Changing from Live mode to Practice mode once profit target reached

[fothers77]

Hi

I wonder if anyone can help me with this.

I have a profit target on my greyhound bot as I have found over the past few months (in practice mode), profit and loss can be quite volatile. For instance, on many occasions, I have been 10pts up only to let the bot run the rest of the day and wipe this out. Now that I am moving over to Live mode, I have set a profit target using the stored value for 'The Balance'. Essentially, I will deposit 4pts (if I hit 4 points down it is likely to be a losing day so I stop there and move on) and completely stop once I have reached 10pts.

This causes me a problem as I still want to keep gathering data once my profit target has hit or gone down to zero, how would I be able to switch between the 2 in order to do this?

My only thought is to run 2 separate Bet Angel sessions, one in Live mode and one in Practice, so they are both scanning the same markets. However, I understand this is not a good idea as it could cause problems with the automation.

Is it possible (in Practice mode) to reference the actual balance so I can introduce new conditions which will kick in once those targets hit? I know in Practice when you use percentage of balance parameter, it would be a percentage of £1000 so I assume this would be the case in my example.

Currently I have to keep monitoring manually so I can change between the 2 when necessary but this is not always possible.

Many thanks.

[sionascaig]

You can't use practice mode to get a good measure of profitability as the bet matching is simulated... A matched bet in practice mode may/may not be matched in real life.

The only way to find out if your strategy is profitable is to run it in live - just use mini stakes till you gain confidence in it.

Practice mode is great for testing that your automation behaves reasonably well and can be used to capture market data (just not profitability / matched bets accurately)

[fothers77]

Thanks for your reply.

Yes that is a very good point and I understand that, especially when you consider greyhound markets can be particularly low liquidity. I'm only using £5 stakes for the next few weeks to see if this can work well going forward. I already have a plan in place as to when to I should increase stakes as a percentage of my balance and also place at 3rd best price to hopefully ensure the money is matched.

Since I've moved to Live, I have now encountered this problem of how to continue gathering data when I want Live betting to finish, be it a positive or negative day. I think it is best to ask this question now during the early stages so I can work on getting it right. I'm currently furloughed from work and it won't be long until I have to work full-time again so there will not be the time to continually monitor where I stand in case I need to manually switch to keep the data flowing.

[Derek27]

I have a profit target on my greyhound bot as I have found over the past few months (in practice mode), profit and loss can be quite volatile. For instance, on many occasions, I have been 10pts up only to let the bot run the rest of the day and wipe this out

That's probably just random. There would be days where it happens the other way around, you lose money and win it back. But because you feel it's a bad day and pull out you won't encounter them.

[fothers77]

I have a profit target on my greyhound bot as I have found over the past few months (in practice mode), profit and loss can be quite volatile. For instance, on many occasions, I have been 10pts up only to let the bot run the rest of the day and wipe this out

That's probably just random. There would be days where it happens the other way around, you lose money and win it back. But because you feel it's a bad day and pull out you won't encounter them.

Fair comment.

The reason I have looked at doing this is to simply minimize the losses and therefore increase long term profits. For example, the last 2 days were in practice mode and they do have very differing results. Yesterday would have been a very bad day had it been Live and without my 'stop-loss' in place. It would have quit at -3.4pts, although had it continued to the end of the day it would have been a whopping -14.3pts. This has happened a number of times and has a dramatic influence on what the end of month figures are.

The day before started with 4 losses in a row (actually it ended up being 6) so would have stopped at -4pts but it did recover slightly at the end of the day being +1.25pts so I totally understand where you are coming from. I am happy to be taking that small loss as just for February so far it has produced +49.6pts, significantly better than it would be without the stop-loss.


The problem I have is whether I can actually keep gathering the data when either target has been hit. I'm hoping someone can help me with this as I cannot continue to constantly monitor what is happening.

[Derek27]

I have a profit target on my greyhound bot as I have found over the past few months (in practice mode), profit and loss can be quite volatile. For instance, on many occasions, I have been 10pts up only to let the bot run the rest of the day and wipe this out

That's probably just random. There would be days where it happens the other way around, you lose money and win it back. But because you feel it's a bad day and pull out you won't encounter them.

Fair comment.

The reason I have looked at doing this is to simply minimize the losses and therefore increase long term profits. For example, the last 2 days were in practice mode and they do have very differing results. Yesterday would have been a very bad day had it been Live and without my 'stop-loss' in place. It would have quit at -3.4pts, although had it continued to the end of the day it would have been a whopping -14.3pts. This has happened a number of times and has a dramatic influence on what the end of month figures are.

The day before started with 4 losses in a row (actually it ended up being 6) so would have stopped at -4pts but it did recover slightly at the end of the day being +1.25pts so I totally understand where you are coming from. I am happy to be taking that small loss as just for February so far it has produced +49.6pts, significantly better than it would be without the stop-loss.


The problem I have is whether I can actually keep gathering the data when either target has been hit. I'm hoping someone can help me with this as I cannot continue to constantly monitor what is happening.

Minimizing losses to increase profits only works if you've identified a situation where you perform badly. For example, if you discover that you always fair worse late in the afternoon that would make sense. But you're talking about quitting when you're ahead and only quitting if you've reached a target early in the day, which doesn't seem logical and probably has more of a psychological factor in it.

[rik]

quit while ahead! dont let them get you

[ShaunWhite]

Stopping or continuing based on earlier results is something most people consider at some point but it really doesn't hold up to scrutiny. That sort of thinking just plays into the Gamblers Fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy).

But....as others have eluded to, there may be times of day that work better for you than others for a perfectly valid reason. That's because different types of market participant are active at different times of the day and that can affect how the market plays out. Lunchtimes might be dominated by casual punters (in non-Covid times that's blue collar money in the bookies), in the afternoon there's only really the pros and pensioners looking at dogs, and then in the evening all the part-timer traders get involved. I've no idea who's trading the early morning markets, probably just a handful of bots because nobody who's sane will be up and punting on the 8:12.

Try throwing all your results into a spreadsheet and sort them by time (not date & time) then chart the running total. If you see the chart trend up or down over certain time periods then maybe there's a case for avoiding those. Profit = Edge * Stake * Frequency of opportunity, so the last thing you want to do is start crossing out large sections of the day unless there's a sound real-world explaination for it, and what your personal PL is isn't one.

[ShaunWhite]

quit while ahead! dont let them get you

Yep I stay in the casino until I'm £10 up and it guarantees I walk out a winner everytime, last time I saw daylight was in 2017.

[Anbell]

I have a profit target on my greyhound bot as I have found over the past few months (in practice mode), profit and loss can be quite volatile. For instance, on many occasions, I have been 10pts up only to let the bot run the rest of the day and wipe this out

That's probably just random. There would be days where it happens the other way around, you lose money and win it back. But because you feel it's a bad day and pull out you won't encounter them.

Fair comment.

The reason I have looked at doing this is to simply minimize the losses and therefore increase long term profits. For example, the last 2 days were in practice mode and they do have very differing results. Yesterday would have been a very bad day had it been Live and without my 'stop-loss' in place. It would have quit at -3.4pts, although had it continued to the end of the day it would have been a whopping -14.3pts. This has happened a number of times and has a dramatic influence on what the end of month figures are.

The day before started with 4 losses in a row (actually it ended up being 6) so would have stopped at -4pts but it did recover slightly at the end of the day being +1.25pts so I totally understand where you are coming from. I am happy to be taking that small loss as just for February so far it has produced +49.6pts, significantly better than it would be without the stop-loss.


The problem I have is whether I can actually keep gathering the data when either target has been hit. I'm hoping someone can help me with this as I cannot continue to constantly monitor what is happening.

You can switch to minimum stakes to keep collecting data

[fothers77]

Try throwing all your results into a spreadsheet and sort them by time (not date & time) then chart the running total. If you see the chart trend up or down over certain time periods then maybe there's a case for avoiding those. Profit = Edge * Stake * Frequency of opportunity, so the last thing you want to do is start crossing out large sections of the day unless there's a sound real-world explaination for it, and what your personal PL is isn't one.

Really appreciate your advice.

I currently sort all my data for each individual day and then break them down by track. The next logical step would be to break them down by time. I have already thought of categorizing times by Early Morning, Morning, Afternoon and Evening meetings which would highlight any point in the day where my method would be better or worse.

[fothers77]

That's probably just random. There would be days where it happens the other way around, you lose money and win it back. But because you feel it's a bad day and pull out you won't encounter them.

Fair comment.

The reason I have looked at doing this is to simply minimize the losses and therefore increase long term profits. For example, the last 2 days were in practice mode and they do have very differing results. Yesterday would have been a very bad day had it been Live and without my 'stop-loss' in place. It would have quit at -3.4pts, although had it continued to the end of the day it would have been a whopping -14.3pts. This has happened a number of times and has a dramatic influence on what the end of month figures are.

The day before started with 4 losses in a row (actually it ended up being 6) so would have stopped at -4pts but it did recover slightly at the end of the day being +1.25pts so I totally understand where you are coming from. I am happy to be taking that small loss as just for February so far it has produced +49.6pts, significantly better than it would be without the stop-loss.


The problem I have is whether I can actually keep gathering the data when either target has been hit. I'm hoping someone can help me with this as I cannot continue to constantly monitor what is happening.

You can switch to minimum stakes to keep collecting data

Thanks for actually having a suggestion to solve my problem!

I will look at building that in as a sort of redundancy in case all else fails. Ideally, I would prefer to stop Live mode at the point I wish however your suggestion does make sense. Even though at £5 stakes currently, I'm not far off minimum already haha

[Derek27]

Thanks for actually having a suggestion to solve my problem!

When a devil worshiper goes into a Christian church to ask for help.....with directions - the last thing you expect help with is directions.

As far as I know you need to log out and back in to switch to practice mode and I don't think there is any automation features to do that.

[Anbell]

Fair comment.

The reason I have looked at doing this is to simply minimize the losses and therefore increase long term profits. For example, the last 2 days were in practice mode and they do have very differing results. Yesterday would have been a very bad day had it been Live and without my 'stop-loss' in place. It would have quit at -3.4pts, although had it continued to the end of the day it would have been a whopping -14.3pts. This has happened a number of times and has a dramatic influence on what the end of month figures are.

The day before started with 4 losses in a row (actually it ended up being 6) so would have stopped at -4pts but it did recover slightly at the end of the day being +1.25pts so I totally understand where you are coming from. I am happy to be taking that small loss as just for February so far it has produced +49.6pts, significantly better than it would be without the stop-loss.


The problem I have is whether I can actually keep gathering the data when either target has been hit. I'm hoping someone can help me with this as I cannot continue to constantly monitor what is happening.

You can switch to minimum stakes to keep collecting data

Thanks for actually having a suggestion to solve my problem!

I will look at building that in as a sort of redundancy in case all else fails. Ideally, I would prefer to stop Live mode at the point I wish however your suggestion does make sense. Even though at £5 stakes currently, I'm not far off minimum already haha

This might help
https://betangel.kayako.com/article/105 ... et-allowed