What are the most important criteria to analyze in the pre-live market?

[Oliveira05]

I'm studying the pre-live horse racing market and reading some old forum posts. I noticed that in one of them, Peter talked about volatility and even shared some YouTube links about it. However, I'd like to know more crucial points in the analysis: volatility, weight of money, Betfair chart trends — which ones are most important, and at what point in time are they more specific to work with? Is it best to focus during the last 3 minutes before the off?

[goat68]

There is no “best” thing… only “your” thing…

[Oliveira05]

There is no “best” thing… only “your” thing…

That's fine, but there are always insights from experienced people that can be helpful — and that’s what I was asking about. These kinds of tips can be really valuable when you're learning.

[andy28]

If you haven't already done so, I would suggest reading Goats thread, it is basically his journey to becoming successful, nearly 300 pages but worth the read.

viewtopic.php?t=21616

[ShaunWhite]

If you haven't already done so, I would suggest reading Goats thread, it is basically his journey to becoming successful, nearly 300 pages but worth the read.

viewtopic.php?t=21616

Sorry mate but the 'success' part in that has got absolutely nothing to do with manual trading. As a main contributor to that thread I'd say there's about 5 out of 300 pages with anything worthwhile and none of that relates to things Andy was doing in BA.

[goat68]

If you haven't already done so, I would suggest reading Goats thread, it is basically his journey to becoming successful, nearly 300 pages but worth the read.

viewtopic.php?t=21616

Sorry mate but the 'success' part in that has got absolutely nothing to do with manual trading. As a main contributor to that thread I'd say there's about 5 out of 300 pages with anything worthwhile and none of that relates to things Andy was doing in BA.

That’s what I was trying to elude to you ve got to find your way, and yes you learn from others but you develop your thing…

[ruthlessimon]

Honestly, trawling through Jollygreen's posts is probably well worth the time. He's a goldmine of ideas — especially around potential pre-off structures and how they tend to form. He's both a sharp theorist and a seasoned practitioner (very rare combo), worked closely with Peter & Heathcote (poor guy ).

[ShaunWhite]

That's what I was trying to elude to you ve got to find your way, and yes you learn from others but you develop your thing…

To save people the chore of reading 300 pages and trying to sort the wheat from the chaff, how would you summarise that thread in a paragraph?? Assuming a BA related take on it rather than what you actually did of course.

I'm just concerned that when it's recommended to people, the final chapter was to build a lot of bespoke software and that's neither possible for most people or appropriate as a suggestion when the forum is product led.

What's the one paragraph take-away for a BA user?

[goat68]

That's what I was trying to elude to you ve got to find your way, and yes you learn from others but you develop your thing…

To save people the chore of reading 300 pages and trying to sort the wheat from the chaff, how would you summarise that thread in a paragraph?? Assuming a BA related take on it rather than what you actually did of course.

I'm just concerned that when it's recommended to people, the final chapter was to build a lot of bespoke software and that's neither possible for most people or appropriate as a suggestion when the forum is product led.

What's the one paragraph take-away for a BA user?

Try and understand what the market is doing, so you can figure where you might find value, ideally in your own way

[Euler]

There is no “best” thing… only “your” thing…

That's spot on.

I often feel people are always looking for 'the thing', that breakthrough moment where; if only they knew this, it would be so much easier.

The big secret is, that there is no big secret.

Every market you approach could be graded from 0 - don't touch this with a bargepole, to a 10 - I know what is going to happen and what to do.

Most markets don't sit at either extreme, so it becomes a judgment of what you want to do, when and how.

A lot of markets sit in the favourable category, but it's a case of +ve's and -ve's and being up overall. I'll consistently have bumpy P&K but I know I'll often end up by the end of the day, almost certain over the week.

I just need to keep taking reasonable opportunities at the risk. It all averages itself out.

[andy28]

If we dismissed every post with a bit of overburden, we’d never find the gold. In gold mining you might shift millions of parts of gravel to find one part gold. Same goes here sometimes the insight is buried, but it’s there for those willing to dig.

[ShaunWhite]

Try and understand what the market is doing

I thought you looked for individual bet EV rather than structural EV where 'doing' comes into the equation? Ie working off snapshots where the moves before and after are irrelevant?

It was my impression that the eureka moment was when Liam and myself persuaded you to benchmark your bets rather than your market totals, although you took a hell of a lot of persuading at the time incl telling Liam he was wrong at one point

If you say it was about gaining an understanding of what the market was 'doing' then I've completely misunderstood the thread and how your strategy worked.

[ShaunWhite]

Every market you approach could be graded from 0 - don't touch this with a bargepole, to a 10 - I know what is going to happen and what to do.

It's interesting. I think this further supports the fact that everyone does this differently and everyone needs to find their own niche. I never looked at the market and try to predict what type it is, or think about what happened before or will happen in the future. My strategies don't even use 'sport' as a filter. (except in the early days when failing)

The 'what type of market is this' view probably comes from watching them and seeing difference, whereas as you know I'm a quant trader, and using microstructure dynamics common to all markets at all times. But its not an either or, my recent work with TFT is very much about returning to predictions and movement or more likely a hybrid of both approaches.

Newcomers quite obviously lean very heavily on everything you say and try to emulate your style, being frank, my success came when I stopped trying to emulate you and started to think for myself, and found the 'thing' I wish I'd known before that makes all this a lot easier.

All good fun though and it keeps us off the streets.

[goat68]

Try and understand what the market is doing

I thought you looked for individual bet EV rather than structural EV where 'doing' comes into the equation? Ie working off snapshots where the moves before and after are irrelevant?

It was my impression that the eureka moment was when Liam and myself persuaded you to benchmark your bets rather than your market totals, although you took a hell of a lot of persuading at the time incl telling Liam he was wrong at one point

If you say it was about gaining an understanding of what the market was 'doing' then I've completely misunderstood the thread and how your strategy worked.

I'm talking about now, rather than over 2 years ago, i've moved quite a bit beyond that in 2 years

[Euler]

Every market you approach could be graded from 0 - don't touch this with a bargepole, to a 10 - I know what is going to happen and what to do.

It's interesting. I think this further supports the fact that everyone does this differently and everyone needs to find their own niche. I never looked at the market and try to predict what type it is, or think about what happened before or will happen in the future. My strategies don't even use 'sport' as a filter. (except in the early days when failing)

The 'what type of market is this' view probably comes from watching them and seeing difference, whereas as you know I'm a quant trader, and using microstructure dynamics common to all markets at all times. But its not an either or, my recent work with TFT is very much about returning to predictions and movement or more likely a hybrid of both approaches.

Newcomers quite obviously lean very heavily on everything you say and try to emulate your style, being frank, my success came when I stopped trying to emulate you and started to think for myself, and found the 'thing' I wish I'd known before that makes all this a lot easier.

All good fun though and it keeps us off the streets.

You should do what works for you.

Some people find success with one method or another because it suits them and their way of thinking.

I remember onboarding someone to the team years ago, and they were one of the worst traders I've ever come across. Nothing I could do could change that. I would sit with them and tell them what to look for, what to do and when. They still couldn't do it. It was then that I clocked how important somebody's mind is when taking risk.

The problem with me now is I'm multi-faceted. I do many different things. I'm not any one particular thing or another.

Because I started trading manually, I know what's required to do that, and then I just progressed onwards and upwards to different sports and automating strategies, and when you do that, you discover other things and ways to make it work. So it's impossible to put that in a box. Though I'm not ordinary.

I saw you mention somewhere that you just use data and don't look further beyond that. But I've learnt that even if you have a data-based strategy, you can usually go several levels deeper.

In some form or another, I am always trying to predict something.