If I wanna go pro a blog might help me focus
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Hi gang,
I’ve decided to start this blog because I’ve put the reason in the title. Focus is not really a strong suit of mine and some things happened on Sunday night that made me think the trading gods smiled and said “Bro where giving you this but you’ve really gotta get it together if you want to fulfil your goal to become a full time trader so stop faffing about.”
They spoke and I finally listened again not one of my great strengths but you can’t change genetics.After pretty much focusing on football trading since I joined BTC and dabbling in every strategy known to man I decided at the start of the year to focus more on tennis and cricket. I’ve been a freelance TV professional for 20 years and for about 15 Cricket was my bread and butter. Oddly and maybe it’s cause I’m Australian and we have stupid laws around gambling I never had given Betfair a thought. When my son was born in 2015 I decided that spending months at a time on the road wasn’t really going to work and I ended up on the ATP tour as well as last year doing quite a bit of Cricket for Sky on the Ashes after doing the World Cup. My point is my trading was all a bit haphazard and whilst I wanted to make it work I wasn’t really getting the time. Then in March of 2020 a little virus you may have heard of shut down the planet and with it went pretty much my entire work year. At first it was a bit of a typical Aussie “She’ll be right mate.” attitude to the whole thing but when Wimbledon and then the Olympics got canned I realised I wasn’t going back to work anytime soon. Fortunately since late August it’s been ok but what I realised was, I was a bit not over my job but it definitely wasn’t the be all and end all of my existence and once sport started to get played again being home with my family and trading on Betfair was a hell of a lot more appealing than living in hotels and hanging out in Airports. I’m 45 now not 25 or 35 so my priorities were changing. The job and industry has been really good to me and I’m aware of how lucky I’ve been to work on the events I have but I was given the opportunity to find a balance from something that has effected everyone. Anyway back to the purpose of the blog. What I aim to do is talk thru my day and my trades why I got involved and basically keep a record and keep my head clear. It will revolve predominantly around cricket and tennis the football perhaps not so much as yet, I’m not sure but because I wish to stick to those two sports more so going forward they’ll be front and centre. It also gives me a reason to be more disciplined in keeping spreadsheets and actual records going forward.
I’d like to start my look back on today and thank Dari whom I bombarded with questions all day and he helped me find clarity with my staking as well as suggesting a blog by pro trader Mark Iverson that I got a fair bit out of as well as reading Richard Futter’s guide to trading T20 cricket again about 5 times. Entry points have been a weakness of mine as I’ve been to keen to get into the market and explains why my account just yo yo’s and hasn’t really gone anywhere. I’d managed to find entry and exit points on the tennis I was happy with and had seen the benefits. I scalped a £116 profit about a week and a bit ago during a WTA tournament and it was a bit of a light bulb moment so today I focused on entry and exit points in the IPL and again it seemed that something finally clicked.
KKR vs Kings 11
The Kings won the toss and said we will have a bowl and proceeded to knock the top off the KKR top order to have them at 3-10 (yeah yeah 10-3 whatever) and the Kings price was 1.30. I was so tempted to lay then and there but thought if Morgan gets out here cheaply they’ll struggle to make 100. History shows in T20 cricket if you lose 3 wickets in the Power Play you’re not coming back as a general rule. So I held fire and waited. Morgan counter attacked which gave Gill confidence and suddenly KKR are seemingly back in the match and going at 10 an over. Adopting Richards set batsman strategy I backed KKR at 2.24 and with Morgan playing a little gem they were briefly favourites. I reduced about 40% liability and had over 1 point green but then Morgan fell the price crashed and I managed to close out pretty much at scratch. Nothing presented itself during the KKR innings again and they got to 149 not even close to par.
I then laid Kings at 1.27 at the start of their innings and some good bowling from Cummings and his new ball partner saw the price on Kings slowly go up. Not a lot but I scalped 0.5 points green and closed as I had to get my son from Holiday Club. Fortunately we live next door to school so I missed hardly any cricket and when I returned Kings were still struggling and KKR introduced their two best spinners. I entered again at about 1.35 I think and again just held fire thinking if Kings get to about 1.80 I’ll back them as they still have Gayle, Pooran and Maxwell in the shed. KKR got the wicket of Rahul which was a huge wicket and by this stage I had 2.5 points green on KKR and 1 point on Kings. All I needed was for CG to struggle a bit with timing take up 10 balls push the price out a bit more all the while knowing that if he fell cheaply it was possible KKR would move to favourites. Well he had a look at 3 balls and he cut loose I quickly closed for just under 1.5 points green and just sat back and watched the demolition. I was really happy how I traded it and chasing 150 in Sharjah it was never going to get down to the wire with crazy price movements once Gayle got going.Shapovalov vs Rodinov Vienna 500
Now I know a lot of no name tennis players and I’d never seen nor heard of this Rodinov character so when he won the first set against Shapo 6-4 and I could back Shapo at 2.04 I was like sweet! All I needed was for Rodinov to get broken late in the set and win the 2nd set and I’d remove liability and let it play out. Then it got to 5-6 0-30 I hit my stop loss closed out Shapavalov got broken the no name Wildcard wins it 6-4 7-5 and I’m down 2.5 points. 2 things I took from that match. Shapovalov DEFINITELY wanted to win he hasn’t qualified for London yet and after cracking the top 10 in Rome is now 12th so motivation to get back in the top 10 and qualify for London was there and it’s a strong field so ego would have arrived as well to do well in a top field. The other thing is home town wildcards in these type of tournaments always play above themselves. They have the crowd behind them they steal a set they end up losing in 3 they’re gallant they get a nice payday. This bloke was solid Shapo was off and didn’t take his chances. I’m not fussed I lost, the trade was a no brainer sometimes it happens.
Football
Ahhh interesting night.
Varbergs v Elfsborg came up on my FHG as well as my 2nd half late filter. I traded both I didn’t watch the match I lost 4 points the game was Dross.
After discovering my 5 year old was asleep on the floor in front of me and my wife was going to be working up stairs all night I settled in to watch Spurs and I also found a match in France 2 that looked lively so I had that on my laptop and Spurs on the TV. I saw enough to do a back O0.5 in the match in France between Sochaux and Amiens and got a great back price of 3.05 on 70 mins a late late penalty was paid to the visitors and with my other eyes on the Spurs match did a LCS at 2.12 on about 67 mins. Both goals came within a couple of minutes and the 4 points I lost earlier I got back 2 points on each match. I did do another cheeky LCS at 1.20 on about 88 minutes which didn’t pay off so I was down a quarter of a point.
It wasn’t lost on me that I was watching the football I traded successfully during a week where I’ve picked up so much.Anyway that’s my ramble for a Monday that’s now a Tuesday, I’ll keep my posts briefer going forward and will make any adjustments required.
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@dave-hayes said in If I wanna go pro a blog might help me focus:
@james-woodroffe It is good that our wives support us in what we do.Mine wants to do what I do now on BF, so that will also assist with my own focus.
There is a lot to take on board as a trader, but like you I have definitely turned a corner and once I have mastered one strategy, I plan to be a bit like Darri and add one of his other ones into the mix. But it wont be yet though.
I show my wife what I do. I also show my 11 year old daughter. Because someday I might die and they should have access to what I do and continue with the extra income!
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@james-woodroffe It is good that our wives support us in what we do.Mine wants to do what I do now on BF, so that will also assist with my own focus.
There is a lot to take on board as a trader, but like you I have definitely turned a corner and once I have mastered one strategy, I plan to be a bit like Darri and add one of his other ones into the mix. But it wont be yet though.
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@dave-hayes cheers mate. I definitely wouldn’t say I’m a name I’ve just been around a while having a niche role helps. I’m surprised that LinkedIn account is still active I haven’t updated that since I moved to the Uk 9 years ago.
This is a great place to learn and get better as a trader there’s a really good vibe to BTC there’s no BS on this site just people wanting to improve and help each other.
Our better half’s sound similar mine actually told me that given my background it actually made a lot of sense to give it a go so she’s been supportive of the whole endeavour.
There’s a lot to take on board and sometimes finding what’s best for you as a trader can be the trickiest part. I’m hoping I’ve turned a few corners now cause that was the hardest part for me.
Enjoy the journey.
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@James-Woodroffe Your a bit of a name in the world of sport I think, Just Linkedin you as i thought i knew the name
Sounds like you have a plan stan and as long as its stuck too, you should be pretty good to achieve your ambition
I know for sure that my plan is to do a lot more trading this coming year, my wife has always said why do you use your footy knowledge in some way, so I started matched betting and took an offer years ago with BF then forgot all about it until they emailed me an offer or something.
That led me to looking further at it and found these guys and went from there. So far I am happy with my results and wish you all the best with your efforts
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It’s been a while so I thought I’d better to an update and then put down my plans for 2022.
Firstly I’d mentioned in my previous post how I’d opened a BETDAQ account as a means to build my bank in order to add to my cricket account on Betfair. That decision worked very well. I was predominately using @Darri LTD trades as well as @Keith-Anderson s O1.5 goals and my own LTD and Late goals. Actually the late goals filter is Darri’s but I continue to use it.
The late goals and LTD had made me 8 points but it was Keith’s O1.5’s that really helped kicked the bank along since November 1.
Between Keith and Darri I made 18 points and effectively doubled that BETDAQ bank plus more.
I don’t know the exact breakdown between the two strategies but I know that Keith’s was certainly the more profitable and of course as we know if you’ve been a member of BTC for a while, Darri of course used December pretty much to go over data and work on his own things in order to hit 2022 running so it was mainly November when I was able to utilise his knowledge and strategies to help with the bank building.November and December were also very busy for me work wise so I didn’t get on all trades that they posted.
Whilst I do still like to trade late goals and late LTD’s I have noticed that the set and forget style does suit me especially when I’m away with work and getting my head around time zone changes.
I’ve created a filter of my own for O1.5’s but it’s very much in its infancy and at the moment it’s all about collecting data and seeing if it can be at all profitable going forward.
I really need to be better at that side of my trading but I do find it difficult especially when I’m away from home and once I get home I’m not really interested in spreadsheets when I haven’t seen my family for a while.My cricket trading is going along nicely but again it’s been tricky because of work. To be honest I had an absolute shocker at the end of November when I arrived in Singapore and fell asleep doing a stupid quarantine as a result of jet lag. It undid a lot of good work from late October and once upon a time I would have probably actually I definitely would have gone chasing that loss. Despite the fact I was livid with my stupidity I took a deep breath and just moved on. I had no choice I went from pacing up and down the hotel room to sleeping in my clothes and waking up not knowing where I was. It could have been a very lucrative trade and whilst I slept the markets did give ample opportunities but alas I had to move on.
I’m just over +6 points since the start of December on the cricket and I’ve traded very little. A combination of being away and Xmas has meant that I haven’t really had ample time. After the loss I suffered at the end of November I’ve been trying to just slowly but surely do the right things when I’ve been able to and chip away at that loss. The beauty of cricket is that it presents opportunities to really take advantage of the markets and I know that going forward those opportunities will present themselves and it’s not worth forcing the issue if the time isn’t right.
Im going to be ridiculously busy for the first few months of 2022 and away from home a lot. I know I’ll get opportunities when I’m alone to give things my undivided attention I’ve just got to make sure I don’t trade as a result of boredom being alone.
I think it’s something I’ve gotten on top of as it was an issue especially when in bubbles and unable to do anything.Anyway that’s the plan for 2022 I’ll continue to utilise the pros as a way of building the bank, keeping track of my own filter and seeing if that has legs and concentrating on my cricket trading when I know I can and proper opportunities present themselves. I’m actually working on a fair bit of cricket to start next year and other than the Oz Open very little tennis so it will be interesting to see how that affects me if at all because it’s been predominantly tennis now for 6 years.
I dunno when I’ll get the chance to update this again so I’ll take the chance now to wish everyone here a Happy New Year and all the best for 2022.
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@james-woodroffe said in If I wanna go pro a blog might help me focus:
My T20 World Cup trading adventure is over. Back on the road on Saturday to finish the tennis year in Turin so will be unable to trade the match and just hoping I can watch it sneakily in the background. I then have a trip to Singapore before finishing the year doing my first cricket gig since the 2019 Ashes as I return to Pakistan for two weeks for the West Indies white ball tour. I’ve agreed to also go for the Australian tour if it goes ahead in March but worse case it will be in the UAE but hoping it does go ahead in Pakistan.
T20 World Cup - + 10.26 points from October 22 - November 11.
Pretty happy with how the World Cup went given the amount of time I was in the US and Paris during the tournament as well as the fact that I had the boy home for half term in between those two trips.
It should however have been slightly better as I did make a meal of a couple of the really one sided matches where I attempted to scalp the markets during that school holiday period which in hindsight was idiotic. You really do need to be left alone to focus fully when scalping and I not only picked the wrong matches I picked the wrong time of day to attempt this. I then just happily left matches alone that didn’t fit my T20 trading strategies and was able to claw back the damage I had done.
I couldn’t be further away from being a decent scalper but it’s something I’ll work on when home alone and able to give it 100%.
The next series I’ll be looking at is the NZ tour of India later this month and possibly work depending the LPL but we will see. I’m looking forward to some 50 over cricket and hoping whenever there is some to continue kicking on.The BETDAQ account is moving in the right direction I’ve been following some of @Darri LTD trades but have missed quite a few because of work but they’ve helped build that bank as well as the few 2nd half LTD- Late Goals that I have gotten on from other filters. A few losses obviously but if I’m entering with all bases covered and the goals don’t come well that’s football. Hopefully by the months end I’ll be able to withdraw those profits and add to the cricket bank.
That's brilliant!
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My T20 World Cup trading adventure is over. Back on the road on Saturday to finish the tennis year in Turin so will be unable to trade the match and just hoping I can watch it sneakily in the background. I then have a trip to Singapore before finishing the year doing my first cricket gig since the 2019 Ashes as I return to Pakistan for two weeks for the West Indies white ball tour. I’ve agreed to also go for the Australian tour if it goes ahead in March but worse case it will be in the UAE but hoping it does go ahead in Pakistan.
T20 World Cup - + 10.26 points from October 22 - November 11.
Pretty happy with how the World Cup went given the amount of time I was in the US and Paris during the tournament as well as the fact that I had the boy home for half term in between those two trips.
It should however have been slightly better as I did make a meal of a couple of the really one sided matches where I attempted to scalp the markets during that school holiday period which in hindsight was idiotic. You really do need to be left alone to focus fully when scalping and I not only picked the wrong matches I picked the wrong time of day to attempt this. I then just happily left matches alone that didn’t fit my T20 trading strategies and was able to claw back the damage I had done.
I couldn’t be further away from being a decent scalper but it’s something I’ll work on when home alone and able to give it 100%.
The next series I’ll be looking at is the NZ tour of India later this month and possibly work depending the LPL but we will see. I’m looking forward to some 50 over cricket and hoping whenever there is some to continue kicking on.The BETDAQ account is moving in the right direction I’ve been following some of @Darri LTD trades but have missed quite a few because of work but they’ve helped build that bank as well as the few 2nd half LTD- Late Goals that I have gotten on from other filters. A few losses obviously but if I’m entering with all bases covered and the goals don’t come well that’s football. Hopefully by the months end I’ll be able to withdraw those profits and add to the cricket bank.
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Sitting outside having a cigarette packed to get on the road thinking to myself I can’t wait till I don’t have to do this anymore. I can’t wait till I can pick and choose when I leave my family cause I can justify it. It’s what keeps me going and wanting to continue learning and being a better trader. It’s funny it goes in waves. Sometimes I think I have the best job in the world sometimes I think I’m so over this. Maybe it’s just the tournament and the fact the working year is coming to an end but all I know is I’m adamant I’m going to make this work.
Just needed to write that down and look back on it as I progress going forward. -
Small update. Today I opened a BETDAQ account the reason for this is that my Betfair account will now be used for nothing but my cricket trading.
The BETDAQ account will be used for profitable member trades and for my occasional late goal - LTD trades now that the major European winter leagues are hitting those filters. The objective will be that any monthly profits made from the BETDAQ account will then be transferred and added to my cricket bank. -
@james-woodroffe sounds like steady progress! look forward to that next update
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This is just a short post (famous last words) to clarify where I’m heading as we approach November.
Firstly October started really slowly due to work and other commitments. Being in the USA and the time zone difference put a halt to trading the IPL so it was a good thing to just switch off from trading.
When I got back I ventured to the pub and I deleted all my football trading filters with the exception of my LTD filter but FHG, 2HG, O1.5 everything I’ve been going round and round in circles with goneski.
I sat down and looked back at my results and it was a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. It’s safe to say that if I’d just stuck with 1 strategy in football I’d be in a better position instead of messing around with numerous. As @Darri pointed out my strengths lay in other sports.
So with the T20 World Cup having been a focus for most of this year it was time to give my undivided attention to my cricket trading taking into consideration the volume coming up and the potential to be back home during January.
For now it’s going well I understand what kind of white ball cricket trader I am and am not deviating from what serves me well. I’ve made a great start to the T20WC almost 9 points since just before the start of the Super 12 BUT the key for me now is not to over stake and not to get ahead of myself. Just plod along doing what I’m doing. I probably won’t update this again until the end of the World Cup I just want to stick my head down and keep going.
With a light now at the end of the Covid tunnel and work returning to normal it’s taken a massive stress release away so I’m focused on improvements and that’s about it. -
One last quick thing and that was yesterday’s IPL clash between KKR and Kings.
KKR were tracking nicely and I placed a back of them at 1.72 closing in on the 10th over. As has been almost par for the course this IPL KKR were another example of a team who couldn’t kick on and so at the completion of their innings I closed out for a tiny red. Needing 166 to win and keep their play off hopes alive I read that as well within Kings reach but was aware that a lot depended on their opening batsman. The 2.18 on offer for Kings was also to me great value chasing a target 15 -20 runs less than it probably should have been. I rode it down to 1.44 and then greened up as i had other things to do. It felt good reading the match correctly and whilst I did leave some green on the table it was how I traded not what I made that was most pleasing. -
With the news that Australia is reopening its borders in November comes the news that that will probably mark a return to Oz for the Open and lead up events for me.
It makes the decision to put the tennis on the back burner easier going forward given my contracts for the other events also.
It means going forward I can focus on cricket and to a lesser degree late goal LTD’s and LCS.
Yesterday I made the decision to remember what it is about this caper that I enjoy as opposed to the rush to become proficient enough to change everything in my life. It seems things are getting a little bit more normal and this was never an overnight thing for me it has always been a “could I do this full time from my mid 50’s?” mindset. However like many Covid did and continued to mess with my head.
So for now I’m just going to stick to my processes as far as trading goes, I’m scaling back my stakes and getting back into the good habits I’d formed before I started to lose my way.
I’m looking forward to it. -
@darri cheers for this mate. I’ve read it numerous times since you posted.
I’ve taken on quite a bit that you’ve said and will use it going forward. I do use a stop loss but I think also having a profit stop loss could work for me also.
I find sticking to one sport really difficult which is a weakness, and perhaps there is a lot to say about dropping tennis whilst it pays the bills. The North American swing this year minus my visa was a particularly difficult pill to swallow so I guess in hindsight I overtraded and over staked and then got into a spiral. With my visa issue now sorted it’s something I’ll look at going forward.
I also wouldn’t say I trade the AFL. Seeing potential in it as a trading sport is 1 thing, having a small outright or a play on Grand Final day doesn’t mean I’m trading it at the expense or cost of other sports.
I’m still a long way off where I want to be but I need to chill out as I can see work slowly getting back to normal so that takes the pressure off getting too far to quickly. -
@james-woodroffe the way in which your style of trading work its not pure data, so in essence your decisions and judgement is your edge. If your not confident or coming off several losses your mindset is so messed. Your always thinking iv just made a howler of a trade last time i need this one to do well. It starts to turn on you and boom another loss and the cycle continues.
In sport we call them confidence players. Those that wont have good form unless they are mentally in a good place. Im not talking about mentals in terms of lifestyle im talking just purely the mindset you have for trading. Each trade you do well builds confidence and as such saw you do well. The anything that rocks the ship brought you a massive swing backwards. I wonder if this is still because like you said in the first couple lines of that post, your wanting this to be supporting your family and not be something your chasing. Right now that bank isnt enough to support so your eager to race it a bit. I still think you stake too highly when we last discussed etc. Only ever up it to a high amount when your fully in control and a history of success. You might not think it when your trading but subconsciously you are. Look around the forum, the ones who are just stress free with all of this are the ones who had a good septemeber. Wasnt a huge month for some but it hasnt given them headaches. That is more down to your style. Your judging games and trading based on your opinion. So you need to be sharp for each game to trade it well. Hope you understand what im saying.
So im wondering if there is a way you can work on that somehow. I had hoped that going back to work doing what you love doing might give you the good breaks you needed in between trading. I think you might be the type of person that needs to trade with a stop loss, forgive me if you already do, im also of the opinion you might also be good for a cap when you hit a certain profit level too. Iv never been a fan of this at all but iv not come across this situation before tbh. This means your not getting overconfident and your also capping losses. I wonder if this would help you mentally stay controlled with confidence wise.
The other glaringly obvious thing from my point of view is your still trying to master more than one sport at a time. Iv nagged you about this so much and the way in which you trade would need this more than a data only trader. You are trading cricket, tennis and afl. Just choose cricket. Tennis is your job, cricket is your passion. You can always come back to tennis and afl. But you are gonna struggle with up and down curves more as you havent fully nailed one of these sports yet. Having cricket nailed would relieve stress of variances and it might be better for you mentally to separate work from trading.
Hope this helps bud
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@james-woodroffe tough time of year for tennis with players winding down or tired like Djokovic because he has played so much
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I don’t think I’ve had as a tumultuous month as September in as much as being up and then so down that you question is this even feasible going ahead or am I just going to go around in circles because I should have found this years ago when I didn’t have a family to support and my time was my own.
Everything I did in early September turned to gold I was reading tennis matches perfectly the cricket was ticking over with the CPL and the international break meant no football to be tempted by. Then a mis read on the Djokovic v Medvedev US Open final started a spiral that just saw me get selection after selection wrong and with that came massive confidence issues. Ironically as I got my visa renewed for the USA I slowly started to turn things around but it was slowly and suddenly I was coming from a fair way back.
This month will be interesting I’ll be working the Indian Wells, Paris and Turin tennis (early Nov) so I’ll be busy again work wise but what I really need to work out is how am I going to make this work properly what time zones do I need to lock into? How did it go so badly so quickly and now with a new month having arrived is it the right time to go back over notes and various things to decide what I can’t make work and what I can.
Long walk coming up to clear the head. -
@james-woodroffe essential! I've realised trading during the kids bedtime routine is a no go! absolute carnage
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Had a bit of a reality check just recently with a couple of trades going badly against me because sometimes no matter how hard we try or we think we have time to ourselves life has other intentions. I’m not overly concerned I just need to manage time perhaps a bit better which got me thinking about my cricket trading and how I go about it.
I had my most success trading cricket by taking a position generally either late in the first innings of a 50-20 over game or during the 2nd dig.
I started playing around a little with this during the CPL and trying a few different things in preparation for the resumption of the IPL and T20 World Cup.
Whilst there was nothing exactly wrong with what I was doing it was time taxing at times when I needed to be elsewhere (both physically and mentally) so with the IPL back on Sunday the blast finals tomorrow I’ve decided that the CPL was great for what it was but I’m going to go back to what was working and serving me well beforehand which was pretty much par scores and match situations.I should have added it wasn’t lost on me that my best results recently have been when I’ve done exactly that so it’s not like I just stopped but I was trying other strategies. As we so often say here, there’s so many strategies that we can get lost in them what we need is the strategy that works best for the individual.
