Would really like to learn how to trade inplay??

[ShaunWhite]

Gold, thank you

Concrete actually. It's the foundations everything we do is built on.

[Kai]

Gold, thank you

Concrete actually. It's the foundations everything we do is built on.

Very well put Shaun, I like that.

As much is being said on these boards overall, that which is unsaid is equally as important, if not more. Even if the exchange was flourishing people will always keep the best bits for themselves.

At least with good enough foundations others are given a fighting chance to try and build something special.

[Thehawk]

This is hard to get the head around as most of peters videos shows trading as opening and closing, how would you even begin to price up a horse race as to know if your getting value or not.

i have been pre horse trading for 8months and finding it challenging enough, its all most information overload, this forum is an excellent source of information and i have been working my way through all the old and new threads plus all peters videos to learn as much as i can but there is just so much!! sometimes it feels like i cant see the woods through the trees......

[Kai]

sometimes it feels like i cant see the woods through the trees......

Yes, well, forums and videos are not a real substitute for market experience, overall it's an exercise in persistence and problem solving, pointless really to try and consume all information at once since you can't fully grasp much of it anyway without this experience, better to treat all resources as rough guidelines and get stuck in instead to figure out which bits and pieces are actually relevant to you, then as you run into issues you can look those up specifically to try and solve them etc...

Less is more in this case and better to start simple, at least as a manual trader you are free to be as picky as you like, I don't really keep too many market criteria either, as long as market is liquid i will trade just about anything that moves, and much that doesn't. For example that probably doesn't sound like much at all, an innocuous little comment like that, but it can say a lot.

[ShaunWhite]

This is hard to get the head around as most of peters videos shows trading as opening and closing, how would you even begin to price up a horse race as to know if your getting value or not.

i have been pre horse trading for 8months and finding it challenging enough, its all most information overload, this forum is an excellent source of information and i have been working my way through all the old and new threads plus all peters videos to learn as much as i can but there is just so much!! sometimes it feels like i cant see the woods through the trees......

Value is something that doesn't need to be front and centre in your mind when you're trading price movement. And if you're doing it profitably then you'll inherently be obtaining value even if you can't, and needn't, pin down where. It's more something that you just need to be aware of so that you're not tempted to do anything unwise, such as closing at any price above 1.01 in_running, trying to stop a loss. In fact you can't show a green screen at bsp unless your net prices were better than bsp, that's what a green book is. A free bet is clearly a value bet.

There's a wide range of advice and chat aimed at different levels of experience, you'll be glad of that later and frankly if it didn't get serious sometimes then people wouldn't stick around once they got going.

Last thing on value, there's no need to price up horses, and frankly my knowledge extends no further than knowing a horse is bigger than a dog, the market and it's 000s of players are pricing it for you via the wisdom of the crowd. (And there's a mathemetically anomaly that means all prices are theoretically right at all times but we'll save that explaination for another day.) So if you want value then at it's simplest it's about getting a hair better than the current price, and the easiest to do that is simply to offer. There's other more effective ways but again, don't worry about that yet.

So relax about it, file it for later because if you're trading price movement, knowing is a good thing because all knowledge is, but it's not a necessity.

[firlandsfarm]

... And there's a mathemetically anomaly that means all prices are theoretically right at all times but we'll save that explaination for another day. ...

Sorry to hijack that comment Shaun and bring it forward to another day now but I've wondered for a while if you take the book say 2 mins and 1 min before the off would the history of results show that those two books were just as neutral as the book at the off. I don't have the data to check this.

[Thehawk]

sometimes it feels like i cant see the woods through the trees......

Yes, well, forums and videos are not a real substitute for market experience, overall it's an exercise in persistence and problem solving, pointless really to try and consume all information at once since you can't fully grasp much of it anyway without this experience, better to treat all resources as rough guidelines and get stuck in instead to figure out which bits and pieces are actually relevant to you, then as you run into issues you can look those up specifically to try and solve them etc...

Less is more in this case and better to start simple, at least as a manual trader you are free to be as picky as you like, I don't really keep too many market criteria either, as long as market is liquid i will trade just about anything that moves, and much that doesn't. For example that probably doesn't sound like much at all, an innocuous little comment like that, but it can say a lot.

Thanks for reply,and yes I agree that time spent in live markets is the best possible path forward, but as trading at its very basic form is simple ( buying & selling) and the price can only move 2 ways, it sure is difficult to feel that one is making progress or not, for now I'm happy to try and become more proficient at executing the manual trades on the ladder, but I can't help feel im missing something as my trading seams all over the shop still.
Would you say that some of the older threads are still relevant today as they were 10+ years ago when they were posted? the jolly green posts were excellent and definitely got me thinking more about what's going on. I came across a post on one of the older threads and said record your days trading and review it which I have been doing but it also stated to have your refresh rate of the candlestick chart at 10 second, not sure is this still advisable in today's markets?

Plus I appreciate the example at the end of your message but again I feel a message like that will only begin to make sense when the mind fog begins to clear one day hopefully

[Thehawk]

This is hard to get the head around as most of peters videos shows trading as opening and closing, how would you even begin to price up a horse race as to know if your getting value or not.

i have been pre horse trading for 8months and finding it challenging enough, its all most information overload, this forum is an excellent source of information and i have been working my way through all the old and new threads plus all peters videos to learn as much as i can but there is just so much!! sometimes it feels like i cant see the woods through the trees......

Value is something that doesn't need to be front and centre in your mind when you're trading price movement. And if you're doing it profitably then you'll inherently be obtaining value even if you can't, and needn't, pin down where. It's more something that you just need to be aware of so that you're not tempted to do anything unwise, such as closing at any price above 1.01 in_running, trying to stop a loss. In fact you can't show a green screen at bsp unless your net prices were better than bsp, that's what a green book is. A free bet is clearly a value bet.

There's a wide range of advice and chat aimed at different levels of experience, you'll be glad of that later and frankly if it didn't get serious sometimes then people wouldn't stick around once they got going.

Last thing on value, there's no need to price up horses, and frankly my knowledge extends no further than knowing a horse is bigger than a dog, the market and it's 000s of players are pricing it for you via the wisdom of the crowd. (And there's a mathemetically anomaly that means all prices are theoretically right at all times but we'll save that explaination for another day.) So if you want value then at it's simplest it's about getting a hair better than the current price, and the easiest to do that is simply to offer. There's other more effective ways but again, don't worry about that yet.

So relax about it, file it for later because if you're trading price movement, knowing is a good thing because all knowledge is, but it's not a necessity.

Great advice thanks Shaun, and what i take from your message is not to worry and over think it for now that maybe down the line if I was to get a good understanding of whats going on manually and was going to try my hand at automation its good to already have a idea about value. Back down to first step of the ladder I go

[Kai]

Would you say that some of the older threads are still relevant today as they were 10+ years ago when they were posted?

Yes, market behavior evolves and changes over time as the exchange gets more competitive etc but the psychology stays the same, as long as human emotion is the driving force behind it all you will not be bereft of trading opportunity and the ever-increasing automated activity is practically just an extension of our two most powerful emotions in fear and greed, hence the daily market overreactions.

I remember it being discussed in more depth here : viewtopic.php?p=209045#p209045

[ShaunWhite]

... And there's a mathemetically anomaly that means all prices are theoretically right at all times but we'll save that explaination for another day. ...

Sorry to hijack that comment Shaun and bring it forward to another day now but I've wondered for a while if you take the book say 2 mins and 1 min before the off would the history of results show that those two books were just as neutral as the book at the off. I don't have the data to check this.

No probs fir, always happy to think about these things....
If I've understood the question, although scheduled start time is regarded as the most accurate, we all know that trading blind is a net zero. So if betting at time1 and time2 makes you nothing, then price1 and price2 have to be the same (on average). Now I'm no maths guy but using logic I'd say that that average is make up of a wider distribution of individual prices early than it is if sampled late, if its tending towards being most accurate at the scheduled start. Or.... That's a load of bollocks and I've no idea what I'm talking about

The thing that's always stood out to me is this business about trading blind being a zero. So price-60secs and p-0secs are "the same". And if getting a price that's a hair better than the price at 0s makes money then that's true for - 30s - 60s - 1hr.

And....although I really don't know how or why this might be useful on a small number of horses I know for certain that some very successful people use this type of logic, and tbh it's what underpins all large scale HFT trading elsewhere so its got form

[ShaunWhite]

... Although I've got the data I much prefer logic, and then maybe prove it. It's like this stuff about stops, we know betting blind is no good, we know stops are betting blind, therefore.... You don't need Excel to figure that one out. I'm just trying to think about if trading blind is a zero too, then how can we turn that to our advantage, eg how can we get value from a blind bet. I want to know because I want my bot to be as blind as possible to get the largest possible scale, with the fewest paremeters which are potential points of failure. .

[Kai]

... Although I've got the data I much prefer logic

Big fan of logic myself Shaun, you don't need to have pointy ears to use it! Live long and prosper and so on

But you can't logic your way through emotion, which is probably why trading is so devilishly difficult

[Thehawk]

Would you say that some of the older threads are still relevant today as they were 10+ years ago when they were posted?

Yes, market behavior evolves and changes over time as the exchange gets more competitive etc but the psychology stays the same, as long as human emotion is the driving force behind it all you will not be bereft of trading opportunity and the ever-increasing automated activity is practically just an extension of our two most powerful emotions in fear and greed, hence the daily market overreactions.

I remember it being discussed in more depth here : viewtopic.php?p=209045#p209045

Thanks Kai

[firlandsfarm]

... And there's a mathemetically anomaly that means all prices are theoretically right at all times but we'll save that explaination for another day. ...

Sorry to hijack that comment Shaun and bring it forward to another day now but I've wondered for a while if you take the book say 2 mins and 1 min before the off would the history of results show that those two books were just as neutral as the book at the off. I don't have the data to check this.

No probs fir, always happy to think about these things....
If I've understood the question, although scheduled start time is regarded as the most accurate, we all know that trading blind is a net zero. So if betting at time1 and time2 makes you nothing, then price1 and price2 have to be the same (on average). Now I'm no maths guy but using logic I'd say that that average is make up of a wider distribution of individual prices early than it is if sampled late, if its tending towards being most accurate at the scheduled start. Or.... That's a load of bollocks and I've no idea what I'm talking about

The thing that's always stood out to me is this business about trading blind being a zero. So price-60secs and p-0secs are "the same". And if getting a price that's a hair better than the price at 0s makes money then that's true for - 30s - 60s - 1hr.

And....although I really don't know how or why this might be useful on a small number of horses I know for certain that some very successful people use this type of logic, and tbh it's what underpins all large scale HFT trading elsewhere so its got form

Hi Shaun ... you're not sure if you understood my question and I'm not sure if I understand your response!

OK, let me word it this way ...

People say the Betfair market is 'efficient' because if you placed a back bet on every runner in every race at BSP (price at the off) you would as near as dam it have a zero return (excluding commission) ... yes it varies up and down but within narrow margins each side of zero. So what I'm asking is if you took each runner's price at say 1 minute before that and placed a back bet on every runner would you still get a near zero return? i.e. would those prices be equally efficient? And again for 2 mins. etc. So to put it another way ... are the price fluctuations in the final few minutes before the off neutral in that they cancel each other out over the years?

[ShaunWhite]

. I think I got it but didn't explain well. Short answer is yes.
I'm happy to be corrected but from what I see, backing everything at BSP is zero. Backing everything at any time is also zero but with more variation. (less efficient, aka less accurate) Therefore if backing everything at anytime and backing everything at BSP are both zero, then the net(average) price hasn't moved.

Now all we've got to do is figure out how to turn that into cash

It's a long time since I had a bet, so maybe you can help me out, if at 11am a horse was 5.0 and you could back at 8 you'd take it yeah? And at the start if it was 2 you'd happily back at 3? ... And 1f from the end you'd back at 1.2 if it was a 1.01.... Value seems to always be relative to 'now'? Eg are the 11am, starting price and end prices all equally 'correct'? So getting better than the 'now' price at any time is value?