Dick Schmidt
06-20-2002, 03:09 AM
Review of Toteboard Voodoo
Book by Charles Ubil
Review by Dick Schmidt
After I got this book, I remembered why I never used to let authors send me free copies of a book or computer program. It makes me feel beholding to them. Charles Ubil (Camptownraces) was nice enough to send me a copy of his book and now I’m going to pay him back by giving it a bad review. Not very polite, but if I pull my punches because Charles is willing to let it all hang out for everyone to see, many of you might buy a book that isn’t at all what you expect. So I’m going to be honest. Sorry, Charles.
Before starting, I must admit to a prejudice about toteboard play. It seems to me that what you are doing is letting the tote (public) make your choices for you. It takes away some of the pressure by offloading it onto “them”, but I like to feel that I can do better than the public. If I can’t, I see no reason to play at all. Now, let’s get into the book.
First off, there isn’t much to this book. Literally. It is 56 pages, each page is 5 by 8 inches and a lot of it is printed in a large font. The first 15 pages contain such gems as what a daily double is, what an exacta consists of and other tidbits most of us learned on our first trip to the track. He goes on to explain such esoteric bets as an exacta key and dutching three horses when you don’t think the favorite will win. This whole book could be boiled down to 5 or 6 magazine pages.
He provides 10 examples, one each for his Main Patterns. He then tells you that if you want more examples, he has a couple more books to sell you with lots of patterns. I really hate that. For $50, I’d think he could afford to send along a couple hundred examples. Anyway, all this is just me being picky. Who cares how long the book is or what I think if the stuff really works? So I sat down and recorded patterns using BRIS tote. I wrote down odds until I was seeing numbers in my sleep. This is a LOT of work. Maybe not so bad doing just one track, but I did 50 races in two days and damn near went blind. How’d I do? Well, I cashed some $4 and $5 tickets, but most of the time I was just confused. Had I been betting, and played every race where I had some inkling of which pattern was showing, I’d have lost about 25% on the day. The good news is that I’d have passed almost half of the races where I could find no pattern at all.
Time after time, I’d look for patterns and just not find any. Most of the time, the morning line favorite opened as the betting favorite, stayed right there until the 3 minute mark (when the book tells you to go make your bet) and then the horse either won or lost in random fashion. Even after I knew the winners, I couldn’t find a match to any of the patterns. Believe me, as an old Sartin guy, I’m real good at handicapping once I know the winner. I almost never loose. Not this time.
Let me show you what I’m talking about with a short excerpt. I hope the formatting comes out OK. The first number is the number of the horse, followed by the morning line and then 8 different sets of odds, taken starting at 10 minutes to post and counting down to 3 minutes to go.
1 – 10 - 7 / 7 / 7 / 7 / 7 / 8 / 8 / 7
2 –9\2 – 11 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 9 / 9 / 7
3 – 12 - 5 / 6 / 6 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 5
4 – 5\2 – 3 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 2
5 – 15 - 25 / 25 / 25 / 25 / 25 / 22 / 22 / 22
6 – 8\5 - 8\5 / 8\5 / 8\5 / 9\5 / 9\5 / 9\5 / 9\5 / 2
7 – 20 – 40 / 40 / 40 / 40 / 40 / 45 / 45 / 50
8 – 8 – 9\2 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 5
“Take a look at this race. Looks like the favorites are well separated from the rest of the field, right? Yes, they are. However, you had better take a closer look at the subtle hints the public will reveal to you.
“So how is this race different than the last one?
“Well, first and foremost, the Morning Line Favorite is overlayed, not bet down like the last one was. Also, the second favorite in the betting was dropping in odds to end up tying the betting favorite for the favoritism. This clearly shows you that the Publics confidence level was not as high as it was on the betting favorite in that last race you just looked at.
“Another BIG factor is that this race was a cheap race.
“This is the 10th Race from Golden Gate, on December 12, 1999. They were 3 years old and up $3,250 claimers with a purse of $6,500 going 6 furlongs.
“Like I said, a cheap race.
“This is when you use the Favorite Split Wagering Formula.”
Got that? I sure don’t understand it well enough to make a bet based on what I just read. Oh, I can see the two favorites, but the pattern recognition is hard. If I see this pattern in a high class race, do I do something else? If I like the odds, can I bet both favorites to win? Lots of unanswered questions. Also, I don’t think a horse is overlayed just because it is above its morning line odds. Obviously Ubil doesn’t understand what a morning line actually is.
Anyway, he goes on to key the two favorites over the 3rd, 4th and 5th odds horses (the 1, 3 and 8) in exacta boxes, somehow figuring that “what is being said here is that we know one of the favorites is good”. Just how we know this must be in another book. Just how we know one of the favorites won’t run second isn’t mentioned either. So we bet our $24 exacta box and the four horse wins, pays $7, with the three second to key a $39 exacta. This is considered an outstanding example of toteboard handicapping. We would make more money betting both horses to win, but this is the “proper” way to bet this pattern. The above example, by the way, took almost a page and a half in this 56 page book, if you want to see how dense the information is packed.
Now, to be fair, it may be that you need to do this for hundreds of races to develop an eye for the patterns. If so, what do you need this book for? If you have to learn it on your own, and the book doesn’t really give you much of a head start, skip the book. This is the ultimate “soft focus, let the patterns emerge, let the race speak to you” kind of playing there is. Voodoo is really a good name for it. It reminds me of some of Huey Mahl’s poorer work. No stats, no tests, nothing TO really test. Only Huey would have sold it for $3 and somewhere buried in there would be a couple of really good tips on how to recognize at least some of the patterns, plus better betting advice. After investing two days without noticeable improvement or any indication of profits to come, I decided I couldn’t afford to give Toteboard Voodoo any more time.
Let me conclude as Mr. Ubil concludes. “Knowing Which Formulas to use for Which Patterns can be tricky . . . Again and Again, I will say that it just Takes PRACTICE!” “I just can’t say it enough! ‘Paper Bet’ for as long as it takes to get familiar with the Patterns that are being created at your favorite track. As all as (sic) it will cost you is your time.”
It seems to me that you could “Practice, Practice, Practice” for a long time before you figured this stuff out. Or you could use the time to learn to handicap. Buy this book only if you really like looking at lots and lots of rows and rows of numbers and are convinced that everyone else at the track knows more than you do.
Book by Charles Ubil
Review by Dick Schmidt
After I got this book, I remembered why I never used to let authors send me free copies of a book or computer program. It makes me feel beholding to them. Charles Ubil (Camptownraces) was nice enough to send me a copy of his book and now I’m going to pay him back by giving it a bad review. Not very polite, but if I pull my punches because Charles is willing to let it all hang out for everyone to see, many of you might buy a book that isn’t at all what you expect. So I’m going to be honest. Sorry, Charles.
Before starting, I must admit to a prejudice about toteboard play. It seems to me that what you are doing is letting the tote (public) make your choices for you. It takes away some of the pressure by offloading it onto “them”, but I like to feel that I can do better than the public. If I can’t, I see no reason to play at all. Now, let’s get into the book.
First off, there isn’t much to this book. Literally. It is 56 pages, each page is 5 by 8 inches and a lot of it is printed in a large font. The first 15 pages contain such gems as what a daily double is, what an exacta consists of and other tidbits most of us learned on our first trip to the track. He goes on to explain such esoteric bets as an exacta key and dutching three horses when you don’t think the favorite will win. This whole book could be boiled down to 5 or 6 magazine pages.
He provides 10 examples, one each for his Main Patterns. He then tells you that if you want more examples, he has a couple more books to sell you with lots of patterns. I really hate that. For $50, I’d think he could afford to send along a couple hundred examples. Anyway, all this is just me being picky. Who cares how long the book is or what I think if the stuff really works? So I sat down and recorded patterns using BRIS tote. I wrote down odds until I was seeing numbers in my sleep. This is a LOT of work. Maybe not so bad doing just one track, but I did 50 races in two days and damn near went blind. How’d I do? Well, I cashed some $4 and $5 tickets, but most of the time I was just confused. Had I been betting, and played every race where I had some inkling of which pattern was showing, I’d have lost about 25% on the day. The good news is that I’d have passed almost half of the races where I could find no pattern at all.
Time after time, I’d look for patterns and just not find any. Most of the time, the morning line favorite opened as the betting favorite, stayed right there until the 3 minute mark (when the book tells you to go make your bet) and then the horse either won or lost in random fashion. Even after I knew the winners, I couldn’t find a match to any of the patterns. Believe me, as an old Sartin guy, I’m real good at handicapping once I know the winner. I almost never loose. Not this time.
Let me show you what I’m talking about with a short excerpt. I hope the formatting comes out OK. The first number is the number of the horse, followed by the morning line and then 8 different sets of odds, taken starting at 10 minutes to post and counting down to 3 minutes to go.
1 – 10 - 7 / 7 / 7 / 7 / 7 / 8 / 8 / 7
2 –9\2 – 11 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 9 / 9 / 7
3 – 12 - 5 / 6 / 6 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 5
4 – 5\2 – 3 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 2
5 – 15 - 25 / 25 / 25 / 25 / 25 / 22 / 22 / 22
6 – 8\5 - 8\5 / 8\5 / 8\5 / 9\5 / 9\5 / 9\5 / 9\5 / 2
7 – 20 – 40 / 40 / 40 / 40 / 40 / 45 / 45 / 50
8 – 8 – 9\2 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 5
“Take a look at this race. Looks like the favorites are well separated from the rest of the field, right? Yes, they are. However, you had better take a closer look at the subtle hints the public will reveal to you.
“So how is this race different than the last one?
“Well, first and foremost, the Morning Line Favorite is overlayed, not bet down like the last one was. Also, the second favorite in the betting was dropping in odds to end up tying the betting favorite for the favoritism. This clearly shows you that the Publics confidence level was not as high as it was on the betting favorite in that last race you just looked at.
“Another BIG factor is that this race was a cheap race.
“This is the 10th Race from Golden Gate, on December 12, 1999. They were 3 years old and up $3,250 claimers with a purse of $6,500 going 6 furlongs.
“Like I said, a cheap race.
“This is when you use the Favorite Split Wagering Formula.”
Got that? I sure don’t understand it well enough to make a bet based on what I just read. Oh, I can see the two favorites, but the pattern recognition is hard. If I see this pattern in a high class race, do I do something else? If I like the odds, can I bet both favorites to win? Lots of unanswered questions. Also, I don’t think a horse is overlayed just because it is above its morning line odds. Obviously Ubil doesn’t understand what a morning line actually is.
Anyway, he goes on to key the two favorites over the 3rd, 4th and 5th odds horses (the 1, 3 and 8) in exacta boxes, somehow figuring that “what is being said here is that we know one of the favorites is good”. Just how we know this must be in another book. Just how we know one of the favorites won’t run second isn’t mentioned either. So we bet our $24 exacta box and the four horse wins, pays $7, with the three second to key a $39 exacta. This is considered an outstanding example of toteboard handicapping. We would make more money betting both horses to win, but this is the “proper” way to bet this pattern. The above example, by the way, took almost a page and a half in this 56 page book, if you want to see how dense the information is packed.
Now, to be fair, it may be that you need to do this for hundreds of races to develop an eye for the patterns. If so, what do you need this book for? If you have to learn it on your own, and the book doesn’t really give you much of a head start, skip the book. This is the ultimate “soft focus, let the patterns emerge, let the race speak to you” kind of playing there is. Voodoo is really a good name for it. It reminds me of some of Huey Mahl’s poorer work. No stats, no tests, nothing TO really test. Only Huey would have sold it for $3 and somewhere buried in there would be a couple of really good tips on how to recognize at least some of the patterns, plus better betting advice. After investing two days without noticeable improvement or any indication of profits to come, I decided I couldn’t afford to give Toteboard Voodoo any more time.
Let me conclude as Mr. Ubil concludes. “Knowing Which Formulas to use for Which Patterns can be tricky . . . Again and Again, I will say that it just Takes PRACTICE!” “I just can’t say it enough! ‘Paper Bet’ for as long as it takes to get familiar with the Patterns that are being created at your favorite track. As all as (sic) it will cost you is your time.”
It seems to me that you could “Practice, Practice, Practice” for a long time before you figured this stuff out. Or you could use the time to learn to handicap. Buy this book only if you really like looking at lots and lots of rows and rows of numbers and are convinced that everyone else at the track knows more than you do.