The BTC Football Trading Thread
-
Reading back on Lee’s and Darri’s posts about 1 strategy and mastering that has really struck a cord and I think what’s really important is the fact that this translates across all sports when it comes to trading and how easy it is to get blinded by numerous strategies when all you need is one and one that you focus wholly on. It’s no coincidence as Darri said that focusing on one until you master it is the only way forward. I came to the conclusion that my football knowledge is no where near on the same level as guys who have been born and raised on football. I love football but when push comes to shove I’m a Melbourne boy Aussie rules is my game I don’t know anywhere near enough about who’s a gun for Sheffield United let alone some dude who kids have the numbers on their shirts who support Luton. It’s why I decided to move to cricket and tennis predominantly. I can bore the bejesus out of anyone when it comes to the art of leg spin bowling or the majesty of a one handed backhand but I don’t have numerous strategies for making my trading work with those sports. I have one for tennis that I stick to and the same with cricket (depending on the format) my point being that as Lee and Darri and Keith and Ryan and Martin have proven find one and nail it regardless of the sport and when it comes to the sport stick to your strengths.
-
@richard-latimer this post is the sole reason why working on one strategy at a time works far more efficiently. You dont get sloppy when your only focussed on one thing. You have tended to always venture when working on things you have said so on your blog loads of times. I do think this is probably why you sometimes halt your progress. Efficiency is also a huge part to trading. If your trying to find too many things at once you lose focus to silly mistakes/urges. Iv always said this to you, focus on one thing man, sometimes you do get a bit caught up with finding things as most of us do when finding a strategy but id be really happy for you if after all this time you focussed on one thing and it drove your bank rather than multiple things. There is a reason alot of people on here are taking huge steps, you can see that in the personal blogs people are doing now. They focussed on just one thing. Dont risk fomo bud. Nail one thing from that filter then move onto the other once its consistent, trading isnt going away there is no rush. These mistakes that hold you back from growing are because of this honest mate, we are all here to help each other nothing is a criticism only advice/help.
-
You could say I am working solely on one thing. One filter where I'm collecting every piece of data I can think of regardless of what happens. I started purely as ltd and wasn't recording everything. Now I record regardless of score and when goals go in/cards come out. As @Alan-Steward repeats, what we measure we can manage, and it's true.
I'm developing this filter and nothing else. As a side note I realised there could be a fhg strategy in there too and all I do is keep an eye on this as well but there are way fewer. I'm also more cautious of this at present preferring to back over 2.5 rather than solely the one goal.
My problem is some days I'm lazy and a) I don't export and examine the data before hand and others while I have done all that I fail to make last minute checks before ploughing in my minimum stakes.
If I can honestly give myself a kick up the arse and settle on my entry points without second guessing myself during quiet times I can see no reason why the growth won't come....and quickly. But psychology is a big part of it as has been said.
-
@darri Definitely. I think I’ve learnt as much in the last 2 months as any other period. Ok it may only be in the LCS market but that doesn’t matter, if I can hit 4-5pts a month consistently using 1pt liability then it’s not hard to nudge it up to 1.5, then 2 and so on
I thought I knew the market well enough, but when you focus solely on it then you REALLY start to get imaginative about what affects things and how you can test and overcome it
-
@darri said in The BTC Football Trading Thread:
@lee-woodman top post earlier bud! I think its absolutely key to think that way. I have found and always say to others master one thing at a time. I took a year out to build on the late goals trades. Since i did that i went from a part time bank to a full time 20k bank in less than 2 years. Having dilly dallied with multiple strategies at the beginning i was crawling at snail pace to get building a bank. When i switched to just one thing to focus on i started to understand the strengths and weaknesses of it and built on it. Once you have been trading past the beginners stage its all about mindset/confidence. You build that in trading by knowing you have a proven profitable strategy. If your trying to do that with anything more than one at a time your slowing that whole process. Yes we all want to magic of having 3/4 strategies making you money every month and growing massively. But look around the forum. The best traders tend to just have 1 strategy they built from. They then went and added once they had that strategy nailed. Think of it at work you start a job you get given a specific task in that role to start with, you then get good at that before you get given more responsibility. It then snowballs from there. Thats exactly how you should be treating trading. For some of us it is our job. See so many people message me asking for help on things yet they show me them trading 3-4 strategies when they havent even got one thing consistent yet. I cannot stress enough focus on one thing at a time, its far quicker to get good at trading one thing than 2/3/4 at a time. It can also be a quicker route to profits, id far rather be a master of one than none.
Absolutey nailed it!! At the moment I focus 99% of my energy on a snowball method from UFT which I put in to the filters and have been doing that one most of the time with the odd other strategy if the moment presents, but with this strategy im focused on time decay, watching the match from kick off to see what's happening and I know that im only going to be in the trade for max 10 mins so I can keep focus and then move on to the next game. Beauty about it is there are between 3 - 5 games per day on my filter so im not over doing it and always looking for the next opportunity.
-
@richard-latimer said in The BTC Football Trading Thread:
Backed over 2.5 in PSV. Pretty sure this meets all my criteria but you could be forgiven for being cautious haha. Got 2.08.
Greened on that. Only trade for the day.
-
Backed over 2.5 in PSV. Pretty sure this meets all my criteria but you could be forgiven for being cautious haha. Got 2.08.
Trading Spreadsheet linked below
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3gnk1vku1krkoyfcq37y6/Trading-Bible.xlsx?rlkey=01eqhp8u73s61iy2s814sqfll&dl=0 -
Never has the 'jack of all trades, master of none' saying been more appropriate than for a beginner in trading. It's taken me a good 6 months to work that one out and finally I'm actually starting to put into practice.
I'm pretty sure it will take me a further 6 months to iron out any other teething issues before I'll be comfortable that I'll be profitable long-term with the one strategy.
I've often wondered how long it would take but weirdly enough, once you know you're on the right track, the question of how long, doesn't seem to be as important anymore.
I think everyone always has a mistake in them or a trade they shouldn't have taken and I think even the full-timers will admit that. It's more how we bounce back from those errors that will define how well we all do.
-
@lee-woodman top post earlier bud! I think its absolutely key to think that way. I have found and always say to others master one thing at a time. I took a year out to build on the late goals trades. Since i did that i went from a part time bank to a full time 20k bank in less than 2 years. Having dilly dallied with multiple strategies at the beginning i was crawling at snail pace to get building a bank. When i switched to just one thing to focus on i started to understand the strengths and weaknesses of it and built on it. Once you have been trading past the beginners stage its all about mindset/confidence. You build that in trading by knowing you have a proven profitable strategy. If your trying to do that with anything more than one at a time your slowing that whole process. Yes we all want to magic of having 3/4 strategies making you money every month and growing massively. But look around the forum. The best traders tend to just have 1 strategy they built from. They then went and added once they had that strategy nailed. Think of it at work you start a job you get given a specific task in that role to start with, you then get good at that before you get given more responsibility. It then snowballs from there. Thats exactly how you should be treating trading. For some of us it is our job. See so many people message me asking for help on things yet they show me them trading 3-4 strategies when they havent even got one thing consistent yet. I cannot stress enough focus on one thing at a time, its far quicker to get good at trading one thing than 2/3/4 at a time. It can also be a quicker route to profits, id far rather be a master of one than none.
-
@richard-latimer Yeah i mean it obviously wouldnt ensure a profitable day everyday but it would cut out mistakes as it really simplifies things an awful lot and thus there is a lot less to think about and a lot less to remember
-
@catalin-radu said in The BTC Football Trading Thread:
@martin-futter the usual stake is 2 points, and yes I've made regular profit, till tha start of new year
I don't kmow for you guys, but for me year 2021 is a bad year till nowstill early, I would really try to keep a level head if you have been doing well no use throwing it away by chasing and overstaking.
easy for me to tell you of course but it's still very early in the year, plenty of time to have a good one!
-
@catalin-radu said in The BTC Football Trading Thread:
Sorry for this message, but I have to make a confession about yesterday. Yesterday I made a trade, with 10 points stake what was lost. This decision was made after 10 -12 days of annoying trading( the bank was at the same value) with green days and red days, and this is very annoying for me, it's like I don't progress with nothing. I realised that in trading you have to be very strong when it comes to psychology.
We all do it buddy its natural, ive blown a couple of small banks from getting frustrated, but its wha we learn from that experience. No I have it out my system it hits home more than ever why to only trade the games that you have researched and stick to the staking plan!! Its painful sometime take it from me using £2 stakes, its gonna take time, but its a long term investment in yourself not a get rich quick scheme.
Her for you buddy if you want to chat through anything! You got this!
-
@martin-futter the usual stake is 2 points, and yes I've made regular profit, till tha start of new year
I don't kmow for you guys, but for me year 2021 is a bad year till now -
@catalin-radu good honesty, don't apologise for speaking openly
what is your usual stake? have you been making regular profits before the last 10-12 days?
-
Sorry for this message, but I have to make a confession about yesterday. Yesterday I made a trade, with 10 points stake what was lost. This decision was made after 10 -12 days of annoying trading( the bank was at the same value) with green days and red days, and this is very annoying for me, it's like I don't progress with nothing. I realised that in trading you have to be very strong when it comes to psychology.
-
@lee-woodman said in The BTC Football Trading Thread:
@richard-latimer said in The BTC Football Trading Thread:
Does anybody here wander if they are doomed to keep making the same dumb mistakes? I'm not talking about lack of discipline or FOMO. Just plain old dumb mistakes where later in the evening you check back to update results and realise it never 100% fit your criteria at any point.
The best thing i have done since starting to trade again is to really strip everything back and concentrate on one thing. I have a target of getting to a situation of making per 10pts per month consistently so i initially thought 'if i find 3 strategies making 4pts per month then thats it'. However, if i find just one strategy that makes me 4pts per month (which has to be infinitely easier than finding 3) then i can simply scale it up to be staking 3 times as much. Im not as naive to think its going to be simple but all my time is spent on developing my late goals stuff. I have several filters (some with 500+ results, some with less) and im collating more data to see how other factors affect results (HT scores, 60/70' scores, fave winning or losing, home/away team winning or losing), watching games from 55-60', watching market reactions & odds decay, seeing how certain criteria affects results (and why that could be) etc etc but its all building up a knowledge in my head and helping me to really master one market. At the end of it i wont know much about value in Over 2.5, under 3.5, match odds, but i intend to know my market inside out
One of the key characteristics of successful people (not trading but life in general) is that ability to focus. Ive just finished reading the book about netflix and early on they had the chance to develop into Canada which would increase their revenue 20% very quickly, however, they knew they had to take away some of their attention from their domestic market in order to do so and they feared that spreading their focus on developing that market would have a negative impact on the area that mattered most (they called it the 'Canada principal'). So they made the difficult decision to shelve plans and focus on mastering the USA market. They made a similar decision again when they cut the selling of DVD's (95% of their revenue at the time) to concentrate on the rental market, because thats what they wanted to master longer term. Having 2 markets, in their opinion, was splitting their time and focus
My suggestion is to really concentrate on just one market. I believe if someone focuses solely on one market for a minimum of 6 months (not a huge time in learning something) then they will become highly specialised in the area. I dont want to say a master because that takes a lot longer but certainly much more developed than most. Its easy to make mistakes when running several strategies, ive been there myself. Which strategy you are using, which scores you are avoiding, are you entering on 20 or 25, are you cashing out, if so after how many goals, and when......it so complicated and trying to do that over just a few games is very hard so on a busy saturday its horrendously consuming. And if like me you have to often trade on the go and around a family/work life then its hard work, but now its so much easier as every game on my list is the same strategy. Youve probably already got an idea of which markets you like, doesnt matter whether its LTD, LCS on 60'/70', O2.5, U3.5 but i believe if you pick one on stick to it then you will vastly simplify and improve things
Cheers. The only thing I could cut out would be FH plays but then that wouldn't have helped me yesterday. Problem is there are things my filter can't catch and so it's a question of remembering to do the manual stuff after exporting.
Yesterday it was a simple case that Exeter were in a lower league last year. Also, I missed a red FH before I got in. Could have got out for a small red but then that became fomo.
-
Lee thats a fantastic insight and really well described ..especially useful for a newbie... thank you!!!
-
@richard-latimer said in The BTC Football Trading Thread:
Does anybody here wander if they are doomed to keep making the same dumb mistakes? I'm not talking about lack of discipline or FOMO. Just plain old dumb mistakes where later in the evening you check back to update results and realise it never 100% fit your criteria at any point.
The best thing i have done since starting to trade again is to really strip everything back and concentrate on one thing. I have a target of getting to a situation of making per 10pts per month consistently so i initially thought 'if i find 3 strategies making 4pts per month then thats it'. However, if i find just one strategy that makes me 4pts per month (which has to be infinitely easier than finding 3) then i can simply scale it up to be staking 3 times as much. Im not as naive to think its going to be simple but all my time is spent on developing my late goals stuff. I have several filters (some with 500+ results, some with less) and im collating more data to see how other factors affect results (HT scores, 60/70' scores, fave winning or losing, home/away team winning or losing), watching games from 55-60', watching market reactions & odds decay, seeing how certain criteria affects results (and why that could be) etc etc but its all building up a knowledge in my head and helping me to really master one market. At the end of it i wont know much about value in Over 2.5, under 3.5, match odds, but i intend to know my market inside out
One of the key characteristics of successful people (not trading but life in general) is that ability to focus. Ive just finished reading the book about netflix and early on they had the chance to develop into Canada which would increase their revenue 20% very quickly, however, they knew they had to take away some of their attention from their domestic market in order to do so and they feared that spreading their focus on developing that market would have a negative impact on the area that mattered most (they called it the 'Canada principal'). So they made the difficult decision to shelve plans and focus on mastering the USA market. They made a similar decision again when they cut the selling of DVD's (95% of their revenue at the time) to concentrate on the rental market, because thats what they wanted to master longer term. Having 2 markets, in their opinion, was splitting their time and focus
My suggestion is to really concentrate on just one market. I believe if someone focuses solely on one market for a minimum of 6 months (not a huge time in learning something) then they will become highly specialised in the area. I dont want to say a master because that takes a lot longer but certainly much more developed than most. Its easy to make mistakes when running several strategies, ive been there myself. Which strategy you are using, which scores you are avoiding, are you entering on 20 or 25, are you cashing out, if so after how many goals, and when......it so complicated and trying to do that over just a few games is very hard so on a busy saturday its horrendously consuming. And if like me you have to often trade on the go and around a family/work life then its hard work, but now its so much easier as every game on my list is the same strategy. Youve probably already got an idea of which markets you like, doesnt matter whether its LTD, LCS on 60'/70', O2.5, U3.5 but i believe if you pick one on stick to it then you will vastly simplify and improve things
-
Does anybody here wander if they are doomed to keep making the same dumb mistakes? I'm not talking about lack of discipline or FOMO. Just plain old dumb mistakes where later in the evening you check back to update results and realise it never 100% fit your criteria at any point.
-
@richard-latimer said in The BTC Football Trading Thread:
@richard-latimer said in The BTC Football Trading Thread:
@richard-latimer said in The BTC Football Trading Thread:
I will go in for a late goal in Oostende if I get the chance but the way it's going they'll score in the 46th minute ffs!
Got that one wrong. It was the 49th ffs!! Nothing further today. Stupid bloody day haha!
Do hate when my brain goes to sleep. Makes life so much harder. Exeter should never have been a play tonight first or 2nd half on account of the fact they were in a lower league last year and quality of opponent should therefore be higher than where they earned a significant part of the data I'm using. FFS!!!
Writing myself a check list as too often I forget the things I'm looking for on top of my basic filter.
