Chardy - Tsonga

First big win this week. €6 on this match. Placed a lay bet on Tsonga last night at 1.32. Odds on Tsonga drifted v. Vasselin (who he owned 7-0 in the HH) prior to the R1 match and I had to take a small loss on the market. Obviously Chardy is a tougher opponent and Tsonga leads a narrow 2-1 in the HH. Starting odds (1.31) were roughly the same where the market turned for the Vasselin match. Odds had to rise. All of it were taken during the night and market remained stable back 1.32 - lay 1.33. I decided to leave it. Confident as I was and only a small amount was traded, most of it was my money actually. I placed a back bet at 1.36 which seemed to be a fairer price and right before lunch it was all taken.

Yesterday I had a small win on Simon v. Thiem and a small live trade win on Williams v. Pavlyuchenkova.

Kitzbühel final

Very strange market this one. Got away on top this time but I was headed for another bad loss this weekend. Before the match, that is yesterday evening before odds were published I had Goffin as a small favorite for the title. He's on an insane roll of wins, three ch-titles in a row and reached the final  for the loss of only one set. Thiem, the home player is good, is promising but is also inconsistent and very very young. Both are playing their first ATP-finals but Goffin is without a doubt the more experienced player and very used to winning after bagging 19 wins in a row.

Surprised to see markets open with Thiem a high 1.70 favorite and I placed a lay bet on him at 1.81 which was taken quickly. Went to bed fairly content that I could wake up and check out a nice profit when markets should have sorted themselves out and drifted out atleast up to evens.

Woke up to see Thiem a 1.73 favorite and €8 red on both players. *sigh*

I decided to red out before breakfast, swallow the loss and get on with it. Ate, sat down to see how the night matches from the US of A turned out and was very  surprised to see Thiem at 1.86. Could literally not believe my eyes. Somehow Thiem moved 13 ticks north in about 30 minutes before 8am a Saturday morning.

Fired up my trading program to see what the heck was going on. Soon noticed odds were bouncing wildly on high volumes between 1.83 and 1.93. Bookies had not moved their odds. Obviously this was my chance to cut some losses. I managed three quick trades each shaving off about €3 from my debt on the market and stopped when the market turned green on me. €2 profit on this one. Soon after I left the market it calmed down. Odds slowly returned to the mid 1.70's and stayed there until the match started. Goffin won in three sets.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wimbledon Thursday

Win 4 on Isner. Lose 4 on Vekic. Nothing more to add.

Wimbledon Wednesday

Matched on two trades again. Had my full €150 stake taken on Garcia (v. Lepchenko) at 1.95. I entered this market very early, before bookies had any odds to compare with. Just one or two of the first high margin bookies were up but their odds are so low they are not much to go on. Operating with a 8% margin there is much room for error in their lines. This is a more risky strategy but I felt quite confident that I had the match correctly valued with Garcia as a narrow favorite. The bet was taken very quickly which kind of made me nervous because usually the bad bets are taken first but soon after that the more major bookies with higher payout published their odds, just as I expected with Garcia a narrow favorite and soon after that they lowered their odds slightly pricing Garcia as a 1.85 favorite. Good news and I placed a lay bet at 1.87 to adjust for commission and went to bed. All clear this morning and €6.5 green on both women.

I also had a small part of my 1.13 bet on Sharapova (v. Bacsinsky) matched. Could green out a €1 profit this morning at 1.10. So far a very solid week.

Wimbledon Tuesday

I had a lot of very small stakes matched on several markets. Could cash them for about €0.10 each so nothing to write about. Two markets got some more money taken. These were

• Gimeno-Traver v. Giraldo - Neither is a natural grass player but Giraldo has much more merits on the surface and a healthy 6-1 in the HH. Gimeno hasn't won a match on grass since 2011. I backed Giraldo at 1.28 and was hoping to get out at 1.25ish. We'll see what happens. There is a decent amount waiting at 1.27 and not much activity in the market. Might have to settle for one click or even get out again at 1.28.
• Falla v. Pavic - Falla is actually a quite competent grass player, reaching the finals in Halle a few weeks ago losing in two tiebreaks to Federer. Pavic has done fairly well in qualifiers and challengers this year but is yet to win a md match. Hard to believe it will happen today. I backed Falla at 1.37 and had about €85 matched. Trying to get out at 1.34. Should be possible to do. It's small steps but they are steps.

Wimbledon Monday

Got matched in three markets during my first Wimbledon trading day which started yesterday with Monday's matches. I entered five different markets, but as I said was only matched in three of them.
These were:

• Erakovic v. Konjuh where I backed Erakovic at 1.66 and could trade out at 1.61. Sady I had only a very small stake matched and I net €1 for the market.
• Barthel v. Oprandi where I had a decent part of my bet for Barthel taken at 1.24 but not the full ammount. I have laid off about half of it at 1.22 and I'm waiting for the rest to be taken. Should be around €3.5 if I can get all matched at 1.22.
• Davis v. Kleybanova - I backed Davis at 1.46 for a smallish stake which was good because markets didn't like Davis quite as much as last week. I could get out of most of my trade at 1.46 when it started to turn against me but I had to lay off the last liability at 1.51 for a -€1 loss. 

Average trading day. Matched in 60% of my markets, although not for 60% of my stakes and two correct bets and one incorrect. No trader will ever win all his trades, the important thing is to be right more often than not and to cut losses and maximize winnings. That however is easier said than done.

UPDATE: Well finally I got all my lay money on Barthel taken and all green for €3.5. Took much longer than I thought it would.

Germany v. Ghana

Cashout at 1.33. Too much lay money entered at 1.33 and not enough back money at 1.34 so I decided to get out. Unfavorable WoM is a bad indication. Better safe than sorry and another 6 Euro won.