On the subject of mistakes, I am assured (nearly every day) that the best of the best make mistakes, and that it should be a negative outcome but instead a brilliant opportunity to learn what you did / what went wrong.

I find my main source of mistakes is either trading when I have other things going on, in life or in my mind. Also being to close to the action eg; missing the wood for the tree’s.

The way that I am trying to accept in my mind is that mistakes are natural and if you will the price you pay for success, whilst I perceive them as  inherently negative it is how you react to a mistake that defines whether it is negative or a positive process.

Allow me to explain… If you make a mistake, analyse what you did wrong (or what happened in the market) analyse what you should have done, analyse why you made the mistake and address the underlying issues present in your psychology and approach to ensure that you will recognise the situation again when it occurs – then how can that be negative?

I am not fully there yet though in my mental process, it is human to look at a mistake as negative and it will take me time to accept it. What I have found then is that I will stop trading even for a short while to get my thoughts and decisions on paper rather than to leave them untill the end of the day. Often when the facts are imn black and white they dont seem as bad as they are in your mind and for me a trading diary is a must. Although cringeworthy it is tremendously confidence boosting to read the mistake you made when starting, and that you haven’t repeated them (well all of them!)

The second point that I want to touch on is missed opportunities. I have realised that every a cray cannot possibly act of every single opportunity to trade and when you are feeling bad about an opportunity that you have missed then you will either miss the next few as your mind is closed to new opportunities, or think that the opportunity still exists or just to jump into something on tilt.

My thanks go to Matt and the whole crew, and also several books that I have digested (and still read regulaly) on these two subjects which I find are major pitfalls in my psychology.

Thanks for reading

You can sample this service free until January 3rd 2010, but be quick as we could be closing our doors very soon.

X-Movers is collaboration between myself and Steve Howe (protradertip), we’re both full-time traders on horses and we have been working on formula to simplify how to trade the markets successfully by following an easy three step process.

The sevice launched on the 30th November and we have been recieving very positive feedback amongst the X-Club members.

If you would like to sample this service you can do so by heading over to our main site at Pro X Trading. But hurry we only have limited numbers left and will be closing our doors to new members very soon.

The longer format lends itself to a favourite bias compared against shorter format tournaments. Pete has looked to see if there was an angle in-running at backing at increased percentage on the SP odds and both 2008 & 2009.

This increased in an overall profit increase of 94% on backing certain favourites at SP.

With the football season almost over Pete is concluding the trial of his 3.5 goals stratgey and the results have been remarkable with every trading option showing very good profits.

Finally the report is concluded and midway through the tournament the strategy highlighted in Issue 8 is paying dividends as Pete successfully predicted an increase in average scores against last years tournament (held in South Africa)

Grab Your Copy Now

Lesson one: Research and choose carefully the games you trade.

Ill now only be trading the games with everyone else in the X Club i.e  PL/ CL and WC and not the Europa League games and other lower leagues. I need to improve my game reading also about when to use goal demanding strategies and I will be purchasing some basic coaching books.

That said, I’ve not made a massive loss and in reality it only counters February’s ROI so its not all doom and gloom and I have learned some valuable lessons over the short period from the middle of March to the end of it.

Lesson 2: Preparation.

I’ve kind of told myself now that if I haven’t researched the games in terms of the pre game markets then I’m not allowed to trade, this will stop me being lazy and entering games on a whim without knowing what to expect, hence me being a little quiet in the trading rooms. I’ve been trying to assess the pre match markets and have now got a crib sheet for the information to look for, I’m hoping that this will help me out long term and will stop me being lazy. I wanted to be educated about trading and I know the road will be long and at times mentally taxing, but I’m determined to succeed and learn from my mistakes.

Lesson 3: Use your stop loss.

Enough said here and I made one mistake with this which I believe affected my judgement over the rest of the month.

Anyway, I’m still enjoying everything and the banter in the trading room but I need to be more disciplined. that will be my Mantra for April and every month that follows.

Kevin

It has been an intesting month for my trading so far with a couple of large movements in the pre-game match odds for a couple of games, notably in the Manchester United game and on the Arsenal game recently

Under the guidance of the xclub I have been able to put myself in a position to take advantage of these low risk bank boosters, I have also been concentrating on trading on horse racing following the advice and guidance within the x movers service. The live commentrary provided by Matt is fantastic to slow the market down and to prompt you what you should be looking at, and to me at least it seems as thought the markets move slower (which I know isnt the case I cant just process faster) My trading as a whole has been calmer so far this month and my bank has steadily increased, of course there have been loses but the bottom line is creeping up. What danger this now presents is that I dont get over confident in my abilities as a trader as I have done at times before.

The Arsenal Vs Porto game on the 9th, I found difficult to trade. I successfully made a profit on the game but I found the game hard to make judgement on because of the pace of the game. One thing that I was please regarding my performance was that I stayed out of the markets as I could not be sure wheras before I may have lept in, or not had the discipline to sit out of the market. In black and white this seems silly, but when its in your mind and you have a finicial interest then even the simplist decisions can become paralysing – if you let them be.

I am looking forward to the next issue of the x report and in particular the analysis on past IPL games, with the IPL starting in a few days it is something that I keen to attack. however I do not want to spread my self to thinly and I need to dedicate my trading to mastering or at least improving my football and horse trading, with the start of the flat season in just over a week the markets I have been told will feel like different animals to what we have seen throughout the bleak wintertime.

February also saw me using the methods that sought a goal in games, which previously I had be cautious to use, though when I did start using these methods I saw an unbroken streak of success, however not always with the full bank percentages matched when the goal arrived. I also had a couple of instances whereby two goals followed each other quickly meaning there was no need to trade out and the full profit was secured.

I also managed to harden my mindset considerably in February, partially from some reading about the subject, but also by trading out of some early setbacks with further methods that allowed me to return to a scratch position. Previous months would see me with a ‘rabbit in the headlights’ kind of reaction to a market not going in the way I wanted it to and then being reluctant to trade further due to the fear of making the position worse, but now I have overcome this fear and realised that continuing to be consistent is the most important thing.

One of the things I need to do is judge when to use the goal demanding methods and when to use the none goal demanding methods, as I seem to have neglected the latter a little after a good run of the former and it has cost me in the first weekend of March, with me being far to eager to use goal demanding methods when there is not enough value and/or the game has had few chances. I really need to work on this as I traded four games over the weekend and 2 of the four did not have goals in the required time frame and one where the goal was very late. This has given me a negative start to March but my reading has shown me not to take these games in isolation and treat them as part of the big picture. I’ll admit, it’s hard to do but I believe if I can master this mindset it will be key to my success as a trader.

My target for March is 15% ROI. I have increased my bank so this is not a backwards step, just a realistic and obtainable one. I’ll aim to report weekly on my thoughts in the main, but maybe more often if I have any thoughts which might provide interesting reading. This week we have Wigan Vs Liverpool, I expect this to be tight so maybe not a game for goal demanding. We also have the Champions League second leg ties which should be interesting including Man United’s return tie with Milan.

Kevin

I trade plenty of tennis matches, but never get involved in any match the Davydenko plays.

Let me set the the scene to this movement.

Davydenko’s Betfair SP = 1.16

Davydenko’s trading price at end of set 1 = 1.06/1.07 (he took it 6-3)

Davydenko breaks in set 2 = 1.04

Now this is where the carnage starts, Davydenko playing well calls for the Doctor giving off signs of illness.

Losing 3-2 Monaco breaks to love and holds to lead the set 4-3, below is a snapshot of the Betfair graph at 3-3 and then again 4-3

Davydenko v Monaco taken at 3-3 (set 2)

Davydenko v Monaco taken at 4-3 to Monaco (2nd Set)

Now no doctor or trainer actually appeared on the court and the price on Betfair bounced back to 1.70 before Davydenko served the first point in game 8.

What alerted me to something that may be going was the £1million on the back side (laybet) at 1.06 around the time all this started.

I supposed you can guess what happened the next 2 games?

Yes; very easy Davydenko held and then broke to make it 5-4, the graph below shows how the market came back in line as quickly as it went out.

Davydenko v Monaco taken at 5-4 to Davydenko (set 2)

I guess there may be plenty of conspricacy theories on what happen.

• Was the illness a sign?
• Where did that £1 million laybet come from? (waiting to be matched)
• Was the change of racket at 0-15 the confirmation Davydenko was to get broken this game?
• Why didnt the doctor come on court?

Now, I am not suggesting anything suspect went on here, I am just presenting the that facts on what happened to the Betfair market and the score in the match at the time.

It was from Lay The Odds journey began for the X-Club through a joint venture where I mentored and advised traders during the 2007 Rugby World Cup. It was through the success of this venture that I launched Pro X Trading and the X-Club.

Two years on the X-Club goes from strength to strength with almost 50 Betfair traders in the community all sharing and helping each other in the trading process.

Gavin was kind enough to help me cement the footings for my project, that I have no problems contributing to his website.

The X-Trader Series will be a bi-monthly column that will appear on www.laytheodds.com and other Wednesday. I have written my intoduction for the column and that can be viewed on the site now.

The X-Report is written by Pete Nordsted the Author of Mastering Betfair and active trader within the X-Club

The aim of the report each issue is to provide you with detailed market analaysis of the biggest sporting events. This is coupled with Pete’s synopsis of how you can exploit the angles in future events.

You can never be armed with enough information at your disposal and the vast majority of the X-Club members subscribe to this report for its comprehensive detail.

Its doing the market analysis for them, so they can concentrate on exploiting the markets rather than putting in the effort to keep up the research.

The X-Report is exclusive to Pro X Trading and you cant buy it anywhere else.If you’re serious about making money from Betfair then having this on your desktop will certainly give you the edge over the vast majority of traders.

This report will pay for itself several times over!

Whats in Issue #5 (149 pages)

This issue Pete has analysed previous Darts Wrold Championship events to pinpoint possible opportunities with the tradional festive arrows

His continued research of the NFL season is throwing back some excellent reults so far. Once again his low-risk strategy in the under 3.5 goals market in the Premier League is producing solid profits.

He wraps up this months issue with a look at the on how you can profit on the Sun Naps using a simple technique

This information will be unavailable anywhere else.

Issue #5 – 149 Pages Out Now Just £15

Contents

• Darts World Championship.
• The NFL
• Football
• Test Match Cricket
• Horse Racing (The Sun Naps)

The X-Report will provide you the perfect trading platform by combining past market and statisical analysis of major sporting with future predictions on how you can use this effectively in the Betfair markets.

To me: there is a lot of one-upmanship surrounding what type of green-book you should have when you have decided to close your position.

In truth: there is no right or wrong answer to the question, because as a trader your risk v reward calculations should always be within your comfort zone.

Just because ‘Jack’ is leaving himself liabilities on a short priced favourite because he fancies it to get beat, it doesn’t mean you have to!

I work to two rules if I dont have a strong opinion on the outcome of a match:

Rule 1: Do I know which direction the market is moving?

• If Yes: Leave profits on the market that is moving in my favour.
• If No: See Rule #2

Rule 2: Always green-up if you have no strong opinion on the outcome or know which direction the market is moving.

A common mistake traders make after they have green-up there position is thinking that their work is done on the market, this is far from the truth.

What you still need to know if activating rule 2?

The first thing they need to find out for future reference is which way the market did eventually move, should they have closed their position on the outcome thats likely or least likely to happen. Did I close too early or too late and missed the optimum price etc.

Lets look potential outcomes on a tennis match.

Example: Say you was watching a tennis match and having watched the first couple of games you fancied the favourite to break the serve of the outsider, the favourite is available at 1.50 on Betfair and you place £200 as your opening position.

They break in game 5 and the odds drop to 1.25, the immediate response by novice traders is green book and will close out for equal profits.

Let go back to Rule 1; we have an idea of the which direction the market is going to move, if the favourite holds serve the price will move in further, if he gets broken back it will move out to just over 1.50. (lets be generous and say 1.60)

An equal green book would see you win £40 before commission on both players. If you square off your liabilities on the outsider, then your green book would read £50 on the favourite and zero on the outsider.

If you did that and favourite was broken back next game and you greened up your position at 1.60, you would probably have a green book of something like £32 on the favourite and £30 on the outsider.

If the favourite holds serve in the next game then the price will probably drop to 1.18, you could squeeze another £2.80 profit on the favouite (£42.80) by reducing your liabilities on the outsider to zero on the break and greening-up if the favourite holds his serve.

Deciding what to do: Like I said at the begining of this post, there is no right or wrong when closing to make a green book, its down to what you feel comfortable with.

As a trader these are the sort of questions you’ll be asking yourself, if you find all this too taxing, there is no harm in just taking an equal green book. You just wont be as profitable as somebody who does!

Part 2

I will crank the thought process up a notch or two of what options are available  if you have a strong opinion on what may happen next!