Tuesday 23 December 2014

Mundane Is Good

A resurrected post on the Betfair Forum suggests that one should quit "if you don't feel anything after a win. This is indeed the best advice I received when starting on Betfair. If they just become numbers on a screen take no less than a month off or leave."

Complete nonsense of course, as taking the emotion out of betting is one of the key ingredients for anyone hoping to be successful in the long term. The author of those words of dumbdom was Footsoldiers, who never did understand that value is key to long-term success, and whose sporting investment life inevitably came to a sorry end, as some of you may remember.

Trading and investing shouldn't be exciting. A feeling of mild satisfaction at a well executed trade or considered bet is fair enough, but if there is an element of excitement there, then you are probably guilty of over-staking.

On the other side of the coin, it's reasonable to not be the happiest of campers following a loss, but if you are doing this full-time or at least long-term, it's rather silly unless you have a real concern that your edge may be on the way out:

To get worked up over individual bets, is as unproductive as a casino manager worrying over the outcomes of individual pulls of the slot machines.

1 comment:

The Midnight Trader said...

I couldn't agree more. If the adrenaline kicks in I know that I am doing something wrong.