[poet]

Hate to intervene on your feud but had a rough day today and would like some advice. Won the over but lost it all on live betting. I guess I still don't have the timing down. I bet on Stan to win the match throughout the match. By the time it got to the 4th set I had 300 on Stan to win 650. At that point Djoker was even money. Before I could even think about hedging, WaWa gets broken on his first service game, then he loses his mind in the next game and smashes his racket and then gets injured. Suddenly Djoker is at -275 for the rest of the match and I can't even hedge. Do I chalk this up to bad luck or did I do something wrong as far as the bets I made on Stan, which were between +160 and +200 (i.e., were they bad bets at bad odds to begin with considering the opening line)?

[ilyak17]

Well step 1 is to have a realistic plan/goal. Do you want to make $50 a match, $500? If you could lock yourself into a guaranteed $200 profit would you hedge even though if you stick to your original bet, which looks like it will win, you will make $500 instead (but lose 500 if you let it ride)? It looks like you just jumped in guns a blazin' firing 50-100 a pop on stanny without knowing what you really wanted to get out of the match. Before you knew it you had 300 on him at +225 overall. I know for a fact that for a brief time at the end of the 3rd/early 4th set Djoker was + money and at a bare minimum you could have bet yourself into somewhere around a guaranteed $150-$200 profit. So at this very point in the match you either got greedy (trying to let it ride) or weren't committed to making yourself available for the entire match to either confirm your original bet would win, or to save yourself in the event it went the other way, which it did.

Of course there's more to it than this, but its late, i'm tired, got a busy day tomorrow, and also am not going to be giving away everything. So take this tidbit and go from there.

[poet]

Thank you for the help ilyak. You are right about the lack of a clear plan. But I was hoping that Stan could keep it close for a while in the 4th and that I would get better odds before hedging. Obviously it never happened as he was broken (in more ways than one) at the start of the 4th. But I get your drift. A clearer idea of what my goals are would help. And I guess somewhere inside me I was hoping Stan would win, despite the fact that Djoker was getting some break chances against him. And I guess this is where objectivity comes in. As a gambler you can't really take sides, or take sides in a way that compromises your best interests. Thanks again for step 1. I look forward to step 2 when you have some time.