Saturday 4 July 2009

Reducing stakes

This may sound crazy given the fantastic run I've been having recently, but I am going to change my staking plan slightly from tomorrow (or today given it's past midnight).

With the bank sitting at £2588.63, my single stakes should be £52.83, using my 2% of betting bank system.

Regular readers of the blog will probably remember that the safety mechanism kicks in when the bank halves, the stakes halve. I.e I would bet until the bank is reduced to £1294.32 and then reduce stakes to £25.89.

But I am at a point now where I don't really want to lose £1300 odd quid, it's a lot of money, and it's not as if I'm made of money. This could happen in just a few days if a few double stakers lose (although they're flying in at the moment!).

The bottom line is we're saving for the baby coming, preparing for being down to one salary, trying to pay off a few debts here and there, basically living a pretty frugal lifestyle. So do I want to go and lose £1300 in a few days? Not really.

Now obviously if the winners keep flying in then all this is immaterial and my bank here will continue to shoot up and break £10k (and the rest!) - but maybe it won't.

So I will now be staking 1% of my bank on selections (2% of bank on double stake selections). But another difference is I will NOT be reducing my stakes if the bank reduces by half at any point, I will keep plouging forward.

So today my core stake will be £26.42 win singles - still a decent amount and still enough to hammer the bookies with a few nice wins - and every time the bank climbs to a new high a new 1% of bank stake will be found.

The 2% stake has been good to me, it's accelerated growth and done it's job. Now it's time to get in the trenches, keep what I've won - and battle on with confidence and no fear.

Good luck to us all in our pursuit for riches.

4 comments:

  1. Always thought 2% was a little bit high.

    Stick with the 1% from now on. Don't go any lower even if you think the stakes are too high (assuming you keep going well of course.) If you're going to make a success of it you need to ride the waves.

    Quick question : your stakes are 26.42 at the moment. Do you round down or up or is it possible to bet those amounts in the UK?

    In Oz, all bets must be placed in 50c increments so not possible to bet those fractions.

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  2. Also, I like the way you think about your punting. You seem to have a pessimistic outlook when it comes to the punt and that is a good thing.

    I've got twin boys (almost 1yo) and as much as I love having a bet, you need to get your priorities sorted which you have done.

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  3. I see you have a place to donate. I would be happy to donate a very small amount if I am up from your bets. I only put tiny stakes anyway. I shall keep a record and act accordingly. I also havent currently got my new card on paypal but am planning to do that when i get moment ( i have 2 kids and wife away most of the summer working)

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  4. Hi both

    Mercs, thanks for your posts, it's nice to be reassured about stuff like that. It's a decision that I may possibly live to regret in a few months when I look at "what might have been" but at the moment I'm relaxed about it and do feel its the best thing to do. Like you say, other things have to be thought about with things like this and I'd be really mad at myself if I lost a load of this cash quickly. I'd be absolutely certain I'd get it back again afterwards in the weeks/months following, but don't want to get into all that.

    No, better to just steady up and march on with a conservative staking plan, knowing that nothing disastrous is going to happen.

    This is all, naturally, not to say I don't have immense confidence in my selection process, I just know that the law of averages stakes that if you have a strike rate of around 16/17% it's a mathamatical certainty that every now and then a bad run will come along. This will just cusion myself against that possibility.

    As for the 50c thing - no, luckily bookkies here allow you to stake whatever you want (minimum/maximum aside of course).

    And - wow - twin boys almost a year old! You must have your work cut out with those two! I wonder which one'll grow up to win the Melbourne Cup!

    Fantismo - thanks for your comments, that'd be very good of you. As I've said before I put the donate thing up absolutely not to make people feel obliged to use it, but just in case people felt they wanted to. Obviously anything you feel appropriate would be gratefully received, many thanks and good luck.

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