View Full Version : Weight loss, psychology, and winning at the track
anotherdave
03-01-2002, 10:55 AM
Well there's a topic. About 4 weeks ago I started a diet to lose about 20 pounds. As the diet progressed I would be doing pretty good and then I'd cheat a bit and that would screw up all the loss I have achieved. Result after 2 weeks - I gained a pound. (How many times have I had a nice winning streak then messed it up with some idiotic bets?)
The last 2 weeks I have lost 6 pounds.
I got serious at the 2 week mark. What I realized is that if you are going to be successful at this you can't cheat. It was actually pretty easy once I focussed on the task at hand.
Same goes for the races. If I seriously want to make money, I can't start making a bunch of "action" bets. Every bet I make must help me reach my goal of profitability. Every bet must be a true overlay to me.
Think of the large fries and 2 Quarter pounders as a stupid bet you made because you were bored. When all is said and done, you are going to regret those quarter pounders. And at the end of the year when I look over my bets and see a bunch of stupid, even insane wagers that no one with a brain in his head would make, there certainly is regret. Hopefully it won't happen much anymore.
How is that for pop psychology? (On that topic, does anyone have any recommendations for a good psychology of winning at the races book?)
AD
ranchwest
03-01-2002, 11:12 AM
Being successful is easy. All you have to do is commit to working just half a day.
You can choose the first 12 hours or the last 12 hours, makes no difference.
so.cal.fan
03-01-2002, 11:47 AM
Anotherdave:
Sounds like a great idea for a book?
Really. I'd sure buy it. LOL
anotherdave
03-01-2002, 11:57 AM
Originally posted by so.cal.fan
Anotherdave:
Sounds like a great idea for a book?
Really. I'd sure buy it. LOL
But it might have too limited a scope. Wouldn't my only prospective customers be overweight handicappers?:)
so.cal.fan
03-01-2002, 01:07 PM
No, Dave, it could be transferred to any compulsive behavior.
Thoughtless stock trades, compulsive shopping, using your credit card to buy lottery tickets.
I think you have come up with something.
You should give it more thought.
Besides, let's take a poll.
How many of our board members are overweight or think they are overweight!
Let's re-phrase that: how many have eating disorders?
This could be interesting. Please be honest you guys.
anotherdave
03-01-2002, 01:33 PM
What really hit me was that I am getting prepared for a major assault on the track and yet I can't focus enough to lose a few pounds. How am I supposed to be successful and disciplined at an extremely difficult endeavour like being profitable at the track when I can't manage to be disciplined enough to lose a few pounds. (admittedly that isn't easy, but it is way easier than winning at the track- if I offered you $5000 to lose 5 pounds this month you'd do it. But if I offered you $5000 if you made $5000 at the track, not so easy)
Hey those $5000 offers are purely hypothetical!
AD
Jeff P
03-01-2002, 09:45 PM
AD-
Early on in my racing 'career' an old man asked me what one single factor did I consider to be the most important in racing. Without much hesitaion I answered 'speed.' He shook his head and told me I was absolutely wrong. 'Discipline,' he said, 'is the single most important factor. Without it, young man, you'll never stand a chance.'
It wasn't until years later that I fully understood just how right he was.
A winning tennis player hypothetically can lose every game where he holds serve merely by double faulting both serves into the net. Same is true with a winning horseplayer. Action bets (win or lose) are not much different than a second serve that goes into the net. Whenever I record a stupid losing 'action bet' I always write the letters "DF" next to it. (You figure out what the DF stands for or who the DF is that decided to make the bet in the first place.) It's my way of reducing the likelihood of making more 'action bets' in the future.
If you keep records, at the end of the day, it's always sobering to review the sheet listing out the bets that were made and to realize how much money was wasted on 'action bets.' It's often even more sobering to realize how much more could have been made, over the course of a meet, if you were to take the money that was wasted on action bets and bet it to win, instead, on the two or three true overlays that you came to the track to play each day in the first place.
Originally posted by anotherdave
Think of the large fries and 2 Quarter pounders as a stupid bet you made because you were bored. When all is said and done, you are going to regret those quarter pounders. And at the end of the year when I look over my bets and see a bunch of stupid, even insane wagers that no one with a brain in his head would make, there certainly is regret. Hopefully it won't happen much anymore.
AD
Hey, AD.....careful there....you are talking about quarter pounders and fries here. Let's show a little respect, ok???????
Some topics are off limits!!!!!
(Does that answer your question about "eating disorders?)
~G~ :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Tom
GameTheory
03-01-2002, 10:01 PM
You will really have achieved true wisdom when you start putting "DF" next to your *winning* action bets... :)
Jeff P
03-01-2002, 10:43 PM
You will really have achieved true wisdom when you start putting "DF" next to your *winning* action bets...
The most dangerous thing for me is a 'winning' action bet. It only entices me to try another somewhere down the line. I keep pretty thorough records of what I bet and why. I know from experience that my 'action bets' - even those that follow a profitable train of thought- return nowhere close (from an ROI standpoint) to what my 'real overlays' do. Historically, and I can only speak for myself, I'd be far better off to not make ANY action bets at all and simply sit and watch until a 'real overlay' comes up. Thing is, that takes an awful lot of self discipline. And for me, the battle within is the hardest part of this game.
FortuneHunter
03-02-2002, 12:02 AM
What is the difference between a bet and a action bet, win or lose??
Jeff P
03-02-2002, 02:05 AM
What is the difference between a bet and a action bet, win or lose??
Before heading for the track or OTB, I'll sit down and spend some time working through the specific race cards that I wish to play. During this process, I'll isolate specific horses in specific races that I feel have hidden advantages and create a loose oddsline for each of these specific situations. These, then, are my potential plays or bets. They are specific horses in specific races that I went to the track that day with the intention of playing. As each race comes up, I check the toteboard odds against my own oddsline. If the actual odds are greater than my own oddsline I then have what I would define as a real overlay and I make a bet.
The 'action bet' that I refer to is quite a different animal altogether. While waiting for one of my real bets as described above to come up, boredom begins to set in. I start looking at the TV monitors. Maybe I notice a first timer on the track who physically looks so good that I take a second look at the past performances. I notice that there is a nice work pattern. I then look at the toteboard. The horse is going off at good odds. A thought enters my head. What if this animal wins? This isn't a race that I was going to play to begin with. Can I pick up some small change here? If I make a small wager on this animal, win or lose, I would call this an 'action bet.'
The difference is quite clear. I went to the track that day with a very specific plan of attack. I know from experience and my database that if I follow that plan of attack to the letter and do nothing else that it leads to some very nice profits. Action bets are anything else that I do outside that plan of attack.
superfecta
03-02-2002, 02:13 AM
Originally posted by FortuneHunter
What is the difference between a bet and a action bet, win or lose??
A bet is thought out,weighing the odds of sucess,against the profit to be made.Action bets are strictly lottery tickets.If you don't have an iron ass,get one.It will be one of the most profitable tools at the races.Mental stability is probably the key to a winning season at the track.Better than the perfect winning system.
Hold the phone=-this is game isn't it? I like to have some fun, too.
I keep a seperate Action-Bet bankroll and I fully expect to lose every cent of it. It exists for me to play with, to have fun with.
I look at this the same as if I go dinner and a movie, exept that I drop $40-$50 buck at the track and not at the restaurant and theater. Just becasue I am betting seriously to make money and track my results when I do doesn't mean I can"t play around at the same time. The winnings and losses are never mixed in with my real backroll. I am buying enmtertainment with one and investing wtih the other.
Tom
anotherdave
03-02-2002, 10:43 AM
Originally posted by Tom
Hold the phone=-this is game isn't it? I like to have some fun, too.
I keep a seperate Action-Bet bankroll and I fully expect to lose every cent of it. It exists for me to play with, to have fun with.
I look at this the same as if I go dinner and a movie, exept that I drop $40-$50 buck at the track and not at the restaurant and theater. Just becasue I am betting seriously to make money and track my results when I do doesn't mean I can"t play around at the same time. The winnings and losses are never mixed in with my real backroll. I am buying enmtertainment with one and investing wtih the other.
Tom
This is the Beyer concept from "Picking Winners". And I believe it might work. But not for me. The main problem I have is that if I start playing "prime bets" and "action bets" the dividing line between them becomes very fuzzy. My mind has trouble distinguishing the two and all of a sudden the action bets of $2 or $5 that I expect to lose become a prime bet of $100. That becomes scary. I refuse to make that mistake any more. So I don't make action bets. And worse if one of those action bets wins at a large price, I start to doubt why I didn't put the big bucks on it-that gets me into trouble.
I think action bets don't suit my personality. I consider betting at the track fun and a business, but to use a stock market analogy - If I research a stock and decide it is a good investment and make the investment, but at the same time I see some stock that I haven't done enough research on and invest in it, that wouldn't be wise (for me!)
I'm not really disagreeing with you, Tom. I just can't deal with them properly. I tried for many years and messed up too often. I think we have to play to fit our personalities. And if small action bets make a handicapper more at ease and have a better time and make him better able to make good prime wagers - great!
And yes playing the races should be fun and it always has been for me, win or lose. But the last few years that I have made a profit have been the most fun ever.
My advice is to play exactas and pick 3's if you want to have action in every race. I only get about 3 win bets per day but I can play just about every other race with the other types of bets. If I'm at the track or a race book I'm there for fun and want the extra action. If I'm betting on the phone or internet from home I'm more disciplined. Of course some races don't have any overlays, but most races have something in the exotics. Just don't bet too many combinations.
Jeff P
03-02-2002, 11:45 AM
Another detrimental effect of action bets, beyond the small dollar amount won or lost, at least in my case, is one of focus that is lost or diverted elsewhere.
Let's say that I have downloaded five or six race cards and have worked my way through them, identifying several possible prime bets at each track beforehand. Now my job is simple- to sit and wait until they come up- check the odds and physical appearance for each horse- and bet accordingly. Not too tough of an assignment. It's work, but definitely worth it.
But now let's introduce double, pick three, or exactas as 'action bets' into the mix. What does the combination pay? While watching the TV at track A for upcoming pick three, double, or exacta will pays (cause I was lucky enough to be 'live' in the first two legs if it's a pick three) the horses are coming onto the track at track B and C. They're going to the gate at track C. They're in the stretch at track D.
Suddenly I'm not doing the job that I came to do. I miss my chance to look at and judge the condition of a horse I might want to play as a prime bet at track B. Let's say he's washed out or walking short, or displaying any number of other possible physical problems, and I miss that simply because my focus was diverted elsewhere. The result is that I end up playing the horse as a prime bet based on the odds. He runs for four furlongs and stops badly. He had no chance to begin with and I would have passed on him had I taken the time to look at him. A bet is lost that otherwise never would have been made.
But wait, it gets far worse than that. How many of us have ever missed a nice priced winner that we wanted to play because we were distracted? There's no feeling on earth quite like that. Believe me. I know. It happens.
If you want to take your betting seriously at the track (and I understand that for most it is just a game and entertainment so not everybody does) I think that 'action bets' have to be your very first throw out of the day.
Jeff P,
When I'm at the track I sometimes get distracted by talking to people I'm there with. The better time I'm having the more likely I am to miss something, and I've been stung a few of times by important changes such as surface changes, scratches, and simultaneous post times at different tracks. But I really don't like being a loner, so I can live with a few mistakes. Going to the track is still primarily entertainment to me. I can be serious at home the rest of the time.
I agree that focus is probably most important handicapping factor and if I were making a living at the track I would never mess around with action bets. But the action bets are what keep me sane outside my real life job. The biggest problem I have is when I am winning on my action bets and losing on my real bets - that can throw you off. The mental game is the hardest one to play - if you can master that game, horse racing is a piece of cake. I look at ation bets at the healthier equivalent at stopping of for a few beers after work. I "drop in" to a track for a couple bets and relaxation, go home sober, and have a small chance of getting my money back.
Tom
Jeff P
03-03-2002, 12:07 PM
Rick-
Speaking of focus...
I once made a bet on a horse at AQU that I really felt strongly about. The horse was part of an entry (and I just couldn't believe that it was going off at almost 10-1, but there it was right on the TV monitor.) I didn't discover that my horse had been scratched at the gate until after the start of the race, when I kept looking for him, but couldn't see him. I had been in line, hoping not to get shut out, and was so 'focused' on the guy in line ahead of me calling out a seemingly infinite number of dollar trifecta combinations, that I never heard John Imbriale announce the scratch. (Other players later told me that he in fact did announce it and that there had been a slight delay while they carefully backed the hung up horse out of the gate.) Of course, the other half of the entry ran out of the money.
Sometimes, what can you do?
Jeff,
**it happens! Been there and done that one too.
Dr.Larry
03-03-2002, 08:25 PM
There is a difference between the plan and
desire to make money and the need for action.
The need for action can bury you after you have
luckily won money.
If you have a need for action, take a small amount
of money and go enjoy your action, but don't
mix this with serious wagering. Few of us are
emotional Supermen who can do both
As primarily an exotic bettor (exactas and tri's only), I play most races on a given day at the track(s) I may be playing. About the only races I skip are races with a bunch of first time starters.
I do admire those of you who can really separate "prime" bets from "action" wagers and most of what I am reading here coincides with that written in many racing books.
It has been my experience that the races that look so contentious that the horses are hard to separate have resulted in some of my best payoffs. On the other hand, horses that have that "can't lose" look for me are usually very low odds and many times do lose.
Guess my approach is very different from many on here. I don't think wrong, just different. It does amaze me how many "win" bettors we seem to have online percentagewise compared to my acquaintances at the track.
Jim
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