20th March 2017
Hi ,
It is a curse of bettors that they have a desire to permanently tweak. I did say tweak and not twerk!
There must be something in our DNA that wants us to try and make something that’s working, work better.
I've learned over the years that…
…you shouldn’t!
I put this down to the human emotion which tries to make us believe we can do better than we already are. It’s the grass is always greener on the other side feeling.
It's an emotion that's very hard to overcome, but you must.
It doesn’t matter if the selections you’re using are from your own systems and strategies, or the selections of a tipster. There's always a desire to think that we may be able to make them produce a bigger profit.
And, of course, this feeling is strongest when we are in the middle of a losing streak.
If you've never experienced this feeling, then I must wholeheartedly congratulate you. I've certainly experienced it.
In fact, I experience it at some point with every new strategy I implement. And it’s only experience that's taught me to ignore the feeling.
So, why must we ignore it?
Because 95% of the time it will result in you turning the profits you have made into a loss. Followed by deciding the method doesn’t work and binning it.
The following process is very common for a lot of bettors…
1) Get selections
2) Making profits
3) Hit a losing streak
4) Panic
5) Think that selections should be performing better
6) Start changing selections to get a better performance
7) Lose even more
8) Decide selections are bad and move on
This just DOESN’T work!
You've turned profitable selections into losing ones by tweaking them and then decided that the selections are no good.
I've seen this happen time and time again.
It’s even more common for punters using tipsters because there's not 100% faith in the selections.
Almost daily I receive emails asking other the selections being received from a tipster can be change, or if a different staking should be used.
The answer is always a resounding no!
At this point you've made the decision to try a tipster, and you must follow your decision through by giving them at least 3 months following exactly what they say.
If you're not going to do this, then there's no point in joining the service to start with.
In fact, what we should be doing is taking a leaf out of almost every other industry that requires testing.
Gambling is one of only the few industries where we need to test, but we do it with no real plan of action. We use emotions to guide us instead of our brain.
If you really want to test changing your selections, here's what you should do…
1) Get profitable selections
2) Analyse how you may want to change them for an increased profit
3) Change just one thing in the selection process
4) Follow the new selections AND the original selections for three months (or 100 winners whichever comes first)
5) Analyse the results for the test period of time
6) If their is an increased profit in the new selection process consider using it, otherwise revert to original.
7) Go back to Step 2 and repeat
By doing this you’re actually only testing one variable at a time and monitoring it against the performance of the original selections.
In science they'd call the original selections the Control group.
A group that is always monitored and measured everything else.
This is the only way to seriously test changing your selections.
And the reason that most punters don’t do this is…
…it takes time!
If you aren’t prepared to spend the time, then some part of you is still chasing the golden goose. Spend the time, have patience and you will be rewarded.
Best Wishes,
Michael Wilding
