Wednesday

3 Euros on Radwanska. 6.5 on Owner. Pennies on the WTA live markets. About 10 EUR today, that's atleast something.

Wednesday

3 Euros on Radwanska. 6.5 on Owner. Pennies on the WTA live markets. About 10 EUR today, that's atleast something.

Tuesday Rage

Good last week and now it's up hill again. Can't seem to catch a break even when I'm right. So here's the story. Sunday night. I'm checking the markets. Nieminen looks good v. Gabashvili. Healthy 3-0 in the hh. Niemo coming from a ch-final where he lost to insanely in form Goffin. No shame in that. Gabashvili chronically unreliable especially in early rounds. Ok he did some damage in Umag and beat Båstad finalist Sousa on the way to a QF-exit v. Cuevas. Still Niemo should be a healthy fav in my book. Backed him where odds were in the low 1.70s. Noticed over night that odds seem to drift away on Niemo for no apparent reason. So i tried a stop loss in the high 1.70's. Had about 1/4 of my stake taken then it raced upwards again. Had about 1/4 of the remaining stake taken in the mid 1.80's. Getting expensive here! Had to close it out in the high 1.80's to take a €20 loss. Only to see Niemo win the match in straight sets 64 64. Just as I predicted he would. Somehow it would have been easier to take it if Gabashvili had crushed Niemo with a 63 61 scoreline or so. Atleast then I was wrong and paid the price. This just pisses me off.

w.24

So after two bad weeks with red digits Sunday evening I have profits to report. A quite solid one of these in the bank this week.

 

That brings up a new ATH on the Betfair account. €835.

Saturday

Yesterday was mixed fortunes. I won €3 on Cilic v. Rosol and lost the same ammount on Robredo v. Carreno-Busta. Then I had a live trade on Fognini v. Coric and got myself a €1 pay check laying Coric at the right time before he got broken back in the second set.

I also had €0.50 on both WTA semi finals in Baku.

Best trade this week is Fognini v. Cuevas. The Fog didn't look great last night but got the job done. Cuevas has looked great for a long time. Odds 1.62 on the Italian looked like an obvious lay and I could sell evertything back at 1.65 for a €5 win. Then the market continued up so I missed out on some profit there but better safe than sorry. This is looking like a good week so far and I don't want to spoil it again with a reckless weekend trade like last week.

Wednesday

Closed a small win on Mladenovic v. Vekic. Backed the Frenchwoman at 1.76 and hoped to get out at low 70's. That failed and I didn't get my full stake take either so that's €1.

I'm on Schiavone at 1.31 v. Glushko. Not my full stake but something like €110. Trying to get out at 1.27. Market very inactive, match is played tomorrow but highest odds with bookies are now down to 1.25 so I'm not too worried about low activity.

Looks like I have to take a small loss on Cirstea v. Voegele. I backed Cirstea at 1.61. She's the higher ranked player, leads the h-h 4-0 and Voegele is not playing that well atm. In the previous matches Cirstea never started higher than 1.54 favorite. Still market seems to have decided to go a few ticks up so I'll try to activate a stop loss here at 1.63 and get out of the trade with as small red as possible.

Also trying to back Isner v. Ginepri. The tall one loves Atlanta and should cruise in this one. I've got a big back bet in the low 1.20  and I believe the market should trade below 1.20 before the match tomorrow.

(Update) Green on Schiavone €4.

Cuevas v. Delic

Another good trade in the making. That's two this week. I noticed odds on the Cuevas v. Delic market had slightly come in from 1.29 to 1.28. Avg bookies odds at 1.25. Betfair 1.30. That's normally a little too close for me but I felt there would be strong support for Cuevas who won the title in Båstad and then qualified for the md in Umag without dropping a set. Luckily had my full €300 stake taken at 1.31 and immediately placed a lay bet at 1.29. Almost all taken by now and it should be a win in the €5 region on both players.

w. 23

Red digits for the second week in a row. Had a terrible trading weekend with three quite massive losses to erase all hard work and then some. Got the Båstad WTA final right but wrong. I had Barthel as a favorite and backed her at 1.70 and she went on to win the title v. Scheepers in straight sets. Problem was market traded Barthel all the way up to 1.80 and beyond so I had to get out with a pretty bad loss there.

Then I have to blame Norway for stealing money off their poorer brothers in the east. I liked Strömsgodset to beat Vålerenga (they didn't) because they are a very strong home team. Had to get out with €6 red on both teams. Then I also liked Odd to beat Haugesund (again they didn't) and I lost €8. Atleast the weekend ended with some positives. I bet on Hammarby to beat Öster in the Swedish second division. Backed the home team at 1.56 and traded out just before kick off at 1.52 to secure €5.

When I sum things up I was €-6 this week and the live trading contributed with about €4 so it could have been even worse. Pre match trading didn't work at all last week. But you can't win them all. I've already secured my first €5 this week on Gilles Simon v. Pablo Andujar. Match played tomorrow. Backed Simon at 1.70 last night. Traded out 1.65 this morning. Money while I sleep. I like it.

Example of live trading strategy

I identified the match Nara v. Vinci as a good candidate to do my live trading strategy I wrote about this morning. Nara a quite week server. Vinci a good returner who will get everything back, often with interest. Surprisingly Vinci drifted alot pre match from 1.45ish to 1.57 at match start. Nara served first. I backed Vinci at said price for €7.50 as you see, small stakes. Vinci broke immidiately and indeed moved on to bagel Nara in the first set. I got out after the first game though. Layed at 1.28 and secured €1.75 on both girls. Was active in the market for about 1 minute.

Update

Lots of things and nothing at all going on. I'm having a frustrating week. Not really making losses just not getting enough wins. Typical trade this week: I back player A at 1.60. Bookies offer 1.54. I place a lay bet at 1.56. Doesn't get matched. Bookies raise odds to 1.59. I quickly get out at 1.60. Soon after odds drop to 1.52 and betfair trade at 1.55. Annoying to say the least. On the other hand a few times the odds continued to drift and not getting out would have cased a loss.

I've also been experimenting with live trading. I've said before I'm not very good at it but I want to learn so I've been thinking about what I have been doing and why its not working. Basically I've found a random atp match. Watched a few games to see who's hot and who's not. Then backed the "hot" player while serving expecting a hold and then a break. Problem: market expects this to happen and if it does the market doesn't move much. If it doesn't happen, even if both players continue to hold odds drift and I go red. Even worse, my player face a bp or just go to 0-15 or 30-30 in a service game and I go big red.

Possible solution: pick games more carefully. Back a strong returner recieving from a weak server. Breaks will be fairly frequent and odds will move quite much if my player breaks. If the server holds I can red out and try again next service game.

Risk: There is no break. Its unlikely to happen that a weak server will hold six times in a row vs a strong returner but it can happen. Then I will be red. So far I've been trying this in wta games where breaks are very frequent. I'm more green than red so far but its been small stakes and few matches but I feel potential in the strategy.

That said my main focus will still be pre match.

w22

Sadly I have to report my second losing week. It started off badly. Mid week I thought I'd make it a good week anyway and then it ended in disaster. I completely misread the Båstad final Cuevas v. Sousa and backed the higher ranked Portuguese at evens. Then Cuevas steamed seriously 30 ticks in like four hours and went on to win the match 62 61. Clearly I was the idiot and paid for it. Thanks to some good mid week results the loss only accumulated to €5.

Cuevas v. Lindell, Johnson v. Ito

The young Swede did well to beat Cervantes in R1 although that had more to do with the terrible level of play from the Spaniard than supreme class from Lindell. For example Cervantes served 8 double faults in 9 service games. Lindell played the way one can expect from a player ranked outside the top 400. Mixing good shots with quite simple errors, in general though he was much more consistent and patient than Cervantes and it paid off.

Cuevas is a whole different beast. He's quickly coming back into the top 100 after solid results on clay this year and he was once a top 50 player. As a Swede I hope I'm proven wrong and that Lindell can cause another upset but I think it's time for a reality check. I could back Cuevas at a market high 1.17 last night and traded out at 1.14 for a €8 win.

I also backed the in form American Steve Johnson at 1.44 last night to beat Ito of Japan. Had part of my lay taken at 1.37 and is waiting to close out the rest of the trade. Should be a win of over €10 if I can get the rest of my lay taken at 1.37. I've got until 5 pm so I can wait.

Rain interrupted play all day in Stuttgart and I could shave off €2 from my loss on Gimeno v. Gojowczyk with a quick scalp. Still a bad loss for me though.

Amends

Well I know the term "win back your losses" doesn't exist but still it's nice to get some winning trades done so soon after a terrible one.

Got €4 on Suarez-Navarro v. Siegemund and €3 on Isner v. Odesnik. That's something to start this weeks recovery with.

Gojowczyk - Gimeno

Some rotten luck on this one. Normally Gimeno is a much superior clay court player compared to Gojowczyk who does a better job on quicker surfaces. He was good in Doha which is a quicker HC, won the Heibronn challenger which is also quick and advanced to QF at Halle beating Raonic in the process. As far as I can see he's never won a main draw ATP-match on clay.

Good bet on Gimeno then? Well apparently (if one should believe a post on Tennis Insight) Gimeno got married on Saturday so perhaps bettors think he'd either be hung over or mentally on a honeymoon, possibly both and markets raced away way above where I bet on Gimeno. Had to close out a €20 loss which will almost certainly make this a lost week where I'd be happy to get out with a break even.

W21

Quite a tidy week. I made a total of 7 trades which is quite few but that's how it is during the second week of a slam. All 7 trades were winners which is nice. Profit was not great but a fairly average €14. Bank is increasing and that's the important thing.

So far during this week I've already secured a €5 profit on Eriksson v. Lorenzi, €2 on Mayer v. Berrer and €0.5 on Berlocq v. Reister. I'm also active in the Gojowczyk v. Gimeno market but have yet to close the trade. Match is tomorrow so there is plenty of time.

Federer - Raonic

I tried to get matched on Federer at 1.45 and I did get some of my stake taken. Fed started a 1.31  favorite v. Wawrinka. Too low odds IMO and the match could have ended differently but from the second set there was clearly something wrong with Wawrinka and Fed won in four sets. Wawrinka is a better player than Raonic but the Canadian's serve is really dangerous on the grass. Could be a few points here and there in the breakers that decide this match and those kinds of matches where a superior player (Federer) is up against a very big server with poorish return game (Raonic) are usually priced in the mid 1.30's. I like a margin for error so I came up with 1.45 as a price I considered both safe and possible to get matched. Acutally my €45 are the highest traded bets at this market with some margin. Market seems to like 1.39-1.40 so I got 3-4% higher odds and that is about what one can expect to have matched in this kind of well analyzed match. That's why it's so difficult to find the line between not getting matched, getting matched for a winning trade and getting matched for a losing trade. It's really just a few odds steps between the three possible outcomes of a placed bet. This one will earn €2 thanks to the low amount matched.

Raonic - Kyrgios

Surprise QF here. Probably most people believed Nadal would defeat the 19 year old Nick Kyrgios from Australia but they were proved wrong. However this gave me an opportunity to step in in the very early markets. I studied how markets priced the two players before this match during the tournament and found that Kyrgios should be given a slighly better chance that v. Gasquet (23%). 1/3 seemed a fair price and would give a line with Raonic (1.50) v. Kyrgios (3.00). As a very early market with lots of uncertainties I placed a very small bet on Raonic at 1.62, was matched, did something else and checked back 10 minutes later and greened out at €1.5 profit at 1.47. Found these odds to low because bookies had come up with their lines and were raising their prices on Raonic from low 1.40's so I placed slightly larger lay bet at the same price and once again greened out 10 minutes later at 1.51. Since it was all small stakes I only win €2.50 but this is one trade I feel quite proud about.

Looks like I've had a normal sized bet on Murray (v. Dimitrov) matched at 1.32 while typing. I'll place a lay bet at 1.31 because there is one heap of cash laying at 1.30 and I'd rather not mix it there. Hopefully that's another €2 when I wake up.

UPDATE: Yes, green on Murray.

Cautious week

Wise from the tough second slam week at the French I've been very cautious with my staking. Result? 0/3 bets matched. But really that is better than taking losses. Did get a decent one matched on Sunday for the Cilic v. Chardy match. Backed the Croat big at 1.40 and sold at 1.36 to net 8E50. Will get at it again tonight and see what I can do. But during the second week of slams it's difficult to get matched on "wrong" odds because markets are very efficient and well analyzed.