A milestone reached, and missed

After an unusually busy period at work, with many late nights and early mornings means that I haven't posted or checked my blog 'dashboard' for a while. In that period of time my pageview stats have tipped the 100,000 mark.

On delving a bit deeper into the stats I was surprised to see that the country with the third highest page views is the USA. This surprises me because I am under the impression that in-play betting / trading is not possible Stateside. Perhaps they know something that I don't? The only other non European nation in the top ten page view stats, surprisingly to me, is New Zealand. Wherever you are in the world, thanks for looking at my little corner of the net, and I hope you continue to do so.

Moving on to referring sites, top of the tree, no surprises here, is Google. Cassini's Green All Over is top of the blogs for referring, by some margin but A Football Trader's Path, Centre Court Trading and my old muckers over at www.tradingfootball.eu are all worthy of a mention in dispatches. There are many sports trading blogs out, and a lot of the 'challenge' style seem to come in a blast of newly found enthusiasm only to splutter and die. The three mentioned, along with most of the rest of my blog roll are very definitely worth reading if you are serious about sports trading, and the authors have all helped me find and refine my trading over time. Perosnally I wish Lamb would blog again, I can't believe he's completely hung his trading mouse up now he's back with his limbs embracing the greasy pole!

Anyone reading this who trades  as a hobby should consider blogging. It's fun, therapeutic and interesting - give it a go! It might even help your discipline!

I still find it amazing that so many people have found their way here. This exercise started out as little more than a means to try to help with  the thorny issue of discipline, and I little imagined back in 2010 that I'd still be around writing the occasional missive two years later.

In that time I think it's fair to say that I have learnt a lot from other bloggers and commentators, even if I still struggle with certain aspects of, if you like to put it this way, the 'intellectual' side of trading. As you know I'm no mathematician and certainly the idea of compiling and updating football statistics holds little or no appeal to me. Fortunately the world wide web is full of people who thrive on this kind of thing and most of whom are prepared to share the fruits of their labour for free.

One thing I do now do, religiously, is to keep detailed records of my trading. This is probably the single most important step forward that I have taken since starting blogging. I always 'felt' that I knew what worked for me and what didn't, but being able to see it in black and white (or, perhaps more pertinently, in red and green!) has enabled me to focus on the good areas and either improve or discard the bad areas.

Discipline, however, remains my Achilles heel. Only yesterday I three away a three figure sum in the belief (and that's all it was - that old 'gut feeling' that so many have castigated me for!) that the Gooners couldn't possibly go two consecutive Premier League games with no goals for or against. I was doing that kind of thing in 2010 so it is more than a bit disappointing to note that I still, occasionally, tread the same slippery slope despite receiving many warnings and lessons along the way.

It seems, therefore, that I am destined to continue blogging, as the original raison d'etre of the blog still persists. So, you're stuck with me. I missed this landmark by a few hundred page views. I will try not to miss the next one - 250,000 - but I suspect that's more than a few months away!