Monday 21 April 2014

Chasing and bad variance

Yesterday I took a break of the ladders. Before I just reached the green territory in the year to date view. Actually should be a good thing to enter today's trading, but was not... perhaps I pressured myself too much to go deep green now.

I started the day with a decent lay of Gimeno-Traver when he was a set up. The young Carballes found the better entry in the 2nd set, but he couldn't hold the break. The green position was gone, but I still was confident that he can reach (at least) the 3th set. Well he didn't. I traded the game without TV coverage. Probably the only thing which was not good (despite the loss). In the view of trading everything was okay.

After a bad start - in the financial view - I became impatient. I started to chase and went for a poor game selection. It was a combination with missing player behaviour. After Chardy lost the first set and was back in 2nd set 0:2, I favoured him for a comeback. I didn't know that he has the same unmotivated attitude like Fognini when he is behind. Come on, 0:2 is not the end of the world, but if you don't fight is no wonder that you lose the 2nd set 0:6. Same thing happened a week ago at Monte Carlo. At least there he played against Ferrer and not against Vesely. Okay, I should not blame players... I didn't do my homework. If I would read the notes of Tradeshark, I would know that Chardy is such a prick. Next time I know... Despite I don't understand these kind of players. It's their job and if beeing so unmotivated, they should retire!

My last trade so far was a lay of Meusburger. Always the same with her. If you go against her, she plays well and the opposite. I think I didn't go for value here, was more a guess. These kinds of trades happens when I had a bad stark in the day. The patience goes away and that's not good!

The worst part... I had some other games on my short list (Lay Sousa, Lay Nieminen after he was ahead) and I didn't enter. I have to think about the good part of the day. I can spot value, but the player knowledge is still not enough robust to pick the right matches. Of course I should not be to rough against myself. It was also bad variance, so I should stay positive.

9 comments:

  1. Player knowledge isnt easy to gain...It only comes with experience.I know because Im in the very same situation you are.Im able to spot value but I lack the expertize to be able to select the better matchups...Its a waiting game now...

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  2. Yes, it's a long and steady process. These days there is not so much TV coverage and with a scoreboard alone you will not improve (much). Beside I don't like trading without live pictures.

    Right now I am too cautious in the beginning of the day. I am looking for the perfect trade, so I miss good opportunities. And when the first trade goes against me, I start to chase.

    In the end is a it's a lot about player knowledge. If you are sure about the trade you will not be too cautious and neither too impatient. Now it's a patience game... like I wrote some days ago, we need like 5'000 hours trading (in best case with live pictures) to have a decent level.

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  3. Hello,

    i just wanna let you know that i enjoy reading your blog. Especially the fact that you are talking about your bets and thoughts is very interesting and distinguishes your blog of most of the others.

    I hope you will continue the blog for a long time and wish you all the best. Most of all that you can take the next step in trading and make your living of it.

    Sorry for eventual mistakes in grammar but english is not my native language.

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  4. Thanks a lot for the feedback! Much appreciated. Your English is good, neither is my mother language :-). I try to be as transparent as possible. I don't like blogs or services which are just speaking about their good trades. Everybody has bad ones, even the very best.

    I don't know how long I will keep the blog. Most people stop it after some months. I have it already over half a year, despite not a great financial success. Sultan stopped it after he became really steadily profitable. I can somehow understand that he finished blogging because is not so much fun anymore when it's just your job and you are going through a (trading) day without many mistakes and emotions.

    At the moment I see a real benefit for me. I can document my mistakes, ideas and progress. Let's see how I feel in some months or a year.

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    Replies
    1. I agree with you that everyone has bad trades and i learn much more from analysing my bad trades than the good ones.

      I have never used a service like Tradesharks and learned it the hard way. ;) It took me some years of learning, watching tennis hour by hour and day by day (for example 14 hours today, from 11:00 in the morning (ATP Bukarest) till the end of the game Jankovic-Barthel at 1 o'clock in the night :D ) and a lot of money to lose before i have become a long time winning sports trader. And i am still learning, for example by reading the thoughts of other sports traders like yours.

      I can imagine that there will be a point at which you stop blogging. Not only because of the time you have to invest but also because there will be a lot of things which are always the same.

      As long as you keep up blogging i will be an enthusiastic reader and will regard any of your entrys as a gift.

      As i mentioned before good luck and may the force be with you. :)

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  5. Thanks again! I think that's the point the most (of the not so involved) people don't understand. I like trading a lot (actually it's my dream job), but it's hard work. You can't buy some picks and believe you make easy money. It's all about learning and invest your time to become bettter. Even if you have a top level, you have to spend a lot of time at the ladders. Every minute or day you are not there, you can miss the trade of your life.

    It's your job, the good thing is that you are your own boss and you can make a lot of money if you are really strong (I think I can trade without any problems with ten time bigger stakes at most of the matches... so I would make yesterday over 1'000 Euro and was far away from a perfect day). When you are really good at it, you can probably trade a bit less. I recognized that Sultan started to take more off days and small holidays.

    I am just on my way. Right now I take day after day, but one day I like to quit my 50% job (actually it breaks the trading rhythm) and live from my investments at stock exchange and trading.

    As long as I like blogging I will continue. Like I wrote it could be boring when you trade almost perfect. I think the more interesting part are the learnings and the bad things happened during a day.

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  6. You should have a look at a site called tennisratings Via a chap called Dan. He looks at the affect of the game state ( the current score ) on the ability or lack of ability of a player to fight back or hold .....

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  7. In my opinion just another charged Tennis Site. I will never pay anything for sites like that. It's all about making your own decisions inplay based on your own experiences. As i said in the dialog with Brulati Trading before the best way is to watch matches day by day, gain experience and draw your own conclusions.

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  8. I am with you 2nd Anonymous. Too much crap sites on the net, you have to pay for. At TennisInsight.com I even paid and never get an access. You have to be cautious with these kind of services. If they would have the holy grail, the would for sure not sell it to reduce their margin. One of the most honest one is Tradeshark. Especially for starters, he is a big help.

    ReplyDelete