An Opening Bias

When so many trades had been turning sour and me along with them I scaled back and have only been doing a handful of races a day. I did 5 yesterday and closed the day on a high note when Inchpast in the 20:00 at Yarmouth constantly bounced up and down within ranges. I placed 6 trades, taking 1 tick once, 2 ticks four times, and closing out the race with a 3 tick winner. The second trade was only about 70% matched, but I still greened up for $7.57 on the race, which at stakes of just $40 is a decent number.

One thing I feel is clear from trading a small bank is my bias towards opening a trade with a bet. That way I can open a position for $40, $50, $60, etc, while laying can see me drop to $10 / $20 depending on the odds. This is not good. Even if I could eliminate the mental bias, there's still the fact that if I open with a losing bet trade (say $50) which turns against me, then jump on an outward trend with a lay (say $10), I am going to have to make roughly 5 times the ticks I just lost on the opening bet trade just to get back to even! It's important to have both sides of the market benefitting or penalising you in equal proportion. I know I could just drop the bet stakes to level out the bet and lay sides, but whilst I believe in starting out with smaller test banks, I also believe in trading at a level where the winnings or losses amount to more than a few cents per trade. That's not meant as a criticism of anyone who adopts that approach. They will lose a lot less than I will given a similar run of losing trades, but my losses may be more likely to trigger the kind of emotions I'd have to deal with given a similar run using large stakes. I just personally believe in trading in a test environment where the parameters are a little closer to what they would be if I was to move out of test mode into trading my intended starting bank.