Jenspm's proper betting diary

[Jenspm]

Right, I think it's time for me to actually sit down and do my betting properly. I've always taken it seriously, mind, but I haven't really tracked my profit like I should. As I said in my "hi again" thread, I've recently come out of a betting hiatus, but I feel ready now, so I'm starting a-fresh. I currently have next-to-zero in all my betting accounts, so I plan on depositing "fresh" (being money that essentially was withdrawn when I took a break) money to a range of bookies. But more on that later, first of all, a short intro on how I bet. I've always been very thorough with my betting. Value has, of course, always been the key to every bet I make. However, while I used to work out percentages on every market I bet on, I now feel that I can spot value when I see it. Not long ago, I'd sit down and work out the percentages of every single match on the card before looking at the odds, and then grab anything with value. While this is, in my opinion, the purest form of sports betting (and I will always admire anyone who does this), it is extremely time consuming, and I really don't have time for that anymore. So, nowadays, I'll take a look at the markets, note down what bets are of interest (By hand. All betting should be done by hand!), and then work out percentages on those, and then find the value, and then place the bet. I will also take note of potential market movers, and keep an eye on them with a look at either trading or placing a bet, depending on how the odds shift. I will try to keep this thread updated with my notes, as well as the respective threads here on PL (I echo Atko's message in his thread - it would be stealing from the forums to stop contributing to anything but my own thread). Also, I do read other people's tips. I never blindly follow, but if I find a good tip, I'll do my own research and place a bet if I feel it's good. I'll of course credit any PL tipster I take inspiration from! But meh, that stuff really isn't new. What I find really interesting though, is staking plans (nerd? me? no.. :( ). From my days of constant percentage-whoring, I used to use my own modified version of the Kelly Criteria. However, as I found out, I am, in fact, not a God, so my percentages are not always correct. A couple points off here and there can be pretty catastrophic with a staking system like that. I felt though, that I was pretty good at finding value. I switched over to a less risky level-staking system, and it worked well for me. I set the level stakes at 2% of my bankroll, and recalculated that once a month. Level stakes is, generally, the best way to maximise profit, in my opinion. However, I felt that a staking system like this gave less importance to low-odds bets and more importance to high-odds bets on my short-term bankroll (long term, of course, it wouldn't matter, but a bad month does affect the next month in terms of stake sizes). So thus, I arrived at my current staking plan. It is based on percentages, calculated from my bankroll at the start of every month (so I'll be staking the same amount for every even-odds bet throughout August). It is based on two ideas: 1) I want to look to win around 2% of my bankroll for every bet, and 2) I don't ever want to stake more than 5% of my bankroll. It is calculated for every 5-tick gap on the betfair odds ladder. Hence, it looks like this (scroll for more): I'm pretty set on this, so it's going to take quite a bit to convince me to change it! However, what I would like some input on is this: what kind of staking plan would you recommend for trading? As you may be able to see, I base a lot of my staking/betting on risk, but with trading the risk isn't easy to define. If I define it as my opening stake, the profit would be far too low to be worth the effort. Should I try to figure out some sort of average loss? Should I incorporate a stop-loss? If so, how large should this loss be? I'm tempted to put a stop-loss at around 2% of my total bankroll, but then what should I be staking? If I stake too much, I'll be trading out of a lot of potential profits, and if I stake too little I can see heavy losses compared to profit. I've traded quite a bit before, but never with a set staking plan. Any input on this would be much appreciated! And finally, I'd like some input on my chosen bookies. So far, I have: Betfair, Bet365, Pinnacle, Unibet and Bwin, for different reasons. I may add Betsafe to the list as well. If anyone is missing a firm from the list, give me a shout! This whole thing has a second dimension as well: online gambling is illegal in Norway, which makes depositing/withdrawing money from Norwegian banks a bit of an effort. I am in the process of changing the currency of my betting accounts to GBP and transferring money from my Norwegian account to my Scottish one, so once that's done I should be able to start depositing to these betting firms and start this betting thing (unless they want confirmation of my address in Scotland, which will take even longer, but nothing more than a couple of weeks). So, I should be up and running in a couple of weeks. Until then, I'll be happy to take a discussion on staking, betting, trading, bookies, books, movies and women (and men, I guess). Would also like to decide on bookies and trade-staking before I start, anyway. And don't be afraid of filling this thread with any sort of debate or argument, I like that :) Either that, or we let this thread die until I can finally start betting and keep this alive myself :ok Much love.

[Jenspm]

Re: Jenspm's proper betting diary [i need your help!] I'd like to start off with a potential bet I jotted down a couple of days ago. Take Note- Athletics World Championship, Javelin: Andreas Torkildsen. This guy has won pretty much everything of big competitions in recent years, and should be a massive favourite in this one. It's a typical bet where the bookies might be a bit large to start out with early on, and then we'll see the odds gradually fall as we near the event. Could be a potential trade or plain bet if the opening odds are good. Competition starts September 1st. I can't find any bookies offering odds yet, but if anyone spots anything, feel free to shout! :)