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[Jeff P]

If you're paying attention it's really hard not to notice the effect.

Basically, the big money has become more accurate than it's ever been.

If you want to be successful as a horseplayer you have to deal with it.

Imo, you have to out-work out-model and out-think the whales.

Doing that isn't easy. The whales are good. Really good in fact. But they are human and they aren't infallible.

Right now as I type this there absolutely ARE areas of the game that can be exploited by the individual player. I think that will always be true to some degree.

What follows below isn't about modeling - which imo, while not an absolute requirement is certainly pretty close. Personally, I find it to be really useful.

It's about a mindset... a mindset that can direct you towards what to model.

Dave posted something to the effect that many of the whale teams retool once a year and start using new algorithms each January.

One advantage the individual player has over a whale syndicate is the ability to be nimble.

The individual horseplayer in need of a retool doesn't have to wait for January.

A few months ago I was having a conversation with Ron Tiller at HDW. As so often happens, our conversation turned to betting on horses and I made the following analogy:

Horse racing (with 22% blended takeout) is like the Titanic and horseplayers are the passengers.

Imagine for a minute racing has struck an iceberg - is taking on water - and the ship is starting to sink.

What if, instead of the 20 individual lifeboats carried by the Titanic - the ship were equipped with a single lifeboat only?

What if that single lifeboat was a giant inflatable raft?

And what if in the mad scramble to get the lifeboat into the water (and this is the 22% blended takeout part) the crew only managed to get the thing partially inflated?

Much to their delight, the first few real horseplayers who find their way onto the raft discover they are high and dry.

But as more and more horseplayers scramble out of the water and onto the raft:

Things start to get interesting.

At 22% blended takeout, the raft doesn't have enough air to support the weight of all those horseplayers.

Eventually, most areas of the raft end up with such a high concentration of horseplayers that every horseplayer in the area may as well not even be on the raft. They find themselves neck deep in icy water and it's pretty much the same thing as being in the ocean.

But a few areas of the raft - the ones with the least number of horseplayers:

THOSE areas of the raft become elevated and the one or two horseplayers there are high and dry.

But if enough horseplayers are drawn to one of those areas: it too will be pushed down into the water and the horseplayers there soon find themselves submerged.

Most of the whale teams don't have the ability to vacate their chosen spot on the raft at a moment's notice. They've committed to a plan that involves playing the current version of their algorithms long enough to give the law of large numbers a chance to do its thing.

Believe ot or not sometimes that means even the members and backers of a whale team find themselves neck deep in icy water.

But the individual horseplayer? He or she ALWAYS has the ability to vacate an overcrowded spot on the raft.

Imo, our job as horseplayers involves constantly being on the lookout for the best spot on the raft - and not being afraid to go there when the time comes.



-jp

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