Whats your best pre-race advice when looking at the market?

[arbitrage16]

I did precisely that and I know I would never have figured out in 5 years what they were able to tell me in an afternoon.

Where's that James O'Brien quote

"Trading is really confusing, it's really complicated.

Yeah, no. This is precisely what I mean. Trading is not complicated, it is simple. It conforms to the adage 'simple but not easy' precisely because people insert themselves and their biases into the process and come out thinking it is a horrendously complicated problem, and thus the method employed to solve it must be similarly complex. With respect, that's bullshit.

All of the stats and data that I see being spouted on here, about how a horse previously traded and how many times a horse will trade below an XO in a particular situation are, pun intended, horse shit. It is the ability to understand market dynamics, with a clear concept of how the market works, that allows profit to be extracted. Everything else simply clouds the process.

[Crazyskier]

Back to something for the OP though.... Probably to look first for the ways you could lose money rather than make it. It's easy to get tunnel vision on opportunities without seeing pitfalls like lack of money changing hands or the clock being near zero.

Its about knowing when to get in, whether that is just last 15 seconds trade, when the market ripe to enter

just like there's times you should fold pocket aces pre-flop.

Though off-topic, and I agree with much of what you've written in this thread Shaun, there's NEVER a time to fold AA pre flop in 5 card Hold 'em. They are ALWAYS the best single hand at that point.

CS

[brimson25]

Its about knowing when to get in, whether that is just last 15 seconds trade, when the market ripe to enter

just like there's times you should fold pocket aces pre-flop.

Though off-topic, and I agree with much of what you've written in this thread Shaun, there's NEVER a time to fold AA pre flop in 5 card Hold 'em. They are ALWAYS the best single hand at that point.

CS

Unless someone who hasn't raised since 1947 suddenly 4 bets the next tightest player who last played a hand in 1960, who just 3 bet someone who open-raised a hand for the first time since 1979.

And maybe you're on the stone-cold bubble of the biggest tournament you've ever played and you need the money to get home

So, yes, always a favourite, but very foldable in extremis.

Context is king

[ShaunWhite]

just like there's times you should fold pocket aces pre-flop.

there's NEVER a time to fold AA pre flop in 5 card Hold 'em. They are ALWAYS the best single hand at that point.

And maybe you're on the stone-cold bubble of the biggest tournament you've ever played and you need the money to get home

So, yes, always a favourite, but very foldable in extremis.

Context is king

I'd agree that folding Aces would be pretty crazy in a cash game; but I was thinking about a situation like, being on the bubble or level change in an MTT, you're mid stack, big agresive chip leader on your left, applying pressure to 2 players sat looking at 3 blinds each sat to the left of him. You know that whatever you do the big guy is going to push and the shorties will fold hoping that me and the big guy will go to a showdown. Holding Aces you're 80% fav against the big guy, but do I want to take an 80% chance after 3 days of grinding and a hotel room to pay for, or looking at a 10k golden ticket to the final for your $200 buy in. Probably not.

Doyle Brunson would say "you gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em" These days it'll be a collage kid quoting ICM, and the discrepancy between chips risked and gained where they don’t have a 1:1 ratio like in a cash game. It's rare, but not that rare. Anyways none of this is my original thought, there's thousnads of pages written about folding Aces and without doubt, sometimes you should. The ICM says so.

[ShaunWhite]

Sorry OP about the drift to poker. Like all gambling, after 40yrs there's a lot of tales to tell about shoulda woulda coulda. And knowing how many people who trade have also played/play poker, I opened a bit of a Pandora's box.

[ruthlessimon]

I would never have figured out in 5 years what they were able to tell me in an afternoon.

Trading is not complicated, it is simple.

It's a contradiction imo.

There's a couple of things I think are piss simple, that could've been explained in 5 mins. But you'd have to be very lucky for a trader to do that.

I came to trading thinking a simple breakout strategy, would work everywhere - cos of the natural flows to pre-race. Suddenly when we look a bit deeper, we realise - we might not even need that framework, & there are certain races that are just straight biased. We can arrive & back it, we can arrive & lay it.

You can't spot that if you look generically; which I define as complicated

[stueytrader]

The OP has made 17 posts and yet has a knack of creating posts that cause masses of philosophical/strategy debates on here!

[brimson25]

Sorry OP about the drift to poker. Like all gambling, after 40yrs there's a lot of tales to tell about shoulda woulda coulda. And knowing how many people who trade have also played/play poker, I opened a bit of a Pandora's box.

I coulda been a contenda!