IPL - Week 4

Week 4 of the IPL was good to me and this has brought about a change to my demeanour. I'm feeling more relaxed and assured going into every game and this as you'd expect seems to be paying off. Going back to basics once again seems to be doing the trick and it's amazing how much confidence stringing a few good results together can bring.

Eight weeks ago I explained how I needed to target this tournament as it can make such a difference to my year, so as we're now past the half way point what do I need to aim for over during May to make sure I finish it on a high?

Let's look at my performance statistics to date. Firstly my comparison graph (click to enlarge):

Maybe targeting a 100% increase on last year was a bit ambitious (!) but the good thing is I'm ahead of 2011 by just under 50%. How? Well my win % is very similar (83.33% v 84.13%) but the difference is the amount my average wins and average losses are worth. My average win is 31.76% more and my average loss is 36.44% more (so I'm actually trading slightly worse) but it doesn't matter as the figures I've been playing with have been bigger than last year.

By re-investing in my trading bank over the last 12 months I've been able to gradually use bigger stakes month on month for the same level of risk. The result of this is that I will make more money as long as I keep the 3 performance indicators roughly the same level (win%, ave win and ave loss).

So there's a simple message there to any new sports traders - keep re-investing into your betting/trading bank. Don't spend all your winnings at the end of the month if you want the potential to win more over the long term.

It's great to have such a good strike rate and for things to be improving overall but this does make me ask another question - am I going hard enough?

Should I up my stakes even more? Be more aggressive at certain times? How do we know if we need to put our foot to the pedal or ease off and press the brakes? Here's a very simple diagram that I've put together this morning (click to enlarge):

The x-axis illustrates the level of risk and the y-axis illustrates the level of reward. How would you describe your betting/trading style?

For me, I feel I'm towards the upper end of the 'too cautious category'. I much prefer to have a plan and have a steady stream of positive results to keep my mind balanced and my emotions in tact. Too much risk and that's where chasing can come in, but because of this I rarely enjoy the big rewards that a risky position can bring.  On the other side I don't experience the very low points of big losses too often either.

So how does this help? Well, I need to continually strive to find those 'ideal' low risk but high reward opportunities. This year the IPL has thrown up a few but I'm sure there are plenty more that have passed me by.  I'll keep looking though and just maybe I'll find the holy grail of gambling.

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