New bet strategy for Harness

[Ray2000]

New bet strategy for Harness

Given: A race with a field of 8 or more horses.

Cover the program with a blank sheet of paper exposing only the 3 inside horses.

Use your best 'capping skills to make your pick among those 3, (using pplines, expected value, whatever)

Slide the blank paper down one horse.

If the 4 horse can beat your 'best of 3' ...STOP, DO NOT LOOK ANY FURTHER, you've found your bet.

If the 4 can't beat your inside pick, slide the paper down again.

Do this until you find a horse that's better than your inside pick then
STOP, DO NOT LOOK AT ANY OTHER OUTSIDE HORSES
Go to the Window..... :)



Any Merit?



A variation of the Secretary problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

[lamboguy]

it does have merit, but i still don't think its the way to win.

the way that i have played horses for the last 12 years is bet them all hours before the races go. for the first few years i had an ROI of negative 3% which is excellent in the world that i live in. as time goes by the minus 3% turned into minus 4%, the minus 4% turned into minus 5%, the minus 5% turned into minus 6%, the minus 6% turned into minus 7% and the way it looks to me it will be a lot worse the longer i go. i didn't do anything different, and at one time i regarded myself as one of the top horse player's around. a combination of things has prevented me from winning these days. the first thing is that i am playing against money that have great sets of numbers and great black box programs. also i am betting early because i don't have the time to watch the odds 10 seconds before post, and even if i did they change. i am not receiving value to most of my bets. the guys with the numbers have been able to incorporate all types of other data into their programs as well.

the other main factor that actually helped me was that i was able to predict where the after the bell money was going to go. that worked for about 4 years, now i notice that there are others that are doing the same thing and doing a better job at it than myself.

the structure of the game is that in order to have any type of chance to win you need to have top rebates. in order to get the rebates you have to produce enough business the wagering operation in order to warrant it. because the pools are so light these days it forces you into more smaller bets. it is a lot of work and frankly not even close to worth the effort that you have to put in.

the other thing that i do in this game is go to race tracks to watch horse work and train. when i am in the northeast i am limited to the New York, New Jersey and Parx race tracks. you get tired of traveling, but you can win doing that if you are real good at it. my recent problem has been that the horses that i have been betting seem to be running when the pools are at their smallest.

the wrap up is simple, your time could be better spent doing something else more constructive. even if you are a multimillionaire and have nothing better to do the game is still pretty boring these days and the characters that you come across these days tend to be self centered obnoxious A-holes.

[pandy]

[QUOTE=Ray2000]New bet strategy for Harness

Given: A race with a field of 8 or more horses.

Cover the program with a blank sheet of paper exposing only the 3 inside horses.

Use your best 'capping skills to make your pick among those 3, (using pplines, expected value, whatever)

Slide the blank paper down one horse.

If the 4 horse can beat your 'best of 3' ...STOP, DO NOT LOOK ANY FURTHER, you've found your bet.

If the 4 can't beat your inside pick, slide the paper down again.

Do this until you find a horse that's better than your inside pick then
STOP, DO NOT LOOK AT ANY OTHER OUTSIDE HORSES
Go to the Window..... :)



Any Merit?


On half mile tracks, I would stop after the 5 horse. On five eighth tracks, I would stop after the 6 or 7, depending on the track, usually the 6. On one mile tracks, at Cal Expo and the Meadowlands, I'd stop after the 6. Balmoral is wide open.

[Ray2000]

Good numbers pandy.

Tracksize would play a part in setting up this math puzzle. When I started thinking about this I thought the Secretary problem should work for T-breds but even work better for Standardbreds because of the inside post advantage. I was going to set it up as a match race analysis, (head to head) and use only the 2 insiders to begin but decided on the inside 3*. The rub is you have to be a "good" enough 'capper to separate the 'head to head's or in this case, a 3 horse field to start.

The gimmick here is "If the next post horse will beat your current choice" you aren't allowed to look any further. The chance of already having the winner is .40 in a 9 horse field* so bet it if you can get 3/2 odds. :rolleyes:

Think of the time you'll save pouring through speed and pace numbers..... :D


*See the n,r,P table at the Wiki link.



lambo

I hear you loud and clear, it mirrors my own fall off in ROIs

[pandy]

I'm of the opinion that on half mile tracks, posts 6, 7, 8 are rarely worth a bet. This is particularly true at Yonkers, and several other tracks. At Yonkers, for instance, I believe that many horses starting from those three outside posts are big underlays, and that there are overlays on horses from posts 1 through 5. At Yonkers, and Pocono, some of the juice trainers offset that a bit. When Lou Pena was hot, you could bet his horses from any post and now you have these trainers who appear to be Pena beards or clones, like Garcia Herrera, and his horses will go huge miles and have a chance from the outside.

[jetskijoe]

You make a good point at Yonkers. Looking at the Races from Saturday only 2 horses won from the 6 post the rest won from inside. Out of the 12 races only 6 horses from a 6, 7, or 8 post were even in the money.

[pandy]

You make a good point at Yonkers. Looking at the Races from Saturday only 2 horses won from the 6 post the rest won from inside. Out of the 12 races only 6 horses from a 6, 7, or 8 post were even in the money.


That was actually pretty good. I've seek weeks were no horses won from post 7 or 8 at all.

[Ray2000]

Welcome Joe

Yonkers may be the worst of the half mile tracks because of the short distance from the start to the 1st turn. Outside leavers take a high chance of getting parked. This has always seemed strange to me because of all the half mile tracks, Yonkers has the longest home stretch. (according to USTA and SBC figures)

Track..Distance (feet)
BANG...520
GRVR...350
HAR....440
NFLD...440
NOR....440
OD.....440
SCAR...440
LEB....461
FHLD...480
BTVA...500
MR.....500
STGA...550
MAY....594
FLMD...600
LON....600
BR.....640
YR.....660

[badcompany]

The problem I see with betting Yonkers is that the first 1/4 is extremely inside speed favoring but you can't bet the line up numbers because the extended stretch makes it very common for a horse to come out of the clouds, get second or third and ruin your ticket.

[traynor]

J think that is is possible--with a bit of serious research--to develop a set of track-specific algorithms to "equalize" post position into a non-issue. It is a bit of work, but no more complex than making accurate (emphasis on "accurate") distance adjustments for thoroughbreds. If you want to cash tickets, you have to do what you have to do.

Translated into plain English, that means that a horse in PP6 at Yonkers has to be X better than if that horse were in PP3 at Yonkers to be considered a prime (or primary contender) for win. It isn't easy, but like many other things in racing, well worth the effort for those willing to invest the time and thought necessary.

The end goal (of this particular activity) is to factor out post position as a criteria, and make comparisons based on other factors/attributes.

[mrroyboy]

As usual I am confused Ray. Can you explain this a little more?

[coachv30]

I've been doing something similar with Trifectas. If I don't have time to handicap a race, I 'll pull up a 1/2 mile or 5/8 track and look for a heavy favorite (2/5, 3/2 , etc...) on the inside with less than 2 mins. to post. I will put this horse in front of a TRI cartwheel.

I will then put the horse with the next lowest odds as well as the next horse with the lowest odds from the inside as well in the second spot of the cartwheel.

On the end, I will then use the next three horses from the inside to round it off. Here is an example below:

1- 14/1

2- 2/5

3- 5/1

4- 12/1

5- 4/1

6- 17/1

7- 9/1

8- 28/1

TRI- :2: // :3: , :5: // :1: , :3: , :4: , :5: , :6:

I've had some success with this.

[coachv30]

I'm gonna test it out right now at Pocono with 1 Min to go....

4- 4/5

6- 2/1

3- 9/1

TRI :4: // :3: :6: // :1: :2: :3: :5: :6:

[coachv30]

I'm gonna test it out right now at Pocono with 1 Min to go....

4- 4/5

6- 2/1

3- 9/1

TRI :4: // :3: :6: // :1: :2: :3: :5: :6:

:6: ended up going off as the 4/5 favorite over the :4: at 7/5.

Result was :6: :4: :2:

:6: by a nose

[Ray2000]

coach

I was sadly watching PENS hockey so didn't get to follow along. I've used a similar approach to the trifecta when finding a race with an odds on favorite who makes breaks. That is to look for the best 2 horses (A&B) with high chances to place (insiders preferred) should the fave jump and play it this way.

A-B-all
A-all B
B-A-all
all-A-B

If A places and B Shows you have all tickets covered.
If the fave wins you might get your money back.
If he jumps, you might get a popper price.

roy

I'll leave the egghead probability theories alone and just say if you think the 4 or 5 can/will beat the 1 2 or 3 in Harness, you might as well ignore the outside horses and play the best insider.

[mrroyboy]

That's pretty much what I thought Ray. It does seem too simplistic.

[traynor]

coach

I was sadly watching PENS hockey so didn't get to follow along. I've used a similar approach to the trifecta when finding a race with an odds on favorite who makes breaks. That is to look for the best 2 horses (A&B) with high chances to place (insiders preferred) should the fave jump and play it this way.

A-B-all
A-all B
B-A-all
all-A-B

If A places and B Shows you have all tickets covered.
If the fave wins you might get your money back.
If he jumps, you might get a popper price.

roy

I'll leave the egghead probability theories alone and just say if you think the 4 or 5 can/will beat the 1 2 or 3 in Harness, you might as well ignore the outside horses and play the best insider.

Way back, a major harness writer wrote about a (successful) harness bettor he knew that routinely cut off the outside posts from his program to "avoid being distracted."

However, that was way back. The reality in 2014 is that knowledge of the "inside post bias" is so prevalent that opportunities are created when decent horses are in outer posts (or other circumstances--such as heavy rain in Buffalo--make the inner posts less advantageous). And earning opportunities are diminished when those decent horse are on the inside, because the inner post advantage is assumed to be greater than it actually may be.

This is an area in which big piles of stats uncritically combed yield results that may be less useful than they seem. A post closer to the rail may be an advantage to a fit horse ready to win. An outer post is not so much a disadvantage to that same horse that it can be ignored. For most horses, it doesn't really matter what post they are in--they are going to perform much as expected anyway.

[pandy]

Years ago I made most of my profit betting posts 7 and 8, on half mile tracks. But now, I would think that you would need to be so selective to the point where you are maybe betting 3 or 4 horses from posts 7 and 8 for every 100 bets, at most. When I bet outside horses years ago, I bet them because they were either the sharpest horse in the race and good odds, or one of the sharpest horses in the race, and very good odds. But, now, it doesn't matter. A horse has to be a monster to win from the outside posts. At Yonkers, post 8 is winning at 2%. How'd you like to rip up 98% of your tickets?