Timeout

Hello,

I don’t know how to start this blog entry. During the last two weeks I traded really bad. I entered when there was no trading opportunity, I chased losses, I forced trades and I turn into a tilt mode. This has not happened to me before. At the moment I am really clueless, so I take a timeout. It makes no sense to waste the money. The tennis season will be long, so there is no need to rush into trades. Maybe some days off will distract me from the last results.

Here is an overview of the dilemma: 
During the next few days I will not trade any events and I will not follow the matches via TV or live score. I will take a complete timeout and charge my batteries for the next challenges.

Stats so far:
Total loss since last update: -74.09
Total loss this month: -22.55

Cheers, Loocie

Miami Masters Preview

The Miami Masters is the last major tournament before the tour switches from hard courts to clay. Rafael Nadal’s rivals could be forgiven for thinking that if they don’t prevent the red stuff-loving Spaniard lifting another title over the next 10 days, they will have a long wait until another chance arises.
Nadal is going from strength to strength, quite literally. His famous powers of durability and determination were again showcased at Indian Wells, where he saved five match points whilst defeating David Nalbandian in the last 16.
He lost last year’s Miami final to a red-hot Nikolay Davydenko and the struggle to identify the likely candidates to stop him going one better this time around is getting more difficult.
Davydenko cannot defend his title due to injury and only Andy Murray of the rest of the world top five appears in the form to compete with Nadal, although the Scot is still feeling his way back after illness and proved in his heavy defeat at the BNP Paribas Open final that facing Nadal when not fully fit will result in only one outcome.
Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer are searching elusively for lost form, with the Serb particularly hard to back – there is any number of players in his quarter of the draw who can end his title bid, with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, disappointing so far this year, my tip for a semi-final finish.
Federer has a prospective quarter final showdown with Andy Roddick (who disposed of Djokovic at Indian Wells) to contend with. The American won a final set decider between the two at the same stage last season and having won 23 matches out of 27 this year, is playing with enough confidence to repeat the feat. Roddick to reach the final is a straight tennis bet certainly worth having.
As for the women, I simply can't see Serena Williams not lifting a trophy she has claimed in five of the last seven years. She missed Indian Wells but is famously adept at progressing through tournaments with little preparation. Her major rivals are plagued by inconsistency and the Nadal - S.Williams double is to be relied upon to pay out as it did at the Australian Open.

By Philip Oliver

Wasting Self Confidence

Hello,

before I start writing about my trading since last update I want to mention the first birthday of the blog.


First blog post was on 17.03.2008 and this week on Tuesday the blog celebrated its first birthday. I learned a lot during the first year of blogging about my trading and I think my approach on trading on sport events has changed to a little more professional approach. I do not want to make a review on the first year of blogging and trading, because I do this every month on my analyses.

Here is an overview of my trades since last update:
Just 3 bad trades let me staring on a red figure of -EUR50.89. Trading the 2009 BNP Paribas Open was not that easy. Scoreboard was not reliable, TV coverage was poor and often Betfair was not available. I do not want to complain about these issues, because those were not reasons for the loss. I started really well on trading the matches, but almost in every match I had to scratch my position and waiting again for an opportunity. It was a game of patience and discipline. During the following matches I lost my patience and discipline:

A Radwanska v Wozniak
Took a position early in the 2nd set. Scratched that, but no problem. Entered again, when Radwanska was serving for match. How the hell could I do that? Wasn’t a trading opportunity. Just wasting money.

Llagostera Vives v Kleybanova
Took a position when Kleybanova was 4-2 down in the 1st set. Really good trading opportunity, but did not pay off. Took stop loss. Everything fine so far. Started to entering again and again during the 2nd set. Was completely chasing a possible break. Again wasting money.

A Radwanska v Pavlyuchenkova
Backed Radwanska early in the 1st set. Radwanska made the break, I minimized risk, should have made it each way, but thought Radwanska can win 1st set easily. Pavlyuchenkova fought back, had to scratch the trade. Everything fine. Radwanska lost 1st set 7-6. Again I started chasing a possible break and added more money to the loss. Throwing the money far away.

It is not the amount of money I lost which annoys me. When doing these stupid things you also lose your self confidence very easily. Self confidence is so important when trading, so if you make stupid trades, you do not just lose money, you also lose self confidence for the next trades.
Mostly if I miss a trading opportunity or if I have to scratch a trade I try to force another trade. This is really an issue I have to work on.

Stats so far:
Total loss since last update: –50.89
Total profit this month: 40.04

This blog post seems to be so negative, so I want to add some good news:
For the future we will read some articles from a guest blogger called Philip Oliver. I am looking forward for his articles and hope we can take advantage of his views and thought on tennis.

That’s it for now. Be patient when trading ;)

Cheers, Loocie

Blogging Stopped

Hello,

before I write about my trading since the last update I want to mention that some good bloggers decided to call it a day.

A couple of weeks ago John from Flutterfly called it a day and stopped blogging. His insights about Formula 1 betting and trading were really helpful, because he didn’t just write about how much he won or lost. He wrote about his thoughts and expectations during a race weekend. He has a really professional approach and it seems he has no problems with patience and discipline.

This week Mark Iverson called it a day too and stopped blogging. It is really sad to hear this, but I also want to thank him for running his blog, because it helped me to get more organized and to learn about money management and risk and reward.

I understand their decisions to stop blogging. It is not that interesting to write about how much you win or lose. It is more interesting to follow the progress of a trader from his beginning to his well formed trading behaviour. If you read Mark’s blog from the beginning (I know it is very much to read, but I can recommend this, because I did it too) you will get an overview about his progress to a professional sports trader.

I use my blog to share ideas and thoughts about trading on sport events with other traders and of course I use it to have a diary of my sports trading activities. It is really interesting to compare my blog entries today with the blog posts a year ago.

However, I also had some trades during the last days and here is an overview:Not very much action since the start of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells due to low liquidity in the markets and for lack of TV coverage. I am a little surprised about the low liquidity. Maybe the bad working scoreboard is a reason too.

Mostly I stayed away from the matches, because I did not want to risk a loss caused by having no opportunities to take a stop loss.

As mentioned earlier on my Analysis Of February 2009 I will setup another small trading bank for discovering other sports. This week I recognized Betfair showing darts on Betfair Live Video. I am not sure if they will show all future events, so I had a look for other live pictures and I found PDCtv. The question is, how much are these pictures delayed? I have no problem with a small delay, but if they are 10 or more seconds behind, it don’t might be useful. Feel free to write your experience with this broadcasting service via email or comments.

Stats so far:
Total profit since last update: +11.83
Total profit this month: +90.93

Cheers, Loocie

Getting An Overview

Hello,

today BNP Paribas Open 2009 in Indian Wells will start with the qualifying round. Later this day the main draw will be released.

I have not visited any of these big tournaments so far, so I have a look at Live Search Maps of Microsoft to see those great tennis facilities.

  (Click on image to enlarge)

In over 100 cities in the United States, Canada and in over 80 European locations, a bird's-eye view offers aerial photos from four angles. These Pictometry images are much more detailed than the aerial views from directly above buildings. Signs, advertisements, pedestrians, and other objects are clearly visible in many bird's eye views.

Have a nice day!

Cheers, Loocie

Free Money

Hello,

today first round ties of the Davis Cup 2009 took place and I had a look at the match Crovoi v Safin:

Marat Safin was heavy favourite pre match, so I watched the set betting market closely.
Odds on Safin 3-0 were around 1.70-1.8x. Liquidity was not the best, so sometimes there was no lay odds available. Often in low liquidity markets I place bets higher or lower than the true odds. When back odds on Safin 3-0 was 1.76 I placed a back bet of 15€@18.0 on Safin 3-0 and… GOT MATCHED!

But I was not the only one who took advantage of this mistake by another trader/punter.

I think this could only happen, if you look for short position trades and if you trade with the common standard grid interface. I am pretty convinced the layer wanted to lay odds of 1.8 instead of 18. Another method to avoid such mistakes can be to have only two stake sizes in your Betfair account. If my trading bank has four figures I will only let two maximum stakes on my Betfair account (my current max stake is 77€) and put the rest of the money on a bank giro account.
Another reason for this was a post on the German Betfair Forum about account hacking. The Betfair account of the user was hacked by someone with an IP from Bulgaria and all the money from his account was backed and layed in several markets. Betfair does not take responsibility for something like that, so all his money was lost.

Betfair provides the possibility to restrict your login from certain geographic areas, so you can take advantage of this feature, if your internet service provider does not route your connection through servers in other countries.

The user also logged in with a user name he used in other forums too.

So what can you do to avoid account hacking:

• Use a special user name only for Betfair
• Use a secure password (try a password generator)
• Do not let your whole bank roll in the Betfair account
• Make use of the account restriction of Betfair

How to avoid punting on wrong odds:

• Use a trading software with a ladder interface
• Let only two stakes in your Betfair bank roll
• Look for long term trades, so you have enough time to double check the odds and the stake sizes

These listings do not provide completely security, but I think it might help to minimize risks when trading.

Stats so far:
Total profit since last update: +79.10
Total profit this month: +79.10

Cheers, Loocie

Days Off

Hello,

these  days just one WTA tournament in Monterrey takes place, but I will have some days off.
The main focus for March is on BNP Paribas Open Tennis Tournament in Indian Wells and on Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, so no need to trade these lower class tournaments.
On Friday the first round ties of the Davis Cup take plays and there we will find some good matches. I will take this matches to observe the set betting market in matches with a heavy favourite. Generally odds move not very much when the pre match odds on a favourite is 1.1x (match odds market), so the action takes place in the set betting market. These Davis Cup matches will also be an indicator of the shape of the players for the next big tournaments.

That’s it for now.

Cheers, Loocie

Analysis Of February 2009

Hi,

another month is over, so again it is time to analyse my trades. In February I traded on soccer and tennis.

Trading Soccer
The screenshot above is from my trading excel sheet. Since July 2009 I track as much data as possible. Keeping records help you really much, because you can have a look at trades from the past with a more objective view.

Total loss trading soccer: –18.22

Trading Tennis
number of markets I traded: 30
number of wins: 18
number of losses: 9
scratched trades: 3

number of wins > 3€: 14 
number of losses > 3€: 8

total win: +204.90
total loss: –75.16
total pl: +129.74

average win: +11.38
average loss: –8.35
average pl: +4.32

win rate: 67%
max win: +27.48
max loss: –17.14

I am still making mistakes, when trading, but I recognize them early and stick to my rules. My maximum loss was –17.14, which was 6.16% of my trading bank (€278.39). The stats above indicates I am on the right path.

Total profit trading tennis: +129.74

What is the conclusion of February 2009?
Trading soccer was not very successful, but trading tennis worked really good. At the start of 2009 I set myself a goal to achieve €1000 profit on trading. I will stop doing experiments with other sports than tennis. If I stick to my rules, it would be much easier to achieve this goal and if I achieved that goal, I will setup a 2nd small trading bank for discovering other markets. I am really interested in trading snooker, darts, golf and basketball.
I made +€111.52 (increase of 40% of my trading bank) during February 2009, so this is the best performance since I started the blog.

My new stake sizes:


Using stakes like €77 instead of €80 or €55 instead of 50€ can give you a small advantage, because you can type these figures faster. It is not a big advantage, but sometimes this can be the difference to get matched or not. It is also easier to the remember figures like this.

Overall stats:
Year 2008: +€156.48
January 2009: +€28.39
February 2009: +€111.52

Cheers, Loocie