Burton Fabricand ?

[HIGH ROLLER]

hi, anybody read his book the "scientific method to winning".

or any of his other books?

anyone willing to sell or trade them?

[timtam]

Hey,
Your not going to believe this but I have the book Science of Winning

Too bad I didn't mention it sooner

[midnight]

I don't remember the title, but the one I read outlined a way of identifying a favorite where many other horses in the race looked just as good as the favorite did. The idea was that the favorite was low odds becuase "inside money" was being bet. The problem was that there were 10 zillion rules to follow. I think he did come out with a simplified version later. It was way too complicated for me.

[GameTheory]

That was the simplified version, I think. That was has second (horse racing) book -- the first was Horse Sense (that book that has destroyed the mind of formula_2002, so be careful).

Fabricand is a waste of time, IMO....

[Derek2U]

I think that was the book by that scientist Fabricand I read with
a thousand explanations of why a horse was bet. All those rules
sounded logical but hey who knows? This weekend that Dutrow
horse who won the Philly Race got very low ratings but romped
at 13:1 .... SPEED ... what are its disguises? Where is the race?
etc etc ... That's the art of speed. lol I rarely bet outside of ny
races but that winner was Easy. Too tempting & did what he was
gonna do by wire to wire running. Too bad Smarty wasn't there.

[Dave Schwartz]

Permit me to tell a short story about those books.

A good friend of mine, both horse player and computer programmer, decided to write a program that actually applied the "Principle of Maximum Confusion." Anyone who has ever read the book can tell you how confusing the rules are.

Anyway, he worked at it for quite awhile and finally came to the conclusion that there were several conflicting rules... that the system was not truly useable.

Jointly, we felt that BPF had built the perfect system hustle... a system that could never be tested.


Regards,
Dave Schwartz

[wes]

Dave:
sounds like some of the programs I used in the past.

wes

[timtam]

Thanks for that post Dave. I had the book Science of Winning and could not make heads or tails out of it because of the conflicting rules. Before I become familiar that this is a trick used by system writers I figured it was something I was doing wrong. Later when I couldn't come up with the winning % of some of RPM's systems I didn't feel too bad.

[midnight]

Let's say Jack X have a database of races at most major and intermediate tracks in North America from 1995 to now. We'll call it 55,000 races a year, or over 500,000 races to date.

Now Jack X comes up with a system that makes some handicapping sense. Say, horses that were within a length of the leader at the first and second calls of their last race, who have one of the top three speed ratings, have a 10%+ trainer, and have raced in the past 30 days.

Jack X hase hisdatabase spit out month-by-month results for the past ten years and find that in June of 2001 it almost shows a profit: about 0.98 ROI. He goes into that month and does a track-by-track result. He sees that it worked well at Hollywood, Belmont, Arlington, Monmouth, and Delaware. It did poorly or breakeven everywhere else, including Calder, Pimlico, Lousiana, North California, and Churchill.

So Jack X publishes the system with a 30 day "workout" that includes the "good" tracks and claim an ROI of 42% profit (1.42). The reader possibly assumes that the system was written in 2001 and that the workout was taken then. And of course the system is a loser.

You can draw your own conclusions (this example isn't directed to anybody in particular, nor do I intend to implicate anybody in particuolar, especially not to anybody who's participated in this thread).

[timtam]

I just received my copy of Exotic Wagering by Tom Walters and noticed the Science of Winning was redistributed in 2003. I actually traded this book with High Roller over a month ago because I couldn't make heads or tails out of it. I wonder if anything has been updated or is it still the same old same old from 20 yrs ago? Is it any better and less confusing??

[formula_2002]

That was the simplified version, I think. That was has second (horse racing) book -- the first was Horse Sense (that book that has destroyed the mind of formula_2002, so be careful).

Fabricand is a waste of time, IMO....

And it has maintained finicial well being.:coffee: ignore Fabricand and you ignore much of reality.

[thaskalos]

What amazes me about Fabricand's work is that it has remained in print for all these years. I thought useless books had a shorter circulation life.

[formula_2002]

Permit me to tell a short story about those books.

A good friend of mine, both horse player and computer programmer, decided to write a program that actually applied the "Principle of Maximum Confusion." Anyone who has ever read the book can tell you how confusing the rules are.

Anyway, he worked at it for quite awhile and finally came to the conclusion that there were several conflicting rules... that the system was not truly useable.

Jointly, we felt that BPF had built the perfect system hustle... a system that could never be tested.


Regards,
Dave Schwartz

"FABRICAND--Burton Paul, Physicist, Economist, Financier, Author and WWII veteran was born in NYC on November 22, 1923. He died May 5, 2009 in New Milford, CT with his family by his side. Burt lived a remarkable life, and recently said he had accomplished everything he wanted in life. He held the degrees of A.B., A.M. and Ph.D. from Columbia University, and was Professor Emeritus at Pratt Institute. He was an expert in many areas and has been published widely in the fields of atomic and nuclear physics, oceanography, finance, free market economic theory, chaos theory, and, most notably, horse racing and the stock market. "

We had a bit of correspondence together.
Definitely not hustle qualified.