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[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by Poindexter

You and I approach this game differently. My subjective opinion is all that matter to me. My flawed odds line is just putting my subjective opinion as a estimated probability for each horses chance of winning. My ultimate goal is to learn how to adjust (blend) my odds line so that it can be profitable, much like Benter did years ago. I am making big strides in that department and am confident I am heading in the right direction. Will I get to where I want to get too, time will tell. If I don't, I am having a great time trying, so it is all good. Worse case scenario is I can hold my own in Harness racing. I can tell you this, due to my very busy life, I don't line nearly as many races as I would like to, but I can tell you that time and time again when I do line races, I feel I gain a perspective that makes it well worth the effort. To me every race, every double, every pick 3, every pick 4, every pick 5, every exacta, every tri, every super may be a potential opportunity. Also, the scores (or too often the scores you fail to execute properly on) often come up when you least expect it. Imo as a horse bettor you have a full arsenal of weapons to really beat this game up, but if you don't put forth the effort to hone your line making skills, and do the research to figure out how to use value as a tool, I feel you just will never reach your full potential in this game. Doesn't mean you won't win, I just believe there is always room for improvement, especially in this game.

I have no problem with any approach that gets you to the promised land.

I tried making odds lines. I tried ranking horses in order of preference. I tried just going by feel when the odds looked way off compared to what my handicapping suggested. I had some success with all. The reason I've been changing is that I know there is information being built into the prices of some horses that I don't have access to and sometimes I simply don't understand a horse or situation well and am wrong. So I'm trying to eliminate some of that by focusing on situations I have studied and believe still have value. That's where most of my overlays used to come from when I was assigning an odds line to every horse anyway.