Analysis of April 2010

Hello,

it has been quiet during the last few weeks. I did not write anything about my trading, because at the moment I do not have any interesting stuff to say and I do not want to repeat the same again and again.

However, I traded some sports events, so let’s have a look how I did:

Horse Racing: -€84.54
Worst month for the lay selections so far. I decided to stop it for a while. I will restart the selections again, but have not yet decided when to do that.

Motor Sport: -€11.00
Just a small bet on the winner market of the China Grand Prix, which did not work out. I am really sad about the new rules of the season, because now there is not much activity in the fastest lap market like last season. Maybe I have to skip this sport.

Soccer: –€21.93
Currently I am testing a few ideas with small stakes, so nothing to worry about.

Tennis: €67.97
I love trading tennis and I hate trading tennis. Will it every work for me?
I don’t know how much I wrote about trading this sport, but maybe it was way too much.
After the first down swing of the tennis trading in April I took a break and tried to erase all of my “knowledge” and of course all of my prejudices about the sport and about the odds movement. Then I tried to trade the matches with intuition. That means I used various stake sizes, depending on how confident I was about the trade. I also placed some bets based on value. The value investing concept is simple: Just place a bet or start a trade if the odds are wrong. Therefore you have to deal with losing runs, but that is just a matter of money management. The problem with the concept of value investing is how to estimate the true value of a bet. On long term your results will tell you, if your selections offered value or not.

Total P&L:  -€49.50

Another month of learning the hard way. The funny thing is I already wrote about those issues before, but it is quiet different to know the facts and to be aware of them.
I know the facts, now I need to be aware of them.

Cheers, Loocie

Analysis of March 2010

Hello,

same procedure as every month. Here is an overview how I did:

Personal Trades

Football: €14.21
I traded the Correct Score market a few times. There is much potential in this market, but I need to be more selective with the matches I trade on. I was well in profit, but then I got a little too confident and traded too many matches and gave much profit away. Being selective is the key. That is a huge task for me for the next month.

Horse Racing: €35.37
A solid month for the manual lay selections. Was a little disappointing to finish the month with a losing selection, but it was just a question of time to hit a winner.
I am now doing the manual lay selections for more than a year and I am very confident with it.

Motor Sport: -€48.99
I burned my fingers during the first two races of the new Formula 1 season. Trading the fastest lap market seems to be totally different with the rules. There is less activity in the market compared to last season.
I tried a few new ideas, but it did not work out.

Tennis: €12.00
At least I have green figures on the tennis trading front. In March I tried to observe myself during the trades. I think my problem with trading in general is, that I do not have a specified goal. I need some kind of gratification for having a good trading month. Currently I am still on my bank building period, so the only thing I know for the end of the month is that I will have a bigger trading bank for the next month, but that is not a gratification for me. Therefore I am sometimes forcing trades to push the bank to a higher level. At the moment I am far away from a professional approach.

Total P&L:  €12.59

Another disappointing month, but at least one with green figures. During the month I had a profit of €120.00 but then I forced too many trades and gave much of the profit away.
Therefore I will set a profit target of €100.00 for April.

Betting Bots

HorstBecker
March produced a profit of 74 points, but still in simulation mode. We placed the bets for the Cheltenham Festival and got a decent profit of about 40 points.

Today the bot will place its selection live on Betfair again. Let’s hope for another solid and profitable month.

LaylaCheval
March produced a total loss of 50 points which is really disappointing. We had some technical problems with the Betfair API again and the so called BET_IN_PROGRESS issue. It is still not solved, so we missed some profitable selections. We also decided to stop the bot on the Cheltenham Festival after the bot laid a high priced winner. Was a really bad decision. Overall the Cheltenham Festival produced a small profit of a few points, but only on simulation mode. There was also a profitable Sunday, but Betfair did not work on that day and we missed another profitable day. If everything would have been fine the bot still would have produced a loss of 5 points in March.

That’s it for now. Will post later possible lay selections.

Cheers, Loocie

Review and Preview

My 2nd year of trading on sports is over. Let’s have a look how I did:

Review of 2009

Tennis: 
I started well with a pleasant January profit of +€32.77 and a fantastic February profit of +€129.74, but then I totally lost my confidence. I had a couple of losses where I made some stupid mistakes. My staking was also too aggressive and I had too big liabilities during the trades. I cut my winnings and let my losses run.
Then I took some time off from trading tennis and late in the season I decided to start again with €20.00 stakes. I changed my style of trading to just focussing on laying low odds which was really an improvement. I did not track my results as I should, so I can not give an exact overview how I did. Tracking results will be an issue for 2010.

Soccer:
Did not trade that much soccer, but had a few bets and trades. I tried to use Soccer Mystic and trade soccer matches, but that will not work for me. It is too boring to watch a match and the odds closely. I think I will keep having an eye on pre match odds and if I can identify a good value (like Germany v Russia) I will put in a bet. I did not track my soccer bets, but I am in a small profit.

American Football:
I was not able to trade many matches, because my Pay TV subscription expired. I started to follow Stock Lemon’s picks. I was a little lucky, because I missed some losing bets. According to a stake of €10.00 I made +€56.66.

Formula 1:
This sport was my main income source for this year. I made +€307.08 during the year. Mainly I focussed on the fastest lap market, but I also had a look at some other markets, too. There is so much value in so many markets. I learned from my mistakes of 2008, where I could not accept a loss and put more and more into a bad position.

Horse Racing:
Three years ago I started to select some false favourites on horse racing. I only paper traded those selections and it did not pay off. So I stopped it.
This year I had a look at the excel file I created in the past with the past selections and I applied some filters. If I was more patient the stats suggested a decent profit.
At the end of March I started again paper trading my lay selections with a far more patient approach. At the end of May I started putting money on the selections with a bank of €100. I started with a maximum liability of 5% of the bank. During the last two months I raised my liability to 10% of the bank. I doubled the bank in eight months, which is a pleasant result.

Betting Bots:
I was always fascinated by having a betting bot. I started developing my first Betfair API application in June 2008. I wanted to develop a mobile Betfair application for Windows Mobile devices.
In June 2009 I started to develop a betting bot.
Currently we are running two bots for horse racing. One for backing and one for laying.
It is quite disappointing that both started really well, but now they are performing not as expected. I double checked past results and source code of both bots. There is no bug. The bots are working reliable and they do the work correctly. Only the results are quite different to the past results. 
It might be possible that in the near future both bots will run in simulation mode again.
Currently I am working on the next betting bot. I have still many ideas I want to automate. Once a bot is created it just need to run and track data in simulation mode. 2010 will be exciting!

Conclusion:

The Numbers:

Starting bank: €250.00
Current bank: €825.56 (+230.22%) 

Biggest single profit: +€79.11
Biggest single loss: –€50.47

The Staking:

Staking has been always an issue for me. I tried to adapt staking rules from other traders, but this did not work for me.
Generally, I am a fan of the KISS principle: Keep It Simple and Stupid!
That’s what I did with my style of trading this year. No complex strategy, just lay low.

Patience:

With my horse laying selections I learned that it is better to stay away, if there is no good opportunity. If you can avoid losing money, you will win more money. Forcing trades and getting in too often and too early was a main problem during the last two years.

Tracking Results:

I have not been good in tracking results, especially in tennis. That’s also a reason why I can not write down my complete stats for tennis trading.

Setting Goals:

At the start of 2009 I set myself a goal to reach a net profit of €1000.00. Did not reach this goal. I have learned this year, that it is not about chasing numbers.
It is about getting a professional approach:

• Apply always your trading rules
• Track your results
• Learn from mistakes (and avoid doing them again)

Preview of 2010

I will split this section into two parts: Personal Trades and Betting Bots.

Personal Trades

In 2010 I will focus on Tennis, Formula 1, Horse Racing and American Football.

Staking:

Tennis:
I will keep it as simple as possible: I will trade with a fixed staking and I will start with a stake size of €50.00.

Formula 1:
Stake size will be €20.00 to €50.00, the same like 2009.

American Football:
Stake size will be €20.00.

Horse Racing:
Will continue with a liability of 10% of the horse racing bank.

What about setting goals?
Chasing random numbers will not work for me, so I will not set me a goal to reach a certain amount of profit.
I want to turn my trading into a more professional one, so I want to concentrate on trading behaviour (applying all my rules, patience, etc) and tracking all my results.

Betting Bots

I have several ideas for automated betting. Along with the horse racing bots I am currently working on a bot for American Sports.

The goal for 2010 is to create a least one reliable bot and to create a solid income stream from it. I think in a few month I will have a couple of bots doing their work. Maybe some of them will only run in simulation mode for a while. There is no need to rush. Sooner or later they will do their work once all the parameters are found.

Changes to the Blog

I will also apply some changes to the blog. I will outsource the horse laying selections to a newsletter tool where people can subscribe/unsubscribe to. Currently I am still looking for a comfortable piece of software.

That’s it so far.
I wish all of you a prosperous new year!

Cheers, Loocie

Analysis of November 2009

Hello,

Another month is over and it is time for a summary.
The way I am working on Betfair changed a little during November, so I will change my analysis too. There will be a part handling the betting bot performance and a part related to my personal trades:

Personal Trades:

American Football: €47.20
I was a little lucky this month. Missed a few bets, because I was not at home to place some bets. The bets I missed all lost.

Horse Racing: -€20.77
My horse laying selections did not worked well this month. It was quite difficult to identify good laying opportunities, so I just had a few bets. Three of those won so I finished the month with a loss.

Motor Sport: €15.40
A small profit from the start of the month. Nothing interesting to say. I am looking forward to the next season.
Will Schumacher come back and drive for Mercedes GP?

Soccer: €10.52
Inspired by Psychoff I had a look at trading on soccer with Soccer Mystic. The good news is that I know how to trade on soccer. The bad news is, it is really boring. I do not enjoy trading on soccer. It is quite exhausting to watch the matches and the odds closely. Quite different to trading tennis.

Tennis: €45.17
I am happy about the result of trading tennis for November. There were not many matches, but I traded really well. During the last three months I think I have found my way of trading tennis: Just lay low!
That’s it. The earlier you lay low, the higher is the chance that the selection you laid will trade at higher odds. There are matches were I can not identify such a situation, but if so, then I do not trade this match. There is no reason to waste money.
Staking has been a big issue for me on trading tennis during the whole year. During the last three months I always traded with a fixed stake of €20.00 which worked quite well. With that staking it is also easy to evaluate my trades afterwards. For the next tennis season I will raise that stake size, but I will write about that in detail in my preview of 2010. I just need to avoid over staking, a mistake I made this year and which let me struggle during the mid season in tennis.

Total P&L: €97.52
Overall a really pleasant profit for the month. My time/trading ratio decreased too, which is another motivation. I do not need to fight to make a profit like this. Just need to do, what I know.

Betting Bots:

Both bots started exceptional profitable, but this month was not that good as the past months on simulation mode:

HorstBecker
LaylaCheval
  
HorstBecker had a really awful month, but I assume this should just happen to separate the boys from the men. We need to have balls and trust the system. There will be winning streaks and there will be losing runs. You can not avoid one of them. You need to deal with both. Have a look at an article from Harry Fox:

Losing Runs versus Winning Runs in Horse Race Betting

Layla had a profitable month, but made all the profit in the first two weeks of November. The last two weeks have been not that good and Layla produced a loss. All in all LaylaCheval made a decent profit in November, but we just started putting money on it from mid November. It had to happen to start with a loss :)

At the beginning of the month I was watching many of the races the bots were involved, but this will make you crazy. I will not do it anymore. It is too stressful. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. A single race or a single days is not important. Getting a long term view is what you need, if you are doing something like that.

Both bots are now running on a windows server. No need to run a personal computer for the bots. We just need to log in the windows server via remote desktop and we can watch both of them working. The bots are doing their work reliable. No crashes, no bugs so far.

There are still a few things to work out:
Firstly, we want to have a central tracking platform for tracking the bets and market activities on Betfair for both bots. So we want to be able to have a real time overview about both bots performance. This also includes to get a daily report about the profit/loss figure and other indicators.
Secondly we want to implement a reporting and alert system to get emails and SMS when there is an issue with the bots or with the Betfair API.
You see, there is still a lot of work in front of us.
I will keep you updated.

Cheers, Loocie

Trading Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi

Hello,

yesterday was the last Grand Prix of the 2009 Formula 1 season. Here is an overview of my trades:

 
Trading fastest lap was not easy, because at the beginning the odds did not move significantly, so I concentrated on the other markets. In the Safety Car market I got in trouble because of low liquidity.
Trading the Winner market was much better. I laid Hamilton at 1.49 before the first pit stop. Then the market realized that it might be difficult for Hamilton to stay on top after the pit stop and the odds moved up. The odds moved to 3.0. Then the McLaren team said on team radio that there might a problem with the car. That was a sign for me to stay in the trade and let it run. A few laps later Hamilton retired and the profit was secure.

I also got some money out of “Schumacher to Race for Ferrari”.
Overall I made +€307.08 profit during the 2009 Formula 1 season. I expected to make +€100 profit, so I am really impressed about what I achieved.

That’s it so far. Will post possible selections later.

Cheers, Loocie

Analysis Of October 2009

Hello,

another month is over, so it is time to review the results of the month.

American Football: -€7.64
The selections of Stock Lemon did not perform that good in October. Overall there is still a profit, so no problem with that.

Football: €20.90
Just one bet on Germany versus Russia. Great value and nice profit.

Horse Racing: €19.60
The lay selections had a tough month. Two losers at the start of the month. Then we had 10 days without selections, but the patience paid off. Five winnings in the row secured the profit. I used a fixed liability staking of €15.00 per selection.

Motor Sport: -€5.79
Just two races in October: Brazil and Japan. It was not possible to trade the fastest lap market, because there was no liquidity. Tried to discover other markets, which ended in a small loss.

Tennis: €53.35
A really decent result so far. Could have been better, but yesterday I lost on V Williams v Jankovic. This was a great lesson, because I saw what was my mistake: I tried to trade momentum. Trading momentum in WTA tennis matches is the worst thing you could do. Just keep patient and lay low. That’s what I did the whole month except the match yesterday.

Total P&L: €80.42
A nice profit for the month. Currently my maximum stake size is €20.00. Raising stake size is definitely a task for the next year. That’s something I struggled with this year.

The tennis season is nearly over, so I will spend more time on developing the trading bots.
HorstBecker is a bot I developed, which bets on horses. At the moment it is running in simulation mode and showing promising results.
LaylaCheval is a bot, which lays horses. It is also running in simulation mode, but I need to do more coding, to make it easier to get the daily profit/loss figure.
At the moment Muxor is doing all the daily reporting manually, which is a lot of work.
The goal is to have two bots, one for backing, one for laying, which do their work fully automated.

That’s it so far. Will post later possible lay selections.

Cheers, Loocie

Mixed Results

Hello,

Last weekend was full of sport events and I invested on the following events:

American Football: -€39.95
Stock Lemon had a forgettable weekend with 4 losers. It can happen and I am not angry with that. I am looking on the long term. We will fight back. Maybe next weekend.

Formula 1: -€7.14
Trading the fastest lap market as usual was not possible. No liquidity in-play. I had a look at the following markets:

• Motor Sport / Japanese GP : Winner -4.20
• Motor Sport / Japanese GP : Qual Rd 3 - Top 10 5.36
• Motor Sport / Japanese GP : Overall Qual. Winner -8.30

The market “Qual Rd 3 - Top 10” looks really interesting. There are some really nice odds available. The Formula 1 season is nearly over with just two race ahead, but I will have a look at this market next weekend in Brazil, too.

Tennis: €45.72
Wohoo! I can still do it! Changing my mind about how to trade tennis seems to help me. Have a look at the markets I traded on:

• Tennis / Medina Garrigues v Lu : Match Odds  0.00
• Tennis / Martinez Sanchez v Wozniacki : Match Odds 13.51
• Tennis / Peer v Makarova : Match Odds  -2.80
• Tennis / Safina v Vinci : Match Odds -2.80
• Tennis / Kirilenko v K Bondarenko : Match Odds 1.33
• Tennis / Kuznetsova v Zheng : Match Odds 14.92
• Tennis / Cirstea v Zvonareva : Match Odds -2.60
• Tennis / Dushevina v V Williams : Match Odds 0.04
• Tennis / Rezai v Wozniak : Match Odds 6.55
• Tennis / Azarenka v Li : Match Odds 17.57

What has changed with my trading so far? It may sound weird, but I do not take a stop loss anymore! When you lay a player at 1.2 I can not see any reason why I should take a stop loss at 1.1 or something else. That’s what I did in the past. All the three losses from the matches above came from laying at low odds. All in all I lost –8.60 on those three matches. When trading on Martinez Sanchez v Wozniacki I laid Wozniacki at 1.27 pre match and at 1.13 in-play. The up swing is huge and the down swing is small. I recovered all the losses and more to make a profit on those 4 matches.

Another thing I am doing is to let my winnings run as much as I can. In the past I cut my losses too early and too often.
I know I do not tell you something new about trading. You may have read the same phrases again and again in other trading blogs. I know all these things too, but I needed to make my own experience with that. I think it is the same if you say a child “Do not touch the cook top, it is hot! You will burn your fingers!” It may touch the cook top and burn the fingers, but it will not do this anymore. The child has learned from experience. Therefore I am really glad I am making those experiences on low stakes compared to other traders.

A small loss for the weekend, but I am feeling really good and confident about getting on the winning path soon.

Cheers, Loocie

Analysis Of September 2009

Hello,

During the last few weeks I did not write that much about my trading in detail. The month is almost over, so I will take the time to give you an update how I was doing.
Here is an overview of this months result sorted by sport:

American Football: €27.14
I am investing some money in the free selections of Stock Lemon. There are some good free tipsters outside, so why do not participate?

Horse Racing: €15.35
That’s the profit of my horse lay selections. Not much profit, but still a profit. This month I hade just a few selections.

Motor Sport: €42.14  
Trading Formula 1 races is working really well for me. I am discovering more and more markets of this sport. There is so much value on it. Fantastic!

Tennis: €39.07
During the last few months I struggled a little when trading tennis matches. I think it was a good example of over trading and taking too early too much risk. I tried to be successful in every match. But that is not possible. Losing money in some markets is not the problem. It is not about making profit in as much markets as you can. You just need to cover your losses with your winnings.

Total P&L: €123.70

A good result for me. It shows me that I am on the right track with my new view of trading.

I spent my time not only on trading on sports events. I also did some work on the betting bot front. I already created a bot for another bot for laying horses. Therefore I am also using websites like Timeform. Today I found an interesting race from yesterday:

 
Amenable won with a BSP of 320!! Amazing! The favourite traded in play at 1.06 and lost.
The bot is doing the selections automatically based on certain criteria, but at the moment I am doing the summary of every single race manually via Timeform. The bot selected more than 1000 horses to lay during the last 3 or 4 weeks, so you guess it also lays at higher odds. Therefore I need to collect more data, to see if it might be profitable or not.

I also worked on my Betfair API framework which is in a good progress. Everything is working fine at the moment, but it is a lot of work.

I will keep you updated!

Cheers, Loocie

Formula 1 – Italian GP

Hello,

This weekend I traded the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Italy. Here is an overview of the markets I traded on:

Yesterday I traded the Overall Qualifying Winner market. I recognized some nice trading opportunities, but I still need to learn more about the odds movement in this market.

Today I focused on the Fastest Lap market and the Winner market too. Trading the fastest lap market was quite difficult. I had just EUR13.77 on Sutil, who marked the fastest lap. I expected Hamilton to drive faster at the end, but he did not managed to get the fastest lap. I am still happy about the profit.

The winner market was quite interesting and I identified an opportunity to lay Hamilton at 1.69 early. Everything went fine for both Brawn cars and for me too :)

Cheers, Loocie

Formula 1 – Belgium Grand Prix

Hello everybody,

 
Yesterday we had another Formula 1 Sunday with the Belgium Grand Prix in Spa. I backed the Safety Car Appearance pre race with the intension to trade out for a small loss within the first few laps if there was no safety car. In the first lap a few cars crashed and happily I saw the safety car on track! First profit locked in.

Then I concentrated on the fastest lap market as usual. It was a little difficult to trade because there was no clear favourite. I got some nice odds on a few drivers, so I am happy with the profit. I have learned from my mistakes last year. I do not force any trades anymore. This is really nice.

Next race is in mid September in Monza.

Cheers, Loocie

European GP – Valencia

Hello,

Today it is Sunday and we have a Formula 1 weekend. I traded the Fastest Lap market as usual and I used stakes of EUR20.

 
I really enjoy this market, because I am feeling really comfortably when doing the work on that. The race was good for trading, many swings in the market and mostly I was on the right side of the swings.

Cheers, Loocie

Analysis Of July 2009

Hello,

July is over, so I will do my monthly review about my betting and trading. Here is an overview of my results of July sorted by sports:

Horse Racing: EUR9.73
Motor Sport: EUR59.93
Tennis: EUR2.96  

Total P&L: EUR72.62

The horse racing lay selections produced a small profit and I am happy with that. I had 12 selections with 10 winners and 2 losers. One winning selection does not count as a selection, because there was not enough money traded below 5.0, so I had 11 selections with 9 winning selections and 2 losing selections which produced a strike rate of 81%. Average winning lay odds was 4.14 which is a little higher than the average winning lay odds of the past months.

Trading Formula 1 was really nice this month. There were also difficult races, but I kept cool and stayed away. That might be a key for success. There is no need to trade as many events as possible, a mistake I made in the past too often.

Trading tennis did not worked really good. I only got involved in a few matches, so I am not worried about the small profit. There were two weeks with just small tournaments and I skipped those events.

July 2009 was the first month without conducting experiments. In past, too often I was wasting money because I tried out some strategies or ideas with money.

My time – profit ratio this month was really good. I avoided to sit in front of the computer too often, without getting involved.

That’s it for now. Later I will post possible lay selections.

Cheers, Loocie

A Tough Race

Hello,

Yesterday I traded the Grand Prix of Hungary. Here is an overview how I did:

 
It was really difficult to trade the fastest lap market. At the beginning many drivers had the fastest lap, so I stayed away. I recognized that Vettel was involved in a collision, so I put on a small lay on him. Did some other trades, too, but did not get matched with the whole amount I wanted.

I also had a look at the Podium market and put in some small trades. This race was not easy, but I think I did it right. If there is not a good opportunity, just stay away.

I am still trading on tennis, but the last two weeks just small tournaments took place and I did not get involved. That’s it so far. Will post later for possible lay selections on the horses.

Cheers, Loocie

Trading Fastest Lap Market

Hello,

Today I traded the fastest lap market. Produced a decent profit with just 20EUR stake sizes. I am loving it :)

Cheers, Loocie

Laying Horses

Hello,

June is nearly over and I had another profitable month.

 
It is a little annoying that I could not produce a nice profit in the horses, but following Nose Ahead and HCE Bet did not work for me. I was not able to match all their bets, so mostly I missed some nice winners. It is not their fault, it is mine.

Here is an overview of my own lay selections on the horses:

I started the month with a 100EUR bank and now the bank stands at 114.40EUR. A nice profit 14.40% with only risking 4% of the bank on each single selection.

There is much liquidity on the market, so I will publish my selections pre race here on the blog. If you are interested you can join the selections and place bets too. I will publish my selections every day at noon.

The blog entry will look like this:

Today’s selection(s):

2009-06-30    19:00    Thirsk    MAIDEN STAKES    CALL TO ARMS

NB. Only lay the given selection(s), if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

There will be days without a selection and it is also possible to have days within 2 or 3 selections. I recommend to take the odds as early as you can, because mostly they will drift to the start of the race and sometimes they drift to greater than 5.0 and I would not lay these selections at greater than 5.0.

Please note: Laying horses to lose, as with all forms of gambling involves risk, and although using this selections has proven profitable in the past, past results can only be used as a guide. Only ever use money you can afford to lose.

The Pre Race Horse Racing Analyzer is well in progress. I have already identified a possible trading strategy, but I need to collect more data to determine the best way to take a stop loss or to take a profit. If I have identified these situations I will start to implement the bet placing. The next weeks will be really exciting.

Stats so far:
Total profit this month: +EUR31.92

Cheers, Loocie

Computer-Aided Betting

Hello,

again a long time since the last blog entry. These days are really busy and I am working on various things at the same time.

The baseball system is well underway, but I stopped betting on it, because I am not yet sure how to make the biggest profit out of it. There are a few variables which let the system perform differently and I will wait to have 100 data entries to see a trend.

The horse laying system is well underway, too. I had my longest winning streak with 8 correct selections in a row. I started betting on my selections at the end of may and with a bank of 100EUR I made 14.86EUR so far (with only 4% (EUR4) liability on every single selection), which is a great result. Here is an overview of the selections I bet on so far:
 
Formula 1 produced the biggest profit of the month so far: It is a shame they do not race every week. It is so easy to make money on this for me.

I have many ideas I want to try out, so my over all profit this month is not that big. I spend some small money on testing various things.

At the moment I am working on two things:

The first one is an excel sheet which will create some in play value odds for tennis matches based on historical data of the players.

The other one is a Betfair API software, which will track the odds movement on the horses to find pattern and possibilities to make profit.

I could not believe that I did not think about computer-aided betting or trading so far, but there is a lot of potential on this.

I will keep you updated.

Total profit this month so far: EUR17.71

Cheers, Loocie

Return To Normal Life

Hello,

first of all sorry for the lack of updates during the last month and thanks to Philip Oliver for his thoughts on betting on Roland Garros.

The last few weeks have been very busy at work. I also had to do lots of things to get a new car. I am happy to say that all this stuff is done and I can return to normal life.

During the last few weeks I also traded some sport events, but this was not a good idea. I was not 100% concentrated and produced the following result:

  
I started the trading month with a loss of -EUR50.47 in the match Bammer v Li, so the struggle of the last month continued. To be honest I can not afford to lose such an amount in a single match. My actual trading bank is ca. EUR383, so the loss of -EUR50.47 is 13% of my bank. You do not need to be an expert, but losing 13% of your trading bank in a single trade is not acceptable. During the last few weeks I had to take a stop loss or at least to scratch the trades in so many occasions. Here is an example of a trade of the last month:

During the match Domachowska v Kirilenko I could identify good opportunities, but after 3 successful trades (entering and then scratching) I took my stop loss too late and produced a loss
of -EUR3.39. It is not a big amount (just 0.88% of my trading bank), but it is still a loss. If you have ten of these trades, you lose -EUR33.90 which is ca. 10% of the trading bank. I had lots of such trades, so if I had a successful trade, mostly I cut my winnings, because I just want to have a single trade where my assumption of the match developing was right. Any successful trader would now start laughing, because this a common mistake of a novice trader.

Two weeks ago I started reading a book of Van K. Tharp about trading. The more I read the more I realised that I do not have a really good trading strategy for tennis. Also my setup is not that professional that it should be. As a software developer I should not be that difficult to create a setup for me, which helps me to trade without emotions.

In this book I could also find information about how to measure your trading strategy. I never measured my “strategy” in the past so it is quite funny that I set a goal for myself to reach a net profit if EUR1000 at the end of the trading year.

Maybe it sounds crazy, but in tennis I need to start again from scratch. I want to have a tennis trading strategy (or maybe a set of strategies) which is measurable and which can be applied without subjective decisions.

Mostly when trading on tennis I am watching for big odds movements. I am also thinking about looking for smaller odds movement, f.e. to look for a movement of 25 ticks in my favour with a maximum risk of 10 ticks against me. This may lead to having more trades, which is also in my favour, because it is a little annoying for me to watch matches without getting involved.

I also started to put money on my laying selections on the horses. The results are promising, so I will give it a try. I am also following the tips of Horse Racing Tips and Nose Ahead. I am tracking all the bets via Excel so I will give a complete overview during the next few days.

 
The MLB Baseball season has already started and a mate came across with a nice idea to bet on those matches. So give it a try too. Yesterdays result where really good, 4 out of 4 winners. I use Betfair and Betdaq to get my selections at certain odds matched.

It is quite funny: I started with the idea to trade on sports and now I am beginning to turn to betting. I am still convinced I can make money on trading on tennis, but I need to get an approach which suits my personality. Haven’t found it so far.

There will be also some changes to the blog too. I do not want to post the profit/loss figure on a daily bases. It does not help any readers and it does not help me. Often I try to force a trade to turn a red figure into a green figure to avoid posting a loss on the blog. Losing is a part of the game. If you have a measurable strategy (trading or betting, does not matter) then on long term the profit will come. So I will just post my profit/loss on a monthly bases.

Total loss this month: –EUR24.50

Cheers, Loocie

Adding Small Green Figures To The Pot

Hello,

not very much action these days so far. Just traded the Fastest Lap Market of the Bahrain Grand Prix at the weekend.

I also had a look at the Fed Cup matches, but I only got involved in the match Lisicki v Zheng. Again I had to scratch the trade, which created a small profit of 0.94.

It is near the end of the month and after last month’s awful result I am happy with the moderate profit of this month so far. The single month does not count. I need to look at the bigger picture:

 
I am well in front to achieve my goal of a net profit of 1000€ this year. I can achieve my goal easily with a net profit of 16% of my trading bank per month.

Sometimes it is important to have a look at your past result. It reminds you to keep focused and patient and it shows you what is possible with discipline and patience.

Stats so far:
Total profit since last update: +6.89
Total profit this month: +56.16

Cheers, Loocie

Mixed Bag

Hello,

the last few days have been very busy. Lot’s of stuff to do at work, so I could not trade that much.

Here is an overview of my trades since the last update:Trading tennis does not pay off these days for me. Mostly I have to take a stop loss or scratch the trade. I did not make mistakes, but I am still a little struggling, when trading tennis.

Trading darts produced also a loss, but this is not a problem. I was a little less cautious than last week, so my stop loss bet in the match Klaasen v King was not matched. Starting the trading day with a loss does not raise your self confidence, so I was too cautious in the following matches. I will do better next week.

I also tried to trade the horses, especially the place market. I recognized some patterns in the place market and traded this market with a long term view, no scalping. I will have a look at this in the future.

Trading Formula 1 was really great this weekend. Generally I only have a look at the Fastest Lap Market, but today it was quite difficult. I was very cautious and could not identify a good opportunity, so I stayed away.
Pre race it was raining heavily, so it was quite possible to have a start behind the safety car. I watched the TV coverage closely and as they said we will have a race start behind the safety car I backed a safety car appearance in the Safety Car? Market. I got matched 60€@1.42. Really great! The same happened last year during a race. That’s what I call free money :)

My laying the horses project is still on a good run. Since the last blog update I selected 4/4 losers, which is really great. At the moment the selections produce the following stats:

Number of selections: 20
Number of horses won: 3
Number of horses lost: 17
Strike rate: 85%
Average lay odds: 3.56
Average lay odds of horse won: 2.94

If I can keep the average lay odds of horses which won below 3.56, then I need a strike rate of 72% to break even. Everything above means profit. I know I need more data to see if it could be profitable on the long term, so let’s see how it goes during the next weeks. I will update stats in the future here on the blog.

That’s it for now. At the moment I am visiting my family, so I will not trade that much during the next few days.

Stay lucky!

Stats so far:
Total profit since last update: +8.82
Total profit this month: +38.82

Cheers, Loocie

Roundup

Hello,

at the moment I do not update the blog very often, because I have not very much to write about.

This week four tennis tournaments take place, but I think I will not put on many trades. It is a week before the next big tournaments and the clay season has just started. Many players need to adjust on clay. I will have a look at the matches, but I will only get involved, if I can identify a really good opportunity. Last month was a very good example for losing discipline and patience. I do not want to repeat this anymore.

At the last weekend I traded the Formula 1 GP of Malaysia.
I concentrated on the Fastest Lap Market and could produce a decent profit. When the race was suspended I put on a small lay of Button in the winner market, because the odds would move dramatically, if the race would be restarted. It does not happen, so I lost a small amount. Not dramatically, I think I would do it again in such a situation.

These days I take the time to learn more about the psychological aspect of trading. Anthony, a regular reader of the blog posted a link to Peter Webb’s blog about gratification and how people handle their need for gratification.

I think I am a person who wants to have instant gratification, that might be a reason why I sometimes cut my winnings and why I try to force trades. A really bad habit.

The first step of improving your trading is to get a knowledge about the psychological aspects of trading. You need to know about the existence of some subjects like instant gratification versus deferred gratification, etc.
The second step is to identify your own behaviour and habits. How does your behaviour and habits affect your trading?
The third step might be to change your behaviour in certain situations to avoid psychological traps.
I think I need to read more books like “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success”. If anyone can recommend some lecture feel free to leave a comment.

I mentioned earlier that I will have a look at trading on darts. At the moment I am watching the matches and how the odds move. It is a fast sport, so every second you wait for taking a stop loss will cost you money. Therefore I need to be prepared before putting on a trade.

Today we will have another show on WUBT radio with Peter Webb live. During the last shows some people presented their horse racing systems and tipster services. In 2007 I tried to develop a horse laying system too. The idea was to identify false favourites. The problem with this laying system was, that I tried to lay favourites in too many races with too high odds. So I looked through my data and recognized that it could be profitable when taking the odds as a selection criterion too. That leads to less selections, but that is not a problem. You need a good strike rate depending on your average winning odds. I am making my selections on paper (I write them into an Excel sheet; just want to say I do not place bets with real money) and at the moment the system is in profit. First step is to collect as many data I can to get a long term view on the system. Maybe it will fail, maybe it will just work during different periods of the year. If I have 100 selections in my Excel sheet I will publish the result here on the blog. Then we might have a first clue in which direction the system will move.

That was a roundup about the last few days of trading. I can recommend today’s show on WUBT radio, I am sure it will be great fun again.

Stats so far:
Total profit since last update: +11.01
Total profit this month: +11.01

Cheers, Loocie