I'm Moving!

After hosting my blog on Blogger since December 2006 the time has come for me to move to pastures new and I'm very pleased to let you know that I'm moving to a self hosted site.

Why?

Well here's a few reasons:

• I can't control Blogger. If they wish, they can turn my blog off at any time, and after having the blog for so long it leaves an uneasy feeling.
• It's quite difficult on blogger for people to find and read my historic posts.  As the history of the blog grows it's a shame that some of the decent stuff (in my opinion) has got lost.
• It's a chance for me grow. I've had interest from other traders recently regarding the possibility of holding cricket trading courses and if this is to happen I need somewhere better to promote them. 

Okay, so now you know that I'm going I'd really like you to come with me on the next part of my journey.

My new blog address is http://www.markiverson.com/blog/blog/ so please bookmark it or sign-up to my RSS feed.

If you currently link to my blog from your blog/website I'd really appreciate it if you could re-direct the link to the new site.

Here's to the future and I'll see you on the other side!

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Glum

With the sun not shining and with no end in sight to the lousy weather this promises to be a very uninspiring summer for me. Seriously, how can we have so much rain? In June, Wales saw 205mm of the stuff which surpassed the previous record of 183.1mm quite easily.  When you consider that the UK average is only 72.6mm that's a lot! As you'd expect with all that going on, cricket matches have been called off all over the place which hasn't been good news for me, but I've always understood it to be a risk.  That doesn't make me feel any better though, so the only thing for me to do is reflect and make plans for when things take a turn for the better.

Talking about reflection....

I finished Quarter 2 31.94% up on last year.  A good result mainly down to an improved IPL, but as July and August have a knack of promising more than they deliver I'll just need to make the most of events as and when they come along.

On the bright side, I'm currently working on two side projects that I'm quite excited about.  Will they come to fruition?  I hope so as I've spent quite a bit of time and energy on them, but as they're not quite there yet I'll keep them under my hat for now.  Watch this space over the next couple of months!

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Increase Betfair Profits - Do A Good Turn

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I feel bad - I've been back from holiday for 3 weeks and I have posted on my blog once! A poor effort but if the truth is told, all of the rain we've had over the last couple of weeks has dampened my mood. It's one of the major drawbacks of being a cricket gambler/trader - you just can't control the weather and this can have a big effect on your monthly p&l.  Fortunately, things have started to pick up over the last few days so I thought it was about time I jotted down some thoughts.
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Here goes...

During the IPL I took to tweeting and conversing with other traders on a more regular basis and I found it very interesting to observe how each person would interpret information in a different way. It also became clear very quickly that a lot of us have different approaches to how we manage our positions during a game. This doesn't sound very enlightening, but when someone mentioned that after they took an initial position they normally stuck with it, it made me realise that some may not not appreciate the value of 'turns'.

Turns? What the hell are they? In short a 'turn' is when you've successfully been matched on both the 'back'  and 'lay' sides of a selection.  The beauty of Betfair is that you're able to do this many times during an event for no additional cost, so by 'turning' my money over and over and taking advantage of the market fluctuations it's possible to generate bigger profits whilst keeping the risks low.

Time for an example. The Betfair graph below shows the in-play price of Somerset in their recent match against Northants (click to enlarge).

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You can see that they started the match at around 1.60 favourites, so had I looked to back them at this point then the most I could have won had I held my position throughout would have been 60 ticks (1.60 to 1.00).  That's a fair return, but I would have had to stuck to my guns throughout the match, Somerset would have needed to win the game and I'd have had to go through the unnecessary stress and self doubts along the way. Alternatively, by entering the market many times and conducting many 'turns' the amount of ticks I could have won would have significantly increased. A rough estimate following each peak and trough on the graph would give an indication that at least 330 ticks were possible if it was traded perfectly. That's obviously very unlikely, but even 20% of that would have returned 66 ticks which would have been more than the back and hold approach.
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Still with me? Good. To clarify, I'm not saying "become a scalper" - I'm saying be flexible and have an open mind when it comes to the market.  Turns can last for seconds or hours, but the length of time you have an position open doesn't matter, it's being aware that being active in the market can be a good thing and can offer up more opportunities.
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IPL - The End

After what seems like an eternity, today's IPL game between Chennai and Delhi signalled the end of a challenging 2 months and the beginning of my holiday. It's been a long tournament and tough at times but has it all been worth it?

To make things straightforward, I'll use some graphs :-)  First up, my completed IPL comparison (click to enlarge images):

You'll notice I didn't hit my target but I'm delighted to even get close to it after drifting off the pace in the mid-stages.Some serious lapses of concentration in the final games (which I'm blaming on thinking the job was already done) caused the blip but a nice win in the last match helped me finish on a high.

That's the overall picture but what about my key stats - what went right for me to improve so much in 12 months? How about my win %?

Not sure how I did it but from the 73 matches I played, I managed to win 65 and only lost on 8. That means my win % rose from 78.87% to 89.04%. That's quite a jump and the only answer I can give is that I knew when 'not' to get involved this year. After doing my homework before the tournament, I'd highlighted scenarios when I'd stay out of the market and fortunately it seems to have paid off. This shows that by sometimes being inactive, you can really have a positive effect on your results.

How did my average win (dark purple) and average loss (light purple) compare this year?

Well, my average win increased by 46.97% whilst my average loss went up by 43.34%.  At this point, some  of you maybe thinking how I could improve my results if I lost 'more' when I lost?  Simply put, with my win % rising and my average wins also going up I could afford bigger losses when I did lose.  In this case, the net result is that the average value that each event was worth to me went through the roof:

In total, each match was worth 97.49% more to me than 2011. The devil is in the detail and I honestly believe that if I hadn't changed my approach for this years competition then my results would have continued to decline. The moral of the story?  If somethings not working, make sure you highlight what it is and don't be afraid to change things.

You'll remember from this post in March that the IPL was proving to be a thorn in my side, I'm hoping now that I've turned things around.

Right, time for a break....pass me that sangria!

Adios for now amigos!

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