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Mr Potts sounds shrewd and has said what I meant, but has nailed it in a few simple to understand sentences.
I have Waqaar as being poor value in the 2:30 kempton today at 4/6 or shorter and I will be laying him.
If Waqaar hacks up then my judgement that he is too short was wrong and I have not layed value, I have simply made a poor decision and bad judgement. I will be perfectly happy with my lay either way though as I was happy for the reasons for laying the horse beforehand (if I wasnt I wouldnt have layed him) but I will not be able to claim that the lay was a good value lay.No need to kneel before me for todays overturning of a 4/9 shot. I would go and start a daily tipping thread in the daily lays play section just to cane you good and proper but im not small minded in that way.
Horses however aren’t, which is why the real art is in predicting, not pricing.
Also the real reason, imo, why so many TV pundits (and quite a few on here
) opt for the ‘value’ call; they haven’t the nous for the former, so try to compensate/obfuscate with the latterNo. The real art is being good at pricing. The next best is being is good at picking out likely winners without having much of a clue about pricing.
The worst scenario is to have no clue about either, have a guess at a longshot and then claim it is a “value” each way bet…
Zoso
I’m sure you’re a perfectly decent chap and all that, but I’d rather read through the Slovakian Phone Book than trawl through another one of those long posts. I’m trying my best to follow this thread but if you insist on posting another extract from your accounts, I will be forced to retaliate by publishing my weekly grocery shopping list for the last two months. And I can assure you, it is not pretty reading.
Sorry Arnalade I was being called clueless so I thought I would pull out my outstanding form of January 2008 spreadsheet to give the people who say I dont know what Im talking about some food for thought.
Then Carvillshill became insecure about my spreadsheet so I had to post Decembers to make him feel better as it was a bad month.All joking aside Im a trained dietician so do feel free to post your 2 months grocery list or PM me it and I will let you know where you need to improve your diet.
Thanks for the kind offer Zoso, but I think I know where my diet is going wrong. Too many stuffed quails, roast monkeys and larks tongues and not enough apples.
Anyway, please feel free to continue with the value debate.
Zoso
A horse does not have to win to be true value. Though I agree many pundits do not seem to know what true value is. I have talked to five so called “punditsâ€Value Is EverythingI dont look at a race and say this horse has a 33% chance of winning, this one has a 12% chance of winning etc etc. I couldnt imagine trying to think in that way.
I work my bets out by a process of elimination, effectively finding all the lays in the race til I am left with the winner in my opinion. List negatives and positives against all horses and rule them out one by one.
The one I am left with is the winner and will be a bet as long as I feel the price is fair.
, I will look at a race and say that one does not stay the trip so its ruled out. That one hates the ground and is poorly handicapped so its ruled out etc. Til I am left with the horse with the best profile under todays conditions. It would drive me round the bend saying that has a 33% chance etc. Do you seriously make money long term looking at things this way or do you just like a punt for entertainment?If you do make money working this way, then fair play to you but I would never consider working this way.
I’m far from an expert but as I understand it, that is certainly how people like Dave Nevison go about things
Zoso
Yes I do make money by working racing out like this. And as Alanalde says Dave Nevison and every professional gambler I have heard of does it this way. They may not work out races to 100% like I usually do, but they do all know the table of odds and chances.Sorry to say this but It is clear that when you stated, you understood the concept of value, that what you understood was not the true concept of value.
Please Zoso, take a look at my "Question to the racing media thread", it may help you understand. My post about making a 100% book on page 3 might be of particular interest.
Anyone can make a profit for a few months or even a year. But unless a punter understands true value he is unlikely to make a profit over decades.
Value Is EverythingZoso
Yes I do make money by working racing out like this. And as Alanalde says Dave Nevison and every professional gambler I have heard of does it this way. They may not work out races to 100% like I usually do, but they do all know the table of odds and chances.Sorry to say this but It is clear that when you stated, you understood the concept of value, that what you understood was not the true concept of value.
Please Zoso, take a look at my "Question to the racing media thread", it may help you understand. My post about making a 100% book on page 3 might be of particular interest.
Anyone can make a profit for a few months or even a year. But unless a punter understands true value he is unlikely to make a profit over decades.
You could find the 2 best pro punters in the whole of UK and Ireland and it is very likely that they both have 2 completely different methods of working. To assume that there is a right way and a wrong way is somewhat misguided. There is no guideline as to how to be successful. If something works for you longterm then why would you change how you operate?
Some people rely heavily on speed ratings with great success, some people pay very little attention to speed ratings with great success. To seriously think that just because Dave Nevison works in a certain way and he is a well known pundit then that must be the only way of working is not only narrow minded but is complete and utter bull.I read your post and it was of no interest to me. Dont take offence its just not how I operate. I have spreadsheets stretching back years and I would not change how I operate and approach each race. For you to state I dont understand value is complete and utter rubbish im afraid to tell you.
I have a feeling you will disagree but I learnt more reading one book about racing (the only racing book I have ever read) than I could ever have hoped to learn and my punting methods and style is based on what that book taught me and I have developed my own way of working but still using many of the methods the book taught me. It works for me long term and that is what matters.
I would never be so deluded to suggest that anyone who does not follow my methods could not possibly win in the long time. That would be ridiculous of me to suggest such a thing.I would never dream of telling you that you dont understand value or racing and its laughable that you feel you can judge me and tell me I cant make the game pay long term because I dont operate like some presenter off RUK who has written a book.
Zoso
I don’t think anyone is saying you have to work the same way (at least I’m not) but your last post seemed to question whether anyone could make money long term by looking at each horse’s probability, so I just supplied the name of someone who does.
For what it’s worth, I think the form study has to come first. If you know your form then it isn’t a great leap to translate that into probabilities and prices. I produce a tissue when looking at a race because I find it useful, helpful and above all, I enjoy it. I don’t employ spreadsheets or complex calculations, just use my judgement. If my judgement and my form reading is poor, overtime I’ll lose money.
I think sometimes people who talk about value either do it lazily, ie anything over a certain price is automatically value, or speak about it as though there is an objective scientifically provable price about any horse that all who are clever enough can find and agree upon. That isn’t the case.
There, I’ve just spent four paragraphs saying what AP managed in a couple of sentences.
I would agree with your approach GT, I would work my bets out in the same style but not to percentages. I basically just look at a horses chance and then look at its price and decide if the price is considerably better.
I will use Arturio yesterday as an example, the horse was down in the paper as 7/2 joint fav I think but when I looked at the market he was 7/1. I looked at the horse and seen that he had won before in france and he had been training with nicholls for a while (there is a longer reason why I like nicholls at the moment), the task of beating a 135 rated favorite (boomshakalaka) looked well within his compass, and nicholls has been doing well in these types of races lately, when I looked at all the horses in the race I decided that he had the best price to chance ratio, and that was simply why I backed him.
The horse could have run too bad to be true and if so I wouldnt have been overly bothered as he was 7/1, but he won and effectively gave me another seven bets.
Then on the flip side of the coin, I backed nacarat at 4/1 I thought on the strength of his last win he should put in a performance better than his 4/1 price, which he didnt, but his getting beat did me no real damage.
The whole reason I bet on horses is for the value, If the bookies could get rid of the value factor I have no doubt they would, but its the nature of the sport that they cant and its what gives horseracing an edge.
My brother once done electrical work for the sean graham family and they told him never to do sports bets as they have teams of people who work out the laws of probability of something happening and then shorten it down considerably to get a price, thus the more football results someone puts in a "long-list" the further they drift from the actual probability of it coming in, compared to the price they will be paid if it does. And in this the bookies have balanced the concept of value in their favor in terms of fixed odds betting, because sure you might win a football bet but in the long term they will always be one step ahead, because they are not giving you a price to reflect the risk you are taking.
In horse racing however you can look at a race and spot a 5-1 shot and say that isnt getting, which suggests that value is in the eye of the beholder, as if everyone thought that 5-1 was going to win it wouldnt be 5-1.
Betting on value is the name of the game, and as long as you stay ahead of the prices its just a case of luck, as a spell of seconditis can kill you just as bad as if your ignoring value. However if you are lumping on favorites then imagine that you would tend to feel it more heavily.
I dont look at a race and say this horse has a 33% chance of winning, this one has a 12% chance of winning etc etc. I couldnt imagine trying to think in that way.
I work my bets out by a process of elimination, effectively finding all the lays in the race til I am left with the winner in my opinion. List negatives and positives against all horses and rule them out one by one.
The one I am left with is the winner and will be a bet as long as I feel the price is fair.
, I will look at a race and say that one does not stay the trip so its ruled out. That one hates the ground and is poorly handicapped so its ruled out etc. Til I am left with the horse with the best profile under todays conditions. It would drive me round the bend saying that has a 33% chance etc. Do you seriously make money long term looking at things this way or do you just like a punt for entertainment?If you do make money working this way, then fair play to you but I would never consider working this way.
Zoso,
the % of probability is just another way of expressing the horses with the best profile
You may have George on top, then Billy, then Harry
A person doing it the estimating probability way will have – George 50%. Billy 33% Harry 17%
If you learn how to do it this way, (it’s not difficult really) IMO, it should help your betting
Dont take offence but if I switched RUK on and the presenter was asked before the race what he fancied before the race and he blurted out:
"Well I think Kauto Star has a 40% chance of winning, Denman has a 25% chance of winning, Exotic Dancer has an 11% chance of winning" etc etc
I would burst out laughing and then turn the sound down and I wouldnt turn it back up. Why is everyone assuming I need help with my betting. Has anyone considered it a possibility that maybe I could help some of you lot with your betting (or is that outrageous as I have only been posting on the forum since Jan 2nd).
Dont take offence but if I switched RUK on and the presenter was asked before the race what he fancied before the race and he blurted out:
"Well I think Kauto Star has a 40% chance of winning, Denman has a 25% chance of winning, Exotic Dancer has an 11% chance of winning" etc etc
I would burst out laughing and then turn the sound down and I wouldnt turn it back up. Why is everyone assuming I need help with my betting. Has anyone considered it a possibility that maybe I could help some of you lot with your betting (or is that outrageous as I have only been posting on the forum since Jan 2nd).
Because some people think "value" is the only way. It isn’t. I don’t need any help with my betting either (except this weekend has not been a good one) and I don’t work out percentages of a horses chance.
Value is like beauty – what one sees as value another doesn’t, the percentage of a horses chance of winning still always comes down to individual interpretation – in other words someones opinion.
If people play the percentage game and succeed at it then great, good on them but for any of them to suggest its the only way to punt successfully long term is a complete load of tosh.
Dont take offence but if I switched RUK on and the presenter was asked before the race what he fancied before the race and he blurted out:
"Well I think Kauto Star has a 40% chance of winning, Denman has a 25% chance of winning, Exotic Dancer has an 11% chance of winning" etc etc
I would burst out laughing and then turn the sound down and I wouldnt turn it back up. Why is everyone assuming I need help with my betting. Has anyone considered it a possibility that maybe I could help some of you lot with your betting (or is that outrageous as I have only been posting on the forum since Jan 2nd).
Would you laugh if a pundit said, KS evens , Denman 3-1 and ED 5-1, because that is what he would be doing by stating 50% 33% and 17% probability
Dont take offence but if I switched RUK on and the presenter was asked before the race what he fancied before the race and he blurted out:
“Well I think Kauto Star has a 40% chance of winning, Denman has a 25% chance of winning, Exotic Dancer has an 11% chance of winning” etc etc
I would burst out laughing
Why?
What would you do if the pundit said
“I reckon Kauto Star should be 6-4 favourite but, at the current price of 8-11, I’d be looking to take him on.
“Looking around, Denman is 5-1, which looks a bit long… I think 4-1 would be about right, so I’ll probably have a few quid on him…”
Would you laugh at that?
As others have said, value is subjective.
And thank goodness it is, otherwise all the horses would be priced just below true value and it’d be impossible to make a consistent profit at the game.
Long term profit comes from being able to consistently and correctly identify horses whose prices are wrong and back/lay them with the odds in your favour.
Do that right and the profit will follow.
Steve
) opt for the ‘value’ call; they haven’t the nous for the former, so try to compensate/obfuscate with the latter
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