Young And Reckless

A couple of comments from the last post, the first from Josh who wrote:

I agree with you here Cassini. This year I have used a starting bank of £50 for my week to week trading, despite the fact that I could invest more if I wanted. Like you say, finding the value and making small and incremental profits is the most important thing for me right now, and I find it very rewarding. Each £2 win is much enjoyed while every £2 loss is extremely aggravating. You could say however that I have an advantage being only 21 and therefore a lot of time to learn, because I think the problem with many people (particularly those older than myself) is their eagerness to hurry through the learning process as greed often overrides patience. But at the same time I do still have to battle greed like any other person, so teaching myself to control and maintain a bank as small as £50 is crucial if I ever want to progress to larger stakes. And I believe that is the same for everyone.

I'm not quite sure what the qualifier "for my week to week" trading means. Once a starting bank is in place, leave it to grow. To me, there's no point building the bank up to say £100 in a week, and then pulling out £50, nor is there any point in repeatedly topping the bank up to £50 each week, but maybe I'm not understanding Josh's phrasing there. I think I am though, because he talks of learning to control and manage a bank as small as £50, which hints at a lack of self-control if the bank should grow by too much. You certainly need to learn self-control.

As for wins and losses being enjoyable / aggravating, it's (almost) the same when you get to a bank of £5,000 and win or lose £200, although it's probably fair to say that winners are accepted more nonchalantly and losers more pragmatically than winners and losers from fledgling banks.

An interesting comment on age there too. For a number of reasons, I'm not sure that youth is necessarily an advantage when it comes to successful trading / betting. I am generalising hugely here, but it seems to me that it is the young who are impetuous and lack the all important ingredient of patience, as well as lacking experience, and usually time. When I was a young man of 21, life was all about going out and having fun, and even if the Internet were in existence back then, I think that other choices in life would have taken priority.

When you have been around the block a few times, are settled in a career and domestically, and with a little money behind you, it leaves you free to spend time on other things, such as trading and betting. I don't see too many young long-term winners around, although I am sure there are some. Look at people like Peter Nordsted, who I believe is retired, and living out his days in a nursing home somewhere. (Just kidding Pete - thanks for the positive comment on Twitter this morning). It also tends to be the younger ones who have to bet every day, even if the biggest match is in the Argentine Second Division.

Then there was Henke who came back with: 

Thanks for the comments. I really like user-owner interaction with this blog, many good points taken.

The reason why I gave the example of making small profits just marginally above the minimum bet was it was that a fail bet would drain a lot profits from your hard earned profits, since you cant bet below that minimum, and since you are playing small you are going to bet at or just above the minimum, but making larger profits give you bigger room for deciding how much you can bet.

In any case I guess the most important thing is the stake percentage and I kind of your way of putting it. 2,5% each bet sounds fair to me. And I guess patience is the key with starting small. Value is value:)

Thanks. Keep up the good work, and good luck!

Two positive comments in one day? The world is already a better place following Obama's re-election! At the risk of teaching Grandma to suck eggs, it's easy to bet less than the minimum on Betfair. Established punters look away now.

If you want to back Crystal Palace to beat Derby County at 1.98 tomorrow, but only want to invest 10p, you do this:

Back Palace at 3.0 for £2. The bet will be unmatched. Increase the stake to £2.10. You will now have two back bets, one for £2 and one for 10p.

Cancel the £2 bet and reduce the odds on the 10p bet to 1.98. Done.

Established punters may now resume reading.

And yes, value is value, and once again, same as I wrote for the Crystal Palace v Ipswich Town game a few days ago, my rose-tinted spectacles see Crystal Palace as being huge value tomorrow.

Apart from an away win at Nottingham Forest back in September, followed by a point at Middlesbrough, Derby's away record isn't great, and only a week ago they lost in south London at Millwall, who are clearly nowhere near Palace's level right now. Having spotted everyone else in the division a three game start, pointless Palace took just 12 games to reach their rightful place at the top, which could be a record for a 24 team division. The Guardian will have the answer to that next week, in their very enjoyable the Knowledge series. 

Anyway, once again, Palace look good value to me at anything close to evens, and I have had a small interest bet. Sadly no screenshot for fear of being called a cherry-picker, but a win will be gratefully received, while a loss will, well no, that's not going to happen.

I've added a poll on the future of the Friendly Tipster League table. Feel free to vote and express your opinion. Unlike some politicians who shall remain nameless losers, (well, apart from his multi-millions) this blog is interested in all constituents, not just 53% of you.