If I wanna go pro a blog might help me focus
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Never ever stop learning in this caper do we and always ways in which to improve and eliminate mistakes that can undo good work.
I had the devil and Angel sitting on my shoulder last night during an ill timed tennis trade at the US Open.
I’d been looking at the Iga Swiatek v Belinda Bencic match all day and decided it was a lay first set winner and in particular if Bencic was the opening set winner which she was after an epic tie break.
I set myself up and backed Swiatek at 1-1 in the 2nd with Bencic serving. 5% stake Swiatek 3.35.
Immediately dawned on me “I probably shouldn’t be doing this trade. I’m off tomorrow and the timing sucks. Dinner questions, Daddy play with me, can I tell you about my day sweetheart? Just a dumb time to get involved. However Swiatek gets to 0-30 and then sees a BP and the Angel says “Dude there’s another 1.6 points there just take it tonight’s not the night”. I was thinking yeah I probably should but the other voice was saying. “ Na man wait till she breaks here”.
So immediately my judgement is clouded I’m in a trade that I stupidly entered at pretty much dinner time I don’t know what I’m doing. Part of me is like you’re having a great month take the green. The other part is saying “You’ll get more green when she breaks then close out”.
She doesn’t break in fact Swiatek then gets broken and Bencic holds I’m looking at 4.3 points Red in the blink of an eye. I take the Red which answers my questions for me.
So the lesson learnt is thus. There are certain times and home situations where sitting down to trade is stupid because family takes priority and you should do a better job of reading the room. This month is has been good so far there’s no need to push it. Just because a match looks like a great potential trade doesn’t mean you have to trade it. -
A quick update as things will be getting busy very quickly work wise now that I finally have an appointment to get my US Visa for a trip in a couple of weeks and as of tomorrow I’ll be in Belfast for a week for the ODI leg of Ireland v Zimbabwe (blockbuster cricket).
Since updating I’ve only done one extra trade on the tennis so that’s 4 trades in the first week and a bit of the US Open for a very happy and healthy **10.9 Points Green. ** I’ve been incredibly strict with my tennis trading as I’ve mentioned before and this is particularly so for the lay first winner strategy. In fact only 1 of the 4 trades has been using this strategy the other 3 have been backing the favourite when down a break in the first and greening up when they’ve won that first set.
They are the only 2 strategies that I will use on the tennis and will very much be a quality over quantity way of trading the tennis going forward.
As far as the cricket goes I’ve been working on a lay low (anything under 1.25) or backing high (3.0 - 3.50) for the CPL and using this to either build green for the 2nd innings or if in the 2nd innings just getting in and out and looking to lock in around 1.5-2 points. To be honest the CPL has been a bit tricky lately as we’ve been enjoying the last few days of school holidays so I’ve only been getting involved when everyone at home is happy doing their own things and I’m able to have some time. Despite this I’m happy at the moment with the 4.41 pointsthat I’ve been able to accumulate as my main focus has been the test match.
Depending on the out come today I’ll be looking at between 4&5.7 points which I’m happy with.
It’s kicking along nicely this month and means with the pick up in work if I don’t trade a great deal going forward I’m in a good spot come October.I’ve now closed that trade on the test match now for 5.53 points green
It takes my current month to **+20.93 points. **I couldn’t be happier how it stands. -
Excellent post James
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@james-woodroffe enjoyed reading that, that's brilliant to hear
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It’s only day 4 since I started September on August 30 and I need to not get ahead of myself but it’s been a fantastic start and I just need to stay focused now and continue to kick on.
There has been a lot of talk of mindset over the past few weeks and sticking to strategies that work and suit personality.
I’ve made 3 trades over the first 4 days of the US Open by sticking to a strategy and a selection of matches that works well for me and has netted +7.46 points and there’s now been 2 days I haven’t traded the tennis at all.
In the same time I’ve made +6.41 points trading the CPL and whilst a tie did help I’m also happy with the fact that there was a day where I didn’t bother as I had other things going on and didn’t feel as tho I was missing out on anything.
Again I have finally found a strategy and a way of trading T20 cricket that sits well with me and I think it will hold me in good stead during the resumption of the IPL and T20 World Cup. I can definitely improve on it that’s for certain and the CPL is helping me fine tune. Mainly tho it’s a shift in mentality and equally an understanding of bank management. Ryan has said if you can’t manage a £100 you won’t be able to manage £10,000. I always knew that but was too keen to up the stakes whenever I got ahead of myself so really I didn’t know it at all.
What I did know and understand was the potential in cricket and tennis from a trading perspective and the massive markets and opportunities to strike at given times.
Once upon a time seeing almost 4 points become 1 because some idiot ran themselves out in the blink of an eye would have made me do a stupid trade to get back to 4 points green. Now I understand fully that if the markets and game situation doesn’t offer the correct moment to enter I don’t have to enter because that’s what I love about cricket trading there will be another fantastic opportunity it’s just a matter of waiting and understanding numerous factors, the same works with tennis also.
I just have to keep building on this. The end of December is a fair way off but the plan remains to slowly and calmly just keep doing what is now clearly working and was starting to fall into place before I upped the bank. Take note of what I can improve on and with the staking plan I’m using and in two sports where liability removal is important that bank will remain safe. Yes it’s only early in the month but reading back on this will reinforce positivity as I look to make September nice and green. -
@clare-taylor all good
glad you’re getting good advice. -
@ryan and I just hyjacked someone else’s blog to say it!
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@clare-taylor ooooooo you've said it now
to be fair if I knew a little about it I would probs do it because....There's loads of it
The markets are huge
There's a lot of data around it -
@ryan @Matt-Wood @Darri @Chris-Osborne @James-Woodroffe thank you everyone for the comments and advice they are very much appreciated. I am going to do nothing but cricket until 2022.
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@james-woodroffe I know the feeling, I know there's a lot of conflicting information out there, as soon as you get in your groove it all seems to click.
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@clare-taylor I cannot really add anything to what these guys have already said & that I have bored them with over the years!
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@clare-taylor Evening Clare, I could almost repeat @Chris-Osborne here word for word. We joined about the same time and I was doing the exact same as he said, loads of matches at the weekend and plenty during the week too. Saturdays were super stressful!
I also jumped around from footy, to tennis, and even made @James-Woodroffe teach me cricket, which he did very well I might add. But it was all far far too much.
I only trade one filter in the footy now, just a SHG filter. I am testing plenty of other stuff but it is just data gathering at the moment.
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@clare-taylor Can only echo James and Darri's comments here, when I joined BTC just over a year ago, I was trading 20 to 30 football matches a day at the weekends and about 10 to 15 during the week its far to much. I was also trading tennis and trying to trade cricket as well. Darri keeps saying it if you read his blog its a common theme but master one strategy and then look to expand later if you need to . Took a while but its finally sinking in
I've stripped everything back and only trade 5 or 6 football matches a day, tennis is slightly different as you can be in and out in a few minutes but I'm still limiting myself to 1 or 2 strategies.
If I we're you I'd stick with the cricket for now and maybe look to add tennis or something else next year if you need to.
There's so much cricket coming up over the rest of the year with IPL, World Cups, Ashes, Big Bash etc there will be plenty of opportunities.
For most of us trading is a hobby which we hope to use as an additional income stream. Work/Life balance is key.
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@clare-taylor there is nothing wrong with early days paper trading (not real money) a few different sports/strategies. This way you find out what you like and see if you are good at them. Take football and cricket for example, football is heavy on data whereas cricket is more about your own opinion and skill/finding the right entry. You wont know what suits you until you try both. Since you are heavy on cricket knowledge id suggest sticking with cricket here. Because cricket is a lot about timing of trades and seeing match momentum change before the market swings, you do then need a fairly clued up knowledge of the sport.
Iv bored james about this on countless chats, but master one sport/strategy at a time. Yes we can try to trade 3-4 strats/sports at a time but the process of knowing the ins and outs of each market will take ages. Think of it this way all the best companies started with one main product/service. Amazon sold books, apple sold computers and disney was just animations. They all made sure they were leaders in this field before moving onto the next thing, taking with them their experience of that main thing to use as a base for future ventures. Treat trading how you would anything else. In a job when you first start you typically get 1 thing to do, once you get good at that your boss adds more tasks and so on. Mastering one thing at a time means you build a solid strategy which can be the base to build from for future ventures. You dont want to be a jack of all trades master of none. The best traders have 1-2 strats that they build their banks from. From there by all means add but in the beginning there is too much to learn so focussing and nailing one strategy is the best way to go. Its efficient and faster. The quicker you master on thing the faster the bank grows its kind of counter intuitive at first as youd expect the more you do the better the growth but quality always beats quantity long term.
Iv enjoyed watching/chatting to james about his transition, once it clicks and you start to think this way it transforms your trading. So stick to your approach its sensible and will build discipline if you stick to cricket until you have nailed it.
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@clare-taylor by patience I think I might be reflecting still on that last test. It was a wrong call in hindsight to switch from that India lay so close to lunch but I also have to accept nobody saw India being bowled out for 76 on day 1. The timing was terrible in so much as where India were and how close it was to lunch on day 1. I should have just waited till lunch changing that close was fraught with danger. I was in a strong position why rush and why that close to lunch? Even if Rahane and Rohit got to lunch they would still need to resettle after lunch. Hence no rush. I’ve taken that into the CPL and seen the results so I’ll keep working on it.
Stick to cricket if you think that’s the best way forward for you, tennis is a great sport to trade and there is no shortage of it but as I’ve had drilled into me and took a bit for the penny to drop find one and stick to it. Maybe if you’re not sure where your strengths are paper trade some tennis find a strategy stick to it and weigh it up against your cricket trading but don’t do what I did and have 3 sports from the start because you will just go around in circles. -
@james-woodroffe very interesting read, I am reflecting on my month and considering my next steps. I’m curious, you say more patient in cricket what do you mean? I also feel drawn to tennis as it’s another sport I have a reasonable knowledge of (not as decent as cricket but something to build on) but I am trying so very hard to be strict with myself and not even look at tennis until I have done a few months of just cricket.
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@ryan thanks mate. I’ve had a tough time trying to settle on what works best for me and also maybe making assumptions that I should be doing certain things. I was told I try to have too many strategies that I’m trying to make work as opposed to just mastering 1. I took that on board and looked into what’s best for my personality and would work best for my trading.
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@james-woodroffe One of the takeaways that I am glad you mentioned in this blog was about the way Keith and I trade and that's us, don't pressure yourself to trade that way.
I've been slated for years by a lot of the trading community for saying 'What's the point in my showing a live trade' Why do people want to see me click buttons? It literally gives ZERO value in my eyes, it puts pressure on you to trade like me - I don't want that.
I'll give traders my time to help them get to a point where they can trade themselves on what works for them.
Buzzing you did this self reflection.
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A small update on where I’m at. With the international break and winter leagues yet to hit filters I’m going to step away from football and concentrate on cricket and tennis which is where I firmly believe my strengths are and the two sports that suit me best. I’m happy with my tennis strategies and also how I trade cricket (however I will need to work on patience with cricket) I like the idea of being able to get in and out of tennis markets and my knowledge of players definitely helps. With a bank now that will require me to be more discerning as opposed to yo yoing between sports.
I started to notice this before I added to my bank that it definitely seemed that if I was going to steadily but see significant increase and improvement that this where I need to be at.
The fact my visa for the US didn’t come thru in time for me to work at the US Open also did reiterate that I’m not quite ready to put the suitcase away just yet I still enjoy what I do way to much.
So tonight I’ll finally set up my spreadsheet not put to much pressure on myself to build to quickly and just continue with what I’ve been doing recently as I’m noticing the changes and benefits. There is so much cricket coming up and if I can’t work in the states in October I’ll learn from 2020 and not put undue pressure on myself to earn.
