Friday 16 May 2014

Killer instinct is still missing...

I reached a level which allows me to spot value. I expected today a loss or at least a hard game for Stan Wawrinka. I was right with the comeback of Dimitrov (against Berdych), and I gave Ivanovic some credit against Sharapova. Was I profitable today? No!!

I had a bad start in the day (once again)! I saw value in backing Cetkovska against Errani. She played quiet well for beeing a big underdog (starting price: 3.75). Unfortunately she made too many unforced errors, in other case she would succeed. I was not at all impressed of Errani. Her serve was a shame... it's a pity that Cetkovska didn't take profit. After this game I hoped for a comeback of Stosur against Li. In the past she arranged a 6:0 H2H record. Today she lost her focus after a decent start. Probably I should go more with my gut feeling in such a moment. H2H is past and doesn't matter much during a match.

A bad start never is good for the continuation of the day. I had good ideas with laying Stan (against Haas) and Berdych (after first set). Unfortunately I lost the trust in Haas after he was a set and a game down and I reduced my stake. After he won the second set, I hedged for a small profit. Profit is profit, but if the start would be better, I would take more risks. It's important to let run "green trades", but after a weak start the mind is getting more cautious. The same situation happened with Dimitrov. Instead of going with the momentum, I went on the (too) save side and hedged all the profit.

In the night session I made a poor trade with Gulbis against Ferrer. There was no need to go with the Latvian player. He lost a week ago at Madrid against the Spaniard and didn't play his best tennis against Robert in the last round. On the other side David showed strong performances at Rome. In the end I missed the Djokovic comeback. I excatly knew how I should trade this game, but I was not focused anymore. Beside I missed in the afternoon the surprise of Ivanovic. The starting price definitely was value.

In summary I feel the progress. I am now comfortable with the 14 strategies of Sultan. Two months ago I always wanted to be involved since the start of the matchup. I layed Djokovic, Nadal, Williams and so on with the start price. Now I recognized that it's not necessary to go for the big surprise to make a profit. Often is better to wait and see how things are going inplay. It's just speculation to hope for a bad start of the big favourite. So I changed my approach... instead of hoping for a bad start of the big favourite, I wait for a better price to back him. The lays at starting price are better in more even matchups where the price was pushed down too much (like Ivanovic vs. Sharapova).

The partnership with the guy from France starts next days. I will keep you informed how things with my new partner and my own trading continue. Tomorrow I have to work again, so not much trading is planned. Saturday and Sunday are pretty quiet (just half finals and finals). In ten days the French Open will begin. It will be interesting to see if I am capable to make profits at a Grand Slam tournament with a lot of action...

4 comments:

  1. hi, i know these situations (bad start/good start) well enough, in behavioral finance there is this thing called mental accounting and the sentence "Profit is profit, but if the start would be better, I would take more risks." goes right into a problem, to avoid mental accounting they say "The key point to consider for mental accounting is that money is fungible; regardless of its origins or intended use, all money is the same. You can cut down on frivolous spending of "found" money, by realizing that "found" money is no different than money that you earned by working." I knew of the concept of mental accounting long time ago but its very hard to avoid it even if you know it. ok i hope this wasnt to boring and by the way i like your blog.

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  2. Thanks for reading my blog!

    I think is like at tennis (or other sports). The top players are not that much better as the "2nd league", but they are stronger in the crucial stages of a match. They take the opportunity when it's important.

    At the moment I am working together with a professional. I see that he is cooking with water as well. He just makes less mistakes in the important stages of a trade. The approach is more or less the same. In tennis view spoken, I am a player around Top100 who can beat the very best ones one day, but my constancy is not here. After a bad mistake or just bad variance my confidence is gone. Rafa or a very good trader are not influenced by a bad start.

    I think is a question of confidence. If you make 100k profit (and more) you know what you are doing. You know that there is good and bad variance. After a slow start you don't trade different.

    It's just a mind setting now. I know that the successful professionals aren't magicians. They only have more experience and trust in their strategy and strength (as well in worse times). In the last stage of traders circle is about the psyche. I think is the hardest part to become a successful trader, but is not impossible. It was already a long way to reach level 4 (trust strategy, spot value, read the markets), now I have to take the last step.

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  3. Real nice blog mate, a good read. I'm at a similar position to yourself as I've been trading the tennis for a year now and am just about breaking even, I trust my strategies but I still do silly things like yesterday I put to much faith in a Li comeback against Errani where I over-staked and got burnt, this was followed by Haas retiring and another 90% loss of stake, the rest of the day was ok but I stopped profit on Ana and Rafa after getting into good positions and not letting them run due to fear of reverse and more losses. Its a tough way to make an easy living but I'm determined to succeed and like yourself we're nearly there, we just have to make it over the final hurdle.
    Keep up the blog mate and maybe I'll see you in Tradeshark's chat sometime.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks a lot for your interest. I was lucky with the Errani game, because I was at work. In other case I would probably do the same "mistake" like you. Today I expected a comeback of JJ as well, but there was no big value.

      I recognize at the moment that the professionals are a lot more patient. That's the biggest difference. Often they don't care about a match in the beginning, because the price is often correct at the start. Is just a gamble to go against the big favourite, even when the odd is small.

      For example today a lot of people expected a good match or even a win of Dimitrov. Rafa was 1.30 at the start, that's a lot on clay against a player which never beat him in the past. The novices laid him, because Nadal even lost sets against worse players. Beside the natural mismatch (one handed backhand against leftie with a lot of slice) the odd was too high. These prices you barely don't see against Stan, Federer or Ferrer. What do the professionals? They don't lay, neither back. The professionals just wait and hope for a better price of Rafa. Novices gamble, professionals are looking for easy money.

      It's enough to make 1-2 good trades during a day, so there is no hurry to get involved too early. Is a learning process...

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