12 Swallows
Betfair Trading

Twelve Swallows

July 2020 – June 2021 Trading Update

Thought this would be a good time to do an update on my Betfair In-Running trading as this gets me to 12 consecutive green months.

It’s times like this when I feel the benefit of having this blog as it does make me pause and review what I’ve done trading wise every now and then.

I lost chunks when I first started trading and there were many times when I never thought I’d manage this level of consistency but now the idea of having a losing month doesn’t enter my mind.

It seems quite big headed to say this, but I feel I am in my comfort zone now and I fully expect to win about a grand each month, assuming I trade enough days.

I’m still withdrawing all my profit each month and just start with the same £2,000 bank each month.

Because of that I don’t bother with the 5% of bank method anymore as its pointless currently. (Though I would 100% recommend this to traders who are just starting out)

I use a flat liability of £150 which is 7.5% of my starting bank.

What this update covers

Rather than a daily update of the previous month like my old posts used to do this one will just have a quick look at the individual months of the last twelve.

Throughout if I think of anything that would help any new members of the Back for Profit group, I’ll highlight it as a B4P tip.

Then in the summary I’ll give my plans for this blog and my future trading going forward.

So here goes.

July 2020

Andrew keeps reminding me that if I hadn’t lost £2.80 in June 2020, I would have been writing this update a month earlier!

My July update started off with the line “This is the most positive update I’ve had yet. I feel sure I’ve taken a good step forward this month…”

As some clever bloke once said a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.

I’d switched my stakes to a better method in June, using liability set as 5% of bank and that helped me forget about the money and concentrate on the process.

B4P tip, concentrating on the money is the one BIG reason why people fail and give up. (With any method of trading to be honest)

You must try and build a number of green trades, to get the confidence in the system and get into the routine of winning.

It doesn’t matter if you’re using “play money” or a £5 liability, if you can start getting consistent greens and manage your reds to reasonable losses then you are assured success.

To do this with play money or tiny stakes allows you to just concentrate on the process.

When I suggest to new members or people thinking of joining, they often baulk at the idea of using play money or micro stakes. Those that refuse to do so because they think it’s a waste of time are odds on to fail.

Doing this for 3 months is no time at all in the grand scheme of things.

Anyway, I felt pretty good after July 2020 as I’d had just 3 red days and was green for £131.30 for the month which was at the time my best ever month.

Compared to previous methods of trading I’d tried in the previous year or so I was trading less races maybe 5 or 6 a day max and often just one or two.

Read the full update for July 2020 here.

August 2020

Just one red day during August and nice steady stuff. One of the important facts was the 3 days of the month where I watched the racing with the intention of trading, but I didn’t do a single trade because none matched the B4P criteria.

This is so tough for most people to do as the urge to make a trade is often overpowering.

Mastering a particular method of trading like B4P is quite easy, you can soon learn the criteria we are looking for. The hard bit is not to trade when you don’t see an opportunity that matches our criteria.

I only did 77 trades in the whole month with just 5 red ones for £238.02.

Read the full update for August 2020 here.

<em>The Engine Room. (Tank Engine) </em>

September 2020

After 3 green months I start to feel it isn’t a fluke, but I know I haven’t totally cracked the mental side yet.

I increase my bank by 39% during the month and at £337.81 green it starts to be an amount of money which feels quite good.

Read the full update for September 2020 here.

October 2020

Another record month as my bank/liability is increasing with each successful trade. £423.64 this month.

Still having days where I trade 4 or 5 races which seems not many based on the days when I was trading 20+ races a day but this seems a lot to me now 8 months later!

In this month’s blog update I did a video summary so if you want to listen to that you can find it and read the full update for October 2020 here.

November 2020

The start of November tested my resolve as I got off to a bad start and it could easily have gone wrong.

Before I joined B4P if I had a bad day or two then I would almost certainly spiral out of control.

Most traders lose their bank because they go “on tilt”. Going on tilt is a poker term for when things start going wrong and instead of staying calm or maybe taking a short break you completely lose your mind and start playing like a lunatic.

Chasing losses means poor decision after poor decision just snowball and the inevitable thing happens.

This type of trading is responsible for more lost trading banks than anything else. The red mist!

What I did was talk to Andrew over the phone for just 10 minutes and this did the trick.

Andrew has said to me many times after I’ve had a red. “The red isn’t the problem, you’ll always have those every now and then. It’s what you do after the red that counts.”

It is hard to overstate the advantages of not being a lone trader and having the support of a good mentor and group of like minded people in the Telegram room.

B4P tip, book a phone call with Andrew! So few members take advantage of the access they have to Andrew via the group.

You can book a 1:1 phone call with him whenever you want one, but very few ever do.

Read the November update here.

December 2020

On reflection my worst months trading since joining B4P. Traded 159 races which based on what the B4P method is all about is stupid beyond belief.

This was the closest Andrew and I have ever come to falling out.

He’s given me loads of bollicking’s over the last year or so and I’m always happy to receive them as they invariably lead to an improvement in my performance.

This was different though.

He always gives me his unvarnished opinion (I don’t think they sell varnish in Yorkshire) and normally I know that he is 100% right, so totally accept it.

This time though I didn’t and although I deserved most of the criticism, I felt some of it wasn’t entirely fair.

I don’t like posting up excuses, so I’ll just say I had some heightened outside financial pressures that made me try way too hard to win big that month, and that led to me overtrading.

At the end of the month, I withdrew some money from my Betfair account because frankly I just needed the money.

Even though this was my worst month based on the way I’d traded, the bottom line masked that fact because it was a new record month of £692.88

Read the full December report here.

January 2021

New year and psychologically a big milestone. To win £1,000 trading for the first time is pretty damn good whichever way you look at it.

With 90% of traders losing consistently month after month, this was quite an achievement.

My highest ever profit and importantly it came from my lowest number of trades in a month also.

I did just over 25% of the number of trades I did in December and won a lot more.

Insane but that’s the way B4P works, less is more. B4P tip, trade less races only do the easy ones but hit them harder.

I may not have appreciated all of Andrews criticism the month before but I did at least take the salient points onboard.

Read The January report here.

I withdrew all the profit and reset to £2,000 bank at the end of the month.

February 2021

This proved to be my last standard monthly update and the reasons are explained in the post on the 20th Feb and you can read that full report here.

That day was a new record day and record individual trade for me at £181.92 and £147.79 respectively.

March, April, May & June 2021

The positives are that I’m 100% confident I’ll win each month now assuming I trade a reasonable number of days in the month.

June as been my lowest ever number of trades in a month. (28)

With the flat races being prevalent (I prefer jumps) and the fact I’ve taken more days off this month due to work or the fact I just didn’t like the look of the racing, means I’ve “only” won £644 in June.

I’m pleased with my strike/win rate though and feel overall I’ve traded pretty well.

I took 9 days off in June and had another 3 days where I watched an hour of racing and didn’t trade any.

I just must accept that I’m never going to do so well on the flat races as I do on the jumps and that’s fine. I’m slightly more cautious with them as errors have less time to be corrected.

On the flat I’m getting there, but anything less than a mile is still a bit quick for me. I will watch a 6 or 7f races if they match my criteria in case an easy one comes along but generally, I don’t trade them.

How I’m Trading Now

I’ve gently evolved my trading over time as I work out and better understand what I’m good and not so good at. I am more and more selective these days and have my number of trades down to an all time low. Typically if my 1st trade is a good one I immediately switch Bet Angel off, and call it a day.

I scan the races at lunchtime and pick out the best hour or two of the day. By that I mean I’m looking for when there is a reasonably high proportion of races that match my criteria with less gaps in between.

I prefer to concentrate hard for one hour max and if I don’t get a trade I call it a day.

B4P tip, just accepting you don’t have to do a trade is a big step forward. If you are determined to carry on until you get one, eventually you’ll lose patience and make a mistake. Switch off BA and call it a day, that will save you money in the long term.

It is rare for me to do more than 2 trades in a day these days. Maybe if the first one is a small one and the 2nd was a scratch I’ll carry on if I’m still within my one hour window. A lot of days though I’m lucky enough to get a decent trade first up and just knock it straight on the head.

When selecting my races to watch I delete all 5f races from Guardian without looking at them. I virtually do the same on any flat races over a straight 6 or 7f course. I will watch the odd one if the “make up” of the race is particularly good and it’s within my hour.

On flat races one mile or over I will only enter once using the “one click” screen on Bet Angel with my stakes set at £150 liability.

I don’t routinely do a double click on the jumps races but on what I consider an easy trade over the jumps I will very often click twice.

When I do a double click, I generally enter the first click and then assess the situation for a while and then either go in again (if the price is still tradeable) or leave it at just the one click.

What I mean by tradeable price is my Bet Angel servants are set to a max of 6.0 so I can’t lay any horse over that price.

When using liability the higher the price the less you win but you can lose the same amount, so the risk/reward becomes prohibitive above 6.

Once I’ve entered a trade if things change and my reasons for entering are no longer there, I will just instantly scratch it.

I guess my confidence with managing trades that go against me is the biggest improvement I’ve made over the last 12 months.

Any idiot can manage an easy trade where it all goes to plan, it’s when the situation changes mid-trade that calm thought under pressure is required.

When I first started trading in-running I used to get into such a mess when things went wrong, and I’d invariably make things worse when I became a rabbit in the headlights.

When I’ve watched Andrews trades, he is so good that he makes it look like he is watching the races in slow motion. He never gets hurried into decisions and is always calm.

Considering the stakes he uses it is something to behold.

The way I trade now its almost boring but that’s why I’m doing well. Go back 18 months and I was nearly giving myself a heart attack while trading. Clicking and hoping isn’t the way to trade.

Don’t get me wrong I still get a buzz when I see my screen light up with a decent sized green but I don’t want the excitement caused by entering a trade that could go either way and just leaving it to play out.

My Future Plans

My main business, which is travel in Europe related, is still down the plughole due to Covid restrictions, so trading wise I intend to carry on doing what I’m doing for the foreseeable future.

With my non-travel bits and pieces of work and circa £1,000 from trading I’m chugging along OK. Things could be a lot worse.

It is tempting to try and push my trading a bit more but after what happened in December 2020, I realise that would be a mistake.

It could be that when we get to the next National Hunt season my confidence could allow me to increase my stakes a bit but there is no rush.

If I ever get my main business back to what it was, I will be able to go back to the 5% of bank method and stop withdrawing all of my winnings at the end of each month.

That way with a growing bank my stakes will increase steadily again.

That would be the safer way to go about it. Then I would see it as only a matter of time before I hit the £2k per month mark.

Thanks again Andrew.

I should just mention Andrew who runs B4P and thank him for the tireless effort he puts into the Trading Academy.

Not sure where I’d be right now without it, but I doubt I’d be trading.

He has turned me from a long-term losing trader into a consistent winner, plain and simple.

If you are interested in joining, then check out his website. Backforprofit.com

He only takes a few new members each month (max five) so membership opens on the last Friday of the month and closes quite quickly after that.

Depending on when you read this, if membership is closed get in touch with me or contact Andrew direct via email backforprofit@outlook.com and say you read my blog.

He will either put you first on the list or allow you in if there is a space available.

I can’t speak highly enough of what he does for us and this year as an added extra he has bought a share in three two-year-olds through Nick Bradley racing and he updates us on their progress.

Oscula Back For Profit
<em>Oscula after winning at Epsom</em>

We’ve all had a bit of fun following their progress and seeing them race. I’ve made a bit of money backing them as well via one of the few bookie accounts that I’m not gubbed on from my matched betting days.

<em>B4P in the winners enclosure!!</em>

Next Update

It will be a while till the next one. Either a red free month or a £2k month will trigger one but unlikely in the next couple of months!

Thanks for reading, and if you are new to in-running trading I’m happy to try and help with any Q’s you might have in the comments below.

8 Comments

  • Steve

    Hi David

    A great read once again mate. I must admit i was thinking of calling it a day but your blog has inspired me big time, going in too late seems to be my achilles heel.
    keep up the great work.

    • runlikeadrain

      Getting in too late should be an easy fix. If that is your biggest leak you should be able to overcome that.

      Decide for each track/distance the point of no return and if you haven’t entered by then it’s an easy “no trade”. Obv all tracks are different the 4th last on one might be 6f out on another it might be 3f from the line. But generally I don’t want to be entering after they are approaching the 4th last.

      Much later than that and they are all off the bridle and its just gambling.

      If it’s a flat race I never enter a trade after the 3f pole and preferably 4f. If I’ve entered earlier but my offsets have not been matched then I exit at the 3 pole.

      Again most horses come under pressure then and I don’t want a trade that’s in the lap of the gods.

      Just wait till the next race. There are 12,000 races a year, so there is always another one.

  • Tadz

    Hi David,

    Found you via twitter, have enjoyed reading your blog this morning. I haven’t read every page, but can relate to your early introduction to Pre-race and In-Running, and previous courses you have tried.

    I’ve certainly read your recap of the last 12 months, it is both inspiring and mentoring in itself. I struggle with patience and discipline, if only someone could bottle it !! You seem to have got it under control and the rewards are showing.

    B4P looks very interesting. I’m retired, so have the time to put into it. We’ll see.

    Congratulations on your journey so far.

    • runlikeadrain

      I’m 62 and I’m spring chicken compared to some of them in the group.

      Quite a mixture overall though, but no ego’s allowed in the telegram group. I’m the only member who posts their results.

      We do have one retired guy who just trades small stakes and is even more cautious/disciplined than I am. He sees it as something to do and moneywise if he can double his weekly pension he is very happy with that. Ratio of reds to greens he is probably the best apart from Andrew.

      Having the screen time is a big plus. He just read all the stuff and watched the training video’s for a month then just watched races each day for a couple of weeks looking for the race situations and signals we want without even having Bet Angel switched on.

      He then did a whole month in practise mode before starting with real money for small stakes.

      There is no guarantee of success but being retired and having the time and discipline to take it slowly really makes a difference.

      Those that join and fail mainly do so because they want to dive in and trade from day 1.

      Learning the process is the key, once you’ve done that everything else will follow.

      • Tadz

        Hi David,

        Thought I’d let you know, I’ve gone ‘All-In’ !! I joined up today, I’ve mentioned your name.

        just started to watch a few videos. I’m well impressed,
        Andrew has a wealth of knowledge and information and lays it out well, I’m going to enjoy going through this.
        Thanks for the insight.

  • Stan Allen

    Hi David
    Brilliant read. I have really enjoyed going through your blog. Im a newbie to trading having come from Matched betting so looking to learn about horse trading in particular. Quick question, do you use any stat sites such as Proform (or any of the others) or is it best to no nothing about form etc.

    Thanks in advance

    Stan

    • runlikeadrain

      I know zero about form and do not use anything stats/form wise. Having preconceived ideas is a bad thing in my opinion.

      I judge each race on its merits and trade what I see in the race.

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