Monday 14 April 2008

Making Par


Since Last Post P/L: £19.30
Monthly P/L: £527.75
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A frustrating week has seen me make hardly any progress with greed stunting my growth once again. After a consistent performance in the first 3 Premier League darts matches on Thursday, I totally crumbled in the Taylor v Barneveld matchup. The market hugely favoured Taylor and I was always looking for a swing the other way. The result? My false hopes allowed me to get my fingers burned and it was only after a concerted effort in trading the Masters that I've managed to get back to where I was.
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I'd done my homework and before a ball had been hit I was confident that Tiger's price of 2.42 was way too short. The guy is a machine and he'd been in great form but I'd noted that since the course had been lengthened in 2006 his best round had only been a 70. I accepted that if he hit 70 four days on the trot he'd probably win but I thought that it was unlikely and so it proved. Friday and Saturday I struggled to make a slight profit but my strategy remained the same going into the last day - to lay Tiger at the soonest opportunity and for the lowest price possible.
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I jot down my thoughts as I trade to help me understand why I'm doing the things that I'm doing and I followed this process again during the 4th round. Here's a snip-it of my ramblings just in case you're interested:
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19.29: Price on Tiger too short at 5.30. Two easier holes ahead but if he pars both he should drift very quickly. A big 30 minutes ahead. Need Immelman to get off to a steady start.
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19.38: Bugger - Immelman bogies the first!
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20.18: Tiger drops back to -4 and I can't see any way back. Too hard a course and too many players in front of him. His price is now 12.50.
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20.32: Tiger birdies the 6th and his price crashes back to 8.00 which is surely too low. Not getting involved...yet!
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20.42: Opposed Tiger at 7.60 and sure enough he drifted back to 8.80 pretty quickly - did I get out of this one too early? His price is now 9.20. Will I get another chance to go against him?
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20.54: Time to switch my attention to Immelman - 2 shots clear - can he hold on?
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21.18: Thoughts about who will win have gone out the window. Immelman's price is so volatile I'm just chasing the movement.
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21.43: Immelman is 5 shots clear and it looks like the others are throwing it away. Time to call it a day.
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By just reading my thoughts back on that 2 hour period it surprising how useful I find it as I can almost picture each trade in my head and my thoughts at that time. Okay, it may not be Camtasia but it seems to be a useful tool that's working so I'll continue to use it with the slower moving sports.
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Here's a list of my full results for the week:
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Rugby Union
Heineken Cup - Outright Winner : £12.00
Gloucester v Saracens : £6.51
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Darts
Wade v Mardle : £21.39
Part v Lewis : £15.90
Manley v Jenkins : £23.99
Taylor v Van Barneveld : £137.93
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Golf
Shell Houston Open : £68.24
US Masters : £169.68
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Some great sporting action in there and the week ahead looks great too. It's the start of the Indian Premier League cricket and I really hope all the hype lives up to expectations. I have a feeling the tournament will either turn out to be great television or utter garbage - I've a feeling there won't be an in-between.
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Mark,

I was wondering what stakes you trade with to get to your current average profit per market.

I suspect you might vary your stake depending on which sport you are trading?


Great blog btw, one of 2 I read now that the betfair trader and the sportstrader have gone queit, and you might as well say the only one i read on a regular basis considering that punt.cm only posts every 8 weeks or so.

Keeron.

Anonymous said...

Mark,

Why are you such A girl... !?!?! me and my mate have had a bet that you will stitch up your mates on Sat and no go round their hous to watch the boxing.. !?!?! what odds would you give on this !?

Mark Iverson said...

Hi Keeron,

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.

The total amount I now have available to trade with is just over 10k but I never play with all of this amount. Instead, I currently limit my exposure to a maximum of 15% (£1500) of my total bank in any one trade. This is just in case a worst case senario happens e.g. power cut, loss of internet connection etc. and I can't get out of my position. These stake sizes can be reduced if I don't feel at ease with the market or if things are just too volatile.

I went into this topic in a little more detail back in this post:

http://markiverson-professionalsportstrader.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-do-you-like-your-stake.html

I hope it helps.

Thanks again and please keep on reading!

All the best,

Mark

Mark Iverson said...

U Stitch,

I'd say that was an odds on shot :-)

www.stanjames.com