i don't understand usefulness of allways

[acorn54]

allways calculates around 70 factors from the same paceline. what i never understood about using a single paceline to handicap is,don't you basically come up with the same horses you would come up with if you used the horses with the top speed ratings in the race? also slicing and dicing a paceline 70 different ways. the horses with the best speed figures get the lions share of having the top score in most of the 70 factors.

[BillW]

Acorn54,

I've never used Allways, but I don't believe that most of the parameters are paceline related, only a handful of pace parameters.

Bill

[acorn54]

http://www.frandsen.com/faqs/Faq_15.htm


above is the list of the 71 factors. as you can see the majority of the factors is just slicing and dicing the single paceline used for evaluation.-guy

[socantra]

Reading the FAQ you pointed to, I come up with 14 of the 71 based on the paceline, and another 9 based on last race, which might or might not be the paceline. Some of these are based on class rating of the race, distance changes, etc.

The others seem to be based largely on total record, distance & surface category, trainer, jockey, best 2 of last 3 or best 4 of last 5 and other combinations not directly related to the paceline or speed figures. Looks like to me you could call maybe a quarter of the factors directly paceline related.

Even within that quarter, they are not just slicing and dicing the speed rating. Traditional pace handicapping is based on the speed rating modified by a 2nd call pace rating, where the top speed rating horse might be surpassed by several other horses in your final ranking. Sartin/ Brohammer figures are based on the individual segments of a race and also don't always agree with a final time speed rating.

I notice they also use some pace line categories that apply only to early pace, or final fraction. These would be considerably different from straight final time speed ratings.

Speed ratings would give you a good idea of the contenders in the race, but it looks as though All Ways is going considerably beyond that in their rankings.

[sq764]

I always thought that once you get aboce 8-10 factors, you reach overkill status.. I think at 71, it becomes downright inneffective.

[Speed Figure]

You can only use 10 factors for each profile. The program has 87 factors so, if you use Allways Pro which i have never used you can use up to 30 of the 87 factors. Trijack or JimG would know best because they have Allways Pro.

[Steve 'StatMan']

Well...at least no one will claim Allways has 97,000 factors. :D

Sorry, I know there was a misunderstanding before. But I just couldn't resist. I'm a baaaaddd boooyyyyy.;)

[acorn54]

something else that puts me off about allways is the price of the datafiles used. allways claims the 80% of the customers reported making a 20% profit using the allways software. if the datafiles cost $7 daily that means the first $35 wagered, daily is going just to payoff the expense of purchasing the datafiles.

[traveler]

I have never understood this cost issue with Allways files. There is no way the average person could perform the analysis done in AWays without have spent $2-$300 on a Dbase prog. and hundreds of hours of manual input. I have used Allways in the past(2yrs ago) and thought it was good. It pointed me to the relevant factors that worked at the track I played. I had to stop playing for a couple years for personal reasons.Last fall I downloaded a month of races & used Allways to see what were the relevant factors(still pretty much the same) & am in the process of getting ready to play this spring. I will track things via a spreadsheet or dbase because I only focus on 2-3 factors - but Allways showed me what to look for. Playing multiple tracks can be expensive but it's not what you spend it's what you make and one's time has to have some value to it. Good Luck

[acorn54]

i have a database with over 2500 races. only cost was the 25 cents a day for the result file. the 2500 races are from data that i accumulated day by day . when you say the data costs $200-$300 it would cost you that anyway for the race cards as you need the race cards to handicap. the only additional price that is a cost exclusive to building a database is the result files.

[Binder]

I have used Allways
but not for the past few years Only now and then
when they offer free downloads of datafiles
Usually they do this when they upgrade

The problem I found was that the paceline selected
was a set system. Based on the last dry line or the
last line from the same dist/surf
Lines that I would not have picked Almost every one of the factors was base off that line. So I was affraid to trust
the read outs enough to take chances on the longer priced
horses it picked
It was very good at picking the $4.00 to 7.00 horses
But thats about it. I just like to pick my paceline based on the
Sartin method of best of last 3 comperable

[Niko]

One thing that turned me off from Allways was the survey that said 80% of their users were making a profit of 20% or more. Is the game that easy????
I'd like to see the verification of proof for that statement!
I tried a few of their datafiles during a free trial from Bris. I was impressed with their data but didn't want to take the time and spend the money it would take to learn it. Like what I'm doing now.

[Tom]

I read somewhere that in England, the top handicappers use up to 97,000 factors! :rolleyes:

[traveler]

Factor ! I hardly know her!

[Jaguar]

Easy to run an impact value analysis for each of the 87 factors and see the profiles for different types of races at each track handicapped. Brilliant stuff. State of the art.

Looking forward to version 11 coming this spring.

All The Best,

Jaguar

(Former All-Ways beta tester)

[acorn54]

Originally posted by Binder
The problem I found was that the paceline selected
was a set system. Based on the last dry line or the
last line from the same dist/surf
Lines that I would not have picked Almost every one of the factors was base off that line. So I was affraid to trust
the read outs enough to take chances on the longer priced
horses it picked
It was very good at picking the $4.00 to 7.00 horses
But thats about it. I just like to pick my paceline based on the
Sartin method of best of last 3 comperable


what binder is saying above is the weak p oint of allways. sure you get unique and profound factors from allways but the basis of these factors are on the paceline selected. if it's off base then the factors are meaningless

[Jaguar]

In the interest of clarity and accurate information. All-Ways is not a speed and pace disc. It's a huge, very comprehensive program.

As is the case with several other horse handicapping products, All-Ways Professional Version makes effective "race-type"-specific and track-specific models, based upon impact values.

Trying to shed a little light.

All The Best,

Jaguar

[Thomason]

All-Ways does select a paceline automatically, but it will also allow you to select a paceline manually. There's another feature that has become a favorite with me and that's the Pace Past Performance Report. It takes the last 5 running lines of each horse and computes Bris pace, Hall pace and Hambleton pace figures. Very handy.

[VetScratch]

I think all of the handicapping software vendors are necessarily forced to communicate with customers in a traditional manner, like the authors of popular handicapping books. Thus, they try to represent what goes on in ways a pen-and-pencil handicapper will understand or might like to discuss data factors. I get the impression that many folks think handicapping software should be a relentless and powerful productivity tool that replicates exactly what we read in handicapping books. However, what we read in handicapping books has been refined so that we can understand the author without a chip embedded in our skulls.

I think threads about most handicapping software have little hope of revealing even a tip-of-the-iceburg equivalent of their inner workings... unless you are the real handicapper, and the software is merely a fancy data analysis or organization tool that you use, like MS Excel or MS Access.

[LurkingBettor]

acorn/All,

Isn't the real value with AllWays the ability to build an internal database so one can see which of the 70+ factors have the IV and ROI they're looking for various race demographics?

Sometimes, the speed and pace factors will not have an acceptable IV and maybe the trainer, workout, and/or class will?

LB

[formula_2002]

Originally posted by Jaguar
Easy to run an impact value analysis for each of the 87 factors and see the profiles for different types of races at each track handicapped. Brilliant stuff. State of the art.

Looking forward to version 11 coming this spring.

All The Best,

Jaguar

(Former All-Ways beta tester)

I work outside of all ways and have tested each factor against evey standard (track, esp, odds, rank......),
The data base is now 200,000 horses. Wish I could tell you that I have found the silver bullet(s)

Joe M