Strategies for PL Racing Comps

[Trotter]

Following some comments in the York Leaderboard thread and recently in the thread in the Football section relating to reorganisation of the forum sub-sections I thought it might be interesting to have a red hot debate about strategies for competing in the PL Racing comps

If the Mods think this is just too navel-gazing, then delete it !

So we have 

Monthly Naps Comp
Monthly Naps Most Winners Comp
Big Meeting Comps, eg Royal Ascot, Cheltenham etc

My view is that for the monthly naps comp you need to be winning over 30 points to be in with a chance. You're not going to do this by picking favourites or 2/1, 3/1 shots ....... you're going to need some big priced winners. When I used to win this in the olden days my strategy was to concentrate on horses priced 5/1 to 10/1 with an occasional 16/1 or 33/1 shot chucked in as a Hail Mary. But I can see a feasible strategy might be just to go for 33/1 and above selections and hope you get two in a month, which should get you into the 30s for profit. Of course you have to be open to changing your strategy as the month progresses ........ eg if you get a 33/1 winner in the early days you'd want to revert to more realistic selections to stay in the 30s and maybe win another few quid over the remaining days

Naps - Most Winners. Well I did win this last month and have been close a couple of times. The first thing to say is that if you go for this you are ruling yourself out of the main Monthly Naps Comp because there's no way you're going to get to 30-odd points. My strategy of late has been to try and get to the 10 points qualifying early by picking reasonable priced 3/1, 4/1 shots ....... and then concentrate on the number of winners by taking any 'dead certs' on offer regardless of price. I can see some people would go the other way ...... try and get your numbers up first then worry about reaching reaching 10 points. This played out last month when I was way ahead on the money but my closest challenger was way ahead on the numbers ...... towards the end of the month I was going for 'dead certs' to get my numbers up and he was going for bigger priced ones to try and reach the 10 points........ both strategies can work 

Big Meeting Comps ...... a bit similar to the Monthly Naps but on steroids. Because these tend to be the most competitive races with big field handicaps and maidens this can be a bit pin-sticky. It's tempting to go for the short priced favourites in the smaller field group or grade races but even if they all win somebody will be having a 33/1 winner in handicap and you're miles behind unless you can also pick a 33/1 winner in a handicap. Must admit that I do find these comps the most difficult to get a clear idea of how to win largely because you can't avoid the big field handicaps which you can in the other comps. I haven't got much of a clear idea as to how to approach these comps, I just tend to pick something in the top half dozen in the betting and hope for the best but I think you are going to need at least one big priced winner to have a chance. These are tricky comps. I notice recently that you no longer have to make a selection in every race and that might an avenue worth thinking about. 

Hope the Mods are OK with this and it stimulates a bit of 'strategy discussion' 

[harry_rag]

1 hour ago, Trotter said:

If the Mods think this is just too navel-gazing, then delete it !

You're lucky, I'm in a good mood today! 

Re @The Equaliser's comparison of the York comp to a month in the naps comp, I think there are big differences. Everyone has to choose from the same races at a single meeting and potentially pick 7 selections. It's different to being able to cherry pick a single selection from anywhere. Also there's no option to go each way, take an early price or benefit from BOG. Nor is there the option to change tack towards the end of the month to keep what you've got. With 7 races on the last day anything can still happen,

If you priced up a match bet between an expert and a pin-sticker it would be much closer to evens each of two in the York style comp than it would in the naps I think. 

I agree that you need the big prices more in the former, obviously to have best chance of a daily prize and also, ultimately, the best chance of winning outright. I did ok this time (with a degree of good fortune no doubt) by staying within the 10/1 band but I'd push that out a bit next time.