It's nearly that time of year again when everything in the cricket world goes a bit bonkers and concentrates on the Indian T20 Premier League. If you trade cricket you'll already know that it dominates so much of the calendar with 76 matches spread over just 54 days. Basically, if you have a life just put it on hold for 2 months!
Whilst this tournament is often seen as a cash cow there are negatives. Allegations of corruption are rife and there seems to be a constant stream of in-fighting between the administrators which all leads to a bit of uneasiness leading up to the competition. With all this in the background it's therefore no surprise to me that my performance usually dips over these 7-8 weeks. Here's the evidence after digging through my past IPL records - firstly here's how my win % has fluctuated (click to enlarge):
When you consider that my win % for the year in 2011 was 84.13% it's easy to see that I consistently win less often on IPL matches. So the question is, why? Maybe I'm imagining things but IPL matches don't tend to follow the usual patterns. In most cases I'm able to predict the likely flow of a T20 match but when it comes to the IPL the unexpected often seems to happen - and not just that - money in the market often appears at the right time and guesses correctly on what will. After watching so many matches I can't help but think that this is more than just a coincidence, so the issue I have this year is how do I make this pay? To improve my IPL performance, it seems I need to be able to identify when the unlikely will happen and when it won't! Why can't things be simple?!?
The next graph illustrates how my average win (dark purple) and average loss (light purple) have changed over the years (click to enlarge):
Crikey - things got out of hand in 2010! I remember it well - I lost what most would consider a healthy monthly wage in one day and spent the rest of the tournament clawing it back. Nothing worse than spending a month grinding out wins only to get back to even, but it was good lesson to learn. I'd jumped into the markets with overconfidence, overstaked and paid the price so whatever I do this season I need to learn to be more patient. With so many matches things can become a blur, so it's important I maintain my focus on it being a marathon and not a sprint. Unfortunatley this is easier said than done as I remember saying the same thing to myself last year.
The last graph shows the overall value of each match to me (click to enlarge):
The huge thing that stands out here is that I'm on a downward IPL spiral, with each match losing it's value to me over the years. It's clear I have to change my approach - these games are just different to others throughout the year and I need to find a way that can buck the trend.
I have all the information I think I need so I'll keep you posted on how I get on.
IPL 2012 starts on the 4th April and runs until the 27th May. Live coverage in the UK is exclusively covered on ITV 4.
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