Not a bad day for Serling

[mountainman]

Originally Posted by Canarsie

Agree 100% and when he says " I like so and so but not at that price, not for me" its one of the greatest educational lessons one can get to stay in the black.

I don't play the P4 regularly but his comment yesterday has stuck in my brain with other great stuff I try to retain.

Strong opinions get you in trouble...especially in Pick-4s. The idea is to survive races.

Here's the link for all archived chats.

http://www.nyra.com/livechat/index.shtml

I'm a great judge of analysts, and the guy's got game. No question about it.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by JimG

Regarding the tote being the best handicapper. Sounds like you measure handicapping solely by win percentage. I don't. I favor looking at ROI for the picks. Money is what this game is about, not just picking winners.

No, I am not measuring handicapping solely by win percentage; I am talking strictly ROI...just like you are.

You can form a group of the best handicappers ever born...Beyer, Ainslie, Brohamer, Quinn, Serling, Pittsburg Phil...ANYONE.

Ask them to narrow their opinions down to a single win bet for every race being run, and, in the LONG RUN...that group of elite players is guaranteed to show a worse ROI than the crowd's betting favorite.

GUARANTEED!

It's one of the great mysteries of our game...

[cj]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

It would not be "extremely difficult"...it would be VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE!

When it comes to making a selection in every race, the "public's" opinion, as indicated by the tote board, is the best handicapper there is.

No other handicapper can compare...no matter who he may be.

ROI wise this isn't close to true.

[cj]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

No, I am not measuring handicapping solely by win percentage; I am talking strictly ROI...just like you are.

You can form a group of the best handicappers ever born...Beyer, Ainslie, Brohamer, Quinn, Serling, Pittsburg Phil...ANYONE.

Ask them to narrow their opinions down to a single win bet for every race being run, and, in the LONG RUN...that group of elite players is guaranteed to show a worse ROI than the crowd's betting favorite.

GUARANTEED!

It's one of the great mysteries of our game...

This simply is not true.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by cj

This simply is not true.

CJ...you are wrong.

The only way a handicapper can beat the favorite's ROI is by being selective.

There is no way he can do it by betting every race.

[cj]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

CJ...you are wrong.

The only way a handicapper can beat the favorite's ROI is by being selective.

There is no way he can do it by betting every race.

What do you base this on? I can back this up with my database, but first, I want to hear why you think this? Win percentage you are correct, but no way ROI.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by cj

What do you base this on? I can back this up with my database, but first, I want to hear why you think this? Win percentage you are correct, but no way ROI.

Let's just say that this has been a pet project of mine for many years...

I think I know what you are going to say; I had a prominent New York figure maker tell me the same thing some years back.

He told me that he had proof that blindly betting his figures would easily outperform the crowd favorite's ROI...which, by the way, easily beats the 17% takeout.

I reminded him that the crowd is forced to make picks even for races in which figures do not apply.

He told me he would look into it and he would let me know...but I haven't heard from him yet.

[badcompany]

Originally Posted by cj

What do you base this on? I can back this up with my database, but first, I want to hear why you think this? Win percentage you are correct, but no way ROI.

While I don't have stats to back this up, from what I've seen, most races are crapshoots, racing luck not handicapping is the determining factor. So, if you're betting every race you're automatically "handicapping" yourself vis a vis your ROI.

[cj]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

I reminded him that the crowd is forced to make picks even for races in which figures do not apply.

He told me he would look into it and he would let me know...but I haven't heard from him yet.

In those races, bet the favorite...case closed.

[cj]

Originally Posted by badcompany

While I don't have stats to back this up, from what I've seen, most races are crapshoots, racing luck not handicapping is the determining factor. So, if you're betting every race you're automatically "handicapping" yourself vis a vis your ROI.

If you believe that, play roulette.

[cj]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

He told me that he had proof that blindly betting his figures would easily outperform the crowd favorite's ROI...which, by the way, easily beats the 17% takeout.

Buzzer sound.

I have over 245,000 favorites in my database. The return per dollar is 83.39 cents. It beats 17 percent, but barely, not easily.

[TrifectaMike]

Allow me to introduce some clarity on this subject.

Let's view each horse in a collection of races as objects.

There are n objects.

A Favorite Selector can only select m objects ( each m object is the favorite). The favorite selector is confined to the favorite object (no exceptions).

Another Selector_1 can select k objects (k = m, but the objects are different, unless Another Selector_1 selects the same objects as the Favorite Selector).

Another Selector_2 can select j objects (j = m, but the objects are different, unless Another Selector_2 selects the same objects as the Favorite Selector).

We can can continue with numerous selectors under the same conditions.

Another Selector_3 can select i objects....
.................................................. ..........
.................................................. ..........

Another Selector_L can select l objects....

So, Thask are you suggesting that the Favorite Selector is the optimal selector from among all possible selectors of m objects from n objects in terms of both hit rate and ROI? If so, I would like to see this proof.

Mike (Dr Beav)

[mountainman]

Originally Posted by cj

Buzzer sound.

I have over 245,000 favorites in my database. The return per dollar is 83.39 cents. It beats 17 percent, but barely, not easily.

I recall reading some statistics a few years back that had chalks at a higher roi, and with faves winning more now than then, the dichotomy must be attributable to shrinking fields and lower payoffs per winning chalk.

[mountainman]

Originally Posted by TrifectaMike

Allow me to introduce some clarity on this subject.

Let's view each horse in a collection of races as objects.

There are n objects.

A Favorite Selector can only select m objects ( each m object is the favorite). The favorite selector is confined to the favorite object (no exceptions).

Another Selector_1 can select k objects (k = m, but the objects are different, unless Another Selector_1 selects the same objects as the Favorite Selector).

Another Selector_2 can select j objects (j = m, but the objects are different, unless Another Selector_2 selects the same objects as the Favorite Selector).

We can can continue with numerous selectors under the same conditions.

Another Selector_3 can select i objects....
.................................................. ..........
.................................................. ..........

Another Selector_L can select l objects....

So, Thask are you suggesting that the Favorite Selector is the optimal selector from among all possible selectors of m objects from n objects in terms of both hit rate and ROI? If so, I would like to see this proof.

Mike (Dr Beav)

You can blindfold a trillion monkeys, too, and percentages say a considerable number of them will stab out a higher roi than chalks yield-and do so for a considerable period of time. But that's not methodology, and it's not repeatable over a second dry run from that subset of monkees.

[GameTheory]

Originally Posted by cj

What do you base this on? I can back this up with my database, but first, I want to hear why you think this? Win percentage you are correct, but no way ROI.

This is correct. It is fairly easy to come up with something that will beat the public ROI-wise, at least in theory.

You don't need a database, a simple thought experiment can confirm it. Again, in theory.

Let's say you have a spot play method -- a mechanical method that picks a horse to bet in one out of every 10 races (or whatever). Sometimes, it picks the favorite, sometimes it doesn't. Let's say this method is profitable, or only loses a few percent. I'm sure we can agree that something like this is possible -- many of us have such spot play methods. All we require of it for this discussion is that it beat the favorite ROI-wise in performance, which if it is profitable or nearly so is certainly the case. In other words, if we can agree that in races where we have a play it is possible to beat the public, then case closed.

Why case closed? Because if we can beat them in that subset where we have a spot play, we can always equal them in the rest of the races by simply playing the favorite, which means our overall performance betting every race will beat the public. But, here's where theory meets practice -- you can't always pick out the favorite in time to bet it. Nevertheless, the general point holds unless you think the "public always outperforms the handicapper when betting every race (single selection)" rule only applies solely because of this inability to pick out the favorite 100% of the time.


But putting my "proof" aside, there are other simple selection methods that will beat the public ROI along the lines of "bet the best beyer", etc (substituting ML favorite when there is no figures, or some such rule). To prove that, you do need a database, but I've seen enough examples of it in my time to no longer have any doubts that it can be done.