Ongoing "Trader of the week" results - Week 2 (week ending12/07/09)

[munk]

Please post all entries for this week's trader of the week prize in this thread. Entries for the week ending Sunday 12/07/09 must be posted here no later than Tuesday 14/07/09. The winner will be announced on Wednesday 15/07/09.

NOTE - all prize winning entries must be for trades placed entirely on your Betfair Trading account and must be in the spirit of the challenge.

Current highest profit and loss for a single market in the week ending Sunday 12/07/09:

1. joeyboyuk - £62 (08/07) (edit: not sure now?)
2. munk - £22.32 (12/07)
3. wndllll: £23.20 (12/07)

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Official Week 2 Results
Congratulations to joeyboyuk who won this week with his live trading on the first ashes test match. He'd not greened up fully but if he had he would still ahve made around £30 hedged profit which beat everyone else this week. Joe gets the one month BetTrader sub.

Close behind were myself and wndllll, wndllll got the handsome TGT mug which by now has probably seen much use!

[joeyboyuk]

Greened up for £64.70 profit no matter what the result in the first day of the test match today! The odd's on Australia were absolutely ridiculous at times. They were at 7.0 on a number of occasions for no seemingly logical reason! It seemed so wrong that I had quite a large piece of it on my regular betfair account too and made a fair bit there the second time they were @ 7.0 (while freddie and prior were in)

Looking forward to the next few days! Hopefully it wasnt just beginners luck!

edit: just checked and i made 41 bets during the day! I dont think i'll be able to keep that up haha

[Procrastinator]

Nice one Joeyboy!!! What a result! I missed the days play and when I saw they had been out for 7's and 8's I was gutted I missed it!

[munk]

Greened up for £64.70 profit no matter what the result in the first day of the test match today! The odd's on Australia were absolutely ridiculous at times. They were at 7.0 on a number of occasions for no seemingly logical reason! It seemed so wrong that I had quite a large piece of it on my regular betfair account too and made a fair bit there the second time they were @ 7.0 (while freddie and prior were in)

Looking forward to the next few days! Hopefully it wasnt just beginners luck!

edit: just checked and i made 41 bets during the day! I dont think i'll be able to keep that up haha

That's fantastic joey - if you can keep a 'mini diary' of your trades for when you submit it for the trade of the week this sunday that would be brilliant. Not much more than you've got above really (in fact you can submit it right now if you want... mmm although maybe you should wait in case you get tempted to trade some more on that market).

I got some high prices on Aus but only up to 5s, and I was only doing £2 trades anyway. I have never really used Cricket before so im still getting a feel for what happens RE the rate of change of each team vs a Draw to certain "events", it looks like it could be OK, but I still prefer the instant hit/buzz of a quick tennis trade of a tie break.

Have a go on the aussie to win market, like joey says it's been total nuts today, if anything a lot more intense than tennis - whenever an england wicket's went down today the aussie price dropped a good half a point at least. Then if they didn't take a wicket for more than a few overs the price would go up and up and up... unbelievable.

Having said this though I can appreciate it's not as quick as tennis... I've just had it on the radio in the background (bbc 5live) whilst I was doing other stuff and keeping half an eye on the market.

I've not traded cricket before, I'm wondering if it's always like this on the cricket in running? Anyone know if this is normal to have these kind of swings?

[joeyboyuk]

Is there any easy way to post them? I cant get anything making sense with a copy/ paste, can do multiple screenshots but just wondering if there is an easier way!

[joeyboyuk]

here are screenies from yesterday. i've got to be out from midday today so cant get involved again today

[munk]

Well, that was one of the most nerve wracking trading sessions I've had so far - England just managed to snatch a draw from Australia, kudos to the two tailenders Panesar and Anderson who held out for a very long 8 overs ( more ?) to take Eng to the draw. Don't think I've ever been so excited about a draw before

On my trading account I went 'all in' with £50 stakes on this match. I started out on the first day backing Aus@50@3.45 and made a nice easy few ticks by laying £50@3.1, so far so good.

Unfortunately the next trade went wrong slightly - I backed Aus again at 2.78 at a time when it looked like they were going to bowl England over no problem at all. That didn't happen and it swung from being Australia's morning to being England's afternoon/evening, no small thanks to the England tail who stood firm and took the Aus price out to 8! I wish I'd got out quicker on this one and as always it comes down to being able to accept a loss - as usual I thought 'aus will come back soon' and they never did in the end...

Finally the price came back a bit and I managed to lay @3.45, loss of maybe £20 or so at that point if Aus won. I kind of left this as it was because I thought it would go to a draw pretty much 99% because of rain... though the rain held off more than I thought it would.

So... last day I figured I'd have another crack at it after Ponting declared on 650+ leaving england a pretty high total of 200 ish to chase. Aus looked like a value bet at 2.06 at that point, they'd already taken a few quick wickets and had a full 90 overs to kick england to touch.

By and large Aus did follow the 'plan' and a few quick wickets came and each time I managed to lay for a profit and then re-back again as the price rose a little, then lay again to make profit again etc...

As it happened in the end England actually did grab a draw, somewhere along the line though I managed to get out laying at just 1.33, so a nice hedged profit all in all of £22.32 (after commission).

PS - just a reminder, can everyone please get their results for the week ending today (week ending Sunday 12/07) by midnight on Tuesday at latest. Winners will be announced on Wednesday 15/07.

EDIT: p&l screenshots below:

First is with odds averaged:


Second is showing all trades:

[frankbutcher]

Ashes 1st test day one

Current position:

England 0
Australia +18.05
Draw +3.99

I began trading the draw before the off as the price was too low in my opinion. Layed at 2.5 for £30 then queued for a back at 2.7 as I felt pretty sure that an early wicket would fall and that would get matched. For some reason I only backed £20 and found that out just now, so backed an extra £10 at 2.68.

Came home from work to see KP and Colly rebuilding and was amazed to see the Aus price drifting fairly rapidly. Backed £10 at 4.4, which turned out to be a mistake as nothing much was happening for the aussie bowlers and their price continued to drift. Backed another £10 at 6.0 and waited for a wicket. Layed £10 at 5.0 when Colly went and then got 3.5 after KP went, so was pleased with that.

Final result:

England £0
Australia +£55.19
Draw +£7.03

Well, who'd have thought it, the England tail doggedly deny me my greatest trading moment.

I was able to build my potential profit on Australia as their price was consistently too high. I didn't trade much after day one, other than to strengthen my position on the draw as the Aussies piled on the runs, I scalped it 2 ticks at a time using up to £50 stakes.

Last night, I checked the Aussie price on my ipod before I went to sleep and saw them at just over evens which was bonkers given the 2 wickets they had taken, a weather forecast set fair and England's predilection to batting collapses when put under pressure. By the start of play they had fallen somewhat and I traded out for about 10 ticks profit.

Lunch break they drifted again and so backed and layed after a wicket, same again while Collingwood and Swann were batting.

I'm intrigued by why the Australian price was consistently so high, I guess the market got it right in the end but it should have been very different had Ponting not decided part-time spin was the way he was going to get them out in the last half hour.

I left the money on Aus; a) because I really thought they would win and b) because it would have softened the blow of England losing.

Looking back I'm glad Aus didn't win as I think there could be some more out of line odds in the second test and that starts on Thursday and I can't wait, really enjoyed trading this game. Also glad I'm not able to overtrade due to my work/childcare responsibilities. Off now to look at the odds for the second test, I'll be backing Australia from the outset given the right price.

[joeyboyuk]

I've completely messed up the trading. I was £67 up after 3.5 days, but at the end of the Aus innings yesterday , I put my entire balance and profits on the game being a draw @ various odds from 1.72 - 1.77. I thought this was good value until england lost 2 early wickets! I left the bet going til the final days play in the morning, and was hoping to lay off when the odds came back down under 2.0. Unfortunately when KP got out, the odds never got below about 3 at best for the rest of the mornings play.

This is where it all went a bit wrong..... I was betting in play and also doing some horses in the afternoon so was trading on my regular betfair account while I watched the cricket in the afternoon. I must have got a bit too involved with it all, especially during the last session, because I completely forgot about my tgtTrading account!! This has meant that the bet on the draw was just left to ride, and although that means i've got a nice balance there now, none of the profits from today have been down to trading in the slightest!

Not sure what to do from here, shall I withdraw all of the profit from these untraded bets. I dont want to be in line for any of the prizes or anything like that, but i'm prob gonna carry on with the specialised trading account, especially with another test match and the Open starting next week

[frankbutcher]

I had a trade on the gee-gees where the lay wasn't matched and I went out. The horse won, made about £20 profit and I just withdrew it straight away (along with the £55 bonus betfair mysteriously gave me for opening the account)