Pandy was kind enough to send me a copy of his book to review.
I must begin by saying that it is difficult for authors to get very many stars from me because:
- I am a systematic player and seat-of-the-pants handicapping is just not my style.
- Books without stats to back up concepts are downgraded.
- If an idea intrigues me, I will find a way to apply and test it.
So, the review bar is high.
HOWEVER... I also understand that my outlook on handicapping books and materials is not the same as everyone else.
The things that drive my reviews are:
- Will the book help the reader?
- What type/level of reader will benefit most?
- Is the book easily understandable?
- Is there any single thing I (personally) can take from the book?
POWER PACE Review
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What it is
The primary concept in
Power Pace is a way to adjust two key ratings -early speed and late speed - to provide you with a better, more reality-based approach to pace handicapping.
To be clear, these would be the
*Early Pace Rating - (commonly called EP) rating to the 2nd call.
*Late Pace Rating - the Stretch Run (commonly called SR or F3) - from the 2nd call to the wire.
The examples are all from BRIS reports, but certainly easily adapted for use with other rating systems.
The concept itself was well-described, with plenty of examples. (I had an electronic copy and did find that I was constantly turning back and forth from the graphics to the instructions.)
Does it Work?
I did not, of course, write a system to test this. However, I did take the concepts and adapt them almost instantly into my software, in the shape of some new handicapping objects.
What I did was replace the
Pace Objects I have been using recently with several based upon Pandy's Adjustments. Make no mistake - in the book it is the adjustments that make the approach sing.
I can assure you that the concepts are sound.
While the book is clearly written for what I refer to "Table Spread Players" - those who buy reports and spread them out on the table (metaphorically or literally) and come to decisions about the race, I suggest that the numbers-based players can use this - possibly right out of the box - to improve their results.
Of course, most of us won't. We'll tweak it and adapt it to our own way. It is what we do.
Including the built-in taxation that comes with reviews by me - the bar is high, remember? --- I give this book 4 stars.
Well done, Pandy!
Regards,
Dave Schwartz
