I can't think of a title

Hello again. Remember me? I’m the one who keeps promising to blog more, makes two or three posts and then vanishes for a couple of months. Incredibly frustrating for the small minority who keep returning but probably irrelevant to the vast majority.

The fact is, I am finding it hard to find topics to blog about. And equally difficult, is finding the time to write given my current working hours!

When I started the blog, it was designed to do two things. Firstly, it was designed to help organise and develop my trading skills and whilst these are skills that are always in need of being developed, everyone can improve, I am no longer the rookie in such desperate need of this. Secondly, it was designed to preview and review Super League matches. However, as attested by my recent Profit and Loss summaries, this is an area I am focusing less and less on.

I’ve always been a RL junkie and always will. However, just like when I departed to University, finding the time to watch games without immediate access to SKY television is difficult. Last year, I would seem to watch games in my sleep. This year, I am struggling to do any research into the games and a lot of my trades are simply based on blind beliefs, brief glances, market knowledge and statistical analysis.

Ah, statistics. I’ve always been a statistics geek and even today, on a complete day off with no events to trade on Betfair and no work to go to, I’ve done little else but pour over my trading statistics from the past month.

They make pleasant but frustrating reading. My profits are better than ever. At a level that would be obscene to non traders but remains small fry compared to most. However, if I was a computer who applied formulae rigidly, then I would have matched my yearly profits in a single month on a single sport and I would be earning truly obscene amounts. (For example, my 1.1 rule would have come in superbly for Sheffield v Keighley and my general approach to hedge the draw below 2 would have lead to a double success. Instead, my £15 pre match back of the draw at 75 would not have been traded out at 50, largely hedged at HT and then fully hedged at below 2…)

The fact is, I am a human being with an attitude to risk approaching zero. (What 21 year old starts a pension voluntarily and invests primarily in Gilts….) Whereas I had hoped to develop my ATR through Betfair it’s reaching a stage where I am beginning to accept my approach with a resigned indignation.

Ironically, my only departure from this was based on a pure statistical analysis that failed due to my nerves but that is a story for another day.

So, if I am doing better than ever how does this reconcile with spending less time analysing Rugby League and being so critical of myself?

The first answer is that as anyone who reads the archives will know, I am a hyper critical perfectionist which can dominate my trading! And I don’t think that will ever change…

The second answer is that I have a new Number 1. Well, I say a new Number 1 but it is the event that convinced me to carry on with trading in 2008.

Formula One. (Thank you Nelson Piquet JR.)

Of course, having three Grand Prix in the month didn’t hurt but my Formula One trading has really developed over the past twelve months as I have studied the market keenly and used it in accordance with my own personal observations. For instance, I do not agree with the huge odds disparity between most teams’ drivers. Mark Webber at 3.5 or Sebastien Vettel at 1.6 before Q3? Felipe Massa at 65 or Fernando Alonso at 22 before Qualifying even started? The best answer of course would be Lewis Hamilton and that was a source of irritation for I did have a larger than usual green on Hamilton.

In Monaco, I had a similar position on Mark Webber and greened out after his quick lap between 2 and 3. However, when Hamilton crashed below 2.5 in Q3 on his quick lap, I was too slow to take advantage. The £50 I gave away on Webber was doubled in relation to how much a green up would have benefited me. A question on value which I shall hopefully expand upon in a future blog post.

But generally, I have to love a sport which sees a 1.01 overturned in Fernando Alonso to reach Q3 and an in play race related market which sees three drivers trade below 1.1 and a further two below evens!

Even if the love for some drivers does make me want to rip my hair out!!! (E. G. Fernando Alonso being at lower odds than Felipe Massa despite being 4 places behind on a track that Massa loves, and Massa still being double Alonso’s price even once the race has started and Alonso has shown an inability to even get past Kamui Kobayashi! But then again, I don’t see the point in laying a 200/1 shot.)

I realise there isn’t a huge amount of usual information in the above, but I just wanted to get something posted on how I’ve been doing recently. Hopefully, this will help kickstart me to produce a few more (interesting) posts in the near future like the excellent Green All over and Flutter F1. And with time off work this week having bought tickets to all five days of the England v Bangladesh test at Old Trafford, it should be the perfect time for me to start posting again…

As usual, all comments are gratefully appreciated… If only to remind me that one or two people do actually read my posts!