I had to wait long to make again, about 30 minutes was plenty enough time.

Onto Olympiakos, who touched 1.11 in running just to win outright away from home. So when I noticed they were still 0-0 after about an hour, I thought “bingo, here is the chance I need to get my Besiktas money back, and straight away”.

So again I layed Under 1.5 goals, again I topped up at about 75 minutes, again I layed 0-0 on about 85 minutes, again I lost a sodding fortune.

As I stated above, I don’t think with hindsight that the two bets were that bad. It was the abandoning of my staking plan that was the problem. If I had stuck to my usual staking plan this wouldn’t have happened.

I think I can trace the root of the problem back to my lazy ASP trades on the Saturday. I got back into the mode of just assuming that any game would work for the ASP system, and as a result got my fingers burnt. And that in turn led to my chasing on Sunday.

I ended the week with my account showing about £65.00, with the ASP losses contributing to that. I currently can’t really be bothered and don’t really have the will to put up my weekly running total, I will get round to updating it though – probably in next weeks blog.

I’m afraid it’s now time to get back on the bike and wait until I inevitably fall off again.

Just for good measure, I’m going to shout this one more time at myself………….YOU STUPID BOLLOCKS

I can accept that a couple of them might have been risky trades, but the law of averages surely meant that three of those five games wouldn’t end up 0-0, but that’s exactly what happened. Birmingham V Wolves and Nottingham Forest V Leicester both had potential to be low scoring games, but I expected that maybe one goal would decide these games.

With that in mind, maybe I would have been better off taking the approach I adopted in the West Brom V Everton game the week before, yes, the approach that I claimed I would follow from now on – but didn’t bother just a week on.

The reason why I abandoned the West Brom approach so soon was because I thought that 0-0′s are fairly rare and that I may as well just take them on the chin. I decided that the money I could win by not trading out so soon, should outweigh the loss that the odd 0-0 will cost.

After what happened on Saturday though, maybe another slight adjustment is needed. Maybe in future when I do a game that I believe could be low scoring, I should set the bet up for a minimal loss on 0-0, with the majority of red on the higher score in the trade. And if I anticipate a few goals, set the trade vice versa.

For the record, the 4th loss, Derby V Crystal Palace obviously wasn’t down to a 0-0, it was down to an early goal before I got 0-0 matched and a subsequent lay of 1-0 – maybe in future I should just get out of a game that has a goal before a 0-0 lay is matched.

Of the 15 games traded last week between 02/01/12 and 08/01/12, I recorded a loss of £16.12. Here is a list of those games…..

02/01/12 Rochdale v Preston – Won £4.70
02/01/12 QPR v Norwich – Won £3.32
02/01/12 Blackburn v Stoke – Won £4.37
02/01/12 Portsmouth v Watford – Won £1.90
02/01/12 Rio Ave v Sp Lisbon – Won £3.73
03/01/12 Wigan v Sunderland – Lost £14.13
03/01/12 Man City v Liverpool – Won £2.01
04/01/12 Everton v Bolton – Won £1.47
04/01/12 Newcastle v Man Utd – Won £4.89
05/01/12 Valencia v Sevilla – Won £5.13
07/01/12 Birmingham V Wolves – Lost £10.00
07/01/12 Derby V Crystal Palace – Lost £7.90
07/01/12 Nottingham Forest V Leicester – Lost £10.24
07/01/12 Santander v Zaragoza – Won £5.70
07/01/12 Sociedad V Osasuna – Lost £11.07

All this means I now have a running profit of £78.32 using this system, I will update my Assured Soccer Profits results page in full over the next 24 hours.