England win ODI series in Sri Lanka

Daily Result: £1836.91

So I said in my last entry that after a few matches of not being happy with my trading I was going to go back to basics. Well that's exactly what I did today. Result? A massive improvement in both my trading and profit. As well as a new determination to up my concentration levels during games and be more focussed on key decision points. I feel I've been in drift mode a little recently. Not exactly expecting the good results to come in. But rather trying too hard to make them arrive without the necessary hard work. Primarily by pushing my positions too hard too early to arrive at a seemingly good, but unbalanced, position before really thinking a situation through and doing it because the circumstances warranted it.

Today I changed all that. Sure, one improved result is hardly proof of anything. But importantly I feel better about it. In today's 4th ODI between Sri Lanka and England I thought through properly each larger position I took. I had reasons I could happily justify each one for. A belief I was correct. Or at least had a value proposition on my hands. I levelled out positions, winners or losers, several times. Let them run when there was good reason to and got the lumpier trades out at the right times. I don't know. I just felt more in control again. More focussed. And more confident. And all as a result of just deciding to think over what I consider the basics, remind myself why I consider them so important and making a conscious effort to stick the them. Think I'll do it again! :-)

The match itself turned into a pretty one sided affair with England winning by five wickets to claim their first ODI series win against a major sub continent cricketing nation, in the sub continent, for over 20 years. Awesome stuff from England really. And credit where it's due. The one day game is improving. So let's at least enjoy that even if the test form seems to be going the other way.

In today's game Sri lanka won the toss, elected to bat - and that was the high point really as it went downhill from there. By the time they were 20/3 in the 11th over it was always going to be hard for them to get the win. Incredibly they managed to turn it around and posted a total of 211. Something the market decided made them 1.8x favourites. Lots of factors to take into account but the price was too short for many, including me, and with a good start to the England reply it never went lower.

I had my book firmly in England's favour at the change of innings and that proved a good stepping stone to build the eventual profit on. Of course I made some mistakes but on the whole things went my way and the brief rain interruption provided a good opportunity for some weather trading to add to the green. At one stage I was tempted to lump a little more on England to take the win after commission to over £2k but resisted for the simple reason it would have made my book too unbalanced. The England price was too short. Instead I kept the red and green in a comfortable proportion to each other and felt good I'd made the right decision. I remember making the mistake of chasing arbitrary targets like that shortly before the wedding and when the market moved against me it cost a lot more than it should have.

Spent the earlier part of the morning doing the 3rd day of the 2nd test between Pakistan and South Africa. Going ok. Had a great start with the fall of the remaining Pakistani wickets which blew the draw price out but just two South African wickets and a pretty moribund run rate has seen it contract again. I've got out of some of my draw lays and now have a small 4 figure green the results and a moderate 3 figure red the draw with the draw price around 3.5. So I could get out for a healthy all green position but will leave it for now. See what happens first thing in the morning before making a final decision on what to do. Either way I'll keep the Pakistan green though realistically they can be discounted without something very special. So it's down to the draw and South Africa. Or, to be more precise, if we carry on like today, at what stage Smith decides to declare. I'm not expecting an aggressive declaration for obvious reasons that I've mentioned on the Betfair cricket forum. Of course, I'd also prefer that a declaration wasn't an issue because the Saffers are all bowled out! Should make an interesting phase of the match for the markets as the issue gets resolved tomorrow anyway.

Right, that's it for now. Happy but knackered. These early starts are not good for sleep enthusiasts like myself. And tomorrow's 4.30am one between India and Australia looks positively frightening!