7th March 2010
The year is still quite young but already I have been forced to re-evaluate a few things. I have had too many painful losing days of late just to let things carry on as they are. While I am not working I need my gambling portfolio to be capable of providing a reasonable income, or least be sufficiently profitable for my banks to build to a level where they can then provide said income. I'm after organic growth; I don't fancy pumping more money in to the banks in order to get them to the point where they should generate a nice income if they maintain their ROI mainly because I don't have the spare capital to increase the banks sufficiently. However, I do have the support I need if I can prove that I am building the banks fast enough to have that income in the not too distant future. Things just aren't playing ball though and little is going to plan, hence the need to re-evaluate where I stand and where I am going. This is not a knee-jerk reaction to a bad day, although it partly feels that way. The pressure has been building for a while and if I am not going to make it in this game it is best that I admit that as soon as possible, come to terms with it and move on in whichever way I decide is most suitable.
The biggest question to address is the obvious one: give it all up or carry on?
It's a tough question to answer objectively. I reckon that anyone can make some profit from gambling given the right advice and if they adopt the right attitude. The key is what their expectations are. Are they happy with a small regular profit each week or are they looking for a second income? Why are they gambling? Do they understand that most gamblers have a small ROI and make profits through a large turnover? I maintain that my portfolio is in better shape, in terms of balance if not profit at present, than it has been at probably any time before and I have been going five or six years now. My attitude towards the game is more mature. Losses still hurt but to adopt a poker expression I don't really tilt or steam. I don't just shrug off a bad day like perhaps I should but neither do I ignore them or dwell on them. I think back to see if there are any mistakes I made that contributed to the loss or whether it was all out of my hands. When I have a good day I don't go and blow all the money, it's all rolled back into the relevant bank to build the stakes and safety levels for future bets. I don't think my portfolio is too wide of the mark and my mindset is pretty professional so I don't see why I should give it up on that basis. That said, if I am struggling to make any money then what's the point? Why put the effort in for little or no reward?
Let's look at this from a different angle: if I wasn't gambling how else would I spend my time? I've been gambling for years now and it's become habit. There are two situations to look at here - when I am holding down a regular job and, as now, when I am not. Let's consider former first. At my old place I would run and update Auto-Sys sometime in the morning as my workload allowed and then in my lunch 'hour' I'd enter all the bets into my spreadsheet before putting them all on with the bookies or exchanges, where I'd mostly leave orders one tick above the current best price (so a back order at the current lay price and a lay order at the current back price). Then I was done. If I got chance in the afternoon I'd update some of the results as I went along and check a few orders and amend them as necessary, again, if I had time. Often this meant my lunchtime was over an hour but the sort of industry I work in usually adopts a flexitime approach and I don't mind staying on a bit later than normal if I can get my gambling in at lunchtime. This approach has some drawbacks, mainly if some people from the office go down the pub for lunch. If I go too then obviously I have much less time to get my bets on. That would be less of a problem at the minute though as I can't drink alcohol for medical reasons. Anyway, I've developed this approach over a few years and it has always worked quite well for me in the past. Once I am home from work my evenings are my own and would often be spent playing poker or developing various ideas for gambling systems and software.
Now let's consider the other scenario, the one where I don't have a job which is where I find myself at present. This is not a situation I am in out of choice, more necessity as I am not well enough to work. Abdominal pain that has gne undiagnosed for over a year now - isn't the NHS wonderful at times? Anyway, I now have a lot of time on my hands so how best to spend it while still generating some money? I have built my portfolio up a bit over the past six months or so taking on some new systems to add more balance, including a number of sports systems to counterbalance things a little as my portfolio was heavy on horse racing before that point. Horse racing is an excellent gambling medium (the sport has no meaning without someone punting on the outcome) as it takes place every day (excluding a few days around Christmas) in the UK, weather permitting of course. With a good number of horse racing systems on the go that means that there are best every day so no day is wasted in that quest for profit. This daily grind is supplemented by sports systems chipping in a few times a week but mainly at weekends plus things like poker. With more time available to me I am more inclined to put the bets on race by race, or perhaps a few races at a time rather than all in one go at lunchtime. I like to spend my mornings getting up to speed with a few things, running Auto-Sys, catching up on email and perhaps doing a bit of research into various ideas before getting on with the horse racing bets and poker in the afternoons.
If I am not fit enough to work and give up gambling how would I spend my time? I am addicted to being online and gambling is such a part of my life now that I would find it incredibly difficult to give up. Unless it gets me into serious financial difficulties (which it shouldn't do with proper bankroll management) then I have no reason to stop gambling. So that answers that one really. I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face and give it all up as I don't want to and unless one really wants to give something up the temptation is always there, always calling and usually calls one back in to whatever it is they were trying to give up. So I'm going to carry on gambling.
The next big question: is my portfolio suitable for the job in hand?
I'm not looking to add more systems here. I have taken on more recently and think I have enough on the go now, especially as I have to think that at some point, probably in the not too distant future I am going to have to go back to work and can't then have a portfolio that is too large else I'll never get all the bets on around work. So I guess the question really boils down to whether any systems I am currently following should be ditched. For a system to be dropped it needs to have shown that it is not up to scratch, either a losing system or one that is not contributing very much to the bottom line. And this needs to be proved over a significant number of bets. So far this year the flat laying systems (CD Lays, Lay'em) and almost all the NH systems I follow have struggled and are in the red but that's not a reason to ditch them unless these losing trends are repeated over a much longer period. For example, the Lay'em has proved profitable over several years so to ditch it after a poor run this year would be stupid. Ditto NHPM and many others. Have any of my systems shown sufficient evidence that they are not going to cut the mustard? I confess I harbour doubts about the long-term profitability of one of my football tipsters (Sports Investor) but I am prepared to see how that one turns out. What else? My overall stats suggest I should lay off the spread bets (have done for a couple of years anyway) and the no-limit hold'em cash poker too. Hmmm. I'll come back to that one in a bit.
If the make-up of my portfolio is OK (and as nothing stands out as needing to be dropped) then it's time to look at the second part of the problem - staking. Am I using the right staking plan for each system? To answer this properly would mean undertaking full staking reviews for each system, which I'm not going to do at this stage. Instead I am going to focus on the systems that are struggling most of late, especially compared to their long-term prospects, and make sure they are being staked correctly. Comparing this year's stats so far with long-term figures gives me a shortlist of systems to look at, namely Ladies Lays, NHPM, Lay'em, CD Lays and HSR (a non-W2W backing system). I won't go into details of the staking reviews here, just give the results.
CD Lays - currently £50 fixed liability - OK
Ladies - currently £5 fixed stake - OK
Lay'em - currently £10 fixed stake - OK
NHPM - currently £100 fixed liability - reduce to £75 for safety
HSR - currently 3% staking - OK
My staking is fine then which generally means the losses I have been experiencing are down to the horses themselves and it's poor fortune for all the systems to have hit a bad spell at the same time. The whole idea of having a portfolio spanning many systems and several sports is to avoid having all my eggs in one basket but that in itself doesn't prevent lots of the eggs from getting broken, which is what has happened of late.
I have established (to my own satisfaction at least) that there is little I could have done to have mitigated against the recent losses. I'm carrying on in the game with only one staking change and with my full portfolio in tact and hoping that a corner is turned soon. However, when one needs to start making profits that will build banks and earn an income time isn't something that one has in abundance. I therefore have to consider how best to spend the time I do have. I am almost certainly going to have go to back to work whenever I am fit to do so, I've come to accept that, so with that in mind I think a few routine changes are in order unless I can earn a reasonable hourly rate without resorting to a 'proper' job. How could I make such money?
Poker is obviously one way. Anyone who has been reading my poker diary will know that I have been playing the micro-stakes Rush Poker tables on Full Tilt with some success. Not a lot, but some. I have been playing a few hours most days recently. I could extend those playing hours to fill most of the working day but what good what that do me? Let's say I play two tables at once and average 400 hands per hour per table. If I can get my win rate up to 2BB/100 (which is probably reasonable) then I am earning $0.40/100 hands or around $3.20 an hour! That's equivalent to about £2 an hour and I am not going to be able to live on that. Poker, at this point in time, can only be a part-time gig while I build up experience that will allow me to up the stakes and thus my hourly rate.
Reading books, watching films and so on isn't going to make me any money so I can forget about that how ever much I would like to do that.
I could try picking my own horse bets (method bets) and hoping I make a few quid that way but bearing in mind I barely know one end of a horse from another and don't have follow horse racing that much I am going to be up against it from the start so this hardly seems like a good way to go.
I could spend the time researching football betting systems looking for profitable angles. This is going to be a lot of hard work for potentially little reward, at first at least, as the bets are only likely to come once or twice a week and I will be starting with small stakes while I ensure the system works in the real world. There is also not that much of the football season left so this is more of a medium-term propostion. It's probably worth doing though as even though it's more systems (something I said I was looking to avoid for now) they will be of my own making so I can't blame anyone else if they do go south, and can take the plaudits if it all goes well.
I think the best way of occupying my time though is going to be the continued development of Project X. I think it could be back on again after I bought a new book recently that should help me overcome a number of the problems I was having. It's still early days on that front yet but I am hopeful. Getting Project X off the ground would be fantastic. I know what I am like and if I can get it started it will become all-consuming and I will want to work on it as often as I can which ought to help getting into a more mature state that bit more quickly. And the sooner I get it operational the sooner I can use it and start making money from it. I ought to work through this book and identify what other problems I will face before I get too excited but I think it's time to take Project X seriously and treat it as work.
With all that in mind I plan to go back to a lunchtime-only approach to my betting on the horses rather than putting the bets on one race at a time. That frees up more time (and brain power, concentration etc) for this task and hopefully means I will get on with it faster. I'm going to balance this with some poker though and try to strike a nice balance between the two. I can always use Rush poker as a 'treat' as I can easily play short sessions at those table without feeling I am not going to get the real benefits. Session length at Rush doesn't matter much at all, unlike a proper cash game or tourney play for example. I said previously I had a fairly professional mindset when it came to gambling and while that may be the case it's time to take a proper professional approach to everything I am trying to work on and to balance their needs accordingly. If I am going to be back at work in the not too distant future it's best I get my main gambling activities back into a lunch hour so I am in the habit by the time I start work again. Then when I do start work I just swap Project X and the poker tables for the office and everything else can pretty much stay as is. Project X and Rush Poker can be evening and weekend activities.
I'm happy with that plan. Now to kick it into action and more importantly stick to it...