From Goals To Match Points
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@chris-osborne just a heads up re the clay events make sure that you take into consideration the players moving from the hard courts on to the clay. Generally it takes a bit to get used to the swap in surface so you may very well see upsets take place.
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Didn't realise it was a month since my last update - Note to self post on here more regularly.
March was mainly about the Tennis especially in Miami, I struggled a bit at the start of the month with the tournaments going on there but the last couple of weeks in Miami I traded pretty well for the most part, a few dodgy trades but ended up with 11pts profit from this tournament alone.
As from this week, the Clay court season starts which is the slowest of the surfaces and will hopefully see alot of Lay the 1st Set Winner opportunities.
This year I've mainly been trading the WTA but had my biggest profit yesterday on the Sinner v Hurkacz ATP SF. Generally only trade ATP at the end of a tournament when the WTA gares aren't so frequent as there are generally more breaks and therefore swings but may havr to start looking at adding some ATP matches to my trading plan.
The tournaments I will be looking to trade work pemitting are
WTA 500 - Volvo Car Open - Charlston USA - CLay
WTA250 - Copa Colsantis - Bogota Columbia - Clay
ATP250 - Andalucia Open - MArbella Spain - CLay
ATP250 - Sardegna Open - Cagliari Italy - ClayThe timings of the WTA tournaments will probably suit me better although will have to see how it goes.
With France going into another lockdown its not looking too good for the French Open at the end of May. The commentators on Prime yesterday we're saying that there are serious doubts about it going ahead. Not sure if they will move it again as with last year or take a year off as with Wimbledon last year. All being well if we remain on track, Wimbledon will run this year with fans albeit in a reduced capacity.
From a football point of view, I've basially decided to stop trading games where no fans are present. The lack of fans is having an increasing impact on the volume of strange results we are seeing - Germany losing to North Macedonia at home. With the winter leagues coming to the end of there season anyway, the volume of leagues that become tradeable are reducing all the time. We are starting to see leagues split into play offs or Promotion/Relegation groups which I refuse to trade anyway.
The summer leagues are starting to get gon=ing - Japan and South Korea already started, others to follow,
Talking of fans, it looks like there will be 4000 fans at our FA Cup Semi Final at Wmbley against Southamption in a couple of weeks. ITs a start although they will probably look a bit lost in Wembley but any fans are better than none.
In none trading news, had my first Covid JAb acouple of weeks ago and all being well Gyms will be reopening on 12th April,
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@chris-osborne I've been looking at backing the stronger player on that surface if they go down an early break.
Having said that mate my attention has been more on my cricket trading and this is a strategy I'll be looking at more from
March 5 when the boy goes back to school.
I'm also working on Doha remotely from London so it might be even longer before I get a good opportunity to really sink my teeth into it so maybe more something to monitor for a bit and like yourself I will probably be a bit more focused on WTA events. -
@matt-wood Yes I did see it, thanks for the reminder I'd forgotten about it, did use it a bit at the end of last year.
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@chris-osborne Sounds like the tennis is going great for you
Did you read the pdf that Ryan made a while ago, I think in that there was a strategy for laying a fav and scalping some ticks off it. I did read it but cannot remember the details off the top off my head sadly. Seems to me that might work well in ATP matches with strong favs.
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Didn't realise it had been 14 days since I last updated.
The focus for me is moving away from football and towards tennis especially until fans are back hopfully from the start of next season.
After the Australian Open finished last week, there is another WTA tournament going on in Australia and three ATP tournaments in Singapore, Montpelier and Cordobo, Argentina. Because the ATP events are at a civilised time, I've been focussing on them more this week and am showing 5pts profit on the week so far.
I've never really traded ATP before so its a bit of a learning curve although the old faithful lay the first set winner is doing me fine.
Aside from the Lay the First Set strategy, are there any other strategies which are suitable for ATP, because there aren't as many breaks as in the WTA, the swings take more time to materialise.
Whilst I'm working from home, focussing on the tennis suits me alot more currently.
Not abandonning the football altogether mainly limiting myself to Stuart's LTD and Ryan's split stake strategies. I am collecting data on a couple of other things and will see where they take me.
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This is great @Chris-Osborne.
I'm going to sit down in a bit and have a proper read thru. -
So this was yesterday's tennis trading: -
Decent day which could have been better as both games which lost money I managed to turn profitible situations into losing one's
Giorgi - is fragile at the best of times and is prone to turning strong winning positions into a loss very quickly. Built up a small profit in the first set after laying her after she broke Burel who came back to 4-4 at which point I cashed out.
Laid Giorgi after she won the 1st set, Burel broke to make it 2-0 should have cashed out then but waited for her to hold but she then capitulated and Giorgi took the match comfortably.
She plays Kenin today which depends on which Kenin turns up. She should win comfortably but if plays like she did in Dhubai then could be some opportunities.
Cornet - was keeping an eye on the 1st set whilst Giorgi game was finishing off, and the 1st set was very tight with most games going to Deuce which Tomljianovic took. Obvious lay 1st set winner opportunity
As Cornet serving 1st, split the stake and laid Tomlijanovic at the end of the 1st set and put the second part in after Cornet took the first game on serve. Cornet broke fairly quickly from there and I removed liability at various points cashing out towards the end of the second set for a nice win
Martic - seeded in this tournament but lost the 1st set against Lapko ranked 299.
Martic is a bit like Sabalenka and can be a slow starter I've seen her lose the 1st set on more than one occasion only to take the match.
Odds too high to lay Lapko so backed Martic at the end of 1st set with half stake.She lost her serve at the start of the 2nd set at which point I rebacked with the second stake. After which she won 4 games in a row enabling me to remove liability and take the profit.
Ostapenko - Although a better oplayer can be as fragile as Giorgi and prone to significant inconsistencies which 1st set last night proved v Kovinic. she 2 breaks up butthen it got back on serve before Ostapenko won the set
Kovinic won the first two games, should have cashed out then but waited for her to take the next service game but Ostapenko broke straight back. Took a loss after Ostapenko broke again to make it 4-2 and eventually took the match although Kovinic did break back.
There's a few games with potential tonight although have an important meeting tomorrow so trading will be limited, will probably depend on what is going on when I get up.
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January Review
Football
Football trading was all a bit of a struggle this month for whatever reasons. A couple of filters that I was confident in have taken a step back so need to take some time out, collate all the information and see what I have. I'll post my findings in due course.
I've made the decision to scale back my football trading quite significantly and other than a couple of things will be paper trading and collating data for a while now. there's just too many strange results alround europe right now and I have quite a strong view that the lack of fans is now starting to have a significant impact and it can't be good for motivation etc. This is my personal opinion but I am considering only trading games where fans are allowed i.e. Australia which should hopefully start hitting filters soon.
The only football I'll be trading for the time being is Stuart's LTD set and forget strategy and Ryan's split stake
Tennis
There was only one tournament to trade this month WTA Dubai which was profitible to just under 4 units.
As from last night there are tournaments going on for at least the next month mainly in Australia with the Australian Open starting 08th February.
Tennis will be my main focus for most of February providing i can stay awake. Not going to be trading a huge amount otherwise will spend most of the working day asleep but will look to trade some games daily mainly on lay 1st set winner strategy.
Traded a couple of games last night and made half a pts profit which is a start and we'll go from there.
One thing I am definitely going to do this month is check out Trading software and take advantage of the free trials.
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@chris-osborne 100% I expect some players we've never seen or rated before to turn up strong
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@ryan-carruthers I agree, mentality will be interesting, makes the tournaments the week before the Aussie Open key
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@chris-osborne These Aussie rules are strong!! Can see why though, works too.
I wonder what the mentality of some of the players will be like for this? A lot of the player vibe off the whole buzz of it - massively reduced now.
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Well that was a fun day of trying to set up a new work lap top and failing miserably.
No tennis now for a couple of weeks then hopefully will be full on for about a month or so. Going to use the time wisely to research as much as I can before hand although there will be a lot of unknowns with some players - Barty, Andreescu amongst others not having played for at least a year.
Australian quarantine rules which are strict and need to be have caused issues. All players have to quarantine for 14 days although they are allowed to practice including travel and Physio for 5 hrs a day with a specified practice partner. However, at last count, 72 players are having to quantine 24/7 with no practice as there was a positive test on the flights they we're on regardless of whether they we're in the same area of the plane. Be worth keeping an eye on especially in the tournaments the week before the Australian Open.
With no tennis, back to football over the weekend although wish I hadn't bothered. Need to look at the stats and see if I need to adapt a couple of things.
Been a bit of discussion lately around sticking to one filter or strategy to get that to be as profitible as possible. Definitely something I need to look at doing, although need to find something that works. The filter I've been trialling since the summer has definitely taken a backward step lately.
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@chris-osborne No worries, if you get stuck drop me a line and I'll help get you sorted with it
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@ryan-carruthers thanks Ryan, looks useful, will have a look over the weekend when I have a bit more time
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@chris-osborne Yep, I used to have use the stats of average hold % and then use those to highlight which games might work - I then cross checked this against people who had a higher than usual break point %
This was the base sheet I had back in the day - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kvuoppeHXhBdKiwvGA3dggCu6-p9k2oIX-qzgCfjXgM/edit?usp=sharing
Then there was this one (A price predictor should things happen) - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KpxuP7fLTjos0UVHGo0T77NDnXswRXtvhLsRwfrPhNk/edit?usp=sharing
Then I used these:
ATP hold stats
Surface
Percentage hold
All surfaces
78.3%
Indoor hard
79.2%
Hard court
78.4%
Clay
75.9%
Grass
82.8%
WTA hold stats
Surface
Percentage hold
All surfaces
63.6%
Indoor hard
65.2%
Hard court
63.1%
Clay
61.6%
Grass
69.4%Then I graded them like this:
ATP
Server level
Percentage hold
Very good server
Over 85%
Good server
81-85%
Bad server
64-74%
Very bad server
Less than 64%
WTA
Server level
Percentage hold
Very good server
Over 74%
Good server
70-74%
Bad server
50-60%
Very bad server
Less than 50%Does this help? Of have I totally overwhelmed you?
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@ryan-carruthers
Your probably right about a momentum trade. It may also be a case of identifying their weaker servers.
I’m going to proceed carefully with Pliskova until she proves otherwise. Vekic is another one for me who loses a lot of games she should win easily.
Sabalenka definitely the form player, having easily won the final next step for her will be improving her grand slam record.
