Alex's - one year to being a pro
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@Alex-Rule One of the things I will share with you is about the LTD after doing it for many many years I always had to look at it as a long term play because the variance on it would be horrible at times but over the course of the year and season it would work out well.
I used to drop certain types of teams (who had nothing to play for etc…) towards the end of the season as it brought up some strange results.
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Month 18 of trading
Another month ticked off and the May has been a real rollercoaster of a month. In summary I made a very, very small profit which is great for my consistency but I was hoping for more.
Highlights
- Inplay strats seem to be going pretty well over all. I'm trailing some LTD at half time stuff and it all seems to be going the right way. Need more data before I make any big increases in staking - currently £5 lays
- Master classes started and keen to keep up the practise going forward.
- Increasing the small stakes live tracking for a couple more set and forgets to see how they get on.
Lowlights
- My LTD strat dropped a whopping 10 points in May! I think this may have been down to the end of the winter leagues with a lot of teams playing on the beach football and putting in no effort. I may look to exclude from next year. Will see if the summer leagues right the wrong for June and will keep following.
Adding diversity is really paying off and I feel I am getting better at spotting angles for profit. I'm mixing set and forget with inplay and seems to be going well. At the moment it feels a little bit like 2 steps forward and 1 step back. But that's life! We carry on!
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@Martin cheers! I think since Jan I have now been in profit (even if it's marginal) each month. As I get more data I hope it should be a case of scaling more.
For inplay I have found it's all about goal timings.
I have a LTD at half time that looks for games where 0-0 at HT is pretty common - then add filters for 0-0 at full time and games ending in a draw at 20% or less. This means you are getting much better odds avg. 2.85 currently. You can leave this to run as well which is great maximise the number of games you can get on.
I also have a filter that looks for games that have had 2 goals in and I am expecting a 3rd after 70 mins. This is really promising so far avg odds of 1.83 currently and with more date and goal time recording I may look to split my stake to enter closer to 80 if the data suggests that's an idea to get closer to 2.0 odds.
I'm also test a FHG filter where a goal between 0-15mins is less than 50% - this means the odds are much better and again I may look to drip money into the market to increase my average odds.
I definitely feel that for me, inplay trading, I don't want to have to watch the market for 90 mins or even 45. By using the goal timings I know I am getting in a better position then the start of a game and can quickly take advantage of rising odds in short windows, meaning I can trade more games.
On top of this I am collecting data on more Set&Forget strats as they have serve me well. so far.
Fair bit of waffle above but if you have any questions then shout.
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Month 17 of trading
Well another month and despite some ups and downs we are still making money! I really feel that the consistency is coming through and as I add more strings to my bow in the form of quality strategies then this will only compound and increase going forward.
Highlights
- LTD had a shocker at the start of April - but even after dropping 15 points in one weekend it still ended up £27 up to £8 lay stakes.
- My LTD 2.0 ended up making £7 to £2 lays
- My over 2.5 goals Set&Forget made £4 to £1 backs.
- My inplay strats seem to doing well and I'm learning how those markets work, gaining data and experience with live trading which is really exciting.
Lowlights.
- April seemed to be a funny month with the ending/slowing down of some leagues. My strats had to spend most of the month recovering.
It really goes to show that strategy diversity is king here. I had been hoping and naively predicting that my LTD would continue to produce 10% ROI but it has slowed down. This has however increased my desire to more strategies and spread the risk.
My plan for this month is to TEST TEST TEST more strategies to find angles for winning. I am also going live with a late goal strat for 2.5 at 70mins and a LTD at half time that early data looks promising.
Adam's podcast about the capability of the new software and the new Masterclasses have restocked my fires to smash this. I will make it happen! How bloody good is Betfair trading?! Let's get it!
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Month 16 of trading
PROFIT! - That's the headline this month again. The consistency is really coming along nicely now. I'm not a millionaire but I can see that by implementing my plan and sticking to it - the results are coming in. I'm only about £21 up but I feel like I am no longer losing money and am becoming a profitable trader as have been up for the last few months!
Highlights
- LTD strat made £53.45 - had a very slow start to the month but made a recovery towards the end - not helped with international break killing selection numbers.
- My LTD 2.0 made £8.85 to £1 lays - backing up the strike rate of the historical data which is really promising.
- I've started inplay trading a couple of strats - very early but I'm enjoying adding more strings to my bow.
Lowlights
- Nothing huge - I really feel that through taking the time and basing my decisions on plenty of data I'm making less and less mistakes.
I plan to increase a couple of stats maybe this month and with LTD improved I should be in for a better month all round.
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Month 15 of trading
Finally it feels like the consistency is paying off. I am now in haling the good s**t and exhaling the bullshit. Now I have several months worth of data and multiple strategies being tested I feel like the stress to put money on everything has completely gone.
I have now stopped trading those strategies that have been flat for months and aren't showing me any real value. I have stuck to the few that have and I'm up £90 for the month - which considering I am still at very low stakes is really good. My wins weren't wiped out by desperation to push a half baked idea with real money. This is a real turning point and feels like a build on last month.
My new system is as follows.....
- Paper trade for 3 months - collect the strike rate, odds and no of selections.
- If after 3 months its showing good ROI then I am starting with £1-5 stakes depending on the level certainty I feel.
- If not enough selections or thin ROI allow an extra month and review until either it meets my satisfaction criteria or I bin it off and pick something else up.
Highlights
- LTD strat - I made £94 to £7 lays - it has now made money everything since trading it. I have increased by stakes to £8 so I can feel progress and slowly up the stakes so I can build my confidence over time.
- Tomaz under 1.5 lays continues to do well and might be on the way to sorting out the loss it gave when I was over staking.
- 2nd LTD strat testing with £1 stakes this month is exciting to see how it compares to the current one.
- Inplay trading has gone live on a few strategies for testing which is really exciting. Hopefully higher returns for less risk!
Lowlights
- No massive ones to mention really - keep it simple and kick the bad habits.
Automation has taken another pause so far. Again I need to further explore my stats to make sure I would be getting value from it. It's something for the future once I have the basics right.
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Month 14 of trading
The plan for this month was more of the same. The real takeaways from my learning via youtube, reading and podcasts is that there is no rush. I'm guilty of tracking a strategy for a month or two and getting too excited and jumping on. Only to find it dips or breaks even.
More data, more testing - that's focus going forward. It's a practise that I know will serve me well further down the line.
Highlights
- LTD strat - I increased my stakes and it is still making a solid ROI - £100 to £7 lay stakes. This is really promising and although I am tempted to increase the stakes again I have decided to trade Feb at £7 again to ensure it's not a blip and I can increase the back and review ahead of March. Currently at £300 profit for 5 months of trading.
- In play strategies continue to be tested - FHG, 2.5 Goals and LTD at HT.
Lowlights
- Both of my over 2.5 goals strats have dipped in Jan - wiping out my profit from LTD.
I wanted to get automation going this month but on reflection I don't think I have the data yet to start trading my inplay strategies. That time and effort my might best placed in collection for the next month and reviewing after Feb - after all - there is plenty of time.
Keep plugging away and being consistent!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14sQHc1a_-Q92Y0nIh0JIPTU3-hese2svcynRGef9aog/edit#gid=0 -
@Andrew-Gray Thanks for the sheet. Lot's to look over there and get my head around so I'll come back to you with questions once I get there aha.
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So on the lay the draw the ROI with varying stakes is 10.23%, with 1pt lays per bet it's 10.74% and with 1pt liability lays it's 10.5% so not much in it really
On the under 1.5 goals strat your varying stakes ROI is 6.06%, to win 1pt is 5.67% and 1pt back per bet is 9.75%, so that is quite a big bump on that one
- Good to know the ROI of the underlying strategy without the varying stakes I Think.Cheers
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OK mate just spent 45 mins adding that stuff as example templates to both a BACK and a LAY strat, as easier to just do it than explain it on here. You can just re-copy the SS back to your own G-Drive, then look at the formulas yourself and copy it over to the other sheets if you want
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QsK-0XJY4TX648RIyAd2qrTnfJ07dPtmG9hhzKz_Kb4/edit?usp=sharing
The templates are the first 2 strategy tabs on the SS, hopefully clearly labelled so no confusion.
I added both a "To win 1pt" and "1pt stakes" staking strategy columns on the back strategy tab,
and a "1pt Liability" and "1pt Lay" staking strategy on the lay strategy tab
Also added Strike rate to break even, how much you are beating it by, and ROI for all
Also added a filter line on the 3rd row, so you can filter e.g. by league to see if there are any outperforming leagues or rubbish ones (although I would gather loads more data before actually bothering with that) but thought I would add it just so you can see how that works.
Worth noting that you cannot use SUM and COUNT with filters, so I've changed everything to use SUBTOTAL, which will actually update all the headline figures properly when you use the filter row.Any Q's just shout!
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@Andrew-Gray thanks for the pointers - if you have the cell formula and something I can cut and paste in then that would be great to have a in each of the cases you mentioned. Thanks again for the pointers - Alex
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Hi Alex just had a look at your spreadsheets, lots of interesting stuff on there.
Can I suggest a few improvements to your spreadsheets:
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Add a column or two to calculate 1pt per bet results. Because you are changing stakes a fair bit on some of them it's hard to get a sense of the real ROI% based on keeping stakes steady.
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Add a "Strike rate to break even" cell so you can compare the current strike rate and see how far away you are to it (or beating it by) on each strat
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Your ROI calculation is wrong for lay strategies, you need to add an extra column for the liability of each lay (i.e. if a £1 "stake" and odds of 3.0 then the stake is actually £2 because that is what you are risking if the outcome goes against you). Hence the lay the draw 30% ROI is looking too big (Likewise on another lay strat your ROI is -137%, obviously this cannot ever be true as how can you lose more than 100% of your investment
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It's late now but I am happy to do an example spreadsheet based on yours and send it back to you if you want next week at some point.
Cheers and GL this weekend
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