My trading learning experience brain dump.....

[kev]

Hi,

Thought I’d do a post on the new forum and try and dump out all this information that been going round in my head for the last year about my attempt to trade on Betfair. Its mostly my observations from all the research I’ve been doing.

I’ve been studying Betfair trading off and on for over a year now, with the last 6 months being most days (due to redundancy), to the extent that I think the misses and kids are sick of hearing about Betfair and their Angels.

Last Autumn I attended one of Peter’s courses in an attempt to really understand trading and make it work for me. Whilst this taught me a lot of useful information, it still appears I may be missing the most important piece of the jigsaw to finally make this work for me once and for all.

I regularly read both Peters and AH’s blogs that seem to make trading appear pretty easy, which it certainly is not. I’d give my right arm to make 10% of what these guys achieve.

Anyway here are my notes on what I’ve done, various observations and lessons learnt on various aspects of trading, in no particular order :-

- I’ve watched all the website and you-tube videos showing trading including some competitors videos. I’ve also recorded endless videos of Bet Angel ladders, graphs, movements which are analysed on a regular basis to try and predict price movements.

- Studied price movements in various ways in an attempt to understand why and how prices move, rate money is taken from each side of book, analysed many graphs for resistance levels, trends, tried following WOM, tried opposing WOM etc. etc.

- Have integrated various excel spreadsheets into Bet Angel to indicate best scalping, swing and momentum opportunities.

- Tried scalping at prices not taken in market, until getting caught out with significant price movements. Getting to front of queue at various prices.

- I think sometimes its better to watch the market and price movements for a while before jumping in with a trade, then sometimes you wish you’d got in earlier.

Some problems I’ve encountered along the way :-

- Big money entering the market to hold up the price movements, or sending the market in the wrong direction sometimes.

- All too often letting losses run as I hope for them to recover, whilst I try to implement some sort of loss recovery trades if original trades don’t fully recover.

- Tried to stay in trades longer for more profit, especially when others exiting their positions early, only for the people exiting to be doing the right thing.

- Tried various other Betfair strategies including laying, in play trading, dutching in play as book under 100% regularly, (only to realise prices moving too quickly for this.)

- Using smaller stakes make it easier to let losses run more, possibly giving false trading results.

I feel I have done so much research and now appreciate most aspects of trading, yet I am still not confident enough to use large stakes. I don’t feel I can reliably make regular profits enough to commit to higher stakes.

I did think about trying the one to one coaching on offer as a last resort to seeing if I can finally crack this, has anyone tried this?

If anyone as any advice that might help me to put all these pieces together as I’m sure I’m not far from making it work.

I sometimes feel I may be over complicating things, and the simple answer may be just cut losses quicker.

Thanks for any useful input guys,

Kev

[PaddyOdoors]

I think you're second last paragraph says it all Kev, you're over complicating it and making it harder than it is.
Treat each market as it's own, each trade separate from the others and try to get into a flow and forget it's money you are trading, just numbers...

[bugrit]

There is an old saying that the 3 golden rules to trading are:-
1 Cut Losses

2 CUT LOSSES

3 CUT LOSSES

Now this may seem like a joke, but the number 1 reason why the vast majority of people fail at trading is that they treat the above as a joke. It isn't!
We all try to avoid emotional pain in our lives, and this manifests itself in trading as an inability to cut a loss. We all hope it will turn around to make us feel whole again, sometimes it does, often it doesn't. Trading on Betfair has the added getout of inplay," oh I will get it back when it goes inplay"
we've all said it!
So our 10p 1tick scalp becomes a £10 bet at 100/1 on!! No prizes for guessing the longterm profitability of that strategy!
To succeed in this game we absolutely, must cut losses as small as possible, that way you will stay in the game long enough to learn and practise the real 3 rules of trading.
1 Cut losses
2 Let profits run
3 Trade selectively

Here endeth the lesson
hope it helps