You have to laugh

Sometimes, you just have bad luck. Other times, you add bad decisions to bad luck and sometimes you fluke out.

The past few days, I definitely fall into the second category.

Last weekend, I decided I would trade three football matches. At complete random, I opted to trade West Ham v Hartlepool, Man Utd v Tottenham and Liverpool v Everton. The three matches I opted not to trade were Aberdeen v Rangers, the Barcelona game on SKY Sports on Saturday night and Cardiff v Arsenal.

This decision was completely random, but resulted in me missing out on two 0 - 0s and one which plunged from over 30 to under 15 at least, whilst I traded three games which had first half goals.

The crazy thing is, I have done this all month! The matches I have traded were not 0 - 0. The matches I have not were 0 - 0. The decisions were not made expecting any game to be 0 - 0 or not to be 0 - 0.

I then briefly traded the Dancing On Ice elimination market on Sunday, watching former Saints coach Ellery Hanley in a sequin definitely makes you look twice! Whilst I had not watched Dancing On Ice before this season, his ridiculous dancing made me look twice again when I saw he could still be backed at 13 and I managed to get £7 matched. It soon became apparent that Hanley, in my mind, was at worst a 5 to 1 shot.

What did I do? I traded out before 11, slightly concerned with liquidity. However, for £7 I took a ridiculous price, and this is something I do way too often. Of course, within 30 minutes he was trading below 5, and a potential very large profit had been turned into a small profit, although one that nearly took me back to my balance at the start of the month.

Now, I had thought that in 2009, I would be able to "flick a switch" and start believing in my trades more and being more aggressive. However, I am finding myself doing the complete opposite.

Therefore, I set myself an exercise. Place minimum stake bets on 0 - 0s on football matches where the starting odds were around 10. Now, my thinking was that as I trade out too early too often, it would be a good lesson if I did not trade out on events which would see price drops. I was amazed at how much I wanted to trade out. The price would drop by two or three ticks and I would literally have to stop myself from laying off. I did manage to do so in the end, but thought that I still needed to work in this area and therefore decided to back 0 - 0 on all 10 Premiership Games on Tuesday and Wednesday. I do not need to tell you what subsequently happened!!! Making matters funnier, I had been reading about late goals, and did consider laying all current scores with around 10 - 15 minutes to go but opted against it. Of course, 5 of tonight's 6 games, did experience score changes in this period, and now I notice that Celtic v Dundee has finished 0 -0, another game that I did briefly consider trading but then opted to trade only Premiership games!!!

So now I find myself down £35 for the month, and totally bereft of confidence. It feels like I have the ability to make a game 0 -0!

I am honestly not too sure of the next move to make. Things seem to have gone downhill, ironically, since I let my heart rule my head in the NFC Conference Championship Game. It sure feels that the next match I decide not to back will be 0 -0!

On an unrelated note, I have only just realised how difficult it has been to keep the blog regularly updated, I guess when I started it I forgot how tired I usually feel after work, although I do seem to waste a hell of a lot of time in general just by not prioritising. I hope to review most of my trades over the next couple of days, although this itself won't be easy as my usual way of charting price data on events I trade on, lite Betfair, is still down! and don't know what I will do with regard to trading this weekend. Although I still have close to four figures in my account, I feel like I am in a negative position, on account of this month, and hate to trade from a losing position, as it feels like I will only lose more money.

As always, I would be extremely grateful for any comments (Probably telling me how much of an idiot I am!) and advice on what to do next!

The switch certainly hasn't been flicked yet.