The in play horses are much more fun than pre race!
Got a bit carried away at one point trying to trade four horses in the same race.
Despite a few novice mistakes I ended up about even for the afternoon.
Still watching and learning the US horses. I've noticed that the track prices are often nothing like the BF prices, and if the track price goes one way the BF price is just as likely to go the other, and the book %'s are all over the place.
Dogs have been a bit rubbish, I know you have to expect that not every month will be a good one but I do think I need to re assess my strategy on the dogs as it isn't as effective as it used to be.
I've been quite busy working (which is a real hassle but at least it brings in regular income) then sleeping because my job starts at stupid o'clock, and programming when I'm awake, so the trading time has been limited this month. Same thing next month but then I should be able to get more done in December.
The bot has been ticking over but has also had a quiet month.
P&L is running about even, so not sure whether it will be in the red or green by the end of tomorrow. Won't be a bad month, but is unlikely to be a great one.
The basketball is still making a profit so I might up the stakes again on that.
Handy Andy has published an excellent article comparing the features and advantages of The Geeks Toy and Bet Angel, he is a current user of both products and both have just released new beta versions.
One of the comments I had this week was asking for me to do more posts on my trading, which is good timing as I've recently (this week) started to look at two new horse racing markets.
In play horses
I've found the in play markets massive fun (would probably be scary if I dared to use big stakes), and I've worked out a strategy but is too early to say if it will work long term.
the shorter markets 5f and 7f don't really give much time, so unless you have decided what to do in advance it's quite risky. The longer races seem to have more patterns to the betting and this is where I can see some possible opportunity, there are definite entry and exit times 'if the right circumstances arise' where you can have a limited liability as long as you get out early enough when it doesn't go your way.
I've made over £1 already!
US Horses
The US markets (for the whole two days I've traded them, and thanks for suggesting them Leon) seem to offer some good opportunity, a bit like greyhounds but less unpredictable, as long as you have a live feed for the races you shouldn't get caught by the off too often. Getting a live feed can be a hassle, I found most of the feeds require you to register with a US address and social security number, which fortunately I don't have.
If you haven't got a live feed forget it!
The races can start 10 mins early or 10 mins late or anywhere in between.
The clock on the left is there so that I can compare with the video feed to see how many seconds delay there is each time I change tracks, it can be anything up to a minute, and if it is a minute behind I've found that I have to get out as soon as the horses arrive at the gate to be sure of not missing the jump.
Frogs
Someone gave me a Rana de Suerte (lucky frog) that they got from Salamanca this week, so I'm hoping (not hopping) that it will help boost my profits.
It's probably not the real Salamanca frog as I'm sure they wouldn't have let her vandalise the University for a souvenir, and also it's bright green.
If you can find the frog in the picture you might be lucky too, but I suspect you need to go there and find the real one for it to work...
The Geeks Toy Charts (as expected) work well, look great and are fully customisable. Once you've got them how you want them you can save the settings and configurations individually and/or in your saved profiles. This makes it easy to optimise your screen layouts for trading different types of events and markets.
The charts can be in the ladder column or in floating windows.
When in the ladder column they are tied to the ladder selection, when in a floating window the charts by default dynamically change to show the current/active selection (i.e. the ladder you have the mouse over).
You can also change the floating/streaming chart type to multi selection, in which case you can have up to 2 sets of multiple floating chart windows for each ladder, if you have enough screens.
As you would expect (but unlike Bet Angel) The Geek's Toy remembers the chart settings so you don't have to manually reopen and reposition all of them and then set the refresh rates every time you switch to a new race market!
You can add splitters to the chart windows (as above) and to the ladder panel, this means you can show as few or as many graph types as you want. Each chart is then configured individually if you want to change it from the default settings.
There are lots of possible combinations, so I'll just run through the main chart types and then a couple of examples of my set up.
Chart Types:
Market Overview
Betfair standard
Betfair Inverse
Price Candle
Price OHLC (Open,High,Low,Close)
Price Lines
Traded Volume
Traded Volume Moving Average
Weight of Money
Depending on the chart type, you have options for configuring the chart data, Back, Lay, LTP, Moving average, sample range, sample rate, as well as display options, colour scheme, backgrounds, grids, line styles, legends etc.
My Charts
For Greyhounds I have all six ladders up, and I leave the standard price bars in the column next to the ladder as my main indicator, and the standard betfair chart in the footer. So this is the same as I had before the charts upgrade. But now I can also have additional charts in a chart window on another screen for a larger more detailed view of the current selection that I'm trading. As I already mentioned, the charts in the floating window change automatically as you move the mouse between selections/ladders which is a really useful feature.
For Horses I use 4 ladders and either stack the charts up to the side of the ladder columns keeping a long ladder but losing the standard price bars.
Or (probably my preferred option) position the charts under the ladder. In this configuration the ladder is shorter, but you get to keep the standard price bars to the left of the ladder and the charts are wider.
With both layouts the streaming charts give a good overview of all 4 ladders. I also have an additional floating chart window on another screen for a larger more detailed view of the current selection.
And the market overview window helps spot any significant mover, so that I can decide if it might effect the price of the selection(s) I'm trading and/or move it onto a ladder.
Summary:
The Toy has always been responsive, powerful and easy to use. The addition of charting takes it to the next level.
I hope you found the review interesting, and if you are a Toy user I hope it gave you some ideas for how you might be able to use the charts.
The Geek's Toy:
Probably the Best Betfair Trading Software in the World...
Has been a while since I had a new PC, but I've decided that the laptop is not ideal for large databases and it currently has a desktop fan chucking cold air under it to stop it getting too hot and shutting down.
Time to get a new PC...
Sounds easy enough, but when I priced up what I need (and I thought I was being quite economical) it came to almost £2000!
Not quite as cool as the one in the picture.
I was expecting about £500 not including monitors. Guess I either need to lower the spec or raise some more funds...
October has finally nudged into the green after a slow start
Books
Just finished reading The Shadow of the Wind and The Angels Game
Both set in Barcelona (a fantastic city) and both are excellent.
Data
Should get time to start analysing some football data over the next few days. I've got price data for Correct Score and Total Goals markets to look at first and then I might collect some other markets once that's done.
Is quite tricky collecting data and running a bot and manual trading at the same time as I have to be careful not to exceed 20 requests per second. So far I've not had any data charges, but it does limit how much data I can collect when multiple markets are running at the same time..
I may get my gf to set up an account just for data logging and use mine for the trading. Although once I'm paying premium charge I should get extra data requests as from what I can make out the PC only takes charges that haven't already been paid and that includes charges for data requests...
Skiing
Looking forwards to the ski season! Mine starts 4th December.
I've given it a couple of months with a bot using some of the same strategies I use on Betfair, and there aren't enough suitable markets to make it worthwhile, I think I'm better having the money in my Betfair bank.
I've ended up -£5 at the end of my trial which is not an expensive way to find out whether something works or not...
It does mean developing my new bot program just got easier as I only have Betfair to worry about. Hopefully there will be other exchanges I can look at using once I've got this Betfair one finished, and maybe I'll take another look at Betdaq sometime.
Am on a bit of a draw down with Betfair at the moment, nothing unexpected and only £70, but is better when the profits are coming in. Hoping to pull it back before the end of the month, there's still plenty of time.
Is good for me to see this happening and to feel no pain or anxiety, and to feel no desire to change anything. I know that it has to happen sometimes and is simply the result of probability.
I saw a real black swan today on the river, forgot to take a picture, will get one next week.
Had a look at the Dogs yesterday to see why my bot stopped making money on them...
Turns out there's now other people (probably bots) doing a similar strategy and jumping in ahead of me...
I've tweaked the bot a bit to jump ahead of myself as well to see if I can salvage anything. If not I'll possibly divert that bank over to the horses until I can find another dog strategy.
I've set it to match them rather than jump ahead of them, as there's no point getting into a massive price war and jumping ahead of the people jumping ahead of me so that they jump ahead of me jumping ahead of them and then I jump ahead of them jumping ahead of me jumping ahead of them jumping ahead of me...
Eventually the edge is gone and no one makes any money except betfair who take their 5%.
I do have some other markets to look at, and my football data logging will have enough data to start analysing after the weekend, so there's plenty of other fish to fry.
Is a quiet month again so far... just treading water, a few small ups and downs and about £10 down.
I'm getting used to making progress in sudden bursts and then nothing for weeks, and I guess it's to be expected with some of my Black Swan strategies that tend to take lots of small losses before bringing in the odd big win. The other strategies are more regular but the stakes aren't big enough to make much of an impression, they do keep the balance fairly level when the Black Swan strategies are taking losses though.
For anyone fed up of taking lots of small wins only to blow it (and more) with one loss, why not try to turn it around and take lots of small losses then occasionally win it back (plus more) with one win...
Keep the liability very small with a big up side, when you've thought of an edge test it over a few thousand markets either historical data, data logging or using small stakes.
If it works start small and increase the stakes gradually.
Is difficult to do manually as it's psychologically hard to take losses, but if you have low liability, a proven edge, you can consistently get matched at your staking level and you stick rigidly to the rules then long term you will make a profit.
No major upsets (although baseball was a bit poor) and a nice steady build up of profit.
The tweaks I made on the horses seem to have paid off and they have been the biggest income this month. Dogs also continue to make a profit. Second time I've broken £500 and hopefully many more £500+ months to come...
Other markets (non horses/dogs) have been a bit less consistent, but will continue to trade them and analyse the results with small stakes.
I originally thought I'd double stakes this month but have decided to leave most markets alone and just increase 50% on the horses and dogs. From there I'll keep the same % of bank and increase the stakes as the bank grows.
My stakes are quite low compared to bank size, but this avoids problems with running out of funds when trading several markets simultaneously and also means I can ride out a long losing run if necessary.
Now... if I can just double the bank every 3 months then by next June I'll be bringing in £4k a month...
If only it was that easy... obviously that is a reckless statement as there comes a point where higher stakes stop making higher profit, or even starts making a loss. But I'm also hoping to find some new strategies to add as well as optimising stakes on existing ones. If I can consistently bring in £1k or £2k a month by next June I'll be very happy.
It's taken me 16 months to get only 2 months over £500. But I have broken a lot of my bad habits and don't throw profits away quite so readily now...
