Meadow calls Sartin con man

[Binder]

The bottom line of the Sartin Methodology was to turn nonwinners into
winners. Doctor Howard Sartin developed a methodology as part of a treatment
to help 20 truck drivers.
He was court-appointed, He did not volunteer nor was he well paid. He took on the task of treating these truck drivers. They were all convicted of gambling-related felonies or misdemeanors.
Being commercial drivers they were given provisional drivers licenses.
provided they attend counseling.
Doctor Howard Sartin worked with the truck drivers as a group,
After a short evaluation period, Doc came up with a theory, that the cure for losing was not abstinence, The cure for losing is winning.

I was asked by Howard Satin to carry on his bi-monthly Journal which was called the Follow Up.
Howard was very ill after suffering a stroke in 2001
We spoke regularly and I put together what I had hoped would be a free online
Follow Up service. Howard never asked or mentioned he wanted any money.
He gave me full control of the content, He also gave me permission
to scan and make available for free to the public all his manuals and
audio and video seminars
Thanks to Ted Craven, who took over as owner of Pace and Cap in 2010 Everyone is welcome to all Sartin's written and spoken material
in the pace and cap Sartin library for free.

The Sartin Methodology is a cure. Howard left his friends
asking only for his work to be available to those people who wanted to become winners, not nonwinners

Bill V.
"Binder"

P.S.

Thanks, Tom,
Yes PNC will be celebrating our 10th annual gathering at Saratoga
this August

[46zilzal]

True his references to chaos, and many of the Chinese Taoist and Buddhist thinking were great a supplement to the methodology.This explanation of racing styles as paralleling the yin and the yang were right on.

One book, COMPLEXITY, by Waldrop, was one of the most fascinating books I ever read.

His repeated references to these sources prompted more reading in books like Chaos by Gleick and the Tao of Physics by Capra Drunkard's Walk and The Black Swan........Bolstered the idea that RANDOMNESS is what we deal with in EACH and EVERY race.

[Dave Schwartz]

Originally Posted by cratman

Howard Sartin understood a great deal about psychology. My view on this is informed not only by the formal degree I have in psychology, from the same university our president boasts of attending, but also on insights he provided in connection with a project I worked on. His insights were inconsistent with that of a well-known professor who when presented with Howard's thinking acknowledged Howard was correct. This professor was later awarded a Nobel prize, which only added to my appreciation for the quality of Howard's analysis.

Back in 1988, after experiencing a big winning summer playing 5 days a week, but experiencing no significant growth in my BR, I called Howard and asked for a psychological consult.

At first he wanted to talk about my handicapping and betting. He was shocked when I told him that I really logged every bet. When had I proven to his satisfaction that I was hitting 67% winners (2 horses or 1 horse win/place) with average odds of 6/5, he turned to the psychological side.

He suggested that I call my mother and ask for permission to win.
I told him that it would be a long distance call since she had died 13 years earlier.

He said, "So, write her a letter. And does it really matter? She'd want you to win, right?"

He went on to say, "If you were actually my psychological client, I would recommend what is called re-parenting, or re-scripting your early childhood."

This became a real milestone in my life in December, 1989. It was at that time I was given one of those "pick something from this catalog" gifts. As I browsed through the catalog, one item caught my eye.

The Subliminal Winner

The 2nd tape in the series was titled: Re-parenting: Rescripting Early Childhood. I ordered the set and it literally changed my life.

Life was... difficult back then. Two teenagers, sharing a bedroom, and a 6-year old girl sleeping on the couch of a 2-bedroom apartment.

I was programming day and night then and was completely immersed in those tapes. I literally listened to them all day while I was programming.

On day 3, one of my sons walks in and says... "Dad, what's going on with you? Something is different." He asks me to stand up.

He says, "You really look different. You're standing more erect. Your shoulders are back. It's like you're a different person."

I am telling you that they changed my life.

If I had not heard DOCTOR Sartin's words, those tapes would probably not have been my selection from that catalog.


Dave

PS: For the record, I have found those tapes to be the ONLY subliminals that ever had any positive effect on me. I believe that most are pure garbage. These are different.

[lefty359]

Doc was always glad to pay homage to the people who came before him and whose ideas he improved upon. Ray Taulbot, Huey Mahl and Sam Sedgewick just to name a few.

He was also the first I ever heard of to put the concept of energy, deceleration and compounded fractions into his prgms. I miss him greatly.

[davew]

what some people call a con man, others call a promoter.

[46zilzal]

Originally Posted by davew

what some people call a con man, others call a promoter.

No different than the guys hawking stuff on TV these days...Like the Popiel fellow of old

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by 46zilzal

No different than the guys hawking stuff on TV these days...Like the Popiel fellow of old

What...you didn't like the Ronco Pocket Fisherman?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2QzfzbKs6A

[GMB@BP]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

What...you didn't like the Ronco Pocket Fisherman?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2QzfzbKs6A

brilliant

[Half Smoke]

Originally Posted by AltonKelsey

once again , we have a lot of claims of success, but nothing that can be proved

across the internet there are literally thousands claiming to be winners at gambling - a fairly sizeable % say they are big winners

only the most naive people would believe it all

certainly some claims are true - I would guesstimate about 15%

even if they tried to prove it with IRS documentation the documents themselves could be phonies


I have no interest in hearing anyone's claim of winnings
paying attention to that will make my eyes glaze over


I do have an interest in methodology - for me, I can form a strong opinion of whether or not a methodology is useful to me



that is what is important to me

[Tom]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

What...you didn't like the Ronco Pocket Fisherman?

Word of advice.....take the HOOK off BEFORE you put it in your pocket!

[lefty359]

Originally Posted by Half Smoke

across the internet there are literally thousands claiming to be winners at gambling - a fairly sizeable % say they are big winners

only the most naive people would believe it all

certainly some claims are true - I would guesstimate about 15%

even if they tried to prove it with IRS documentation the documents themselves could be phonies


I have no interest in hearing anyone's claim of winnings
paying attention to that will make my eyes glaze over


I do have an interest in methodology - for me, I can form a strong opinion of whether or not a methodology is useful to me



that is what is important to me

What other people can do with prgms and strategies is of no importance to me. It's what I can do with them that counts.

[highnote]

I've told this story about my experience with the Sartin Methodology before, but I'll tell it again. Sorry if it is too long.

When I turned 18 I went to the racetrack three Saturdays in a row. I lost $10 each time. I was down $30. At the time, I was making minimum wage working as a bus boy. Minimum wage was about $2.00 per hour. Losing $10 hurt a lot. I vowed I would never go back to the track or gamble until I learned how to win.

A few years later my roommate and I went to Atlantic City for Thanksgiving break. I did not gamble, but my roommate did and lost.

When we returned our other roommate bought me Ed Thorp's "Beat the Dealer" for my birthday as a joke because of our Atlantic City trip.

I read "Beat the Dealer" and couldn't put it down. It was fascinating. I spent the rest of the winter learning how to write computer code so I could create a program that would simulate card counting in blackjack. I wanted to know if card counting really worked. It did. So I spent the summer learning how to count cards.

I spent many weekend evenings going to the Catholic Church's "Las Vegas Nights" events and practicing card counting. I would always sit at third base and only play when the deck was positive. No one cared. They just thought I was some young kid who didn't know what he was doing. It was a social event for everyone, not a serious way to make money. I even learned how to spot cheating that Thorp described. There was a crooked dealer who dealt seconds. Why cheat a Catholic Charity? A private company ran the "Las Vegas" nights for the churches in the area. They got a percentage of the gross winnings. The more money the Church won the more the operator would make.

When I felt confident in my abilities I planned a trip to Atlantic City. I sat down with a young woman dealer who seemed very pleasant. I was up $45 in no time at the $5 table. A $5 bet was a lot for me back then. I was only making $5 per hour at my summer job. Then the shift changed and some young, surly guy started dealing faster than I could count. I lost all $45 and ended up at back to even. To this day, I swear the pit boss sent the fast dealer to my table because I was winning. I got up and left the casino and never tried to count cards again. I realized that counting cards in a dark, smoky casino with unfriendly dealers was not the way I wanted to make a living.

But I kept studying Ed Thorp. I read everything I could find about him. There wasn't much. He kept a low profile. He was busy making millions -- hundreds of millions. Thorp wrote a book called "Beat the Market". It is a classic. It is beautifully written. Thorp is a genius. I programmed Thorp's stock market system into a spreadsheet, but it turned out you needed about $25,000 in cash to get started because of the margin requirements for shorting stocks, options, and warrants. It would be a long time before I saved $25k for stock market investing.

One day I stumbled across a Thorp reference at the library that said he wrote the forward to the book, "Dr. Z's Beat the Racetrack". I bought a copy and like "Beat the Dealer", I couldn't put it down. It was exactly what I was looking for -- an automatic system that I could program into a computer. The best part was that you only needed $2 to make a bet. It's a lot more realistic for a young student to scrape together $2 than to try trying to scrape together $25 grand! I bought a Radio Shack handheld computer that could be programmed in BASIC. I started going to Yonkers Raceway to bet the harness races with the Dr. Z system. I started with $50 and after 10 trips to the track I was up to $500. I would regularly find place and show bets that paid more than the win bet! It was hard work. My wife would read the toteboard numbers to me at about a minute to post. I would frantically type in the numbers and then we'd run to the window to bet. Sometime's we'd get shut out. Most times we won. The teller thought we were crazy. I'd call out bets in weird amounts like $17 to show #3 or $12 place #2. He got to know us because we cashed so frequently.

I got in touch with Dr. Z because his system was working so well. He sent me a flyer with some software he sold. The software was written by Dick Mitchell and it was for thoroughbred races. Now, remember I had lost all 3 times that I went to the flats, and vowed I would never go back until I learned how to win. I trusted Dr. Z's recommendation. I bought Mitchell's books. Mitchell even had BASIC code in his book for his system. It turns out, Mitchell's system was a variation on Sartin's system. So I then got Sartin's material and programmed some software to make TPR ratings.

From April through the end of the Saratoga meeting, I made a profit betting the NYRA circuit. How many people can say they made a profit their first year betting Saratoga? Needless to say, I was very happy with Sartin's TPR numbers and his other materials.

Next I bought Brohammer's "Modern Pace Handicapping" and continued winning. I didn't make a lot, but I was not losing and I was having fun.

I did get tired of doing all the work required to be profitable. So I started making my own figures and trying to improve on what I had learned. I started losing, but I was learning. So it wasn't a complete loss.

Jim Bradshaw's first book distilled the Sartin Methodology to its essence and, to this day, that is what I use most of the time when I handicap U.S. races.

The bottom line is that the Sartin Methodology worked for me and Bradshaw's simplified version works well enough for the little that I handicap U.S. races. I'll be at the Spa soon and I will use it there. It has always worked well.

PS

Funny story... I listened to Jim Bradshaw handicap a card during the Handicapping Expo in Vegas back in the 1990's -- the year Sea Hero won the Derby. It was a great event. Everyone was there -- Mitchell, Sartin, Bradshaw, Quinn, Beyer, Brohammer, Ainsle, Mark Cramer, Steve Roman, to name a few. I had dinner with Charles Carroll.

Bradshaw tipped an exacta at Oaklawn or Fairgrounds. I forget which track was running in April It came in and paid $97! I saw Jim at the airport the next day with his wife. I walked up to him and thanked him for the tip. He didn't say much, but his wife had a big smile on her face. She was very proud of him.

[barn32]

The four horsemen of the Sartin "con man" legacy apocalypse.

[Dave Schwartz]

Originally Posted by barn32

The four horsemen of the Sartin "con man" legacy apocalypse.

Tom Brohamer was absolutely the real deal.

I KNOW this personally to be absolute FACT.

I would also add that he was (and probably still is) a fine man.


The 3rd man from the left. Is that Tom Ainsley? (My memory is fuzzy, but it looks like him. Richard Carter was his name, as I recall.)

If so, he was never, to my knowledge, a Sartin guy.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

The 3rd man from the left. Is that Tom Ainsley? (My memory is fuzzy, but it looks like him. Richard Carter was his name, as I recall.)

If so, he was never, to my knowledge, a Sartin guy.

Not true. Ainslie was quite complimentary of Sartin and his work...and even became a pace handicapping convert during the latter stages of his long handicapping career.