When do you know you are on to a winner..?
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Well, I know the answer to this isn't after 6 days of testing and 14 selections but is it 3 or 4 weeks, 1 or 3 months? Or is it the number of selections?
I'm currently testing my first strategy here for U3.5 and so far the headline figures are 93% SR, 17.43 ROI from 14 selections. 13 W, 1 Loss. It also looks good at the moment for lay the 0-0 (1 loss) and LTD, 2 Losses.
So, when will I know its a winner...or more likely when will I start to see a more realistic SR and ROI?
Numerous of the 2.94 profits are not exact odds as I wasn't around to grab them so I used the average. Should be fairly accurate.
Thanks.
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Some great answers here, I think the 1K mark is a great target and experience will reduce that.
The more and longer you do it, you get the feel of it and just know it works when you've got 500 for example, I don't think I'd ever think I had a winner on less than 500 though
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Stuart, thank you greatly, that is really useful and makes complete sense. I will keep going. Useful to also think about losing runs, etc. To scale the bank damage needs to be considered.
Thanks Matt, 1000 it is.
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@alexv
Well done, first of all. Many are unable to devise a winning strategy.
An unpopular but mathematically sound answer would be 1,000 pieces of data. That will tell you:
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If your system is likely to be profitable long term
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how "manageable," your system is. By that I mean how long losing runs are (and if you would be able to withstand them), how practical your system is (can you place all the trades? Are matches at convenient times etc?)
1,000 would allow you to look at adjusting variables to increase profitability (leagues, entry times, entry scorelines etc).
Some will say 100 is enough, but if you think about that, 100 matches may only cover the first month of the winter leagues. How matches play out at the start of the season is very different to when teams have gained match experience, sides have settled, mangers have inculcated teams with their systems etc.
It may be that your system requires very specific criteria (e.g. home teams who have lost last two home games, average goals 2.5 at home, odds over 2.5). In that case, it may take a long time to get to 1,000 pieces of data. If so, you could trade these with the Betfair minimum stake for a few months. After all, if it works, you have all the time in the world to increase stakes.
Hope it continues and well done again.
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