From £1,000 to £10,000 Update 3

WOW what a month it has been - and not all in the good sense at all!! If you haven't read the first couple of posts then please go back and read them for the history. Those that have been following my progress will know that its been mixed so far.
Well it got even "mixter" this month. First of all I had a week with some large losses :( - then followed by snow and ice and very little racing to chose from.
However, all this proved to be a blessing in disguise as it gave me plenty of time to take stock - go over all my stats and records (vital as I said last month) to see where I was going wrong and review my trading plan.
Well simple really I was going wrong by not even being anywhere close to my trading plan - so what did I do - STOP.
I didn't trade at all for a few days just studied and reviewed and went back to my original plan - the one that I put in place 1 year ago when I started learning Betfair.
So what is the plan - only 3 lays per day and being very selective on what to lay and then stopping after that. I decided that I would paper trade only - in other words "pretend" that I was betting for real as if I had a bank of £500 and would review that at the end of each week. So week one I laid a total of 21 horses and 20 didn't win giving me a paper profit of £500 and doubling my theoretical bank - so far so good!!
Now paper trading whilst essential to try out a new system or strategy doesn't really give you the "feel" of real betting so I also put aside £100 as fun money to also trade my lays picked in the same way. However, I had a total of 35 bets with 34 winning lays over 6 days. My actual real cash £100 currently sits at £300.
I will continue to paper trade and play with the fun bank probably until the enf of the year and definately for at least another week to ensure that the system is working well.

I would like to give a huge thank you to all those supporting me and encouraging me in my control and discipline when following my own rules - of particular help have been Clint Smith, Tony Beedle and others have been Nathan Edwards, Antony Hartley, Colin Brenam and Craig Braddock and apologies if I left anyone out.

Another thing that I have learnt this month is to limit my liability on my lay bets rather than bet with a particular stake (courtesy of Clint and Tony) - I had heard that before but never really understood how it affected the betting - now I do and it makes a world of difference. So when I started with my "play money" of £100 my liability was £100 with whatever stake that worked out for the odds, this is proving to be a great system.

A further lesson (and how many times have I been told this without understanding it) is to withdraw profit each day. So at the end of the day anything over £100 goes into my Australia bank and I have the £100 to play with again the next day.

Now I feel confident with the correct system in place and have learnt a lot about how to manage my trading which has helped massively. For the first time I feel that I am definately able to achieve the £10,000 (although it won't be by the end of the year!) and I also feel in control and completely disciplined just as I was when I started.

Its been a long long year (and expensive too!) of learning and making so many mistakes but I feel that I have now passed through my aprenticeship and know what I am doing (well to some extent I hasten to add I am still a novice!!)

The goals for the next month are to ensure that my plan is working before comitting larger amounts of money and above all else to stick to the rules and continue to be disciplined. Oh and not to get too cocky just becuase its going ok so far ;)

Well a Very Happty Christmas to one and all and I will report back 9th January (ish) - hopefully with good news, see you soon.