Pace & Cap Web Meeting

[noddub62]

Way to go Ted. You sure showed the power of the program as well as your pace line selection.

Bud

[lonestarracefan]

Let do one of these for the Breeders Cup


Ted,

I had monster days at Turfway on Thursday and Today at Keeneland, both were huge thorns in my side before the I started using RDSS and the Meth.

Thursday - I turned $32 into $592.26

In final at Turfway I had 4 horses [1 4 5 6] alive in the late pk 4 & pk3
min payoff was $356 on Pk 3
min payoff was $1200 something on Pk 4
1st timer nailed me
3 of my 4 finshed 2 3 4

[Ted Craven]

Well, I'm under no illusions that sh*t can happen along the way to the leaderboard, or to the mutuel windows... This was not real today, except in the (very real) sense of a confidence booster. I think many users of RDSS, or Val or Spec (likely other software too) should have encountered similar results.

The curious thing is, I feel rather equinanimous about it - it doesn't matter much to me that I didn't enter the contest, just audited it at home. What feels important is that the method I've become comfortable with feels like it should work on a regular basis. I know things fluctuate, and I know how emotions come into play, but I'm starting to feel good that the toolset (including the wet-ware part) should perform normally (i.e. well) on an ongoing basis. Perhaps that's a precursor to (or a sign of) confidence.

Also, just FWIW, I hadn't launched today's P&C web meeting room intending to dominate it with RDSS. If someone had joined in with Syn4 or Validator, it would all have been fun, and I hope someone will the next time.

Cheers,

Ted

[JimG]

Originally Posted by Ted Craven

What feels important is that the method I've become comfortable with feels like it should work on a regular basis. I know things fluctuate, and I know how emotions come into play, but I'm starting to feel good that the toolset (including the wet-ware part) should perform normally (i.e. well) on an ongoing basis. Perhaps that's a precursor to (or a sign of) confidence.

Ted

Hi Ted,

Take it to the windows and test under fire with real money on a daily basis (if you are not doing so). That is the true test. In my years of testing methods for validity, betting money, even a little money, is better than extensive paper testing in measuring performance. I wish you continued success.

Jim

[jms62]

Ted,
I did enter and Spec160 was a big part of the equation...

http://www.nhcqualify.com/leaderboard.aspx

Jim S

[admin]

Good work Jim
anybody else ??
This is very encouraging

Bill

[Ted Craven]

Good work Jim S, and on both entries! Looks like we used, effectively, the same software and came up with overlaps and some differences.

Looks like Gary L (rxLawyer) also finished well (thought he was in the Gold Coast tournament as well...busy boy).

Ted

[Ted Craven]

Originally Posted by lonestarracefan

I had monster days at Turfway on Thursday and Today at Keeneland, both were huge thorns in my side before the I started using RDSS and the Meth.

Thursday - I turned $32 into $592.26

In final at Turfway I had 4 horses [1 4 5 6] alive in the late pk 4 & pk3
min payoff was $356 on Pk 3
min payoff was $1200 something on Pk 4
1st timer nailed me
3 of my 4 finshed 2 3 4

Joe, great results Thursday! You have to have a lot of fibre to succeed at those serial bets, though...

Re Breeders Cup online, it would be fun. For me, it would have to be other than on race day(s), or maybe Friday night or Saturday morning. When I'm working seriously, I tend to follow the tote closely, and even if I had all my handicapping done, kibitzing online, while a blast, would be too distracting. But I'd have no problems firing up the Web Meeting Room, maybe hanging out for a bit then handing it over to someone else to handle Presenter duties. We can work this out further.

Ted

[Turbulator]

At the meeting yesterday I tried matching up a poly (cushion) track race while sitting in the hot seat. I don't play polytrack, so this was kind of a first for me. But I handicapped the race the same basic way I would a dirt race. I left out a few pertinent points when I dissected the race at the meeting, and a couple of people weren't connected to the phone, so I'm going to post the race here with some explanation. I thought it was good practice, and I learned some things from it.

My first step was to try and project the pace. I do this by selecting early speed races from all the contestants who appeared to want to go for the lead or fight for it in their most recent four or five races. I would prefer to select lines from an early horse's most recent last couple of races, because I want early horses who have been able to get on top of their most recent early fractions. [Screen Shot #1]

I put some turf and dirt races in there as well just to take a look. I'm beginning to think I should just use poly races for my analysis the same way I would probably just use turf races for a turf race, but that's just a general idea that may prove out with more experience handicapping the poly. Only time will tell.

The second step was to project the pace. This can be problematic when you have dirt horses, turf horses, and horses coming from different tracks to a fairly new OSA meet. I did the best I could and decided on 22.5 for the first call projected pace. I had no idea how accurate this was, but I had to make a decision, and so I went with it.

I then went through and looked for OTE horses who could successfully run to that first call pace and threw them into the mix. [Screen Shot #2] At this point I also put in dirt and turf races.

After looking at the scenario, I decided this race would run OTE, and I then eliminated all of the early pace lines. [Screen Shot #3] Here is where I decided to just use poly lines, and I eliminated all of the dirt and turf lines.

Now, I already don't care for a couple of horses. The three and the four ran to the pace just fine, but they turned in some dull performances. They had no real power moves to speak of.

If this race were on the dirt, I would then look at the TPR +E/L screen and take note of the horse with the highest projected early of the remaining contenders. [Red bar furthest to the right--Screen Shot # 4] The reason for this is that I just happened to notice that in races projected to run OTE this horse was doing very poorly and could usually be eliminated. What I neglected to mention at the meeting is that this was always done on the dirt and it was usually done when there were four or five contenders left--only occasionally with three. I had no experience doing things this way on the poly, and I just threw the idea out there. In this case, with five contenders remaining, it would have me eliminating the four--whom I didn't like anyway--so that's kind of a double confirmation. [Please note this has nothing to do with matching up. It's just something that I noticed, and I'm following very closely.]

After eliminating the three and the four I'm left with three viable contenders. It was here that I mentioned to Ted what I had been doing with the TPR +E/L screen and of course the winner would now be eliminated.

But if you look closely at these three horses there is no way you can eliminate this horse. Why? He matches up best of all. He surpasses the other two horses pace wise at the first three calls, and if you go back and look at his PPs [Screen Shot #5] your eye immediately goes to the selected pace line even though it's five races back.

In the next post is the result chart. Notice the times of the race

Time: 21.6 44.2 56.2 108.8

It was a very fast pace and final time . The one horse projects the best if the pace is very fast. His pace times and positional calls are the best of the three. The pace of this race was just to his liking.

I rated the winner off of an OTE line, but he won the race going wire to wire--go figure.

Technically, I didn't have this winner, and I would count it as a loss, but I feel that the procedure worked and showed promise. Where I need the most work is in selecting the winner from among my final contenders. As far as I'm concerned this is the hardest part of matching up. There are many instances where you have the winner in your final two, three or four horses, but separating them and picking just one horse for the win can be very challenging. This is where I'm trying to work the hardest, and it's where I need the most practice.

The one horse was just one of my three final contenders, and in this case he was kind of an obvious choice--and the price compensated for any doubt. In many races the winner is not so obvious, and can be downright difficult to ferret out.

Getting it down to the real contenders is the first step you have to master. Selecting the winner from among those final contenders can prove to be very difficult sometimes, but if you can confidently and consistently get the winner amongst your final contenders you're halfway home.

So maybe polytrack will matchup OK. I'm still more confident handicapping on the dirt. There just aren't as many questionable variables, but I am encouraged by what I saw.

All in all it was a good exercise, and I want to thank Ted again for the opportunity to talk about horse racing and matching up using RDSS.

[Turbulator]

Here are the final three contenders and the result chart.