Insanity Laughs

...under pressure, we're cracking. Can't we give ourselves one more chance?

The quotation "The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over, and then expecting different results" is usually attributed to Albert Einstein, although Rita Mae Brown may actually deserve the credit, but it's a good quote.

I was reminded of it while replying to a comment by our old friend John O'Dwyer who mentioned in a recent post that in the recent Snooker World Championship, he had noticed

This is only one of the differences I've found compared to previous years. A bit like the Darts, someone out there is beating the Betfair clock by a good few seconds.

This is the main reason that I don't like betting on tennis in-running. With court-siders in attendance, what is the point? Any bets that you get matched are unlikely to be value, and we all know, or should know, that without value we will lose long-term. Betting between games might be a viable option, but in-game point to point betting when someone is a few seconds ahead of you is, in my opinion, a waste of time.

John, like many insecure men, is obsessed with size - although in his case it is with bank size. He wrote yesterday

I'll probably do another update tomorrow, but I'm getting tired and fed up. It's been another struggling week. I'm using a small bank, and I'm trying to rush things and it's continuously going wrong. One of these days I might get to 1k again, and it will progress from there. I was saying this exact same thing in Jan 2010, before doing exactly what I expected to do once I got the bank size I kept going on about. Until then, I am beat. I owe so much that getting a normal job will not get me out of the trouble I am in. I've known the answer to the problem for months, but have not been able to resolve it due to a few reasons.

My advice:

John - your mind needs to be clear to be successful as a trader. "Scared money don't win". Bank size isn't an issue. Like I said to you before, if you have an edge, you can start at any level and soon build a bank. I started with less than £100 and have never made a second deposit. What qualifications do you have? My advice is to get a 'normal' job and trade any edge you can develop part-time. But you need to find an edge rather than use your current approach which you may have got lucky with for a while, but luck has a habit of running out.

But there's no helping some people.

Remember, this is me being honest whether I win or lose. It's all factual from me. A lot of people have opinions on why I've lost, but at the end of the day, what credentials do they have?! Where is the proof of their wins, to back up their assumptions that I am wrong in what I say? I know I am right, that's the thing. I don't need people telling me it's nothing to do with a bank size, espcially when people are guessing themselves with nothing to back up what they say.

The point is that he is not accepting reality.

No one is doubting your honesty, but do you understand that no one who makes a profit from betting long-term does so without having an edge? You can take or leave any advice you are given, that is your choice, and while there are certainly people who offer advice who probably shouldn't, there are also people who are profitable long-term, and are in a position to offer sound advice based on their experience.

The reason you lose is quite simply because you do not have an edge. You can, and did, get away with this for a while but you can't defy the odds long-term. It is not unusual to walk away from a table in Las Vegas with a decent profit on a single night, but if you went there every night, you would lose. The odds are against you. You can back 1.05 shots all day and have long winning runs, but if the true price is 1.06 (or more) you will ultimately lose.

In the first 9 days of May, you bet on baseball, basketball, boxing, cricket, horse-racing, golf, snooker, soccer, tennis, aussie rules, rugby league and rugby union. Are you seriously claiming that you have an edge in all those events? That someone in Barnstaple, North Devon, has identified an edge that has been missed by everybody else?

There's nothing wrong per se with betting on any of these events, but in my opinion you need to specialise.

And if you notice that someone is beating the clock in snooker as you mentioned a few days ago, walk away. Any bets you get matched are unlikely to be value, and it is insane to stay in a market where someone has an edge over you. Nothing will stop court-siders faster than no money in the market.

But all advice falls on deaf ears it seems.

Having completed the above, I notice a late comment from John, which just proves further that he doesn't know what an edge is.

I do have a edge, but it all revolves around having a bigger bank size. That's why I've been losing recently. Big bank brings stability, which I've always said.

I've not had 2k in my account since January, so there has been no way for me to back up what I say.

If you go to Gold All Over, you will see my EPL Value spreadsheet which shows the edge I believe I have, (or don't have), on recent EPL games. Edge is simply (StrikeRate * Probability of Winning) - ((1 * StrikeRate * Probability of Losing). If your edge is negative, as it will be for a game such as Roulette, then long-term, your expectation is negative.

But the key here is that the edge does not change depending on your bank size.