I'm Dying at Belmont
 

Ted,

I have almost not been able to get a winner at Belmont.
The results with RDSS have less than satisfactory.
This is the first race today.
The obvious winner is not included as a contender and as such was not exported.
When I enter the raw pace lines into SYN II the winner has come up as one of the top two in practically every race since the start of the meet.
This is not just an occasional race but a lot of races.
Is there something different or wrong with the way TM generates their variants?
Where I am now is back to hand entry the night before using a program that generates it's own internal variant.
Notice where the top 4 FW horses are in the finish from each program.

Froggy

Hi Froggy,

I have not good results as well, but the track was often sloppy these days.
Today, I picked a 14/1 winner at Belmont. Proably the weather is now better.
I got many big winners at Churchill last weekend. Sometimes there are cold streaks.

Your method is very good.

Thanks...

Greetings
Tim

As Bob Purdy says dont compare programs

Live Frog Live!

Shoe,
 

I'm wasn't trying to compare them.
I was just trying to find out what I was doing wrong.
Now I don't think I was doing anything wrong except having my faith in RDSS at Belmont.
Right now I defy anybody to get 6 out of 10 winners at Belmont using only RDSS without cherry picking the races.
At Aqu. it didn't matter what kind of race or surface or track condition.
I was clicking along at 5 to 7 wins a day betting every race that had pace lines using RDSS to select the contenders
and Energy to sort things out.
The first day at Belmont everything ran into a brick wall with only 2 winners.
The second and third days were just about as bad.
Derby Day I hit 3 $20 + bombs and that helped.
Yesterday after 5 straight losses I packed up and came home and spent until 2am trying to get the winners in the races I lost to no avail.
Then I figured that maybe something is out of sync with how TM is figuring their variants.
Thats when I went to and old friend "Syn II" that figures its own variants.
And low and behold it had the winner practically every time in every race and the top 3 or 4 finishers were usually in the top 5 FW.
I learned at an early age that the top 4 FW has the winner 68% of the time.
I don't like to spend my time comparing one program to another.
This is not a hobby for me.
I want to spend as little time as possible punching a keyboard.
I need to be at the betting window and I don't need to be using a program that has a problem that is at this time costing me costing me money.
Since Belmont opened I have not only been in fact out of work but I have been paying the race book cash money for the privilege
Trackmaster has it's own proprietary variants.
I have always been uncomfortable using something other than original Sartin methodology and Trackmaster isn't Sartin methodology.
I am not a purist just a person that needs to win.
In the book I sit next to a guy that is using "The Capper" with good results.
He gets an ROI of $1.20 and he lets the computer do the work. Every night he just turns it on and punches a few keys and 4 hours later he has his plays.
It's just like working a toaster.
Friday he had a $79 horse at Belmont and then there were 8 high percentage
spot plays,but none of them won.
If I could get my same ROI using that program I would start tomorrow.
I like cashing tickets every day and going home a winner and I haven't felt that the past ten days.

Froggy

Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Bullhead City Az
Posts: 766 I'm Dying at Belmont

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ted,

I have almost not been able to get a winner at Belmont.
The results with RDSS have less than satisfactory.
This is the first race today.
The obvious winner is not included as a contender and as such was not exported.
When I enter the raw pace lines into SYN II the winner has come up as one of the top two in practically every race since the start of the meet.
This is not just an occasional race but a lot of races.


Froggy,Sounds like your comparing to me but hey everyone has their own opinion.I hope you get things straightened out.Shoe

Shoe,

I certainly didn't start out that way.
And maybe I am comparing.
But If I hadn't I would've had to quit and ask my son for a job as a greeter at Walmart.
At least now I know how to work around the problem and keep my head above water.

I've always enjoyed your posts as they get right to the point.
Good luck to you in your own handicapping.

Froggy

Froggy,Thanks.I screwed up myself today in the 11th at Woodbine.I had the winner on top at 4-1 and had it down to 4 horses to run 2nd it was a 14 horse field.I threw out the 4 who was 50-1 because of the odds needless to say he ran 2nd for a 277.00 ex.Come to think of it that was a pretty low paying exacta somebody was in on it.I know this isnt RDSS related but thought I would reply.

Belmont's been a rough patch! lately!
 

It's been tricky; the best I've been able to do is stay afloat. Saturday cashed one ticket - it happens. Today I took a different tack. Perused the form and selected two races to handicap, just two - it was time to re-tool.

Bet them both in advance, and then shut down for the day. One came in at 14-1 and the other tapped out. There's something liberating about focussing on only two races. By not spreading my bets over four or five races, all monies were channeled into these two, so I put myself in a position to win some significant change. Rdss had the 14-1 horse on top, in fact, it had the trifecta in order on BL/Bl, bet a trifecta partial wheel, and a straight $10.00 Triefecta as well, both came in. Only bet one horse to win, he appeared to be the only true overlay.

Tracks go through these cycles, and it appears Belmont's not imune. I think it's an aberrant situation and believe things will soon settle down. The reason I bet the New York tracks is because these cycles are not contagious and tend to be short-lived, however this one appears to be a more resistant strain.

Here's to better days at Belmont,
Chris

Froggy,

Belmont is a unique track that has it's own profile.
You might want to look for horses that are close at the 2nd call that have a good finishing kick.

The software that you use or for that matter most softwares do not have suitable profiling capabilities. If you don't keep a track profile by distance, I suggest that you do. You will be amazed at what it will tell you.

Belmont is considered to be a 1.1 track which relates to sustained.

can i help
 

frog I HATE TO SEE YOU LIKE THIS IF i CAN HELP I WILL STOP WORKING AT HOL TO HELP YOU IF I CAN SORRW ABOUT THIS POST.T HAVE DOBULE VISION
DON'T ASK

:eek: THE STORM

Storm,

Thanks for the offer but I think I've got it covered for Wed. (I think).
I plan on using Perceptor to select a pace line on every reasonable horse and then export to Energy and make my eliminations from there.
Previously I had been using RDSS to make my eliminations.

I shall prevail.

Froggy

Froggy,

Are you keeping a track profile?

I don't play Belmont on a regular basis, but if Sprints are favoring SP/S types or loaded with speed.

the 6 here is ranks #1 in DCL and #2 in LPR

Joe,
I only keep a wagering decision form for RDSS to tell me where the winners are coming from.
I had been using RDSS's "Energy Screen" to make my eliminations and decisions as to which horses to keep in the program and export to Energy. Using the top 5 and ties.
However I use Energy to make all of my wagering decisions and keep track of every race with an "Energy Report Form".
The most important readouts in Energy are uxr and muv with lowest being best.
Using RDSS the horse ranked 7th in total energy, 6th in FW and 7th in FX.
For a sprint this type of horse is a non contender.
Syn II has the horse as 1st in FW, 3rd in FX, 3rd in WX and 2nd in DR.
This horse is a prime contender.
Now look where the horse ranks with energy.
Why do the Sartin programs that make their own internal variants from the pace lines entered put this horse on top while RDSS with Trackmaster variants ranks it 7th?
Therein lies my problem.
I would have scratched the 5, 1A, 3 and the two from Energy as non contenders for the win.

Froggy

The 1 is the counter energy horse and so would have been included in any exotic bet.
The 6 is on top of both Paragons and would have been a win bet.

Froggy,

The issue is not only (or not necessarily) theTrackMaster adjustments. Try refiguring that race in RDSS without using any DTV or ITV TrackMaster adjustments (just deselect those in the Configure window).

In this particular race, or at this particular track right now, RDSS is not firing for you and Energy and Syn2 is. Go with what works for you. Over the broader time frame and over many tracks, I don't have evidence that the TrackMaster adjustments are not more effective than less, but I'm sure open to any rigourous info that helps fine tune things.

Keep your head up - I'll try to help with the tools...

Ted

Ted,

Will do.

Froggy

Ted,

I guess I'm very confused by this, If most of sartin based programs use four basic figures for the calculations: F1,F2,F3 and final time; why would energy and RDSS be so out of line at Belmont. I've seen a majority of horses winning at Belmont that arent even in the top five contenders. Thought it was just me.

Carl

I to have been getting my head handed to me at belmont park.

I finally figured out this Belmont meet. The following was expensive to learn:

Thanks David Hello Froggy and Dallas
 

I would love to throw this out there for 3 of our
friends. I might be totally wrong but maybe Even so
I might spark a thought that will help


Froggy . I notice on both your examples many shippers distances and surfaces
what I mean is Is Belmont that important to you
If not then why not bet this track very small
and depend on a track that maybe the program
can out preform the crowd and that the circut
/shipping in horse at least all are running
on comperable surfaces

just a thought
I wish you well and that you
win and have a happy time

GS
Bill

Let's do a card before it runs to see what we can see.

Bill,

I agree totally, but for those of us who are trying to handicap full time over a few tracks this could do substantial damage to a bank roll. I guess we are just trying to deterimine a likely source for this anomaly, which i feel is a more worthwhile course of action rather than ignoring it and blindly handicapping another track.

Personally I would like to know if this is just isolated to this meet, the track, algorithims in rdss, the need for a profile, or whatever. I dont believe any one is attempting to diminish this great program; we just dont want to see` our bankroll go poff with no explanation or understanding.

If your handicapping three tracks and this develops in two out of the three; and it takes you two - three weeks to determine that this isnt just a bad run rather than an incompatibility with a particular track or meet this could be deadly.

I'm certainly not switching to anything else, rdss is far better than the rest of the pack. Maybe those of us who are more concerned with this can find a way to privately compare notes and findings and figure out whats going on or early warning signs, lol.


Rich, thats a great idea.

Respectfully
Carl

correct
 

Carl

I respect your feelings on this issue

thats what we are here for

I hope I helped, You have helped me

thank you

GS
Bill

Bill

If we use the chat room to work a card from Belmont in advance can we put up screenshots in there?

I'm thinking maybe Saturday or Sunday next weekend meet up like 11 AM (This way we have scratches known) we can get together and mill around a bit

Bill,

Everyone one is a great help, I appreciste all of the opinions given. Was just respectfully pointing out that this anomoly might be more important to us. I will definitely participate in any exercise that may shed some light on this. The reason I havent damaged my bankroll is after the first day of non-winners I drastically decreased the size of wagers at belmont, and compensated by betting a churchill downs and Hollywood.

Have anyone noticed how dead the OTB's are lately, I've had to go to verona downs as of late to make my churchill wagers. Their not really setup for us computer handicappers - no outlets for our laptops!!!!!


Carl

Ahhh Rich,

On a related topic, you posted a belmont track profile in another thread. Hmmmm, it looked like a souped up version of RDSS :rolleyes: , lol. Would you care to enlighten us on the origins of that track profile. :D


Carl

Carl
May I ask what settings are you using?

Rewarding
 

Spec is doing very well there day to day.

I believe one of Froggy's original theses in starting this thread was that compared to Energy and/or Synergism2 RDSS was faring poorly at this Belmont meet, in his hands. Not necessarily, or only, that he wasn't having success at Belmont: any given meet, or sequence of races can end up inscrutable, or any combination of missed opportunities or attention lapses, or bad beats can and do occur. That's why luck and circumstance tend to have more impact over the short term, but skill, record keeping, self-confidence and application of knowledge not widely held will prove out in the longer term.

Froggy wanted to know why 2 (or 3) programs with similar heritages produced different numbers, and I think Carl was asking a similar question. I don't know the final answer about that specific question - I don't know the insides of Energy as well as I do Validator/Speculator (but I'm learning...). I suggested earlier to compare RDSS uandjusted numbers (i.e. DTV, ITV) to Energy (which are unadjusted by an external DTV and ITV).

Froggy also posted 1 race example, and 1 race does not make an indictment of a meet. I'm sure there are lots of other examples which could be posted, and any one of them may or may not be gettable by following perhaps some alternate consistent paceline or analysis method. It's the aggregate, to me, which is most important, not any given race, though clearly the aggregate comprises single races, so that's where the work is.

Also during this time, Froggy has been posting results from 1 horse bets at Belmont, following his 'RDSS social security system' (or RDSSSSS), and is doing rather well.

It makes me think a few things:

1. there is more to wagering than win betting, and more to win betting than 2 horse betting

2. there are more readouts in RDSS (and Val and Spec) than BL/BL. I myself ALWAYS consider the Segments screen, especially the CBL readouts and who dominates at the first 2 calls, and also look for the opposite horse in the E/L screen. Since I don't have a model of Belmont, I must rely more on my understanding of the Match Up, such as it is. CBL in RDSS/Spec is the readout most analagous to Emuv, Smuv uXr in Energy.

3. These other screen really help in identifying horses with lower energy but high impact on the pace and match up, usually paying good money, if not to win then in other pools when the logical bet is a low priced favourite.


That said, I also want to understand the differences between RDSS and Energy particularly (and also Syn2). Carl, one major difference is the use of external variants from TrackMaster (DTV, ITV) compared to internally constructed variants/adjustments; perhaps there are more than the usual quantity of shippers right now and ITV equalization of tracks surfaces is proving less functional than normal. That's only a hypothesis, not a truth. Perhaps the most truthful observation so far is that mutli-horse win betting off RDSS' BL/BL is insufficient (for some) to turn a profit at Belmont so far.

I'd love to participate in a day at Belmont, next weekend. I can offer the GoToMeeting conferencing system if it is helpful. Anyone can present, all can comment.

Ted

My Day at Belmont: May 23
 

I was gone for a couple of days to Toronto. Yesterday I spent at Woodbine and I worked both the Woodbine and the Belmont cards.

Here were my results for Belmont (using RDSS in Spec mode), based on $10 2 horse win bets. The races I actually bet are marked in bold.

Attachment 11953

There were several place and exacta opportunities available by making judicious use of BL/BL in combination with CBL and the E/L screen, and in the 7th race a juicy exacta, tri and super available for free. (I did not wager any of those).

This was just one day (9 races worked), and I personally would not make any judgements on that small a sample. When I wager (not often enough) I seek to stay even, but be on the ball when the longshots roll in. I missed that opportunity (for the gettable longshot) at WO yesterday in the 8th race ($55.60) and only broke even.

Ted

Belmont 1st May 24

I see the # 8 picking up the pieces from the #1 and #5 battling on the lead..:)

Rich,

I havent turned DTV or ITV off, so I will attempt that on my next Belmont card.

Next weekend it might be fruitful have why have several groups doing the same card with prescribed settings and comparing the differences. It may not have anything to do with RDSS at all and more with the crazy track profile at this time.

Ted,

I'm not as concerned about the losses as much the fact that many of these races are being won by tier5 or worse horses. Not having this problem at the other tracks, I have capped many of the same races as froggy has presented with similar results; but when he plugs these horses into energy they move up dramatically.

I lean heavily on the velocity, E/L, and segments tabs besides BL/BL when handicapping. In my case I find these low tier horses to be ranked so low in total energy and on the BL/BL that the dont make the top 5 or tier 5 at the most. So for the most part they are out of my final consideration. I believe if they were ranked higher I would most certainly have more winners, because I do use a two horse betting strategy.

Anyone else feel free to chime in, between the rain and the proponderence of lower tier winners :eek: I'm steering clear of Belmont for a while!


Carl

NO NO NO

Don't change a freaking thing man. I was asking so I could set mine up like YOURS and work some cards that's all. PLEASE do NOT change settings.

Glad to hear that Tim.

Just in case anyone is not clear on this: RDSS is Spec160, with a Windows user interface. Same numbers, same screens (mostly). Any success with Spec160 can be duplicated with RDSS.

Tim, would you have a half-dozen BEL races from the same or perhaps adjacent cards you'd care to identify (or post screenshots, say in the Spec Forum). Might be instructive. I could render them in RDSS for those users.

Ted

Belmont coming around
 

Ted:

Don't make any changes to the program. It is doing well again. Since May 18, the top 2 choices are winning approx 46% of the time and the top 4 choices approaching 70% of the time. In addition, the top choice alone is showing a net profit. Now, this is based on my handicapping and my interpretation of how I use the program. You can see my selections for free the day after at trackmaster.com

Charlie Bedard

Here's the link to the previous day's picks for all TrackMaster handicappers. Look for Charlie's under Belmont. He uses RDSS, so anyone interested in tracking how he identifies contenders and bet selections could keep track of his picks on a daily basis and work the same races in RDSS to see what it would take to duplicate those Belmont selections.

http://www.trackmaster.com/cgi-bin/axtmtls.cgi?tmf

Hint: I believe Charlie has said elsewhere that he uses the Powerline indicator, among other tools, to help identify pacelines for contenders (those little coloured squares next to final times on the Original screen: best Pace or Race where the horse finished well or ran well through the stretch call).

Ted

Another good day at Belmont. I usually cut the field down to four contenders in each race. . Ended up today will all 10 winners in the top four. Four races won by the top selection. Belmont has been running fairly consistent in regards to Rdss.

Here are a few more links to Charlie's past public Belmont picks at TrackMaster, which are all free to review after the current day.

Just to be clear: this is NOT a tout for Charlie's or TrackMaster's selection service, rather a means to study one person's long-term, public, before-the-fact selection method at Belmont (and NYRA tracks) using RDSS as a primary tool. There's a good likelihood that each race's 4 picks bear a strong resemblance to horses well regarded in RDSS. An analysis of several weeks worth of selections, and working the same races yourself, should provide a useful model for approaching Belmont, or likely any track.

http://www.trackmaster.com/cgi-bin/t.../bel0601c4.htm
http://www.trackmaster.com/cgi-bin/t.../bel0531c4.htm
http://www.trackmaster.com/cgi-bin/t.../bel0530c4.htm
http://www.trackmaster.com/cgi-bin/t.../bel0529c4.htm
http://www.trackmaster.com/cgi-bin/t.../bel0528c4.htm

etc... (just change the date in the link - don't know how far back these are archived)

I'm only offering this information, and under this particular thread, as a potential means to help those who may be finding Belmont a challenging track. One has to develop one's own methodology - it can't be borrowed from another. Guidance from others is a gift, but in the end it is each single one of us pulling the trigger for our own selves.


Ted

I am not getting good performance at Belmont as Tim is ...

I will post some this week as I will be a bachelor as the Mrs. is going to Owens Sound Ontario for a week with her entire family while I tend the gate and the photo finish booth here on the left coast. Either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Harlem Rocker looked plain and ordinary over the weekend in Toronto!!

I find at the Big Sandy, where closers have ALMOST as good a chance as the speed, the incremental deceleration screen works well as it did in the Met Mile.