PPP: “piss poor planning leads to piss poor performance” or as the Geordie betting maestro is frequently heard to say “SISO” (Shit in- Shit out).

Whether you are  still in the corporate world, trading for a living or painting signs, the above is so true and I had a very good example of it yesterday when I managed to enter trade in the Gurus trading room at the last minute after getting a pm to let me know that a trade was in the offing. I quickly got my geeks toy fired up and congratulated myself  as I got the trade into the market, unfortunately (as seems to be the norm at the moment) I managed to FUP and it was the wrong game. It took me a couple of minutes to realise that all was not right and by then it was too late and I found myself on the wrong end of a beating with no real way out. Not a massive red but not exactly what you want at 9.30 in the morning.

One of the guys in the trading room was sympathetic and had this bit of excellent advice “never enter a trade unless you have a plan written down that you can refer to that states your entry and exit points “. Very good advice and if I had done this I would have seen that I was in the wrong game.

Talking of planning  I spent probably the best £15 that I’ve spent this year on the latest product from Sports Trading Life called “The trend report”  which I would definitely recommend. The first issue (not sure if its going to be monthly?) covers off Football,Cricket and  rather bizarrely Snooker (but hey why not). I used to get a monthly publication from Pete Nordsted that analysed the markets but gave up on it as I found that seventy  pages of just numbers wasn’t suited to my reading style  (as good as they were). This one is different in that they have used recent sporting events to illustrate the market moves and have also  used really good quality screen prints of the actual Betfair  markets so its far easier to visualise and follow what has happened. The cricket trading section on its own was worth the money although this is just a personal preference as cricket is a sport that I’m looking to get heavily involved in this summer. If you have ever bought any of their previous publications you will know that they are extremely well written without any of the  normal bs that goes with such guides ( 1o pages of explaining what Betfair is anyone?).  Well  worth a look and before anyone leaves a comment Ive got no financial interest in it- its just an excellent product.

On the subject of preparation its worth mentioning two sites that I regularly use (one a lot more than the  other). The first is Money Saving Expert  (or MSE as its known). MSE probably was the site that really gave me the knowledge to get involved in taking advantage of bookmaker offers and certainly always used to be full of creative ideas on how to use the bonuses and try and make the most of some of the “what if” offers. I found that over time I was just spending too much of my time reading through the forums and found that you really had to separate the “wheat from the chaff” in that as the popularity of so called “matched betting” increased then so did the number of people who would just want to be spoon fed with answers and who clearly hadn’t the first idea about some of the risks involved. You only have to look at some of the threads to find someone asking ” if its goes to extra time does that result count as well?”/  “how many days in test match?” – answers that are easily available in Google and probably symptomatic of the laziness of some people. I’m also slightly bemused by the fact that the forum has grow so large when the sites reputation has been built around money saving with the founder Martin Lewis regularly appearing on TV talking about ways to cut 37 p off your grocery bill. This attitude to money saving is certainly evident in some of the posts where you will see people proudly boast that they have “done an offer – found a good match and its worth 89p- it all adds up”. Yes it might but so does flipping burgers at the minimum wage which you would be better of doing if you’ve spent 20 minutes looking at odds comparison sites….

Don’t get me wrong I’m not slating the site, far from it as, after all it kinda gave me my first break (!)  its just that its seems to be somewhat of a contradiction. That said its free and you do get some nuggets of info there. Heres the link just in case there are people who have never heard of it.

The other criticism aimed at the site is that any offers that are posted on the site are absolutely hammered by people who just abuse the bonuses never to return to that particular bookmaker again (if you Google any thing remotely connected with free bets they will be near the top of the list)-resulting in the pulling of these offers. There is always plenty of debate about this and some element of friction recently in various posts  between some members of MSE and the next site I use (which is  The Gambling Times (TGT)) )about the posting of  these offers. There’s obviously two sides to every debate but there is no doubt that if MSE is (or wants to be perceived) as a “money saving saving site” then TGT is a site about making  money. Its different in that you have to pay an annual fee of £28 per year and this gets you access to all of the information contained in the forums as well as some priority rates for other services. This information is a bit more about serious gambling /”AP’ing/trading and as such you will find a lot less basic questions of the type mentioned above .Having said that newbies are certainly welcome and my experience is that you wil be welcomed with open arms unlike free sites which will obviously have their fair share of keyboard warriors who like nothing better than to hand out smug comments and abuse.  Where it is also different to MSE is that TGT  will actively work with and promote bookmakers and carry reviews (although personally I still find that SBR is the best for checking out those dodgy books)

There is a link at the bottom of this page but its just a click through and I’m not financially associated with the site in any way. Well worth a look if your serious and if I was to sum it up I’d say that the MSE is the annoying little brother to TGTS slightly older more street wise teenager when it comes to chasing girls . The younger brother has its uses but its the older one that really gets the job done. I really have no idea where that analogy came from or whether its actually any good. On reflection its not but I cant be arsed to think of anything else.

Lastly a great post from about A football traders path that I’m sure everyone can relate to when asked “what is it you do again?….