Freestyle

Bought my new K2 Silencer freestyle ski's today.



Six days and counting 'til I'm out on the slopes... This year I'm going to focus on improving my jumps and learning to do rails and stuff, so it should be fun if I don't end up in hospital!

Trading wasn't great at the weekend, managed to lose a few quid, so unless I have an amazing evening it's looking like an average month, reasonable profit, not that bad, but not that great either... enough for a few weeks of ski passes!

Day off work tomorrow which happily coincides with refilling my 'play account' with £25 so a chance to try some more in play horses.

Barcelona 5-0

And finally... A ski movie...

Hazy Shade of Winter

Three more days left in November, P&L at £400 at the moment and it would be nice to break the £500 again. Had I not messed up on those pesky horses a few weeks back I'd be there already... As it is I need a couple of good days to make it. We'll see...

Put the winter tyres on the car today ready for driving back to Switzerland next weekend, and it looks like I'll be needing them this week in the UK!

Had a Saturday off, which is unusual, but it is a bit cold so I declined an invitation to go fishing... which was a good choice I think.

Just one more week of work and then I can go Skiing!!!

Cross Matching

With the introduction of cross matching in the In Play horse markets I thought I'd check what difference it has made to the price movements.

Here's a couple of screen shots from recent markets, these are typical of the pre and post cross matching markets that I have recorded. I can't remember if I've changed refresh rates or range since the charts on the left were taken, but they should be fairly similar.

Pre cross matching		With cross matching

There is a lot more noise and variation in the prices on the right (with cross matching) and it's harder to see what is happening from the chart. I suspect that a few bots might be having problems, either by reacting to too many false moves and/or failing to generate effective false moves which will be lost in the noise...

It's probably side lined one of my potential strategies which (after having spent a month or so analysing it) now has less chance of working. But never mind, there's plenty of markets and opportunities.

It also makes my manual in play strategy harder to read, so I need to re assess that as well .

I guess if you are just placing a bet it means you have more chance of getting matched, but will it effect the liquidity if some of the previous strategies stop working and less money gets put into the market?

I'm sure Betfair are taking a nice increase in profits at the moment, but will that drop if they kill too many edges and people stop putting money in... I actually doubt that it will as people will just adapt and find new ways to profit from the changes in the market.

Maybe the way to go for now is to just stick 2 bets in a few ticks either side of recent average LTP and hope for the best...

PC not as close as I thought

Had a Lifetime (18 month) P&L and PC statement from Betfair today.

My current charges (all from commission) are 69.73%

That's good news, as I was expecting charges to start when my lifetime P&L went over £1000 but from the statement it seems that I can win a few thousand more before the PC charges kick in.

I don't really understand how the commission generated and total charges calculations work, but I definitely wasn't expecting 69%...

Camcorder v Camtasia

Tried using a camcorder to video screen, and it just doesn't have enough detail. Looks like I need to keep using camtasia and just start a new recording after each race to prevent lagging.

Hopefully I will have enough saved up for the new PC by the end of December which should make things a bit faster.

Another good day for the dogs. I messed up the horses a couple of weeks ago and there is still quite a big red on them at the moment, but the dogs have pulled in a lot more than the horses have lost so the P&L is looking ok for this month. I'm hoping to top £500 again.

Here is another bike video...

Way Back Home

Virgin Media customers (at least in my area) couldn't connect to Betfair today, but while I was aimlessly surfing the net I found a cool bike video

Danny Macaskill: Way Back Home


Red Bull Link

Ups and Downs

The last couple of days haven't been a great success for my quest to crack the In Play horse markets...



A combination of trying to do too much other stuff between races, lack of discipline and Camtasia lagging my computer (must remember to only record about 10 mins before starting a new recording).

My £25 starting bank is a bit depleted at £1.47!

I do feel I have had an unfortunate run of bad luck as well, I could have just as easily been in profit, but not to worry a few things learned, and I can put another £25 in next month and try again...

Discipline! Discipline! Discipline!

Meanwhile my other account is making a steady profit, a nice increase in basketball profits since I upped the stakes and also the dogs have had a bit of a revival this month.

I'm thinking I should use my camcorder on a tripod to record video instead of Camtasia. I will give that a go next time.

Trading Auctions

Great Trading Auctions from The Geek in aid of Children in Need.



Also some fantastic prizes including £250 cash!

Children in need auctions and prize giveaways

Products/prizes donated by Betfair, Bet Angel and Tradeshark and many others.

Get over there and check it out...

The first two auctions details are below, more have been added since...

Charity Auction 1
Betfair Personal Full Access API Subscription

The first charity auction is a 12 months Personal Full Access API subscription worth £2000 kindly donated by Betfair!

API Auction here

A great opportunity to donate a wad of cash to charity and save yourself some money at the same time if you need full personal API access...

Charity Auction 2
Two years Bet Angel Subscription
& Tradeshark Tennis Trader Toolkit

The second charity auction is a 2 year subscription courtesy of Bet Angel with a street value of £300 and Tradeshark's Tennis Guide.

Bet Angel Auction here

Bet Angel does quite a few things The Toy doesn't do. They have Dutching, Bookmaking, Excel Integration, Guardian multi market management, and a couple of unique profiling tools, Soccer Mystic and Tennis Trader.

Also included is a copy of Tradesharks Tennis Trading Guide.

If you are looking for some general tennis advice & banter, well worth checking out Tradeshark's free chat room and also his daily tips.

If that's not enough you'll also get lifetime subscription to The Toy.

Some great offers and the money going to Children in Need!

Free Toy

The Geek announced yesterday that The Toy will remain free for 2011

There will be 49 free weeks and 3 charity fund raising weeks.

Announcement and details here

The Week

No trading yesterday, but my bank did go up another £10 courtesy of betfair giving me a credit, no idea why but I'm not complaining, it's a couple of free pints...

Started with £25, bank now at £53.90 after 31 races and a BF credit.

I was expecting a few more losses, and I'm sure they will come at some point. Need to make sure I don't get too confident and/or over exposed when they do.

Given the nature of In Play trading you have to expect that sometimes the market will go against you, straight to 1.01 or 1000 with no chance of getting out and will take your full liability. Not a problem if you have an edge, but still not always easy to deal with when it does happen, especially if it's two or three times in one session.

Could trade this afternoon, but I'm going to watch the Grand Prix with a few beers instead.

Children In Need

Children In Need Appeal

The Geek is raising money for Children in Need.

http://www.geekstoy.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3543

Any donations made by the community from now to the 19th will be going to Children in Need, and he has a few other things lined up, including prizes up for grabs from The Geek, Betfair, Bet Angel, Tradeshark and a few more TBC.

In Play Today

Good start with my new account £9.98 from 20 races.



All from In play horses using £5 liability stakes. Obviously I'm not going to make 40% a day once the bank gets higher, but pleased with how it went and how quickly I cut my losses when I needed to.

I've identified some races and situations to not be in the market (or get out of quickly) because it's unpredictable or gets too hectic and is impossible to keep up with the prices.

My strategy seems to be working so far, but I need to remember that just two big losses out of the 20 races would have taken all my profit...

When I've done a few hundred races I might get more confident.

Bot made a bit more than I did so far today. But it wasn't having as much fun!

Can't believe I didn't try in play before, I'm so far finding it easier than pre race, although that may not have been the case 12 months ago when I probably would have taken a lot of risks/losses.

£25 In Play Trader

I've decided to do my automated and manual trading with separate accounts to make the P&L less confusing.

The manual trading (which has taken a back seat recently) wil be mostly in play horses (and maybe some pre race dogs and US horses if I feel like it)



Betfair allow you to open multiple accounts, which I've done, but at the moment I can't add my debit card or verify my age as my card is already in use on another account... which is a fairly obvious situation, so if they allow you to have multiple accounts why can't they make it easy to link them and share a card and id verification...

I managed to deposit my £25 start bank with PayPal and sent BF an email about adding the card so I hope that will be sorted before the start of next month.

As I've only just started In Play Horses I thought I'd better start at £25 again to limit my liability until I know what I'm doing...

Da Rulez

1) No deposits apart from up to £25 on 1st of each month
2) There is no rule 2

If I make some money I can withdraw as much as I like, whenever I like, but can't put it back other than rule 1.

Not many results today, only the last two races and a 70p profit.

Davidoff

Once again the Davidoff Swiss Indoors is being held in Basel when I'm not there to go and watch any it...



Hopefully I'll make it next year...