You  may remember that around November last year it came to my attention that The Betfair Trading Expert by Dr Matt Abraham had copied its tennis strategies from my  site. As I said at the time no one can really lay claim to some strategies but the fact that it was copied word for word from my site and was repackaged as the results of years of observing markets was in my opinion taking the piss.

Abraham contacted me and offered to send me some customers but when I asked for an explanation of his copy and paste work he failed to reply. I emailed him again last week but not surprisingly have had no response.

While searching for something on google the other day I found a trading blog that was recommending The Trading Experts’ tennis strategies which irritated me a little. I left a comment on his blog which was rather blunt. I was actually under the impression that I had contacted him last year explaining the situation so was perhaps shorter than I normally would be this time around. Steve, the blog owner, didn’t like my “acerbic tone” and told me so. Being a stuborn Northerner I wasn’t about to back down and put my people skills to work. That pissed Steve off even more and in the middle of the pleasantries he asked for a copy of the Guide so he could do an honest review. As we hadn’t become the best of pals I wasn’t hopeful that a review would be done and if it was that it wouldn’t actually be a fair one. I sent my final response to his blog replying to his comment that I wouldn’t talk to him the same way in person (actually I am well known among family, friends and ex work colleagues for speaking bluntly and telling it like it is). I didn’t get an email from his blog saying that my comment had been published so assumed that Steve had removed it having had just about all he could take of my cheery disposition.

This afternoon while Betfair was down I decided to check if my comment was there and I saw a link under his “approved systems” to TradeShark Tennis.

Here’s a link to the review http://bestbetfairfootballtrader.com/system-reviews/tradeshark-tennis-review/

I have to say that it is a very honest and fair summary. However there are a couple of comments that I feel are misleading. I’ll give Steve the benefit of the doubt that it isn’t deliberate although I wouldn’t blame him considering how arsey I was on his site.

Steve says it is ironic that I have a large amount of copyrighted pdf ebooks on the site and also a tennis strategy that was “ripped off from Pete Nordsted”. Steve seems to be trying to compare this to what I was complaining the Dr had done. Lets put things into context. The members area which includes the Trading Guide is a webste with many pages. I have set aside one page on which I put any interesting ebooks or documents that members want to share with other members. I point out on the site that some may be copyrighted and that if I receive a complaint that I will happily remove them. They are freely available online, which doesn’t make it right to have them on the site, but it isn’t exactly a hanging offence. The 5 ebooks and the strategy document are presented “as is” and have not been repackaged and sold as anyone else’s work except the original author. In the Word document one of our members was giving his own ideas on trading based on the strategy from Nordsted which is clearly stated near the top of the document. I have even said on the site that I have only personally read 2 of the ebooks!

Any comparison between this and someone repackaging and selling my work as their own is at best misleading. These 6 items constitute a miniscule proportion of the material on the members area.

That said I have to say that Steve has shown he is a blogger with integrity who  despite probably thinking I am an arrogant twat has reviewed the site honestly. For that I thank him and apologise for my attitude in some of the comments I left on his blog regarding Dr Abraham.

Paul

   

This is one of the questions I get asked the most and its one that is hard to answer. Why do people ask this?  Looking around forums and the chatroom its clear that people are trying to find a simple way to trade. One that works in every game. I can understand why newer traders think that is possible but I get the query from guys who have traded for a while too.

The truth is that it is very rare that a single strategy would be used over and over in the same match. Even backing the server. There aren’t many players who I would use this strat and even then you need to check that they are on top form. As an example I’d normally include players like Roddick and Raonic but they seem to have a few issues at the moment.

There really are very few shortcuts. No one can teach you experience. They can give you the benefit of their own experiences but that is no replacement for getting it first hand.

As in a lot of areas in our microwave, fast food, flat-pack culture far too many people want maximum gain from minimum effort. In trading terms they want a simple strategy that gets them a great return every time. In persuit of this ridiculous goal they try to force “square pegs into round holes” and having learnt a strategy they proceed to use it on every match. Not surprisingly they soon fail.

So what happens next? Well that depends on the individual. Some will just give up. Some will start telling everyone that the strategies don’t work. Some even go on a mini crusade to prove that I am some sort of scam artist ( bless them ). A small proportion ( those more likely to succeed ) actually ask for help.

So if you see someone in a chatroom or forum or blog saying that established strategies don’t work what they are really saying is perhaps, ” I can’t make them work as I can’t be bothered to work out the best games to use it on”, or maybe, “I’m too stupid to trade tennis”, or, “I want to make money but I’d rather not put any effort in”.

The strategies are all very simple. Where experience is essential is in matching the strategy to the game situation. Any match will go through phases where momentum shifts between the players. Even in a one sided match there will be very short periods where there is a momentum shift. As you experience more and more games and markets you will learn to spot where the changes may happen. For example, a simple one that most know about is in a match where both players have a realistic chance of winning. Laying the first set winner will often bring about a chance of profit if you don’t get too greedy. So much effort goes into getting that first set that the winner will relax a little in the early couple of games of the second set.

So forget the holy grail strategy and put the effort into learning the markets and how they move in relation to the match. Joining a community such as ours can help you to spot the patterns. If you limit yourself to just one strategy then you are reducing the number of games you can trade.