Things that must NOT happen!

I got away this time but obviously I need to be more careful. It's the first time in a very long time I missed the starting time of a match I traded. Had a bet matched on Gulbis yesterday afternoon, thought the match would play Saturday. Didn't have my full stake taken and left it there. Now I checked my bets and to my surprise found a green box next to the match indicating it was in play. Luckily for me Gulbis was up a set and a break so I could close it with a nice €14 profit but this is just an unacceptable mistake. With some bad luck I could have been €70 red on this one.

Raonic - Simon

Easy one this time. Most major bookies had Raonic at 1.51 - 1.54 but I managed to get matched at 1.57. Could sell it back at 1.55 within an hour of entering the market. €3 profit.

...and finally some positives

I took a position last night laying Monaco (v. Seppi) at 1.64. I think markets gave the Argentinian way too much credit in this match up. Both are similar players, raised on clay, solid from the baseline, 2-2 in the HH 1-1 on clay. Seppi is ranked higher now but Monaco has a better career high. Neither are in spectacular form this season. In short it seemed strange to have Monaco as a 61% favorite when there is very little between them. For once I was right and when I got up this morning I could close the trade at avg odds 1.73 to secure a €7.5 profit. That should put me firmly in the green this week so that's nice. Right now my PL reads -€10 but then I haven't been paid for Niculescu, Garcia-Lopez or Monaco and that's worth about €17.

French open miseries

I've said for a couple of weeks now that I need to up my game because I'm getting into way to many bad trades and making bad decisions to make things worse. The French Open couldn't have started much worse.

For my R1 bankers I chose Gasquet (v. Tomic) because Gasquet should be fit after a 7 week injury lay off. There were positive signs I managed to decipher from his french website using my 14 year old largely unused skills in french and some Google Translate and most tennis fans know Tomic is quite terrible on anything but Australian hard courts and that accounts for about three weeks of the year. Clay is a bad surface for him and Gasquet is playing in France so 1.30 seemed to be quite a good bet for the frenchman. Obviously I was wrong and market traded up to 1.34, apparently paying more attention to Gasquet's two month old injury than to the fact that his opponent can't beat the likes of Victor Estrella on clay in M1000 competition. Red for €5 and Gasquet won in straight sets.

My other banker was Berlocq (v. Hewitt). Last time the former world number one did anything good on clay was in Houston five years ago. Over the last four seasons he's won twice on the surface. No not two tournaments, two matches, the last one being a hard fought victory over Canadian Peter Polansky who has won exactly 1 main draw match on clay over the last five seasons. Ok I'm not being nice now but sometimes the markets are just rubbish. Berlocq on the other hand has won twice, yes two tournaments on clay over the last 12 months, last one in Oeiras just a few weeks ago. He's the archetype of a clay courter and should easily routine Hewitt. 1,32 good bet? No! Market rose to 1.35 and I had to get out with a €3 red. Berlocq started slow and lost the first set but then won in four.

I have two winning trades as well, which is nice but I'm in a quite bad mood so I'll only say that I secured a €4 profit on Niculescu (v. Ormachea) and €7.5 on Garcia-Lopez (v. Mannarino). That pretty much puts me back to 0 for the week and again I've done all this work for nothing.

W16-17

Because I was abroad last weekend this is a result over the last two weeks. Quite poor result once again but still a small profit of €8 over the last two weeks. Four euros a week is way below my expectations so I need to do better. On the up side I still have no losing weeks and my account is up 45% in four months.

F1 and Tennis

I've closed all trades on the Monaco GP. After FP2 I placed a lay on Alonso for at 19. The Ferrari driver finished on top but it was a strange session where rain and timing played a crucial role in deciding the outcome. The Merc drivers didn't get clean laps at the dry track towards the end and Alonso did. Market overreacted and I could buy back my stake at 25 a few hours later. Net result €6 no matter who wins on Sunday.

Also grabbed a bet on the WTA match between Puig and Keys. Traditional bookies had odds placed even for this Semi final. Betfair had Keys as a very slight favorite. All my calculations pointed towards Puig as a marginal ~ 1.90 favorite so I backed her heavily at evens. Sadly with all trades that have gone bad lately I couldn't keep my cool and so badly wanted to secure a green so I settled for a lay at 1.98 when the market began to swing in Puig's favor. Then it continued all the way down to 1.90 and she won the match in straight sets. Should have gotten at least double up from the €5.5 I actually won but it could just as well have been 3 or 4 times that had I only been more confident.

Soccer and F1

I've been afk for about a week but now I'm back and ready to trade. Already closed one on Rosberg to win the Monaco GP. There was much talk before FP1 that Mercedes wouldn't be as dominant at this circuit as on other tracks but I've followed F1 long enough to know that a good car is a good car and with the margin Mercedes has had so far this season they should be ahead even if other teams possibly could be a little bit closer. That doesn't matter though because it's position that counts. Both Merc drivers Hamilton and Rosberg are quite handy around the tight circuit as well so that bodes well for the Silver Arrows. Backed Rosberg at 3.25 last night and closed it out at 3.00 this morning. Also backed Hamilton at 2.02 and still hope to trade out below 2.00. He was narrowly on top in first practice but odds still didn't drop. Hope they will if he remains on top in FP2.

Also took a bet on Malmö FF to beat Mjällby away in the Swedish Allsvenskan. Malmö is the top team in the league and they have won all 4 away games this season. Mjällby is a much weaker team placed P15 from 16 in the table. Backed at 1.61 last night and have been watching the odds drop slowly. Now at 1.58 but I wouldn't be surprised to see odds below 1.55 closer to the match when the casual bettors enter the market, probably during the final two hours leading before kick off. I wait and see how much I can get from this. Now it's time for F1 FP2 from Monaco.

Chardy - Dodig

Obviously made a mistake here. IMO Chardy is a slight fav here. Ranking is very similar. Both have been quite out of form but seems to have found their games again. Chardy is the more accomplished clay player and Rome is played on quite slow clay exaggerating that advantage. Chardy beat Haase and Federer. Dodig beat Delbonis and Rosol. I know who I price up as the favorite here but the market thinks otherwise. Dodig is priced as a slight fav and I backed Chardy as one

Youzhny - Golubev

Youzhny pays again. Market usually likes the Russian despite less than great form. 1.73 last night out at 1.70 this morning. Just over EUR 3.

Monday

Starting off better. 4 EUR on Tsonga after backing him for 1.90 last night. 2 EUR on Delbonis backing him at 1.66 last night. Trying to close a trade on Youzhny. Got the Russian at 1.27.
Ok out at 1.26. Hoped for 1.25 but ok, its a win. 8 EUR in total today is more than the whole of the dreadful last week.

W15

Phew... Guess that's all there is to say. Terrible week. Lots of bad calls on odds. More often than not I got on the wrong side of every trade and had to work hard to cut losses. So I guess I have to be quite pleased with a €7 win for the week. It could have been MUCH worse. Need to be much more focused next week. Maybe it's been to easy so far recording 15 straight weeks with green numbers at the end of each week. Must do better in the coming weeks or else there will be a red one sooner rather than later.

Sharapova - Na

Finally a decent trade this week. It's been really tough to get matched and the few times I have been matched odds have generally shot off in the wrong direction. Much of the week's trading has been spent trying to cut losses. It's been somewhat successful and with the weekend coming up I'm €7 up but that's been really tough work that has also included some live trading, which is always a risk of making things worse instead.

This marked had Sharapova at 1.69 last night and it was quite obvious the market loved Maria so I backed her quite heavily and had about €300 matched. Closed out at 1.65 for a €7.5 profit.

Ouch!

Bad bad trade on Delbonis - Lopez. The latter has been completely out of form and is a quite poor clay court player. Delbonis at 1.68 this morning looked like a good bet to get out  from in the low 1.60's before match start. Then it got all wild an just flew up to 1.79 like a rocket and forced me to take a €10 loss. The week didn't start off as well as it seemed last night. Oh, and obviously Lopez won after failing to break for two whole sets he broke twice from 2-2 in the third to end affairs when Delbonis' game completely vanished. Market right... me wrong.

W13

Another week another 20. More standard trading this week and returns more according to the long term trend. Last week was much better than expected and I never had hopes to repeat it again so soon. Still a solid return. Also had an outright bet on Berlocq to beat Berdych at 5.67 this afternoon which was nice even if it was just for 1 euro on my Pinnacle account.

For next week I've already secured €7 on Anderson v. Stepanek backing the South African at 1.83 and selling off 10 points lower. Also matched on Gulbis at 1.32 with a lay bet at 1.28 to get out with about €5. Should that happen next week is already off to a flyer. Madrid next!

Berlocq - Gimeno-Traver

Got stuck with a small loss on this one. HH was 5-1 in Berlocq's favour and he's been looking all good this week including a big win over Raonic who's not by any means a natural clay courter but a very good player and not at all lost on the surface. DGT on the other hand qualified for the tourney and did it well but beat no nastier opponent than Granollers who has been quite awful all year. So naturally I backed Charly at 1.66 when odds came out at low 60's last night, expecting to get out at low sixties or even in the high fifties. Instead I woke up to the fact that the match traded at 1.68. Decided to get out and back again at 1.70 but then it got even worse and climbed out to 1.73 which I believe was the highest traded pre match odds. Could then red out a €3.50 loss at 1.72 and after some trading in play the net result was a negative €1.50. I'll live but it still sucks to lose money, especially when I was right all along. Berlocq won in straights and DGT has still not been in an ATP-final.

Levante - Atletico

Got some matched at 1.30 the other day. 150 euros, had hoped for more but ok its a fairly safe bet. Could be around 1.25 on match day which still gives a decent return. Most Epl and Ech matches are not important so I've had to look at Spain and tennis this week.

UPDATE: Never got more matched at 1.29 which I decided to drop my back to. Instead my lay at 1.27 was taken during the evening giving me a €3.50 profit for the match.

Berdych - Mayer

Ok so the T-bird wasn't at his best v. Devvarman but still only lost five games. Mayer is better but is still ranked in the worse part of top 100 and has never been a top 50 contender. One can be suspect of Birdman in small tournaments but it makes no sense to grab a wc and then go lose to the likes of Mayer. Backed at 1.175 avg. And hope to get out at 16.

Update: Doesn't look like it will drop much. Out at 17 and EUR 2 on all outcomes.