Successive races using Excel: Auto possible or not?

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Successive races using Excel: Auto possible or not?

Postby RoB » Sun Aug 21, 2016 10:51 am

Hi all,

First post, so I hope it makes sense.

All looks promising so far and I expect to take out a subscription when my free trial ends (as an aside, fast connections are a sure-fire indicator of quality to me, so thumbs up in this respect)

I have had a browse through the forums and tried using live manually, so slowly getting to know what's possible and how to use the software.

Ultimately I would be hoping to automate my strategy, which involves backing/ laying according to my own tissue prices. I am looking for the live Cymatic Excel sheet to compare the live price to my tissue just before the off time (say, 30 seconds to off) and according to my rules (in Excel) act by then making a bet, but taking 'Betfair SP' and not the live price (though taking BSP is not set in stone if this is not possible; a live market price bet is acceptable)

Yesterday, (Saturday) I operated this by opening the Cymatic live Excel sheet for each race into my Tissue Price workbook and this worked well as I had preset up my workbook to read the live Excel sheet. The process was excellent and all went as well as I'd hoped for. My problem is this: How can I use my preset tissue prices for each race to read the live price sheet without having to manually change my own workbook prices as each race ends and the next race then becomes the issue at hand?

Also, non-runners are an issue when considering automation with my approach - When operating manually I can re-adjust my tissue but as I cannot do this when away from my pc, realistically I would have to ignore a race if non-runners occurred after I had set my prices and the automation was set to running. Pointers?

Annoyingly, I have minimal knowledge of VBA, though I am happy enough with recording macros manually within Excel.

Hope this is clear enough for some guidance.

Cheers,

Rob
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Re: Successive races using Excel: Auto possible or not?

Postby Gavin » Mon Aug 22, 2016 1:54 pm

Hi Rob,

Thanks for your post, it certainly sounds interesting.

You can use the autopilot feature in Cymatic, to automatically move to the next desired race, even whilst linked to Excel. It works only with the main Cymatic grid window, i.e. other grid windows (subsequent 'New Grid' windows if you open multiple markets simultaneously) do not belong to the autopilot. So you would populate the autopilot, select the first market, start the autopilot (tick in the box) and then connect that market in the main window to Excel. Then every time the autopilot jumps forward to the next race, so would the market being displayed in Excel.

I'm not sure how you move your tissue prices forward to each market, perhaps you have a lookup table based on time, but I don't need to know that. Assuming you can point to your new tissue prices automatically, then it sounds like you'll be able to fully automate the whole process, with Cymatic's autopilot doing its part of the job.

Regarding non-runners, the number of non-runners is presented in cell J4, so perhaps that will form one of your checks.

It sounds like you are doing some very good work!

Kind regards,

Gavin
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Re: Successive races using Excel: Auto possible or not?

Postby RoB » Wed Aug 24, 2016 9:46 pm

Thanks for your help, Gavin.

To automate, I am now pondering on how I must link the autopilot to my prices on one individual sheet, and this is surely the way forward ... though I am kind of perversely wondering if an alternative way would be to utilise the 'new grid' facility by linking each race opened by this to a new Excel sheet containing my prices for that race. Would feel pretty clumsy though and on that July Cup/ John Smiths Cup Saturday back in July it would potentially mean opening 69 new grids. This may not even be possible and it certainly isn't desirable!

Vlookup is the probable solution, as you say - but I have never used it with a TIME element. I am thinking this may prove awkward to master. Only one way to find out...

Onwards...

Rob
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Re: Successive races using Excel: Auto possible or not?

Postby Gavin » Thu Aug 25, 2016 8:08 am

Hi Rob,

Yes either of those techniques would work, although I can't vouch for how efficient they might be.

On first impression the VLOOKUP seems better, because you won't need a huge number of markets and spreadsheets open all at once. I gather that VLOOKUP can be one of the less efficient parts of Excel in terms of how quickly it gets calculated, so if you find it becomes a bit too slow or flickering too much in Excel, then try to limit the number of VLOOKUPs or do the lookups yourself in Excel's Visual Basic editor. You could also consider the data refresh rate in Cymatic if you need to smooth it out. I expect it will be fine though and that VLOOKUP will be efficient enough for what you need.

Kind regards,

Gavin
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Re: Successive races using Excel: Auto possible or not?

Postby RoB » Thu Aug 25, 2016 8:58 pm

Gavin,

Could you expand on what you mean when you say "... do the lookups yourself in Excel's Visual Basic editor ". Presumably you mean as opposed to 'normal' VLOOKUP in an Excel cell ... ?

Whilst I am quite happy working my way around Excel and entering reams of Boolean logic into cells, unfortunately I have no coding skills. Clearly I need to bone up on VBA , so I am going to have a bash at picking up the basics at least.

Thanks
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Re: Successive races using Excel: Auto possible or not?

Postby Gavin » Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:13 pm

Hi Rob,

Yes, "... do the lookups yourself in Excel's Visual Basic editor " was referring to doing some coding in the Visual Basic Editor (also is the Macro Editor). So instead of putting a VLOOKUP formula in a cell, you could write some code to hunt for the data and use it or perhaps copy the data to the cell where the VLOOKUP would have been. I am not really sure if it would be that much quicker than a VLOOKUP, so it sounds like your best bet is just to stick to a VLOOKUP for now, then explore coding alternatives if you find the VLOOKUP is too slow.

If doing the coding, you would probably want to write the code within the Worksheet_Calculate or Worksheet_Change events, but be careful not to create an infinite loop, especially if you are using the Worksheet_Change event.

Kind regards,

Gavin
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Re: Successive races using Excel: Auto possible or not?

Postby Gavin » Tue May 26, 2020 11:07 am

Hi again Rob,

A new feature was released recently that might help you, the NEXT command was added from v6.14.0.0 onwards. It allows you to move the autopilot forward to the next race by using Excel, so now you can control the moment when it moves forward.

I hope your trading is going well.

Kind regards,

Gavin
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