This topic contains 132 replies, has 20 voices, and was last updated by 
carlisle 10 years, 4 months ago.
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I can’t speak for Alan Potts but I do know his betting changes as he perceives the market/his edge to be changing.
(Which seems obvious but brings us back to the learning points as I see it: (a) Am I deluded? and (b) assuming we’re not, how do we tell the difference between losing run/winning runs/changing betting conditions and randomness, and to what degree.)
His second book made it quite clear that at that stage in his betting life he felt his old strategies were failing and he set about looking for new ones. If you go to http://www.wbx.com and look at his daily ‘recommendations’ I think you’ll find it quite an interesting insight as to how he perceives today’s market in comparison to when he wrote his books.
This thread should probably take the elevator to the main horse racing forum, as it has pertinence beyond the usual ‘men tinkering in their sheds’ associated with this area. It’s a shame a few people persist on using it to wave their betting willies around. We’re trying to learn to be better here. Not compete.
Here, here tooting!
Tooting can’t see any thing about Alan Potts on that website.
HI REET HARD
If we take the class 3 horses that win
drop in class 25%
raise in class 24.2%
same class 20.2%
what am i missing, this only adds up to 69.4% surely the total should be 100% or am i being a dummy.Thank you
Paul
Anonymous- Total Posts 18146
Arkle55
The figures I gave were for the first 3 in the betting. The discrepancy is horses outside those parameters.Dave Jay
“My point was that the myth that betting in higher class races gave you some sort of advantage was false”.It isn’t!
Your premise that class has a direct correlation to starting price is.So what are you saying Reet .. concentrating on higher class races is better than betting on lower class races?
Truth of the matter is, it’s quite easy to make money from racing, when you know how. The difficult part being, no-one is going to tell you how to do it
Or perhaps can’t tell you how to do it due to not knowing whether the "easy money??" Is genuinely a result of true edge or down to luck, chance, randomness…what you will
Ask any ten punters to analyse a sequence of bets that result in overall profit and quantify ‘how’ they arrived at them and it’s doubtful they’d be able to tell you, and if they did make an effort then ten different answers would be the result
I once heard the hard road to profitable punting described as a four stage process:
Unconscious losing
Conscious losing
Conscious winning
Unconscious winning
Tooting has alluded to the importance of Staking and Money Management. These allied to Temperament are every bit as important as being blessed with an analytical ‘edge’. I’d surmise with some confidence that many an astute race-analyst has failed to utilise this skill where it matters – when actually parting with cash.
Anyway, I’m pretty well convinced that none of you can quantify randomness and most of you don’t really understand or care what it is.
Walks hand-in-hand with its twin from the dark side: non-quantifiable ‘edge’?
From my own point of view, being an engineer, racing is an academic exercise for me and the betting side of it gives me a bit of pocket money for fags and holidays. The idea of making a living from gambling doesn’t appeal to me personally, I’ve got a good job and quite an easy life, there’s no reason for me to change anything.
You are one of the more interesting posters on TRF Dave, and in a micro-world populated by many a Walter Mitty-like fantasist your refreshing willingness to actually admit you don’t – or can’t be ar*sed – to make betting pay is admirable, but please don’t go the route of the majority and believe that ‘if I can’t make it pay then no one else can either; betting is a a mugs game"
maggsy.
There’s a tab in the bottom left hand corner – title "wbx insight". Behind there are lots of tipsters/journalists providing their thruppence worth. Access is for people who have a certain number of bets, but I think if you sign-up you get a few weeks for free as it were. Alan Potts puts up two backs/lays most days.
to make betting pay is admirable, but please don’t go the route of the majority and believe that ‘if I can’t make it pay then no one else can either; betting is a a mugs game
.. I wouldn’t do that Drone, because it wouldn’t be true. You can make it pay and make it pay very well, but there are loads of pitfalls that need discovered before they can be got over. Having a proper grasp of money management being the most important, overstaking is the punters biggest enemy imo.
Studying the form and all that good stuff is fine, but things change all of the time and the market is dynamic. That’s why the big lads, I reckon no more than a handfull world wide, employ statisticians, programmers and market analysts to keep ahead of the game. People like Zeljko Ranogajec, who is rumoured to account for around 25% of all Betfair liquidity.
Anonymous- Total Posts 18146
So what are you saying Reet .. concentrating on higher class races is better than betting on lower class races?
Dave
In my experience – absolutely!
In many high class races there is perhaps less than 1/3rd of the field that have shown capable of winning in that class, or are likely to improve enough to do so. In races lower down the scale it is quite possible for the whole field to have winning potential.
There is also the greater incentive of prize money/breeding potential to keep these races more honest and less susceptible to the ‘pulling of strokes’. Anyone seriously seeking an edge should consider the advantage this gives in reducing the odds against them.
It is also true that class is frequently underbet, though most would tell you they always take it into account. Witness the price of Katchit against superior opposition last Saturday, or Kauto Star’s GC price against Denman’s; where one has yet to win a gd1 race outside novice company and the other has won his last 5. Another useful edge there, and one of the reasons why you can’t quantify class by sp.
There are plenty of other ways of reducing ‘randomness’ from one’s selection process and increasing what some perceive as miniscule margins, but the wrong place to start from would always be that ‘it can’t be done’ and devising an approach to accomodate it.
Give me a horse with 7lbs or more in hand of its opposition, and I’ll take my chances against the viscisitudes of randomness eight days a week.Fair points Reet .. but if you put the same amount of time into studying lower class races, you might be surprised at what you can turn up. Three or four years ago I might have found myself agreeing with you, but I have changed the way I go about things since then. Each to their own though.
A dip into the past for any newish forum members.
This thread is well worth another read through for anyone who is just setting out on the road to devising a new system. In fact, it’s almost a mini-book.
It’s rather quiet on this part of the forum at the moment, so I’ve been looking back through some old threads, and this one was particularly interesting and thought provoking.
Hi gang
reading…… Hmmmmm. That would be fine if i had the sort brain that processed data from left to right. I will try to get hold of an audio book version.
byefrom
carlisle
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