For Ginger and others: the Professor, an honest punter

[Professortrubshawe]

Your very first line say’s it all for me. You criticise Ginger, Tom Segal etc but it is clear you have no concept of what value betting is. You only bet on bet365, why not bet on other sites so you can get the best prices. .

I really cannot be arsed to go somewhere else to get 11s when I can get 10s without ball-ache. Go mad, fellas, put an extra tenner on.

Pricewise is overrated, statement of fact. If I get a chance I will go back and cross ref some of my big price winners to days when he’s tipped some horse that if he’d bothered to read the form he would have known would not win. He doesn’t read form, you do know that don’t you? He just watches tapes. He and his acolytes get caught out time and time again by ground conditions.

It ain’t called the Turf for nothing, boys!

If you’d have shopped around for every race you’ve bet on this year you’d have turned your £400 loss into a profit.

At the level of stakes your betting it’s got to be costing you £100’s of pounds.

So does travelling on public transport. I really can’t be arsed to shop around. As long as I’m not losing very much I’m ok. My singles are designed as a bulwark against multiples. This year has been bad but not too painful.

[Professortrubshawe]

Your very first line say’s it all for me. You criticise Ginger, Tom Segal etc but it is clear you have no concept of what value betting is. You only bet on bet365, why not bet on other sites so you can get the best prices. You have a pop at pricewise because he didn’t tip certain winners but just can’t seem to grasp that the likes of him, Hugh Taylor, Ginger and others are not looking for the most likely winner when they place a bet.

You say you are an honest punter, I have to ask, are you ? You seem to blame everyone else other than yourself when you have a bad time. You have constantly hinted at skulduggery etc in the past. You appear to me to be just like those betting shop punters who blame the jockey, say the race is fixed,anything but admit it is their own ability that is lacking.

Maybe it’s time you looked at your own betting and why the horses have lost and try to start understanding value. Listen to Ginger, read Hugh Taylor and try to understand how they come to their selections. In the past I think it was you that made a comment that you never bet on a horse if it is under a certain price. Another clue that you don’t understand odds and value.

In one of his books Dave Nevison said ‘Making a profit on a race is very different from tipping the horse you think is most likely to win, but that is a concept most punters find difficult to grasp. They either can’t grasp it, or don’t want too…’ I think you are one of them.

Kenny, you just don’t like me because I refuse to be a wide-eyed believer and because I take the piss out of a very po-faced sport.

1. My names Ken

2. I never said I don’t like you, I don’t know you.

3. Not quite sure you take the piss out of the sport rather than just moan about it.

Course I moan about it – there is an awful lot to moan about if you get *unt deep in gambling on it.

[Professortrubshawe]

I notice Ginger is rather subdued in this thread. My guess is because my figures are by no means the chasm of lost money that he expected from the imaginary professor trubshawe he had decided I was: a bitter favourite backer throwing bad money after good.

Even the Ginger God of the Turf can be wrong!

[The Young Fella]

You tell ’em, Prof!

Fairplay to you for putting your figures up. I also think the Value Betting concept is rather overrated as a strategy. I think it is something we all do subconsciously anyway to one degree or another. I tend to study the form before looking at the prices, so many times I have my selection(s) but the race becomes a ‘no bet’ if I think the price is too skinny for my level of confidence in the horse. I expect most of us do that.

I understand that the theory is about value in a much more general sense than that, but ‘value’ in horse racing is such a subjective thing that I cannot subscribe to it as the exact science some people valourise it to be.

For example, I might think Kauto Star is stunning value at 5/1 to win the Betfair Chase. I might pile on

l’extraterrestriale

with more smugness than John Holmes at the beach in speedos. You might disagree and wouldn’t touch 5/1. Who’s to say one of us is wrong until after the race? It is a game of opinions. Whether you use a value-based method or a more simplistic single-selections approach, there is no escape from the subjectivity of the game.

Regarding shopping around, it sounds like a good idea. Since you more or less break-even at the moment, that could make the difference. It only takes a few minutes to open up a few more accounts online.

[Gingertipster]

Prof,
As I’ve said already, any "profit" you make won’t last long. Listen to Ken, learn value betting and stop blaming others. Think I’d better not comment any further.

Prof,
Read what I said earlier. If I say anymore it won’t be pleasant. Besides, I think you only post to get a reaction. Hopefully you’ll get bored and go elsewhere.

What about proving your prowess in the DLAP threads? Oh, you have several times and got off to a poor start… And immediately dropped out. Who knows Prof, one day you might start one off with a couple of winners and continue for a week or so.

XXXX! I’ve said some more!

Value Is Everything

[Eclipse First]

The concept of "value" is somewhat misguided. It first assumes that it is compulsory to have a bet once you have discovered a bookmaker offering odds in excess of what you think it should be. It can be a useful starting point in the betting process but it is folly to assume that just because Bookmaker A offers a price in excess of what you expect that they have made a mistake.

The concept of patience is far more worthwhile.

[Gingertipster]

I understand that the theory is about value in a much more general sense than that, but ‘value’ in horse racing is such a

subjective

thing that I cannot subscribe to it as the exact science some people valourise it to be.

For example, I might think Kauto Star is stunning value at 5/1 to win the Betfair Chase. I might pile on

l’extraterrestriale

with more smugness than John Holmes at the beach in speedos. You might disagree and wouldn’t touch 5/1. Who’s to say one of us is wrong until after the race? It is a game of opinions. Whether you use a value-based method or a more simplistic single-selections approach, there is no escape from the

subjectivity

of the game.

Nobody said there is any way of taking "

subjectivity

" out of studying form TYF. It is all about

opinion

. If in a bookmaker’s odds compiler’s

opinion

a horse has a 20% chance of winning, the fair odds are in his

opinion

4/1, because if a punter wins 20% of his bets at level stakes he/she will break even. So the bookmaker will add a mark up and offer early odds of 7/2…

At 7/2 a punter needs a 22.2% strike rate to break even

. But if the punter

disagrees

with the odds compiler – If in the punter’s

opinion

the horse has a 25%, fair 3/1 chance. A 25% strike rate at 7/2 returns 112.5 points for every 100 placed, so in this punters

opinion

is a good bet.

Why would anyone want to back a horse @ 7/2 if the punter does

NOT

believe it to have a better than 22.2% chance of winning?
Why would anyone not want to have an informed

opinion

on whether this horse has a

better

or

worse

than 22.2% (7/2) chance of winning, when it is so important to making an

over all profit

?

However,

one

win or loss does

NOT

prove anything. Win or lose is no proof of whether the punter or bookmaker’s odds compiler was correct in evaluating

this

race. Only after a considerable length of time, after a hell of a lot of bets thought by the punter to be fair 25% 3/1 shots – can it be seen from results whether a punter is good at "

evaluating form

".

A punter may know the form book extremely well, but if he/she is no good at evaluating that form – he/she will not be able to show a profit in the long run. Also, just because a punter knows the mathematics of betting, does not mean he/she can make a profit. However, knowing the mathematics does give the punter a sound grounding to have a chance of profit.

https://theracingforum.co.uk/horse-r … 8&start=13

Value Is Everything

[The Young Fella]

However,

one

win or loss does

NOT

prove anything. Win or lose is no proof of whether the punter or bookmaker’s odds compiler was correct in evaluating

this

race. Only after a considerable length of time, after a hell of a lot of bets thought by the punter to be fair 25% 3/1 shots – can it be seen from results whether a punter is good at "

evaluating form

".

You’re quite right. I have no idea what I was thinking when I said that the better judge of value can be seen after one result. I certainly don’t believe that, so I am sorry for the mental block there.

I also agree that knowing the mathematics of betting is an important foundation for a punter to have. I just believe that anyone with a little experience can appreciate when good or poor value is being offered by ‘feel’, without need for calculations such as making your own tissue.

I know these are very vague examples, but you quickly come to understand that odds-on shots in beginners’ chases, short-priced favourites in thirty runner handicaps and anything ridden by Ruby Walsh on a Saturday are rarely bets worth taking from a value perspective. Tighter value calls require more thought of course, but again I think that experience brings an intelligent punter an affinity with those decisions.

[Gingertipster]

However,

one

win or loss does

NOT

prove anything. Win or lose is no proof of whether the punter or bookmaker’s odds compiler was correct in evaluating

this

race. Only after a considerable length of time, after a hell of a lot of bets thought by the punter to be fair 25% 3/1 shots – can it be seen from results whether a punter is good at "

evaluating form

".

You’re quite right. I have no idea what I was thinking when I said that the better judge of value can be seen after one result. I certainly don’t believe that, so I am sorry for the mental block there.

I also agree that knowing the mathematics of betting is an important foundation for a punter to have. I just believe that anyone with a little experience can appreciate when good or poor value is being offered by ‘feel’, without need for calculations such as making your own tissue.

I know these are very vague examples, but you quickly come to understand that odds-on shots in beginners’ chases, short-priced favourites in thirty runner handicaps and anything ridden by Ruby Walsh on a Saturday are rarely bets worth taking from a value perspective. Tighter value calls require more thought of course, but again I think that experience brings an intelligent punter an affinity with those decisions.

TYF,
The quote you give of me was not aimed at you.

We agree that a punter does not need to make his own tissue/100% book every time. Sometimes the value shouts at you after studying the form. However, personally speaking, I believe doing a lot of 100% books in the

past

– has helped me to identify value bets without the need of said 100% books in the

present

. Again, it has given me an excellent grounding in finding value.

We are not far apart TYF.
HOWEVER…
Maths is

not

all about being lazy.

Value Is Everything

[Eclipse First]

Mathematics is all about proof. I think you are confusing number crunching with something which is far more exact.

[The Young Fella]

"Maths is all about being lazy"

was the mantra of my maths teacher back at school. He meant it in the sense that you should make your calculations as efficient and elegant as possible. Wasted penstrokes are wasted energy.

He also said

"left is the opposite of down"

and seemingly had a fetish for the square root of 17, so he was hardly a visionary philosopher.

I just like the ideal of efficiency in doing the minimum of work for the maximum reward.

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