Here follows a short excerpt from one of  my manuals  discussing the paradox of  the need for intensive study in order to learn the markets so you can turn full-time and spend more time with the very people you are neglecting during the study.

“Those of you who have purchased any of my publications will know a little about my background, those that don’t, I won’t bore you with the mundane but I will give you some idea about how I came to become involved in the Correct Score markets and sort of how I fell in love with them.

After my (well documented)  early struggles with the horse racing markets on Betfair, I decided to take a renewed approach and learn how to trade some other markets.

I’d read that football markets were easy to trade but only half believed it. (In my experience, nothing is easy to trade!) I first explored the numerous Lay The Draw threads and found that whilst the concept was sound, the approach most people were taking was destined for failure.

People don’t think about their trading enough. They think LTD is just laying the draw on any match and hoping for a goal. If you don’t get one, take a big loss and move on.
To me, that’s counter-intuitive and also a complete load of rubbish!

The beauty of trading is, our position is always fluid and we can soon adjust position if it goes against us in the early stages. We don’t have to sit and hope for a goal or a big loss.
We just do something else instead.

My fascination with the endless opportunity in the Correct Score markets was initially fuelled by Slicer on the Betfair forums. He posted a little teaser during the 2008 European Championships about a no lose method he had been working on that he had finally fathomed out.

I discuss the merits of that method in a different article but for now suffice to say that I’m sure he was being a little economical with the truth!

However, I would definitely recommend it as an exercise to get you started. Most of my ideas came about from studying that initial puzzle. It is a great exercise for the new trader to work through.
 

With new knowledge of how intricately the markets are related, (Each market is like an intelligent part of the whole. The efficiency if frightening) I began a new attempt at taking money from the markets. I tried to combine what I knew with other well known strategies and improve them as I went.

To be perfectly honest, Football is no longer my main area of operation. I
don’t like to work too many weekends and that’s when most of the games are.
I only really work weekends when major Tennis tournaments are on and if I’m sacrificing a Saturday and Sunday staring at a computer screen, I want well paying for it! So I often will do the football as well.

It’s important to consider the benefits of time off spent with the family or just doing whatever makes you happy. Trading should be a tool through which you extract income from other traders, it’s not a way of life but it’s easy to let it go that way.

I spent so much time on this in the beginning that my relationship with my family became very strained. How can you shout at the kids if you’re never there when they need you?
How much expectation  is it fair to place on your wife? We shouldn’t take them for granted.

I’m lucky in that the last 2 years, most of my time has been my own. I’ve had time to spend with my family and treat my dear old mother to the things she could never afford when we were children.

During that 2 years, I’ve lost a lot of people who I loved dearly. Thankfully for me, the time and effort was already in and I didn’t spend every hour at a computer screen haemorrhaging money night after night. Instead I got to spend quality time with nearest and dearest.

Apologies for the waffle but it’s important that you know this Trading business has the potential to really engross you and I ask you to ensure you don’t lose sight of what’s really important. A little learning every day is great but don’t obsess. You will get there in the end. Patience!”