as per request a quick summary of the trading courses I have attended in the last few months.

First up - a day with Badger (sounds like the title from a Kenneth Grahame novel)

Flew over to UK and headed to Warrington to the sporting exchange to meet up with Badger for the day.

Main areas covered by Badger

Mental aspect to trading - very under estimated point as most people struggle with taking losses and moving on immediately to next trade.

Finance and Money management - covering topics about bank, bet sizing and how to manage money and (hopefully) your profits.

Pre race horse racing - signals to look for in the market, how to identify horses to trade on dos and donts about putting your money in, weight of money discussion. Also some other little bits and pieces to help you form an opinion.

After this we spent rest of day trading small stakes side by side, and you can ask any questions or get help whenever needed. It was interesting to watch Badger, his speed of thought is what makes him money... he gets in and out faster than a fiddlers elbow. Mostly one or 2 tick scalping. He is also expert in reading horses so he does in play lays as soon as he spots horse thats done

In general I would say I got a fair amount of it. Cost for me though, was not cheap with flights, hotel, car hire all added so if you are in UK I would recommend it. if you get 1 on 1 session you can tailor the course to your needs.

Second training was with Jack Birkhead in Madrid

Flew to madrid for 3 day course with Jack. focus was purely on pre race horse markets. Jack predominently does swing trading but he will also scalp if no major market movement takes place

Topics covered - again mental aspect to trading, how to form opinions but be able to quickly change them

Market analysis how to try to identify entry points. What to look for in terms of real and fake money. Signals and historical price movements also how to determine which horses prices are dependent on others.

We also spent a little time covering Jacks setup (you can see it on his blog) and I recommend it to anyone who is serious about trading. he uses Bet Angel VPS which I am also now considering. Evo just isnt a reliable pre race trading tool as bets disappear, cancelling them can also be a problem all of which is something you can do without when staring at ladders and trying to time your entry/exit points.

Most of the time spent was watching Jack trade which to be honest didnt help me that much as he is so fast with clicking that you miss what he is doing, we did review things after but I would rather have been the one trading with him helping me so for last day or so I traded next to him trying to follow some of his trades but was still too quick for me.

I got valuable information but it was too expensive for me for what I got out of it. I think if you are starting from zero and have money to fund it then I would recommend it.

Finally - if anyone is interested in doing Peter Webb's course (Bet Angel creator) then please note that it will not teach you how to trade like Peter but will discuss the market in general and the bet angel tool, so if you are thinking about going on this course dont say I didnt tell you so. Reason I know is there was guy with me at jacks course who went and he told me he was a bit pissed off about it.

If anyone has any questions then just drop them here and I will try to answer as best I can.

In summary pre race trading is a very difficult thing to master, there is so much manipulation that you can easily get caught. reason guys like Adam Heathcote and Peter Webb dont teach their secrets are that they have an edge and a bank that most of us dont so they can do things in the market and just by sheer weight of money they can move things the way they want. Even guys like Jack get caught regularly but what he can do is make the most of situations where things go his way... I watched him be 400 up after 4 races but after 8 he had lost 60% of it so even guys like that get caught.

as you will see on his blog he does trade with a partner and this is something I would also be interested in. If anyone is trying to go fulltime and is interested in having a partner to help trade with then drop me a PM as its something I would like to setup. Can be done easily on skype.








Market analysis -

Hi Scotty,

Thanks for a really interesting post. I've sent you a PM about possibly trading together.

Cheers

Thanks I sent PM back... would be happy to team up... just let me know roughly when suits

Scotty, thank you very much for those insights into the courses. Must have been fascinating to compare and contrast the differences between Badger and Jack (compare and contrast huh...just like being being in an exam!).

My feeling is that after a full day with Badger your head must have been spinning, add to that the 3 days with Jack and you obviously had a wealth of knowledge thrown in your direction...how on earth will you remember it all? Guess you took copious notes...(maybe attendees should try to video themselves trading with the gurus for later review?).

Note to Badger and Jack...if you decide to add a videos feature to your courses, remember who mentioned it first!

I like your point about working with another trader to persue a full time trading career, and I wish you well with that...trading in isolation can be very demanding...as in the Chat Room and here in the Forum it's nice to be able to bounce ideas around.

Thanks again for posting your experiences.

no problem Dak... I think after been on a couple of courses my general feedback is that there is some value, but to be honest there isnt any way to shortcut the learning process as even guys like Jack get caught on a daily basis, the main differentiator is that these guys are mentally able to quickly bounce back and fire in more trades to get out of a tricky situation where we usually sit and curse and we let it impact our thinking on the next trade, if you can learn to overcome this then this is half the battle.

I lost 130 yesterday firstly on the nugget Liverpool trade and then on City game where I also followed the nugget trade and it pissed me off no end. But the thing that annoyed me most is that these trades werent my trades but was following someone else thinking, my gut feeling was that Pompey would get something (I also mentioned this on the thread) but I went with recommended trade. So with that in mind I am going to go it on my own for a while (sorry Ads/Bingo), I have learned to take losses but only when they are based on my own thinking.

i find it of interest the forum and other peoples views. but my money my trades, i do take notice of the advice from the nugget crew but would never blindly follow their advice it is much more pleasing knowing your own views have worked out in your favour. it will give you much more confidence in the future. if you blindly follow anybody how will you learn, but you do need good advice in the begining from somewhere and the nugget crew do provide that fair play to both

Scotty,
Thanks for a very informative post. Very generous of you to share that here. I hope the knowledge you gained will be of good use......
Paul

It took me quite a while to learn that the only person who is responsible for winning/losing money when gambling/trading is me, and me alone. Been there, done that and now burned the bloody T shirt.

When it comes to learning about football trading, I normally start my trading day by assessing the games myself, then I choose a strategy that I think is most appropriate etc etc. After that I'll normally look at the Nugget's Trade of the Day, look into this Forum and the Chat Room and generally have a chat with the other traders about what they are doing and how they see the games I'm interested in. Most times I stick with what conclusions I've reached, but sometimes I will alter a trade in the light of any extra information that our 'group' may impart (some really interesting insights given out too).

I find what Ads and Bingo do when they trade to be absolutely fascinating. They have different styles and I really enjoy watching how they trade...I'm learning a helluva lot. Mostly I like the 'warts 'n' all' aspect to what the members here do...the honestly reported trades with the associated success or failures...makes for a fantastic learning environment.

I guess what I'm saying is that courtesy of the terrific, freely given, input by so many members that I'm truly enjoying the whole trading experience...long may it continue.

Cheers scotty,
thanks for taking to time to put a review together on these courses, hopefully helping us all along a bit more.