16th February - Total Profits £690

The tennis I traded illustrates one of my rules, you have to be confident that what you think will happen will happen in the time frame that you expect it to happen.

Sugiyama v Bartoli - Bartoli won the first set 6-0 and in the second set she called for medical assistance, it transpires that when she left Australia she was laid up in her sick bed for 10 days and was rough. She is rough and she looked completely out of it, at 4-4 in the second set she wobbled and staggered to her chair and that was that, we all thought she would give up and go home, the market switched completely from a Bartoli win to a Sugiyama win. I backed at 1.51 and laid at 1.37 using £39 stakes. Sugiyama went on to win the set and traded as low as 1.08 and about £100k was traded - third set went to a tie break, Sugiyama had three match points, 2 of which Bartoli served to leave her opponent with 1 match point left and you remember I said you cant trust the women's serve - yup she double faulted and lost the match to Bartoli. I was confident the odds would come down but they wouldn't come down much more as they had plummeted already and if Bartoli came out and continued playing then her odds would stop. Sure I could have predicted she would lose that set but I wasn't confident she would so I didn't wait until the set was won by Sugiyama but had she lost then it was match over. Her odds after the 2nd set for Sugiyama were low very low but Bartoli was still competing and I didnt get involved - I'm sorry but if you cant break against someone who is very obviously ill and then break again then the player cant be very good and my confidence in Sugiyama wasn't as strong as others obviously.

There were a few opportunities to trade in football today.

There was only one televised match to look forward to and that was the Arsenal v Cardiff match. I expected a tight 20 minutes and the opportunity to trade on the under 2.5 market. It didnt turn out that way. There were clues for those not able to watch the match that Arsenal were very dangerous and goals were going to arrive shortly - I traded at 1.88 and out again at 1.87 then six minutes later I did the same trade - a lot of people who were watching the match were convinced that a goal would be scored - six minutes of the market not budging is unusual. I stopped trading for 5 minutes (I looked at my matched bets to know this information) to re-assess the situation and started trading again but only traded for 2 to 3 minutes before coming to the conclusion that I was trading in dangerous markets - A few minutes later Arsenal scored and they started trading at 1.15/1.14 now with 70 odd minutes to go, you can make a positional trade i.e I dont think Cardiff will win and lay them, I think Arsenal will win and back them. I dont like taking positional trades when the odds are so low - I moved on to another football match where the markets had less liquidity but at least the markets were moving.

Setubal v Academica were playing in the Portuguese league and the markets behaved themselves, no goals means no huge surprises and thus an easy £19.

The other match I watched and traded was the Al Wasl v Ajman match (yeah I got no idea either) very little liquidity but with neither side looking that dangerous (Al Wasl looking the more likely) I managed to turn a £12 profit into a £10 loss when they scored their first goal and then turned the £10 loss into a £0.90 win when they scored their 2nd goal.

Results:

£32.60 - 2.98%