Busy week this week! Appologies for the lack of blog posts!
So this week I’ve managed to fill my time with plenty of trading with the races going into the early evenings as i said in the previous post… I’ve really enjoyed it and it seems to have brought on a little more enthusiasm on my part. Keeping yourself motivated in this game can be tricky at times, ive had plenty of conversations about it with other traders lately too – it’s all too easy to just work a little and chuck in the towel for the day because you’ve done what you had too. It’s good to keep it fresh as it keeps us sharp.
The strange thing about it which everyone I have spoken too is how when your learning to trade it can become almost obsessive with your mind constantly on it, you trade every race possible in the pursuit of success! well it seems that way for most anyway, but once you crack it and start to turn profits consistently it can become rather boring pretty quick… While expectations are dangerous sometimes its good to set the odd little mini goal! on Friday I managed to trade 20 races without one loss which was good, it’s just a state of mind.
So some of you may have noticed on twitter earlier in the week I did a short podcast with David from Betcast, a really nice chap. Check it out below! Or alternatively you can go direct to the site HERE.
The website he’s building seems pretty useful if you haven’t had a look already.
Also I noticed Paul from tradeshark tennis has done one too which leads me onto what else I’ve been up to this week! After my thoughts on the Football, which im still looking to refine it reminded me of the tennis markets that I looked at briefly last year over Wimbledon!
While i haven’t put a huge amount of time into it the tennis and football carry similar characteristics with regards to picking trades. The main difference being the tennis probably throws up a lot more opportunity for catching some swings in price. I had a go after reading through tradesharks guide I purchased last year once more. It’s a little tricky as it’s not what im used to but im pretty confident I can make that work too providing I am selective about which matches to trade, it’s a nice little bonus to the bank… and if it’s scalable im pretty keen to give it a go as I alluded to in the football post!
Anyway here’s the screenshot of how I traded the Sharapova/Radwanska match.
I stopped a little early as the afternoons racing was about to start… but I felt I learnt quite a lot from it!
Knowing the tennis players is obviously an asset as you can tell when their more likely to pull through where as others may buckle under the pressure, I started with £25 stakes as they were similar priced and changed to £25 liability when laying low.
My general approach for this was just getting involved at the opportune moments, as it’s not just about picking the right player but knowing when a good time to enter/exit the market at the right prices! I did make a couple of mistakes with exit points by holding on when I shouldnt have the end result being a largely reduced profit. There were lots of break of serve in the first set as you can see from the Betfair graph, often I caught them earning myself a few green ticks – like I said though I tried leaving the trade open while I was in the green to maximise profits a couple of times, the only problem being when I done this neither player managed to hold their serve being broken too! the end result being I had to lose several ticks. But still its all a learning curve! (no pun intended!)
If you’re not sure what i mean about the opportune moments in a game, then take a look at this graph. I’ve highlighted a few reoccurring points where the market has reached them, not every game will be the same although if you pick the right game much like this one there will be plenty. Based on the graph alone it shows how tight the game was up until this point!