Another loss on an Australia game

Twenty20 World Cup / Editor / 23 September 2007 / Leave a Comment

The Betfair Trader talks us through Saturday's Twenty20 trading

Sunday, September 23, 2007
Twenty20 semi finals

Yesterday's Result: £480.6

Got to dash but thought I'd just do a quick update for yesterday rather than fall behind on the blog again.

Both the matches served up some more great cricketing action and we have and all Asian final - India v Pakistan - which promises to be a cracker. Pakistan should have pipped it last time they met but the match ended in a tie and now India are the marginal faves for the game.

Of yesterday's two matches I won on Pakistan's victory over New Zealand but lost on India's win over Australia. Also dropped a few quid on the Surrey v Lancashire championship decider. The loss in the Aussie game has certainly left me something to look at. In the last 15 or so Twenty20 games I've done I've lost on two - both of which involved Australia. Funnily enough my early positions were lays of them, my belief through much of the matches was they would lose, or at least their price was too short, but although they did eventually lose I ultimately did too.

Strange. And I'm spotting reasons for this. One is the market's belief in Australia spooks me. Even pushes me to take losses when I hit stops despite the fact I think the price is verging on ridiculous at times. This was more true in their loss to Pakistan than yesterday's to India but was still apparent yesterday.

The other is something I intend to do a more detailed blog about and was the main cause for yesterday's loss. Basically I got too impatient. I had a nice all green book, weighted in favour of India and tried to get on them too soon. The price swung back very quickly and I ended up with an all red book which I then managed to make a little worse. I should have waited a little longer. I know this, have read theoretical explanations of how and why to do it but still got it wrong. Hands up. My mistake. And one I have to learn from. Sure the volatility in the match didn't help the situation but basically I threw away a nice profit on getting one trade wrong which swung dramatically against me in the space of less than a minute. Two hours of good trading blown in less than 60 seconds by jumping the gun and making a mistake I'm aware of but still fell for. This is a topic that interests me and before too long, when the cricket is over, I'll do a more detailed blog entry on it explaining more about what I mean and the importance of getting it right. Maybe having to write about it will make me think twice before making the mistake again!

Anyway, seemed to bang that out in about 10 minutes. Hope it makes sense. Must go but will be back tomorrow for the Twenty20 final. Reckon it might just be worth tuning into. :-)

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