Greening Up is NOT Always Good…

Greening Up Betfair

Locking in a tasty green, feels good doesn’t it?

And so the mistakes begin…

Extremely Cliché:

Do you love trading? I don’t mean the money, the thrill or the sports even.

I mean the process. The methodical approach, problem solving and interpretation of a betting market. The flow, support and resistance, weight of money, market analysis, momentum or risk management. The actual trading part.

I suspect very few do.

After all, the by-product of trading is the cool part right? Money.

Over the years I’ve been privileged enough to meet many traders, punters and automation wizards. As a general observation, there is one very big common difference between those who win a lot, and those who don’t. Their general outlook and attitude. In fact, the more successful they’ve been, the more this applies…

Winners enjoy the experience, not the result. They’re obsessed with it, how it works, the in’s and out’s, what drives the market (and their own emotions in the moment).

Because of this relentless outlook and attitude, rather than a quick cash-grab, they’re in a better position to succeed. If they have a losing trade (while doing the right thing), the response is ‘no big deal’. Whereas if they make a silly mistake and come out on-top, the view is ‘that was lucky’.

On the flip-side: should they win (while doing the right thing) the view is ‘great, decent trade’. But if they broke their rules, acted on impulse and done something stupid (losing in the process). The outlook is; ‘that was daft, I deserved it’.

Is this how you look at things whilst trading? Or…

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Money Matters Most

…Is this more like you.

  • Can’t stop checking your balance
  • Focused on the overall profit (or loss)
  • Short term mindset

Do you beat yourself up when you lose? regardless of if you were applying yourself methodically. Is progress measured on how much your up and or down on the day?

Was it the cat’s fault for jumping out the window when you lost, but your skill and know-how when you made a profit?

I hate to say it, but that’s the complete opposite outlook. And if you find yourself doing that, it’s not too late to change things a little! It’s practically gambling. Not only will it harm the overall balance, but you’ll miss out on plenty of learning opportunities. You just can’t think clearly and focus on the market whilst thinking and measuring success like that.

Hence the blog title… Greening up isn’t always good. If it’s not for the right reasons.

An Interesting Point:

Assuming you’ve not rolled your eyes and clicked away yet, have you ever noticed this happen:

When winning, you rarely exceed a certain profit figure. For years this happened to me, in fact I’ve blogged about it years ago.

For some time I never seemed to be able to get over £10 per race. It was really frustrating, but I had no idea why. It happened all too often for it to be the limitations of my edge, plus every market is not equal. There should be some kind of variation in results from time to time.

Linked with the second type of outlook mentioned above, I soon realised I was self-limiting. For me, that tenner a race figure was ‘good’ in my mind’s eye, and so I’d hedge up and take my foot off the gas once I’d reached it. Not ideal when you consider I wasn’t limiting my losses so easily.

The big change come after a chat with another more experienced trader (it didn’t happen quickly either, a couple of weeks maybe). But after adjusting my own attitude, it felt a bit foolish. The whole time I’d been throttling my own results…

Not exactly the magic formula so many seem to look for, but an important post. Have a think about it, if this post just helps one person tip the scales it’ll have been worth it…

Recent: At Last… Slowing Down. Plus Trading Guide Update Inbound

NOTE: Trading Guide update is likely to be at the end of September 2017

11 thoughts on “Greening Up is NOT Always Good…

  1. Great post Caan. Def. recognize myself both on the cliché part an the money matters most part. My biggest problem is beating myself up after a loss, which only leads to taking unnecessary risk and losing more…

  2. Great blog post Caan. Struggling at the moment as I keep blowing banks In-play. I can make a consistent profits but for some reason I just get hooked on trying to make big greens (gambling I know) and bang goes the bank…
    It`s not helping by certain members of my family saying trading is gambling, and for mugs, it doesn’t matter how many times I explain my-self!

  3. kc – im the same mate, looked back over my pandl today and realised if i deducted my in-play stupidity i would me up 250%. i can’t seem to get out of trade before the off, only after i say “what an idiot” caan, whats your thoughts on this?

    1. Its the devil sitting on the shoulder! I know with this habit completely changed I will be a profitable trader. Market reading skills are improving all the time, just this one thing that kills me off at the moment, and i think its all about bigger green screens aka greed…

  4. I’ve been watching a lot of videos by you and another trader, lots of times I would be happy greening up but see where an experienced trader takes it further. I’m still in the early learning stages and sometimes get angry (ok a lot) when things go wrong but at least now I can see why every time. When I execute a longer trade properly I am happy that I did it well and read the market correctly, also having the balls to stick it out. Watching the pros in action is inspiring.

  5. That was a great post for me…I like the thought of trading, but feel limited by my lack of knowing where to start..spreadsheet? Wtf, what’s that all about? See, I know the probs, need to start finding the opps , so I can learn what it is I do not know …Yet!!

    Thanks for the insght..

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