At What Point Should I Just Give up

The sport of kings.
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Black Ladder
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2019 2:40 am

Derek27 wrote:
Thu Oct 24, 2019 10:16 pm
to75ne wrote:
Thu Oct 24, 2019 9:51 pm
just out of curiosity why have you resurrected a thread that as been dormant (effectively dead) for the think end of 2 1/2 years, what is the reason?
I thought for a moment Luke was thinking of giving up. ;)
I think he lost direction Derek. He thought he was on FleaBay ...
rik
Posts: 1583
Joined: Sat Jan 25, 2014 5:16 am
Location: London

luke not giving up anytime soon still got the beginners enthusiasm
westbamtrading
Posts: 197
Joined: Tue Oct 23, 2018 4:58 pm

This is what I did:

1) Acceptance - Just because others can, doesn't mean I can

2) Stopped beating myself up - I Just found a different way, and let's be honest, there is never a lack of opportunities in trading!

3) Stay positive - I haven't given up on trading, I simply gave up on what wasn't working for me.

4) Be Patient - I never had the mentality that 'Trading' was going to be easy, or that I'd be able to quit my job next week.

5) Start small - minimum trade is 50p ..its better than using the Demo account IMO and you can work with that until you have something that resembles a positive system of trading.


Personally, I had to look at the past. I gambled heavily in the early 2,000, but I had so much success that I actually gave up work. For reasons I won't go into here, I stopped (noting sinister). But TBH, financially, it was the best time in my life.

So I took a break from Horse Racing, looked back at what I used to do and realized that none of that success came from Horse Racing, so why was I doing it now?

So now I'm doing what I used to do 20 years ago with the added bonus that comes with trading. October 2019 has been the most successful trading month ever, by a huge margin. For me I just had to accept that there's more to trading than Horse Racing .. and now seeing my account grow I'm OK with that. It's not just matter of trading in other markets, but I had to change how I traded. After some testing I'm now very confident in what I'm doing, and I don't look at the horses at all because I have no need to.
threedogs
Posts: 79
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 10:24 am

It isnt the entry point thats important
Nobody really knows which way a market will go
Its how you trade that counts
If it goes your way ride it til it levels out then get out with a profit
If it goes against you scratch the trade or get out fast with a minimal loss
If you get more right than wrong you are in profit
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goat68
Posts: 2019
Joined: Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:53 pm
Location: Hampshire, UK

threedogs wrote:
Thu Jan 14, 2021 7:54 pm
It isnt the entry point thats important
Nobody really knows which way a market will go
Its how you trade that counts
If it goes your way ride it til it levels out then get out with a profit
If it goes against you scratch the trade or get out fast with a minimal loss
If you get more right than wrong you are in profit
Can't believe entry is not important. Sure you need to be able to ride your winners, although current markets this week I would beg to disagree with that too, my bot hasn't picked up on any trends, and most markets have been dead line... So far this week i've just seen small swings up and back again for a big fat 0!
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goat68
Posts: 2019
Joined: Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:53 pm
Location: Hampshire, UK

threedogs wrote:
Thu Jan 14, 2021 7:54 pm
It isnt the entry point thats important
Nobody really knows which way a market will go
Its how you trade that counts
If it goes your way ride it til it levels out then get out with a profit
If it goes against you scratch the trade or get out fast with a minimal loss
If you get more right than wrong you are in profit
You know "edges" run out, maybe this big "ride your winners" hype since everyone is trying to do it, means it doesn't happen...
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Realrocknrolla
Posts: 1903
Joined: Fri Jun 05, 2020 7:15 pm

You will never know how far you could have gone if you quit!
Last edited by Realrocknrolla on Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Realrocknrolla
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iggypop37
Posts: 98
Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2018 11:05 pm

I come from a matched betting/arbing background for many years, I also have some knowledge of how and why the money goes down, not on betfair, but in retail settings shall we say, learning to trade the gee gees however purely on betfair is all very different.

I think if I was to start trading again, I'd deffo look at soccer first.

But - you only need one edge to set you on your way .....
eightbo
Posts: 2166
Joined: Sun May 17, 2015 8:19 pm
Location: Australia / UK

don't give up; journal + pivot
stueytrader
Posts: 863
Joined: Tue Dec 15, 2015 6:47 pm

eightbo wrote:
Fri Jan 22, 2021 3:43 am
don't give up; journal + pivot
Is that pivot as in pivot tables (stats) or pivot as in be flexible and shift your approach...?

Either would make sense to me! :D
BigT2019
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2021 1:40 pm

I've been actively trading horse racing markets for about 5-6 months now but I've got myself into a vicious cycle (and I'm sure a few can relate to when they first started) where my loss is higher than what I consider to be an acceptable level I.e. Intended cap is say £5-£8 loss but it reaches £12+ for whatever reason (discipline mainly) and yes I take it inplay and it all goes to s*** from there. Now I've noticed a few times I've been lucky with low price favs as they dont always win and so a few times I've won my money back (most often the losses multiply) but of course this is proof that I cannot accept all of my losses and end up chasing some of them. Taking these horrid mistakes out of the equation and my records show my strike rate is around 75-85% and without those big losses from going in play, my account would be in profit. I know that doesn't mean "oh if I stop going inplay then I'll live happily ever after" but clearly this has a serious negative impact on my overall confidence and profitability.
My question is how do you deal with big losses pre-off and avoid the temptation of taking trades inplay in hope to reduce the loss? Brutal honesty/constructive criticism is most welcomed.
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goat68
Posts: 2019
Joined: Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:53 pm
Location: Hampshire, UK

BigT2019 wrote:
Tue Feb 02, 2021 7:45 pm
I've been actively trading horse racing markets for about 5-6 months now but I've got myself into a vicious cycle (and I'm sure a few can relate to when they first started) where my loss is higher than what I consider to be an acceptable level I.e. Intended cap is say £5-£8 loss but it reaches £12+ for whatever reason (discipline mainly) and yes I take it inplay and it all goes to s*** from there. Now I've noticed a few times I've been lucky with low price favs as they dont always win and so a few times I've won my money back (most often the losses multiply) but of course this is proof that I cannot accept all of my losses and end up chasing some of them. Taking these horrid mistakes out of the equation and my records show my strike rate is around 75-85% and without those big losses from going in play, my account would be in profit. I know that doesn't mean "oh if I stop going inplay then I'll live happily ever after" but clearly this has a serious negative impact on my overall confidence and profitability.
My question is how do you deal with big losses pre-off and avoid the temptation of taking trades inplay in hope to reduce the loss? Brutal honesty/constructive criticism is most welcomed.
i'm only 8months into this journey, and i've been ALL of the above...! My theory is I developed a high hit rate at the start because I was letting my losers run, which paid off quite a bit giving the high hit rate, but then I got that really awful loser, and yes a few times I got angry and let it go inplay, and I was lucky a few times with some big lucky wins! but then lost it on some other big losses. In the long run I was -EV.
- Don't go inplay it's not part of your plan and you're just gambling like I did
- Learn to love your losses as part of your strategy, i'm still not there, but getting closer with Automation. My bot had an awful week last week through a string of misstakes, but i've already got over it and onto a new bot.

All in all i'm still not near being profitable, but i've ticked a number of the boxes to hopefully get there...

Goat's advice (for what it is worth!):
- Don't go inplay
- Don't focus too much on your strike rate
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Trader724
Posts: 562
Joined: Fri Dec 27, 2019 11:22 pm

Try to reduce the stakes until you feel comfortable with any loss and understand that individual results are not so important and you shouldn't risk more just to avoid a loss, this mentality is specific to those who have gambling problems and trading is different, losses simply cannot be avoided, you have to get used to them. If you want to be successful in trading you have to be disciplined, I think that's the first condition.
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Realrocknrolla
Posts: 1903
Joined: Fri Jun 05, 2020 7:15 pm

BigT2019 wrote:
Tue Feb 02, 2021 7:45 pm
I've been actively trading horse racing markets for about 5-6 months now but I've got myself into a vicious cycle (and I'm sure a few can relate to when they first started) where my loss is higher than what I consider to be an acceptable level I.e. Intended cap is say £5-£8 loss but it reaches £12+ for whatever reason (discipline mainly) and yes I take it inplay and it all goes to s*** from there. Now I've noticed a few times I've been lucky with low price favs as they dont always win and so a few times I've won my money back (most often the losses multiply) but of course this is proof that I cannot accept all of my losses and end up chasing some of them. Taking these horrid mistakes out of the equation and my records show my strike rate is around 75-85% and without those big losses from going in play, my account would be in profit. I know that doesn't mean "oh if I stop going inplay then I'll live happily ever after" but clearly this has a serious negative impact on my overall confidence and profitability.
My question is how do you deal with big losses pre-off and avoid the temptation of taking trades inplay in hope to reduce the loss? Brutal honesty/constructive criticism is most welcomed.
Use the automation rule that greens up everything for you and stops you going inplay.

Think this is it.

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