Where's your head at

A little about me, then. Specifically where I am in my fledgling trading career.

I have been arb'ing bookies for a couple of years now - more of a hobby bringing in a couple of hundred here and there. I therefore have the basic knowledge of bookmaking, dutching and how betting exchanges work. What I certainly haven't mastered is trading. I am 4 weeks in to my career, but working full time five days a week allows me to trade evenings and weekends only.

I have attended the course designed and presented by Peter Webb on trading (I highly recommend it to anyone considering starting), but I'm certainly not out of my loss making stages yet.

I will post a quick P&L of where I'm at right now, and give you updates in some form or another as time goes on. There were more days than this, but this was prior to the record keeping tips Peter shared on his course.

Total Positive Days 6

Total Negative Days 3

Total Neutral Days 0

My net profit during this time is £11.83. This is using £1 tick sizes. I will post far more detailed records going forward.

I'm finding at the moment I'm losing money doing categorically stupid things - clicking the wrong button, for instance. Something that has also begun to worry me slightly is going on tilt when I lose. I naturally want to chase losses - throw good money after bad. I MUST get over this. Hindsight is 20-20, but in the heat of the moment it's hard to think clearly.

No word of a lie - I now have the words "Don't be a Pillock!!" on top of my monitor.

One thing I have learned this that losses pale to insignificance in the long term. Sure, one bad race may wipe out a whole day, or even week's profit, but there are 365 days and 52 weeks in a year. When you look at like that it's not so bad... unless you do it every week!

I won't be able to trade tomorrow, it will probably be Friday when I next get in front of my computer. I will reset my Betfair balance to £500 and proceed from square one. We're going for £1 tick sizes and will be using Bet Angel - which I highly recommend.

Grab your nuts... here we go!