Recent changes to forum

Hi Birchy,
Not tried this editor before now so not sure how good or bad it is - ok...tried to use this editor and can not easily put lines between paragraphs...perhaps it is me, but I don't think so....
On your second point, I tend to agree.  I don't regularly post on here, but that is because I think we want quality and not quantity from this forum.  There is evidence of a lot of that on here, but I, too, have some concerns.  I get the impression that some people join the forum, dive in, pull out what they can, perhaps ask some valid questions or invalid questions where some research first might have helped save time for everybody and then retreat never to be heard from again.

It is a tricky one. This is a public forum and I don't think any of us have enough time or desire to police the content and perhaps shut people down.  You are an exceptional contributor on here, but could I suggest that when you don't have anything to add or think people could help themselves you simply ignore the posting and keep an eye out for the quality content?  I do think the majority of people are genuine with their questions, but simply underestimate the task at hand.  We have all been there to a degree, but unless you have been coding with the sites or APIs for many months/years I don't think anyone can appreciate the level of knowledge required.  Perhaps people never come back to the forum because after a few nights of trying to get something working they throw the towel in and give up....

Moving on, your profit on the snooker looks very tidy, btw, especially for only a few hours work...good for you.  I still can not bring myself to code a whole new interface with Betdaq and unless the liquidity there increased or the spreads tightened more than Betfair I still have no real reason to look at them for my trading strategies.  Plus, the money management required to move funds around between them to support positions makes it too hard for me right now.

While I am here....Good luck all with your trading this year.

Best Regards,

Paul

LOL

edit: oops, sorry for my worthless contribution.

Yes the editor is a pain, I don't like these modern new fangled things.birchy, move your bed away from the wall - try getting out the otherside tomorrow ;)

Hi all,
My tuppence worth; I agree with Paul, I'd rather see quality over quantity on here. The last thing you want is idiots like me sticking their oar into every post. This is an excellent forum, I have a gander at least twice a day because I find it so interesting. I contribute when I can, but because I'm still a newbie when it comes to betting and betting strategies that I find I'm often out of my depth! I'm a C# programmer by trade and am willing to help out with C# programming issues, but you all seem to hate Microsoft and so use Perl, Python and Ruby instead! :-0
I find the actual programming of bots quite straightforward; it's the strategy I struggle with - and (not surprisingly) that's one thing people here are reluctant to share. For what it's worth, I'm currently experimenting with a reverse labouchere strategy and am losing money! I've tried all sorts over the last 18 months and have blown about £1000 so far...not too bad, and it's been fun but I just wish I could make a consistent profit, even if it was just for a week or two!
Andy

It's not going to be an issue now, I think the new bdp forum will become the main place for newbie questions. Especially if bdp staff are going to answer questions and provide sample code :)

I'm jumping in over there as well to be honest. I've been meaning to start a blog about botting for a while and they are providing a decent blogging platform to do it with. I'll still think of this place as the grown ups table though.

I'm currently experimenting with a reverse labouchere

-bennean

Hmmm, that sounds like some sort of back-end surgical operation to me. lol
Eeeee by gum, these young'uns and their new-fangled ideas.

PS
I'm having woman trouble, so apologies if i'm a bit GRRRRRRRRRRRR. ;-)

ahh, females. I will never understand them. A completely different species which just happens to be required to reproduce. Weirdos.

Young'un? Why, thank you, that's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all day!

PS. for info...
http://betting.betfair.com/horse-racing/betting-strategy/racing-betting-reverse-labouchre-staking-120808.html

It's quite easy to prove that no staking system can turn a bet with negative expectation into one with a positive expectation (in other words, if you can't win at level stakes, you can't win).  For a given sequence of results even a martingale can look impressive, but in the long run you are going to get hammered.
Betting with a positive expectation is a different matter; here there is an optimal size of bet given by the kelly criterion - although there are several assumptions, provisos and caveats with this, it's still streets ahead of anything else. If you don't want to get involved with the maths behind the proof, just code up a quick simulation comparing it to level stakes, reverse labouchère, martingale or whatever, I'm sure you will find the results convincing.
Just to reiterate - If you can't win at level stakes, you can't win. That's just one of those unfortunate facts of life. 
btw I think this new editor sucks as well.

Betting with a positive expectation is a different matter; here there is an optimal size of bet given by the kelly criterion- although there are several assumptions, provisos and caveats withthis...

What a sensational theory! I'm going to have a look at that.

And just to weigh in, I'm not a fan of the new editor either. Why can't they just drop something like FCKEditor or TinyMCE in and have done with it?

On any forum you have to work your way through the chaff a bit. I really like this one - I check in regulalrly and post when I think I have something to add.
Thankfully things here don't spiral into soap box arguments, as on many other forums!
The bdp one does look to be a good step forward too for access to betfair, and should divert a lot of newbies!

It is a lonely journey - the coding side we're probably used to, but it's the strategy development side that is really tough for this.
Anyone watching Million Dollar Traders? - there are a few parallels.

To follow any system, either manually or automated, you need a level of confidence in it that allows you to ride out the psychologically painful times without making decisions that break the system. (I'm going automated mainly because  know I'd be crap at the psychological bit!)
The Way of the Turtle is a great book for this - seeing how different people act given the same set of rules - some people believing that the people who are actually following the rules and succeeding have been given some special extra secret!
It's so tempting to believe there's a secret out there, but I think it's much more mudane.

There's a lot to be said for really understanding the domain, and the people who use it - why have betfair chosen the tick intervals and minimum stakes that they have? How do prices move, and does cross-matching affect this? Are there other quirks of the system that can be exploited? Are there prices which attract certain types of behaviour? When do other people make mistakes, and what kind of mistakes do they make? Can you trade in way that means you are usually being matched by people who are doing something stupid, or are wrong about what is happening right now, or are forced to do things they don't want to due to panic or greed? Or can you bet in ways where you get matched against people who are wrong or lazy about pricing? Then you need to test and see if that really does give you an edge.
Then of course you need your money management rules - I got most inspiration from seeing the staking on "maria's laying system" - well worth a read of the whole thread.

An eye-opener for me was working out that if you have a fanciful target of 1% profit a day, and are putting 5% of account at risk on a single market, you would only need to make 1% of that 5% per market if you can find 20 suitable markets a day - and betfair tick sizes are such that that is often only a tick or two. (And due to sequences of markets, you might be able to keep most of the account out of betfair and say offset against mortgage, or working somehow else)
On the one hand, 1% a day is a stupidly aggressive target, but at the same time, finding makets where you can reliably make 2 ticks or more at little risk shouldn't be impossible! My bot currently overtrades - I'm working now on more of a sniper approach - one trade (or less) per market may be all it takes...

P.S. bennean, you have one C# ally!

peteb, good words. Do you really think 1% per day is a stupidly aggressive target though?

I've told birchy this before in an email, but the way I work is by setting aside 10% of my bank for bets at any one time. The goal is to make 1% of my bank per day, by risking only ten percent of it in multiple bets. So what I end up with effectively is two banks, one 'Grand Bank' and another 'Risk Bank'. When the risk bank achieves its target, I increment the grand bank with the amount achieved, calculate a new risk bank and start again.

The risk bank is divided by foo and that is how many bets can be made at any one time. Obviously, a lay bet will cancel out a back bet, so the system is a lot more flexible than it looks to start with.

Basically it is ring fences within ring fences. It seems to be working so far, if slowly. The pace is quickening recently though, after I revised the expected return from individual bet-pairs. (back + lay = bet-pair)

I'd love to make 1% of my bank daily, and what with compounded funds, this time next year Rodney ....

I'm working now on more of a sniper approach - one trade (or less) per market may be all it takes...

-peteb

That's what i did on the snooker. I joined the market about half way through. Ronnie O' Sullivan was one frame behind and trading at odds 2.46. To me, that was massive value, so i lumped on my whole £500 and went for a cup of tea. Came back about half hour later and Ronnie had won the next frame, bringing them level again, and had become favourite again. I traded out in small lumps ~1.8* as anything <1.9 seemed short considering they were level on scores. I then used my locked-in profit which was about £170 to carry out a few more risk free trades as the odds fluctuated. All in all, was good fun. Snooker has been very good to me over the years and i've made about 3 or 4 grand trading like this but i only do it once in a blue moon. Downside is that i usually blow it trying to do the same on horses. lol

That's what's so tantalising - it seems not too far out of reach and would be extraordinary!

That looks like a nice way of organsing the banks - mine is similar - I have 30% of my bank in betfair, which means I can risk 5% of bank across 6 markets concurrently - they then have staking rules for how to use that allocated capital. And I sweep out of betfair in a similar way to you.

It's often asked on trading forums whether 1% a day is doable - I get the impression the best do way in excess of that, but the majority don't approach it remotely.
If it was easy, then you would see hedge funds reporting those returns all the time - but the ones that do manage it then have some kind of calamity a few years on!

My feeling is it's easier on betfair than in financial markets, though I haven't proved that yet!!

("stupidly aggressive" is probably wrong - if you can target it with a low risk of ruin, then it's not too aggressive!)

Nice trading birchy - I think going for a cup of tea may have been the genius bit! Too easy to get nervous watching every move in the prices...

The way I look at it, setting a target is one thing, reaching it is another. I think the trick is to set somewhat realistic targets and not beat yourself up if you don't achieve them. I snipe at markets in a similar way to you, one bet-pair per market and thats it. So if there is only three markets available that day, the target can't be achieved. No big deal. I can generally manage to meet two or three times the target on weekends, so it all balances out. My recent changes in access fortunes will take a massive amount of the risk (which I have already optimized once) away, so I can really see using this strategy starting to pay off big time from now.

Moral of the story: Set targets, but don't be iron clad about them. 0.7% is better than 0.0%.

Exactly - and well done you - if you are already at 0.7% without too much risk that's very exciting!