Daily result: £305.2
Ok. So England's ODI record in Sri Lanka isn't exactly great. Admittedly it's a small sample size but they've only ever won one - and lost by ten wickets after being bowled out for 88 last time they played at Dambulla, the venue of today's match.
Couple that with Lanka being big jolly's for the game and maybe there weren't great hopes for an England win today. Sure, there were glimmers of light in the series win over India - but that just makes the manner of today's defeat all the more galling. England were routed. Bowled out in 35 overs handing Sri Lanka a massive 119 run victory. And that was a Sri Lanka without Murali! Not that he'd have been able to fit in his 10 overs if he'd come on after the third power play as is his preference.
Lanka won the toss and batted. Big toss to win to be fair. Conditions weren't great for batting and weren't going to get easier under lights. They put together a measured innings though making steady progress to their total of 269.. As I mentioned on the Betfair cricket forum that total was challenging. Again it's a small sample size but just 13 runs short of the highest ever 1st innings score, and 33 more than the highest ever run chase. Chuck in a pretty decent ODI bowling attack, lights and slowish wicket and it wasn't an easy ask.
After all the thrills of Twenty20 it seems many are having trouble reverting back to the 50 over game. Sri lanka's score was a good one in difficult conditions but with an initial required run rate of just 5.4 it seems many fell into the trap of believing it would be a cake walk. It was. But for Sri Lanka. Especially when Maharoof got going with figures of 10 overs, 2 maidens and four wickets for just 31 runs. Impressive stuff.
Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing and my trading today would have benefitted from it. I screwed up along the way so am more than happy to settle with the £300 or so profit. My initial position was a sizeable lay of Lanka. Good start and I could have had 15-20 ticks profit. But I hung on. Just thought a wicket was coming. But somehow Tharanga and Jayasuriya survived, upped the run rate and within two overs my paper profit had gone. I watched the price drop and layed again. Smaller this time. Not really an averaging down move. More I just felt the price was far too low. Anyway, it all got a little messy and I ended up switching to Lanka at a low price before the end of their innings in the belief they had more than enough.
Which made the strong start to the England innings a bit of a raised blood pressure moment. I ended up dumping my Lanka green, going all red and then watching as they slowly put the squeeze on. I got back on them a little before Kevin Pietersen was out, and more after. Ended up riding them down to 1.01 as England collapsed and greened out a substantial England red and left the match. I was hoping for some rearguard England action to push the Lankan price out. It did start but I think the price peaked at around 1.05 and I just left it.
So, I didn't quite trade the game as badly as England played it but we were in the same ballpark. Bit lucky to get away with a profit, at least of the size I did, but also pleased I didn't panic when the going got tough.
As for the Pakistan v South Africat test. Well ARY Digital finally started showing it after lunch. I've layed the draw. In an all red position at the moment if I level out but holding for the time being. Hoping the pitch deteriorates fast. Will have to keep a closer eye on it tomorrow though will be concentrating on the 2nd ODI between India and Australia to start with. It's a shocker of a get up time so here's hoping for some better weather than last time out.
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Hmm. Betfair is showing yesterday's £861.45 on the Denver at Indianapolis match as today's profit now. Yesterday I thought it showed it as yesterday's but now realise it's a GMT / BST issue with the game finishing after 11pm last night hence the confusion. I'll leave the profit in last month's figures now. Just means this month's will be down the same amount.
3 comments:
Hi
I've posted a few times with questions and thanks for taking the time to answer them. Another question this time :)
Regarding having an all red screen in the Eng SL game and then changing sides with SL at a short price ~1.30 and backing them down is that considered as chasing?
Was your initial red only a fraction of what you are prepared to lose in any one event so that you still had funds with which to back SL. I suppose i'm asking that when you open up with a trade do you do so for the full amount in your trading bank or does it depend upon how strongly you feel about the value of that particular trade? I hope I haven't come across as rude with that question.
Hopefully i've made sense and hopefully you can answer my questions, cheers :)
Anonymous> There's some big questions there. I'll try and give some answers now but have decided to also address some aspects of them in separate future blogs. Hope the following answers some of your questions. From the start I should probably say I don't know if my answers are "right". Just what I think. And also bear in mind I traded this game badly. It wasn't pretty stuff. I'm always happy to hear the views of others.
Chasing? I can see how you can argue that. In this case I would say no. Why? It's all to do with the bigger picture. The amount I'm willing to lose on an event. When I started out I discussed this here. After I'd made around 14 times my starting bank I increased the amount I was willing to lose for a trial period during the Cricket World Cup and then made this permanent. After looking through some old stats I have increased this again recently. Should probably do a blog entry on my current bankroll management strategy.
Anyway, it's important to bear this background information - the amount I'm willing to lose on an event - in mind through the following. An example: If I'm willing to lose £100 and go all red to the tune of £10 does that mean I should quit because by continuing I'm chasing losses? Or can I say to myself a £10 loss is acceptable, is to be expected from time to time, it's business as usual, and then carry on in the belief I can turn my all red all green? For me this situation is different from being willing to lose £100, being £100 all red and deciding to continue. I'm more inclined to call that chasing. For me the first scenario is acceptable. I do it all the time and don't have a problem with it. That said I often quite before I hit my max losses simply because I don't like the situations. eg, the markets are just too volatile.
Looking at today: I never actually went all red during the Sri Lankan innings. Although if I had levelled out I would have been I actually simply switched sides in the belief the score they were compiling was a winning one. However, if I go into a little more detail about what I actually did than what I mentioned in the original post, it was at that point that I made my worst mistake of the day. Not because I switched. But because I switched for too large a position on Sri Lanka. I overdid it. My aim was to catch some of the falling price momentum, nick a couple of ticks and bail out a hefty chunk of that trade to leave me in a better situation. Of course, not long after I switched a wicket fell and it was at that point that I was in serious trouble regarding my max loss as the Lankan price rose above my entry point.
This was the most crucial part of the match. Bail for an all round big loss and start again / leave it or continue. Well, I liked Sri Lanka's position. So decided to build more green on them, which I could then offset against my England red. I did this the safest way I could think of and layed Sri Lanka using existing green at various prices between 1.27 - 1.32 (from memory) and backed them as soon as a wicket fell. I repeated this a few times and also managed to take advantage of a "sniper" who let me get back on at 1.38. My criteria for laying Sri Lanka was they were about as low as they could get in the innings without something special. So i had a virtually free lay with some upside each time a wicket fell. By doing this I picked up maybe 20+ ticks which helped my situation a lot.
Consequently at the change of innings I was still in a bad all red position if I levelled but was still under max loss territory. A good England start would quickly put me back in that territory though so I layed off a lot of my Sri Lanka green at around 1.28-1.31. (Damage limitation and not a win was the aim here.) As the England innings got underway I layed more and more Lanka until I was red both sides though still with a larger red on England. My last lay of Sri Lanka was 1.75 - near their top price. I hated doing that as I just didn't think the price was right but had my max loss in mind. If they'd reached evens the pair I'd decided I was going to level the red off at around £750ish each, be done with the game and take comfort in the fact I'd not lost as much as I was willing to. Fortunately wickets began to fall, I got back on Lanka and layed off for later as explained in the blog to reach my final position.
So there you have it. A bit of a mare from my perspective. Not one of my best days. Worst mistake was using too much money when I switched. I guess from that you can tell that, to answer another of your questions, yes, my initial red was only a fraction of what I was willing to lose meaning I still had funds to play with if the markets moved against me. I always take this approach. Gives me room to play with. Of course, it means I don't make as much as I could when I'm right. But the pay off is I have a better chance to put things right when everything goes against me. As for my opening trade amounts. Well these depend on several factors. The actual price, how likely a price is to move / how volatile it might be. (A 1.1 shot will move a lot less ticks than an evens the pair shot in the same time scale at the start of an event), my confidence etc
Wow. that got a bit long. Hope it answers your questions. And would love for someone to suggestout how I might do things better. This trading lark is a constant learning process and I like to learn / consider new ideas!
Thanks for the reply Betfair Trader
I didn't mean chasing when I said it but couldn't think of a better phrase, chasing suggests a lack of discipline and returning a profit as you have done for at least 18 months requires excellent discipline so I can't imagine you chase positions.
Keep up the excellent blog and no doubt I'll have more annoying questions to ask in the future
johnterry26
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