Personality Traits

Betfair Football Trading pointed me to a video on trading over at You Tube - and as Gundulf said, it is worth ten minutes of your time and I agree, even if (like me) you know everything already. I also watched the two preceding videos on setting up your bank and on staking, and again there is some good advice in there, although the impression that you can build your bank by 5% a day with no hiccups is a little unrealistic. Rich from Racing Profits, does emphasise the importance of selections being profitable to level stakes - making Level Stakes Profits (LSP) as he calls it, and overall it's a good set of videos, even if your interest is outside of racing.

I liked one slide where Rich contrasted the psychological characteristics of the 'Betting Pro' against those of the more casual 'Punter'. I've modified it slightly so that the 'Casual Punter' categories all rather neatly (in my opinion) now begin with an 'I', but the content is essentially the same as that in the video:

There was also a quote from Rich, which was that:

The quality of selections you make or use on a daily basis are the bricks that will build your income, but the mindset and approach you adopt to your business and betting activity is the cement that holds it all together.

A flowery way of saying that first and foremost you need to have an edge, but that an edge without solid money management strategies and a disciplined approach is not enough to bring in profits.

I spent last night in the cells (OK, those of my Excel spreadsheet - someone on Twitter suggested it would make me sound edgy), looking at tweaking the XX Draw Selections to generate more picks, albeit at a lower ROI. 

The current, let's call it the 'Classic', version has in close to three seasons generated 334 selections, with an estimated profit of 54.05 points, an ROI = 16.18%, while the 'Expanded' option under consideration would have generated 1,108 selections for an estimated profit of 125.7 points, and an ROI of 11.35%.

Interestingly, with the typically higher draw price in the Bundesliga, the returns from the current (very selective) picks are still slightly in profit, while under the expanded selection criteria, they would be very slightly down - the opposite of Serie A.

I'll update the numbers at the end of the season, one which seems to have flown by faster than ever. I'm told time has a habit of doing this as one ages, since one year of your life when you are 10 is a whole lot bigger a percentage than it is when you are 50.

And on the day the world commemorates the centennial of the Titanic's sinking, news that the chief designer of the Titanic had a lisp - that's unthinkable.