Chaos at Folkstone

Not sure I have seen a race like this for some time. Two jockeys chucked before the start on the way to post. Horses run to post. Another horse chucks a jockey at the start. All the horses load when one plays up and gets stuck under the gate. All horses come out and are reloaded, another horse fails to run!

5 out 10 horses played up of which two were withdrawn, not sure I have ever seen that before!

Champions league - Past performance

When you read a financial sales letter or advertisment, they always put that little caveat in that "past performance is not an indicator of future performance", how apt in the current environment!!! You may be interested to know this often afflicts the betting market also.

It seems to be a classic case of placing too much reliance on past activity. What you often tend to find is that if something unusual has happened recently people think it has a higher chance of happening again. It's like watching people playing roulette and upping their stake, just because red has come in six times in a row.

For a more recent example look at tonights champions league. Based upon the free scoring quarter finals you may find that tonights market gets mis-priced at the higher end of the market, i.e. it makes sense to lay and vice versa. I'm tempted to put this into use tonight on the correct score market. It may not work tonight but I am pretty sure that over the long term I will end ahead as that's always been the case.

You may want to try using the ducthing to a profit target option to take advantage of the many opportunities and potential strategies in play on the correct score market. I've embedded a video of this function. This is where I will be lurking tonight.

Long term trading using trailing stops

Further to my last post on the blog if you are looking to catch longer, bigger market moves, then this is a useful set up to do exactly that. The great thing about this type of trade is you don't need to actively manage it much. This means you can do this on multiple markets all at the same time and Bet Angel Guardian will look after this for you while you get on with your normal trading. Give it a try on small stakes to try it out.

Un-shifting sands?

I spend hours watching the markets, even if I am not in them. People often ask me how they have changed.

Over the nine years I have been in the markets, they have changed a lot. Curiously though, markets are not that different from the recent past, though I guess they are more competititve than a few years ago. We noticed a shift in 2005 when we launched Bet Angel, I'm not going to accept credit for that though. It just seemed at that point the trading market matured, It left a number of 'old style' traders in its wake. That's why we watch the market, we are keen to understand it's current shape.

In terms of how the market reacts and moves, you will be interested to know that the current market still acts in pretty much the same way it has done for a few years. What we are looking for is a seismic shift in the market. In recent times all we have seen is the odd tremor, but like a San Fransican sitting in the Bay Area, we haven't had a 1906 yet. Thanks to this constant market watching over the years, I have learnt a great deal about what a day has in store, how it's likely to react and what the key markets are etc. etc.

One thing that has taken longer to get used to is seasonality, I am confident that this year we may have finally sussed the longer cycles in the market and their impact. It's made me more relaxed on the year as a whole. As we head through April and into May, things will start to get very busy.

Currently you will see some big moves in the market on quite a regular basis, a few years ago I wasn't sure why, but now I know to expect them and when. While not every body enjoys this type of volatility its throws up big opportunities and if you are alert to them, there are some big moves to catch out there at this time of year.

A classic case for lay the draw?

Both champions league matches tonight are interesting from the viewpoint that somebody HAS to score. Liverpool have a mountain to climb after their comprehensive defeat at home and they must score to have any chance. They have nothing to lose. Much depends on whether Chelsea kill the game off or simply pack men behind the ball. I'm not sure what Hiddinks instructions will be? It's quite possible they will just try to frustrate Liverpool and then catch them on the break when Liverpool push too far forward. Given history, this doesn't look like a good plan as one early goal could really fire Liverpool up. I suspect though that Chelsea will not be adventerous for the same reason.

The market is priced for 2.58 goals and a slight advantage to Chelsea, but only slight.

Bayern Munich however need a bigger miracle and playing at home must surely score at least once! I suspect this will be all out Bayern attack as it doesn't really matter if they can't score. Barca will surely just sit back and try and nick a goal if they can and kill the tie. Whatever happens, Bayern will be desperate to make amends for some poor performances and will almost certainly do anything to get a goal or two. Of the two matches this is the one most likely to see a goal and the market has priced in at least three. You can't have half a goal each so this looks like a good candidate for a lay the draw and trade out type position. There you go, I've cursed it now!

Make sure you use Soccer Mystic to work out your risk and profit scenarios for these games.

Mixed up Monday

Ah, it's that time of the year again when you are faced with the inpenetrable bank holiday markets. About a billion low quality races all going off at the same time! Often there is so much clashing and problems that next to nothing can be easily traded and if you can, you may not actually see the start itself. A risk in itself.

This particular Monday has never been a favourite of mine and two years ago I pulled in my second worst result ever on this day. As a consequence don't feel you are missing much by skipping today!

Still without full use of my hand I have little option but to be home today, so I may have a go at some very carefully selected races, but I doubt I'll all guns blazing today. Maybe you will get on with the markets today, but I know I traditionally haven't.

The busy summer is almost on us, have a rest and enjoy some time off.

Good from bad

As I've mentioned before, having a positive outlook on things is always beneficial. When I was young, I used to think this was a motivational trick, but after a few years it began to dawn on me that always having a positive outlook was a useful trick. You tend to find in life that unexpected things happen for good and bad quite often. If you aren't ready for the upside you will often miss it. Friday and Saturday was a classic example!

While I'm lucky in some things, I'm not in others. With a day off yesterday I took the children swimming. Near the end of the session I decided to nip into the sauna. After I had warmed up, I stood up and...................... the next thing I knew I was flat on my back half in the sauna and half out the sauna. I'm still not sure what happened, but after laying in stunned silence for a short period of time one thing I did realise was that several things hurt. During my journey out of the sauna, I had successfully slammed my back on one of the benches, causing extensive bruising, ripped off a toe nail and had put out my hand to halt my fall. This successfully bent my fingers back and caused me to tear most of the supporting muscles in my hand. While my back is intact, my right hand is a write-off for the moment, as well as being double its normal size. So that's the bad, where is the good?

Last night I really could not get comfortable in bed and spent most of the night trying not to aggravate my wounds. I did manage to get some sleep but by 5 AM I was fed up trying to get comfortable and decided to come downstairs. I switched on my PC and thought I would have a nose out what's going on in Australia. Before long I was busy trading, having changed my mouse right-handed to left-handed, and actually really enjoyed it. By the time the rest of the family had woken up I had already got through a very successful trading session. Had it not been for my accident I probably never would have bothered getting up in the early hours to try the Australian racing. As it is, as long as I don't mess up this afternoon I should have a bumper day. Next week I'll try and avoid the pain in the first place and just go for the gain instead!

Masters first day

As expected Tiger drifted a bit before finishing strongly. I say a bit, at level stakes he moved 200% and now he is at much shorter prices. A good opportunity to green out, he looks in good form.

If you had dutched the 'favourites', all under 50's including Tiger in this case. You would have LOST 11% of your stake value at the close of day one. In contrast if you had backed those ranging from 100-500 you would have GAINED 13%. I'm a healthy all green at close of play on day one so now contemplating if I play again before the cut.

Biggest postive mover on the day, Tiger, IP moved 6%, biggest negative Mickleson, IP moved -7%.

Master the masters

While golf isn't a main sport for me I do like to have a play around at some of the bigger tournaments. Here are a couple of hints for you.

It's almost impossible for the favourite NOT to drift at some point during the tournament. So laying the favourite is a good strategy. Tiger woods always makes me nervous, but when you look at the game of golf you would need the favourite to have a perfect round and no dropped shots and no contenders for the price to only come in. As anybody who plays golf knows, that's virtually impossible. A good round can be destroyed At 4's Woods is more or less the same sort of price he has been in previous circumstances but you have to wonder how he will perform in his first major since his knee problems. Ever the professional, you wouldn't bet on Woods having a mare. But taking an impassionate view it would be a fairy tale for him to blitz the field over four days.

Luck can play a big part in majors and one interesting aspect of stroke play golf is the cut. After two days you will lose a big chunk of the field when and how this happens can create opportunity if you back or lay the field. You often get complete outsiders coming in on the crest of a wave and this allows you to catch a big price and lay off at much smaller values. I often back 25% of the field at larger prices and hope that a big outsider has a good run at some point. If this comes early I will trade out, but often the cut will increase the chances of a profit. Even if you use tiny amounts of money backing something in the hundreds and trading off at lower prices can produce excellent results.

Suspended in dis-belief

Despite my nervousness, as expressed in a previous post, I actually did pretty well last Saturday, in fact it wasn't the delays on Betfair that caught me out in the end however. It was the late suspension of the 15:05! I already had an open lay bet in the market and closed the position as expected before the off. In fact I had several positions that I closed together.

When the market failed to appear in play I took screen shots and data from the race, knowing what was likely to happen next. Betfair decided to resettle the market.

The big issue I have when Betfair do this, is that it seems to be completely arbitrary. I know they throw the terms at you and quote 'offical off time' but I am just not sure where the 'official' off time comes from or how it is calculated. I know for an absoluete fact that all my positions where equal at the time the race actually started as I closed all positions together. I saw the start, even if Betfair didn't!! However, when the market was re-settled some of those positions were settled as though some were open and some closed. Impossible when you consider that they all closed at exactly the same time. I have plenty of evidence to prove this simple fact.

You could be forgiven for thinking this rant is because I lost some money, but on this occasion I actually gained as a result of the error on Betfair, but it still annoys me something rotten. What I want are clearly defined rules, not arbitary ones, especially when incorrect in my eyes. I know when I placed the bets and when the market should have gone in play and I was out by that point. According to official off I wasn't. It could have been very nasty if it had gone the other way.

Fortunately on this occassion it didn't and I got a small bonus. But it worries me that there doesn't seem to be any way to ensure this is a fair settlement. That's concerning for everybody, what ever you do on the exchanges and however you do it.

Champions league ratings

This is what the markets thinks of this evenings matches. Always remember such is the variability of football that these represent average figures. It's always going to be a numbers game: -

Villareal vs Arsenal & Man Utd vs Porto

Despite Wengers "we are the underdogs" cry. The market doesn't think so pricing Arsenal for the win. The market 'thinks' there will be on average 2.24 goals in the Arsenal game and 2.60 in the Man Utd game. Man U are clear favourites.

Typically the objective of the first leg is to either try to sneak and away goal or shut out the strong attack. I think both tactics suit each game respectively. Porto will try and hold out with the hope of a result on their home turf and Arsenal will be looking to not do anything silly.

Over and Unders

Arsenal should be priced at 1.60 and they are! No value there unfortunately. Man U should be priced at 1.90 so the price is slightly short.

Similar matches - Arsenal

19/10/2008 - PAOK vs Pana - 0-0

10/4/2007 - Valencia vs Chelsea 1-2

20/2/2007 - PSV vs Arsenal 1-0

25/11/2008 - Villarreal vs Man U 0-0

There were around 30 matches that had similar characteristics and on average the score was 0.94 to 1.12. Low scoring affairs.

Similar matches - Man U

31/1/2009 - Man U vs Everton 1-0

23/2/2008 - Liverpool vs Middles 3-2

5/3/2008 - Liverpool vs W Ham 4-0

1/3/2009 - Villa vs Stoke 2-2

Quite a few to pick from but very few that could directly translate. Tended to be higher scoring affairs with an average of 1.9 goals to 0.65. Quite likely to be a home win!

Those nightmare moments!

Every now and again you get these odd nightmare moments that you don't wish on anybody. Last weekend my main connection froze for a short period, but it wasn't a problem as I always have a back up running. On this occasion though , the lock up occured right at the point just before the off and I was caught cold. By the time I had turned to my back up connection , only seconds later, I'd dropped £120 or so.

These are often defining moments. No matter how much luck was against me and the potential loss I had, I just took the hit. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make at moments like this, is hoping the position comes back to a better resolution. When it doesn't, you will get hit hard. Trading is essentially a numbers gain, making fewer losses than profits, so failing to manage that will mean you are unlikely to make money longer term. If a trade turns to an outright gamble you will fail longer term, it's just inevitable. Not having defined entry and exit points and a positive expectancy for your trading will ruin you longer term, as will chasing losses. It's important to draw a firm line between the two.

Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about these things, they happen and should be part of your broader mix. Over time these 'exceptional' events tend to even out and that should give you comfort. But they only tend to even out over much longer periods. If you are reckless you may not get the chance to see the other side of the coin.

On this occasion the loss was pretty easy to overcome so it wasn't a major problem, but if I had let this one go, my big liability would have come in and I would be nursing a much bigger loss. As we move away from the jumps season, a clean exit become increasingly more important. Never lose focus on that.

Fair wind

It's the big day tomorrow and I was looking for a good day and got one! I couldn't seem to put a foot wrong today, well almost. I had a cock up on an early race that cost £30. Other than that it seems a fair wind blew through the markets today. I only had two losses out of 31 races, the other loss being £2 at Wolverhampton when I was on the phone to my sister!

Not the best result, but the most obvious, of the day was on the 15:10. 'Voy Por Ustedes' gave some nice moves in the market as he went late to post. I meant to grab a screen shot of the chart before the off but forgot. However you can still see the swing in there, but more interestingly, you can see how the in running players played. You can see a definate floor and ceiling to the price in running, which is really interesting. It really shows up in the graph.

With the win in my sails I did some more trading in the evening and ended up with a nice bonus on the last at Dundalk £90 green across the card. Considering the lack of quality and volume a nice result. Just shows you that there is opportunity anywhere if you look hard enough.

Single click profit

As the one click stop video went down so well I thought I should also highlight the trade calculators we have had in Bet Angel for some time. You can fire up the trade calculators from any screen, as they are available at the top of Bet Angel. One is also built into the enchanced ladder interface.

The concept behind the trade calculator is to allow you to focus your attention on achieving the best exit from a market. As your position, hopefully, matures to a profit; you can focus on all the various indicators you wish to use.

Just one click on the trade calculator will get Bet Angel to put your closing order in. No need to move, drag or drop things. This saves you vital seconds on the exit and also allows you to focus on the numbers or charts in front of you rather than trying to work out where you should be clicking. I use it all the time as I found it helps my ability to spot the correct exit point thanks to not having to worry about the actual exit itself.

Aintree Antics

We just put the biggest jumps meeting behind us with the passing of Cheltenham, but Aintree still ranks up there when it comes to big race meetings. Most people know Aintree for the Grand National, I'm not taking bets on how many people ask me for a tip this week, but during the three day meeting there is plenty to get stuck into. It's usually a good start to April before we enter the flat season proper. Here's hoping for a good meeting!

Going down, out or both?

This is all about a soccer trade. For some time I have been watching the odds on Southampton being relegated from the Championship. Southampton have been in a precarious financial position for some time and I fully expected them to fall foul of the league rule that says you will be deducted 10 points if your club goes into administration (goes out of business).

Today Southampton went into administration which should have meant almost certain relegation as I predicted months ago. However there is some confusion about whether the points deduction will take place as it seems the holding company has been put into administration but not the club itself?

They are still 1.40 odd to back for relegation but I can't tell you any longer if that's value. You can read some of the discussion around the points deduction here. There still may be an opportunity to hand.

Bet Angel to sponsor the Grand National

Read the full press release here.