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Carlisle, much of your comment makes sense to me. However, regarding the amount of stake or using a rising percentage proportion of the betting bank will have an influence upon your decision making regarding bets.
Unfortunately, whether we openly admit to the fact, most of us freeze in the headlamps when stakes are out of our comfort zone.
Why not simple stay with stakes that are comfortable ? If level staking doesn’t make a profit nothing else will !
AlexI would agree with specialization and discipline, hard work has never appealed, takes the enjoyment out of the game, a decent sized bank, never had one and never will.
Value……………oh my, an argument/discussion that I’ve had so many times. I don’t see a lot of value in backing a horse that you don’t think has the best chance of winning. I’ve heard all the arguments and I still say that it is much easier to work out the value bet once you know the result.
Colin
We should deal with standardised, repeatable, predictable patterns.
Quite a bit of my analysis is based on this, but racing – and life itself – is not always so neat and the big fruits are still usually to be found by using your human skills in my experience. Human skills require hard work and vigilance.
With that in mind, a degree of specialisation is called for, though one man’s specialisation might seem like another’s covering all bases. I am not too hot on juvenile form in Chile, for what it’s worth, and tend to leave it alone…
You don’t need a big bank, but you need a decent-sized bank, otherwise your bets will be either too small to make much difference or too risky to be wise. I’ve never needed much more than £10k at one go. You can turn over millions from that with proper money-management.
Value……………oh my, an argument/discussion that I’ve had so many times. I don’t see a lot of value in backing a horse that you don’t think has the best chance of winning. I’ve heard all the arguments and I still say that it is much easier to work out the value bet once you know the result.
Colin
I won’t use the coin toss story because it is impossible to predict the true mathematical odds of a horse winning a race in advance, but lets for arguments sake say you were looking at an 8-runner all aged handicap over 12f, you didn’t like any of the exposed older horses and has the race between the 2 three year olds Dobbin and Dobbins Mate. You thought Dobbin would be about 3/1 and Dobbins Mate would be 4/1. The odds however are Dobbin 2/1 and Dobbins Mate 5/1. Which one should you back?
Specialisation is the key one for me. Knowing a pool of horses very well (I was going to say intimately but it just sounded wrong
) will always give you a significant advantage over people who are just reading the formbook and looking at ratings – and by “very well” I mean knowing their exact track, distance and going preference, whether they raced too free or bolted to post last time, whether they drifted in the market after a break, whether they were ridden poorly, got hampered, raced on the wrong strip of ground, what kind of form the yard was in the last time they raced etc etc.I’d be lying if I said I always knew all these things before striking a bet, (which is where discipline comes in) but I know that the very best bets I have had are on horses that I have known inside out.
but I know that the very best bets I have had are on horses that I have known inside out.
But agree with all of that. It is the quirks or perhaps the less tangiable aspects which prove to be more significant and are more often overlooked
Perhaps the most signifcant one for me is trainer form quickly backed up by what could be described as "trainer habit". I never back a horse without consideration of both of these factors (well…almost never)
DJ, I can see the value argument in that but I would either back both or not have a bet.
I have no problem with the example you show above, you have identified what you think are the probable winners and then using "value" to decide which to bet.
The problem I have had and always will is with the argument that a horse should be supported purely because he is a "value price", regardless of whether you think the horse will win.
For this to work don’t you have to identify, and back, all the horses that you think are at a longer price than your analysis of the race suggests they should be.
A lot of work and a lot of bets!?
And in these exchange days, one of the questions I would ask myself is, "why is the horse’s price that long?"
As I have said, it’s an argument I’ve had many a time and I really think it becomes rather boring when it is obvious that I am not going to agree on a subject, to keep debating it.
Colin
Carlisle, much of your comment makes sense to me. However, regarding the amount of stake or using a rising percentage proportion of the betting bank will have an influence upon your decision making regarding bets.
Unfortunately, whether we openly admit to the fact, most of us freeze in the headlamps when stakes are out of our comfort zone.
Why not simple stay with stakes that are comfortable ? If level staking doesn’t make a profit nothing else will !
AlexHi Alexander
If one can operate to a good level stakes figure then GREAT.
I totally agree with your comments about the psychological pressures. This is why they must be counter balanced. There is no room for emotions such euphoria or anxiety.
Prufrock yes there comes a point when the human must start to intrepret the refined computer data. Inspiration, knowledge and experience of the finer points of the game must come into play.
(5. Gain personal knowledge of the nature of horses and racing activities.)
Having the time and space to do this will make winning far simpler. This is why I am a big advocate of people joining forces, because it’s no easy task.
With regard to VALUE….. if you have chosen a horse to bet on, then give it a risk estimate. If your risk estimate is 25% and you can get better than 3/1 then you can see yourself in the "value ballpark". Give us a wave.
byefrom
carlisleI have found that from a mathematical perspective, there is no substitute for level stakes. Using a 50pt bank and adjusting the stake values accordingly is next best, because it’s close to level stakes. Anything else is pseudo-science.
Anyone who runs simulations can tell you this.
Dave, can I claify what you mean by "Using a 50pt bank and adjusting the stake values accordingly"? Is this a fixed percentage of the bank for each bet at 2%?
Wallace, yes it is a 2% rolling bank that’s the best. The best way to do it is to allow for normal deviations in your strike rate, by adjusting the stake value if your bank value changes by more than 25%. It’s very close to level stakes and very safe.
Prufrock, Kelly is not as good as level stakes imo, you are always at the disadvantage of going bust if you calculate your theoretical edge incorrectly, unless your bank is so big that it doesn’t make any difference and you are aiming to take out 25% Kelly points or less. Take out staking is useful if you want to get large bets on regularly, for example you want to win £1000 every race, I don’t class this as Kelly because it doesn’t rely on what you hope your theoretical edge is going to be. It works the same as level stakes, unless you start rolling your win target up and down after every bet.
Any type of staking no matter what it is will return whatever edge you have been betting to, if it’s -10% then that’s what you will get over time. Staking plans make your betting bank fluctuate more and increase the likelihood of ruin.
Kelly does give you a psychological edge by leading you to believe that you are protecting your bank, but in reality you are in the same boat. Kelly locks in losses, so after a losing run of 5 bets you have less money going on the next winner, if the next winner is 5/1 the Kelly backer has made a loss, the level stakes bettor has not. If the 5/1 winner comes first followed by 5 losers, the Kelly backer has had more on the losers than the winner, the level stakes backer has not. The Kelly bettor has also failed to break even again, over the six bets.
In the longer term the Kelly backer will compound his bank when he is winning and win more but when he’s losing he’s got a problem. That’s how it ends up having the same outcome.
Saying that, everything works if you have a +ve edge and nothing works if you don’t. I’d be cleaning up on the Hi/Lo games if it did.
) will always give you a significant advantage over people who are just reading the formbook and looking at ratings – and by “very well” I mean knowing their exact track, distance and going preference, whether they raced too free or bolted to post last time, whether they drifted in the market after a break, whether they were ridden poorly, got hampered, raced on the wrong strip of ground, what kind of form the yard was in the last time they raced etc etc.
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