International Hurdle 2016

But you miss the point if I have a horse in at 4/1 but I don’t fancy it to win and the books open it up at 5/1,I will not then make it a bet because it is value,when it seems you would.The word value is over used in my opinion,how many times have we heard a pundit say the favour will win but horse b is the value bet,how does that make sense if you don’t believe b will win?

Zarkava wrote:

Two friends are tossing a coin for money.

Friend A prefers tails to heads and he backs tails every time.

Then Friend B offers Friend A 11/10 for heads, and 10/11 for tails.

11/10 heads is a must-back, even if you don’t think it will happen or you don’t favour that outcome, because you’re getting an additional edge. It should be a 50% chance, but you’re getting about 51.5% about it happening. That 1.5% edge is your advantage.

Now apply the same principle to horse racing.

if you start with a hundred quid you will be bust before 500 Spins

Space Cowboy wrote:

Zarkava wrote:

Two friends are tossing a coin for money.

Friend A prefers tails to heads and he backs tails every time.

Then Friend B offers Friend A 11/10 for heads, and 10/11 for tails.

11/10 heads is a must-back, even if you don’t think it will happen or you don’t favour that outcome, because you’re getting an additional edge. It should be a 50% chance, but you’re getting about 51.5% about it happening. That 1.5% edge is your advantage.

Now apply the same principle to horse racing.

if you start with a hundred quid you will be bust before 500 Spins

Why?

To expand on Zark’s post, SC:

If someone is offering 11/10 heads and 10/11 tails:

11/10 = 52.38095%, the true chance of heads coming up is 50% (Evens)
10/11 = 47.61904%, the true chance of tails coming up is 50% (Evens)
Only an idiot would take 10/11 about a fair Evens chance..

You can expect to win 50% of heads @ 11/10 and 50% of tails @ 10/11.
50% of 100 = 50.
At 11/10 for each £1 staked returns £2.10
50 X 2.10 = 105
So of your first £100 invested in £1 stakes you can expect to get back around £105
You can play with the returns, so continuing to bet…

50% of 500 = 250.
So you can expect to win around 250 of 500 bets.
250 X £2.10 = £525.00
So at a £1 stake you can expect to get around £525 back from your £500 outlay, a profit of £25. Do you agree?
Of course that does not mean it will be exactly £525. Yes, it’s even possible to end up with only £499 back (£26 less than £525) for a £1 deficit, but it’s equally as possible to end up with the same amount (£26) of added profit to return £551, a £51 profit.

I say again, to a £1 stake the probability is that after 500 spins you will have around £525 back…
And yet in your statement SC, there is no “arounds”, no ifs, no buts – “you will be bust before 500 Spins”.
So you’re saying that instead of the expected around £525 back, it’ll be £0 – not even any of the original bank!

Please explain your theory?

^^ Please remember we are talking about more than fair odds here SC, not bookmakers odds that have a mark up.
eg A bookmaker’s odds compiler works out that a horse has what he considers a fair 5/4 chance and adds his mark up, offering 11/10 about the fair 5/4 shot. In the example above we’re talking about a friend offering 11/10 about a fair Evens chance (more than fair)…

Remember, a bookies 11/10 is not the same as fair odds 11/10 or in this case 11/10 about a fair Evens chance. So if you’re looking up how many BOOKIES SP 11/10 shots win and see (guessing here) between 44% and 45%, it is not the same.

Hi Ginger, nwalton, Space Cowboy in particular & sorry folks for the delay in responding – have been visiting my parents for 2 days and they don’t have internet!

It’s true we never stop learning SC but I’d rather spend extra study time on form/horses/trainers/jockeys than on pure maths to gain an extra edge.

Ginger, re opinion & reading the form book well. I think that most on here would agree that their fellow posters are good at this. However, I’ve always said everyone will be incorrect more than they are correct. It’s the degree of correctness allied to the prices of some of the correct selections that determines whether there is profit and how much. Even a good strike rate is actually a low percentage.

Is backing those I believe have the best chance of winning sustainable in the long run? Well, what period is the long run? Basically, I concentrate on Jumps races shown on RUK. After a lifetime of love for the sport, and much learning, I started backing my beliefs without knowing whether I would win or lose on 16/9/15 (£10W or £10E/W if 16/1+) & ceased on 17/5/16 at +£2,221.15 (would go year round but I’m compiling what I hope will be the ultimate Grand National website and need time to focus on that). I recommenced on 28/9/16 and am currently +£1,258.33 (for this season). (Maybe small stakes to some but if I was staking in £100 units I expect all my accounts would have been closed by now.) Does anyone think this is short term lucky success?

I come to an opinion (predicted performance rating) of the chances of all horses in a race using Racing Post lifetime form as a base. I guess I’m more skilled than the odds compilers. They probably don’t work as hard as we do. I differ from you nwalton in that I don’t have a price to play at in mind, I just play.

I’m too busy studying form and researching the GN to have calculated my +/- at each price. That’s why I say the short ones are probably just so much to-ing & fro-ing but, as with you SC, they are for interest & fun. I guess if things hadn’t gone so well I would have found the time to analyse! Roughly I think my profit is 10+% of my stakes. Maybe I should start listing all my selections in the appropriate place on here for a period if I can find the time.

I back a horse, at 16/1 or 1/6, because I believe it will win (I don’t back E/W just hoping for a place). Value in the sense you & many others believe in Ginger is somewhat secondary to me. My interpretation of value comes into play, as explained in my previous post, when there is difficulty separating 2 or more horses, and my slant on value can also be seen in the price below which I will not back E/W.

We on here have distinctive ways of working/playing & sometimes see things from wholly different perspectives. There is the pure maths value. There is the intrinsic value that one is instinctively more skilled than the odds compilers!

GoldenMiller34 wrote:

Hi Ginger, nwalton, Space Cowboy in particular & sorry folks for the delay in responding – have been visiting my parents for 2 days and they don’t have internet!

It’s true we never stop learning SC but I’d rather spend extra study time on form/horses/trainers/jockeys than on pure maths to gain an extra edge.

Ginger, re opinion & reading the form book well. I think that most on here would agree that their fellow posters are good at this. However, I’ve always said everyone will be incorrect more than they are correct. It’s the degree of correctness allied to the prices of some of the correct selections that determines whether there is profit and how much. Even a good strike rate is actually a low percentage.

Is backing those I believe have the best chance of winning sustainable in the long run? Well, what period is the long run? Basically, I concentrate on Jumps races shown on RUK. After a lifetime of love for the sport, and much learning, I started backing my beliefs without knowing whether I would win or lose on 16/9/15 (£10W or £10E/W if 16/1+) & ceased on 17/5/16 at +£2,221.15 (would go year round but I’m compiling what I hope will be the ultimate Grand National website and need time to focus on that). I recommenced on 28/9/16 and am currently +£1,258.33 (for this season). (Maybe small stakes to some but if I was staking in £100 units I expect all my accounts would have been closed by now.) Does anyone think this is short term lucky success?

I come to an opinion (predicted performance rating) of the chances of all horses in a race using Racing Post lifetime form as a base. I guess I’m more skilled than the odds compilers. They probably don’t work as hard as we do. I differ from you nwalton in that I don’t have a price to play at in mind, I just play.

I’m too busy studying form and researching the GN to have calculated my +/- at each price. That’s why I say the short ones are probably just so much to-ing & fro-ing but, as with you SC, they are for interest & fun. I guess if things hadn’t gone so well I would have found the time to analyse! Roughly I think my profit is 10+% of my stakes. Maybe I should start listing all my selections in the appropriate place on here for a period if I can find the time.

I back a horse, at 16/1 or 1/6, because I believe it will win (I don’t back E/W just hoping for a place). Value in the sense you & many others believe in Ginger is somewhat secondary to me. My interpretation of value comes into play, as explained in my previous post, when there is difficulty separating 2 or more horses, and my slant on value can also be seen in the price below which I will not back E/W.

We on here have distinctive ways of working/playing & sometimes see things from wholly different perspectives. There is the pure maths value. There is the intrinsic value that one is instinctively more skilled than the odds compilers!

I think I’m in this camp rather than the maths based one. If I think a horse will win, I’ll play it at the price. If it’s 3/1 but as I’m placing the bet shortens into 5/2, I’ll still play it.

I completely understand the idea behind only betting horses that you think are a bigger price than they should be but if I don’t think it has viable chances to win, I won’t play.

So if I confidentally think a horse will win and expect it’ll be evens but is actually priced up shorter at 4/6, I’ll play that even if I think a 33s shot In the race is probably too big and should be 16s or 20s. I think that’s the difference between maths based punters and people like myself who simply go for the winners.

Good debate this. Enjoyed reading it.

GoldenMiller34 wrote:

Ginger, re opinion & reading the form book well. I think that most on here would agree that their fellow posters are good at this.

tbh I think it fairly obvious the vast majority on here are not good at reading form.

jesus ginger that what a scathing attack on many who post on here.I’m with Zarkava name and shame.