harry_rag

Done my "heat map" thing for tonight's game. Gone back for each team's last 30 goals to make sure there's at least 10 games in the sample for both sides. Bayern 30 goals in 10 games, scored in 9 and BTTS in 6. Same numbers for Real 30 in 15, scored in them all and BTTS in 8. All screams goals but you have to bear in mind the occasion and the possibility of a tighter games. Who's hot scorer wise? Some geezer called Kane, scored 9 including a brace and a hat trick. 4 for Muller (1 brace) and Gnabry. 3 each Musiala and Goretzka. Junior 8 (2 braces), Rodrygo 5 (1 brace), 3 for Diaz and Bellingham. Diaz the only player mentioned not in the RP probable line ups. 3/1 Rodrygo the most appealing price at a glance but I'll wait for line ups.

Gone 6/1 for >0.5 1st half goals, btts to score in the 2nd half and Simms (easily the hottest player) to score. Bit of an interest for all of the above digging and uses the freebie before it expires. Scorer prices looking a bit skinny at the moment but see what the line-ups bring.

We've (I use the word cheekily perhaps) split this race into 3 clear divisions. It would be hoped we find the winner from our top 4 given it includes the odds on fav, or a couple of decent priced placed selections at least. We have a clear bottom 6 so it would be nice if they all fell short of the places. That leaves the midfield 4 of Henry L, Rosallion, Task Force and 10 Bob Tony where opinion is fairly divided. Rosallion too short to like given it's so-so showing, Let's hope most of them go to post and see how it all unfurls.

Done a quick "heat map" for tonight's game (basically seeing who's scored each team's last 25 goals to get a feel for who's hot and not). Coventry scored 28 goals in their last 13 games, scored in 11 of them with BTTS landing in 9. For Ipswich it's 27 in 12, scoring in 10 and BTTS in 7. Looking at the bets mentioned in the previous posts, BTTS in the 2nd half landed 9 times in those 25 games so 13/8 would've made a small loss but might be ok tonight given both teams' ability to score (there are some 1 sided matches in the sample). 2nd half was the highest scoring 8 times but >1.5 landed 15 times so I think I prefer that option despite the shorter odds. Got a Betbuilder freebie that needs using so might bear all that in mind! In terms of who's hot it's very much Simms (13 goals including 2 braces and 2 hat tricks) and Wright (7, 1 brace, 3 pens) for Coventry with Tavares the only other player to score 3 goals. Less dominance for Ipswich; Hutchinson 6 goals including 2 braces, then just Chaplin, Moore and Hamadi managing 3 apiece. Players in bold expected to start according to the RP preview. Now to see if that suggests any actual bets!

My first thought was I'd rather back >1.5 2nd half goals as it's often a similar price but, at 7/10, it's perhaps shorter than I was expecting. That said, it's still a runner regardless of how many goals there might be before the break. Also 13/8 for btts in the second half might be ok. Will have a look at the scorers for this one. Won on Hirst last time out but Coventry strike me as a team where I always manage to back the wrong player. Will see if I can buck that trend tonight.

I'll go first with my less informed view. Might as well try and extract some sense from my frantic spreadsheeting! There's a clear top four with the fav rightly the fav but too short for now. River Tiber is 4th but drifting quite a bit on the exchange suggesting it has maybe lost a leg or is about to be withdrawn. Haatem and Ghostwriter the other two. If I had to burn that £20 now: £4 e/w Haatem 66/1 (using my weekly "Epic Odds" boost) £5 e/w Ghostwriter 16/1 £2 win River Tiber at 220

Going to take a break before I disappear up my own rabbit hole but here's a couple of tables that may be of interest (or not). # Horse Odds BF MaxAv 1 City of Troy 1.666 1.73 113.0 2 Henry Longfellow 26 26 110.8 3 Task Force 21 23 110.3 4 Haatem 34 38 109.0 5 Ghostwriter 17 20 107.6 6 River Tiber 41 130 107.6 7 Ten Bob Tony 51 190 106.3 8 Rosallion 5 8.2 104.9 9 Alyanaabi 21 29 101.0 10 Night Raider 17 17.5 100.7 11 Diego Velazquez 51 100 100.7 12 Notable Speech 11 14.5 98.3 13 Inisherin 34 55 97.9 14 Iberian 26 48 97.5 Sorted by best individual rating (shows you all agree the bottom 6 are bang average or worse). # Horse Odds BF MinAv 1 Ghostwriter 17 20 105.6 2 Haatem 34 38 103.9 3 City of Troy 1.666 1.73 103.1 4 River Tiber 41 130 100.7 5 Rosallion 5 8.2 97.9 6 Alyanaabi 21 29 96.7 7 Night Raider 17 17.5 94.6 8 Task Force 21 23 94.3 9 Ten Bob Tony 51 190 92.1 10 Notable Speech 11 14.5 92.1 11 Henry Longfellow 26 26 91.1 12 Inisherin 34 55 86.3 13 Iberian 26 48 83.3 14 Diego Velazquez 51 100 75.9 Sorted by worst individual rating (shows you all agree the top 4 are at least slightly better than average).

I think I prefer this approach, where the horse's rating is converted to a % of your average rating for all runners. So a score above 100 denotes a runner with an above average rating and vice versa if <100. e.g. Clarky top rates Task Force at 80 and his average rating is 72.5 so that converts to 110.3 # Horse Odds BF AvAv 1 City of Troy 1.666 1.73 108.2 2 Haatem 34 38 107.2 3 Ghostwriter 17 20 106.6 4 River Tiber 41 130 103.8 5 Henry Longfellow 26 26 103.0 6 Rosallion 5 8.2 102.8 7 Task Force 21 23 102.3 8 Ten Bob Tony 51 190 99.7 9 Alyanaabi 21 29 99.4 10 Night Raider 17 17.5 98.4 11 Notable Speech 11 14.5 95.1 12 Inisherin 34 55 92.1 13 Diego Velazquez 51 100 91.1 14 Iberian 26 48 90.4

A first cut for one option of combining your collective wisdom. This sets each of your top rated as 100 and adjusts everything else based on it's rating as a % of the top rated. (e.g. Zil's top rated is Ghostwriter on 134, Haatem on 130 is adjusted to 97. If you all top rated the same horse it would have the perfect 100 score. # Horse Odds BF Av100 1 City of Troy 1.666 1.73 97.8 2 Haatem 34 38 97.0 3 Ghostwriter 17 20 96.4 4 River Tiber 41 130 93.9 5 Henry Longfellow 26 26 93.0 6 Rosallion 5 8.2 93.0 7 Task Force 21 23 92.5 8 Ten Bob Tony 51 190 90.3 9 Alyanaabi 21 29 89.9 10 Night Raider 17 17.5 89.1 11 Notable Speech 11 14.5 86.1 12 Inisherin 34 55 83.3 13 Diego Velazquez 51 100 82.5 14 Iberian 26 48 81.8

These are my weighted ratings for the "missing" horses. Based on what % their rating was of the top rating and average rating for each of the other sources. I think it's a more reasonable guess at what their numbers might have been!

This does seem to be an unfortunate flaw in that it means you can’t properly rate some of the biggest and best races. Obviously it’s good that your process will be largely automated for a lot of races but it would be good if you could have a quick way to come up with an indicative rating for such horses so you can fully rate the big events when you want to. It will certainly make any comparison of different people’s ratings more valuable. I assume some of the other posters with a more flexible approach could help you come up with a viable and reasonably quick approach?

Much as I’d love to say I’ve got better things to do I’ll definitely give it a once over. I sometimes do similar things when looking at antepost bets on World Cups and Euros etc. where there are 2 or 3 sets of rankings. Sometimes converting them to an index works, where the top rated in an index is set at 100 and everything else the appropriate proportion. Give me the various sets of ratings and I’ll have a butchers.

Fair points that illustrate “what type of punter are you” is yet another variable to throw into the mix generally! I’d have said there are theoretical extremes where most punters would go one way or the other (a tiny difference in price for a couple of extra places or only getting half the odds for a single extra place) but everything in the middle is harder to call. I might knock a spreadsheet together and perhaps @The Equaliser and anyone else who experiences the dilemma can try it out. I might get some use out of it in other sports. At least I can get the idea out of my head then and fully concentrate on the stuff I actually bet on day in day out!

I'll stick this in here as it seems legitimate as a variable to be considered before placing a bet (and follows up on a recent discussion). The issue of how you decide whether to go for the best price or the extra places when betting each way. Having had a look at the 7:50 in Naas (19 runners), Sky are going 6 places from 4 though most firms are offering 5 anyway. I've looked at a couple of runners: Captured 18/1 to 6 places v 25/1 to 5 places (5th the odds) Calamint 16/1 to 6 places v 18/1 to 5 places (5th the odds) My gut reaction is that the drop in price for the first horse is a bit steep but the second one isn't that significant. I've quickly crunched some numbers that give the following ratings (in terms of the decision about whether to favour the extra places); Captured at 0.74 v Calamint at 1.89. That's based on the gain in places (positive) and the reduction in price (negative) and the bigger the number the better the extra place option is. Out of interest, how do you racing punters feel about those two options. Would you tend towards the better price for the first one but the extra place for the second?

Thanks. I do tend to look a bit deeper at the play-offs with the volume of games dropping a bit and the teams being less familiar. I'll push my luck and hope that I didn't just fluke those recent winners!