I must apologise for the delay. The small number of people who follow my blog have occasionally reminded me that it has gone quiet. All I can say is that I work in an industry and a field so boring that, were I to name it here, you would be asleep before you got to the footy. In that field I started a new contract on October 1st and it has been all-in. I have 3 days of freedom left before I return to the office so I am taking the opportunity to give an update. Many thanks to those on Twitter who have asked me to do so.

The headlines are:-
• I continue to make regular and steady profit. I had a run where I really felt I could take fifty quid out of any match. I still feel that most of the time.
• I had some enormous highs like when I kept piling money into Man City in their home game v Bayern and Aguero’s last minute strike netted me over £700. Those who were on Twitter that night will recall this one.
• I have made a number of significant withdrawals from my Betdaq account. I aim to top up my wages with something meaningful each month.
• I wiped my bank out once (quite recently).

I think I will start with that 4th bullet as I have been meaning to figure out what happened. This seems as good a moment as any…

OK, so I try to have a balance (bank) of £500 to £1000 at all times. Higher is better because it means I can get involved in more plays on a busy Saturday. It is quite possible to be exposed for the full grand on any Saturday but, in truth, quite hard to lose it all if you are across 4 or 5 matches. At the very least, the law of averages protects you. If you can get 3 out of 4 results right or be involved in 5 out of 6 profitable games then you rake the £1000 back in and ‘hey presto’ it has grown to £1250. That’s the essence of the method. Looking back at my account I can see that, on 8th December, I withdrew £625 leaving a £1250 bank. This is a healthy position – essentially it is what I am aiming for. However, by 21st December I had wiped that £1250 out and had to make a deposit. The good news is that this was the first deposit I had needed to make since the World Cup and there have been a number of withdrawals in that time. So what happened in those 13 days of carnage …?

Analysis shows that everything was normal up until the 19th December when my bank was still over £750. This is all within the normal range of fluctuations. The aim is to get the bank to something over £1500 once a month then withdraw it down to a grand but it is normal to dip down a few hundred along the way. It’s the overall trend that matters. Protecting the bank is key. So what happened on the 19th to 21st…?

1st thing that happened = I laid a horse called Bognor for £200 and it won. Actually I had forgotten about this and I only laid it because it was the last leg in a nice treble placed in a bookies account and I got £867 paid out there. But still – it’s a fair chunk of the explanation (I must admit that finding this has just cheered me up about the sustainability of my footy strategy).
2nd thing that happened = 4 football matches in a row that went wrong. My £750 was down to £500 mainly because of Bognor. On the 19th (probably feeling invincible after the horse win but just as likely wanting my £200 back) I got involved in 3 games I should have left alone:-

Millwall v Bolton I have no defence for this. I backed the draw as I thought it would be very cagey and if a team went a goal up it would still end up level deep in the game. In the event it was nil nil until 68 minutes when Bolton scored a winner. I have no excuse. Lost £67

Southend v Burton This was a thought-out play that went wrong. These 2 teams were going strongly at the top but I thought this was an opportunity to assert and that Burton would take it. I was pretty sure that it would be close enough for me to get out unscathed anyway. In the event I re-learned a lesson. I backed Burton to the tune of £134. The game finished nil nil and I could have had a hundred pounds back late in the day. But I let it run. I was probably on the Prosecco by the latter stages. Lessons here are; 1/ where you expect a tight game you should lay, not back, to keep the draw as your friend. 2/ in this scenario you should cut your losses at 80mins, latest.
I know both these things well from my own experience. I just didn’t do them. Lost £134

Tranmere v Cambridge This was a moment when a little local knowledge was a dangerous thing. Tranmere were in dire form and their regular draws looked like beginning to turn into defeats. I thought Cambridge would come and nick the points. Again, I made the same mistake of backing Cambridge instead of laying Tranmere and the 1-1 draw cost me £130

The 19th of December was a night of indiscipline, bad decisions and ignoring my own tried and tested strategies. In the past I had recovered my Bank from as low as £300 and got it back up into withdrawal territory. This time I messed up. If the bank is low you can’t afford to get involved in 3 games and get them all wrong without wiping out. I needed to choose one of these games and play a lay. If I’d simply laid Tranmere or Southend I would have made money.

On the 20th I was staggering along on a bank of under £150. This, in truth, is too small to recover from unless you try and take it back up to £300 in tenners. That takes ages. So I played a treble on 3 teams (only 2 won) and also backed Newcastle in a game they lost to Sunderland (this was also the one that brought down the treble).

20th of December lesson = A reminder that if you can get 2 results out of 3 right then trading is the answer. Accas are for the bookies.

SO WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
I made a deposit on the 21st December and I am pleased to say that the full value of that deposit was withdrawn yesterday (New Years Day). Some of this recovery is down to re-finding discipline and re-learning those lessons.

Essentially I haven’t got much wrong since Christmas. Remembering the lesson of the 19th, I got involved in a couple of single-game sniper lays midweek. I laid Yeovil at home to Orient, reasoning that the Yeovil players wouldn’t fancy it too much on a frozen pitch with Man Utd coming to town days later. Orient cantered to a 3-0 win.
The next night I laid Wigan at home to Sheffield Wednesday. This was a case of local knowledge paying off as Wednesday’s form was returning, they have a great defence and Wigan are extremely poor at home. I thought Wednesday could win this. It took 76 minutes for Wednesday to find a winner and I would often have cashed out on 75. This would have been frustrating. However I was following the game closely and Wigan were down to ten men so I decided to stick with it until 81 minutes. Then up pops Big Dave and it was money in the bank.

The Yeovil and Wigan lays plus a lovely lay on Huddersfield on the 28th when I cashed out 1 minute before the Terriers winner had netted me £375 profit in total. I was back in the game and this, plus the deposit from the 21st , gave me a Bank to go at the New Years Day games with. And NYD is where nearly everything went right …

My morning plays were to lay Man Utd at Stoke, lay Arsenal at Southampton and lay Everton at Hull. These were all form-based picks. I cashed out of the Man Utd lay in the early game on 80mins and was out of the Arsenal game by half time. I let the Everton game run. These 3 games netted me £200.

I was sitting pretty at half time in the 3pm kick-offs so I looked to get involved elsewhere. I was following the games closely so I thought I could manage some small investments. I laid QPR who were 1-0 up against Swansea at HT and backed West Ham who were 1-1 with West Brom. In the event these 2 plays evened each other out as Swansea scored in injury time but West Ham couldn’t break WBA down. No harm done.

My favourite play of the day was Man City where I had gazed wistfully at 1.44 pre-match and thought “that could be the easiest £44 of the year”. However, I didn’t back them. I had just remarked upon this on twitter as Man City were 2-0 up when Sunderland scored 2 quick and unexpected goals. The score was 2-2 for less than 2 minutes during which time I was able to bang £75 on City at even money. These are the best moments. They are impossible if you are not across the games and in front of screens. Up popped Lampard and I was feeling good.

So then I wondered if a crazy day of results might be finished off by a Spurs win over Chelsea. I put £20 on Spurs just in case. I like the look of Spurs rather more than some of my Twitter friends do. Then Chelsea scored first and  were down very low at 1.27 so I laid them for £100. There was some logic behind this – not least the fact that Spurs were playing well and early away goals often lead to goal-crazy matches. In the end the game was a feast of entertainment and I cleared £164 profit.

So, I was able to withdraw the deposit I made on the 21st and leave a £500 bank. I intend to move forwards with this judiciously and grow it to £1500 in January. Time will tell!!

Happy New Year to all.

@elTav