What "should" the set price be?

Hello! First of all I'd like to thank you guys for the kind words I have received about the Podcast. It was good to hear that you found it interesting. Cheers!

So I got a question on twitter regarding an old blogpost from last year about calculating what the odds should be after first set and how to calculate it. http://betfairtennistrader.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/question-from-reader.html

The question I got was instead of having the pre-match odds @ 2.00 for both players. "Lasse" wanted to know how the math is done for a 1.60-2.67 match. So I had a look at the card for the day to have an example. Tonight David Goffin plays versus Jerzy Janowicz. The odds on betfair when I write this is now @ 1.65-2.54 which is close to what we want to calculate here. To make it easy we use "Lasse's" prices.

So this is basic probability calculations and in theory what the price "should" be after first set. You have always consider if the match was rightfully priced from the beginning and what is happening during the first set.

Anyways, here goes...

Lets start to look at what the market is giving us for probability for each player winning the match.

David Goffin (favorite): 1.60 -> 1/1.60= 63% (0.63) - So the favorite is priced to have a 63% chance of winning the match. Now its easy to calculate the chances for the underdog.

Jerzy Janowicz (underdog): 100%-63% = 37% (0.37)

So we assume that each player have the same chance of winning a set, and now that we have probabilities for winning the match its pretty easy to get the theoretical set prices for both players. This is probably where the "mindf*ck" part comes into it but its easy when you know how to do it. Ill skip the probability mumbojumbo and just go straight into how to calculate it.

Lets assume that Goffin wins first set. To calculate his set price, we calculate Janowicz chances of winning the match first from being behind a set. This means what are Janowicz chances of winning two straight sets.

37%*37% (0.37*0.37) = 0.1367 = 13.7%

If we subtract 13.7% from 100% -> 86.3% (0.863) (This is Goffins chance of winning the match after he won first set)

And to get this into odds form -> 1/0.863 = 1.16

Lets see if you can get Jerzy Janowicz theoretical set prices if he wins first set! I think you can do it! =)

Stay Sharp!

/Sammy

Betcast podcast

Hello, just an short update....

Had a chat with David on Betcast podcast today and you can find the interview here ->



http://www.bettingwebsites.org/podcast/online-poker-to-sports-trader/

I was a bit nervous before actually, cause I knew that a lot of ummm and eehh would come when I tried to explain certain things in english but after listening to it I found it okish after all. Hope you found something interesting if you give it a go.

Stay Sharp!

/Sammy

Night Watch

When I checked the schedule for this weeks tennis I was pleased that there is basically nothing until the afternoon. Which means I have loads of time to get stuff done around the house and small projects. Flipside is everyone around me works when I don't and I work when they don't. Luckily this isn't the case for along period. Turning the sleeping schedule is somewhat harder these days then it was when I was younger. I get much more tired now and usually need more rest to feel refreshed again. 

I got an request from David @ bettingwebsites.org to be in an interview for his Betcast podcast. You can find his other programs on itunes where he discusses different topics with well known traders from social medias and such.

I was a bit hesitant about being on the show at first cause I really don't have anything to gain except from the experience of being interviewed which is really fun and challenging (making a fool out of myself) due to english not being my native language. All the other guys that have been on the show all have some type of service that they run and get "free" publicity doing this. What David has suggested is to do an interview about the experience I've had of transitioning from poker to trading sports. We will se how it goes....

If there is anything you'd like me to discuss in the podcast let me know and I'll see what I can do about it.

Stay Sharp!

/Sammy

Q&A

Its been an eventful summer and July. Finally my girlfriend have moved into the house. The house is still a mess with a lot of boxes and furniture everywhere but we will soon be organized again.

I haven't been able to work a full schedule due to above reason but it looks to be a decent July anyways. We'll have to see what next week will bring before we leave July behind us...... Lets move on to what I was thinking to put in this post....

I get emails from time to time from new aspiring tennis traders. And it's usually the same type of questions. So I thought I just make a post here to make it easier on all of us. =)

1. How did I learn to trade tennis / where did I learn?

I learnt myself. First of all I read anything related to trading tennis or tennis in general, that I could find using google. And I started to watch ALOT of tennis and how the market (betfair) behaved during each of these matches. And asking the question "why the market is moving like it does when X or Y or Z happens". After a couple of thousand matches/markets of doing this you will notice stuff that is out of line. 

2. What strategies do I use?

The million dollar question, no?? Heres the answer..... *drumroll* ...........

I don't have any strategies. A lot of you guys might think "yeah right, you idiot". But its true. I don't have any. Its all about the market and when it gives me a value trade or bet. There is a difference between the two but maybe we can talk about that some other time. So I don't have a set strategy like always lay the server @ breakpoints in a women's match or any type of scenario of that nature. 

You always have to look at what kind of odds you get for each specific trade/bet you want to do. I mean if I told you that we flip a coin and If I win you give me 100£ , if You win I give you 50£. Surely you would think thats not a good bet. Its the same when trading/betting tennis or any type of gambling. If you think you have an edge go ahead and exploit it!

So the questions you might ask yourself (or you should really) is how do you know that its a good bet/trade? Then I refer to the answer to question #1.

3. How long does it take to make constant profit?

Really, really hard to say. I can't really know, it's probably very individual. For me I think it was pretty fast. But It mainly has to do with the fact that I had been playing poker for many years before. So the mental aspect and how to think in terms of variance and value. I already had those fundamentals. So I basically just had to learn the markets and everything about tennis.

Its very personal and how much time and effort you are willing to dedicate of course.

To make something clear as well there isn't anything like constant profit. There is always an element of risk trading/gambling. The higher your return (edge) is the less variance you will have and a more constant profit. You have to also take timeframe into consideration. Constant profit over a week or month, year?

4. Do you offer any type of coaching or training?

No, sorry...


I hope you had a good summer so far, until next time.

Stay Sharp!

/Sammy

New Computer

Me and my girlfriend have decided to move in together and therefore i thought it was time to get a new stationary computer. Ive had 2 different setups for a while. Atleast to sets of monitors. 2 at her place and 3 at mine. So now that we will just have one place i thought id get a new computer that I can run 5 monitors on. My old one is from 2008 so abit more juice in power is also needed. Its crazy how a few b365 windows and a couple of markets just eats RAM and CPU power. Mindblowing... happens pretty much everyday that I need to refresh the desktop to clear the RAM. Its terribly annoying to restart everything and set all the markets and scoreboards/streams up again.

So now the awkward part starts to select what to get and then assemble it. The latter part is very fun though. Like playing with lego but legit for a man of my age. I will probably just call to a company and tell them what Im looking for and discuss what to buy for around $1k. It's just gonna be for trading/betting and nothing else. So there isn't much use for super high specifications.

Im thinking of keeping it totally off the grid. That means no facebook, no gmail, no youtube, no twitter etc, pretty much just betfair and betting sites. Im getting abit concerned about how much information they are gathering about what we do here on internet. I find it scary in a sense. I got a new cellphone a couple of month ago and its scary how everything is hooked up these days. I can google stuff on my desktop computer. And when I sit in the car going to a destination. The GPS and phone knows what I have googled before and makes the assumption im going to that specific spot and gives me a estimated time of arriaval and route. Its pretty cool, but also pretty frightening. How all the ads gets customed made for you at facebook and so on cause they know that you have searched for a holiday or product. How much else are they sniffing out that I dont even know about.

Enough about that.... On friday its a special day for us swedes.... midsummer. So Im taking Friday & Saturday off. Sunday usually Wimbeldon starts, no?

This funny german IKEA ad sums midsummer it up! Stay Sharp!

World Cup and stuff...

I have never attended a big football event ever. But if there where a place i'd like to go it would be Brazil and not only to watch football. Always been a dream for me to go there and hopefully one day i'll be able to go there. Always sad when your country doesn't qualify cause it adds that extra tension to the tournament. They are running some specials here from the magical 1994 World Cup when Sweden managed to get bronze medal. I can still remember being a kid sitting 1 inch from the telly during the quarterfinal against rumania and shitting my pants with excitement. Its hard to grasp but it was 20 years ago.... TWENTY. Ohhhh my time flies.

As stated before i'll be enjoying this WC from the telly. Well I actually don't have a TV. Or I have a TV but no receiver. I do run a appleTV so I can stream stuff from my laptop but thats basically it. There is so much shit on TV in general that I haven't bothered to get any channels for it. Its for these occasions though that i'd really like to be able to watch the games from the comfort of the sofa.

Tradingwise the World Cup shouldn't interfere with the tennis due to time difference. And the tour being in Europe at the moment. I can't really remember if the European 

Championship 2 years ago made any impact on the liquidity which is my biggest concern.

French Open was for me not great at all. I found it very very difficult to handle the extreme latency against the market maker which caught me a lot. I did turn a profit though, not what I probably have set in mind going into the tournament. I tend to not have any expectations, but after a good US open and a decent Australian Open, I was therefor a bit disappointed. 

Having expectations usually just sets you up for dissapointments so its better to not expect anything than the unexpected really. Cause life never turnsout like you thought it would and this goes for gambling as well. Just work super hard on whatever you want to achieve and be humble. Eventually good things will happen.

Stay Sharp!

/Sammy

Le Scoreboard Terrible

Roland Garros is underway if you have missed it! Doubt it... =)

Been a couple of hectic days to start off the tournament. With 14 matches going on at the same time its hard to choose whichones to focus on.Today Wednesday is a bit diffrent though with double matches starting so we have (only) 7 singles matches going on which is graspable (is this a even a word?). The doubles matches usually have no liquidity at all this early in the tournament.

So what about the blog title? I cant really remember that the scoreboards being this shitty last year? Didnt we have streams aswell? The slamtracker usually is pretty decent but this year its not up to standards. Never the less its really hard to make good decisions when sometimes the scoreboard is 2 balls behind the market. When its 1 ball behind, you can see on the market who won the ball. But more than that it, really really gets tough. Courtsiders are cleaning up, de luxe.

Matosevic finally one a singles main draw match in a grand slam (14 tries). This is how happy he got!

Matches will start in about an hour so Im gonna go out and cut the lawn before we start the days work.

Stay Sharp! /Sammy

Great month!

Hey Guys! 

After a not so great March I can say the opposite of April which have been great. And finally you can feel that the summer is around the corner as well. Much brighter days and temperatures around 15 degrees celsius. So I have spent a fair bit of time in the garden which I find very pleasant. In other words: For a change I'm not sitting infront of the computer and therefore getting the feeling of creating something that you actually can see and touch.

Finally I've decided to take a holiday in July. I booked tickets to Nice, France in July. The plan is to rent a car and roam around @ the riviera (St. Tropez, Antibes, Canne, Monte Carlo) and maybe take a ride into Italy. If you have any cool tips for activities i'd appreciate it.

Other than that there isn't much cool to report...

The P/L for April:

Stay Sharp!

/Sammy

Let it rain...

Last blog post I was talking about going to Mexico this year aswell. I was actually going and started to look for flights. But the flights from gothenburg airport to cancun had already stopped for the season?!?!?!! What to do...

The WTA tournament in Kuala Lumpur equals rain delays. This is the third time i've traded this event and it has been raining every single time. Mayby its time to re-schedule that one? Seems abit off to have it between an america swing moving towards europe and the clay season.

Ohh well. The month in USA was not that great for me. Horrible tv/scoreboard delays for 4 week straight basically. Market maker/Courtsider being ahead 7-8+ seconds made it really hard to trade. But it seems pointless to complain about. Cause I cant really see there will be any changes from the companys / ATP / WTA about the score update.

The delay for us normal people is very different from week to week. Before I start trading a match I usually get a feel for how long time between the score updates and the market maker change their odds. Its pretty crucial if you have different positions on the market and not getting caught. You kind of get a feel for how long a ball take to play. Sometimes there are courtsiders that is not involved or put odds out on the market every single ball. They wait for big points that moves alot like breakpoints and such before they make a move. This is abit harder to assess though, cause they showup pretty much at anytime. Sometimes these guys sometimes doesnt really know what the odds should be the next point and can offer good value a resonable amount of the time actually. Usually they also use bigger stakes which is nice cause you can take a bigger position.

Anyways, seems I could have been sleeping instead of watching the rain pour in Kuala Lumpur. But there is a heavy load of matches today. With the WTA and ATP done for the day a massive amount of Challanger matches will be playing which is great. I have been trading the challangers when there is money on them and I find them very amusing at times. There is a reason that these guys havent reached ATP level. And alot has to do with consistency and mental strength. From my short experience with the chally tour is that there is alot of big comebacks and swingy matches that makes them great for trading. Often very good TV coverage.

To finish off. The biggest missclick of the year from someone happened last week I think. Cant remember the match but here is the graph.

Stay Sharp! /Sammy

Tour moves on....

After a couple weeks in nomansland (different regions) we're heading to Amerika and first off Indian Wells for 11-12 days. Which is pretty wierd. I couldn't remember that it was like this last year that they started the main draw on the wednesday. Then 2 weeks in Miami for Sony Ericsson open. Which had the pleasure to enjoy 2010  and watch Söderling play. This was during my poker era and my poker buddies had rented a super nice house for 6 months where i stayed aswell. Miami during march is crazy with the WMC (winter music conference) coming into town aswell for a week. With all the party that is going on and the extremly pleasent weather. Good times!

Resident Pool Area

Last year and this year my friends stays in Mexico at a amazing 3 floor flat with all the facilities you can think of. If I go it will be for a standard 2 weeks holiday. I'm not sure though. I'm really torn cause this would mean that I will loose 2 weeks of trading which potentially is a very high relative cost. Its not like I get paid vacation unfortunatly =) .

I should probably go, never know when you get the chance again.

Wierd not having any tennis to trade today. So I'm watching cricket now and the TEST between South Africa - Australia which is really hard to get any grasp on with it being played in such huge timespan so its hard to get a feel for how the market moves. But there is only one way to learn it and its to watch and indulge.

Stay Sharp!

/Sammy