Dick Schmidt
07-04-2002, 05:33 AM
Continued from Part I of the review of the At The Races betting program.
Now let’s get down to boxing and wheeling our handicapped picks. Directly below the Low 2/3 etc. boxes is an exacta layout. This assumes a $2 exacta and in the top row displays the win payoffs for each horse. Down the left side are the three types of exactas you can use: Box, Wheel and Back-wheel. To box up to five horses, just click on their numbers in the top row and the program will dutch them for you. As with win, you can also hedge. In this case, hit the payoff in the exacta matrix above and it will turn blue and hedge (bet to break even) your bet on that combination. For the first time, exacta betting becomes a science, not a guess.
You wheel and back-wheel quite simply. Pick the number you want to key and the bets to all the other horses are displayed. If you want to both back and full wheel a horse, you need to do two separate calculations. Don’t forget to adjust your total bet size. If you choose to try the “Pitz” betting, where you use an exacta bet instead of a win bet, the Wheel command is perfect. Since this allows you to play many races with low priced favorites, this feature alone is worth the price of admission. And don’t forget the Back-Wheel instead of a place bet for those of you who bet win and place. Many times it is far more profitable to bet a horse to win and then back-wheel it in the exactas. More work, but also more money.
A new feature just added at my suggestion is the ability to part-wheel. I suggested it Tuesday night and had the new feature in place on Wednesday afternoon. Did I mention that these guys offer very good customer service? Well, they do. Anyway, click on the square labeled Wheel and the Wheel and Back-Wheel rows become Top and Bottom for an exacta part-wheel. You click on the horses you want to win, and then again on the horses you want to place. It is intelligent enough to allow the same horse to win and place without getting confused, and the dutch is perfect. If you want, say, the 1, 2 and 3 horses to win and the 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 horses to place, just enter them in exactly that way and the program will take care of everything. This was not an easy thing to add, and I’m impressed by the speed and accuracy of the upgrade.
If the race offers them, you also have click buttons for Daily Double and Quinella bets. They work just the same as the exacta screens and I’ll leave you to figure them out on your own. The part-wheel option was just added for Doubles as well. The last click button is Options, where you can set up the program to suit yourself. For those who like database research, you can save the data you have collected in a comma-delimited file at the touch of a key. That way you would have a record of the minute-by-minute changes in the pools, together with exacta, double and quinella information. For the database keeper who believes the answers are writ large in the toteboard lights, here is the answer to your prayers.
It is traditional in a review of any kind for the reviewer to find some fault with the book or computer program under scrutiny just to demonstrate he is a virtuous and righteous reviewer and not just a shill. OK, so here goes. I do have a couple of tiny faults I have found. I wish that on several of the screens I had the option of displaying odds instead of the payoff. They are both the same thing, I know, but I’ve been looking at odds for a very long time indeed and I’m quite familiar with them. Small thing, but there you are. I also wanted to complain about the inability of the program to dutch a part-wheel exacta, but Gary fixed it before I could get this into print.
So now I’m left with only the lame complaint that it is hard to bet when you have so many combinations, as when you dutch you of course get a different amount for each combination. That’s what dutching is all about. Three over five is 12 combinations. Add that to your win bets and you better start putting in bets early. Try to do it for three tracks all going off within 4 minutes of each other and it can be chaos. Now this isn’t the program’s fault, it’s just a fact of life, but you do need to plan ahead. Now if the betting services would just allow us to click a button and place all our bets electronically . . . Oh well, I can dream. That service isn’t available outside of North Dakota, and only for a very select few (like one, the famous Dakota Whale).
Well, I guess that about covers it. I didn’t mean to write a mini-manual here, but I do so very much like this program that I want it to succeed and I thought that a detailed description of what’s going on here might get people excited. I know everyone betting on any kind of serious level NEEDS this program. I just hope that after reading this, they WANT this program. It’s easy to get, you download it from their web site. Of course, it is very expensive. Free for 30 days, then the outrageous sum of $25 for using it through the end of 2003! If you order before September, they guarantee that the program fee will never be more than $25 a year. This has got to be the bargain of this new century.
As I said before several times, I have found both authors to be very helpful and responsive to any questions or suggestions. Several anonymous friends report the same experience. I know it’s not “sexy” like a new method for pickin’ horses, but if you’re serious about making money at the track you owe it to yourself to give this a try. The first taste is free, and after you’ve tried it, you’ll beg to be allowed to buy it. Here is their address for downloads and up-to-date information:
http://www.homebased2.com/atr/at_the_races.htm
To contact the authors:
For technical support contact Gary at: garypitz@hotmail.com
For questions on how to use AT THE RACES contact Jack at: amazing3@hotmail.com
Now let’s get down to boxing and wheeling our handicapped picks. Directly below the Low 2/3 etc. boxes is an exacta layout. This assumes a $2 exacta and in the top row displays the win payoffs for each horse. Down the left side are the three types of exactas you can use: Box, Wheel and Back-wheel. To box up to five horses, just click on their numbers in the top row and the program will dutch them for you. As with win, you can also hedge. In this case, hit the payoff in the exacta matrix above and it will turn blue and hedge (bet to break even) your bet on that combination. For the first time, exacta betting becomes a science, not a guess.
You wheel and back-wheel quite simply. Pick the number you want to key and the bets to all the other horses are displayed. If you want to both back and full wheel a horse, you need to do two separate calculations. Don’t forget to adjust your total bet size. If you choose to try the “Pitz” betting, where you use an exacta bet instead of a win bet, the Wheel command is perfect. Since this allows you to play many races with low priced favorites, this feature alone is worth the price of admission. And don’t forget the Back-Wheel instead of a place bet for those of you who bet win and place. Many times it is far more profitable to bet a horse to win and then back-wheel it in the exactas. More work, but also more money.
A new feature just added at my suggestion is the ability to part-wheel. I suggested it Tuesday night and had the new feature in place on Wednesday afternoon. Did I mention that these guys offer very good customer service? Well, they do. Anyway, click on the square labeled Wheel and the Wheel and Back-Wheel rows become Top and Bottom for an exacta part-wheel. You click on the horses you want to win, and then again on the horses you want to place. It is intelligent enough to allow the same horse to win and place without getting confused, and the dutch is perfect. If you want, say, the 1, 2 and 3 horses to win and the 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 horses to place, just enter them in exactly that way and the program will take care of everything. This was not an easy thing to add, and I’m impressed by the speed and accuracy of the upgrade.
If the race offers them, you also have click buttons for Daily Double and Quinella bets. They work just the same as the exacta screens and I’ll leave you to figure them out on your own. The part-wheel option was just added for Doubles as well. The last click button is Options, where you can set up the program to suit yourself. For those who like database research, you can save the data you have collected in a comma-delimited file at the touch of a key. That way you would have a record of the minute-by-minute changes in the pools, together with exacta, double and quinella information. For the database keeper who believes the answers are writ large in the toteboard lights, here is the answer to your prayers.
It is traditional in a review of any kind for the reviewer to find some fault with the book or computer program under scrutiny just to demonstrate he is a virtuous and righteous reviewer and not just a shill. OK, so here goes. I do have a couple of tiny faults I have found. I wish that on several of the screens I had the option of displaying odds instead of the payoff. They are both the same thing, I know, but I’ve been looking at odds for a very long time indeed and I’m quite familiar with them. Small thing, but there you are. I also wanted to complain about the inability of the program to dutch a part-wheel exacta, but Gary fixed it before I could get this into print.
So now I’m left with only the lame complaint that it is hard to bet when you have so many combinations, as when you dutch you of course get a different amount for each combination. That’s what dutching is all about. Three over five is 12 combinations. Add that to your win bets and you better start putting in bets early. Try to do it for three tracks all going off within 4 minutes of each other and it can be chaos. Now this isn’t the program’s fault, it’s just a fact of life, but you do need to plan ahead. Now if the betting services would just allow us to click a button and place all our bets electronically . . . Oh well, I can dream. That service isn’t available outside of North Dakota, and only for a very select few (like one, the famous Dakota Whale).
Well, I guess that about covers it. I didn’t mean to write a mini-manual here, but I do so very much like this program that I want it to succeed and I thought that a detailed description of what’s going on here might get people excited. I know everyone betting on any kind of serious level NEEDS this program. I just hope that after reading this, they WANT this program. It’s easy to get, you download it from their web site. Of course, it is very expensive. Free for 30 days, then the outrageous sum of $25 for using it through the end of 2003! If you order before September, they guarantee that the program fee will never be more than $25 a year. This has got to be the bargain of this new century.
As I said before several times, I have found both authors to be very helpful and responsive to any questions or suggestions. Several anonymous friends report the same experience. I know it’s not “sexy” like a new method for pickin’ horses, but if you’re serious about making money at the track you owe it to yourself to give this a try. The first taste is free, and after you’ve tried it, you’ll beg to be allowed to buy it. Here is their address for downloads and up-to-date information:
http://www.homebased2.com/atr/at_the_races.htm
To contact the authors:
For technical support contact Gary at: garypitz@hotmail.com
For questions on how to use AT THE RACES contact Jack at: amazing3@hotmail.com