Trading Software part 2 / Gruss Betting Assistant

In my last post I was reviewing some of the features that I like about Gruss Betting Assistant Betfair trading software. I highlighted the first 4 areas I feel that Gruss offers advantages over some of the other software available. OK, so here are the remaining 4 points.

Of the 3 software applications I've used, Gruss and BetAngel are the only 2 which offer integration with Microsoft Excel. When I started using Gruss about 6 months ago I noticed right away that the Excel integration offers significantly more features. The first most obvious one was that the last traded price is available for each selection. This is particularly useful for in-play automation as this figure can be quite different to what is currently on offer on the back / lay columns, it may also give an indication of which direction the market is going.

As you can log your bets to another sheet in the workbook you can use the "update" command to automate the moving of partially unmatched or unmatched bets towards the new market level. I also use the "MyBets" sheet to work out my new P&L when there has been a horse withdrawn from the race just prior to the start and Betfair haven't had time to remove it from the market (I hate ending up in the red due to late withdrawls when I've had an all-green market prior to the withdrawl!).

In Gruss if you have several markets open at once on different tabs, you can connect each of the markets to a different sheet in the same Excel workbook (and also have a seperate "MyBets" sheet for each market). This is really great for creating triggers from one market and applying it in another (e.g. win / place markets, football markets, tournament collapse triggers in tennis / snooker). You can control the refresh rate of each market independently from Excel and this can be automated (e.g. increase the refresh rate when the market goes in-play).

As from the recent 1.1.0.61 version, you can now select to have any of the additional information linked to Excel:
SP
Saddle cloth
Form
Days since last ran
Jockey
Trainer
Age/weight
Jockey claim
Wearing
Stall draw

There is so much functionality available I'll not duplicate it all here, you can find out more on the user forum and especially the "New releases" category. The main guy behind Gruss is called Gary Russell and posts on the forum regularly.

This brings me neatly onto the next point which is the superb development support. New ideas and suggestions for improvements are monitored closely by Gruss and in some cases, for minor improvements, I have experienced them being implemented on the same day! Now that is what I call service!

The penultimate point I want to highlight is the user-definable green-up option, or "Alt. level profit" as it is called in Gruss. Firstly, as a bit of background, I really like the BetAngel "Trade calculator", it is excellent if you are leaving a trade open to go in-play (intentionally or not!). You can then select the odds you want to try and close the trade at and the calculator will work out the relevant stake to close the trade greened-up. Gruss doesn't have this specific feature (I should get around to requesting it on the forum!), however as well as the standard green-up button, the Alt. Level Profit enables you to green-up any number of clicks from the current back or lay price that you want. I personally have this button set to reverse +1.

Let me explain. If I have traded a market successfully pre-race and I have zero P&L on all the runners except the favourite which I am +£50. After the market goes-in play, the back price goes to, say, 1.7 and the lay price is 3.5. If I green-up normally, I will have a profit across all runners of 50/3.5 = £14.28, whereas if I green-up one tick in-front of the current back price (so I am at the front of the queue) I make £29.24 (50/1.71) across all runners if I get matched. Do that several times a day and you are making a lot of extra money.....

Clearly this takes some judgement, but wide spreads in the odds can also occur at the very start of races and if you've gone in-play by accident then the last thing you want to do is green-up your entire bank at 4 in a panic when the back price is 3 - very expensive!

The final feature that I think is worth a mention is the integrated notes section. This enables you to record notes about selections so that the next time they run an icon appears next to the horse/selection to remind you. Even if you don't study form and bet in-running, this is useful for pre-race traders - you must have seen horses reluctant to go into the stalls / refuse to race. Next time out you can be on the right side of these market moves. It can save you a lot of pain and money if you know the favourite you are trading on can be reluctant to race - make especially sure you exit all your trades well in time for these ones!

Well that's all I can think of for know, I hope this helps because there isn't too much info on the Gruss website itself, I'd recommend looking at the user forum and downloading the software for the free 30-day trial. Happy trading!