Obsession.

Summer Of Football's James left a comment after last night's post:

"Enjoyed reading this post because it is exactly what I go through at the end of each month, I almost want to say no bets members - we've had an excellent month but surely you have to keep sticking to your principles and take the good bets on? I don't think that month end feeling will ever go away!"

I can very easily understand the temptation to a tipster who is reaching the end of what has been a particularly good month, to reign in the bets and so avoid any potential damaging erosion of the month's profits. Tipsters are working within a highly pressurised environment in which a reputation can be made or broken by companies such as the Secret Betting Club, various proofing sites, and bloggers who tend to compartmentalise their betting results into months.

I was talking about this to Helen on Friday night (yeah, I know...I really know how to show a woman a good time!), explaining that we'd had a decent month and I was nervous about the weekend's betting. Her immediate response was to ask why I didn't consider just not placing any bets. Instead, she said, let's be pleased with the profit we've made, bank it, and start afresh on the 1st October.

Such an approach is, of course, nonsensical. Helen knew it, I knew it, and I'm darned sure that James (and other tipsters who have said the same thing to me at one time or another) know it. In fact, this whole act of breaking down our betting performance into months is, frankly, ridiculous. Let's take away the fact that the weekend could have been a stormer, producing a massive profit that would contribute significantly to the end of year results, and simply look at the obsession of breaking everything down into months.

Let's face it, we do it because it is convenient. I also think we do it because we are generally conditioned into thinking about our income being received at monthly intervals, paying our bills on a monthly basis, and much of what we do financially is dictated by this cycle. In the world of gambling though, there must be potential for this to be detrimental to what it is we are trying to achieve, which is a long term profit. Thinking about things on a monthly basis must surely push our minds away from looking at things over the longer periods of time that are surely best used for the purposes of assessing the profitability of a gambling service? How long that longer period should be is of course, a different topic entirely, but you take the point.

All of this leads very nicely onto the subject of "Tipsters vs Personal Edge" that Shane has asked we analyse. This pressure to perform on a monthly basis that leads to scrutiny and analysis is one of the things a tipster has to bear and which may materially affect the tips they provide. We'll go into all that shortly.

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Hand on heart, I'm finding it tough at the moment. I can't say why. Things are going well. Results are good and the portfolio is making money. But I do feel a little weary of it all and I'm certainly not as sharp as I should be. It's little things that just tell me I'm not quite on it. I missed the odds on a Form Lab Lite bet yesterday, despite the fact that I had noted that the selection was actually published last Friday. My Sportyy subscription came to an end without me realising and so I missed today's bets. Things like this irritate me because I know I should be on top of them.

I'm going down to Devon for a week later this month (half term week). It's part family holiday, part reconnaisance mission (although that's a story for another day). What I'm wondering is if I should use it to take a small break. I'd still place all the football bets because I really wouldn't want to run the risk of missing a big weekend that can provide a good football tipster with a significant chunk of their season's profit, but I'm thinking that fresh sea air - and by 'eck it's going to be fresh at this time of year - good food and beer, and much less emphasis placed on betting might not be a bad thing. We'll see.


Monday's Betting

A quiet day with no racing bets at all. I feel bad for missing the Form Lab Lite winner, not for the sake of my own pocket but because it means the results that I report are not totally representative of the service, and I don't feel that is fair. Having said that, it shouldn't matter too much in the long run. The one Form Lab Lite bet I did manage to place was a winner.

The only other bet was from Summer Of Football. A loser on the Asian handicaps, but one which returned half the stake.

Form Lab Lite: Staked 1pt, +0.909pts.
Summer Of Football: Staked 1pt, -0.5pts.

I thought I'd stick the month and year to date figures up each Monday. I was finding that the blog was looking more like an audit sheet putting them all up every day


No post tomorrow - will be watching the Arsenal. See you Thursday.