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No value finding in arbing DJ – that’s about taking advantage of gilt edged opportunities.
Trading less so – you do need to seek over-under priced items but much more margin for error than traditional betting.
Arbing and trading are money-making opportunities indeed but there is no satisfaction like finding a horse which the books have severly over-priced which hoses up.
Drone
It is a matter of where someone wants to get.
VDW at its most simplified (as seemingly set out in an article published in 1981 under the subtitle "Van Der Wheil Spells It All Out") won’t get anyone very far, though like any systematised approach it finds some winners. But those who see logic in his basic view – that "it is the balance between class, form and the other factors [capability and probability] which shows the good things" – can learn a lot from the various letters and articles, and even more by studying the many examples he gave.
I doubt VDW said much – if anything – that was original. The ideas had mostly been around for years and discussed in publications both in the UK (eg by an accountant named Selby who published several booklets in the 1940s and 1950s under the pseudonym Marvex) and the US (eg Lawrence Voegele). But VDW was probably the first in the UK to put forward in a popular racing forum the idea of finding winners as an explicitly intellectual exercise.
These days there is more choice than in the late 1970s/early 1980s – one can trade, like Adam Todd, developer of the BetTrader software, without knowing the first thing about the horses running because one is focusing on prices; one can take the kind of approach Cormack favours, etc etc. And we should never forget the seemingly enduring appeal of the tipster. With this variety of possibilities, I suspect the number interested in putting time and effort into learning the skill of race analysis on VDW lines is very small. But there is satisfaction to be gained in trying to master any skill – and race analysis, although some might think it an unworthy object for serious attention, is certainly one.
Interesting post, Hensman.
There isn’t much new under the sun, but many of us laymen who hadn’t read literature on racing outside of the Racing Chronicle Handicap Book and the Racing & Football Outlook were naturally pleased to have our eyes opened to some of the practicalities of the business. Basic stuff to insiders I imagine.
I find tipsters a very useful aid, when their argument in favour of a particular horse is persuasive. I have less and less patience for trawling through the form of each race, horse by horse, but quickly look up the form when pointed in what seems an interesting direction by the likes of Spotlight and Pricewise. It can save a lot of time, or more often in my case, it can avert a missed opportunity.
Grimes
I entirely understand your comment about patience and the Form Book, and for me two key tasks (always ongoing) are to find ever better ways of recognising, relatively quickly, those runners which it is safe to leave to one side, and means of assembling relevant data quickly (eg as per downloading to Excel sheets as discussed on the "systems" forum). And in this latter respect we are, of course, very much more fortunate than previous generations of race analysts – the pc has been a huge benefit, whether one subscribes to Raceform’s electronic Form Book or similar, or like me maintains one’s own databases.
Hensman…very interesting stuff, welcome to the forum, out of interest what balance do you place on the Method and the Staking Plan? To me the two are equally important, the one goes with the other.
This may seem a silly question but does the term Dutching stem from VDW?
Pompete
I don’t think dutching as a term has anything to do with VDW. The story that Tony Peach tells about VDW is that he was a Dutchman who settled in England (Market Harborough) after the War. Frankly I doubt it. He (VDW) writes like someone educated in England, not on the Continent, though in my limited experience the Dutch write English as well as most foreigners.
VDW’s staking plan is interesting, because he introduced it by saying he used it to show a profit, not to enhance his profit. Anyone who can achieve the kind of strike rate he claimed – 80% or more at all prices – doesn’t need a progressive staking plan to show a profit, so there is a potential inconsistency there.
The best work I’ve read about staking is Stuart Holland’s "Successful Staking Strategies". In it he compares a number, including VDW’s, and his verdict is:
"Very poor! Your bank will be lucky to survive this system unless your strike rate is very high. VDW allegedly had a strike rate of 80%-90% and pretty good prices too. He also suggested betting 10% of the losing bank as well as the above system. He would have been much better staking a straightforward 10% of his betting bank."
Holland supports his verdict on the VDW plan, and the others he assesses, by some excellent tables.
Personally, I am convinced by the case Holland makes for betting a fixed percentage of one’s bank rather than level stakes (he argues, supported by figures, that with the percentage approach "there is less chance of losing your bank; generally if you lose then you lose less, [and] if you win, then you win more"). I wouldn’t touch the VDW plan with a bargepole.
Drone,
I can see why Clive Holt’s Fineform would appeal to some as it is easy to operate. However if VDW is criticised for being crude and simplistic what would/do the same folk think about Holt?
Where Fineform falls down for me is there is no attempt to find the ability of a horse in the formula. I can’t see how form, or a race can be analysed without some way of judging a horses ability. As said before VDW did give a method of judging ability later in his literature, but I’m far from convinced it was the actual method he used. So I don’t think Fineform is a good place to start if the idea is to find winners by using form, allthough if a simple system is the order of the day fine.
Be Lucky
a subject close to my heart for many, many years
I still have many of the old cuttings from the magazine and the various booklets from Tony Peach
VDW and several others at the same time all tried to put numbers to create form assessment but most of it never balanced and the thoughts did not always stay the same when trying to solve each race
the idea can work but not always and I have tried many times with various copies of Racing Post to solve the puzzle, Missing Link and all
I always thought that when he wrote about percentages it would open a door to the answer and for a time it did but I have moved on and have stopped playing with the mental struggle to solve his ideas
I believe that 3 horses made up his race selections, not one single selection and so long as the numbers added up to less than 20 for all 3 combined totals, then the winner was in that threesome
this formed the 80% rule as I called it….anything more than 20 it was a no bet race
The philosophy of VDW is dichotomous.
It is sustained by the twin pillars of ‘ability’ and ‘placing’.
It teaches us that if, all being equal, a horse has the best ability in the race it will win. If a horse’s connections have purposely chosen that race because they believe the opposition to be inferior, and the conditions suitable, then the horse has been placed to win.
A good horse like a good athlete has a ‘career’ something that is fashioned by its owners and trainers. Significant victories do not happen by chance, they are the subject of planning and preparation.
Over the years this has obviously been explored by many minds and resulted in methods that can vary in operation though not in orientation. However most of the serious students have found that the better class of race is best to work with most prefering to choose handicaps.
With all due respect to those who back the odds, that activity is self evidently a recourse to the fact that their selection methods are inacurate.
Whilst the subtle grading of abilty may seem attractive to odds backers it is VDWs second pillar of ‘placing’ that brings a horses’ true chance into far sharper focus.
Caravan
Your "up to twenty" idea is ingenious but, I’m afraid, not supported by the evidence. For example:
VDW’s very first handicap selection was Rifle Brigade, 15/04/78, which he described as one of "three outstanding bets" on the day. The lowest possible combined figures for three runners in the race was 38.
Much later, VDW discussed at length Roushayd, 02/07/88, which he described as "a dead certainty" in relation to the 1988 Old Newton Cup. The lowest possible combined figures for three runners in the race was 29 not including Roushayd. With him included it was 30.
Those of us who have read VDW’s letters with interest have, I am sure, all been there – searching for the "killer" factor that delivers all the winners, a search fuelled by VDW’s reference to the "missing link". One can’t of course be sure, as probably only VDW himself knows, but I doubt it is there: certainly any suggestions I’ve come up with myself, or seen, all fall in the same way as yours – on the evidence. My own suspicion is that by "the missing link" VDW meant not some simple "killer" factor but rather his meaning of the notion of "form", something he never elaborated explicitly and only covered in a line and a half in his otherwise long and detailed "Spells It All Out" article.
So I don’t think Fineform is a good place to start if the idea is to find winners by using form…..
Well on the basis that 1sts last time win more than 2nds and 2nds win more than 3rds, I’d say it is! Certainly as a starting point, though developing wider knowledge takes time and effort.
Rob
The value thing is a killer, most of the good value punters are arb players and traders in racing, very few actually make it pay by purely betting, it’s too hard.
Really?
It’s seldom wise to rationalise supposition as fact
Proof please
.. Betfair reckon that around 0.3% of their customers make more than £15K per year and there is nothing to say that this 0.3% are not always the same people. If it was easy then this figure should be much higher? If you want to trade prices you need to have a good idea what the price is going to be at the off or is likely to be in running, because you have to be right more times then you are wrong.
The VDW staking is a mess and it let’s him down really and as hensman says. With any sort of staking like that you are basically gambling on the order in which your winners will arrive. If it did work we would all forget the racing and start betting on the Hi/Lo games. I think these are set to be fair over 300million interations, some scary losing runs. Using vdw staking to anything more than 10p stakes is folly.
I also agree with Rob, a horse that won last time out has a 20% chance of winning and a horse that finished 10+ has a 3% chance of winning .. there’s nothing wrong with fineform as a starting point.
If you want to follow the vdw type of assessment you really have to get to grips with how it works and then automate your scribblings into a spreadsheet to do the calculations for you and only bet in the higher class races. Lower class races are more likely to be corrupt and unpredictable and you will need to have different criteria to the higher class ones.
VDW was probably the first in the UK to put forward in a popular racing forum the idea of finding winners as an explicitly intellectual exercise.
These days there is more choice than in the late 1970s/early 1980s – one can trade, like Adam Todd, developer of the BetTrader software, without knowing the first thing about the horses running because one is focusing on prices; one can take the kind of approach Cormack favours, etc etc
I suspect the number interested in putting time and effort into learning the skill of race analysis on VDW lines is very small. But there is satisfaction to be gained in trying to master any skill – and race analysis, although some might think it an unworthy object for serious attention, is certainly one.
By suggesting that Fineform was a more straightforward method for the novice to employ I wasn’t intending to deride VDW; like many I found his ideas – admittedly from a somewhat cursory study and now long ago – of some interest and I’d agree that they had a degree of lateral thought and ‘intellectuality’ about them in pinpointing races with a sufficiently good ‘shape’ to warrant robust analysis. VDW is perhaps best studied by the ‘A Level’ punter once the ‘O Level’ of Fineform is mastered.
I’d take issue with your assertion that nowadays "the number interested in putting time and effort into learning the skill of race analysis on VDW lines is very small" by which you imply that the intellectual approach to solving races is a dying art. For sure the clinical trading/arbing of prices is now used by a percentage of players but I’d surmise (though can’t prove) that that percentage is, and will, remain small in comparison with the number of new recruits who employ more-or-less traditional race analysis to arrive at a Win Single bet.
BTW I’m very much a ‘value’ punter akin to Prufrock and Cormack and do indeed regard race analysis as an "intellectual exercise" rather than a number crunch. Each race is a new and unique challenge and thank goodness for that.
VDW’s staking plan is interesting, because he introduced it by saying he used it to show a profit, not to enhance his profit.
That strikes me as a profoundly incorrect and misleading statement.
Do you agree with the received wisdom that if a series of bets doesn’t show a level stakes profit then it is impossible to manipulate stakes to move it into profit, other than through back-fitting?
And that to ‘prove’ the robustness of a method, profit should be declared to level stakes and to level stakes alone.
Regarding fixed percentage and level staking: surely the former approaches the latter the longer the period one chooses to alter the percentage depending on bank growth/depletion. From those who maintain the percentage after every bet, hence alter the stake after every bet, to those like me who set a fixed percentage (2.5%) at the start of each year, then bet level stakes for that year, then alter the level stake to a new 2.5% dependent on available bank for the next year.
I remain convinced that bet-by-bet alteration of stake to maintain a fixed percentage of available bank is essentially a negative strategy which should only be used by the long-term loser to ensure the bank never runs dry.
I can see why Clive Holt’s Fineform would appeal to some as it is easy to operate. However if VDW is criticised for being crude and simplistic what would/do the same folk think about Holt?
As mentioned in response to Hensman by flagging up Fineform I wasn’t implying it was superior to VDW nor implying VDW was "crude".
I still believe Fineform (particularly in its later incarnations) is for something so simple a remarkably robust method of rating a field, though to reiterate not one to use as a ‘system’ other than if you are inordinately lazy and want plenty of action for your pound for very little effort.
The value thing is a killer, most of the good value punters are arb players and traders in racing, very few actually make it pay by purely betting, it’s too hard.
Really?
It’s seldom wise to rationalise supposition as fact
Proof please
.. Betfair reckon that around 0.3% of their customers make more than £15K per year and there is nothing to say that this 0.3% are not always the same people. If it was easy then this figure should be much higher?
This oft quoted stat of 0.3% of Betfair players making >15K a year annoys me; it’s akin to saying ‘only’ x% of the population are millionaires.
What would be much more interesting and revealing is the number on the exchanges (or punters generally) who make a profit of upto 15K
Is a betting turnover of say a ‘paltry’ 100K to realise an equally ‘paltry’ net 5% profit of 5K actually to be sniffed at?
Regarding profitable/losing punters Drone .. facts are facts wether we like them or not and the punter turning over £100K will struggle to do it on betfair, if he’s just trying to snip prices here and there. Prices collapse quickly and even the drip, drip doesn’t work too well because of liquidity problems and bots not waiting to be given a hiding before shortening up to an unattractive price. The mug layer/bot has been well and truely done imo.
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