Struggling with the big races

[darkpunter]

I then remembered from my psychology studies that if you want to change a behaviour by using a mantra it must be a POSITIVE command and not a negative one, so I replaced 'Don't go in play' with 'Finish safely before the start of the race.' This change actually made a big difference.

I like the sound of that - let's see how that works for me.

[Joao]

Honestly, for me was a click. I don't really know what happened to stop going in-play. In my trading I had two big breaks.
Before the first break, I was learning and I was still very nervous and indisciplined, going in-play often. After some bad losses, I've decided to stop trading for a while.

After the first break, I developed trading skills very well, I was profiting on almost all races, but I wasn't dealing very well with redbooks, which seems more stupid, because I would be a profitable trader If I wasn't leaving my trades in-play. Another break then.

Now I came back trading this last month, and suddenly I'm the most disciplined trader I could ever be, and for me going in-play or raising my stakes to recover losses is quite unthinkable. And I'm finally making money from this

I believe nothing would work for me, papers or alarms or writing 100x times in a paper. Washing the toilet like Heathcote said on his blog is unthinkable. I wouldn't do either eheh. I think I had so many negative experiences going in-play that I started having fear of doing it and now I don't do it anymore.

I just hope you guys are not like me, cause that would mean that you have not yet enough negative experiences with the in-play issue

[finnbarr99]

I don't know if you're much of a form buff but if you are and you trade the right horse with the intention of laying in play you can make good profits. You just need to have an idea about which ones will be in contention towards the latter stages of the race or which ones are front runners. It also helps if you can read the race to know when to bail out obviously.

[lilgreenback]

Hi DP,

I can understand your frustration as I'm in the position of struggling with most races so in someways I'm not qualified to add any sense to the argument. Apart from; and you are no doubt aware, the volume of the money on both sides (B/L) and the speed that it comes in seems to jam up the market. You end up being unable to get matched or the chance that you have seen sails right by and the entry (or exit) point vanishes up the other end of the graph.

One thing I have been thinking about (as well as giving up and selling my account and licence to some other poor sod)is trying to catch the "freight train" the night before or early AM as you'll have seen how they drift or steam and then try getting sorted out about 1 hour before the start or using the auto settings and a trailing stop.

To be honest I have had more success on the 2/3rd fav than on the "Superstars" there may be less liquidity sure but it is more fluid (sometimes)and it moves.

Again don't quote me (have been well wrong in past)I see the last 5mins is the "get out time" try to get trades ready to complete by then as the whole thing can go wild (however it can be great and you get good matches "scalpes" when it's tremoring) but that unpredictability can then take you too close to having to cut a loss big or "goin in play" to get out.

Again I don't know if it rings true to others but I have found that it is better to have an in play lay than a back bet. (Apart from Fav) As it has more chance of getting matched than a "back bet" as it does not have to win. But don't take that as fact as I have had some disasters both ways.

Hope you stay lucky an "lets be careful out there"

LilGB