Friday 25 April 2014

Hard times...

A german soccer player (Andres Brehme) told once: "Hast Du Scheisse am Fuss, hast Du Scheisse am Fuss!". Translated in English says: If you have shit on your feet, you have shit on your feet!". Today I just traded one game during the whole day, because I am working. Guess what happened?

My player retired out of the blue! And the worst thing, they trade was looking great. Kohlschreiber just came back in the 2nd set from 0:3 down to 3:3. He was looking good, so there was no need to hedge this trade. Instead a ROI near 200% which I already had, I lost the whole stake...

Nothing more to say, despite some mistakes this week (I am a self-critical person) I had all the bad variance you can have. I will not complain, in the long term retirments will be in your favour as well. The hard thing this time, there was not even a chance to go out for a small loss. Two games before the retirement was something like a medical time out of Kohli, but this was looking more like a massage to break the rhythm of Giraldo. At least I can be a bit happy for "Santi", because I am almost a Colombian (married with a Colombian). Thanks to a decent money management, this trade doesn't kill me. And how you know... what doesn't kill you, make you stronger.

Probably these kind of periods are the real tests to keep on going. I will do it for sure!


5 comments:

  1. In my opinion, it will take you quite some time to get the player knowledge of the top 200 male and female players to execute your strategies correctly. It can be done and I believe that you will become a successful trader as you seemed determined. However, I could not watch so much tennis as I find the sport quite boring!

    I actually think that the Sultan spent more time watching the matches and accumulating the player knowledge then trading. Once he got the player knowledge, he knew when to enter the markets because he knew what the players were most likely to do. Obviously the strategies are important as well as redding up and letting the greens run, but when you know what the players might do then its most of the problem solved. EG when Sir Alex ferguson managed Manchester United if they went 1-0 down then you knew that 85% of the time they would equalise thus you know how to trade that situation.

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  2. Absolutely correct! I am with you, you have to know more or less the best 200 ATP and WTA players. For example, If you know that a player can comeback (good fighter mentality) you can back him when he had a bad start. Players like Fognini I would not trust... normally he tanks after a terrible start. So you have to know these kind of patterns of around the mentioned 400 players. It's quiet a lot of work. Yes, Sultan watches many games without trading. It's important to know how player reacts in different situations (like important points, bad start, finishing matches and so on).

    So, we are back to the 5'000 hours. You need a lot of time to bring the probability on your side. When you can read the game and you know these kind of patterns you have a real edge over the market und you will make profit in the long term. At the moment I still not have enough market know how. My target is to learn every day or week a new pattern.

    It's a long and boring process, because you normally only breakeven in the first time. So the most important part it's to stay motivated. For me it's not a problem at the moment, the learning curve it's more important than the profit. I know that you can make money with tennis trading, so it's just a question of time. Actually I see the progress, but at the moment the variance is not on my side. One day it will be...

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  3. Not only in tennis this can happen. Yesterday my hedge bet placed pre-race on an australian horse-race was voided because betfair didn't suspend the market when the race started. I lost big but we need to continue and be better prepared next time. Cheers!

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  4. Interesting comments.

    I'm not sold on that you have to know about the players to trade on a match.

    You make a trade in the market based on the price in comparison to the match scoreline / situation and when that price is in your opinion out of line?

    I'm not saying that it doesn't help to have knowledge of the players and that some do fight more than others and yes some players may make you more profit overall than others, however I don't agree you MUST HAVE player knowledge to profit. Opinions?

    Brulati, I read quite a few of your posts and it comes across that you are sometimes trying to put all the profit on one player, then you regret the decision if the player does not win the match?

    Why don't you just look to get consistent first hedging your profit across the players, do some research using statistical tools and this may well help you decide when to put the profit all on one player. This way you will have more trust in yourself and it might help you stop doubting your process.

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    Replies
    1. We had the discussion about player- and sports knowledge at bettingexpert.com. I think it helps a lot to have this know how. Let's say that 1.30 it's the normal price at an even matchup for the winner after one set. If you always lay it under 1.30 I doubt that you will make profit long term. I would not trust a lot of players to give a decent fight... Especially at tennis helps a lot to know the character of players (see my newest article). I don't say that is not possible to make profit without player knowledge, but it's definitely a lot more difficult.

      I think that hegding has also to do with player knowledge. At Australian Open Stan Wawrinka won against Djoker... that was quiet surprising after the past matches. So I would hedge for sure. At smaller tournaments the probability it's bigger that the favourite struggles (only three sets, less pressure for outsiders and so on). I think hedging has to be a mix of value, game reading and risk awareness.

      For example... today Masha (1.50) was not value anymore after the 3th set. Everybody was expecting her to win after the comeback in the 2nd set. The game reading told me that she probably will win. My risk awareness was high after a bad period. So I decided to make "all green". If I would be on a good run, I probably would put all the profit on Sharapova (despite was not real value), because the game reading told me and the pattern was clear for a win of her.

      I think it has to do a lot with experience to be comfortable with the hedging. I think the most unexperienced traders hedge too much for poor value. Actually it's easier to hedge when the big favourite it's ahead, because in this situacion the value is often poor. It's harder to keep the good playing underdog (like Gaba against Ferrer or Ferrer against Rafa and so on) as long as possible.

      I think enter the market and place a stop loss it's quiet easy. The really hard thing is the hedging. Here a lot of punters fail. If you hedge too much, you will not cover the losses. If you don't hedge you (often) lose good looking trades. I try only to hedge when I don't sell value. Back to the example... I think laying Sharapova at 1.50 after the 2nd set was okay as a hedge. I think you have to ask yourself if you would do this trade as well in the beginning. Laying 1.50 after 1:1 was okay at this stage of the match...

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