Kithanga
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Posts posted by Kithanga
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Re: Flat Racing - Saturday 15th June I can't help thinking that with all the rain tonight and tomorrow morning that course specialist Pintura has a great chance at 12-1 in the York 3.15 race, especially as much of the competition appear to have issues getting their head in front. Granted he's not best in at the weight and lacks the scope of some of them but I have him in as an 7-1 chance in this.
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Re: Where's my profit gone? Machine, My final response to you on this. Re-read the post but this time imagine just for a moment that it's from someone with no axe to grind and who wants you to keep on developing and winning rather than thinking that it's written to offend. Whether I'm a high flyer or not then becomes irrelevant and frankly I'm not going to share that information on a public forum. Yes, I am wondering why my ROI is lower this year and looking into whether I need to adapt again. Adapting and listening to other people's views and challenging my own thinking has kept me in profit for over 20 years and always will. My point was that you may also need to adapt too as you push the stakes up. Despite what you seem to think, you will most likely find others from whom you will learn if you open your mind to it as they have faced issues that you have yet to even consider. The fact is that if you continue to win you will be losing Best Odds Guarantee, losing the ability to stake enough to win more than £50-£100 at early prices, losing the ability to mop up early exchange prices due to the low liquidity, oh and paying a high percentage of your profits back to the exchanges in fees if you don't generate them enough commission. How will you cope with that? I think that you'd cope anyway, I'm sure you'll agree, but you'll cope faster by listening to others who've been down that path before and come out the other side. Not all of them are out to put you down despite what your responses seem to indicate. K
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Re: Where's my profit gone? Oh and btw, that wasn't a dig. We all started low and built up
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Re: Where's my profit gone? For some reason your responses on this thread gave me the impression that you're a high staking, long term winner. Obviously only the latter. It'll be worthwhile you noting the prices you could have achieved to larger stakes so that you don't get misleading profit percentages and therefore inflated expectations going forward. I found that you can shave a good few % off your returns as you climb the ladder even on the exchanges
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Ok. Point taken. It seems we differ in that I am gaining my satisfaction from the challenge whereas you're in it for the return if I've understood correctly. Tbh I wouldn't use your approach / software even if it was available to me despite it obviously delivering the goods. For me it'd be a little like solving a crossword puzzle by flicking through the thesaurus. Sent from my GT-I9300 using PL Forum
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Re: Where's my profit gone? Thx Machine, I understand where you're coming from now, but yes I'm still confused on Q1. I wasn't being trappy, just find this aspect the most difficult to get right / consistent in my betting. Or were you saying I was on the right track ? Re Q2, we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. I still feel the logic is flawed unless you have a stat that shows win % of horses that qualify for all three then the stats are meaningless (happy to be corrected though).
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Re: RIP Sir Henry Cecil One of the all time greats and a master at training the fillies. Will be sadly missed
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Re: Where's my profit gone?
Now you've really confused me! Can you clarify? Point 1, I'm assuming you'd go for the 6-4 chance as it has more chance of winning. But surely the only reason to have more money on any price band is if you know the ROI will be bigger. Its chance of success only serves to reduce the effect of variance, doesn't it? If anything there mistakes on price should be bigger at the higher odds shouldn't they (20% margin at evens = 4-6 true odds, 20% margin at 50-1 = 41-1 ish true odds) so it's surely more likely you'll find 50's or maybe 66's on a 40's chance than get 4-6 on a true evens chance. Or am I talking cr4p? :lol Is it better to take account of both the odds (variance) and the likely margin and as per you example have something like 35 on at 6-4 and 12.5 at 8-1? Point 2, I know it's only a quick example but wouldn't you have to know the win percentage of horses that were in the first 5 in betting & first 5 in weights and odds less than no of runners? Winners that help to make the stats in one category may be outside one or both of the other two.....I think!6/4 = 40% chance of success 8/1 = 11% chance of success I know which one Id prefer the most money on ;) Yes stats only,the only thing I know or need to know about horses is one end eats grass Im in the same camp as yourself,If someone asked me why I backed horse x in a 8-14 runner open age h/caps, Id reply If its in the first 5 of the betting (win approx 70% of races),first 5 of the weights(win approx 40% of the time),odds less than number of runners (win 75% of the time) and its the only contender its my bet regardless, as the selection is statistically the one from each group which win the most races,If you ask a value punter how they came about theres its all smoke & mirrors and all that malarkey, I think Aidy said it in the Hcp thread you can find value in every race but if it doesnt win it doesnt matter. If they want to play at being Pricewise its no skin off my nose good luck to them. -
Re: Where's my profit gone?
Great results those Rio, keep it up mateI have no wish to hijack this thread however I feel I must make a response to yesterdays events. I'm still trying to see where I had a dig at Machine which caused the reaction. What I've also been trying to see is evidence of the profit he claims from 95 onwards. I can see his A.I.D.E.s back football thread in the Systems & strategy which is indeed in profit, well done. In terms of horse racing I can't see that Machine has had his own thread. There are occasional posts in threads such as the Scottish Grand National, the Oaks & the Saturday lucky 15 thread but nothing that appears to give any evidence of long term profits. I've been a PL member for a long time, I've been looking back at my threads in ATR & my returns I will post below but these require a little explanation. My first thread was for the 2005 flat season, this was followed by the 05/06 jumps, the 06 flat, the 06/07 jumps, the 07 flat & the 07/08 jumps. In 08 I had a thread for the flat & my "Flying Dutchman" thread, this was a project that I was working on but I had found by the end of June that I could not keep up to both threads so one had to go. I decided to stop the flat 08 thread, the returns for this are in red below, the reason for this is that some of the selections were duplicated in both threads but not staked twice, the final total at the bottom contains none of this profit shown in red. I then continued through the 08/09 jumps & the 09 flat with the Flying Dutchman thread, this was a mistake, I admitted so at the time & still do & I should have returned to my usual ways. From 2010 I started my current thread, this departed from the original selections with reasoning format. The reason for this was twofold. Firstly there were many more threads in the with reasoning style from other posters. Secondly at this point in my life I had had a change of circumstances, I now found myself going racing far more often with a racing club I had joined which allowed me to be in effect an owner. I thought that this would possibly be of interest to others if I made this more a diary/blog style thread, with selections included. The 757 posts in this thread have to date had 34.723 views, it has been nominated for a PL Oscar for the last three years & voted for one this year. I believe that shows that my thoughts were correct. Because this was an open ended thread with no seasonal breaks the returns in it carried on, this is why the returns below show 2010 to Feb 2012. At this point again my circumstances changed & I needed to re-set the bank because I wanted a years returns from that point. The final entry is Feb 2013 to date, this includes the Cheltenham ante post bets placed before the re-set but run after. Am I concerned by the deficit? a little, but the main part of the flat season is upon us & I will reserve judgement until I see where I am around St Leger time. A final thought before the numbers. With my new circumstances freeing more time I decided to enter the BBOTD thread from the start of this year. I hadn't done so before because with the time constraints on me I did not think I'd be able to meet the required bets. I note that I am currently 5th in the overall table with a profit of £24.00. What I do find pleasing, there I go getting emotional again, is that I have shown a profit in four of the first five months. Not too bad for a loser, just think what could happen if I actually started winning. 05 flat Profit/loss +184.5pts 05/06 jumps Profit/Loss +1072.31pts 06 flat Profit/loss +35.57pts 06/07 jumps Profit/loss -529.62 07 flat Profit/loss -573pts 07/08 jumps Profit/loss +439pts 08 flat Profit/loss +144.45pts Profit/Loss +359.91pts 08/09 jumps Profit/Loss -555pts 09 flat Profit/Loss -490pts 2010 to Feb 2012 Profit/Loss +613.28pts Feb 2012 to Feb 2013 P/L +1062.72pts 2013 to date P/L -971.91pts Total profit +647.76 Rio. -
Re: Betting without emotion Discipline: 5 Very rarely tempted to go on tilt and 2010 last time I did and it lasted 1 bet (doubled normal stake). Very inconsistent on approach and staking. Keep changing to find one I'm happy with but not yet settled. I know this is costing me as level stake over the years would have seen me do better. Judgement: 8 As good as anyone at assessing a race and choosing which ones to leave alone. Ability to work hard: 10 More time than ever to focus on this now. Decisiveness: 4 In a race I'm good but with overall approach I'm terrible Patience: 10 Happy to not bet if there's no opportunity. Reasonable Expectations: 9 It's a hobby. I don't need to win and target 5-20% ROI. Control of fear and greed: 9 As per your answer, only increase stake once Bank allows Sense of Worth: 10 No problems at all in this sphere any more as I don't tend to tell others how well or badly I'm doing. In fact I usually say I'm losing a little bit but that it's costing no more than any other hobby. People like that answer as it matches their perceptions of how it should be. I long gave up telling people I win as you just get a knowing smirk or some comment about your last bet losing. I only open up to other punters who win as I can have a proper conversation with them and can't be arsed with what joe public think any more Betting Bank: 10 Money's not an issue as I bet well within my means. Could replace the betting bank several times over from other investments but would like to increase stakes faster so profit in £'s is bigger and then it could fund some fun extra's Coping with losing runs: 5 Getting better but always room for improvement. If I had a consistent approach that I could stick with and be happy with they'd be easier to cope with as I just find them frustrating more than anything else
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Re: Where's my profit gone?
I'll answer honestly even though I'd prefer not too given how poor some decisions will look. 1. Not consistent :$ Have tried level stake win only (find the variance hard to cope with given long losing runs). Tried variable level stakes based on odds percentages, £25 at 3-1, £10 at 9-1, etc. (find that hard due to bigger stakes going on short prices where I'm not always getting biggest margin). Tried based on margin I think I've got over the odds (this is really hard as I tend to get it wrong in all honesty). Tried level stake win & place and each way (1/2 point ew not 1pt ew). Don't like either of these as long term results show volatility is similar to level stake but recovery is slower and always being margin wise). I've recently settled back onto level stakes with a bank of 150 points but I'm currently modelling level stakes plus trading off for a 40% profit whenever the price movement allows. The theory being that if I can lock in a profit of 40% on any bet it's worth taking. The remaining bets should also (hopefully) make a margin. I've never done this before or even considered it but I might split my Bank and run the two methods side by side (level stake and level stake laying off) for 1,000 bets and see how it pans out. 2. No, I try to get a feel for the race, narrow it down to those with a strong chance, medium, low and then look at the prices and choose one or sometimes two from the strong and medium that are looking out of line, usually the strong this year. This is maybe why I'm betting more in the shorter price ranges than usual and maybe why I'm struggling to get above a couple of % profit. 3. No, used to do this when I bet only Group / Listed (30%+ profits). It was time consuming but achievable with less races to study. Always struggled to price up handicaps though so stopped doing it when I started betting more on these as I was usually wildly out. Maybe this is another problem. In trying to save time and pick prices I think are out of line maybe I'm just being lazy and getting my just rewards. 4. No, just the ones I backed. Any help appreciated. In fact, just writing this down has helped me see a few potential errors in my approach.Morning Kithanga Questions for yourself / Saint 1 Do you bet fixed stake / fixed profit / %age of current balance or another method? 2 Do you pick the the most likely winner then see if your estimated price is value (in your opinion)? 3 Do you make a book then back the horse most out of line to your book value wise (in your opinion)? 4 Most importantly do you keep a record of ALL YOUR SELECTIONS. ie even the selections you made but didnt back due to considering them non value? -
Re: Handicaps I used to hate handicaps as I just didn't 'get' them at all. At the time I bet in Group and Listed and did really well but got bored waiting for races as there aren't that many. I forced myself to bet in more handicaps as I really wanted to increase my betting and it's taken a good 2-3 years for me to move them into a profit for me. I understand them a lot more now and actually feel I'm getting to grips with them more and more over time. I probably prefer them now tbh as the prices are more competitive and more often out of line. I find recent good form works well, especially form that isn't considered good enough and is ignored by the market. The races are so tight that I sometimes feel there's an over reaction to negative points or doubts.
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Re: Betting without emotion I think I do need to bet with emotion, just not negative emotion. That's the one I try to keep in check. I bet because I like the challenge and enjoy trying to solve the puzzle. Just like doing a prize crossword may be a challenge for others. Once the negative emotions kick in to be honest it would be best to give it up for a while. After all, I bet for enjoyment, the challenge of beating the book, not to being more stress into my life. So for me, it has to be an emotional ride and if it turns a small profit, great. If it turns a small loss, great as long as I've enjoyed it. Not enjoying it, or turning a heavy loss means I'd pack in and find another hobby.
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Re: Where's my profit gone? We seem to have gone off track boys! I'm with BH, lets respect all opinions and bury the hatchet, not in each other btw :-) The question of emotion is vital imo. I bet from both a stats and a form viewpoint so may be rather unique sitting in the middle of the two camps. I use stats to give me an overview of a race. For example, if there's a mare or filly with top weight in a 1m handicap running at Pontefract and it's 11-10 favourite I'm immediately interested in the race as statistically they have a tough task carrying weight uphill against the males. Using other filters narrows the race down and then it's a case of reading to form as an added layer of information. Pricing the race up then provides me with the 'value' options. I don't need to watch a race, but I do get enjoyment form it. In fact I like watching the races I don't bet in, just like horse racing. I try not to let emotion creep in and am aware of variance and how bad things can get and I do keep a lid on it 99% of the time. I wouldn't say it's easy but it gets easier over time. The more bad losing runs you have the better able you are to cope next time in my experience. I posed the original question, not because I'm emotional or on tilt as I recognise this losing run is probably nothing more than variance. I did it because I was curious about price vs sp. Many will say beat BSP and you'll profit. Well, I have. For a long time and in the recent run by +20%ish. But I profit by a smaller margin that I would expect in this sample (+5% ish). Now that may not be all down to variance, so I may be backing too many horses that aren't value and become worse value by the off. Some further study last night reveals that over the last 600 bets I've back 45% at 11-2 or less, 35% at 6-1 to 11-1 and 20% at bigger than 11-1. Previously when profits were higher it was 25%, 40% and 35%. My stakes have also been higher on the shorter animals. What this tells me is that I've drifted into backing shorter priced horses with bigger amounts when the shorter prices have always been a marginal area for me. This is a good insight for me as I suspect I'm drifting back into trying to back the most likely winner. Tut, tut. My focus now needs to be reverting back to backing the longer priced animal from my shortlist.
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Re: Where's my profit gone? Machine, to pick up on your earlier point about me not backing every runner in a price band. It's a fair point and I understand what you're saying. I'm using stats and form to narrow down and (hopefully) eliminate losers from the sample. Fact is I'm clearly not doing that well enough. I did some further research last night prompted by all the comments I've received (thanks everyone). I wanted to find out if I was (ignoring SP's) taking too short a price in reality, which would explain the poor ROI. How to work this out though? What I did was a calculation of the price compared to the number of runners. So 4-1 in an 8 runner race = 50%, 8-1 = 100%, etc. The rough idea was to see how the relatively unfancied animals had performed, as opposed to those that were just a big price as there's a difference in punters pereption of winning chance between a 5-1 shot in a 30 runner race and one in a 5 runner race. The first is a hot favourite, the second an outsider. Anyway, here's the result and it makes interesting reading. Anyone else got similar? Overall sample 621 bets, 100 wins, profit of 41.81 (6%) 50%+ 501 bets 72 wins 57.87 profit (12%) 75%+ 311 bets 40 wins 91.45 profit (29%) 100%+ 189 bets 21 wins 56.43 profit (30%) 125%+ 99 bets 10 wins 39.55 profit (40%) 150%+ 67 bets 8 wins 57.72 profit (86%) Obviously the sample size is getting really low towards the end but the profits look better even from 50%+ range. The profits are also better than the 2% I've achieved just by playing at level stakes. Maybe I've not only been tempted into too many short ones but have obviously staked more on them too. Hope that gives you all something to think about with your results too. We're always learning in this game :-)
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Re: Where's my profit gone? Thanks guys. Yes Saint I ran that through last week actually. I assumed that I'd trade out to return stake at my price less 40% and leave any others to run, level stake. It came out broadly the same but was less volatile. EW wasn't that bad but not as good as level stakes. I think I need to revisit the selection source as I can't see me bettering SP by any more than I have been doing. EW on the ones 9-1 and above may be the answer. That range win only was very profitable (+54.77 pts level stake) from 17 wins and 24 places but a small sample size (192 bets) so may just be variance again. 10-3 to 9-1 was poor and had highest volume of bets. Under 10-3 profitable (again only 110 bets) 12 points profit. Maybe I'm just being sucked into backing shorter priced ones too often
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Re: Where's my profit gone? I agree with your stats machine which is why I was expecting a bigger profit from SP+35%. Taking your price band of 6-4 to 15-8 and assuming I'm getting 6-4 +35% (i.e. the worst possible in that banding) then the return from 573 winners would be 1733.32 minus the 1657 laid out gives a profit of 76.32 or 4.6%. The reality is that there would have been a higher strike rate of just pure 6-4 chances so the profit would be a tad higher at about 5% say. I kind of agree with an earlier post that it may be just pure variance. However, if it is then why don't the likes of Hugh Taylor or Pricewise suffer the same 'variance' when there average price is much higher?
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Re: Where's my profit gone? Hopefully Elchubb although it's soul destroying at the moment. Today: Halstatt 4.15 into 3.50 3rd Nini Ok 15.0 into 8.0 unplaced Sir Maximilian 5.50 into 3.50 unplaced Star Of Mayfair 6.5 into ???? It just feels like, if it's backed and I'm on it no chance then the next race some other well backed animal scoots in. I know Aidymac and I just can't pick my nose at the moment. Don't know why
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Re: Where's my profit gone? Thanks guys. I am picking the ones I think have a good chance Erhaab. I have thought about trading Primevil, just not sure whether the ones you don't manage to lay off wipe out your small profit from the ones you do lay off. Stats are 624 bets 84 took lower than SP, 291 had a less than 10% advantage on SP (which I'm assuming wipes out any profit once commission and bigger exchange SP taken into account)
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Struggling to turn a profit over the last 12 months or so despite beating SP hands down. The prices I'm taking are on average 35% above SP yet my ROI is around 2%. How can this be after nearly 500 bets at an average of about 7-1? Surely I should be well up? People talk a lot these days about how accurate the market is and how horses that shorten in the on course market do better than they used to. But that just isn't playing out for me at all. Last few bets for me 13-2 into 4-1 lost 7-2 into 3-1 lost 14-1 into 8-1 lost 8-1 into 6-1 lost 7-1 into 3-1 lost 8-1 into 4-1 lost 7-1 into 9-2 lost 5-1 into 7-2 lost 4-1 into 9-4 lost 11-4 into 6-5 won 13-2 into 5-1 lost 11-4 into 5-2 lost Not a single drifter yet a terrible set of results, many being unplaced. I just can't fathom it as I'm not talking about half a dozen bets, this is over 500 or so. Help!
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Available online from members section night before Sent from my GT-I9300 using PL Forum
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Great photos. Have used for wallpapers hope you don't mind! K Sent from my GT-I9300 using PL Forum
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Didn't Dave Nevison say a simikar thing about the market in one of his value betting books? About how he used to go for value but the exchanges were proving that approach didn't work any more. You could stick to higher class stuff. Say class 1 and 2? They're all trying to win those. Sent from my GT-I9300 using PL Forum
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Re: Money Management & Staking Plans Money Management : This is the easy part. As others have stated, set aside an amount of money you can afford to lose but which will hurt a little. I think it needs to hurt a little otherwise your profit will be meaningless and you won't have that drive to make sure you don't make silly mistakes. So, not too small that you don't care, but not too big so that it cripples you. Staking : I've tried all sorts of staking and unquestionably the best method (mathematically) in the long run is level stake singles win only. This beats points based (1-5, 1-10, whatever), each way, win & place and proportional staking (based on percentage, £50 at Evens, £33.33 at 2-1, etc). This is from a lengthy set of records over a number of years and many bets. The problem is that it's not the best method in practice. Why, because it stops you having those chancy 33-1 bets that generate the most profit. It's human nature to not want to lose and it will push you more toward backing the shorter priced animals that generally have a smaller profitable edge. Next year I'm going to try Win & Place at level stakes as this shows the biggest % profit of the remaining methods and compensates you when you have a horse that's placed. It makes it easier to back those outsiders if you know you'll get your stake money back. Or at least it does for me. Percentage of Bank to stake: I use the following calculation LOG (number of bets) / -LOG (100% - Strike Rate) to calculate the expected losing run from a sequence of bets. I actually multiplied the 'number of bets' by 100 for my starting bank, meaning it would take a 1 in 100 year bad run to wipe my initial bank out in any one year. From that point I've been cautious and have added 50% of the profits at the end of each month to the available Bank and recalculated the stakes, never reducing for losses, the other 50% goes into the Bank to increase the cover and at the end of the year 50% of this amount gets withdrawn and spent on the family. We shared a ice cream this year (with a flake) :-) k
Flat Racing Tuesday 18th June
in At The Races - Racing Forum
Posted
Re: Flat Racing Tuesday 18th June Ascot 2.30 A fascinating race with the well regarded favourite Animal Kingdom clearly having the strongest form. However, he's drawn widest of all on the stands side so may not get any cover and this wide galloping and straight uphill track is very different from what he's faced previously. Don't get me wrong, he could very well win easily but at Evens (or odds on 8-11 when I went against him earlier today) he has to be opposed. Elusive Kate is the obvious one on the figures but I think it's going to be very difficult for her to bring her A game against the boys first time out. Of the remainder I like the look of Trade Storm who started to improve rapidly towards the end of last season and showed good quickening pace when taking his two races at Meydan earlier in the year. He also performed with credit when a strong finishing 4th in a Group 1 on his final start despite being poorly drawn. Given he's drawn next door to the favourite, Jamie Spencer should be able track that one into the race. I've backed him each way at 16's earlier today but he's 12's now due to the price wise following. That's still a good price though and I'm hopeful he can end my 33 run losing sequence tomorrow.