Discipline

[andyp]

Please can somebody help me. I am looking for advice:

I paper traded with a new system for a month.... it showed a very good profit - great!

I start to bet with money, all was going well for the first week, and today i put a bet on Always Baileys to be placed. I also noted two other horses in that race, so my head was screaming to me to leave the bet as it is too close to call. What happens, i put a bet on, my bet doesn't get placed... the other 2 selections do!

How can i discipline myself? I knew that bet was to close too call, but i just saw the £ signs and my bank was in profit, so i thought just put it on anyway.

I need to learn how to discipline myself, or will i just learn by my mistakes?

Does anyone have any hints, tips or stories on how they handle these situations?

Thanks in advance

[tophatter]

The only way to discipline yourself is to write it down and let the pain of losing burn a bit longer - never say oh well I will forget that, make sure you remember it and how much these mistakes cost you.

[andyp]

Thanks TH, i do log all my selections and results. Gonna make me mad when i log todays! ;fire

Have you had any problems like this TH?

[tophatter]

Yeah, plenty in the past Andy.

The temptation is just to write it off as one of those things but it is all those little things that add up.

What you want to do is try and realise that gambling returns are hard earned and that every penny is precious. You might have to have ten or twenty bets just to get back to where you were before you lost your discipline. That is a big strain you put on yourself.

[andyp]

Thanks mate, Just a bit :censored: off with myself because this is the first system that i have created that is doing well and i personally messed it up on this occassion.... never again!

[tophatter]

It will happen Andy, but the good thing is that it is at the start of the system so those mistakes will cost you less than if you had six months trouble free and had increased your stakes. Much better to make mistakes early on as they cost yyou less in monetary terms and help prevent same thing happening when the money involved is more serious.

[Iron Chris]

If it was the only selection by your system then you did nothing wrong by placing the bet?, just down to it being a loser on the stats... :)

[andyp]

If it was the only selection by your system then you did nothing wrong by placing the bet?, just down to it being a loser on the stats... :)


The system threw up 3 selections... 2 eventually got placed and the other didnt - guess which i bet on! :yikes:

in situations like this, i have said it should be a void bet because there are too many selections. But i thought the value was too good.

Lesson learnt!

[tophatter]

Yeah iron chris is right, I have just read your post again. The ill disciplined thing would have been not to place the bet or to bet on the other two horses and that is the case even if you had won with those other two.

[Profit Seeker]

Ye I don't see what's wrong here :doh You place your system bets no matter what you think of other horses in the race, otherwise it's a method you're talking about here. :)

[tophatter]

Maybe if the system throws up three bets you should bet on all three. I dont know enough about your system though and how you paper traded it. If you paper traded voiding bets from having a certain amount of selections then yes you should have left it. If you paper traded it though placing bets on all horses you should have bet on all horses.

To get a system correct you need strict rules so the decision is out of your hands.

[wb]

How about setting up a small 'fun' account. the bets you are unsure on could be backed or layed to small stakes in that account if they keep jumping out at you. then you could keep your system seperate. a few wins would be nice, but if they loose, the money will only come out of your 'fun' account and not your proper system.

I used to be the same and sometimes I could not resist backing some while doing a system , so now, when I see a horse that is 'jumping out at me' I write it down. then when im finished placing my system bets i back it with my 'fun' account (using small stakes, so i dont really mind if it loses)

[Win2Win]

Ye I don't see what's wrong here :doh You place your system bets no matter what you think of other horses in the race, otherwise it's a method you're talking about here. :)
Blimey, he's learnt something :) I thought you were like Homer Simpon, you had to forget something in order to make room to remember something :laugh Great episode that one :)

[andyp]

Sorry for the confusion.

My system selects horses by going through each race, every horse has to meet several pieces of criteria. If they do not meet all of the criteria, they dont qualify, until i am left with one horse which the system selects as having an excellent chance of being placed!

When paper trading, if the system selected more than one horse, i would not bet on that race. Therefore i was hopefully eliminating more unplaced horses and getting myself a better strike rate, so then it was good value to bet on the place market at odds of above 1.7 with the average being around 1.9 - 2.1.

So what i am saying is, if the system chose 2 or more selections = NO BET. Today, the system selected 3 horses in the same race - i lost my discipline and followed my instinct instead of the system and therfore lost my money! The system had chose 2 placed horses and 1 unplaced (the one i backed to place).

Hope this is as clear as mud? :rolleyes:

[Win2Win]

Didn't Jesus have 12 Disciplines who used to follow him around :doh Judas.....Vegy reborn :laugh

[Profit Seeker]

Blimey, he's learnt something :) I thought you were like Homer Simpon, you had to forget something in order to make room to remember something :laugh Great episode that one :)
There's always plenty of room cos everything's forgotten in a flash :)

[tophatter]

I follow what you mean now Andy,

Well It is simple enough - you did break the rules of the system so did lose your discipline. The good thing is you recognise this and you can consider the loss you made on the race as a kind of fine. It will be a small price worth paying if it stops you repeating it in future.