Strategies for finding Overlays

[Robert Fischer]

What strategies do you use to find overlays?

[lamboguy]

when i had a lot of horses to enter i was getting these pace figures that i have to pay for. it also includes an odds model based strictly on pace. you can have a horse that just won a non winners of a race to the date with a top pace number that can hardly ever win the that double beaten because of the horses he is facing. so that is one of the ways i can poke holes into the oddsline. than i look at the replay of the race and see what part of the track the horse ran on. if the horse ran on the inside of a what i would call a good horse i would assign a higher value to my oddsline. i also incorporate some works to the model, plenty of other things as well.

all this is to much work, and when you have a rotten day its not worth it!

[cnollfan]

Identifying a race with an overbet favorite.

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by lamboguy

when i had a lot of horses to enter i was getting these pace figures that i have to pay for. it also includes an odds model based strictly on pace. you can have a horse that just won a non winners of a race to the date with a top pace number that can hardly ever win the that double beaten because of the horses he is facing. so that is one of the ways i can poke holes into the oddsline. than i look at the replay of the race and see what part of the track the horse ran on. if the horse ran on the inside of a what i would call a good horse i would assign a higher value to my oddsline. i also incorporate some works to the model, plenty of other things as well.

all this is to much work, and when you have a rotten day its not worth it!

Pace is a good one.

With the replays, you say you are looking for a horse who had a good horse to his outside? Never thought of that . You looking for a horse that was 'bothered'? Can you explain more?

[lamboguy]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

Pace is a good one.

With the replays, you say you are looking for a horse who had a good horse to his outside? Never thought of that . You looking for a horse that was 'bothered'? Can you explain more?

its always tough to run on the inside especially if you are covered up by a good horse.

the other thing that i didn't mention is that i subtract points from horses that had perfect trips from the outside that didn't win.

i also have my own way of rating prior races that seems to work, so i add and subtract depending on the strength of the prior race. i am never going to play a horse that i consider coming out of a weak sprint race and going into a route, while i will give a horse a lot of credit if he makes the same move from a stronger race.

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by lamboguy

its always tough to run on the inside especially if you are covered up by a good horse.

the other thing that i didn't mention is that i subtract points from horses that had perfect trips from the outside that didn't win.

i also have my own way of rating prior races that seems to work, so i add and subtract depending on the strength of the prior race. i am never going to play a horse that i consider coming out of a weak sprint race and going into a route, while i will give a horse a lot of credit if he makes the same move from a stronger race.

Thanks. That makes a lot of sense.

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by cnollfan

Identifying a race with an overbet favorite.

What types of things do you do when you take a stand against the favorite?

[lamboguy]

the other thing i do is rate heavily bet horses in the show pool and make a line on them. if there is money on the horse and i have his show payoff rated at $2.07 or less, i will bet on that horse. if i have him rated at $2.15 or more i go looking for other horses. i find plenty these days that i have rated at $2.80 or more that i have to swing against, especially at places like Charlestown and Mountaineer.

i get a kick out of all the people that follow bridgejump alerts and bet the whole field against the one horse. i consider that a worse bet than laying 20-1 blindly on a horse.

[Poindexter]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

What strategies do you use to find overlays?

You only need one strategy. Learn how to handicap, make a fair odds line and bet value. There is no telling why or when the betting public is going to make mistakes. All you can do as a horse player is arm yourself with a fair odds line, so you can truly take advantage when they do. I went a long time without making an odds line (just laziness) and as a result, most of the time, when I line races now, I usually come up with about 120% on the first run and have to work myself down to 100% on my oddsline. That is because I have conditioned myself to the track take by not making a fair odds line. Once I get more conditioned to making fair lines again, I will come much closer to 100% on the first run. That is something to think about.

[Tom]

I like races where all the horses are bunched up on Beyer's, say between 80 - 86, not a huge diff.

Then I look for other factors that might rise to the level of primary in this race, like first time gelding, blinker change, third off a layoff, class drop....

[Poindexter]

Getting back more specifically to the spirit of this topic, angles that give good value. Here are a few. My favorite is a horse who earned figures many months ago as a 2yo or 3 yo figures to develop and the public assumes that the horse is capable of only running as fast as it did many months ago. Now the question with these horses is when to bet them. Sometimes they are out for exercise 1 or 2 times then fire. So it is a tricky angle. Of course sometimes they never develop, but often these horses pop up at a nice price, somewhere down the line(on the day Pimlico was giving out it's mandatory payout, I did not see they were giving it out until 4 am pacific time, capped the pick six in about 2 hourse went to sleep-woke up just in time to play the pick6, had 5 of six missing one horse who fit this angle to a tee-would not have missed him in a 100 years if I noticed it-think it paid about 12 k). A great play against angle is a horse that win race(s) easily against air, clearing by 3 and never looking back than catching a much tougher pace scenario. If they haven't shown the ability to take the heat early, assume they can't. These horses are often so overbet. Lightly raced horse with strong pace figures that stop are sometime interesting. They sometimes rate the next time out and pay a hefty price. I have also become fond of the sprinting quitter, who stretches usually 7f or even routing and then shortens up. It seems like the stretch out enables them to have a little punch in the lane and they often transform from being a E type to a P type and often win at pretty nice prices.

[DeltaLover]

By default, discovering an overlay, is related over-bet favorites and under-bet long-shots.

The whole game revolves around this principle, so the topic of this thread is quite open ended, as it requires a whole book or even more to get to a specific answer..

Theoretically speaking, finding a good bet requires, what I like to call meta-handicapping or in other words, handicapping the handicappers and the way they are betting!

Basic angles, like 'never bet a three year old against older in the beginning of the year' or 'never bet a female against males', are responsible for some of the most systematic errors committed by the crowd and understanding the main drivers of crowd's decisions is the starting point to find an overlay. More than this, we still need to do some additional and parallel work, trying to balance most frequent winners with the possible overlays, especially if we are betting into long exotics..

Based in what I am saying here, my short answer to the question of the thread:

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

What strategies do you use to find overlays?

Is going to be the following:

Identify the obvious handicapping factors influencing the crowd and try to make cases against them,trying to bet against the widely known and common sense racing maxims.

[cnollfan]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

What types of things do you do when you take a stand against the favorite?

It varies, depending on why I dislike that particular favorite. I hate to say something as mundane as handicap the race and bet on who's left, but it does often boil down to that.

If I think a heavy favorite will be off the board, then exactas, tris and supers are that much more appealing because the more slots you can leave the favorite out of, the better.

I make it a point to include the second favorite if I hate the favorite unless I don't like that one at all either.

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by Poindexter

Getting back more specifically to the spirit of this topic, angles that give good value. Here are a few. My favorite is a horse who earned figures many months ago as a 2yo or 3 yo figures to develop and the public assumes that the horse is capable of only running as fast as it did many months ago. Now the question with these horses is when to bet them. Sometimes they are out for exercise 1 or 2 times then fire. So it is a tricky angle. Of course sometimes they never develop, but often these horses pop up at a nice price, somewhere down the line(on the day Pimlico was giving out it's mandatory payout, I did not see they were giving it out until 4 am pacific time, capped the pick six in about 2 hourse went to sleep-woke up just in time to play the pick6, had 5 of six missing one horse who fit this angle to a tee-would not have missed him in a 100 years if I noticed it-think it paid about 12 k). A great play against angle is a horse that win race(s) easily against air, clearing by 3 and never looking back than catching a much tougher pace scenario. If they haven't shown the ability to take the heat early, assume they can't. These horses are often so overbet. Lightly raced horse with strong pace figures that stop are sometime interesting. They sometimes rate the next time out and pay a hefty price. I have also become fond of the sprinting quitter, who stretches usually 7f or even routing and then shortens up. It seems like the stretch out enables them to have a little punch in the lane and they often transform from being a E type to a P type and often win at pretty nice prices.

Sharp angle.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by cnollfan

Identifying a race with an overbet favorite.

That's probably my best idea too.

It's difficult to weigh all the factors and unique circumstances in a race into an accurate odds line.

These days, even if you have a trip, trainer pattern, or horse that raced against a bias, people are so sharp it's rare that a horse is easy to recognize as an overlay. It's usually marginal if you find one.

I think it's easier to find a flawed favorite. Then, if you are correct, you are usually in pretty good shape no matter which of the other contenders you wind up on.