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.