everything has been going great, now this

[geoffrey1928]

Firlandsfarm, thanks for that suggestion. I think increasing the amount of time to green up, increasing amount of times this can fire, plus adding your suggestion, while not giving a cast iron promise of this not happening again, makes it far more unlikely. At the end of the day, it could happen once or twice a season and would therefore be more than made up for with profits.

My question would be, what would be the best way of going about 'firing' in this back bet with the chosen horse? Would the condition be linked to unmatched bets and what price would I be suited to go for?

[Dallas]

Dallas, thank you. I really shouldn't have been trading the last week or so, still flued up. If I increase the amount of time for the stop/loss, increase the number of times the rule will trigger, would I have to add a condition to stop it firing again if successful? Or would it imply not fire again once it had been successful?

To give it the best possible chance, if you want the stop to kick in after 20 secs, arm it from 20secs till 60secs after going in-play.
Yes, once you have greened up even if it was at the first attempt the remaining triggers won't do anything, so I'd set it for a min of 3 triggers but no harm in setting 5-10 with a minimum of a 2-second re-arm

[geoffrey1928]

Dallas, brilliant, thank you.

Are we talking about leaving the stop loss as it is (should this be triggered more than once as well?) and then extending the green/red up to a minute with say 10 triggers, 2 seconds before rearm?

[Derek27]

At the end of the day, it could happen once or twice a season and would therefore be more than made up for with profits.

Sorry to sound so negative but what makes you think it will happen once or twice a season and what makes you think it will be recovered with profits? It's already happened twice in the last month!

In the example graph firlandsfarm gave, firing multiple green-ups wouldn't have helped you because the price was running away, and if you did green up it could have been at a very low price for a big loss.

At the end of the day you were risking losing £325 to win less than a fiver so it only needs to happen once in 65 times to wipe out your profit.

[geoffrey1928]

This particular automation has run just over 500 times, real races, real money, the failure to green up has happened twice, and that is without the stop loss firing more than once, so with taking Dallas' advice and adding multi firing, then I think I have some grounds to believe if it happens again due to unforeseen circumstances in betting (Betfair suspending betting etc) then profits should cover possible losses, but only time will tell. There will also be the occasional time when the horse falls at first fence or freezes in the stalls, which happened to me when I was using front runners as my guide - but of course that would work in my favour.

[firlandsfarm]

My question would be, what would be the best way of going about 'firing' in this back bet with the chosen horse? Would the condition be linked to unmatched bets and what price would I be suited to go for?

The problem with greening-up in running is that BA uses the odds current when the calculation is performed so by the time the bet has been delayed the price has likely moved. If yo-yoing it will probably come back but if falling you will probably miss the price. The firing of a backstop bet would be relatively easy. You chose when you want to fire a backstop (time in running or price) and add a condition to allow the bet only if there are unmatched bets on the selection (remember to cancel the unmatched bets!). You can put in as many backstop bets as you want so long as they all have an Unmatched Bets>0 condition and effectively take the loss you are prepared to take but remember it will not be an exact calculation because the prices may move against you very fast so you would need to include a safety margin in the odds requested to have the best chance of being matched.

[geoffrey1928]

Thank you, I will try and put in several backstop bets, it would add an extra line of defence. As you say, many backstop bets could be added providing the condition of unmatched bets >0 is added. Will get to work on that this evening.

[wearthefoxhat]

When I last looked at the In-Play market, I had to treat it as a seperate entity. ie: Pre-trades closed, In-Play starts.

The entry point would have been the BSP = trigger 1, then the % target as the exit. I found the stop loss In-Play a distraction, as the market invariably moved through too quickly to help the trade. Also with the normal delay and indifferent liquidity, it could stop out too soon.

The way it worked best for me was to allow the IP trade to flow. If the trade lost, = -1pt. (no more than 1% of the bank). If the % trade was achieved then roll it on to the next trade. eg: 4 winning 25% trades = 2.44. It was based on finding B2L selections as this was easier to control the staking.

Back in the day, I did some live examples within the DOBBING thread, hitting 5 out of 5 using the Bet Angel guardian tools. With the new Betfair delays, for me, it's not worth doing for now.

[ShaunWhite]

Gotta say there's been some 1st class contributions lately about the nuts and bolts of automation, strategy weaknesses etc etc on this and other threads. Anyone new to trading and/or knowing enough to understand the replies really is being spoilt with such an abundance of wisdom, and the generocity in sharing it reminds you that even though you sometimes think the world is full of *%!*'s there's also plenty of really decent kind people.

That might sound a bit loved-up and snowflakey to some, but credit where it's due.

[Derek27]

This particular automation has run just over 500 times, real races, real money, the failure to green up has happened twice, and that is without the stop loss firing more than once, so with taking Dallas' advice and adding multi firing, then I think I have some grounds to believe if it happens again due to unforeseen circumstances in betting (Betfair suspending betting etc) then profits should cover possible losses, but only time will tell. There will also be the occasional time when the horse falls at first fence or freezes in the stalls, which happened to me when I was using front runners as my guide - but of course that would work in my favour.

Good luck with your test but here's a suggestion if you try any other strategies.

If I was automating in-running I'd be looking to lay horses at odds-on or back them at odds against, so that my liabilities are manageable. Firing multiple green-up orders may mean laying a horse at 12 and backing it at 3, so you lose 4 times your stake. Wearthefoxeshat's idea of limiting maximum liability (which equals maximum loss in IR trading) is similar to what I do and it's a key part in protecting yourself from substantial losses.

I realise your strategy involves trading slow starters, which is obviously a laying strategy, the problem is laying horses at 13.5 will always leave you exposed to big liabilities, not being able to green up or greening up at very short prices. The reason I'm telling you this is because you didn't understand on your other thread why a back bet was placed for twice the amount as the lay. Lay a horse at 12 and green up at 6, you have to stake twice as much to green up; at 3 you stake 4 times as much; if it drops to 1.2 it would be 10 times as much!

[geoffrey1928]

Thanks Derek, but I do understand about laying and the amounts that can seem very high- I have been in this game long enough to understand that, it is automation and BetAngel I am new to. I simply did not understand why in certain circumstances that green up etc didn't take place, I spent a little bit of time last night, have had over 620 trades over the last month or so and green up didn't take place in two of those races. I have found that one of those races, a little time ago, actually stayed suspended for over 30 seconds into race, so of course none of my fail safes worked. I feel confident now that with adding extra firing of the green up rule, extending the time in which this will happen, plus a possible firing of a last gasp back bet if needed - while not guaranteeing this will never happen again, will bring it down to a once in a blue moon scenario.