BETFAIR TENNIS TRADING TIPS – SUCCESSFUL OR NOT?


SUCCESSFUL TENNIS TRADING TIP OR NOT?

This article describes about how I deem a tennis trading tip as successful or not. It also gives vital information as to how to deal with tennis trading decisions in crucial circumstances.

Before I get into the article, let me say that once in a while, I do get a few emails and comments asking me why I made a particular tennis trading strategy successful or not successful. Player ‘A’ started so poorly that the odds completely went against her at which point you traded out only to find out that she fights back to win in 2 sets. So first of all how I deem the match successful and more importantly, how do you trade such a match?

One of the most important weapons for tennis trading on Betfair, as I’ve mentioned many times before, is your intuition! No tips, no strategies and no tools on any trading platform can compare to that one human quality. If you have monitored a match closely and delayed trading, most of the time your intuitions are likely to be right.

For this article, let me take the match between Kuznetsova and Cirstea in the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Japan. Here’s my tip on the match:

” 1. 3:00 – Kuznetsova v Cirstea
BACK HEAVY!
BH Kuznetsova@1.72, lay@1.4
Rather confident on Kuzzy winning this one!”

As you can see I advised going for Kuznetsova HEAVY here as I was rather confident in her game overall. However things started horribly here as she trailed 4-0 at the start. This would mean obviously that our strategy failed early on. However, here’s the most important thing to remember: a strategy failing doesn’t mean that your trade is completely over!

It is an absolute must to monitor the match for further opportunities. If you have decided to leave the match and follow a new tip after this poor start, I highly recommend you have the scoreboard on so you can continue monitoring. If you had done that in this case, you were more likely to lower your losses.

An in-depth look:

Cirstea was an underdog here first of all. Her odds were in the 2.2 – 2.3 range and my tip was a Back Heavy one on Kuznetsova. Delaying the match at least for 2 games would have got you a very decent price of at least 2 on Kuznetsova. However, it’s worth pointing out, Kuznetsova odds had jumped above 2.7 at one stage. This is still fine as it’s only the first set.

The keys to beating the market here are the original indicators. In this case, that’s the initial pricing on Kuznetsova and also her response from 0-4 down. If you can see an improvement in Kuznetsova at the time, you should lay Cirstea immediately, no questions asked. It’s worth noting that your risk is more but very calculated. In the worst case scenario this trade should still be exited if needed but because you have re-entered the trade, my advise generally is to wait out the first set. It’s a bold but meaningful risk.

As the match went on Kuznetsova gained more and more confidence and from 0-4 down, came back strongly to take this to a tie-break which she won comfortably. The second set was a very one sided affair in Kuzzy’s favour.

The good thing about this match was that delayed trading would have been hugely helpful and even if you did BH the market, you were doing it at a better odds and it maybe likely that with the delaying added, this may not have even hit the 40% stop loss.

It’s worth noting that in WTA, especially because of poor serving stats and higher break point opportunities, such cases are almost normal these days. 

When I deem a tennis trading strategy as unsuccessful, I generally look into the initial odds and also how much delaying would have helped. If I see that delaying had not much of an effect, then I generally consider the strategy unsuccessful. However if its a very huge favourite and I have asked him/her to be laid and in the event after the player takes a huge lead only to lose the set, there have been times I have considered it successful. Reason being, in such a case, delaying would have got you a much better lay price.

One such example was the match between Radwanska and Makarova in the US open. My initial gut feeling was that Radwanska odds would jump. I believe her price was in the 1.2 range and she stormed to a 4-0 lead which would have decreased her odds considerably to at least 1.07 or even less! However delaying with even a 2-0 lead would have got you a lay price in the 1.1-1.15 range which would have meant your risks were considerably less.

The most important point in this article I would like to point out is that, even though the strategy failed at the start, should you have really lost money? For me it’s a simple no. If you have said yes, it simply means you have forgotten the whole point of using Betfair, TRADING!

So always remember to monitor markets even after horrible starts as a strategy failing early, never implies ending up in a loss..

Thanks for reading!

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