Punt.com - A Blog About Gambling by a Professional Gambler.

Quiet times at punt.com and a few words on staying patient.

The sun is shining outside, there's plenty of tennis to trade... and less time to spend writing new articles!  Who wants to be indoors longer than's neccessary when the weather's like this.

Work wise, it's been a great week.  The Montecarlo masters series has thrown up some brilliant bets, the first 3 1/2 days were pretty close to perfection for me, over 40% (or points if you like) added to the bank.  Of course the inevitable happened, and the last 2 days I've dropped about 14% of that, which is ok, but frustrating.  I got a little carried away - it's human nature, but as a professional, something I want to cut out.

The best thing to come out of all this is that my new approach is proving it's worth.  I just need to have the patience to wait and execute it quickly when I need to - not exactly straight forward, but at least the ideas of what I need to do have become very clear in my head now.  The clay court season and the rest of the year are looking fairly positive.

It's the "getting carried away" that I really need to do some work on.  It's a fault I've suffered with forever and it seems, reading a few of the other blogs, that I'm not alone.  The waiting is the problem.  A friend of mine who is a professional poker player once allowed me to watch him play.  After 25 minutes of play and not a single bet it became apparent the importance he placed on waiting for the right hand and the right position, amongst other factors.  Trading or betting on anything is no different to playing poker in this respect.

We have to wait for the right circumstances, the right match situation.  One where we know our edge almost defintiely exists.  To bet at any other time is foolhardy, wasteful and unprofessional.  It's a big weakness.  So with that in mind, some research on patience has been conducted by myself, links to follow at the bottom.  The main areas for improvement, from whatI've read, for me are:

• Finding something else to do to pass the time.  Not always wise when a tennis match is going on, it's good to watch it clearly.  Maybe I can play some music in the background, which leads me onto..
• Stay relaxed, it's easy to be impatient when tense or emotional.
• Don't think about what you could be doing.  This is important!  For us it's more along the lines of - I could be laying this 1.62 because I know it'll go to 1.82 in a minute - if it doesn't fit what you are looking for in you strategy though, you shouldn't be doing it, tempting though it is.
• Find some good in the waiting situation.  I think trying to see waiting as part of the work is a good idea.

Thanks to these links for a few ideas - Cyberend.com and this Wiki-how.  Perhaps I should be looking to get hold of patience.com as a domain name. 

This months results.

I've taken a break from posting my P+Ls this month.  Maybe I'll continue not posting them - it's been a good month!

Sometimes I like to take a break from things, change things up.. particularly potential distractions.  Those of you I chat to on msn might have noticed I was absent most of this month too.  It's good to refocus on the job, and after January's great start / dodgy finish, and Feb's month off, I needed to put in some quality hours.  Specifically, I had some ideas whilst I was away that I wanted to test out.  Not only that, but it was time to regain composure and step away from any grip my ego may or may not have had over my trading and posting on here.  Time to get down to business in other words.

And the results have spoken for themselves, since my return from my month off in Feb the Punt.com fund is up almost 50%.  Great, but there's a long way to go this year, and I want to keep playing ''tight and right' (a new mantra is born, possibly...). 

What are these new ideas?  I wanted to get more involved with monitoring match stats in a particular way as they unfold.  I have to say it's been fairly insightful - I recommend checking out the stats of the match you are trading on an ongoing basis.  Apart from that though, I needed to resurrect some thought patterns which hadn't been used often enough for some time... Namely, only getting involved when the conditions demand it and never before.  It's simple, powerful stuff.  Gone is indecision, as are silly mistakes and most of all - over trading !! - The single most annoying problem I suffer with.

So, this post is a test, can I keep it up?  Can I keep making excellent bets, only when required?  It's getting towards the busiest part of the season now, time to make it count !  Good luck all, hope you had a nice Easter.

Books written by tennis players that would never sell!

Credit for this must go to "cyclingfan" from the Betfair forum.

• Closing Out Matches Succesfully -- Paul-Henri Mathieu, foreword by Andreas Seppi
• The Joy of Sunbathing -- Felix Mantilla
• Respecting Your Colleagues -- Ivan Ljubicic
• How To Maintain Your Self-Confidence -- James Blake, with contributions by Christophe Rochus
• How To Gain An Early Lead -- David Nalbandian
• How to Build On Early Success -- Tomas Berdych
• Keeping Healthy And Fit -- Joachim Johansson, with a special women's section by Maria Sharapova
• Earning Your Way To Success -- Donald Young
• The Beauty of Tennis -- Gilles Simon
• Keeping Focused On Your Game -- Dimitry Tursunov
• Fullfilling Your Potential -- Marat Safin
• Enjoying Early Retirement -- Willy Canas
• Making A Formidable Impression -- Olivier Rochus
• How To Win Tennis Matches -- Christophe Rochus
• Finding Pleasure And Satisfaction In Your Work -- Gaston Gaudio
• Conserving Your Energy -- Gael Monfils
• Fashionable Hairstyles 2007 -- Juan Martin Del Potro
• Improving Your Vision -- Thomas Johansson
• Always Giving Your Best -- Jan Hajek
• The Art Of Winning Rallies in Tennis -- Chris Guccione
• Guide To Success On All Surfaces -- Ruben Ramirez-Hidalgo, with foreword by Alberto Martin
• How To Become A Complete Tennis Player -- Ivo Karlovic
• Succesful Trading In Financial Markets -- Juan-Pablo Guzman, co-authored by M. Vasalllo-Arguello
• Serving Your Way To Success -- Guillermo Coria, with contributions by Elena Dementieva
• Retiring At The Top Of Your Game -- Gustavo Kuerten
• Achieving Success Later In Life -- Martina Hingis
• Becoming A Real Woman -- Amelie Mauresmo
• Keeping Slim and Fit -- Marion Bartoli, foreword by Romina Oprandi
• The Gourmet's Way Of Life -- Daniela Hantuchova
• The Practical Guide to Facial Beauty -- Francesca Schiavone, foreword by Nadia Petrova
• Dedicating Yourself To Your Child -- Sybille Bammer
• Pedicuring 101 -- Anastasia Myskina
• Keep Your Joints Fit By Exersize -- Mary Pierce
• The Guide To Marital Success -- Justine Henin-Hardenne
• Keeping Focused On Your Career -- Kim Clijsters

A few added by myself -

Finding Your Killer Instinct (How To Finish Your Opponents Quickly and Decisively) -- Fabrice Santoro,  foreward by Arnaud Clement

Finding Joy in Life's Subtleties -- Ivo Karlovic

Confidence in Public Speaking -- Ivo Karlovic

Anger Management 101 -- Marat Safin

The Blossoming Personality, How to Come Out of Your Shell -- N. Davydenko

Marketing Yourself - Sponsorships Made Easy -- N. Davydenko

Losing Gracefully -- Guillermo Coria

Keeping The Ball in Court, Play To Your Consistent Best -- Anna Ivanovic

Dealing With Line Calls -- Thomas Berdych, special WTA section by Jelena Jankovic

The Art of Smashing -- Amelie Mauresmo

Markets mirror life.

As a professional gambler / trader, I watch a lot of markets... for many hours.  After a while you begin to see a pattern emerging.  If not consciously, then subconsciously you are taking in action that has a strange sense of repitition to it. 

Being a tennis trader, I often comment to friends about the story of a match, and how often we see a similar "story".  The same goes for markets.  But what is this story really?  What are these patterns that give us a sense of deja vu?

When I began my trading career (a "career gambler" - I love it!), I read a book called "Reminiscenses of a Stock Operator" (link of left side of the site).  I'll make a post specifically about the book in more detail another time, suffice to say this is an incredible book and I highly recommend it to anyone trading anything.  But the point I want to make here is that it's set some 80+ years ago, yet all of the points it makes are still relevant to today's traders.  How can this be possible, given the World we live in today compared to those days, and the many tools we have to help us trade ?

Some things never change.  Specifically, Humans and their emotions.  For all the technological advances, the same emotions still have a hold over us, and quite probably - always will.

Market's have charts, you can see the price action going up and down and the volumes traded.  This is a display of market behaviour, a plot of human activity.  It's not only a graph of probability, supply and demand but importantly - a drawing of human emotion at play.  The interactions of all the different emotions and feelings of all market participants.

We've talked occaisionally about good and bad emotions (and I'll certainly continue to write about them), as traders, we know the effects emotions have on our own personal game.  Everyone else is playing out the same internal and external battle for themselves and it shows up in the market and the charts.

We attempt to make good judgements about market direction.. tops and bottoms.. momentum etc  And a certain amount of these will be due to fundamental factors, in the stock market it's economic figures or announcements, in tennis - the score, the players, the surface etc.  But, importantly, not all the market movement is down to these things, some of it is pure emotion at play. 

When a market is controlled by emotion and not the fundamentals then it's efficiency is compromised and we have an opportunity.

Emotion in trading suggests logical judgement has diminished to some degree.  The key is to seperate yourself from the pack by keeping the emotions in check and staying focused.  Focused enough to spot those times when the market has left sensible fundamental trading and entered the crazy world of emotional recklessness.