RDSS 2.0 Screenshots

[Ted Craven]

Hi Everyone!

I thought it might be time to start showing a little bit of what RDSS 2.0 looks like. There is so much that is new, and so much that doesn't work right yet, that I thought I'd just do a bit of handicapping this afternoon and grab what I have and throw up a few things.

Here's AQU Race 1 today (Jan 29):

Here's the Winner Shoe Babe who paid $37.70

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Here is a look at the new 'Hide' feature (aka 'Secondary Contenders'). Let's hide the 2/5 favourite Sunday in Malibu, and instead, make Shoe Babe a Contender

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For some reason, BL/BL is not working today in RDSS 2.0, so here's the old one:

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A few things you're seeing above:

The highlighter bar on line 3 (the selected line for Shoe) helps you see what line you're focusing on in each of the 2 available PP panels.

The Finish position bolds finishes in the top half+1 of the Field.

You can mark a horse a (primary) Contender or a Secondary Contender using the check marks in the header, or by right-clicking the checkbox or the line, or by moving the line between Contender groups in the Analysis screen. In the past, we have know this as 'Hiding' i.e. remove a horse from Analysis whom you don't wish to bet on. I am choosing to 'hide' such horses 'in plain sight' by grouping them as Secondary Contenders, or Not-for-win Contenders. The ranks showing for this group are the overall ranks they have, while the ranks in the main (primary) group are the ranks with the Secondary (aka hidden) horses removed.

All the Analysis screes are now showing more Tote info (if connected), and so far I have Win Odds and Tote Xray.

On this Pace of Horse Velocity Analysis screen, I moved %Median into the position with the %Energy readouts to show how it relates to those and to show how the coloured ESP label relates to %Median energy distribution.

Ted

[Bill Lyster]

Ted:

Format looks great. Hiding in plain site is good esp for exacta and exotics players.

Any place for a personal comment line? I take notes when reviewing and note esp. weak early types or v.v.late types, but the ability to remind myself during the bet decision process (on screen) would be nice too, Santa!

I always liked the velocity screen that lines up by best @ 2nd call. When the machine ESP shows late running horses closer to 2nd call than the early horses its pretty strong indicator.e.g., if a P is in lead at 2nd call (assuming it is a true P and not a one race P), any EP horse ranked lower will have trouble passing, etc.

Nice going so far....


Bill

[Profiler8]

Hi Ted,

that looks really good. :-)

Greetings
Tim

[noddub62]

I like it I like it. Place for notes would be nice.

Congrats. I know that it's been a lot of hard work. Can't wait to get my hands on it.

Thanks,
Bud

[Ted Craven]

Place for notes would be nice.


Any place for a personal comment line?


So you're saying you want notes...! OK, OK, notes it is! Actually, I'm thinking several levels of notes, depending on what you need to observe:

1. note for a given past running line for a horse (you saw some undocumented trouble in a video replay)

2. note for a horse in today's race ('weak Early', 'washed out prerace')

3. note for today's race (wager decision explanation, emotional audit)

4. note for today's card of races (for a given track)

Repeated note phrases could be drop-down list selections, and notes would show in future PPs comments section, wager/model records. Notes for a horse in today's race would show in Analysis screen(s) and printouts.

Ted

[noddub62]

For me, just lines to add my own notes, although drop down would be good as well. I'm bad about seing a possible contender that I want to consider, maybe one with an angle, etc, but then forget during analysis or wager time. Guess it's oldtimers.:D

Whatever you can do is much appreciated.

Bud

[SilentRun]

So you're saying you want notes...! OK, OK, notes it is! Actually, I'm thinking several levels of notes, depending on what you need to observe:

1. note for a given past running line for a horse (you saw some undocumented trouble in a video replay)

2. note for a horse in today's race ('weak Early', 'washed out prerace')

3. note for today's race (wager decision explanation, emotional audit)

4. note for today's card of races (for a given track)

Repeated note phrases could be drop-down list selections, and notes would show in future PPs comments section, wager/model records. Notes for a horse in today's race would show in Analysis screen(s) and printouts.

Ted

Ted,

With reference to the last paragraph..."and notes would show in future PPs comments section".
Does this mean you will be including the actual race
comments like, "bumped at start" or "steadied at top of stretch"
that Spec160 displays or do the notes refer to those written by the user ?

Ernie

[Ted Craven]

Ernie,

The RDSS Original 2 screen for each horse's PPs now shows the short comments, more for some Stakes races. Somewhere here is where I would display user comments about a given horse and race. Also, here is where I will display the long comments seen in Speculator (i.e. full chart comments), likely as a drop down or hover-over balloon-tip type thingy. (See some screen shots later today for some balloon-tip Help examples).

Ted

[Ted Craven]

Here's a look at today's 1st contest race. I've chosen to retain ALL the horses in the race, simply categorizing them into Primary, Secondary (not for win) and Non-contenders. Secondary and Non-contenders display dimmer, and I can 'hide' them completely if I want (e.g. too much information...) then bring them back.

Today I want to keep them all to experiment with displaying Tote info for all horses, but sorted according to my own handicapping factors. Let's see further when this race is the current one.

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Ernie, notice the pop-up balloon-style Help for Total Energy. I can do this for every bit of data on the screen (e.g. for extended user or standard comments), and it results in some pretty neat, conditional combinations of info.

Ted

[Ted Craven]

Here's the BL/BL for SA Race 6, with Tote Win Odds and Xray numbers:

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[SilentRun]

Ted,

I think the new screens are great. Particularly the integration of the Tote-X-Ray
data. I have been compiling stats on the TX and monitoring the percentage
of winners and exactas. The stats include the position of the winner and
place horse within the top 4 TX. I have been having moderate success in
wagering using my RDSS contenders in relation to the top 4 Tx contenders.
As I learn more I am always trying to improve my wagering and come
up with a wagering approach.

Based upon my experience with this.....
Displaying the top 4 TX contenders is important as there is a significant
number of Win/Exacta horses coming from the 4th TX ( yellow position)

I also have stats to show that the TX also produces the illogical,
non-contender (RDSS throw out) horse within the top 4 TX that
sometimes wins but more often is an exotic ITM horse. This is
an amazing edge. This is the horse that you say,
"How did he get there ?".

So my request is: COULD YOU PLEASE DISPLAY THE TOP 4 TX HORSES.
The o.o (white) , Red, Green and Yellow and the users would see how
many times that one of the TX horses appears as a secondary or
non-contender and at the same time is up there in an exotic.


Thank You For Your Consideration,

Ernie

[BJennet]

Ted,

I think the new screens are great. Particularly the integration of the Tote-X-Ray
data. I have been compiling stats on the TX and monitoring the percentage
of winners and exactas. The stats include the position of the winner and
place horse within the top 4 TX. I have been having moderate success in
wagering using my RDSS contenders in relation to the top 4 Tx contenders.
As I learn more I am always trying to improve my wagering and come
up with a wagering approach.

Based upon my experience with this.....
Displaying the top 4 TX contenders is important as there is a significant
number of Win/Exacta horses coming from the 4th TX ( yellow position)

I also have stats to show that the TX also produces the illogical,
non-contender (RDSS throw out) horse within the top 4 TX that
sometimes wins but more often is an exotic ITM horse. This is
an amazing edge. This is the horse that you say,
"How did he get there ?".

So my request is: COULD YOU PLEASE DISPLAY THE TOP 4 TX HORSES.
The o.o (white) , Red, Green and Yellow and the users would see how
many times that one of the TX horses appears as a secondary or
non-contender and at the same time is up there in an exotic.


Thank You For Your Consideration,

Ernie

Hi Ernie,

I was looking over the TX columns on the new RDSS, and trying to understand how they're used. Although I've read some of your posts, it's not completely clear to me. As far as I can tell the TX ranking is almost completely correlated with Final Odds. There must be something I'm missing here. Any help appreciated.

Cheers,

BC

[SilentRun]

Hi Ernie,

I was looking over the TX columns on the new RDSS, and trying to understand how they're used. Although I've read some of your posts, it's not completely clear to me. As far as I can tell the TX ranking is almost completely correlated with Final Odds. There must be something I'm missing here. Any help appreciated.

Cheers,

BC

Sorry, but I do not understand how the TX rankings are computed.
I posted a similiar request some time ago to no avail. All I can say that
It is some algorithm relationship between the pools.
But After compiling empirical data and matching the TX to my
RDSS contenders I find it is helping me and I can use all the help I can get.
The first at Tampa today is a good example.

Ernie

[BJennet]

Sorry, but I do not understand how the TX rankings are computed.
I posted a similiar request some time ago to no avail. All I can say that
It is some algorithm relationship between the pools.
But After compiling empirical data and matching the TX to my
RDSS contenders I find it is helping me and I can use all the help I can get.
The first at Tampa today is a good example.

Ernie

Hi Ernie,

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought this was something you developed, not realizing that it originated with Ted. But it doesn't change my response.

In two of the three races posted, and in the odds of two of three horses in the last (TAM) race, all of the horses TX rating simply tracked the final odds. And BTW, congrats on the 15/1 hit, but based on what Ted said in his explanation of how the TX is formulated, there's nothing pointing to why the horse should have ranked so highly on this rating, although I did have it ranked #3 on my BL/BL.

From what Ted says in his explanation of the TX rating, it sounds very similar to the technique invented by William Ziemba about 25 years ago to spot inefficiencies in place and show pools. This was a very good system in its time, and was even validated by Edward Thorp. I used it myself, as apparently did Dave Schwartz. But the advantages it offered were quickly erased as bigger players became aware of it, and it was useless after about 1990. In general, I think it's safe to say that any system using toteboard information that is readily available to the crowd, has no wager value. Given the kind of computing power available to even the average person, this is exactly the kind of statistical information that makes it very easy to spot and erase inefficiencies.

BTW, I would be very happy to be proven wrong about this by a sample of a few hundred races. But I hope anyone who does so, makes an effort to isolate the performance of the TX rating, so we can assess its value independently of the BL/BL or any of the other Sartin factors whose value is already proven.

Thanks for your feedback.

Cheers,

B Jennet

[Ted Craven]

Re Tote Xray - well, it is what it is, and I think I gave enough info about its general derivation. It is co-related somewhat to Win Odds, but obviously not completely. The next phase is to co-relate Exacta pool relationships with Win Odds and Win/Place pool relationships. I agree, a proper study of Tx as it currently exists would be wonderful.

With RDSS 2.0, the tote exists separate from any TrackMaster PP data, and you can run RDSS without TrackMaster data at all if you want - just a tote connection, including databasing the tote data, exporting to various formats, replaying the tote values for a race minute by minute, etc. I have a computer dedicated to running RDSS just in tote mode to capture all tracks, every day. Since wager decisions are the end-point of the handicapping process, and those decisions depend on what's offered in various pools - harnessing that pool data - and relationships - is a core thing of RDSS going forward. We can achieve a lot of intelligence and flexibility about how to formulate wagers if we have real-time data and relationships - including up to when the horses load into the gate.

Ernie, not to disuade you at all from continuing your study of what Tx is showing you now. Just FYI - it will get easier.

BJ - fire up RDSS if you like and see what that Tote Xray thing is anyway. I know there's more subtelty can be integrated into it yet - but it does suggest some clues to round out exotic wagers from time to time.

Ted

[Capcondo]

Ted,

I come from a computer software implementation background so I think I know what good software looks like. You've done a great job with RDSS.

I like to match the horses and being able to see all the chosen pacelines together on the screen is great.

This might be the time to mention my suggestion. I use the RS buttons significantly when matching a race. It would be nice if there was an 'EF' (Early Fighter), 'EPF' (Early Presser Fighter), and 'PF' (Presser Fighter).

Thanks for your great work.

Tim

[SilentRun]

Hi Ernie,

BTW, I would be very happy to be proven wrong about this by a sample of a few hundred races. But I hope anyone who does so, makes an effort to isolate the performance of the TX rating, so we can assess its value independently of the BL/BL or any of the other Sartin factors whose value is already proven.

Thanks for your feedback.

Cheers,

B Jennet

I will review my tote data and see how many examples there are that
shows TX rating that is independent of BL/BL. This will include those
TX horses within the 4 top tote levels that either won or ran ITM (place
/show).

Ernie

[BJennet]

Re Tote Xray - well, it is what it is, and I think I gave enough info about its general derivation. It is co-related somewhat to Win Odds, but obviously not completely. The next phase is to co-relate Exacta pool relationships with Win Odds and Win/Place pool relationships. I agree, a proper study of Tx as it currently exists would be wonderful.

With RDSS 2.0, the tote exists separate from any TrackMaster PP data, and you can run RDSS without TrackMaster data at all if you want - just a tote connection, including databasing the tote data, exporting to various formats, replaying the tote values for a race minute by minute, etc. I have a computer dedicated to running RDSS just in tote mode to capture all tracks, every day. Since wager decisions are the end-point of the handicapping process, and those decisions depend on what's offered in various pools - harnessing that pool data - and relationships - is a core thing of RDSS going forward. We can achieve a lot of intelligence and flexibility about how to formulate wagers if we have real-time data and relationships - including up to when the horses load into the gate.

Ernie, not to disuade you at all from continuing your study of what Tx is showing you now. Just FYI - it will get easier.

BJ - fire up RDSS if you like and see what that Tote Xray thing is anyway. I know there's more subtelty can be integrated into it yet - but it does suggest some clues to round out exotic wagers from time to time.

Ted

Hi Ted,

I do see that the TX feature is intended as only part of a larger effort to incorporate tote information into the software, which is, of course, a great idea. Although, as you mentioned, TX is intended to find place and show pool inefficiencies, you seem not be really be making any claims for its effectiveness in this area. As I said, I remain fairly sceptical about such possibilities, but hope that Ernie and others who are testing this feature will keep us informed about their results.

Congratulations on what you've done so far with this softward, and best of luck with the work that remains.

Cheers,

B Jennet

[BJennet]

I will review my tote data and see how many examples there are that
shows TX rating that is independent of BL/BL. This will include those
TX horses within the 4 top tote levels that either won or ran ITM (place
/show).

Ernie

Hi Ernie,

I think we all appreciate you efforts. Just to add one thing - as I mentioned before, the TX often does seem to track the final odds rank very closely. To the extent that it does, as Ted mentioned himself in the original thread on this subject, it offers no additional value. So maybe a question worth thinking about is how often the TX puts a horse ITM that is neither a BL/BL contender nor in the top three or four final odds ranks.

Best of luck and thanks for your posts.

Cheers,

B Jennet

[raceman5]

If possible Ted how about a few races from Philly today with the new pace line selection?

Bob

[Ted Craven]

Sure Bob, here's Race 6, with a few minutes to go:

19113

19114

19115

19116

I'll see if I can update it before post-time.

Ted

[Ted Craven]

Post time:

19120

Result:

19121

[Ted Craven]

This might be the time to mention my suggestion. I use the RS buttons significantly when matching a race. It would be nice if there was an 'EF' (Early Fighter), 'EPF' (Early Presser Fighter), and 'PF' (Presser Fighter).


Tim, Would these examples below show Early fighter and Early Presser fighter respectively? If so, notice the new markup when a horse is within a neck of another (italic, underline). This emphacises that the horse is a 'fighter' in Match Up parlance.

19124


19125

Now, you suggest a distinct Running Style designation for these types, presumably to draw your attention on all screens to when a Early, or EP or Presser style has shown that it can fight for the lead at its preferred pack position as the race progresses.

If I am able to differentiate the standard E, EP, P, etc designations such that it is clear that the horse is also a fighter for the lead at a given call point, and not just a butt-sniffer (:eek:), would this do the trick?

I am also working on designating multiple Running Styles, so you could designate E and also EP for a horse, or P and also SP...somehow. Also, showing Quirin Early Speed Points in the standard format.

Ted

[Capcondo]

Ted,

Altering the computer generated running style would be a good thing. Sometimes, I don't choose a line that indicates the horse is a fighter (probably I should select a fighter running line) so the computer generated RS may not indicate fighter. An example would be if I think he is going to get the lead but the in the lead lines don't show him as a fighter. Just 2 or 3 new buttons would help tremendously.

Thanks for all your hard work,

Tim

[Ted Craven]

Tim,

Just a clarification - the 'computer generated' running style (captioned ESP) is the energy disbursement pattern (i.e. a range of %Median values) and NOT the visual Running Style which you currently designate by hand (and which RDSS 2.0 will give a crack at default assignments). It is in the Visual Running Style category - positional - (captioned RS on the various screens and in the Horse Header screen) that we might be able to add some 'fighter' designations. Not in the energy disbursement ESP category.

Probably we're on the same page, but just clarifying!

Ted

[Capcondo]

Ted,

We are on the same page. I should have been clearer.

Thanks for replying.

Tim

[BladeRunner]

Ted,

I was just going through these pages. What a awesome looking program !

How is it coming along ?

HAPPY EASTER!

[Ted Craven]

Raman,

It's coming... I'm working on a few things related to tote and ADW connections, which also relate to record keeping. I hope to be able to show some more stuff later this month, but it's still going to be a little while.

cheers,

Ted

[BigGreen]

when is 2.0 going to be available?!?also wondering if 2.0 will work for quarter horse races?

[SilentRun]

]

Ernie, notice the pop-up balloon-style Help for Total Energy. I can do this for
Every bit of data on the screen (e.g. for extended user or standard comments), and it results in some pretty neat, conditional combinations of info.

Ted

Very nice feature.....Re: extended user or standard comments does this mean that the user can control the number of pop-ups to display based on the data that is selected ?

Is the pop-up data fixed or can the user modify the data within the pop-ups ?

Thanks,

Ernie

[SilentRun]

Raman,

It's coming... I'm working on a few things related to tote and ADW connections, which also relate to record keeping. I hope to be able to show some more stuff later this month, but it's still going to be a little while.

cheers,

Ted

Ted,

We are all lookng forward to RDSS 2.0.....but what about the possibility of
implementing 2.0 in phases ? I think that the user community can initially
live without all the bells and whistles (such as Quirin Speed points and the comments in the above post plus, plus)

Looking at the example screens from SA R6 from 1/30 and AQU R1 from
1/29 demonstrates to me that a version having this main functionality could be
turned on relatively soon. Phase II can then include the next (nice to have)
functionality and Phase III (If there is a phase three) can include the remainder.

By implementing 2.0 in phases will also give the users a chance to adjust to a smaller universe rather than being
overwhelmed at once with all the goodies.
It will also have the advantage of mitigating the testing time.

Just to put this recommendation on the table.

Ernie

[Pat C.]

Ted,
If you are still taking suggestions.....would it be possible to have both the POH and POR visible simultaneously. One in the primary window and one in the secondary. Currently, when one is switched, the other is also.

When matching, I like to view how the horse ran against the POR and I get lost switching back and forth.

The program looks great. Can't wait.

Thanks, Pat C.

[Ted Craven]

when is 2.0 going to be available?!?also wondering if 2.0 will work for quarter horse races?

Hi BigGreen, and welcome to Pace and Cap!

If all goes well, RDSS 2.0 should be ready for testing sometime in the later Autumn (Breeders Cup?). It won't work with Quarterhorses so far. I don't know much about quarters. Not saying something couldn't be done down the line though.

I'm gathering together my various modules about what works and what doesn't and will be showing some stuff in the next week or so. Getting ready for the Saratoga and Del Mar gatherings nest month.

Ted

[Ted Craven]

Ted,
If you are still taking suggestions.....would it be possible to have both the POH and POR visible simultaneously. One in the primary window and one in the secondary. Currently, when one is switched, the other is also.

When matching, I like to view how the horse ran against the POR and I get lost switching back and forth.

The program looks great. Can't wait.

Thanks, Pat C.

Pat, from the screen images above, you can maybe see that PoR and PoH are now sitting on separate tabbed screens (if you feel like displaying them). You can put PoH in the upper panel and PoR in the middle or lower panel. I also have a design for mixing some PoR and PoH on the same screen.

Ted

[Ted Craven]

Very nice feature.....Re: extended user or standard comments does this mean that the user can control the number of pop-ups to display based on the data that is selected ?

Is the pop-up data fixed or can the user modify the data within the pop-ups ?

Thanks,

Ernie

Ernie,

Pop-ups or Tooltips are typically non-editable information (either static or dynamic, but not editable). Of course, if they are related to a user editable data point (user comments) then the pop-up contents would be 'editable'.

As with anything, they're for an ergonomic purpose - to educate or clarify a readout, or to display data in otherwise constricted space. For example, I have about 20 characters or so to display condensed trip comments (on the Original 2 screen). But the 'long comments' (full comments from the charts could pop-up if you hovered over or clicked on those short comments. Same with displaying your own notes for a race you worked or watched: on a screen you could display say 10 characters (and create/edit the text in that space), but display the full text upon mouse-over. Etc.

I'm sure there are other good uses, but they'll be there in an non-annoying way, and are almost universally configurable.

Ted

[Ted Craven]

Ted,

We are all lookng forward to RDSS 2.0.....but what about the possibility of
implementing 2.0 in phases ? I think that the user community can initially
live without all the bells and whistles (such as Quirin Speed points and the comments in the above post plus, plus)

Looking at the example screens from SA R6 from 1/30 and AQU R1 from
1/29 demonstrates to me that a version having this main functionality could be
turned on relatively soon. Phase II can then include the next (nice to have)
functionality and Phase III (If there is a phase three) can include the remainder.

By implementing 2.0 in phases will also give the users a chance to adjust to a smaller universe rather than being
overwhelmed at once with all the goodies.
It will also have the advantage of mitigating the testing time.

Just to put this recommendation on the table.

Ernie

Ernie,

I appreciate your sense of urgency and (gentle) encouragement for a phased approach ;). You are not the first to suggest ways to help me get 'er done...

Various issues have confronted me in my progress on this, and not all are technical. I have found it remarkably time-consuming though. RDSS 2.0 in fact will be phased, as I'm sure no one wants to wait another year and there are good ideas to work on to last a lifetime of development, believe me! But that said, there are some minimum feature sets which I will hold out for, for the first release, which will happen when those at least are done:

1. rock solid stability
2. rock solid stability
3. Win 7 (32 and 64 bit) compatibility; works on smaller computers
4. integrated record keeping: track profiles from result charts, decision models, wager records
5. print outs
6. tote info throughout
7. My Races (aka today's race listing filtered: e.g. all route non-turf, non-maiden races for 3YO+ with 8+ entrants, where 10 cent superfectas are offered, running during the daytime; etc, etc - user definable)
8. Notion of Primary/Secondary contenders (per screenshots)
9. Documentation/tutorial videos and help system.
10. Automated paceline selection strategies

These are the large ideas. Lots of smaller stuff which has been discussed and can be discussed further once I get things more stable (various alternate screens, readouts, etc). But when the large ideas are ready for others to test, that's when the first release of RDSS 2.0 will be approaching readiness.

I do appreciate everyone's patience and interest! Let's see what I can start to put up in this space soon, as I get ready for the Saratoga and Del Mar demos.

cheers,

Ted

[lonestarracefan]

Ted,

Will 2.0 have Sire & Dam fields included, At least for me, I like to know this in Maiden Races, especially for 1st timers

It be nice to have more Trainer info as well

Thanks
Joe

[Ted Craven]

Joe (good to hear from you again!),

I will show Sire, Dam, Grandsire, Granddam, as well as make a web link to PedigreeQuery.com for the horse's more complete ancestry.

E.g. Rachel Alexandra (http://www.pedigreequery.com/rachel+alexandra)

Won't have much more on Trainers for the near future.

Ted

[So Cal Al]

Ted: Looks great, and Happy Birthday. Looking forward to meeting you at Del Mar.
I had one trivial thought about 2.0. Every now and then I would like to go back to a race I already handicapped, e.g. a late scratch, and I would prefer to do so without waiting for a reloading all the runners again. Any way to get around that?

[Ted Craven]

Al,

Horses' PPs load instantly in RDSS 2.0 (if you assembled them during a separate Data Centre Task) otherwise after a small delay ad hoc. Either way, after they've been assembled, they stay assembled and load instantly when you go back to them - same with selected pacelines (Analysis sets).

Lack of that has been my biggest annoyance with the current version (among a growing list of annoyances...).

See you next week at Del Mar!

Ted