A bit of midweek footy

Football

Unit stake: £10.27

Session P&L: £2.73

Average market P&L: £0.38

Football Bank at end of session: £54.10

Unit stake for next session (20%): £10.82

Had time to scalp a couple of matches after work just before KO. Not much done but still I guess it all adds up and gives me another slight increase in unit stake.

Messing around with The Toy

Horse Racing

Unit stake: £2/£8

Session P&L: £10.69

Average market P&L: £1.07

Racing Bank at end of session: £94.09

Unit stake for next session (10%): £9.41

Today was a day of experimentation, I only used The Toy and started with £2 stakes to get a feel for it at first. As with the last post I will include today's result into my racing bank, as I would like my stakes to increase sooner rather than later. After the first four markets I was feeling very comfortable with the software and increased my stakes to £5-£8 as things continued to go well. This has added to my confidence and I will continue to use The Toy along with Bet Angel. The fewer charting options and market overview are planned to be included in an upcoming release, this is great news as I feel without these features my market awareness is slightly limited. This might also just be a reflection of how accustomed I am to using BA. I think it is fair to say though that BAs charting options are second to none at the moment.

However the good points are plentiful with TT. The custom layouts and almost endless array of options are really impressive. I do pay a lot of attention to details and these options have allowed me to make many little changes that for me make all the difference. You are even able to edit the font formatting and cell size on the ladder (I found this particularly useful in prioritising information, for instance putting info I want to stand out in bold and in larger cells etc.).  I also find the financial bar layout on the ladder really useful. You can see by glancing at the ladder how the money waiting to be matched relates proportionally to the rest of the price bands. I could also spot abnormalities easily, like spoof money or relatively large orders. This is similar to the market depth shading which I mentioned in my previous post and also found useful. The speed of orders hitting the market also seems very fast with TT.

Probably one of the most important features that I forgot to mention last time, is the ability to add as many ladders as you wish. Although my two widescreens could accommodate more I have settled for eight (five more than before). If you order your book by price you have no surprises and will always have the top 8 in your sights. I still don't think this is a substitute for the overview feature mentioned, but with the overview included I could easily sacrifice a ladder or two and have everything I need at my disposal.

I also messed around a bit on a footy match in-running by placing orders well out of the money to ensure I didn't get matched. There is a countdown feature which shows you exactly how long before your order hits the market. This was a nice touch and the great thing here is that if after 5 seconds you change your mind you have the option to cancel it even before it has hit the market. Some great features which I'm sure an in-running trader would find very useful indeed.

I'll include a couple of screenshots below of  my current racing layout if anyone wants to have a look. I am changing things around a lot so no doubt it will change again soon - I think I sense a bit of deja vous...

Bonjour The Geeks Toy

Horse Racing

Unit stake: £7.77

Session P&L: £6.19

Average market P&L: £0.88

Racing Bank at end of session: £83.40

Unit stake for next session (10%): £8.34

I only had an hour to trade today and managed to fit in 7 markets. I will include it though as it did contribute positively to my bank and will warrant a slight increse to my unit stake.

Today was also the first day I installed and had a play around with The Geeks Toy. I'm sure most of you have all heard of it by now, but just in case you haven't yet, this is a relatively new free trading application for Betfair which has been getting some good feedback from the trading community.

I do think it's important to have experience on multiple applications, not only for backup purposes but it also gives comfort to not be overly reliant on one application, plus I was curious since its release to see what all the fuss was about. The fact it is free is not really a big deal for me, although its great to not have to pay for an 'no capped' trial. I will gladly pay for something if I feel it is value, and I can only assume there will be a charge introduced at some point in the future. The most important factor for me is which application is providing me with the most effective trading platform.

Of course this is not a review of any sort, just my observations from my first couple of hours. I really need to use it for a sustained period of time to give it a fair trial. I didn't trade any of the races with it today, I only really had time to fire it up and go through all the options and place dummy orders to get a feel for it. I will probably start using it to scalp on the footy as this is very easy compared to the racing and will give me plenty of time to get accustomed to the set up.

I should add I am a very happy Bet Angel customer and have been for a few months now, but of course I am always open to trying new things.  Bet Angel are also on the brink of releasing an update which apparently has quite a few changes, so this is also something I am looking forward to.

So far though I've been impressed with The Geeks Toy. There are plenty of options and as with Bet Angel you can move everything around and customise your screen fully. I would say at a glance there are more details that could prove useful if used effectively. Having the longterm graphs opened and positioned automatically is a nice addition - although the fewer charting options is something I didn't like and I do miss the overview screen as I have been using it much more recently. It also seemed to be running very fast and feels smooth. I do like the shading used on the market depth column which makes it very easy to see at a glance where the money has been matched. I'll leave it at that for now, I intend to give it a good test run over the next couple of months and I'm sure I'll have plenty to say once I've had more experience with it.

Am working all weekend and with a busy week following that, will not have too much trading time but I will try and squeeze in whatever I can before Christmas.

Champions League Night

Football

Unit stake: £9.57

Session P&L: £3.39

Average market P&L: £0.34

Football Bank at end of session: £51.37

Unit stake for next session(20%): £10.27

Monday night football

Football

Unit stake: £9.18

Session P&L: £2.09

Average market P&L: £0.21

Football Bank at end of session: £47.98

Unit stake for next session (20%): £9.57

Couldn't help myself and scalped a couple of matches after work. Got one market completely wrong but ended up with an overall profit. Will probably do the same after work tomorrow on a couple of Champions League matches.