User Comments

I do want to start a series of articles about Bot Trigger programming or about using them, and I actually did and do a lot in bfexplorer infrastructure to extend Bot Trigger features.

For instance I added two new triggers OpenAssociatedMarket and WatchMarketSelections that allows you orchestrate your trading markets or just to add market selections to Watched Selections view, so help you done what you have to do manually in couple step, done by Bot Trigger in one click.

You posted a couple ideas for Bot Trigger, so selected the one you want to implement first.

Well, yes in your trading style you prefer to execute your bot at exact odds, so it makes sense to visualize bot status on a selection ladder, but on the other hand there are bots which are not directly associated with a trigger action at the exact odds, but to odds range, or bots running on a market not on a selection.

As you are free to start as many bots as you want to, you can start two or more bots to be triggered at one odds level, so it means that in one row/price(odds) level, there would be more bots, not just the one.

Your comments helped me to realize the issue with PlaceBetInAllowedOddsRange set to False, because that is the only setting you can use in your scenario for Place Bet and Place Bet and Close Position bots, when bot trigger is set to start bet placing at exact odds. I have fixed this issue, and will update Market Bots to report about bet status.

Eric, I would like to see what you actually do, so if you are able to make video screencast then do so and publish it on youtube.

On Monday we can use Teamviewer, or other desktop sharing app, so I can connect to your computer remotely and assist you with setting up your solution.

You maybe never heard about desktop sharing or making video screencast, but Internet does, so just try to find some sources about it, and actually the best way for it is not to “google”, but directly search it on youtube, people do videos about everything, even about how to open a box.
In my post here on forum, I asked you to specify what you actually want to do, as it is clear that I will have to prepare/develop a bot trigger for you.

I am not trying to steal your strategy as you can describe it by general parameters you will be able to set in your bot trigger, not even saying about bot trigger main feature, and that is to execute your action bot. The action bot is defined/set in My Bots, so you are free to set anything to be your action bot in your bot trigger strategy, and that can be simple bet placing or trading bot, or even another bot trigger.

Just rotate your monitor to portrait mode, no I am not joking, actually chance is that you have got such type of stand on your monitor, then switch display settings in windows to portrait for this monitor.

I did rotated one of my monitors to portrait orientation and after changing app layout putting some of views on landscape orientated monitor and main app window with Bet Event Trader on portrait orientated monitor I have got when comparing ladder with 2 odds in middle, in portrait orientated monitor I saw odds from 1.6 to 2.54, in landscape one from 1.82 to 2.28.

For me, the computer is working tool, and as a software developer I used to use two monitors, it has advantages as when debugging a program, your IDE (for not programs/software developers the application you use to develop programs in, on Windows platform mainly Visual Studio) is on one monitor, and debugging app/program on other monitor. Some software developer use second monitor by default in portrait mode, as software developer you must read documentation, and so on.

I have got two old Samsungs 2443, with new 4K monitors I would again bought two monitors, even if resolution for latest monitors is a lot bigger now, that it was some years back.

Yes, what Miro suggests, the compressed typed of ladder has some advantage.

I do not think to be successful trader on in-play markets the ladder size makes any advantage, quite opposite is true, you must spot opportunity sooner than others do, and take value bet/s.

I have got two Professional users/traders from GB I made bespoke solutions years ago with their own different features, but basically what both do is to place a set of bets, cancel unmatched bets after set timeout (if active), close bet position (if active) either by hedging or set stake. Both traders actually do not use ladders, but activate bot execution for horse they type saddle number for. If saddle number is from 1-9 then firing action bots is as quick as pressing one number, for saddle numbers. One trader uses minus as well to change bet type to lay bet.

They use mini notebooks directly on racecourse, so they are seconds before you in judging race, and they place sets of bets by bot so in one API request. Well, yes if you know what you do then you can find your edge in in-play trading even if you trade from another country on UK horse race.

I do not understand where you have got a problem with selecting a ladder and why? Actually you select a ladder directly when clicking on one of row/column, and this click also defines your desired action: placing a bet, cancelling a bet, update a bet, placing a hedge bet to close position, or the latest addition when Use Ladder is active, then starting selected bot.

You need to select a market selection only when executing a bot by Start bot button in the My Bots view. Think again, in this case you need to select a market selection only in that case when your bot setting requires to define selection by user, so when the parameter: ExecuteOnSelection is set to 0.
I noticed it on your examples as well as on other use ones that you are lazy to name your bot setting correctly.

For instance I could name my bot: Trade 3 ticks.

What such bot name suggests to me? It suggests this bot is used primarily for execution from ladder, either through My Ladder Bots context menu, or through your addition so directly clicking on a ladder, of course when Use Ladder feature is active.

In the bot name there is no information about stake, nor bet type either, and it is clear that bot must have some initial settings for BetType and Stake, I used to set BetType by default to Back, and Stake only to 10 Euro. BetType or Stake is actually not relevant as those parameters are taken from my current settings, on the other hand in the bot name is missing information about Loss, well is not missing as is set to 0, so bot does not close my bet position in loss.

If I name my bot: Trade 2 ticks profit or 3 ticks loss, again is clear what my bot does.

If I name my bot: Trade 2 ticks by backing 100 Euro on favourite, then it is clear what my bot does exactly, and that I do not need to select a selection on which I want to execute this bot, the bot will do so automatically.

You can name your bots in Czech, if such naming is shorter, but in Slovak language naming of bots is always longer, so I prefer English. Some users use just abbreviation in letters, I hope you understand what I wanted to say.

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Well, yes I like nice looking user interface as well, but in some cases there are some implementation details which do such visualisation of data difficult. I will see what I can do to visualize bot state on ladder, for now you must use Market Bots view.

You do not have to watch all videos, but you definitely have some problems using base bfexplorer features. We all bet on betfair markets, and if you did not understand how Event Browser is used with bfexplorer infrastructure, then you need to watch at least those videos.

The other video is a video showing how to change and save bfexplorer workspace/s. I have got big monitors, and some users use bfexplorer on notebooks with small resolution screens, bfexplorer is still useable on small screens but you need to change and save layout of views.

Yes, I will continue with Bot Trigger tutorials, but you need to be a little bit specific, in what way do you want to use horse latest form. For instance I can create a trigger taking last form from available horse, take for instance only horse/s winning in last race, and then execute an action bot on horse with lowest price/odds.

Well, you say after analyzing output data..., but I believe you want your bot to analyze winning or losing streak, and then set different trading parameters for your trading bot.

If bot trigger will execute your trading bot on defined selections then win/loss results could be saved, but the question is how you want to implement “the analyzing logic”.

Use just general description, so leaving bot simple enough to start development of this trigger bot, in simple and understandable steps.

You were right B, M shortcuts not worked correctly, I forgot to extend stake changing to all 6 stakes. I added Use a ladder click to start a bot, and Start selected bot to the ladder context menu.

It would be possible to create Bot Trigger script managing bots or/and their parameters. As the bot trigger runs on one market you can do so only on one market. You should say exactly what you want to do, then I can say if it is possible or not.

Eric, did you really watch some of videos?

http://bfexplorer.net/Products/ProductFeatures

In your trading solution there are involved Event Browser and Bot Executor. Did you manage to add your favourite event to the Navigation view?

When you open bfexplorer and login to betfair, bfexplorer loads Upcoming in-play events by default, here you can click on Horse Racing, what would load all upcoming horse racing win markets for today.

You run your betting solution only on GB and IE markets. Therefore it is a good idea to add this event setting to My Favourites Events, so my events are one click to load, right?

That is the first thing I believe any bfexplorer user do, to add his/her favourite events to the list.

Let’s assume you already managed to add some bot setting to My Bots (again there are tutorial videos to show what to do and how), let’s assume you run your betting strategy on all horse racing win market, then if your action bot is in the first list in My Bots, you can do so, then to run your solution you need to make 4 clicks:

1) To open horse racing markets to Event Browser, clicking on the favourite item in My Favourite Events.

2) Clicking on first item in Event Brower list of markets, in your case on first race, to activate Open button, and in Open button context menu click on the menu item: Open in Bot Executor.

3) If you accept default setting, and as I said your action bot is first in the list, then to run your betting strategy you need your final click on the Open button.

That is all. I do not think there is something sophisticated in those 4 clicks.

B, M shortcuts do work correctly.

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Do you select a ladder before placing a bet? Of course you do not select a ladder but directly click on a ladder column row to place required bet.

Bet Event Trader view has no notion of selecting a selection. On the other hand if you want to use bot execution in the Bet Event Trader, then simply when creating a bot definition type in the bot category name: My Ladder Bot.

All bots with the category name: My Ladder Bot then appear in the ladder context menu so you can execute a bot from a ladder as well. You already know that such bot execution takes Stake, BetType and Price/Odds to change the bot execution parameters. It means the bot with My Ladder Bot should be a bot for general use and execution of a certain bot strategy, so you should name it appropriately.

Once, a user sent to me a bfexplorer screenshot to report some issue. His My Bots view was on the left side in full height of application window, filled with more than 40 bot settings. When I asked him for what he uses so many bot settings he told me that basically almost all bot settings are for “Be the first in queue” bot with different bet type and stake, and with allowed odds range, for this type of bot when BFIQ bot backs you should define minimal allowed odds, and opposite when BFIQ bot lays you should define maximal allowed odds.

I asked him why he did not use My Ladder Bot feature to execute his BFIQ bot from a ladder, because what he actually did when starting BFIQ bot was to open a market selection, then judge the true market value, bet type and odds, and then chose from his list of bots, which bot to start.

All that he can do with just one BFIQ bot setting marked with the category name: My Ladder Bot. On ladder he chooses bet type by column, stake is set by Stake toolbar settings, and allowed odds range is changed to the row/odds he clicked on ladder.

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When you decide to use a bot for your betting or trading strategy, then you delegate your job to the bot. If for any reason later you decide to stop the bot, then you are responsible to manage your bet position yourself, so if necessary then cancel unmatched bets or close your bet position.

I can only see one such bot with this functionality, a spoofing bot, its purpose is actually not to place bets to be matched but to manipulate a market, so when such bot is stopped, it is just clear that all managed bets must be cancelled.

I have just released updated version adding this shortcut to Bet Event Trader.

In this case the time is not represented by TimeSpan value which correct text representation is in the form you typed: 1:25:00 (hours:minutes:seconds), but just an integer value, like you can see 84 minutes. So in the filter type: 85

Eric, in last days I published 4 articles with videos, showing how to create a simple bot trigger and in two articles (videos) I showed how to use Bot Trigger. So you say:

1) You are not able to copy one of bot scripts to your computer.
2) Setup Execute Trigger Bot, what means entering two parameters: TriggerFilePathname and BotName
3) You are not able to start this bot on selected market, just for testing.
4) And you are not definitely able to use Bot Executor, or Bot Executor for Selections tool to execute your strategy on many markets automatically.

On the other hand you still prefer some kind of Spreadsheet reporting bot solution. From years I develop bespoke solutions for betfair, people tend to name a software, an application, a program just a bot.

May I ask you which betfair application you use, the bot which interacts with Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and do your betting for now? If you prefer only Spreadsheet type of bot operation, that I think you should use spend some time to learn Visual Basic for Automation because I do not think you will manage to run your automated bot solution without it. I think there are 2 or 3 betfair applications offering spreadsheet bet triggering, like Bet Angel, Gruss Betting Assistant or Cymatic.

I never wasted my time with Excel Spreadsheet betting as I prefer my own bot programming, but others on this forum may have some experiences with use of the above mentioned “bots”.

I am sorry Eric, but I still do not understand.

How other betfair apps work with Excel? I believe that betfair app populates Excel worksheet, so every selected market is populated on different Sheet (Page). Excel just presents betfair market data.

Triggers are constructed on sheet cell values, and any action (bet placing) is again triggered by exact value in certain cells, right?

You said that you use Excel worksheet and your bot to bet on your selections throughout a day, so you must link all betfair markets to Excel worksheet and then setup triggers for selected horses. All that must be quite a lot of work.

You use some staking plan, so to execute such staking plan on Excel worksheet you must create a program some VBA code because I cannot believe that you are able to do so just by setting some formulas in cells, like you do in setting up your selections triggers, am I right?

So you have got some knowledge about programming, my question is then, why do not you use Bfexplorer Bot Trigger to program your staking plan? If you manage to do so then you can create your action bot, simply by setting parameters for Place Bet bot, name such bot setting and use this bot name within Execute Trigger Bot and your Staking plan trigger.

Having such bot setup you can use Bot Executor, or in your case Bot Executor for Selections, to execute your betting strategy with defined staking plan on selected horses.

Eric, could you be more specific in what way spreadsheet will help to make a trigger betting on a race depending on a previous horse results?

I cannot imagine the way the spreadsheet would load all previous horse results and help you to trigger a bet depending on those results.

In some case betfair takes activation just couple seconds, sometimes you need to wait minutes.

I will prepare series of articles describing how to use this bot.

When you have a look at on other betfair API apps which support automation or trigger betting/trading, then such apps either offer limited number of trigger values you can use or are specialized in some kind of trigger betting.

You are on betfair a couple years now, we started at the same time, and you know that there never quite a lot of features you could use, therefore I still support betfair bot programming (Bfexplorer BOT SDK), but with trigger bot I added bot orchestrations, because sometimes you just need to setup action bot with different parameters, or you just need additional triggers.

This bot should solve what you asked in your article: Settings of many bots.

It is still programming, but scripting language used for trigger programming should be more readable for a common user, not a programmer.

I will try to create a lot of examples, so in some cases you should be able to use such triggers just by copying some parts of them and create your new one.

I will explain this trigger on simple betting strategy like Back correct score 0 – 0 and lay draw, on your example of how to setup many bots, or for Eric horse racing strategy.

If you have got some strategies then let me know, or the one used generally on betfair, maybe not profitable but if a good examples for some trigger programming then just post the idea on bfexplorer forum.

Behind any betfair strategy is a well, a data recording and analyzing, so I want to add some tools for such operations as well.

I will investigate this issue, maybe it is just rounding problem.

The video in my article just demonstrates how to use the bot: Execute Till Target Profit. When testing this bot on greyhounds markets I had luck that both lay bets were winning bets.

This bot checks profit from running strategy and when set profit is reached it stops/blocks further execution of an action bot.

It means you can use this bot in any strategy where you start further execution only after previous result is known, and stop your strategy after set profit is reached.

If you want to automate your strategy then first you load markets on which you want to run your strategy to Event Browser. In the Event Browser you can filter only desired markets, and then open the execution of your strategy on all or only on selected markets to Bot Executor.

The Bot Executor is then responsible to open a market at set time and execute your strategy on the market. Bot Executors keeps market data monitoring till running bot/s finish/es execution.

I already explained when you should use Bot Executor to run your strategies in this article:

http://bfexplorer.net/Community/ForumContent/56#Named Selections Horse Racing

Of course when testing you can run your strategy manually as I did in my video.

Yes, you can use a horse form in your trigger bot. I did not yet show how to create and use Execute Trigger Bot, but all is ready in the latest version of bfexplorer 1.6.5676.

You can use Bfexplorer Console tool to browse market data, read this article:

http://bfexplorer.net/Community/BlogContent/59#Bfexplorer Console

And test the code to show horses form.

If you post in a general description of your strategy (use parameter names), then I prepare a trigger bot and show you how to use it.