Update

     It's coming back .... i'm slowly starting to get used with trading again, in a couple of weeks I might be fully comfortable with trading and increase my stakes. So far I have read all matches pretty well, didn't had any big reds.

    Knowing when to stop is an important thing in trading. Let's take for example Gulbis vs Youzhny. Perfect trading match, at least 1 swing/set ... a 3 sets match a lot of ups and downs etc. First set I had +150 profit and I thought this is great .... should I stop here ? Second set I had +350 profit .... this is the best match I traded this year .... should I stop here ? At the end of the match I had +660 profit, which considering my low stakes is an very very good profit.

    On the other hand there where at least 4 matches where I had +100 +200 profit and ended with a tiny green or a small loss. And every time I was asking myself ,,why didn't you stop ?''.
    Like I said ... it's an important thing in tennis.

 

Back In Business !

    It's been eight months since my last post and more than half of year since i placed my last trade on Betfair. Pfff  long time, i never thought i could last so much without placing a bet on my favorite sport. I have to admit that i was watching the results on regular basics but it's a different story when you're involved when you're money is on a player, you're watching tennis with different eyes.

    So what happened ? why the long absence ? For half of year I worked for a hotel company in USA, and we all know what kind of policy they have about internet gambling. It was supposed to be a permanent job, and I had great expectations but it didn't turned out so well. I don't regret the experience I had a great time in USA but i'm sure that if i had continued with trading, my level right now would have been much higher and my bank also.

    Anyway, since November i'm back in my country, during this time I tried to catch up everything i lost during my absence. I did some light trading during The World Tour Finals, nothing serious, small stakes, tried to get used with trading again and I certainly felt rusty ... no dexterity, no patience, no confidence, nothing. Even though i was trading with less than 10% than my usual stakes my heart was beating so fast, I felt very bad, very nervous. This means that i have to be really careful for a while, until I get back in shape.

    So the new season started, lots of tournaments lost of tennis lots of great matches. I'm sure there are going to be plenty of surprises and thus plenty of opportunities. There are two tournament with matches played during the night Brisbane (Australia) and Auckland (New Zealand) and two tournaments with matches played during the day time Chennai and Doha. Obviously there are two many matches to cover all of them, even if I could physical do it, my efficiency would have a lot to suffer. So my plan is to cover so of the first night matches .... 3-4 hours of trading, have a decent sleep of at least 6 hours, wake up rested and trade the matches during the day. This are the results from the first day of trading since the long absence.

Miami second round

     Things look much better now, yesterday I had such a good day, all my trades were successful. Looking forward for today's matches, were supposed to get live streams on several matches which will definitely help. Let's talk about last night matches:

     Bullucci vs Blake. Price after the brazilian took very comfortable the first set was 1.17, a must lay considering that the starting prices were 1.9-2.1. Just a couple of decent service games would bring the market back to it's true value but i wanted more. Bullucci often proves he can't play well under pressure and he was serving last in the second set. At 5-4 when serving to stay in the set Bellucci made a double fault, i assume he also made some unforced errors and gave Blake 1 break point. I took that price with 1/3 of my profit to get my original stake back and waited for the break which came immediately. Greened after Blake hold serve in the third set. And again when Bellucci was serving to stay in the set i put most of my profit on Blake and stayed in for the tie break. The american took an early mini break which gave me a much better price to green.

     Bartoli vs Morita. Often when an average player wins a tournament loses in the first round of the next tournament. Bartoli didn't won Indian Wells but the presence in the final is an excellent performance for her. Price was to high though for a lay. Waited for the second set when price on Bartoli was somewhere under 1.1. I was also helped by a long delay in the second set, where a lot of people assumed Bartoli took a medical time out. I have no ideea if that happened but price on Bartoli went up to 2.7.

     Bacsinszky vs Cibulkova. Layed Cibulkova in the second set on her serve at 15-30 as the price was excellent 1.08 then gradually hedged my profit. In the third set Cibulkova broke first and again price dropped way to much considering she lost her serve in the second set two times.

     Pavlyuchenkova vs Szavay. Market overreacted after the russian was broken in her opening service game. Price went up from 1.37 to 1.7 for just 1 game. Took that price and greened after the russian took a 3-1 lead. Should have stayed in the market for 1 more game but i got involved in another match and i didn't wanted to repeat my mistake from the match between Becker vs Granolleres.

Miami First Rounds

     It's been a while since my last post, I was going though some difficult times, made some big mistakes but the most important is that I realised what I was doing wrong and I didn't panic. After a big red day i was very careful with my trading for the next couple of days. It would have been much harder to recover mentally after a few consecutive days with unsuccessful trading. So for the next two days I lowered my stakes, tried to chose my entry points as safe as possible and stayed in the market just a couple of minutes max / trade.Things have improved, results came immediately.
    
     The men's final from Indian Wells Nadal vs Djokovic had very big potential for some successful trading. I didn't made any profit or loss but considering that i entered with 800 euros on Djokovic 2-0, i am very happy with the result, i did well to recover that loss. My entry point was when the Djoker was leading 2-1 in the first set, and i was hoping that the price will drop considerably if he would take the first few points on Nadal's serve. Well i was very wrong, especially because I staked to much on a market without decent liquidity. So I covered my bet on the match betting and first set winner. Could have ended with profit though, but I wasn't expecting such a bad performance by the spaniard in the final set.

     Some interesting matches from Miami's first round matches:

     Errani vs Shvedova. Traded only the last set, I layed Errani at 1.12 when she was leading in the final set with 2-0. The match was very tight and balanced, the odds were very acceptable, so a lay seemed to be the best options. I had no doubt that somewhere in that set I would get a better price, Errani was making 95% first serves in and it would have been almost impossible to continue that way.

     Becker vs Granolleres. I backed Becker before the match started. He broke in the first game, then hold and the odds became very acceptable, but I was trading in the same time another match, and i thought that Becker will easily hold his serves.

     Tatishvili vs Govortsove. I have no idea what happened in this match but there were some incredible mistakes and values in the odds especially in the second set. Didn't used any particularly strategy, just took the value odds and greened when the odds came back to normal.

     Safina vs Dokic. Price drifted on Safina from 1.9 in the morning to 1.56 before the match. No doubt the market loved her so in case of a break the odds would go crazy. Backed her before the start of the match and greened after the first game. Not a bad profit for just 1 game.

Indian Wells Mid Week

     Today I am very upset with myself. I had such a good start of the week and continued so well during the mid week to ruin most part of it in one day, in a couple of hours of greediness and inattention. Everythink was going to well, didn't had a red day in a couple of .... weeks, and I wanted more and more, got to greedy, that's probably the reason for my friday's night trading. In a way i am glad this happened, brought me  back with my feets to the ground. I am only going to talk about friday night matches:

    Gasquet vs Djokovic. It was clear to me who's going to be the winner of this match, but the starting price on Djokovic was way too low. Gasq. As soon as the djouet showed some good tennis this week, nice serving, impressive victory against Roddick in the previous round so i expected to put a fight here. Starting price on Djokovic was to low so I was waited for a better price. I soon as the djoker was broken i backed him greened after the first set.

     Wickmayer vs Bartoli. Situation here was kind of simple. It was a very one sided match and I was on the wrong side. Nevertheless i had the chance to make a nice profit in the beginning of the second set. Wickmayer broke first and if I would have exit the market at that point i could have ended with a decent profit, but noooooo ... I waited for the hold, Wickmayer didn't served bad in the first set, she started the set better this is the comeback moment.  It wasn't, the french broke back immediately and since that point she took the lead, never had the chance to make profit, just reduce my red.

     Federer vs Wawrinka. Why do I even bother to trade this match. It doesn't have any logic: Federer good form Wawrinka good form Federer wins, Federer good form Wawrinka bad form Federer wins, Federer bad form Wawrinka very good form Federer wins. Is it fear ? is it respect ? is it the game style ? I don't know what it is, but Wawrinka always playes so bad when hes facing Federer. (same siuation with Troicki and Djokovic). At least in the first matches Wawrinka was putting some fight, but in the recent matches it was all Federer. I layed Federer 2-0 at the beginning of the second set, and I had the chance to make a decent profit two times when Wawrinka was leading 1-0 and 2-1. But again I wanted more, and I was waiting for a 0-30 or 15-30 to get a better price which never happened. Recoverd a part of my stake as Wawrinka didn't showed any signs of comming back.

     And then after two mistakes in a row .... i had to make a third one. I was expecting Sharapova to make a good match, give some hard time to Wozniacki. But the match was scheduled too late and i didn't stayed up. What have I done ? placed a bet on Sharapova to recover today's losses. I'm not a trader anymore i became a gambler now ? I am glad because Sharapova lost, otherwise i probably would have made this mistake again. I knew this isn't the best way to recover the losses but had to be reminded. Lesson learned !

Indian Wells - Going against the market

     It's one of the strategies that I like the most, but I have to be really careful when using this strategy, and I have to be comfortable being on red most of the time. When everybody is backing one player, the value is on the other player. However, the player that i am backing must be strong enough to make at least one break, otherwise, as the market is against me, i don't believe i could get a significant profit. Also when i am using this strategy i am willing to lose all my stake in case the match goes against me, as i won't get a decent price to hedge my loss, better let the match run and hope for a comeback.

    We had a very good example yesterday: Malisse vs Devverman. Early in the morning odds were 1.9-2.1 which in my opinion reflected the real chances of the players. At the start of the match odds drifted 1.6-2.6. Devverman served first and took the lead 2-1. At this moment odds on the indian were 2.7 which mean (considering the starting prices and the fact that he was leading) the market was against him. Backed him and greened after the first set. Second set started but the market changed it's opinion everybody was on the indian now. Odds on Malisse at the beginning of the second set were 3.3. After he held serve (yes it wasn't a very comfortable services game) odds raised to 3.5.Backed Malisse and again I was rewarded immediately as the belgian broke in the second game. Waited for the hold then greened again.

Indian Wells Day 3 and 4

     Saturday was a quite day, as we all know Betfair was up and down for hours so i decided to take the day off. Went out had some fun a few drinks, when I came back home i was a little drunk, opened betfair every think looked ok, there where some matches playing at that time so i started to trade. Glad I didn't do anythink stupid.

     Sunday night started bad again. Missed read 4 out of 5 matches, but i managed to limit my losses. Backed Chela at the beginning of the second set, odds were around 4.5-5. Except for that game when he was broken, he looked solid on serve plus he took Petz on deuce a couple of times in the first set. Petzschner broke serve fist time in the second set, and was serving two times for the match. Seemed like this day is going to be a disaster ! but Chela turned the match and saved my day.

     Becker vs Bellucci. Again a missed read match, this time I didn't had the chance to limit my loss. Except for the first game Bellucci played solid tennis (or Becker was playing poor), didn't gave any other breaks opportunities, also in the tie break of the second set he was the on to take the lead.

     Errani vs Clijsters. Layed Kim on serve in the second set, don't know what happened but she was making a lot of double faults. Clearly something is not right with her serve, also in the previous match she made a couple of double faults (it's going to be an interesting match against Bartoli, hope for a tight one also) . I greened after the second set but left most of my green on Errani, I was hoping for a tight final set.

     Again Gulbis a favorite against an inform player, again I went against him. After the first set I had a really nice green, but I thought Gulbis will collapse as he often does after he losses the first set so i left the match running. Gulbis broke first in the second set leading 6-5 plus serve so i switched sides. But he was broken to 0 immediately. Didn't wanted to take my chances in the tie break so i hedged.