Avoiding the frustration trap. Just.

Result since last update: £275.3

Phew. The test match has finished. A great result for England too. Subjecting the West Indies to their heaviest ever defeat of an innings and 283 runs. But bloody hell was it a nightmare to trade or what?! Not really about the cricket at all. More to do with studying for a degree in meteorology. I'll be dreaming about sodding weather charts if this weather keeps up for the third test!

Of course, rain and cricket have been uneasy bed fellows for years and will always be. And I knew the forecast when I got involved in the match. I didn't trade the game very well at all though and found myself having to be up early to catch forecasts when I'd rather have been catching up on beauty sleep. The whole match was all a little frustrating really. Missed the juicy prices before a ball was bowled by being too price sensitive and ended up just playing a patient waiting game before getting properly involved - only to then get it wrong. It says a lot that I made more on the match from arbing a prematch draw bet than I did from 5 days of trading it on and off.

That said, I made a profit. A green is a green. A seemingly disappointing one. But one nonetheless. I realised as the match progressed I wasn't going to make as big a profit as on the last test. That was easy to accept. But I allowed myself to get too frustrated at the weather situation, my own lack of pre match trading progress and my failure to take advantage of favourable early trading opportunities. Not good. And as such I'm happy with the profit. Because when frustrated it's too easy to get thrown off a proper trading equilibrium and suffer losses as a result. Avoiding this trap is a positive to take out of an otherwise fairly poor test from my perspective. Ensuring I don't get frustrated in future is something to work on.

Anyway, well done to those who caught the price swings right. There must have been some very nice books out there! Aside from the cricket I've had a quick look in on The French Open and also had a quick go at some of the Premier League darts finals night. Picked up a small profit on each of those and hope to be able to get stuck into the tennis a little more this week.