Mistakes and annoyance

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ruthlessimon
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ShaunWhite wrote:
Tue Nov 27, 2018 1:36 am
btw you can't call having a weaker edge a 'mistake'. It's the best you have at the time and you can maybe refine it later or get lucky and find a better one in the future. I say lucky because if you need to look at 100 things to find 1 that works, you could find at that '1' first or at the 100th attempt, or 200th. I think you might be straying into 'if an edge aint perfect it's not worth doing' again.


Maybe subconsciously I'm just bored of seeing "I didn't take SP, I didn't have any spare batteries" as mistakes. They are such easy fixes, imo!!

Hah yes I remember that thread ;)
stueytrader
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I did realise (when I posted) these were essentially easy things to avoid, most of the time.

I've probably made a couple of these mistakes recently due to carelessness. Maybe that's the simplest way to define this problem - stop letting careless approaches creep into my trading.

I'm largely a manual trader, so don't have all the automated safeguards in place - that can allow the odd mistake to happen. However, I'm loathe to have overly restrictive automation (e.g. nanny bots), as I don't feel I trade well that way either.
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jimibt
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stueytrader wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 12:41 pm
I'm largely a manual trader, so don't have all the automated safeguards in place - that can allow the odd mistake to happen. However, I'm loathe to have overly restrictive automation (e.g. nanny bots), as I don't feel I trade well that way either.
at a bare minimum, you probably should (even if not automated by a bot) Take SP with any bets that are sitting in the market just in case of outages etc. it also prevents you from HOPING to recover any losses by going wildly IP with no exit planned.
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Dallas
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jimibt wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:08 pm
stueytrader wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 12:41 pm
I'm largely a manual trader, so don't have all the automated safeguards in place - that can allow the odd mistake to happen. However, I'm loathe to have overly restrictive automation (e.g. nanny bots), as I don't feel I trade well that way either.
at a bare minimum, you probably should (even if not automated by a bot) Take SP with any bets that are sitting in the market just in case of outages etc. it also prevents you from HOPING to recover any losses by going wildly IP with no exit planned.
I agree with Jim and use a safety servant similar to the one below not so much against careless mistakes but to cover me against BF and outages at my own end
viewtopic.php?f=58&t=15199
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PDC
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Do you submit both your back and lay orders into the market at the same time? If not don't you risk having TakeSP on just one side of your order should Betfair go down etc leaving you potentially massively exposed.
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Dallas
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That's, why the one i use is similar to the servant, linked to above, I've tweaked mine slightly to suit my needs and what I'm doing so it only triggers if its the closing part of the bet that's left unmatched

Depending on your strategy or trading style there's a number of conditions that can be used to determine whether its an opening or closing bet sat waiting
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PDC
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Okay, that makes sense Dallas, I hadn't looked at the example you linked to.
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ANGELS15
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I've made the occasional mistake that's cost me dear. However I recall an occasion when an error went in my favour. Before I knew about trading I was basically looking for value horses to back and then using betfair's cash out feature if the horses ran well or placing a lay bet in running. On a particular occasion I'd written down the racecard numbers of what I believed to be value horses for a particular Irish jump race. I then placed the bets with the intention to come and watch the race later. When I logged into my phone at the time of the race I couldn't find my bets and was confused assuming I'd forgotten to place them. I duly placed them with nil result. I then clicked on to another Irish race which was in-play to my surprise I'd mistakenly placed the original bets in this other race, one of the selections a 50/1 shot was leading (betfair price 300.0) and went on to win!
spreadbetting
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At 300/1 you can afford a few more mistakes before that's eaten up :)

The real problems occur when people start treating their mistakes differently and watch in horror at red mistakes, praying it'll turn around whereas green mistakes they usually grab the first profit going, pat themselves on the back and forget it was even a mistake.
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ShaunWhite
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Angels15's comment raises an interesting point. Why do so many so called mistakes result in a loss? If it's a genuine mistake then they'd surely balance out, but I guess the ones that lost are more memorable. The other 'mistakes' like going in-play unplanned only get thought of as mistakes when it doesn't work out well, otherwise they're remembered as good decisions.

The category of mistake I sometimes fall foul of it what I call 'heavy finger'. My mouse pointer will be over a button, I relax for a while maybe a little sleepy and.... CLICK. My hand has relaxed too to the point where the weight of my finger has overcome the resistance of the mouse button and I'm suddenly involved. :shock:
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LeTiss
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Yes, good point Mr White - I suppose the losses tend to stick in the throat, so they are harder to swallow than a mistake that results in a winner.

There's an elemnt of kidology there - when a mistake results in a lucky winner, it's easy to convince yourself that you're heading in the right direction

Also, if you've made the awful mistake of going in play with, say a £500 stake - if the market moves where you want, you may just bail out for a scratch trade, or a marginal profit, but when it goes the wrong way, you lose £500! Ouch!
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ruthlessimon
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ShaunWhite wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 7:05 pm
Angels15's comment raises an interesting point. Why do so many so called mistakes result in a loss? If it's a genuine mistake then they'd surely balance out
Whether it's worse than loosing the spread every-time is an interesting dilemma

Be interesting to calc: 100 random trades (i.e. mistakes), consistently held to a defined exit (i.e. SP or a straight punt), vs. a guaranteed 1 tick loss everytime.

Problem is, I reckon most conventional errors, for me (forget bad edge errors for the mo :D ) are staking related (cos BA can't calc it inhouse :roll: :roll: ), & those types of errors are never consistent. Hence why I've always gone for the guaranteed 1 tick loss
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ANGELS15
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ShaunWhite wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 7:05 pm
Angels15's comment raises an interesting point. Why do so many so called mistakes result in a loss? If it's a genuine mistake then they'd surely balance out, but I guess the ones that lost are more memorable. The other 'mistakes' like going in-play unplanned only get thought of as mistakes when it doesn't work out well, otherwise they're remembered as good decisions.

The category of mistake I sometimes fall foul of it what I call 'heavy finger'. My mouse pointer will be over a button, I relax for a while maybe a little sleepy and.... CLICK. My hand has relaxed too to the point where the weight of my finger has overcome the resistance of the mouse button and I'm suddenly involved. :shock:
I also occasionally make literally a 'fat finger' mistake usually entailing clicking the wrong stake button on the betfair mobile app or laying instead of backing. On one occasion I had about £2k in the account and wanted to back a an outsider for £50 prior to a race intending to place some lay bets to keep in running. I placed the bet then went to place the lay bets only to realise I only had £50 in the account! I had laid for £50! There was a huge jump to the best lay offer I was frantically trying to work out what to do with the race about to go off when to my relief the horse was withdrawn at the start. However there have been times when I've touched the wrong stake button and there's been no way back resulting in a heavy loss. These are of course extremely rare incidents.
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LeTiss
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I made a mistake last night, which I have made in the past.

I employ differing tactics on differing markets, with regards to whether I 'Offset with greening' or not - sometimes I will use the fill or kill, obviously having the offset triggered only when my first bet is being matched. Whereas, sometimes I'll not use the fill or kill, and just offset both bets together.

I toggle through these different tactics that I have saved, and occasionally I forget to change it from a previous bet. I did this last night on I'm a Celebrity. Silly mistake, cost me £12 to 'red up' - just a lack of concentration
stueytrader
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Glad to hear it's not just me then, we share the pain at times! :D
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