Cheltenham - Day Two & Three

Day Two

 

After a nice start to my fun bets on the first day, my e/w shots didn't perform yesterday unfortunately. No excuses really, it was just an impressive clean sweep for the Irish who dominated all of the races.

I started the trading day steady enough, but unlike the first day I got quite stuck into the other meetings on the card on Wednesday. Which I found to be more profitable overall than the races that I traded at Cheltenham. These races lacked the huge liquidity, but this actually helped me out too be honest. It was easier to get filled and there were some huge over reactions in some markets that I caught some tasty swings on.

I was struggling to get filled at Cheltenham and it was like slow motion trading for a while. This played on my mind a bit which I will talk about soon. The reason for the poor fill rate is because the markets are getting dramatically manipulated and its quite astonishing the effect this is having on everything. There's actually more money sat in the queues than any other Cheltenham I can remember, but actually less overall turnover and fill rate. This observation is almost a contradiction in itself as more money should mean more activity in general. Let me explain further:

When a market gets aggressively manipulated, the money that is sat around in the queues is a false representation of the genuine/or even traders money in that market. The huge amounts you see are often nothing more than market domination by one, or several bots controlling things for their own benefit. As crazy as that sounds! A money machine that seems to be created to trap people into taking losses. They do this by using large orders on several runners to control the market book and push it in their favour. I'm sorry if I lost you there =/

However it's not like they always get away with this kind of activity. What I think happens is they win big but also lose big too. They surely must be winning more than they are losing though as they are still around with their apparently limitless Betfair bank. When they can't hold a market in position, they need to fight their own orders which results in them chasing their losses. So opportunities are here to be had when this occurs but this only happens when there is enough resistance battling against this manipulation. A game and cat and mouse it would seem.

The problem this caused me on Wednesday was I lost my patience, and got too aggressive in the markets. This led me to struggle to keep my profit in tact in the later Cheltenham races. It felt like a roller coaster for an hour or so and was hard on the mind. I basically let my emotions control my actions too much and if you let your head go, everything else will spiral out on control. Luckily I noticed what I was doing and finished alright on the day considering my yo yo hour.

Day Three

 

The fill rate was still a bit poor at Cheltz but the big thing really was controlling my green zone better when I was already in profit. I wasn't too happy with my performance at Cheltz yesterday, so I decided to adopt a slightly different approach. I toned down my aggressiveness and kept a close eye on not over staking in markets which were slow at taking orders. This helped me reach a more consistent day, even though the profits on the races weren't as big. I felt more in control of my game plan and emotions today, and these two go hand in hand. It's a constant mind battle this trading lark and you have you keep a close eye on how you are behaving in certain scenarios. If you choose to ignore your emotions, the market becomes your worst nightmare and you lose all rational thoughts on what you should be doing. I made sure from the get go that my mind was focused and my emotions were calm and collected. 

The big one today produced a cracking race- The 15:20 World Hurdle. Big Bucks was clear favourite at just above 2.0 with around 20 mins to go and it looked like a gamble all day long. I worked myself into a nice position getting a few orders matched about 2.02. I was sure a gamble looked obvious and I was waiting for it to develop. Problem was the manipulation got hold of it and after a small steam to around the 1.96 mark, it was eventually pushed out above 2.0 near the off. An annoying race in which I turned a £150 all into a £30 all as I thought the market was going to come down for ages! I was quite amazed it went back above 2.0 too be honest but hey, not to be. This was a great example of when the manipulation wins the battle. 

Big Bucks again proved to us just how good he was by beating the up and coming superstar Grand Crus. The grey will be winning a World Hurdle soon I'm sure, but the young pretender wasn't going to overturn the champ just yet. Big Bucks found another turn of foot when Grand Crus came up against him at the last, and wow I still think he's got more in that endless tank of his. Pure class that horse and a joy to watch!

So we have one more day at Cheltz ladies and gents and I'm sure the fill rate will be a bit better tomorrow (lets hope) I've learnt a few lessons over the past few days, but also experienced many a smile :)

Let's see if I can get anything out of my last cheeky multiple on Gold Cup day:

13:30 - Sam Winner

14:05 - Alarazi

14:40 - Bobs Worth

15:20 - Long Run

16:00 - Baby Run

Enjoy tomorrow all, and good luck if you are trading the last day at Cheltz.