My dillemma.

Hey there, not a full timer by any means in fact only been at this a few months but just from what you posted mate it seems like you all ready know you want to step up your game and take a little bit more of a risk and are just waiting for someone to give you the push in the right direction!

just my 2 cents why not try increase slowly or on the bets you feel safer about or in very small incriments until you find you cant cope lol!

Best of luck anyway

There is two thing s which you have said yourself which are really the only two things that are worth considering

1)  If it ain't broke , don't fix it
2) For me anyway record keeping is a must... I would be lost without it.

Maybe you could up the stakes a little but I would rather understake than overstake.  You will never get away with over staking long term.

Good luck with what you decide but since you started the fred don't forget to let us know the decision!!!!

My 2C worth,

It sounds like by increasing stakes, you will increase your stress levels. Ask your self, is it worth it?

I don't keep any records. I just follow my methods, all of which work reliably. Those that don't I have dropped. IMO records are only useful if they help you make future decisions. What decisions will records help you make?

That's the question, if I am mentally prepared to up the stakes and up the risk. One of my biggest strengths has been my consistency week to week and being able to avoid taking many big hits.... but I suppose if I analyzed this then I'd see that I was too often choosing to avoid risk at prices approaching bad value. Anyway, It's pretty tough to know if I could manage risk as effectively if I suddenly doubled my stakes, I personally doubt that I could think as clearly.

The fact that I keep no records, and that I trade extensively inplay makes my betting/methods pretty damn difficult to quantify and to assess what I should be doing to progress

The answer might well be starting to keep records and then looking more analytically at what I'm doing in the future (although I doubt I'll ever be entirely clinical) combined with gradual incremental increasing of stakes till the point I get to a level I am content with.

All a case of psychology vs method I guess, even doubling my stakes now wouldn't be unfeasible in terms of getting bets on in most markets, so that isn't an issue.

I don't post much on here, but read some good, thought provoking stuff on betting theory which has helped drive me to consider if I'm getting anywhere near to maximizing profits without taking on an unreasonable level of risk..... and as you've read I've pretty much concluded that I am not, I'll aim to get there eventually, but it may well take a while.

I know talk is easy, but I have always tried to get out of my comfort zone when betting, not in a silly, irreversible way, but in a way where I will feel some pain if things start to go pear shaped.
Only then, and only then, do I know or feel I know that my confidence in my methods is sufficient for my personal circumstances.


Variance would be your enemy here though

Hello there McChicken.

It appears that you really want to up your stakes but deep down you just can't bring yourself to do this at this stage, which I can totally understand. If you can't convince yourself then I doubt others telling you to do it will convince you either.

I would say record keeping is the way to go. It doesn't have to be too extensive but if there is any way that you can record what you are doing how much you are winning/losing and also comparitive records detailing what you could be winning/losing if you were trading at the levels you would like to be then i would say do this. Unfortunately the brain is not perfect and is prone to certain biases when it comes to how to gamble/trade (well mine is anyway). A classic example would be people remembering the 1.01s that are overturned and not remembering all those 1.01's that then went on to win.

Suffice to say that some kind of record keeping would definately help confirm your suspicions of what you could be doing better and it could be the incentive for you to up your stakes when you look back at your records and "see what you coulda wun". If it transpires that what you want to do isn't as effective as you thought or it carries too much potential risk, then nothing lost. If you're doing ok as you are then why rush it, make sure you get the facts i.e. potential risks/rewards of what you want to do before you do it.

Anyway that's my advice, feel free to take it or laugh and ridicule it.

By the way if you are not fully utilising your BF bank and you always have a certain amount just sitting in there, then you could consider transferring this to somewhere where it can at least get some interest, but where you can transfer it back to BF pretty quickly if you need it. Plus if your account here gets hacked then there is less money to go missing. This could also get you more psychologically used to trading at a higher percentage as well without increasing your risk.

I can tell you this fact.
None of the really truly successful big time gamblers, and I include here the major hedge fund mgrs., stay within their comfort zones, psychological or otherwise.
They're as twitchy and as nervous as can be at most times.
When they feel nice and easy with their positions, that is the time of danger and complacency.
If you're running your system(s) at levels where the losses don't really hurt then you're kidding yourselves.
You've got to start feeling real pain to know if you can take it and bear with your system through good times and bad.
The rest is all just a form of paper trading, not real in the sense of having any real meaning.
For sure build up from a low capital base, if you need or have to, but don't stay their for any longer than is absolutely necessary.
Otherwise you will become effectively risk averse, and that will gain you nothing of import in the long run.

And yes big time hedge fund mgrs. are gamblers at heart.
Pretty much all of them are expert poker players in their spare time.
Look at Thorp. He started out in casinos.
Soros plunged deep and hard on the BP when the time was right.
The list is endless.
It's not all risk free arbitrage in that business. It's putting your money where your beliefs are.

That's true but you won't find this out usually till you start to actually do it.
Theory is fine and well, but at some time you have to start to suck it and see.
Fear of failure is as bad as failure.
Successful investing or gambling is not about avoiding risk but managing it.
One thing is for sure. You will not make large profits by never taking large risks.
Not large stupid risks, but large intelligent ones.
And you won't win them all either.

Baldloaf
Own money or other people's money, should make no intrinsic difference.
The point is that if you make small losses you tend, subconsciously at least, to treat them as being bearable and thus relatively unimportant. This is dangerous and ultimately misleading.
If you take a relatively big hit, you tend to look very closely at how and why this happened. This is a good thing to be doing.
You need to keep on your toes and be focussed at all times, and having " real pain " money at risk is the best way to do this.
Gambling for small or comfort zone stakes is nice and relaxaing, but it is something you have to get out of the habit of doing.
Of course I'm talking about if you want to try to make a living out of all this, and not just punt for recreational purposes.
Money makes money. That's a fact in the investing world and in the gambling world.

Didn't say catasrtophic viva.
Just something that really hurts in a meaningful sense.
It's still all about risk/reward ratio. I'm not saying dump that basic tenet.

Why do you say he will have overstaked ?
Because he lost. Surely not.
Gambling or investing, no difference.
It's got to mean something real for it to have any real meaning.

Stop it, your too funny!

FINE AS FROG HAIR Joined: 12 Mar 07
Replies: 2171 10 Feb 11 18:43 
Why do you say he will have overstaked ?
Because he lost. Surely not.
Gambling or investing, no difference.
It's got to mean something real for it to have any real meaning.

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if he blows half his bank I think it's pretty much axiomatic that he's overstaked. which actually is the main way people blow up in the financial markets too. it doesn't have to "mean something real", it has to be right.

the only thing that has real significance is his long term p/l.

You can stop the immaturity too.

Giving poor advice is bad enough. Refusing to understand why your advice is poor makes you a bit of a charlie.
Your posts are naive, contradictory, misinterpreted, ambiguous, condescending and ultimately misinforming. It makes you look like a wannabe. It makes you look like a blagger.
Little tip for you. Resorting to playground tactics highlights a lack of strength of character.

It's basically an oxymoron to say that you are risk averse by nature, but you want to be a successful gambler.

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no, it isn't. the key to succesful gambling or investing is risk management; which is about taking the emotion out of the process.

i have my own software and i put in a factor to multiply all my bets, P&L and market volume by.

i know that when you stick to certain stakes for a long time you become psychologically tuned to reacting to those numbers and increasing your staking is very very hard.

i still deal with my old numbers, but everything is ramped up in the background.

FAFH - you mention that fear of failure is as bad as failure i'd have to disagree. In this instance fear of losing you bf fund is not the same as losing your bf fund. The difference is your bf fund.

I know that your probably going to say that if you don't ever try it you'll never know but as Contrarian mentions it really depends on your financial/domestic situation. If McChicken's circumstances mean that if he loses his stake (or half of it) he's completely stuffed, unable to support himself and his domestic situation whilst not being able to get any other work and this was sole means of income, then fear of failure is an extremely useful protective mechanism.

If he also has a job and no expenses and a surplus of money then maybe he might be in a position to try and if he fails be able to try again. It would be wise to at least find McChicken's situation out or at least take this into consideration before advising McChicken to do anything too rash.

In a lot of other circumstances fear of failure keeps us alive much more than the sensation of "feeling alive" by taking a risk.

Viva
Read some literature on the most successful hedge fund mgrs and tell me they take all the emotion out of the game.
No way Jose.
I agree it's all about managing risk, but it's also about taking calculated risks. If there's no downside then there is usually no, or at least very limited, upside.

Viva
If I have established through sound testing techniques that I am likely to need a certain bank if I want to make a certain level of profit, then that is what I should be testing out real time with real money.
Theory is fine up to a point, but at some stage practice has to take over.
I believe John Kelly, the inventor of the Kelly staking formula, didn't truly convert his theoriy into real money.
Maybe he didn't care to, but is that the point here.
The OP wants and presumably needs to start to make real money( he can spend) out of his " discovered" strategy.
He therefore needs to get going at some point in time, and the logical, practical way is to back his beliefs intelligently using the risk/reward ratios he has quantified ( I hope).