The last trade

Hey guys!

This is most certainly the last post for this blog. I quit trading this late summer basically. Since about May the markets where not the same, atleast for me something had changed. I don't know if the merger with Paddy Power had something to do with it but I noticed something after May, that the markets wasn't the same. For some this maybe haven't been a problem but I didn't find spots as I used to. My motivation for trading sports pretty much dried up as well. So I felt it was time to do something else. 

You might wonder what my next adventure is? I've decided to try to learn a new game. And thats the stock exchange game. I've been grinding the Stockholm exchange roughly the last 2 months. My goal is to be breakeven for the first 6 months and anything better is just a bonus. Its a totally different beast the stock exchange compared to the sports exchange. But it's a lot of fun and I'm learning a lot of new things. We will see how it goes. =)

Anyways, thanks to everyone that read and commented this blog. I still think there is some good information in the blog for new traders to read. So just go through it you might find some interesting stuff. 

Thanks again and the best of luck!

Stay Sharp! /Sammy

Cross-booking

Hey!

There nothing big to report really I have been grinding the markets as usual but mayby not as last couple of years. There isn't really time or energy for 12-14 hours tennis trading. It strikes me now that  I'm moving into my forth year of tennis trading. Time flies is the right word ohh my....

Djokovoic - Federer playing at the moment. And djoko is really destroying Federer when I write this (up a break in the second). Watching federer getting into the match a lot more in the second set. I took federer 2nd set @ 12 on bet365. Partly being bored wanting some kind of action. Why did I take a bet on bet365 and not betfair you might ask?

A lot of the time you get the same odds on bet365 and betfair so its a pretty easy choice. I have no premium charge on bet365 and there is no commission. I can always use betfair to remove my risk/liability to get a better price than using cashout on bet365.

Be cautious using this on matchodds cause b365 and betfair have different rules if a player retires. b365 voids and betfair settles the market if first set is completed. But it works good for set1/set2  betting/trading

Mayby this wasn't a very sophisticated tip from me but hopefully there are some people that might benefit from this.

By the way. If you missed the most epic destruction of a racket by J.Jenkins . Here it is!



Take Care! /Sammy

Sad Christmas

Ok so it was a while ago i made a post. But there have been some tragic events during christmas and I haven't really been in the mood. Anyways.....

2014 was an excellent year with my boy being born and having the best year financially since I started this gambling journey over 10 years ago. So the end of 2014 was a bit of a paradox when my grand father past away a couple of days before christmas. He has been a substitute father in a sense, since my father left me and my mother when I was three years old. I think my grand mother had such a big grief over his passing and eventually 7 days later she also passed away. This christmas was all but merry.

I have always been closer to my grandfather than my grandmother. And I don't know why but this is probably normal that you have a better connection with some people than other people.

They where very good people that have been working hard their whole lifes and i'm deeply grateful for everything they did for me and our family. Thanks for everything!

One more day....

So this season is coming to an end... Tomorrow is the last day of play for the ATP-WTA-Challenger tour what I know of. Anyways I'm really looking forward to a nice couple of weeks of rest before next season starts. There is a International Premier League this winter in december that is new this year. I don't know much about it but i won't probably get involved.

Trading wise there isn't much to report. Last couple of months haven't really been that super. Not bad but I after the great spring and summer I probably got big expectations for the autumn and when reality doesn't match your expectations usually equals disappointsment. I shouldn't be disappointed cause this have been a great year for me. I haven't contacted bf for a PL statement for the year yet but I'm pretty curious to see the numbers.

Hmmm whatelse....I got an request from quantbubble.com of making an interview about the same topic that I made for bettingwebsites. I did respectfully decline though just that I feel that there isn't much for me to gain doing these interviews. The first one was a fun experience but I learned that there isn't much in it for me doing one so there is the reason for that.

So Im going to round this up now but Ill be back soon with a summary of the season of 2014 and some thoughts about it. Probably sooner than later. I don't really have a project this holiday to keep me occupied so Ill get super restless after just a couple of days rest. But ill try to stay away from trading to get really pumped for another long and grueling season of tennis

Stay sharp!

/Sammy

Hello World!

Hey guys!

Just a quick update. Sorry for the recent absence. Ive been trading a bit the last coupe of weeks, not a full schedule at all but the reason this is this little guy! There have been a hectic time the weeks before his birth and now these days after. Very time consuming lite thing! =)

Sammy Jr, wishes you a good day and hopefully Betfairs ridiculous server problems this morning will be solved soon.

Stay Sharp!

Correction....

Hey Guys!

So my last blogpost about what the 1st set price should be turned out to be very interesting. I was wrong in my calculations, they where no good. But I love being wrong cause then I have a chance to get it right! =)

Thanks to Rico for his input but also the rest of you guys making it a good discussion.

This is Rico's explanation and it might seem a bit complexed but nothing overwhelming. This is how you should do it!

"Let's say we know match odds for player A are 1.6 and we want to find set odds (assuming these stay constant during the match). 

There are three ways for player A to win, he can win by 2-0 or by 2-1 after winning set 1 and losing set 1. Let's say his odds to win a set are x, then his chance to win by 2-0 is x^2. His chance to win 2-1 after winning set 1 are x*x*(1-x)=x^2-x^3 and this is the same for winning 2-1 after losing set 1. 

We can sum these three chances and get to the total chance of 3*x^2-2*x^3 . We now have to find the value of x where this sum is equal to 1.6 and by using the solver in Excel you can fnd that x=58.75% ."

Spot on. Im not a excel master at all. It took me sometime to figure it out but if I can do it. Everyone could do it using google to search for excel help.

One thing to keep in mind is that these 1st set theoretical prices is just viable if the starting price odds was correct from the start (that the market had valued the match correctly from the start). Also, a lot of stuff happens during a set and market will adjust and correct itself a lot and there for the set price usually isn't what the calculated theoretical price is when the first set is finished.

Stay Sharp!

/Sammy

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