[Ted Craven]

Dick,

A couple of thoughts:

Although you have reached 20 races played, your contest for July is not even half over yet, if you want to continue. You can work as many races as you feel like, and the last 20 races are used to score your performance in the Contest (a new rule for July). So although you have achieved a .500 hit rate in the first 20, and indeed do win a 1 month RDSS subscription extension prize if you stop now, you may go on to significantly improve your Bankroll and possibly your hit ratio and qualify for the top prizes. I invite you to do just that!

As Bill points out, you have indeed played your contest completely as provided in the Contest Rules, no worries. However, I fear that adopting a Contest wagering strategy which tends to aim for maintaining Hit Rate at the expense of Bankroll growth is NOT what we want this Contest to appear to enable. The very title of the contest is 'Learn to Win' not Learn to Place.

I maintain that Place betting has an important role in both evening out runs of Losses and taking money out of the race where the Place pool is where there is overlaid value.

But a betting strategy which would only succeed in the 'contest world' but not in the real world is not one we really want to teach people, or represent that this is what the Sartin Methodology embraces. There are a lot of people looking on this Contest even if they are not playing yet, and some of them are trying to figure out if the software and wagering recommendations promoted here (e.g. multi-horse or multi-pool wagering) are worthy.

Let's show them all the tools the Methodology has to offer! You have hit .500 of all your bets and almost broke even after 20 races, which is about what I did last month and I won a prize for it! Please keep up the good work and keep on going for the Top prize. As Gfnut showed us all last month, it only takes 1 or 2 nice Win mutuels to rocket to the top - well within your abilities with your eyes closed, IMO!

Good luck, and good skill going forward!

Ted