Champs league 2011/2012

I have been looking at a few of the champions league prices lately and can't help but take notice of the price being quoted for Manchester City. I honestly think they look an attractive price at 23.00 on Betfair, granted they are untested at this level but if they start the season well with the players they are talking about bringing in, like Aguero ,Sneijder and Nasri etc bearing in mind their first 6 league games are Swansea, Bolton, Spurs, Wigan, Fulham and Everton, not the toughest i am sure you will agree. They will also need a kind draw but i don't think 23's will be around long, i for one will be looking at laying them off a little later.

In fact i think other than the first 4 in the betting there are a few overpriced teams. Inter @ 40's is another or maybe you fancy one of the french teams to get to the later stages, I wouldn't say a french team will win it but at these prices:-

• Lille - 270.00
• Marseille - 250.00
• Lyon - 300.00

I wouldn't bet against one or two of them reaching the knockout stages,in which case you won't be getting quoted 250's plus.

The golden rule when taking a long position in an anti-post market is remember, you are a trader and the trader cares about profits, he does not care being right or wrong one little bit. If you can keep this mindset when going long and not be tempted into thinking the price has collapsed lets see if they can win it or one more round or anything other than exiting and collecting a profit then you will go far.

Anti-post markets present some fantastic opportunities  for the trader, especially pre-season as the prices have to go one of 2 ways (pedantic people will say all prices have to do this) what i mean is they will certainly move and with so long to go before the event, season in this case, there is no way of telling what is around the corner, signings, departures, injuries, takeovers or suspensions - I could go on.

The point is, the statistics and opinions that these prices are based on are the most vague and loose prices you will see at any time in the sporting calender. Bookmakers are good yes, but they cannot see the future - well not a year into the future when not seeing a ball kicked for 3 months and not seeing the new teams squads play a single game or even who will be in those squads etc etc etc

To summarise.

• Look for prices you deem to be far too good an opportunity to turn down.
• If the trade is good, it will find you and make it almost impossible not to enter. ( your trading instincts should take over)
• Never treat an anti-post position as a "bet" going long requires the same discipline as any other trade, just because it seems so far away from now, that time will come sooner than you think so have an exit strategy in place.
• It's not about being right with your selections it is about using the selection to position yourself in a profitable situation.

       And finally,

• Green is for show, exits are for dough.

Regards
Fluffnut.

Pigeonholing sportsmen - advantage or a hindrance?

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately and am trying to work out if putting certain players down as having a particular mentality when the pressure is on is a good thing or if it is best to just base decisions on what is currently happening as players mindset will undoubtedly change at different times of their careers and in some cases even vary between competitions.

A good example is Rory McIlroy. After watching him completely smash the field to pieces in the first 3 rounds of the masters earlier in the year only to capitulate on the last day, i instantly put him in the "bottler" section of sportsmen. The benefit of putting players in pigeon holes is that markets almost never factor this into the prices they offer thus the shrewd trader can spot these opportunities and if necessary take a position based on this past information.

After the masters nightmare for McIlroy i thought to myself this knowledge could prove very useful if or when he found himself in a similar scenario and so straight away began looking towards the us open and dreaming of a situation where in my opinion McIlroy's price was far too low.

After literally tearing away from the opposition with golf that was widely described as "from another planet" i kept a keen eye on his price and saw he was about 1.47 with 36 holes still to play. Now, bearing in mind what happened only 2 months previous, you could not be blamed for thinking,exactly as i did that this was far too short a price for a man that had literally fallen apart in front of our very eyes as recently as he had.

On this occasion, I did not take a position as upon further inspection I noticed some massive differences between how he was playing and how he played after leading at the Masters in Augusta. He had an aura about him this time and you could almost sense the confidence being transmitted through your TV into your living room with palpable realism. The swagger that had deserted him was back and it was back in abundance, this was a completely different player who was clearly in a much better place mentally. It was as if he was drawing on the pain and heartache of Augusta and playing like he never wanted to experience these feeling again.

Still....saying all this, in hindsight i regret not trading his price as i thought it presented a massive opportunity and although it would have proved fruitless i would have been sensible enough to exit after he started so well in the 4th round, probably ensuring a big loss if anyone else won and zero loss if McIlroy won as the way he was finishing, the odds on crumbling again (although he was further ahead by this point than he was in the masters) were slim to none.

So, does it pay to pigeonhole sportsmen based on past performances? Taking into account the mental elements (rather than past results as basically all prices are based on past results anyway.) I tend to lean towards wanting to factor them in as I think they give priceless information for taking up future positions. The reason i bring this up is the completely different results you would have have had with McIlroy in the last 2 majors taking up identical positions, at identical times and prices in identical conditions.

To conclude, i think that using any information can only help decision making but the type of sport dictates the type of information you should use, i.e. mental strength is going to play a bigger role in individual sports like golf or tennis than it will in team sports such as football and rugby. In my mind this can only be beneficial and is a tool i will definitely be adding to my repertoire although when to employ this information still seems to be very much open to debate.

Does not get any easier does it!!

Regards
Fluffnut

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A quick heads up

Just a quick one, been a few days since i have put anything on here but this is a trading marathon not a sprint. I plan to post lots more tomorrow (8th July 2011) including more on API software with a ladder explantion and soon i will conducting a thorough review of some of the most popular API vendors currently on the market. I will also get some more up on research and will start on Discipline and mathematics.

Been a slow start but I was gauging interest from different forums etc.

Thanks to all who have visited so far and i would like to remind you all that i honestly intend on making this a great place to come and read on areas of trading and make it as enjoyable and informative as possible.
Thanks again.

Kind Regards

Fluffnut

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