Hi army.
Your 12.26 post describes how to win.

No systems, just hard work, specialise, discipline and a reasonable intellect.

..and don't put a grand on legless soldier without personality to win Big Brother ;)

Jesting aside. I hope all is well.

i also spend a lot of hours here (Trevh), its the only way i can make it pay

so...hard lonely work for sure, specialisation (and use some negligable percentage of bank to make more risky "fun" bets to break monotony, if you wish) and keep yourself flexible (mentally) but disciplined regarding the way you approach every bet, imo you cant have a hard approach to a constantly changing underlying event (and this is the exact opposite to the systems approach), keep it simple or else you'll drown in a world of info and contradicting messages (dont try to become Nostradamus because even him got it right only by pure luck) and keep your greed monster in check, always

and a few more traits that you need to develop that might make the difference in relation to your peers

*im sure there are some systems out there that might work (momentarily or maybe even permanently) and if i could find/have one that would be great but i dont like to chase "windmills" or at least i couldnt see myself going down that road when the timespan to reach it is impossible to quantify (which i suspect that is what has happend to armagnac)

Lusitano71

I did get wrapped up and obsessed into finding the 'perfect system' which meant along the way i discarded any approach which i thought was too long winded, profit margins were too small, infrequency of opportunities or a combination of these and probably other factors.

Did this make me a greedy person ? i said in an earlier post it did, but i was just agreeing with some of the people looking in from the outside as im not totally sure myself because when you get so wrapped up in your work you do not see the picture as clearly as the onlooker...but i class myself as a perfectionist.

I actually have a job i can go and do at anytime and earn £1000 a week on average and over the last 10 years i have left this job for months on end ( 24 months, 3 times ) just to sit here and try and find that golden goose.
I'd save up a good chunk of cash, enough to live off and pay the bills for a good few months then i would get down to work and try and find the 'life changer'
Once the well had dried up, i'd simply go back to my job for a while and repeat the process. Sometimes i could stretch out my research for upto two years before having to get back on the road.
Some may say why dont you just do your day job and take the guaranteed grand a week, well maybe a greedy person would do just that but i have grown increasingly tired of my job over the years. It can be very stressful and involves a great deal of traveling around and also staying away from home for days on end.

Now my main objective from day one was simply to earn £100 a day from the comfort of my own home, if i did find a wonder system then great...that would of been fantastic, endless cash but £100 a day would have been good enough to get me away from my day job which was fast becoming annoying even 10 years ago.

Now this is where the greed may have come in, as i was finding the low profit/time consuming methods and was not happy at the speed/rate they were going to earn me i ditched them and became convinced i could find a faster/more profit making methods and so began the cycle of obsession.
In hindsight i should of been very happy with the small time consuming profits i was making and kept adding to them to create a decent portfolio of methods.

Thoughts please, i appreciate the outsider view...good or bad, we can only learn from our mistakes. However costly they may be.


Fun bets is a form of relieving boredom, which if not careful can lead to chasing.
A very dangerous road, a slippery slope ive been down which needs to be controlled with vast amounts of discipline.
But that being said i highly recommend the odd fun bet because as said above it does break the monotony.

I've mentioned this before a friend of mine is a professional and his edge is based on statistical models and nothing else and his edge is very small(well a lot less than I thought it would be),his book makes fascinating reading.

yes fll i must admit i did miss celeb BB this year, probably one of the funniest shows all year when they get the right mix in there. A summer without BB wont seem right either, your cash in that market is a lot safer than any bank.
im sure the Brits was a minor dent, keeps you in check to take a hit now and then. it just means some poor bugger will pay for it on the next event
goodluck with the rest of the year, may pop in and take a look at BGT when it starts.

Interesting a couple of times you mention "£100 a day". Is this a literal thing, or just a rough number you feel you need.

I ask this because on my travels I've tended to find that losing players check their P+L far more often than winning ones, while the winning ones check it in more detail when they do.

It's a little different since the introduction of the PC of course, as sometimes you need to know how you're doing on the week but other than particularly good and bad runs where it becomes interesting, I rarely have the question "How am I doing today" in my head.

Ok cool.

I think it's very important not to obsess over P+L (Which is a little awkward as many successful types - not all before I get jumped on - are statty types who find such things fascinating.)

It's important to analyse from time to time how it's going, but I know people who checked their daily P_L several times a day, the purpose of that simply eludes me!

I'm sure a lot of successful gamblers can associate with that in fairness, you only have to watch the debates on here to work that out (Yes I include myself in that)

Loving that second quote. There are definitely pain barriers to be overcome in this game sometimes.

It may not suprise you then, that i suffer with OCD. Actually mentioned it to the doctor once but there is nothing that can be done for it. Its in your head and its something you have to beat yourself imo, there are different levels and types of OCD.

1) cleanliness - Where you have to watch your hands over and over again after touching something you think could be dirty or contaminated. Could be something as simple as retrieving the mail from the door, also i would imagine lots of hoovering. In extreme cases some people have upto 20 showers a day !!! ( this is the worst form of OCD imo )

2) arranging - This is the one where you have to put all your CD's/dvd's/video's etc, in alphabetical order or arrange them in a specific way. Extreme cases of this would probably be your tins of beens would all have to have the label facing a certain way and stacked neat and tidy.

3) windows and doors - making sure your doors are locked and shut before leaving the house, also checking lights are off, oven is off. making sure taps are not running etc. Extreme cases are taking a longtime to check everything is fine and going back to the oven 10 times to make sure its off and re-checking doors are locked. what should take 5 mins ends up taking 20 mins !!


I know number 3 pretty well coz thats the one i suffer with bigtime, number 1 does not bother me as i quite often eat food ive dropped on the floor and number 2, well if you seen the state of my house there's no chance i suffer with that either

The strange thing is i still recall the day i caught OCD, yes caught it like a cold...infact i think it was planted in me like a seed and layed dormant for some time. well it was not over a day it was planted but maybe over a few months.


It began when i was about 12 and most mornings i would get a lift to school from my Dad on his way to work, now at the time i didnt realise he suffered with OCD and would take ages leaving the house so i would get fed up and go and sit in the van and wait for him. He would finally leave the house and shut the door but would'nt let go of it, he would check it over and over again to make sure it was shut. Sometimes he would get to the van and then walk back to the front door and recheck it again, and on the odd occasion even go back into the house to check god knows what...then on shutting the door he would have to go through the process of checking over and over again. sometimes taking 20 mins.
Now im sat there watching all of this, thinking what a complete loon my Dad is 
Now im not sure when my OCD started but it was when i was an adult, so it must have layed dormant for quite a while then suddenly kicked in at some point and ive been stuck with it ever since.
just to add my dad has still got it and his has got worse as he has stepped up to number 1 and is continually washing his hands, hence the fact ive not been round to see him much lately...dont need that sh!t just yet, he's probably in the shower as we speak

Its not funny if you suffer from it, but you just got to get on with it and carry on the best you can. after all its just in your head.
you have good days and bad days sometimes it only takes me 10 mins to leave the driveway.

Right anyway my reason for telling you this is im convinced OCD is number related, as im a very big stat man and love my numbers.

any thoughts ?

I have real issues with 3)

I have to lock the door, walk to the car, walk back and check I can't open the door, then re-lock it.

Upon leaving car I have to put the handbrake on, walk several paces towards where I'm going, then go back and check the handbrake is on!

I hadn't really realised this identifies me as OCD (Though I had my suspicions)

Funny thing is, the day after I mentioned about the handbrake thing to my other half (where she told me - correctly - not to be so silly) She saw a car roll down a carpark into another one, so she's got a few issues now too

I do that with the locks & handbrake.

ffs are we all mad?

It is where the phrase "don't be a wally" originated

and on the odd occasion even go back into the house to check god knows what

Ive done this occasionally.

a) Check the back door
b) Check the taps on the bath
c) Check I've turned off Betfair (In case the burglars come through the open doors, have a quick bath and then lose my account , obviously)

@ lori a and b all the time for me

That's all I bet though (seriously) and the poker when I'm in the mood.

..and nothing better than backing someone for Elim @ 1000/1 when they're not even up. The elim is cancelled after some psycho is thrown out of the house and your 1000/1 shot is favourite to be eliminated the following week

yes i do actually enjoy the challenge on specials and get right into it as fll knows but it can be extremely time consuming and you have to be on hand virtually 24/7 to take advantage of a market position or reduce a liability if something drastic happens. This mainly applies to big brother as thats the only specials market ive took on.
Then there's the problem of needing quite a large bank in the early days of the market to sow your positions and the most annoying waiting long periods of time to collect but  i imagine in most cases it can be very rewarding and well worth the wait.

I dont think specials is for me coz of the hours of boredom you come across on many days, when nothing is happening and boredom is a very dangerous thing, for me anyway as explained above..ive found it:

Fun bets is a form of relieving boredom, which if not careful can lead to chasing.
A very dangerous road, a slippery slope ive been down which needs to be controlled with vast amounts of discipline.
But that being said i highly recommend the odd fun bet because as said above it does break the monotony.


I need to be in markets where im constantly on the go, like footy and racing when stats are coming in thick and fast.
although having a go at one of the specials markets is a nice break from the norm now and then.

Ive never really thought of looking at election markets, sounds like it could be my cup of tea...stats and fast moving markets with a few swings.