Help placing bets

[AndrewKent]

Hi there, I know this sounds a bit of a silly question to ask but I wanted someone just to give me a few words to back up my thinking. I've set myself a weekly exposure of 5%. Up until now I've been betting on 2 games a weekend with mixed results. All my bets have been placed by reading through the Premier League thread and picking out bets that seem to come up a lot (or bets that I see several punters going for, with sound reasoning). I was thinking would it be safer to place my 5% over more games? The rationale I can think of is "not putting all my eggs in one basket" if that makes sense. If I expose less per bet, and use the same rationale over 6/7 bets instead of 2 am I being smarter or setting myself for a fall? Andy

[Datapunter]

Re: Help placing bets You will reduce your overall risk. You wil also reduce your potential profit. If you want a short answer then i would say put 1% of your bank as stake, as a general level of low risk. The 1% will dictate the risk, it doesn't actually matter much if you place 2 or 20 bets, it's still 1% per bet and therefore the same level of risk. If you find a good bet then you should bet on it, whether you find 2 or 20, and if there's a weekend without any good bets then don't bet.

[AndrewKent]

Re: Help placing bets Thanks very much, I appreciate you taking the time to give me this sound advice. I'm very much in the learning stage and I'm trying different approaches to try and find out what I'm comfortable with and what works! So presumably a good bet is something with "value". It makes sense and I am following other punters on here as I'm having trouble finding my own value (although I understand the principle!). So this is is great thank you! Andy

[Datapunter]

Re: Help placing bets

as I'm having trouble finding my own value

If it was easy we'd all be millionares. Remember you won't know if you manage to find value until after you've run up a substantial number of bets and are showing a profit. Key is to be consistent in your methods and make sure you enjoy the ride.

[AndrewKent]

Re: Help placing bets

make sure you enjoy the ride.

It's interesting that you should say this because I think the thing I've learned about myself the most in the last month of betting is that I DON'T like losing. Sounds stupid as I'm sure no-one does enjoy losing but I am learning not to let it bother me. I think if I can learn not to chase bets (which has been by far my biggest problem to date) and learn to take losses on the chin then I should slowly start to get better. Andy

[relf]

Re: Help placing bets Hmm, just want to share my opinion about chasing losses. I think that's one common problem most punters have. I used to have this problem before, and I've learnt it the hard way. The key is to bet an amount which you are comfortable losing, something small enough that won't make you depressed over losing it. That includes no lumping of big amounts on 'sure-win' bets, because there's no such thing as sure win - recent example being Hercules winning Barcelona 2-0. Barcelona were priced below 1.10, while Hercules were priced at 34. I think I read from the forum somewhere that, if you are confident that your bets are of value, there's no need to chase losses because your bets will be profitable in the long run.

[AndrewKent]

Re: Help placing bets Yeah I found out the hard way, I put all my winnings for the last month on Man U to beat Rangers, only to see the reserves draw with a stubborn Rangers side. That was a really sore one. But hopefully I'll learn from that. Andy

[Datapunter]

Re: Help placing bets reserves ???????? you bet on reserves, serves you right :lol

[AndrewKent]

Re: Help placing bets Yeah it was a bit of a shock to see so many changes to the Man U side. I knew there would be one or two after the Everton but ten? I didn't see that one coming!