Thursday, August 31, 2006

How to waste a few hours trading

Daily Result: £0.88

I'm not going to say much about this except I'm actually more annoyed about it that recent heavier losses.

I had a few spare hours before going out for the evening so decided to trade the Leicestershire v Somerset Pro40 match. Despite believing Leicestershire would win I knew I wouldn't be able to see the end of the game so kept my green pretty level throughout.

Leicestershire batted first and, though they only made 173, the wicket was tricky and it was never going to be easy for Somerset. And so it proved as they started losing early wickets.

By then I was around £100 green the pair and, with about 10 mins to go before going out, decided to have one more back of Leicestershire intending exposure for a few seconds to make a few extra pounds to leave me over £100 green either result after commission. Derbyshire immediately hit a boundary so I waited for the price to settle. And suddenly my back of 1.2x was looking disasterous. Because as Derbyshire scored a few more runs the price was drifting crazily out to 1.5ish. One more wicket and the match was effectively over so I waited. But eventually just had to go out and traded out for a tiny green.

What was so annoying was people were openly laughing at the price on the Betfair cricket forum saying it must have started raining in the US Open and the tennis boys had arrived, looked at the game, not understood the pitch conditions and started laying Leicestershire, pushing them out to a crazy price because the required run rate was not high. And muggins here was the one who eventually had to lay at those stupid prices so I could go and meet a friend!!

I've no idea how the match panned out in the end except that Leicestershire won. I suspect their price didn't get much bigger than the 1.5x I had to lay it at though!

Anyway, whether it be down to greed and plain misfortune with the match circumstances the whole thing was a most annoying waste of a few hours! Luckily a few more than a few beers helped me chill and I rolled in around 2am. Got to love these new licensing laws!!

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