I'm deliberately trying not to have a favourite trade. What has been happening to me of late is that I get a winning trade...so, I repeat the trade on another game...and it wins again...great...so I repeat again and ...boom...crash and burn.

My focus these days is in trying more to relate the odds of the teams, stats, team sheets etc, coupled with trying to look ahead to try and evaluate how I genuinely think the game will go, and then utilising the best trading strat to fit the situation.

Is it a league game?...a cup game?...a local derby? do the team sheets reflect a strong team or 2nd string team?...is there a really strong fav?...are both teams evenly matched?...strong fav at home?...away?..Do I think there will be a lot of goals?...or low scoring? etc, etc.

One thing I will do these days is to look at situations where the odds are extremely low, and see if they represent an opportunity to open a lay position with minimum exposure, but with a good possiblility of picking up a few ticks...for example, one of gundulf's favourites (cheers gun), look at laying the under3.5 at HT if the score is 0-0.

The more football trading I'm doing, the more I am learning...and one thing is certain...there is no 'one trading strat fits all'. I have to learn to be flexible and adapt to properly fit the few trading techniques I know to the actual situation...all will come with more experience I hope!

Not that I have had much time to trade recently but my favourites (perhaps for the lack of time reason) are those with insurance, usually on the cs market, just don't get time to watch a game and scalp for insurance. In particular I like the 2-1 with under 1.5 goal insurance strategy. I look to make perhaps 20%-35% profit on the total outlay if successul and scratch if nothing by half time (not sure if that is ROI or not given discussion in previous threads).

I generally look for a favourite between 1.5 and 2 for the above and sometimes have a lower amount on 1-2 in case the dog scores first.

I think that which ever strategy you use it is important, particular for those of us who have less experience, to plan to a certain extent what you will do in different circumstances prior to the match, eg goal to the dog, early goals, when to get out if it remains 0-0 etc rather than just hoping the right thing will occur to you when a goal does (or doesn't) go in. With more experience those actions will no doubt become more of a reaction than needing specific pre-planing.

Hopefully I will have a chance to actually trade a game some time in 2010!!!