probability and winning / losing sequences

Football, Soccer - whatever you call it. It is the beautiful game.
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mobile
Posts: 122
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 10:52 am

I wonder if someone could possibly give a simple answer to this query.
I have looked at the tables for strike rate providing likely winning/losing sequences.
If for example a league has 6 qualifying matches within the strike rate.
I only wish to trade 2 of the 6 matches. My choices would be random.

To stay loosely within the winning/losing sequence parameters.
Should I trade all 6 matches,or would the fact that the 2 matches are within the strike rate area,
mean that I would get approximately the same overall result.
I do realise that the maths/theory behind this probability is exactly that and not cast-iron.
spreadbetting
Posts: 3140
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm

Eventually, given a large enough sample, your pnl should fall in line with your expected strike rate so picked at random it shoudn't make any difference provided you can accept the variance missing out matches may bring you. And in reality those random matches you choose probably aren't random, you maye go for team you know, on TV, high liquidity etc .

Think of it the same as tossing a coin, there's 6 available tosses but you pick two at random, eventually things should average out given a large sample so the quicker you can get to that large sample the quicker you'll get to your expected strike rate.
mobile
Posts: 122
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 10:52 am

thank you.
that falls in line with what I suspected,using intuition rather than knowledge.
You are probably right that my random might be influenced by televised matches et cetera.
With several leagues involved, I could easily find myself with more matches than I could comfortably monitor.
spreadbetting
Posts: 3140
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm

MIght be worth looking at automation if your strategy is quite strict and BA has all sorts of 'servants' that can keep track of market moves and alert you to changes if doing things manually. 6 matches might not be that many to keep track of if you monitor markets efficiently, obviously depends on what you're actually doing but with most trading there's a lot of 'dead' time that could be used more productively.
mobile
Posts: 122
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 10:52 am

had briefly thought of that.
But.......
1) its automation and I tend to develop a nasty twitch when I hear the word.
2) my trades will not always follow the same pattern.
3) I wouldn't trust myself to think of and setup all the potential parameters.
4) it's football and there is still no direct way to read the current score. (Add what VAR can now do to the market).
5) manual trading for so long, that I am always looking to tweak the profit.

Simple example.
Premiership match where the away team's favourite.
My figures tell me that the scores of 0-2 and away unquoted are in a tiny area of probability.
So looking at standard handicap (-1) this only leaves 0-3 and 1-3.
You could simply dutch these scores as cover.
But if you consider that the home team have a good chance of at least scoring once.
then waiting a while, may well only leave the score of 1-3 to cover, although it may well be at slightly lower odds.
Sorry if it turned into a slightly long-winded explanation, but I'm sure you get the idea.
spreadbetting
Posts: 3140
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm

Automation isn't always going to be a viable option, my view with bots as always been if I can trade by simply looking at the odds then I can bot the market too. Might be worth you looking at the servants in BA as they won't trade just alert you to situations when it may be worth monitoring a market to trade.
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