Using dime supers as a hedge?

[1st time lasix]

Anyone here "hedging" their main exotic "punch" plays with low priced supers? Example: you have a good will-pay pick 3 or pick 4 alive to three entries with nice payouts. You re-examine the pp's and see that two others may possibly upset and beat you---- so you use them on top in ten cent supers? Another example: you have a win bet on the three and cold $25 exacta play with the three over the five and six....Use low priced supers with the 5&6 on top? For a few dollars....as long as you are not putting the top public choices first and second....you can get some coverage that hedges your main play in a world where some chaos does exist. Any thoughts? With ten cent supers....many times they are actually cheaper than the dollar tris....although obviously harder to hit.

[CBedo]

although obviously harder to hit.This is the issue to me. The purpose of a hedge is insurance against a bad result. Hedging with a low probability super doesn't make much sense to me.

[badcompany]

With proper bet sizing, hedging is unnecessary. Make your bet. If you lose, take your lumps and move on to the next race.

[DeanT]

I only hedge when I think I am getting board value. In fact, I bet the horse I am alive on sometimes if I think he is board value, so I am terrible to ask this question.

I would say no to the strategy as a hedge, but yes if you think you are getting value.

Told ya I was terrible to ask this question to :)

As an aside, if and when betting exchanges are ever passed here, they are perfect for hedges. You can lay the horse you are alive to and lock in some profit. That is a good thing for horseplayers who choose the hedge route and will help them keep more cash in their pocket. I would love to see teh first time someone is alive in a pick 6 for $500k and he chooses that route. There would be a hell of a lot of money on the exchange on the lay side of that horse, especially if it was a syndicate with a well capitalized account!

[Jeff P]

Anyone here "hedging" their main exotic "punch" plays with low priced supers? Example: you have a good will-pay pick 3 or pick 4 alive to three entries with nice payouts. You re-examine the pp's and see that two others may possibly upset and beat you---- so you use them on top in ten cent supers?
I've studied hedge betting in depth and have come to several conclusions.

First, the player's long term profit or loss can always be expressed by the following formula:

PL = Edge x Handle

Where Edge is equal to expected value... which can be reexpressed as:

Edge = (Payoff x Probability) / CostOfBet

And Handle is simply the sum total of all the player's wagers.


Second, almost every form of Hedge betting that I have studied involves a negative edge. If the player were to record every single wager made over the span of several years in a database that was set up to record the following fields:

AmtOfWager, EstimatedProbability, EstimatedPrice, EstimatedEdge, PayoffToOneDollar, WagerDescription, etc...

and then go back and make a careful analysis of those wagers broken out by each of the categories...

The player would very likely see (this happens to be the case with my own wagers your own mileage may vary) that wagers classified as some form of Hedge involve a negative EstimatedEdge -- and if I sum the Payoffs and subtract out the cost of making the wagers -- Hedge wagers as a group are net losers for me... despite the fact that I might "feel good" about making them at the time they are made.

In my own case -- for the most part -- I've come to the conclusion that hedging is a bad idea... that I am far better off structuring my own wagers to go for the throat -- and be perfectly willing to live or die with the result.


That said, I can think of situations where Hedging IS a mathematically sound idea. It has to do with bet sizing and risk management.

Go back to the PL formula for a second...

PL = Edge x Handle
In many situations, it can make sense to maximize PL by churning as much handle as possible -- even if the added incremental play reduces the edge.

Example: a win bettor is contemplating a win bet on a single horse at 12-1. Further, if the player's estimate of the horse's probability of winning the race is .1378 (assuming the player is somewhere close to correct in his estimate) the player (let's assume he's a serious player) might well want to size his bet based on the inherent risk presented by the situation.

In such a situation the player might well find that he can increase PL for the race (significantly) by increasing his bet size (again, significantly) on the race -- by spreading the risk among one or two other horses in the same race -- provided he can identify likely winners in the same race that carry a near break even expectation. IOW the player might find it to his advantage to trade Edge at lower Handle for lower Edge at significantly increased Handle.

Whether or not this works will always come back to the formula for PL...

PL = Edge x Handle

Hope I've managed to convey my thoughts in a way that makes sense,


-jp

.

[1st time lasix]

if one is alive to good size pick four...it is likely they are sophisticated enough to have multiple tickets. There may be entries you thought could possibly win the last .......but are no longer alive to at post time due to previous race result. Not playing them in some form as a "hedge" is an essential component of multirace strategy in my mind. I have even used late pick fours after being alive in a pick six after two legs. Of course dime supers, win plays or other exotics are tools for that purpose in the final leg. It isn't that pricey to play the one or two you don't have but are worried about on top over the horses you prefer with a ten cent increment. BTW: Saying hedging of any kind is never a good idea because of bet size or due to some previous concieved notion about insurance sounds completely ridiculous to me. On Sunday I was alive to four in the fourth race at Churchill for a minimum pay of 4K to a $48 play. I no longer had two back up possibles that could possibly upset the apple cart. I would gladly increase my outlay covering them to some degree knowing what the potential return is going to be after seeing the "will pays"

[Jeff P]

I know what you mean about being live to a nice paying p3 or p4... and wanting to hedge or "save" by betting on contenders in the last leg that your tickets are not live to.

Take the emotion out of it for a second.

I actually recorded about two year's worth of such hedge bets in a database.

When I went back and made a careful analysis of them I discovered a couple of things.

First, even though a fair pct of those hedge bets paid off - sometimes handsomely - and despite the fact that I ALWAYS felt good at having "saved" the p3 or p4 when those hedge bets bailed me out -- a careful analysis of them revealed that type of hedge to be a big net loser for me. Understand that I'm describing hedging the way I did it. Results from hedging as done by others in a different manner might well vary.

Second - much to my chagrin - I discovered that I was far better off adding those same horses I was willing to hedge with at the end of p3 and p4 sequences to my p3 or p4 tickets in the first place. IOW, having those same horses on p3 and p4 tickets in the first place brought far greater returns (for me at least) than using them as hedges possibly could.


-jp

.

[andymays]

I know what you mean about being live to a nice paying p3 or p4... and wanting to hedge or "save" by betting on contenders in the last leg that your tickets are not live to.

Take the emotion out of it for a second.

I actually recorded about two year's worth of such hedge bets in a database.

When I went back and made a careful analysis of them I discovered a couple of things.

First, even though a fair pct of those hedge bets paid off - sometimes handsomely - and despite the fact that I ALWAYS felt good at having "saved" the p3 or p4 when those hedge bets bailed me out -- a careful analysis revealed that those type of hedges were big net losers for me.

Second - much to my chagrin - I discovered that I was far better off adding those same horses I was willing to hedge with at the end of p3 and p4 sequences to my p3 or p4 tickets in the first place. IOW, having those same horses on p3 and p4 tickets in the first place brought far greater returns (for me at least) than using them as hedges possibly could.

-jp

.


Now that's the truth! :ThmbUp:


Quite a few Horseplayers think it's good to hedge but quite a few Horseplayers are dead wrong. Jeff has it right! :ThmbUp:

[SMOO]

With proper bet sizing, hedging is unnecessary. Make your bet. If you lose, take your lumps and move on to the next race.

:ThmbUp:

[cmoore]

I don't make a habit of hedging, but the other day I'll played a race like this. This was Hollywood race 8 last Sunday. It was a 7 horse field and the favorite was 7/2. I played the two closers..

46 exacta box 4x

46/all/46 trifecta 1x

46/all/all/46 10 cents super 3x

Results were 7-6-3-4.....The longest shot on the board held off my 6. It was a Theatrical runner. A nice payoff for a 7 horse field and was kicking myself for not backing up my two picks in the 2nd position. But one can only play so many tickets before it gets out of hand. I think I invested around 30 bucks.

Guestimatating payoffs if one of my plays would of won
ex was around 30 bucks x 4 = $120
tri would of payed around= $260
10 cents super would of payed around 80 bucks I'm estimating x3 = $240

I thought the exacta was the unlikeliest outcome..

[fmolf]

[QUOTE=cmoore]I don't make a habit of hedging, but the other day I'll played a race like this. This was Hollywood race 8 last Sunday. It was a 7 horse field and the favorite was 7/2. I played the two closers..

46 exacta box 4x

46/all/46 trifecta 1x

46/all/all/46 10 cents super 3x

Results were 7-6-3-4.....The longest shot on the board held off my 6. It was a Theatrical runner. A nice payoff for a 7 horse field and was kicking myself for not backing up my two picks in the 2nd position. But one can only play so many tickets before it gets out of hand. I think I invested around 30 bucks.

Guestimatating payoffs if one of my plays would of won
ex was around 30 bucks x 4 = $120
tri would of payed around= $260
10 cents super would of payed around 80 bucks I'm estimating x3 = $240

I thought the exacta was the unlikeliest outcome..[/QUOTEI prefer to play only win and exactas and i do hedge if in small amounts using the exacta as a place bet.Usually with the favorite.All the studies will show you that in the long run hedging is not a good wagering strategy but psychologically it does us all a world of good and cannot be quantified by %'s or roi's....I used to get very upset when i used my longer priced horse over the favorite and it ran the other way around.So now if i have value using meadows chart i usually will play it both ways for a smaller amt. though.I still want my biggest score to be when my opinion is correct.

[Robert Fischer]

you've got the "cash in hand player", and you've got the "long-term profit player".

The long-term profit player should not hedge. Maybe you could make a justification for a wierd example... Maybe if he made a bet he shouldn't have made in the first place(he's a long term negative player), and he has the table set for the final leg to pay a huge payoff that is out of sorts with his general bankroll... Usually no hedging, and certainly no "designed hedging".

the cash in hand guy can justify hedging. Hes got x-amount of dollars to bet this weekend, and he's hopefully gonna spend his winnings tonight/early this week.
He can even design a hedge by structuring his multi-race wagers to use likely favorites in the final leg(so that only longshot contenders are left) to set up the win pool hedging.

Of course if you look at the big picture, cash-in-hand days actually add up to a long-term situation, and there is a greater expectation with long term style play. You lose some edge when you hedge:cool:

[DeanT]

You lose some edge when you hedge:cool:

Alive in a pick four with a single, do not co-mingle.

Take that, Rhyme Boy :)

[misscashalot]

I've studied hedge betting in depth and have come to several conclusions............... I hope I've managed to convey my thoughts in a way that makes sense,-jp.

:ThmbUp:

[andymays]

Alive in a pick four with a single, do not co-mingle.

Take that, Rhyme Boy :)



DeanT channeling Johnny Cochran! ("If it doesn't fit, you must acquit")

or

his best Jesse Jackson? You make the call. :D

[redeye007]

Sometimes it pays off. I was alive on the pick 4 at Delta last week with a single in the last leg of a maiden claimer. I liked 3 runners but there was a runner in the race that had only two starts in a maiden special weight and ran terribly but my experience showed that he might have a chance. I thought about keying him on top with my 3 runners since I didn't have him on my pick 4 ticket but didn't do it. Of course he won and my 3 were right behind him for the super. the $1 super paid over 5k. Made me sick.

[nalley0710]

Especiallywith the dime super, ona small track when bettinghigher odd the super can be bet/ all-bet/all-bet/all-bet

[Robert Fischer]

Alive in a pick four with a single, do not co-mingle.

I don't know why but this was hilarious reading again this morning. :D