The Alex Buchanan Diary – 21/03/09

Posted on March 21, 2009 by  

Follow friend of bet72, Alex, as he guides you through some of his proven betting and trading strategies…..

21st March 2009

Hello, Alex here.

I’ve been testing a number of betting and trading strategies since August 2008, with a view to finding one or more systems which prove consistently successful month on month.

I have filtered out the less successful ones, and now I am concentrating on two similar strategies in horse racing and football, both of which have been producing exciting results for a few months.

As I work on these, tweaking them as I go, I thought it might be an idea to share some of the highlights and lowlights of my trading week, as my turnover on the betting exchanges is nudging towards 5 figures every week. Naturally, within that lot, there are some pearlers and some howlers!

Hopefully, as my strategies are based on a loss recovery system, even the sad, mildly embarrassing trades are soon engulfed in a deluge of profit!

Let’s start with a couple of recent positions which find themselves right at the top of the dross pile.

While Liverpool’s 5-0 aggregate trouncing of Real Madrid could rightly stake a claim for the performance of the last 16 stage of the Champions League, I think the 12-1 annihilation of Sporting Lisbon by Bayern Munich might just take the prize. To win a tie by such a margin at this stage of a competition of this standard, is almost unprecedented, and guess what? Not content with laying Bayern in the away leg, which they won 5-0, I then decided to compound the blunder, by laying them again in the home leg, partly on the basis that the Portuguese had some pride to restore, and the Germans would field a reserve side. Final score, Germans – full strength side, Portuguese, reserve side who downed tools early doors. 7-1!

So, if you are ever looking for football tips, European or otherwise, go somewhere else! Thankfully, my strategies don’t rely on a judgement call in most cases, but more of that in future weeks.

In a vain attempt to restore my already tarnished reputation, in the last 10 days or so, I have successfully laid AZ Alkmaar, Bayer Leverkusen, Aachen, Lens, Ajax, Marseille, Peterhead and Burton Albion, all at prices of no more than 1.62, or 8/13 in old money. How many of them were judgement calls? One maybe, two at most.

The shortest price lay among that little lot was 1.4, but I can trump that with a spectacular odds-on horse racing lay from Tuesday of this week.

Fresh from his sensational week at Cheltenham, Paul Nicholls sent his novice hurdler Conflictofinterest to Kempton, where it was expected to open its account with ease, hence the SP of 1/10. Now it may or may not surprise you to know that only around 3 in every 5 odds-on favourites actually win, but unsurprisingly, when they are as short as this, they almost always win. Not this time though, as it was beaten in a close finish by a 16/1 shot, aptly called Nothing’s Easy. The fact that the Nicholls horse actually got round, but still didn’t win, makes it all the more surprising, as generally the reason for a failure of such a short priced favourite in a jumps race, is some sort of mishap at an obstacle.

Anyway, laid at 1.12, it duly obliged.

On the subject of Cheltenham, what a great week of racing that was. Clearly, my objective with my gambling strategies is to make a profit, and I’m confident that I will continue to make genuinely good money from these, but like most of you reading this I’m sure, I love sport, and the drama and excitement it provides. You might have to wait a while to find something as exceptional as Tony McCoy somehow steering Wichita Lineman to success in the William Hill Trophy on the opening day of the festival.

My missus is currently recovering from an operation, so I thought it might be an idea to perk her up a bit by sticking some money in an account, and asking her to pick some horses from the big races. So, last of the big spenders, I stuck £20 in my William Hill account, and being faithful to my philosophy of never risking more than 10% of my bank in any one trade, I set about placing bets of no more than £2 to begin with.

I wasn’t sure how interested or excited she would be by this new pastime, but as McCoy drove Wichita from seemingly nowhere, to win in the final dramatic strides, the sight of the cat running for cover from the strange yelps and animations of my good lady, and the general air of euphoria that had filled our living room, I knew I had bagged a winner!

The horse looked so out of contention, that it had traded in-running at 59.0, so a few unfortunate folks will have done their pieces there, but Mrs B didn’t give a hoot about that, as she celebrated her 6/1 success. I was almost as pleased as I would have been, had it been a £500 lay success – well, maybe not quite.

Just proves though, that strategies, theories, trades or whatever else are all stimulating in their own way, but there is nothing to beat the sheer theatre of the sport itself.

Incidentally, with no help from me and probably just as well, the missus ended the week with 5 winners, 6 placers, and a profit of £34!! Just as well I reckon, as I would no doubt have suffered a verbal lashing for suggesting it in the first place, if the gamble hadn’t come off!

Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed this opening gambit, and I look forward to hearing any feedback you might wish to post.

I’ll leave you with No 1 in my Handy Household Hints list – NEVER gamble with money you can’t afford to lose.

Toodle pip.

Comments

2 Comments on "The Alex Buchanan Diary – 21/03/09"

  1. Michael Gold on Wed, 25th Mar 2009 11:53 pm 

    nice new addition to the site…

    im a bit confused as to where the actual “system” comes in though?

  2. Alex on Thu, 26th Mar 2009 10:03 am 

    Michael, glad you enjoyed it, and not surprised that your confused about the “system”. I haven’t gone into any detail about my strategies at all, and don’t really plan to until I’ve tested them further.

    Suffice to say, I’m really excited about them, but I’ve had my pockets lightened in the past by investing in flawed systems, so I need to be sure that this works long term before I divulge fully.

    In the meantime, enjoy the blog, and you never know what you might find out in the weeks ahead! 😉

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