There are not many games on today that match the strat criteria, so I thought I'd take this time to reflect on my journey so far.
Its been a bit of a turbulent ride to be honest. Not so much the strategy but the matched betting. Looking through my ledger, I've squandered north of £700.00 in undisciplined mistakes that definitely could have been avoided. It's important to shine a spotlight on these mistakes and why they happened. Most of them are the result of greed, wanting more profit per bet/matched bet. Perhaps another reason was that I was not doing the prior research before taking the dip. Leading on from that you could say I was impatient and lacked discipline. My game was clouded by emotions that one gets when betting. Then it comes full circle. Impatience (because) > greed (because) > Undisciplined (because) > Emotions.
I've decided to buy the book "Trading in the Zone" I need to pin down the psychological edge required to move forward, and I've heard rave reviews about this book. It provides insight into the mindset required to be a successful trader. I'm interested to see what mental battles other traders go through when starting out.
After taking a look at other strategies on Betfair I've realized that my attitude towards this endeavor has been all wrong. I've been looking at it from a 'this is how much money I'm making' kind of way, but really that's incorrect. I need to look at it like a business, whereby the trading in and of itself is a separate entity to me. bear with me on this... When you are working and you are doing something that is a risk for a company, even if it's yours, you are less attached to it. You don't want to mess up, sure, but there's less personal emotion, you feel that there's less at stake, you feel... Professional. This should be applied to your trading, it frees up your mind in a positive way. Firstly, it allows you to make decisions with less emotion. But critically, you still want to put the effort in to get the rewards.
I made a small bit of money testing the new strategies mentioned above, trending at about 5% ROI. This is important because previously I would have been jumping up and down for joy at the potential for this new strategy. However, because I am now less emotionally attached I can safely say that while 5% pleases me, I'm more concerned with how I can break down the data and analyse it in a spreadsheet to refine the strat, I want to put in the effort to get the rewards.
In conclusion, today I've learned that laying money on the line can have a big emotional impact on you, this emotional impact can cause you to act irrationally or impulsively. For example, when you're excited you may get a rush of energy that makes you want to get up and do something. Hell, you may even jump up and down with excitement. When you're scared you become more frantic and alert, your senses heighten and again, you may get a rush of energy to do something (like run away). In order to be a successful trader, you need to separate your betting from these kinds of emotions. You need to identify them early, and cut them out. Cut our your emotions or you may aswell throw your money out the window.