how to handle bias?

[phatbastard]

i'm not talking about track bias, i'm talking about personal bias as to selecting plays.

most players pick up certain horses in their routine that have made them $$$, caught their eyes with dynamic performances and have let them down in crucial situations. how do you handle it when one of these pops up on the days card

most of these were at one time or another your top selection using your preferred method, and you become married to them

any reasoning on this unreasonable situation?

[kitts]

I am often a sucker for 6 and 6.5f races for older horses. I have kept records since the '80s and I do well here. So, I have decided to embrace them rather than worry about a bias. I just bet 2 units if the race falls in this category

[fmolf]

i used to have the same problem......but now i have overcome this by telling myself that nobody but me cares who i place a bet on and as part of becoming more disciplined in my wagering i now pass a race when a sentimental favorite is running and root for him to win......with no mometary interest i can root from my heart instead of betting with it!

[exactaplayer]

my personal method, which i developed years back. I now just bet numbers, caught 4 for 4 so far today and could not tell you the name of anyone of them. I bet the 3 horse the 9 horse the 9 horse and the 7 horse. All chalk but all winners at different tracks today.

[Overlay]

Relying on the probabilities associated with objective, quantitative performance data, and letting each unique race field speak for itself as far as the relative winning chances of the individual horses in it, frees me from emotional attachments to prior results. Also, even if a horse would have the same winning probability from one race to the next, the public's wagering activity might change the horse from a bettable overlay to an unbettable underlay (or vice-versa).

[HUSKER55]

FOR what it is worth, I never look at a name. Just the numbers and I am not married to a number.(ok ok yes I was but I leaned my lesson)


Just the facts

[jhilden]

I used to start my bias with first time starters, especially in the maiden claiming ranks at my local track, Philly Park. I really like to see the horse progress in its racing career but I may not make a wager on it and sometimes do bet against. But, I have done this less and less because twice, I witnessed the horses break down and be euthanized.

[CincyHorseplayer]

I think winning form cycles are like Jung's "Archetypes Of The Unconscious".They are etched in our memory and they are fairly universal.They produce winners.

Everybody has their pet plays and they become that from successful experience.But blind adherance to pet plays and blind adherance to odds mathematics make a handicapper too underly objective or overtly objective.Liking a horse,having an emotional charge when you read through the PP's makes an odds line more accurate IMO because all an oddsline is,is a hierarchy of opinion.If it is reduced to a counting beans approach of fact x and factor z,the depersonalization makes it a dull and middling interpretation IMO.Just as nostalgia warps perspective in the other direction.

All of us have individual styles and we need to play to our strengths,but the universal goal for all of us should be to become a 5 tool handicapper,an eclectic totality.It may be an unachievable goal but the striving for will never allow for the mental approach of handicapping to get stagnant.

[CincyHorseplayer]

i used to have the same problem......but now i have overcome this by telling myself that nobody but me cares who i place a bet on and as part of becoming more disciplined in my wagering i now pass a race when a sentimental favorite is running and root for him to win......with no mometary interest i can root from my heart instead of betting with it!

Well IMO you already have a leg up on winning the game if you aren't already.Having a passion for it definitely carries the torch through the tedium that accompanies this.But it's labor of love isn't it??