DVWooly Diary - trading horses pre race

[dvwooly]

After my annual spring/summer break from betfair I'm back for the winter to have a go at some horse racing trading. I've had some moderate success previously but always seem to bust myself letting one go in running. I'm hoping to stop this bad habit this time round.

I will be ditching the inrunning 1 & 2 tick in running bets and focussing on pre race. I will be laying then backing to hopefully get a 0.5% bank green screen per market.

I was a big fan of the graphs using quant and ninja trader to set up some weird and wonderful set ups. It takes to long and I find it isnt helpful with horses (was with the dogs). I will stick to AGT graphs and probably use 2 of them to confirm my entry point. For the position trading Profit taking Exit point will be around1 minute before off or take a loss at 10 secs before the off.

I will be starting of using my approach with 1 tick offset as I gain confidence that my initial findings work in real time when position trading.


My aim is to finish every day/week/month with no loss, my head in the clouds aim is 5% per day upto £300 as I realise some methods can't be scaled up. I do think the position trading angle can be.

I will be trading infrequently, I'm fortunate to have a good 9-5 job so will do evenings and weekends and some trading daily when I'm off in the run up to Xmas.

Hope you enjoy the ride and I'll try to answer all questions and hopefully engage in some constructive discussions about trading and making some money .... I'm also open to any suggestions or crticisms. If I go bust I'll let you know!

I loaded in £70 on Tuesday, went back to my old style, lost 130 in one in running bet!! .... Managed to survive the day and get back to £100. yesterday I was well on course with my new 1 tick approach. Bank is now £126. Will post up the bets soon when I get a chance.

[PC0845]

2 things,

great news on the daughter :Brilliant.

Give us a video for in running fun!

[dvwooly]

24/10/2012

this is me using £100 and my proper method, lost 2 hours as i had to go shopping with the wife.

Greyhound Racing: £0.14 | Horse Racing: £25.86 Total P&L: £26.00

Horse Racing Showing 1 - 19 of 19 markets
Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£)
Horse Racing / Kemp 24th Oct : 1m Hcap 24-Oct-12 21:20 24-Oct-12 21:24 2.42
Horse Racing / Kemp 24th Oct : 7f Hcap 24-Oct-12 20:50 24-Oct-12 20:56 2.33
Horse Racing / Kemp 24th Oct : 7f Class Stks 24-Oct-12 20:20 24-Oct-12 20:22 1.00
Horse Racing / Kemp 24th Oct : 1m Nursery 24-Oct-12 19:50 24-Oct-12 19:54 1.99
Horse Racing / Kemp 24th Oct : 1m Mdn Stks 24-Oct-12 19:20 24-Oct-12 19:25 2.29
Horse Racing / Kemp 24th Oct : 1m Mdn Stks 24-Oct-12 18:50 24-Oct-12 18:54 1.78
Horse Racing / Kemp 24th Oct : 6f Mdn Stks 24-Oct-12 18:20 24-Oct-12 18:23 0.53
Horse Racing / Kemp 24th Oct : 1m2f Hcap 24-Oct-12 17:50 24-Oct-12 17:54 0.39
Horse Racing / Font 24th Oct : 1m6f NHF 24-Oct-12 17:40 24-Oct-12 17:44 0.87
Horse Racing / Worc 24th Oct : 2m4f Hcap Hrd 24-Oct-12 17:30 24-Oct-12 17:35 1.26
Horse Racing / Newm 24th Oct : 1m1f Nursery 24-Oct-12 17:20 24-Oct-12 17:22 1.42
Horse Racing / Font 24th Oct : 2m4f Hcap Hrd 24-Oct-12 17:05 24-Oct-12 17:11 0.81
Horse Racing / Worc 24th Oct : 2m4f Mdn Hrd 24-Oct-12 16:55 24-Oct-12 17:00 3.32
Horse Racing / Navan 24th Oct : 1m5f Hcap 24-Oct-12 16:50 24-Oct-12 16:55 1.92
Horse Racing / Worc 24th Oct : 2m4f Mdn Hrd 24-Oct-12 16:20 24-Oct-12 16:25 1.00
Horse Racing / Font 24th Oct : 2m4f Beg Chs 24-Oct-12 14:20 24-Oct-12 14:26 1.04
Horse Racing / Worc 24th Oct : 2m4f Hcap Chs 24-Oct-12 14:10 24-Oct-12 14:16 0.48
Horse Racing / Navan 24th Oct : 1m Mdn 24-Oct-12 14:05 24-Oct-12 14:09 0.39
Horse Racing / Newm 24th Oct : 7f Mdn Stks 24-Oct-12 14:00 24-Oct-12 14:03 0.62

last 2 days

had a nightmare in runnign trade ... lost £110 on 23/10/2012
Football: £40.21 | Greyhound Racing: £10.84 | Horse Racing: £1.52 | Tennis: £9.12 Total P&L: £61.69

[PC0845]

Make it a race ?

Hey dude,

just for fun I started a bank of 100 today for trading also to try to match you.

Everything, pre race, mostly in play and even the odd soccer trade.

Mind if I post up results here with you for a while to show how fantastic I am ?

[dvwooly]

PC0845 ... i dont mind at all, the more the merrier

i have just got in from another shopping trip .... done a few races and small profit so far

will post up results later

[PC0845]

OK dude, so far today, will probably blow some of it before night is over but thats not unexpected.

[IMG] Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]

Go on me, now come on the pool!

[PC0845]

I waas right, just lost 20 on the next. Grrr

[dvwooly]

I've had a nightmare!!! Lost £50 as my wife changed Internet/ phone provider today and I was playing 2 markets and 3 horses on each ... I lost the connection and as you guessed one went in running with 30% liabilty ... 3 scaled down lays and it won. Can't do anything about it, would have been a £3 - £5 loss on that Market to go with the £15 I had made on some previous bets so I take some positives.

I start up again with £90 tomorrow ... Keep my chin up I suppose

Well done PC some large losses then wins, is that you chasing?

[PC0845]

Well done PC some large losses then wins, is that you chasing?

Nah, IR with 25 liability, sometimes it don't work, just like last race.

[dvwooly]

well done PC ........ i used to try to have the perfect day win on all markets but i think it is limiting my approach, i need to stop the 1 tick offset and maybe do 2 and keep increasing it until im 100% happy with my approach to let the winnings ride .... maybe use a trailing stop loss of 2 or 3 ticks?

im avoiding in running and sticking to pre race, if i can win say £20 per day from £100 i'd be happy, esepcially if i could scale it to £200 from £1000 .... all in a relatively risk averse manner

[PC0845]

Try 10 ticks, thats what I do, lol.

With full offset, not hedged, if you do it @ 10.0 and get matched both times, you will win about 40% of the liablility, also late on in races when the prices are swinging crazily it can be fun.

[dvwooly]

what is the difference between the tick offset hedge and non hedge?

[PC0845]

Example :

Lay horse @ 10.0 for 2 Euro with 10 tick offset not hedged. => Counter bet = Back Horse @ 15.0 for 2 Euro.

IF he doesn't win nett loss = 0, if he does win profit = 15.0 - 10.0 * 2 Euro = 10 Euro (gross excluding commission).

I try to do it on a ladder with the first 4/5 favs, but do not do it at the start , wait until the prices oscillating and do not do it for 4/5 runers at the same time as you need to be Raymond Babbitt to keep track of it.



I also do it on runners later in the race when the price swings are massive for example I reduce the liability (typically €5) and might lay @1.4 only to be matched again after the delay at 3.0 only for them to go on to win, this happens a lot more often than you might think.

If I hedged the profits are spread across multiple runners (in the 10 and 15 case above I think it would be about €1 less commission regardless of winner, but I prefer bigger wins (and as you saw earlier - bigger losses are inevitable , but if you win more than you lose that's great).

It aint rocket science and I'm getting better at spotting signs that a price is about to move back up in running and more importantly what prices the bounces tend to occur at due to resistance points from other traders.

Long distance races are easier and there is no harm in redding out for a small loss if the bounce doesn't occur.

When you see a loss of €25 it usually means I got stupid or greedy and traded too close to the race end, even though the timer clearly indicates it.

Just watch the massive swings in running at the end of a race and think of the possibilities. It works for me as it feeds the gambler in me even though over time if I hedged the results should be the same just more frequent smaller amounts.

One massive problem I did have was the converse of this in that I used to back first and then lay, it cost me a fortune over time because if you get it wrong for 4 runners (can easily happen) @ 25 Euro each well then that's me ****ed and bank blown, regardless of how many runners I lay for a liability of €25 , I can still only lose €25.

I know the seasoned pros will laugh at this ramshackle approach but it satisfies me for me time being, it's actually quite fun.

Another point of note, as the minimum Betfair stake is €2 it is quite important to limit your lay price to a multiple of €2. The reason is that the IR delay is massive if your stake is less than €2. That's why 10.0 and €25 liability are OK for me. In fact with €25 liability any price up to 13.0 will not result in the extended IR delay as the stake is still over €2. Being a genius I deduced this method when trying to figure out what the geek was doing from reading the tin pot trader thread and checking the results of the few races where he showed p&l's. It probably bears no resemblance to his methods but I stumbled across something that meets my needs.

Why not hedge ? I have more fun this way and it keeps my mind occupied during the long races, in my case this is really necessary to postpone brain farts.

The other thing is, I am also much too lazy to look for back to lay opportunities and purely rely on the ladder movements in running to trigger a bet.

It reminds me of the classic video game that was controlled by a ball, whereby you had to blow up missiles as the approached the surface of the planet you defended. Frantic, engaging, not very scientific but I enjoy it, so I apologise to the purists but who says it has to be boring ?

Yippee, just found a version of it you can play on line now

click here to play missile strike

Sweet Jesus, you only asked a simple question and got flooded by a tsunami of drivel, betcha wont do it again, now I'm gonna roll one of those ciggies that doubleback smokes.

[Jimmymac]

[QUOTE=dvwooly;92989]what is the difference between the tick offset hedge and non hedge?[/QUOTE
Hi DV and PC. I was wondering how you are coping with the tick offset problem as you both seem to be using it from what I have read.

[shadowninja]

I've been trading over-reactions IR, too, and providing I don't leave it too late (discovered that the other day), it's not a bad way to profit.