Search Results for 'ar mad'

[ron b]

Hi Escorial…..<br>You make your points with great passion and if they work for you I won’t knock them.

With regards to the analogy I gave, this is very simple business sense and believe me that certainly applies to racing.

I think any serious punter who disregards this does so at his peril, however we will have to agree to differ on that one. In answer to your question "why baulk at prices offered?" Many years ago I thought all that was necessary to win at racing was simply a matter of backing winners. Although this was naive at least I had the sense to record my bets including the prices I took and the returned s.p’s. Some years I made a little but generally lost over a year. As a result of being in the fortunate position of having some advice from a very good judge, I poured over my books, one of the things I did was list all the horses I had backed at better than s.p. I also listed the horses backed at worse than s.p. and guess what! a nugget of gold appeared. Those horses I backed at better than s.p. showed a good profit, the others ate up any profits. Backing winners of course is very important but so is avoiding losers. I am quite happy to pass over a winner that I believe is the wrong price as I know from experience that a number of such bets will most certainly produce losses.

Please disregard this advice as I also lay horses on Betfair.

All the very best<br>ron b

[Daylight]

I’ve been biting my tongue and sitting on my hands on this one during the last few posts but the comment "If you think a horse should be 8/1 and its 4/1 – so what? If it wins you have a smaller profit than you’d think ideal but you’d have a profit." has made me respond!

Rob,<br>If you are prepared to back a selection 4pts under your estimated value price then good luck to you as you are really going to need it backing bad value consistently will lead you to the poor house at 100mph! That is like saying if you thought Istabraq would win this years Champion Hurdle this year you would gladly take 1/2 – No you wouldn’t because it’s just not a good price!

"Almost everyone can bag a 6/4 winner and some can get 16/1 winners – get on all your winners (be them 6/4 or 16/1) and in the long run, you’ll be in profit." If only it were that simple! Are you forgetting losing runs? As they happen to the best, if you only back 2/1 shots lets say, that means you HAVE to get 1 winner in every 3 bets to break even otherwise you lose! It may sound simple to you but you try it!

This whole game is about maths and by backing what you consider value gives you a better return long term and will only increase profits. If things aren’t right (price included) then why play? There will always be other days! The main thing I have learnt since my time of being here is those that tend to do well are the patient ones.

"How about each-way betting? Is this value? I have to say a resounding YES to this – but what do you lot think?" Each way betting is a bookmakers bet, as why don’t they let you do a place bet? reason is that they want your win bet! A common mis-conception over each way betting is the place return people instantly think a 20/1 will pay a nice 5/1 for the place – not true, it’s only true if it wins and at 20/1 you have a 5% chance of this! So presuming it loses would expect 5/1 return? You put a £10 bet on each way and it finishes second which you will recieve £50 back.

So you staked £20 to win £30 in reality – those odds equate to 6/4, not so generous eh! Whereas if a place bet existed other than at the Tote you could have had 5/1! I personally think it is a bet the bookmakers want as it carries little risk.

Of course this is only my opinion and an opinion I feel strongly about as a while back I decided each way betting is not for me and I’m the type that regularly backs double figure odds horses.

[JAMES321]

I am interested in long term profits rather than one horse winning or losing. <br>If I miss a winner because of the price, the question I must ask myself will the win cover defeats on losers which have not met the price criteria. <br>I am in search for big price selections which should be approx around that price range. Long Term I will not make a profit from backing below the price ranges I set. <br>Before the time in my life when I would be at Perry Barr in the morning, football match in the afternoon then onto Wolverhampton evening meeting it dawned on me it was no longer profitable backing in every race. <br>I am now backing one horse at the most each day so why take below what I feel is value.

"The scenario I want you to imagine is of three people walking into a room where different bets are on offer.<br>The first person sees a table where you can bet on the spin of a coin. The odds on offer are 10/11 for a correct choice.<br>He feels lucky and bets on heads, which comes up. So he has another bet, and this also wins. "I’m feeling lucky", he says, "I’m going to stay at this table all night".<br>The second person sees a table where you can bet on the correct number thrown with a dice. The odds on offer are 11/2.<br>He has a bet on ‘3’, which loses, then on ‘5’, which loses. But he’s not deterred; "I’m staying on this table", he says, "see you later".<br>The third person sees a table where you can bet on predicting a playing card randomly chosen from a pack. The odds on offer are 66/1.<br>He likes the prospect of a big win, so he has a go. In fact he has 10 goes, and none are correct. Luckily, he has brought plenty of cash with him, so he says "I’m staying here for the night".<br>The three agree to meet up again in 8 hours time, when they will compare how each has done.<br>Eight hours passed, and it was time for the three to go home.<br>The coin man was not happy: "I seemed to be winning regularly", he said, "I didn’t have any long losing runs, but I’m out of pocket!"<br>In fact he’d had 1,000 bets, and 500 of them had been correct. He’d been betting at £20 a time, as he knew he wouldn’t have long losing runs. So over the night he’d staked £20,000, and from his 500 winners paying £38.18 a time, he’d received a total of £19,090. He had lost £910 when he seemed to be doing so well. People had been remarking at how many winners he was having, but that didn’t matter to him now. He certainly wouldn’t play that game again.<br>The second arrived, with a smile on his face; "I started slowly", he said, "and my strike rate was not good all night – I had many losing runs well into double figures. I didn’t feel as if I was winning, but now that I’ve counted up I realise that I’ve done well."<br>In fact, he too had placed 1,000 bets over the night at £20 each. He had picked 166 winners and 834 losers. At his quoted odds of 11/2, each winner had paid him £130 – a total return of £21,580. He had won £1,580 on the night and was happy.<br>The third returned laughing; "I can’t believe it", he said, "I chose those cards terribly – I had massive losing runs which I thought would never end. In fact I had 1,000 bets at £20 each and only won 19 of them – good job my bank was big enough for the evening!" But at 66/1, the 19 winners had returned a total of £25,460, making him £5,460 – enough for the cruise he’d been planning.<br>Simple enough, and we can see why the coin man was attracted by the prospect of regular winners – it made him feel like he was doing well. The dice man had a strike rate of 16.67%, which was more than enough, given that he was offered the value odds of 11/2 each time. The odds were only quoted half a point too high, but that was enough for him and he took advantage. The card man was fortunate to have a big bank behind him – his losing runs were massive, only 19 winners from 1,000 at a strike rate of 1.9%. But the 66/1 he was given was far too high, and he made a lot of money.<br>If these people were to return every night for a year, betting on the same games and with the same stakes, the coin man would lose £332,150, the dice man would win £576,700 and the card man would win £1,992,900.<br>They were all winning as often as they were entitled to do – nobody was luckier or unluckier than the others. It all came down to the value their bets offered.<br>In that example, the value was easy to see. Mathematically, it could be determined exactly. But how do we know what value is in horse-racing? How do we know we won’t end up like the coin man?<br>The answer is that we need to determine, first of all, what the actual odds are of our horse winning. We can’t do this exactly, of course, but we can get fairly close.<br>Say for example the race we are studying has 10 runners, and we have decided that 4 of them have no chance whatsoever. We can confidently cross those 4 through, but we must be absolutely sure they can’t win. That leaves 6 runners, and we may decide that 3 of those can’t be dismissed completely even though we don’t think they can win. Maybe they have half a chance. Fine, that’s 3 runners with half a chance each, and the other 3 are the serious contenders (of which one is obviously our selection).<br>So our selection has 1 chance in 4.5 (3 serious plus 3 half chances). Its actual odds, as far as we can see are 7/2.<br>If we can get better than 7/2 for our selection we bet. The bigger the price above 7/2, the more we stake. It makes sense – if the dice man went back the following night he would stake much higher at that price. If our horse, however, is quoted at less than 7/2 we cannot bet – not ever.<br>It may well win, but if we continually take chances like that we will come unstuck eventually. If the odds are 3/1 we have to leave it alone and come back another day.<br>Again, that’s a simple example, and I’m sure most punters think along those lines. To get more of an exact figure we need to break our fractions down further – down to percentage chances.<br>If we say that the total chances of all the runners in a race is 100%, we need to then determine how much of that 100% is made up of our horse’s chance. In the above example the 100% was split between 6 runners that had either a chance or half a chance. There were a total of 4.5 chances, each one 22.22% of the overall 100%.<br>A 22.22% chance is equal to 7/2, so if we are right in our judgement (and we must stick to our judgement, as that is the whole point of betting), anything better than 7/2 offers value.<br>A friend of mine has the same approach, although he tackles it slightly differently. He allocates 100 points to a race (each point is a 1% chance). From those 100 points, he allocates to each horse a number, which he thinks represents it’s chance of winning. The important thing here is that all the points must come back to 100 when added at the end.<br>He may analyse a race like this: His selection 27pts, horse ‘B’ 20pts, horses ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, and ‘F’ 12pts each, and horse ‘G’ 5pts.<br>He has given his selection a 27% chance, which equals just over 11/4. So if my friend can get 11/4, or preferably 3/1 for his bet, he will be on. If not, he won’t.<br>To convert the points out of 100 you have awarded to each horse into odds, do the following:<br>Say you gave 28pts : divide 100 by 28 = 3.57, then deduct 1 = 2.57.<br>Those are the odds to one – 2.57/1. Given that 2.5/1 is the same as 5/2, you would need better than 5/2 for a horse to which you had awarded 28pts.<br>Please make sure you don’t totally discount a horse and give it 0pts unless you are sure that it can’t win. Make sure all your points figures total 100 exactly. You will have to change them many times before they do – and don’t bother if the points awarded are strange numbers, like 27 or 41. it doesn’t matter as long as you work out the true odds correctly afterwards.<br>You will find that you suddenly spend less time actually picking a winner, and more time picking a horse that is likely to run at a value price".

Quite a famous strategy, wo what I am saying why should I back a horse which in my view is 7/1 at odds of 4/1 ? Long term I will not make a profit I have already tried this and proved it to myself. I spent one year backing every horse I feel should win , spending weeks studying trainers and their ways , looking at jockeys merits etc.

Won or lost long term this would not remain profitable of my way of punting

[jjimps]

The only way to make money in the long run is to bet at an offered price greater than the real odds of the event occuring ie getting value. However in the real world maybe it is easier to pick winners than detect which horses are value ???? At least I am sure this is true for some people.

Smithy came up with the classic description of value  then ruined it with an awful example 2-1 Fujiyama Crest was value 1-2 would have been value the horse won and that is that those people who backed it who ‘ must have been mad’ went home with cash spilling from their pockets.

The coin toss is an interesting example the odds are evs tails ev heads we all know that. Imagine then this scenario the bookie offers 4-5 heads 11-10 tails you of course back tails he tosses it is heads he goes again again heads and again and again he changes his prices 4-6 heads 5-4 tails he tosses heads again and again and again he reprices 4-7 heads 6-4 tails. Punters are lumping on tails right left and centre. What do you back ??

Incidentally blue square recently offered 11-10 the toss of a coin in the recent England tour of India !!

[Katy]

There are various checks that are now done on National runners as Rory says,  Each horse is given a series of veterinary checks to make sure they are fit and healthy enough to compete, there is a minimum rating for each horse, jockeys have to have had a certain number of winners over fences (cant be sure but I think its 15).  

In the last few years there has been a group of people put together, each year when the entries are made this group (of knowledgable racing people – one of whom was Capt. Tim Forster) get together and go through each horse individually, to see if they think they would be capable of jumping the National fences.

The fences are A LOT softer now than say 15 years ago.  I was talking to a guy the other day who had ridden over them before the modifications and he said it was hell raising!!! but he would come out of retirement to ride in it now!!

One of the reasons suggested for banning it, was due to the extreme distance and size of the fences.  Well how about 3 day eventing?  Surely for the same reasons this is more cruel than the national, but i’ve never seen any animal rights campaigners hanging around outside of events.

[rory]

It seems the major problem with effective systems is the inability to apply common sense within a system when a selection represents poor value due to market forces (Keith the Teeth made a valid point about profitability within price ranges).<br> <br>I believe an effective system should provide not a selection, but a market for the event in question.  What you then bet on depends on the "live" market on the race.  The ideal system will highlight horses which should be underbet, and mathematical analysis of the market will determine if the selection is a definite bet or not – for example you may determine that a selection merits a bet if its "true" odds are 20% better than those offered in the ring.

The other thing to remember is that the tissue prices supplied to bookies are simply the result of particular scoring systems, the most basic of which divides the number of positive scoring factors exhibited by a single runner in a race by the total number of positive factors added across the entire field.

[rory]

With regards to comments made about the quality of horses running in the National:  there is now a minimum rating which horses must attain to get a run in the race and inexperienced  or unsuccessful jockeys are also banned from competing (most recent example was Tony Coyle who had been booked by Ginger McCain, no less).  The most recent fatalities over the fences were  The Outback Way and Eudipe, who were both Championship class animals.  The Outback Way was actually killed while jumping around loose in the John Hughes.  

Some years ago it was de rigeur for horses with appalling completion records to be entered (who remembers Hattinger – form read FUFPFF – sometimes in sellers!!  I believe Ray "Iron Man" Goldstein rode – he fell.)

[rory]

I have to stand up for the NH Chase (the 4miler);  it’s been responsible for my first ever Cheltenham bet when Lorcan Wyer made his English debut on Omerta, and my best result when I lumped on Relaxation a couple of years back at a juicy 9/1!

[hobnob]

These are the figures for the fatalities at Aintree (and I got these from the Animal Aid website who aren’t likely to lie about these)<br>2000: 5 during whole meeting, 0 in actual National<br>1999: 4 ”            ”         ”           1 ”   ”           ”<br>1998: 5 ”            ”          ”          4 ”   ”           ”<br>1997: 8 ”            ”          ”          0 ”    ”          ”<br>So I do agree with whoever it was said about the hurdles at Aintree. <br>I can’t remember how many died during the meeting last year but I know there were no fatalities in the National itself.<br>Lets not forget about the origins of steeplechasing – from ‘steeple’ to ‘steeple’ over the countryide. If the Grand National, or indeed any steeplechase is supposed to represent this then of course there are going to be ditches and water jumps. The fences have been modified numerous times over the years and I wouldn’t really want them to get any ‘easier’. Do people want plain fences? The fact that horses like Suny Bay and others are able to complete the course year after year should show that there is no problem with the fences, the problem is the loose horses and the weather. And yes, perhaps the number of horses competing should be reduced to perhaps 20, and there should be stricter rules to say ‘who’ can compete. If it really was as bad as these people seem to make out do you think you would get trainers/owners entering horses, and jockeys wanting to ride in it?<br>But I’m shocked to find that they are able to organise protests like this so publically and no moves are made to stop them. Is this how riots start?<br>

[Seagull]

Keith<br>I cannot understand your logic over this.<br>Lets leave betting alone and take any big company say Tesco’s they know by siting store where they do having the car parks as big as they do stocking the lines they do having cutomer loyalty cards etc etc etc in a way it is all a system as they know rom past results that these things do work. There will be some years where one store might burn down or a reccession where people spend less but overall they are all based on past performance they obviously are looking for new ways of making more money like openeing mini shops in garages 24/7 but they do not after a bad year decide all the methods they have appiled the seasons they have made profits suddenly get ditched!<br>If you apply this thinking to a betting sytem that has done well why should it not continue after a losing spell<br>everyone who bets will have a losing spell,. If you read Gary Wiltshires (the rails bookie) postings on GG.com you will read he also has losing weeks but he knows if he keeps standing at the track overall he will make money that is his system.<br>Even just guessing if thats all someone ever does is still a sysytem although it may not be a good un!

[Matron]

I think MrE gets quite excited about the amount of "doubters" with regards to systems; but he does have a good sense of humour and his postings reflect this.

I think the main point MrE is trying to make is the profitability of "short odds" selections (with either a "rolling double" or even a "rolling treble" staking plan to be utilized to enhance profits.) – but he does like emphasize his point in a forceful manner sometimes. :laugh:

A lot of people consider "short prices" unprofitable in the long term – and certainly that is probably correct to "level stakes". MrE made his point sometime ago on here to reconsider my strategy on staking and he has certainly changed my way of thinking in this area and made my betting a lot more profitable with less risk to the bank.

I use "The Times"(The Beano)  for the "First Favourite" in this section of the forum and MrE uses "The Racing Post" to make his selection so some days we do differ as the stats are not always the same. Which paper to use of the long term? I don’t know, but I guess the results between the two will even out long term.

I suppose at the end of day the "proof is in the pudding", so if I am still posting the "First Favourite" in a years time and it is still in profit long term, I will be very arrogant and say –  "I told you so".:laugh:

Regards – Matron<br>:cool:

[Scotia]

I’m with Ali and Jim on this one.

The National is a great race which attracts not just UK viewers but a world wide audience. Yes the race is full of history so it must never be given up but more improvements should be made to restrict the type of publicity these idiots are putting out and attract more people to the sport. What these idiots want is to be able to say I told you so. JTS says “we must think of the horse firstâ€ÂÂ

[Steve SB]

Mr E – thanks for the reply – no hard feelings – I guess I’d had a bad day – no luck on the horses and then my footy team, who need points desperately, go and let in a last minute equaliser against 9-men (Leicester if you’re interested!).

This is a really interesting thread and shows real promise for systems which is very pleasing.

Seagull’s post was very interesting. I’ve run through my data and sure enough Mr Pipe makes a healthy profit on anything non-handicap at Plumpton. 22 points over the last 2 years which doesn’t sound much but over only 47 runners it’s about a 47% profit on turnover.

Even better is Ascot where he’s made 18 points from 36 rides which is over 50% p.o.t. He’s also made a profit on handicap races at Ascot of 44 points over 63 runners – a 70% p.o.t.

Only downside is that my database is only 2 years which means the samples are a bit small – I’d like to have at least 150 runners if not 200 to be more certain which means 7-8 years of data. Seagull mentions that he has many years of data and things are consistent so that gives more confidence to the results.

My question is why this happens? Is it that certain training methods suit particular courses?

Manny’s ideas were also interesting. A quick look at the system where the horse closest to 10/1 is chosen from any 8-runner, handicap looks to have broken about even over the last 2 years (without some work I could only pick horses at exactly 10/1 in 8-runner handicaps – there may be races where no horses are 10/1, or occasions where more than one horse was 10/1, but it gives an idea. Interestingly if you added the rule that the horse must NOT have won at that course or distance before then the system was about 50 points up since Jan 2000…….).

I also agree with Seagull’s point about money management. Losing runs are unavoidable and even a system with a 30% strike rate will get a lot of losing runs of 10 and over. The key is to have the confidence<br>a) to keep following the system otherwise you will miss the next winner<br>b) not to start changing the rules and betting on things that just don’t quite make it into the system.

As ever, records and self-control! It’s the latter I find most difficult!

In this respect having a mixture of profitable systems on the go would seem the ideal solution.

Anyway, I’m going to try out Daylight’s instructions for posting up graphs – wish me luck…

Steve

[ALI]

I’m not a supporter of the Grand National, i think its barbaric. It degrades horse racing and is an obvious target for the anti’s. I agree with their first point, the death toll for this race is a disgrace, i’m not shure if the figures they give are correct but none the less the Grand National is more of a gauntlet than a race. Half the horses in the race should’nt be, some of them clearly do not stand a chance of completeing the course but are only entered as the owner or trainer would like a runner in the race. The distance is not the big problem here, its the fences and the amount of runners. So what if the course officials ‘are doing their best’ to improve the fences etc. I think some of the comments made after this years National were laughable, people were saying it was great that no horse was injured etc, sounding as if they were almost surprised (it was a near miracle that no horse was killed or injured, lets face it!). The only thing that keeps this race going is the history behind it. If there was no such thing as the Grand National and someone tried to start that race up now, do you think that could happen, would you want it to?

I’d be happy to see the back of this race, i think its a joke, thats my opinion anyway!!!

[Seagull]

If you set up a page on excel and listed the results of every type of race at every track so will see that after every season that some trainers will make an overall profit in that type of race. If you do this for at least three seasons you willl see that there are trainers that can make overall profits in the same type of race at the same track season after season.<br>I have years and years of these stats as I can live solely from this system it works much easier on the N.H.<br>THAN THE FLAT as more trainers in N.H racing can make overall profits at the end of every season.

I was selling a book on the net just doing this I OFFERED A FULL 100% MONEY BACK gurantee that if after a season you were out of pocket I would refund the money in full. That is how confident I am of the system. A racing service now pay me to use the selections and I do not wish to do ANY ADVERTSING so will not mention the name whatsoever.<br>The prob with punters if they go through any losing spell they soon give up and the need to have a bettiung bank is the top of any list and aso patience and discipline they are all free.<br>Lets take M.PIPE for example you will lose overall backing every runner of his but the last sixseasons he has made a onerall profit in every type of non handicap race at Plumpton and the total for the last five seasons is 53 points .The system is basically betting on whether or not the trainer will make an overall profit in the fourth season after already having done so the pervios three. Surely better than just guessing at something!

The method also shows you races where although th trainer may have a short price fav it will be unlikely to win. For example TERRY MILLS trains at Epsom but he went over six season s there without having a winner yet on one day a year ago he had two odds on favs both get beat!<br>N. Henderson had a run of over 50 runners at Aintree without a winner but this season he has done a litle better. Mary Reveley has had nearly 100 runners at Cheletenham with one winner yet last season an odds on runner of hers finished last Oct Mist.<br>what do you think of this method then.<br>It took over 3000 hours inputting just the N.H.  by the way there used to be a book published by M.L. Midgely and he made overall profits for 16 seasons but when he dided I had to do it myself<br>regards<br>

[MrE]

Oh Steve, I forgot to answer that other comment about people who use the same system should select the same horse WITHOUT FAIL…. you are absolutely correct cos its hardly a "system" if you go your own way regardless, but in all fairness in Matrons case, he is using a different paper with a different format. That is not controlable really, thats down to personal preference. When I first was shown the system, it was using the Sporting Life and after that paper disappeared I had to use the Racing Post, it could’ve made a difference, luckily it didn’t, but it shows that even using papers with varying formats, we still both come out winners…… Now thats gotta be the sign of a good sound system…… I hope……   :biggrin: :biggrin:

MrE

[Steve SB]

Mr Killjoy here (see earlier post from MrE)!<br>Thanks Keith the Teeth for the support! You hit the nail on the head – despite what MrE seems to think I am a systems person through and through. I believe it is possible to make money from systems.<br>I’ve spent a lot of time (about 4 years now) collecting data that will enable me to find them and I do have some interesting possibilities which I will share when I’m happy with them.

However I’ve also seen a lot of systems that have worked for 6 months, a year or even longer, and then just collapsed, so I was trying to make the point that you must keep records and monitor things in order to keep in profit.

Darrell’s majestic system is a case in point. He’s had a wonderful few months since he started in the autumn and even won the tipping competition as a result, but running the same system back to the beginning of 2000 shows it to be a long term loser. I reckon since Sept, the system has made over 50pts to level stakes. To the middle of November it was about 80pts, but there was a poor run into December which has now levelled out. However, from Jan 1st 2000 to Sep 2001 I reckon it was down about 350pts!

(Matron/Daylight – is there any way you can put graphs up on the forum – a .bmp or .gif? It would be most revealing to show people what I mean – much easier than describing in words…)

There is a lot of positive comment on Darrell’s thread and I think it’s important to sound a warning note. By all means follow it while it’s working but be prepared to bail out when a losing run starts…

MrE makes some interesting points. This isn’t one of them, I quote (see first favourite thread):

"we gotta few doubters on board and I’d love to sink my hoof up their botty’s, at least up to the fetlock"

…not the best way to encourage debate.

However the fact that MrE has been using a similar system to Matron’s First favourite successfully for 9 years is excellent news and gives us all confidence that it is worth searching for profitable systems.

I just believe you need a lot of data before you can be certain of finding a winning formula.

I have one other point: reading the First Favourite thread it became clear that it is a very subjective system which requires quite a knowledge and experience about horse-racing, based around a simple system rule. The subjectivity is clear in the way Matron and MrE, applying the same system (i.e. first favourite), seem to disagree as much as they agree (when they incorporate their own gut feelings onto the system rule). Can it really be called a system when it’s so subjective?<br>Surely a system is a formula which anyone with any knowledge can apply and always get the same selection(s)?

(Edited by Steve SB at 10:37 pm on Dec. 29, 2001)