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
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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