Trading tennis: beginners questions...

[BettingSherlock]

Seems like an appropriate ongoing subject.

Personally I make no claims as to being any good or bad trading tennis.
Suffice to say i have been doing it for several years. These days i make a profit but over the course of those years i have had my ups and downs.

I'll gladly spend some time to share some of my experiences with anyone just starting out or thinking about it and obviously anyone else is welcome to join in.

[Desrespres]

Ok Sherlock, I'll start things off. As a beginner to tennis trading, what strategy(ies) would you advise?

[The Geek]

Backing the winner is always a good one.

Then there is laying the loser, that is highly profitable too.

BTW If this is supposed to be a serious thread, tell me to sod off now as I know nothing about sport. Just couldn't resist.

[Timstertoo]

Ok Sherlock, I'll start things off. As a beginner to tennis trading, what strategy(ies) would you advise?

First of, I'm no expert in tennis trading so please don't take whatever I say as religion and start losing because of it.

What helped me in the beginning was to lay the ultra favorites. Like a Federer or Nadal @ 1.02 or 1.03 or so pregame and then watch the odds move as the game got underway.

If they'd have a bad first couple of games I could make quite some ticks and seeing as there wasn't a long way to go down I could scratch or get out cheaply easily if they dominate from the beginning.

It's a good way to get a feel for the market without seeing your liability go nuts if it goes the wrong way. Personally I'm a lot more into the market when there's money of mine in there then without.

[Timstertoo]

Backing the winner is always a good one.

Then there is laying the loser, that is highly profitable too.

BTW If this is supposed to be a serious thread, tell me to sod off now as I know nothing about sport. Just couldn't resist.

Sod off, no cheekyness in the beginnersforum.

[BettingSherlock]

Ok Sherlock, I'll start things off. As a beginner to tennis trading, what strategy(ies) would you advise?

That's an easy one, whatever you think might have potential for profit and suits your personal situation.

I am a strong believer that in order to succeed in this game long term you must be able to come up with your own strategies. There are dozens of possibilities, the trick is that YOU have to make them work for yourself.

Strategies that work for one person may not work for another. We are all individuals with a unique skillset and important in this context a unique sense for timing. Apart from that there is your available time. If you can only trade in the weekend you'll be looking mainly at semi-finals and finals. If you have the time during the week a much wider range is possible.

Tennis matches can be grouped like hot favourites, unknowns, equals, based on either tennis ability, recent results or odds or any combination. Inside each match there are any number of situations that can lead to profitable trading.

As a beginner you need to make a first choice between one of two groups:
( at least have clarity that any strategy can only fall in one or the other group )

Strategies based on actual knowledge of the game of tennis.
Here you make an assesment of a match before and during the match based on statistical data, recent results and what you see happening. You will look for "value" in offered prices and base decisions mainly on your opinion.

A possible strategy for beginners here is to see if you can find false favourites, lay that player at the start of the match, aim to hedge or a profit when his odds go up. Do not set any kind of stop-loss at first, if the favourite runs away with it then you lose the full stake, simply keep it low.

False favourites does not mean false to win the match. Those odds can be perfectly true anywhere between 1.01 and say 1.30 . All we as traders are looking for is a movement of the odds in upwards direction just long enough for us to make a profit. So all we need is a match with an opponant who can rattle the cage a little.

Strategies based on the market mechanism.
You know when a player wins a set his odds drop. The movement in the market is directly related to the event on the court. Both direction as well as size can reasonable be estimated. Strategies can be based on this alone. You don't care who's playing nor what his abilities or recent results are. All you care about is if X happens the odds will do Y.

A possible strategy here is to look for strong servers (ATP only!!!) and back them to hold serve followed by a lay once the serve is held. You are back/laying on the movement of 4 to 7 ticks. You could lookup statistics to find players but you could just as well watch the first 4 games and decide based on that alone.

Of course you can combine strategies from both groups in one match but as a strategy itself they should be distinct. The important point to note here is that you need to keep records in order to know if a strategy is profitable and therefore you need to have each strategy individually defined.

Once you got a strategy comes a testing fase. Yep, practise.
You need to pick a small stake/liability that you are comfortable with and apply the strategy a number of times, i consider about 25 times an absolute minimal. Assume each trade will lose. So 25 times the chosen liability is the price to pay to test a new strategy. Anything left, or any profit should be considered a bonus. This assumption will allow you to concentrate on the trade rather than loss or profit.

In the testing fase it's important to stop thinking. You have already defined your strategy, picked your liability, and assumed it's all lost. The purpose of the test fase is to simply get a real life record of trades. There is no substitution. Once you have done minimal 25 trades for a specific strategy then and not before do you look at the results and see if the strategy has potential.

While keeping a record note the relevant data to the strategy, odds, stake/liability, events, odds movements, possibly descisions not to trade on occasion and why. But not only items directly related to the strategy but also other aspects that may possibly come in play. I always note the opening odds of all markets, the odds at key moments like after each set, any urge i might have to deviate of my strategy and what effect that would have had.

The human mind is the worst record keeper and your enemy,
pen and paper (and a little effort) is your best friend.

Summarising:
a) find a strategy that you think might be profitable and that suits you.
b) clearly define the strategy so it is repeatable.
c) run it at least 25 times and build a record.
d) check the result, adjust and repeat.

Enough typing for one day.

P.S.
Geek sod off

[BettingSherlock]

What helped me in the beginning was to lay the ultra favorites. Like a Federer or Nadal @ 1.02 or 1.03 or so pregame and then watch the odds move as the game got underway.

If they'd have a bad first couple of games I could make quite some ticks and seeing as there wasn't a long way to go down I could scratch or get out cheaply easily if they dominate from the beginning.

Let's take this one as example.
Which of the 2 groups does it fall under ?

If you have no knowledge of the sport then it's easy, the second.
If you do then the strategy can fall within both so it's a matter of choice.


If you say the first then you are saying that the selection of matches is the primary thing from which the profit should come. If your test record shows you break even then the first thing to look at to improve is the selection of matches. The rest is secondairy.

If you say the second then you are totally dependend on getting price movements big enough so the profits outweigh the losses. On any given random bunch of matches. If your test record shows you break even then the first thing to look at to improve is your actions and timing. Find ways to reduce the losses and improve the profit. The rest is secondairy.

Knowing where your focus lies makes adjustments possible and a lot easier.

[BettingSherlock]

Here's an example of a note sheet i use:
(excel file inside the .zip)

Normally i don't do these in excel at all, just a piece of paper, a pen, draw some lines and you're done.
Thought i'd do a neat one, just for y'all.
It's just an example, modify to whatever works for you.

[Rod Flanders]

u can make a fortune in tennis, or u can lose loads

its 2nd only to cricket in my opinion

[lewismbet]

While I am fairly new to tennis trading I think one of the big things to bear in mind is that whether it is fast feeds or court-siders there will be someone faster than you to the money and this is where I think scalping can fall down alot - lots of small profit and then a big loss that wipes it out.

If you are knowledgeable about tennis try and get involved at times when the playing field is fair, when the players are taking a break between games for instance and there is no advantage to feeds. Getting involved mid rally I consider a no-win situation. If you get filled it will probably only be because the price has gone straight through, if you don't get filled the price will have moved against you and missed.

Question: I believe in Horse-racing the offset betting technique where you try and capitalise on the inherent volatility of in-play markets to get filled at two prices simultaneously or by using pace as an indicator of frontrunners who will shorten in-play. Is there a possibility of creating a system such as this for tennis. trading the 3rd or 5th set, particularly where there have been breaks, almost blindly laying the favourite and relying on huge swings to get matched.

I think there could be mileage but have nowhere the sufficient amount of data to test this - if you can good luck, if not consign this post to the wishful thinking bin.

lewis

[jibiko]

Strategies based on the market mechanism.

I like them in every sport

Once you got a strategy comes a testing fase. Yep, practise.
i consider about 25 times an absolute minimal.

I consider about 500 times an absolute minimal.

I 'll try to provide, when in the mood and learn how to attach it, a file on that.

(Your file of 134.0 KB bytes exceeds the forum's limit of 19.5 KB for this filetype). Have to find some other way, later.

[BettingSherlock]

I consider about 500 times an absolute minimal.

I know, i didn't want to scare the new traders away
In my next piece of text i intend to say "and now you need to do 75 more..." , but don't tell anyone yet

[jibiko]

The following file is kindly provided by Sagitario in adrianmassey's forum

Anticipated Losing Runs.doc

link1 link2

p.s. the link2 is kindly provided by another member of wtf? movement

[Temujin]

Out of interest, what is the typical feed delay, and how exactly do "courtsiders" go about this?
Allowed to have mobile phones in the arena? I know some sporting venues offer free wifi, while others will scramble mobile signals to prevent calls.

I wouldn't mind heading off to a game with iPhone in hand and logmein enabled. But I don't wish to go to the expense if it can't happen. Anybody point me to anywhere I can find some info on this?

[BettingSherlock]

I can only share a little experiment i did. A friend of mine attended Wimbledon last year while i watched at home on Sky. He called me on his mobile phone and just said "point" each time a point was scored. (Some secondairy match on a side court) The delay was about 2 to 3 seconds before i saw the actual point being scored. Now this was on the BBC red button. I am told they are quite slow compared to others, but i haven't actually checked any others so don't really know.

Your best indication is the speed with which the odds move compared to the images on tv. Remember courtsider or not you are still dealing with a 5 seconds delay. So if you see the odds move then the bet was initiated 5 seconds sooner. I suspect (!) if you are cpurtside and you place bets in anticipation of points being scored, like a shot that will clearly go out, you can beat any tv image. (providing whatever mobile device you use is fast enough and doesn't introduce a delay on its own)