Tilt mode

Probably a lot of (new) traders know this feeling. You lost a bet and you are so mad that you like to regain the money immediately. It doesn´t matter which bet, the only target is to reach the same account balance like before the loss. When you are frustrated, you shouldn´t trade, this is a golden rule!

In the past I lost a lot of money in the tilt mode. Yesterday I had a deja vu. I had to work during the day, so I couldn´t test (much) my automated system. Actually there was only one tennis match left after my working day. So I took the opportunity. Unfortunately there was not much liquidity and my automated system didn´t work properly. Suddeny my loss was two units... nothing serious, but enough to start something like a tilt mode.

So I decided to trade icehockey at the world cup. After Sweden beat Switzerland 7:0, I was sure that they were stable again. They had a 2:0 lead against Czech Republic and I decided to bet on Sweden for a possible profit (like three units) I lost before. To bad that the stake was 15 units... in absolute numbers it´s not that much, because one unit is only one Euros, but like I mentioned it was a Déjà-vu. Some years ago I lost thousands of Euros in this tilt mode.

What I learned (again)? Don´t trade when you are frustrated or bored. The next opportunity will come, sooner or later.

At least I could solve the problem in the trading system. Next week will be a lot of action at the French Open, but I have to mention that I prefer the best of three mode. My system is not configured for four or five sets. So I have to wait until each player have won one set or I trade only girls matches... if there are no live scores available at fairbot (like at the Australian Open) I will not trade at all, because live scores are necessary to trade my automated system. In some days I will know more, but even when I can trade, Grand Slam tournaments are not my favourites in a view of a trader.

Match selection

Last days brought plenty of actions on the tennis courts. Unfortunately there was no real trading flow, because in all tournaments were a lot of of rain interruptions. The weather in Europe sucks lately...

I made some minor changes in the strategy. Perhaps they went in the wrong direction. I recognized that the losses grew more than the profits. So I had to go back to the initial version.

More concerns I have about the match selection. It seems more and more that this is much more important than any strategy adjustment. At Wednesday I recognized that I lost the most money with matches of the challenger tour. Probably these matches are more unpredictable to trade than bigger tournaments. The best players of the world play "every day" on their normal levels. Lower ranked players have more good and bad days... so it´s difficult to say how they will play. 

On the other hand it´s (sometimes) really weird, how balanced matches with big favourites can be. Yesterday there were a lot of duels with one sided odds, but big volatility at the markets:

• Sinner (1.13) vs. Rinderknech 7:6, 2:6, 5:7
• Ruud (1.18) vs. Koepfer 2:6, 6:1, 6:2
• Martic (1.35) vs. Wang 6:7, 6:3, 5:7

On the other side there were plenty of balanced odds with one-sided outcomes. What I like to tell... it´s (almost) impossible to find an algorithm for selecting the right matches. In the end, a good strategy only can support the trading. Definitely there is no holy grail, the main key is the match selection! So trading is still a kind of gambling... at least I didn´t find the solution yet to make steady profits.

Risk Management

Yesterday we saw two very different finals at Rome. First Karolina Pliskova met Iga Swiatek in a very one-sided encounter. The Pole double bageled the former Rome winner Pliskova. Some hours later Djokovic and Nadal played almost three hours until the winner was found. The Spanish clay king won 7:5, 1:6, 6:3.

What you can expect with a swing trading approach? With a volatility based system is (almost) impossible to make money in such a one-sided match like Swiatek vs. Pliskova. You need a risk management which helps to reduce losses in such a case. My target is a maximal loss of 1.25 units per trade. One unit is more or less 1% of my account balance. In the mentioned female final I lost around 1.20 units. The risk management worked, even a worst case match can´t make serious damage to the bank.

Nadal vs. Djokovic should been a great opportunity to make a good profit. My strategy brought a "non trade outcome". Probably you would say, that´s a bad strategy. Perhaps you are right, but my model said that Novak Djokovic was no (great) value after the first set. Like I mentioned in an earlier posting, I have an automated trading strategy. Perhaps I missed a manual opportunity (because it´s Djokovic and not a no name player), but in general I prefer a missed chance instead of a lost trade. 

I would call my strategy a risk based approach. Automated trading can´t consider names or a game history... but in the long term the number based trading should be the right one (for me). The numbers don´t lie and told that Djokovic was (at least based on the starting odds) no value. Of course there is no guarantee that the starting price is right and the market corrects itself during the first set. In my opinion the starting price is quite fair and not based on emotions (like it often happens while the match is inplay).

Next days I will test a lot. At the moment I focus on quantity. It´s important to have enough tests to find mistakes in the automatisation. Afterwards I have to consider more and more the quality as well. Like I mentioned in the last post... the key is the match selection. The best automated betting strategy will fail, when you trade the wrong matches.

Bad variance or bad strategy?

Lately the results were not that encouraging anymore. I corrected some mistakes with the automated trading. Some commands didn´t work properly, so the stakes (and the losses) were bigger than accepted.

The good news is that fairbot (tarding tool) is now working like I want. The bad news is that the last days were quite disappointing. It could be bad variance, because I traded (too) much for testing purposes. On the other hand, there were some disappointing facts:

• The match selection is the key. The system doesn´t compensate a bad variance, at least not that much I thought.
• The losses are (still) too big in comparison to the profits. 
• The outcome of the first set is (too) important.

I am still positive, but the strategy needs some minor adjustments. Besides I will test a light progressive staking plan. In some days I will write more about it.

Keep greening!

Scaling up and accepting losses

Yesterday I found an interesting article about scaling up the stakes: How to handle beeing a profitable Sportstrader

To be honest I was thinking about rising the stakes after a month with a decent profit. Last time I wrote about the organic growth of a balance. Probably is the only successful way for handling bigger stakes. Time will help in two areas. First the system is approved after a big amount of trades, second the slowly rise of stakes is a good way to get used to higher amounts.

Beside it´s very important to accept losses, even the best ones have bad periods: Daily25

To reduce the variance and bad luck of a single outcome, I started to trade parallel. Sometimes I trade four matches at the same time. This is one of the big advantages which brings an automated trading system. Mentally it helps, because the next chance for a profit will come very soon. Sometimes just one point decides if a trade brings good profit or a loss. Especially these moments are easier to digest when you know that the next opportunity is just around the corner. 

Actually it just happened in the match between Koepfer and Garin, where the German missed two break opportunities for a big profit. Now I am looking for the next (better) trade...

Automated Tennis Trading

I like to update my blog more regular again. It helps me to analyze the trades I made and avoid mistakes in the future (if I made them). 

I still - like six years ago - trade with the help of fairbot. In my opinion it´s by far the best tool. It helps me a lot, especially in automated trading. Six years ago I traded mainly manual. It´s extremely time consuming and sometimes frustrating. You wait for hours for the right moment to open a trade. In the worst case the trade is not going in your direction and you become frustrated. This leads to impatience and the risk rises to make a costly mistake. Now it´s different. In the morning I select the matches I like to trade and fairbot is doing the rest for me. Beside it has the advantage that there is no risk of chasing or overtrade. I have clear rules what fairbot has to do under which circumstances. 

Yes, I have no live TV pictures to react. Sometimes is a disadvantage (especially when there is an injury), but in general I think is not necessary to watch the matches. The markets often overreact, because a player doesn´t play his best tennis. It can change immediately... I don´t think that TV coverage helps a lot. Probably is even the opposite, because the pictures lead you in the wrong direction.

How you  can see above I made yesterday a gross profit of three Euros. Well, it´s not much, but in comparison to the stakes I am happy about it. My stake per bet is just one Euro. How you can see the single losses are distinctly smaller than the profits. In comparison to earlier times I made significant changes in the risk-/reward-ratio. If I win a trade is often three times the stake I can lose. So the pressure for a high hitting rate is not that high. In this point the automated trading helps a lot. The greens are just growing and there is no nervous finger which likes to hedge the trade too early. There a predefined rules, which define what will happen under which scenario.

Of course there are some disadvantages with this trading approach too. Yesterday Ons Jabeur had to withdrawn, because of an injury. Like I mentioned, I don´t trade with (quick) TV pictures. So my position turned in a red one, when the market recognized that she has serious medical problems. 

It´s still a long way to go, but at the moment I feel quite comfortable with this trading strategy. It´s not time consuming and it´s free of emotions. Sure my predefined entry- and exit-points are not always perfect. Before the match starts I have to define the entry and exit-levels. So sometimes a break or a win of a set brings more ticks that I was asking for. It´s the price for not beeing the whole time in front of the computer. Trading can be very dull (even when you are successful), so I accept this disadvantage (also the one with the injuries). Instead of trading professional, where the pressure is immense, I prefer to trade for an additional income. 

My wife accepts this hobby (more or less... for her is just gambling :-)), but she doesn´t want that I deposit more money to b´Betfair. So I have to grow organic. Right now I have just 60 Euros+ on my account. Actually my 1 Euro flat stakes are quite high in comparison to my account balance. :-)  Perhaps I can convince her to deposit a bit of money if I can prove her that my system works. In exchange I can buy her a nice (Gucci) bag. ;-)  

Organic grow is healthy, but as well time consuming. You need months, when not years, to reach a five digits balance. My target is to trade with 100 times bigger stakes (100 Euros per trade instead of 1 Euro). So my balance has to be around 10´000 Euros. If I have to grow only organic it needs time, a lot of time, which I lose for making real money.

My first target is to reach 100 Euro. With this amount I have at least the balance I should have for 1 Euro flat stakes. In the last post I mentioned a negative progressive system, which should support the strategy. When I learned something in the past is the fact that the best (progressive) staking plan doesn´t help to to convert a losing strategy in a winning strategy. I am 100% sure that only a system that works with flat stakes can work with progressive stakes. Nevertheless I am convinced that a progressive staking plan can help for improving your betting results.

In the next post I will write more about my slightly progressive staking plan.

Is there an edge?

Since my last post over a year passed away. It was February 2020 and the corona pandemic just started (in Europe). In the beginning a lot of tennis tournaments were cancelled and the trading opportunities were low. So I lost a bit the interest to trade.

Lately the action on the tennis courts rised again. So I gained the desire to restart with trading. 

Right now I am analyzing if a progressive staking plan can support a betting strategy. I watched a lot of videos about Fibonacci, Martingale, Labouchere, Oscar Grind and other negative progressive systems.

In my opinion a progressive staking system will never change a losing strategy in a winning one. There has to be a real edge. If you find one, you can improve your results with an appropriate (progressive) staking plan.

At the moment I am testing an automated lay system with flat stakes. If I see a real edge I will think about a combination with a slight progressive system like LP28.

The first results are encouraging, but obviously that data volume is too small after a week to celebrate. I had three winning days (one of them big with a profit of ten units), a day with zero profit and a day with a loss of around two units. Before I traded a similar system and I never lost big. The account balance didn´t change much and was more or less stable. Unfortunately there was no growth neither. The next weeks and months will show if I made the right adjustments to have a strategy with an edge or it´s still only one which is a zero sum game.