The Masters at Augusta

I Plotted up at around 7pm yesterday to watch this fantastic golf event and with the laptop nearby I waited for the story to unfold. I felt sorry for the 4th round leader Mcilroy who was having a nightmare but the entertainment provided by the other players made for spectacular viewing and some good trading opportunities. It was hard to keep up with it all at times with 6 players having a share of the lead and a few more only one shot away.

I'm a keen golfer myself and I had a few ideas on how I could trade this event after experimenting with stats in the past. I got off to a steady start when Mcilroy was in meltdown and the late surge from Tiger Woods made for some great swing trades. I had a scare late on when my internet failed and I had to scramble on to the Betfair mobile app to close a position but apart from that it was great fun trading a sport that I enjoy watching.

Back to Reality

I decided to take last week off after a great Cheltenham. According to the Bet-angel forums it was a tricky week on the trading front and with the great weather we had in London It was a good decision to leave it alone. There was one day where I finished playing golf by 2pm and I was tempted to race back to the office and trade but I stuck to decision and went back to the first hole to work on my handicap instead. I think it’s important to take time out and recharge, trading is intense and can slowly wear you down without you realising.

Shot of the day

(This almost never happens!)

Cheltenham

It took me a little longer to adapt to the big meeting this year. It’s no surprise really as I was experimenting with Betdaq for half of the Cheltenham races, something I’ve never tried before but by the third day I was flying and had my best two days in over a year. Betdaq markets are a different beast. Although they follow Betfair very closely in terms of prices they can feel very illiquid in contrast to Betfair and the fill rate frequency is lower so a different approach is needed. 

It’s a shame but I do try not to get excited or have any kind of opinion on the horses even in these big races. At the end of the day my edge isn’t form/opinion based and if I started to mix this into my trading it would just be plain gambling.

 Betdaq

Adapting to Big Meetings

This week see's the first Major meeting of the year at Cheltenham. I always look forward to tackling these markets as they are very different to normal race cards. There seems to be bit of a "marmite" feeling amongst some traders with these and depending on your trading style it might be quite tricky for you especially if your expecting too much. My advice is to take it steady on Tuesday and feel your way into things slowly. You dont want to do what i did last year and have a negative start. I wasn't totally prepared for this type of market and ended up having to fight back Cheltenham losses on the weaker cards which made for some nervous trading on day one. As the week went on I got used to the bigger volumes and became much more patient in "slow motion" markets. The only nerves i may face this year are if Betfair crashes and i have to make a counter trade on Betdaq, but that's another story that frustrates me so much i dont talk about it.

My preparation for Cheltenham this year has simply been to stick to the goals i set in January. One of these goals was to try and go 25/50/100 races without a losing race. I have now achieved two of these targets and although I may not be making as much profit were I to take more risks the benefits I'm feeling elsewhere are  outweighing any thoughts of P&L. It has helped me become much more confident in my trading again after poor end to last year. I almost feel Invincible in the markets and working towards these goals is helping to eliminate some of the bad habits and weaknesses that had crept into my game

50 Not Out

Fingers crossed Betfair can prove us all wrong and hold up this week. Good luck everyone!

Sam

Expectations

I read a post on one of the forums the other day, something along the lines of:

         How much can I expect make with a £1000 bank on Betfair?

Like any Betfair forum he was instantly given some stick by seasoned traders and probably won’t return.

Various figures get mentioned here and there about how many people actually succeed on Betfair long term but one thing is certain to me. If you expect to make money from the start you are very much mistaken and will probably fall at the first hurdle. You’re much more likely to progress by expecting to lose your initial investment learning the ropes and suffering the harsh lessons made by all beginners. Evidence of these ‘horror’ stories are scattered on blogs and forums all over the web and this is only by those honest enough to admit it. What about the rest?

Expectations can not only affect new traders but also experienced ones. After 5 years of trading full-time I expect certain results from my trading and when things don’t go to plan it can cause issues in my ability to be focused on markets. This year I’m working much harder on being market focused and not thinking about my Profit & Loss. Even on really good days, thinking about what you’ve made ‘so far’ can alter your decision making and you will probably end up trading over defensively. How many times have you been on for your best day yet only to have a few losses that bring you back down to average?

I believe that the more experience you have, the harder it is to lower your expectations. But just because someone has more experience it does not mean they should expect to perform better than others in the market. Like in any professional sport, new players come through and everyone else has to up their own game to stay in a team or to hold on to a trophy. This rings true on Betfair and other financial markets. 

It really is a survival of the fittest. 

January and Other Sports

 January

January is never an amazing month on the racing calendar. The poor quality meetings and abandoned race cards can be very frustrating. Many races offer little opportunity and Ive found that being patient and trading defensively is the way to go. Ive managed to beat the previous years January totals and with some extra profits from the Australian open its been a decent start to 2011.

The introduction of the cross matching to racing has also had an effect on the mechanics of the Win market and I imagine certain players are noticing  changes for the better/worse. It certainly wont affect everyone but it will be interesting to see how things pan out over the next few months

Other sports

In the past when I'd ventured into other sports I always struggled to adapt. Using the wrong stakes and a clear lack of knowledge on how these markets worked led to some harsh lessons in football which put me off for a while. However, since last year Ive learned how to approach new sports with a completely fresh mindset and money management plan. The tools on Bet-angel: Soccer-Mystic and Tennis-Trader have really helped me to understand the market mechanics and now around 10% of my trading income comes from trading other sports. Understanding how other markets work can also be beneficial when referring back to your primary market. I know a lot more now about the book % and how markets are balanced.

Betfair site maintenance

Betfair returned around midday today but was not functioning at all well. Its best to take the day off in this situation as the market could fail at anytime leaving you exposed. Hopefully it will be sorted in the next few days.

Time to Reflect

Well It’s been a while since my last post, 6 months to be precise. The current bad weather and abandoned race cards have given me a chance to reflect on things in and outside of trading this year.

When I first started writing this blog, I wanted it to assist my trading and be a reference point for my progression as a trader. I do believe that writing about your experiences and goals is a great way of keeping on track but for me, deciding to share those thoughts became less fulfilling overtime and with much more screen time dedicated to tuition and other trading activity, writing about it all was the last thing on my mind. I’ve now started writing in a Journal instead; it’s much better for me personally. I think it really helps me to let everything out after a days trading. It also doubles up to be like a scrap book of thoughts, ideas and emotion’s. I will often revisit certain post’s to draw on the emotions of that day and use the positive/negative comments to set goals and remember clearly the feelings involved at the time. These kinds of practices are pretty new to me and over the last few months I’ve looked much more in depth at the subject of trading psychology. If I am to make more posts here in the future I imagine they will be tilted more towards psychology and self coaching and how to apply them to sports trading. At the moment I feel like I’m only scraping the edges of a fascinating subject that’s changing the way I think about myself and the markets.

Balance

A trader’s lifestyle should be a balanced one. When I set up the Betting Exchange Tutor site I knew that balancing tuition with my own trading could lead to fatigue so I kept course bookings to a max per week. Looking back at the year now that wasn’t enough, I really enjoyed teaching people about the markets and I witnessed many a“light bulb” moment from clients but by the end of the day I was always extremely tired. Talking about the markets is much more tiring than participating in them and it started to affect my performance especially in the evening racing, some days I wouldn’t even bother trading past 5pm as I knew my mind and body couldn’t compete. I will start teaching again next year but need to strike a balance where it won’t affect my own progression. I like the idea of getting out and teaching people, be it in their homes or offices, even on a laptop In Hyde park if the weathers good. I should be located more centrally in London by early next year so the idea of “mobile betting exchange tutor” is the biggest scribble on a post it note at the moment.

The current “big freeze” has also given me a chance to go back and review my figures from this year. Profit & loss wise it’s been a disappointing end to the year. I always expect to beat previous years and it’s frustrating to know that this wont happened in 2010. I shouldn’t be too hard on myself though, the markets were more competitive than ever and I hadn’t done enough early on in the year with regards to reinvention and setting new targets. I have discovered that finding a balance between scaling down old strategies whilst reinventing new ones is a challenge and in the future I need to be aware of my performance statistically to assist these changes. I didn’t set any long term goals at the beginning of the year either but probably had too higher expectations. That in itself is bad combination and with that kind of mindset I wasn’t trading defensively enough on weaker cards leading to unnecessary losses and stops in momentum.

I’ve learn t a lot about myself and my trading this year, much more than any other and I hope that the physical and mental changes I’ve made to my game will boost my trading in 2011. I’m looking forward to a fresh challenge and for the first time will have goals and targets aim for….. But For now I’m just going to enjoy the Snow, Christmas and New Year.

Have a good one!

Sam

a REAL shock?

Another interesting night of Champions League action yesterday evening. I was more interested in the Madrid vs Lyon match after a good start on the Utd game. Real went 1-0 up after 6 minutes. The win market hovered around 1.12/1.13 for most of the first half, which was probably value if you saw some of the chances Madrid had. However, Lyon looked much more dangerous in the second half and the potential upside of a Lyon goal became and option. I Layed Madrid at 1.13 and got out straight after the equalizer. Madrid now needed two goals and it was a miracle that the game ended in a draw with Lyon missing countless chances on the counter attack.