Great horseplayer article in NY Times

[bedford35]

To all fellow Paceadvantage members,

I went to the PA board figuring there would many posts regarding the NY Times article on professional horseplayer Ernie Dahlman. I was surprised to see it wasn't mentioned. Everyone should check out this article, I'm sure everyone here will enjoy it. It is in the NY Times Magazine, part of the Sunday edition. This article can be accessed online but it might require a free sign-up at the NY Times site. At the Times site just click on "magazine" in the left column. Dahlman is one of the biggest professional players in the country and has been for years. The article talks of his wagering between 12 and 18 million dollars a year. There is also a great question & answer session with Dahlman answering emailed questions. Anyway I hope everyone enjoys it. I would provide a link but don't know how.

bedford35

[karlskorner]

Great Story.

www.nytimes.com/2001/06/03/magazine/03DAHLMAN.html

Print it out under Printer friendly

[kingmambo]

thanks for the post.i really enjoyed the NY TIMES
article.no wonder SCOTT LAKE is always overbet
in NY!

[baravot]

We should nickname him Moby!

[karlskorner]

After you have read the article visit his forum

www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/

He has answered 80 questions so far, since 6/3/01.

I have printed them out, questions and answers you won't find in any book. Start with the last question and hit "previous" to work backward.

The man has walked the walk

[Rick Ransom]

Very interesting. His answers indicate that a lot of things that we consider essential are things he knows nothing about. I'll hazard a guess that he's winning more money per year than anyone else here, though. I think his ROI could be improved, but hey, whatever works. What puzzles me is how he ever got to that level of bet size with so small an edge.

I've read about some other players like him with small ROIs and huge bankrolls, and I think that the reason they get so much attention is because of the large bets they make. I don't want to get this argument started again, but I think there are probably better players who make a living with smaller bets that never get any attention (and maybe don't want it). As Dennis Miller would say, "that's just my opinion, I could be wrong".

[karlskorner]

Rick;

Over the years I have known 3 people who "churned" 3 to 5 million a year and they were perfectly happy to walk away with 3 to 5 percent ROI. One in particular who had a box next to mine at Hialeah "churned" 2.5 to 3 million a year and he was delighted to net $150,000.

His method of play was to buy 4 "tip" sheets and work the numbers into various plays, the best that I can remember was the last race on the last day of a GP meet, when he picked up $165,000 on a perfecta play.

For myself. I couldn't stand the pressure.

[JimG]

Thanks for sharing the info regarding this article. It was a great read. I guess what surprised me the most was 2 things...that he is now 58 and has been playing seriously since his early 20's and...that he has maintained a family life during this time.


Jim

[PaceAdvantage]

bedford35,

Thanks for posting the article link. It was a great read.


==PA

[andicap]

Interesting read. I posted a reply to him on more of a personal nature.

I think it shows there's more than 1 way to win -- he's a "plodder," who ekes out 3-4% a year ROI and learned the game from the ground up, not through books.

My rhetorical question: How many people making money at the races learned what they knew from the books? Or did they learn mostly from on-the-job experience.

andicap

[Tom]

Originally posted by andicap
[
My rhetorical question: How many people making money at the races learned what they knew from the books? Or did they learn mostly from on-the-job experience.

andicap
[/B]

I find the biggest problem I have is having to "unlearn" things I have read. Sure, there is a lot of great stuff out there I have read and use, ie, Pace Makes the Race concepts, Brohamer ideas, Sartin tools. But the actual handicappin- how will this horse run today? - is something that I am still learning withevery race I handicap. The old rules just don't work. All you can really get from books are ideas or formulas, both of which need to be adapted to your own style of play.
Tom

[andicap]

Here's another problem. Many Brohamer/Sartin methods worked in southern California in the '80s. Little change in the tracks, good racing etc. They didn't work as well in other parts of the country and also into the '90s as fields decreased in size and overlays were harder to come by.

But Dick Schmidt might disagree with me here.

andicap

[Dick Schmidt]

Andicap,

No he doesn't. Howard never talked about it, but we always had trouble on the road. Some of it was lack of local knowledge and tools (models and profiles), but some of it was that it just didn't work as well in some parts of the country. With racing less consistent due to weather, we could never drive the kinds of win percentages we could at "home".

As for lack of overlays, that is certainly true. I remember lone early horses with huge second call advantages paying $14-15. Just doesn't happen anymore. The smaller field sizes are part of the reason, but even more important in my opinion is that pace has become very mainstream. The more people that use something, the less it pays. Look at the Beyer numbers and remember that there was a time when Andy made a living with them. Now they are easy to see and lose more than the takeout.

It is not just the players who have found pace. Those advising the average player, the tip sheet guys, the newspaper guys, the Racing Form guys are all using it, and thus it is magnified.

Dick

[andicap]

Dick,
with pace so magnified would you say you had a decent shot to win without using pace now?

ag

[Rick Ransom]

What this guy is doing is similar to what a lot of sports bettors do. Their ROI is small, but they bet huge amounts of money and make large annual incomes. In their case however, the win % is high, 45-60% depending on the sport, so their losing streaks are relatively short and they can bet a larger % of bankroll. I can't imagine betting exactas with 3-4% ROI and not having frequent losing years unless you are betting a huge number of races (apparently he is). I can bet exactas on every race now, but I don't have the guts to do it with a real bankroll.

I got my early education from guys who played high ROI spot plays with smaller bankrolls, so that's my style. I've learned some things from books written by little-known authors and technical papers, but mostly books have showed me what to avoid when everyone else is doing it. Large scale statistical studies were also important to me to debunk some of the more common myths that everyone keeps repeating to each other.

[Tom]

Dick,
Funny you should say that about having harder times on the road. I am jsut the opposite-I seem to do a lot better when I don't have the local knowledge or prejudice, whichever. I have a limited amount of data I can actually use and tend to focu better. But this a is a double edge sword- I tend to do very very well or very very bad on the road.
I agree with you on pace not being the holy grail it once was. I find that I can best use pace nowadays as either a tool to uncover key pace races and then bet horses with bad finishes, uncovering unusually slow paces and then bet against favorites that benifited from them, or in place of a speed figure altogether in dropdown circumstances, especially MSW to MC.
For years, all one had to do at Finger Lakes was identify the horse that would be 1st or 2nd at the first call. The rest of the race was essentially a victory lap.
I used to have an easy job keeping a profile at FL-didn't even need the charts-just write in "1" in every column.
The most horrible thing track management did at FL was to make a fair racing surface. Might as well have mugged me in the parking lot-in fact, it would have been easier on me if they had.
Tom

[Dick Schmidt]

Andicap,

Right now, I would say that you just about have to take pace out of the equation to win, at least the way most people use pace. There will always be a place for the guy who is willing to keep all the records and outwork everyone else. That is how I did it. Not many handicappers will take the time.

However, it seems to me that there is a real opportunity to either go back to out of favor methods or develop a new slant on things. Whenever one "school" of handicapping becomes dominant, the profit lies in that which is being ignored. One of the reasons we did so well in the early '80's is that classical class handicapping was being pushed aside by speed numbers and no one was paying attention to pace. The
hotshots were all working on "improvements" to Beyer's speed numbers and ignoring everything but the final time.

With the advent of computers, pace gets harder and harder as the machines do more of the work for us. Most programs seem determined to build a database that dwarfs NASA's and analyze it 56 different ways from Sunday. As this becomes more popular, it will become even less effective. Almost no one seems to be trying anything really new, with Dave Schwartz and HSH the lone exception. Some complain because HSH is in an almost constant state of flux, but that is what keeps it ahead of the pack.

Jim Quinn told me a while back that he was going more and more back to the class, form and breeding analysis that he learned in the early 1960's and doing very well. I know another player who now uses a lot of body language, because the majority of bettors are off track. He goes out to watch the works in the morning and watches the horses on the way TO the paddock. He points out that at one time Santa Anita drew 500-1000 people in the mornings to watch the works, and even used to serve breakfast. Now the place is almost deserted. And how many people are looking at horseshoes? More now than before this article, but still not many.

As the pendulum swings, we need to be light on our feet. The place to be is out in front of the curve or way behind it.

Dick

[andicap]

I agree with you on body language, but even after watching Joe Takach's tape 20 times, I still can't tell if a horse is dappled or wants to run by looking at it. They all just look like horses to me.

Reminds me about the late 80s/early 90s when EVERYONE began trip handicapping after Beyers book came out. Remember Paul Cornman?
Now, unless you're really very good at reading trips -- seeing subtleties others miss -- forget it.


andicap

[Rick Ransom]

Another thing that's changed since the 80's is how important recency is. I know of a lot of systems that worked back then with very tight recency rules (5-7 days) that wouldn't work now. Some things even work better when the horse has had a long layoff now (ROI-wise) because people are still reading the old books.

The really amazing thing about this guy in the article is that he's apparently been winning for a very long time. So, even though his edge is small, he's using things that never become popular with other handicappers. That's a tremendous advantage if you want to make a career of it. Most of the things we study change pretty quickly these days, and I think only the guys with the huge databases can really keep on top of it. If you wait for something to be published, it's too late. I know I'd never publish anything about what I'm doing now, only what I've done in the past (which may or may not still work).

[andicap]

Yeah, I remember the big recency angles.
Now the Raggies say coming back too soon from a good effort is a negative, but coming back from a bad effort could be good -- look at it as a workout.

andicap

[Dick Schmidt]

Andicap,

I fear I share your blindness to horse body language. I don't think it is something that can be learned from a book or tape or even a weekend workshop. You need to spend a LOT of time around horses.

My grandfather could do it. He rode a horse to school as a boy and didn't see his first automobile until he was 11. Horses were second nature to him. He told me about races where you went and looked at the horses, made a decision on what you saw and then placed your bets. No numbers or Racing Forms involved. I could never do that. You have to go with your strengths; mine's numbers. I don't look at the horses even when I'm at the track.

Dick

[GR1@HTR]

PA,

I know what you mean. I watched the video for the first time 2 weeks ago and read a book on the subject. Then I headed out to LoneStar to check out the horses and bring home the bacon...Still 90% of them looked the same to me. Also noticed one problems for me was that they walk the horses too darn fast and I don't get enough time to check out all the things it said in the video. Felt like asking the walkers to slow down so I could check out their ponies...

Dick,
you bring up an interesting point...
"With the advent of computers, pace gets harder and harder as
the machines do more of the work for us. Most programs seem
determined to build a database that dwarfs NASA's and analyze
it 56 different ways from Sunday. As this becomes more popular,
it will become even less effective."

Sounds like it makes sense but what I have found is that different programs point out different horses using similar factors/angles. For example, in reading one of Dave S's Player newsletter he indicated that a winning angle was to play 7 to 8 Qpt horses w/ the worst Fr1 (rank 9)from the last race. Dave points out that this is a winning angle using HSH program. Not true w/ the program I use. The opposite is true...ie 7 to 8 Q points with Fr1 (rank 1) performs much better than Fr1 (rank 9). ie. angle XYZ in Program A will not provide the same results in Program B. So until we are all using the same data don’t think we are going to have a problem there.

[Tom]

Body language is a form of handicapping where you analize a horse's appearance and note negative signs that allow you to not bet the horse your $5,000 computer program tells you is the "retirement" race you have been wating for and sends you to wager on the one horse that the track ambulance ends up honking its horn at becasure the rest of the field is out of sight of the paramedics.
There is only one part of a horse I am familiar with, and it doesn't have ears on it!

Tom
(been there, lost that)

[Dick Schmidt]

GR1,

And thank goodness! That is the only thing keeping computer handicpping alive. There are enough of us that we would kill the price on any horse we all agreed on.

[Lefty]

I watched the Tackich video and I saw too darn many of
those short-steppers and blowout patches win at good
prices. I stick to the nos. now.

[andicap]

Story about that video:

About 5 years ago I edited a newspaper and we had an annual "morale" outing. One year I convinced my boss to go the racetrack.
So in preparation one day I brought in the video to show people....needless to say they were pretty grossed out by the, eh, elimination scenes.

andicap