Tournament Season has Started

[km]

The Orleans Spring Contest and the change to Daylight Savings marks the revving up for the tournament season. Check this link for the action, lots of good ones all over the country this month.

http://www.powerpicks.com/webcontest.asp?Year=2005

Mel asks for feedback on using multiple entries in tournaments. There are two basic choices of how to play them =

1) Bet lots of horse in lots of races and hope for a bomb to hit.

2) Find specific races and 'shotgun' them by playing 2 or more horses in the same race.

We use the (2) primarily and look for low Vi races (25 or less) "chaos" events that appear ripe for a longshot and play 3 or more horses. One of my favorite angles is 2nd and 3rd time starters in wide open maiden claimers. Races loaded with FTS are a good place to look for a combination of PED - Wk such as the last race at SA on Saturday. We played 6 horses in that one.

[Mall]

A major problem in any discussion like this is that it's very difficult, if not impossible, to address questions, particularly general ones, in a vacuum. For contests, my personal opinion is that almost everything depends on the complete menu of races being offered, where you stand when you're making your decision, & what's left after the race in which you're making your decision. To take a simple & extreme example, the Sun early bird contest consisted of 5 designated races. Two had very strong xfavs & one of the horses in another was top k, top pscan, & appeared to have a big pace advantage. Neither of the two approaches mentioned, which I understand applied the the 3 day contest, would make any sense for the Sun contest. However, the approach which did seem to make the most sense for the Sun contest is one which I have used & which, if I remember correctly, has been mentioned in connection with the 3 day contest, namely using the same horse on all three, or two, tix in one or more races. The kind of question I'm thinking about is when & under what circumstances it make sense to use that approach in a multi-day contest which has many different tracks.

In addition to the 3 mentioned, there are many other possible strategies which can be used with multiple entries but preliminarily, one basic question which occurs to me is why it would make sense to use the same method for three days without considering the universe of races which are part of the contest that day. Put another way, if it makes sense to consider a particular race in terms of the liklihood of a shot winning, why doesn't it also make sense to consider all of the races which are part of a specific day of the contest in terms of the liklihood of producing shots. In the contest which just ended, for example, our collective view was that the shot pickings on Thurs were likely to be very, very slim. For anyone who reached that judgment, I think you would want to do something other than shotgun races and/or play single horses & hope for bombs. Hence, another example of the kind of thing I'm interested in discussing is what are the possible approaches, along with the pros & cons of each, on that kind of day.

[overdog]

I am working on a method of "scoring" or rating a day's races. One track or many, regular betting, live racing or OTB'ing, contest or ??? Same method, no matter the type of racing or wagering.

I take the data from the posttimes in HTR, cut and paste into Excel. Clean it up, add some columns and then eyeball it. Given my math background, I will eventually use some form of mathematical modeling to create a final, workable, highly effective method of scoring a day's races.

Naturally at first you have to clean the sheet up a bit.

I add columns for field size, scratches(to be filled later when they are known), first time starters, and X-treme favorites. In the XFav column I note it's program #.

For FTS, I list the actual # of firsters.

I have a method of rating the races. So far it's by eyeball. I factor in the fld size; vi rating; dirt or turf; age; sex; distance; class. Then I rate them like hotels, using the "star" system, from 5 down to none.

I have multiple worksheets in the one Excel workbook. First sorts by post-time. Second each track, by race number. A 3rd sheet is possibles. These are 3, 4 or 5 star races.

I color code using red(STOP betting) for 5 & 6 horse fields. Yellow(for GOLD) for 9 horses. Green for money for 10+ horse fields. I also color code for age, especially 3 y.o.'s. I further separate fillies from boys. Finally I color code, low class claimers, and maiden claimers.

When I eyeball the races the first time, I give a race with an XF the same star rating I would if he wasn't an XF. However in my star column I color that cell differently. This is to warn me that AFTER scratches, if the XF gets scratched, the race gets the same star rating or at worst one star less (if it dropped the field size down to a 5, 6 or maybe 7 horse field.)

In a huge field with a lot of positives, and a scratched XF, I might even ADD a star.

That's pretty much it for now.

After scratches and after I've re-rated the races if necessary, I copy ONLY the 4 & 5 star races to the worksheet I call plays.

I sort that sheet ascending by post-time and descending by star rating.

Finally I red flag post-times within 5 minutes of each other on the plays sheet, so I don't walk all the way to put in my entry, then walk back and discover I should have bet the 2nd race in close time proximity.

Bugs aren't all worked out yet, but it stood me in good stead in the tournament just ended. Weather or surface switches and subsequent scratches can change a few or a lot of star ratings. This can also tend to make you switch your emphasis from early races to later or v. versa.

After I've added the stars in I copy the result into all the worksheets, then just sort them according to their name/function...i.e. times, or tracks, possibles and plays.

With the tracks sheet, sorted by race #, playing simulcasts becomes easier. With say AQU's races sorted in order, I may find the early middle or late part of the card has several 3-4 or 5 star races. This starts me thinking pick-3, 4 or 6; late double etc. Maybe an XF is in a 3 or 4 race sequence, and I had originally intended to skip the race. Now I look to see if I can key him and get more spread in the other races.

Lots of ways to go.

When I have further data, etc. then I will use regression or ??? some other modeling technique to come up with a highly optimized equation.

This being a pari-mutuel game, if I develop an equation that works, I will NOT be sharing!

Good luck and just keep thinking it all over and through. Lots of ways to skin the racing game cat.

Regards,
Fraser Rawlinson

[km]

Sorry about that Mel, didn't answer you about the earlybird contest specifically.

Two things you can do ahead of time to prepare for the early bird =

1) find out what score usually wins it
2) know the rules and prepare your approach from the nuances

(1) The earlybird contest results are never posted or archived anywhere to my knowledge. But I can tell you from experience, 6 years of playing them 3 x year, the ballpark score to beat is 50 points. Remember this is a $2 win only contest. I have had a least two situations where we won the first 3 races on the same ticket, including $20 horses, but lost anyway when a bomb hit late. So 70 points is possible for the winner when a $50+ bomb hits, as it has a few times.

(2) the most important rule to remember that there is NO CAP. A $50 horse will wipe out your 3 or 4 lower priced winners as it has me a few times. Also, you must mark an alternate on all your tickets that is a real entrant. One year we filled it out in a hurry and left. But our tickets were DQ'd because we marked "1" for all our alternates but one of the races we had already marked "1" as our top choice, and that DQ'd us. Dumb and dumberer if you don't know know the rules.

Best bet is to combine longshots and logical horses on your multiple tickets. But with limited chances, you have to guess right. It's contest that needs more luck than skill.

I don't know what happened last Sunday, I had to leave early, hopefully someone will chime in with the results =
HTR players have experience cashing though. George Smith won the whole thing one year, no bombs, but he was 5 for 5, like hitting the p6 cold. JBShoulda and AlanN both cashed last Oct because they hit the $40 horse at KEE and one or two of the other low priced ones. Maybe they'll comment here.

[hurrikane]

Ken,
I believe the winner sunday had 39.80.
2nd was 39.00

all races were chalk except the last at OP that paid I believe 20.00.

So I'm guessing that was the dealbreaker. But you still had to hit 3 or so of the short prices. I'm not sure the 2 xfaves and the 114 K would have paid that. There was an 8.60 horse at LRL that probablay had to make the mix.

I like to think of them as a pic 5 ticket. Usually 2 or 3 chalk will win and then one or two will decide how much you make.

[ERNIE LOGSDON]

Early Bird contest Sun 4-3

Race-A= GP-7 (7) $6.60

Race-B= LRL-8 (#2) $8.80

Race-C= SA-3 (4) $4.20

Race-D=AQU-9 (9) $3.20

Race-E=OP-8 (9) $23.60

First Place--- J.Fisher ($39.60) $10,000
Second --- J&H Dennis ($39.00 ) $5000
THIRD--- B Stringini ($37.80) $2500
FOURTH--- Becket / Patrick ($36.60)
5th place 3 way tie $1000/3=333.33 each
Gbain--L harding--P Behe ....all had ($35.60)

[km]

Thanks alot Ernie, always on the ball.

Amazing that this bbs seems to be the primary source of information for the Coast contests. They should pay us. If I hadn't posted the results each night, no one would have any idea what was going on, and the early bird, some people don't get the results until the check shows up in the mail.

[MikeDee]

Souns like a very comrehensive system o-dog but wouldn't work if you were color blind :D

[Mall]

If you take away the color coding & substitute a different rating system, then the system you are using overdog is not all that different, at least conceptually, from the one we are using. On Thurs of the contest which just ended, we identified 39 horses in 23 races as possible plays, & we knew in advance that despite the ML, a number of those were likely to be bet down to unacceptable odds for a contest. In short, I knew going in that we would be scrambling to have enough plays. I also had reached the conclusion that there simply weren't that many shot opportunities out there. What I'm interested in hearing is what you(& others) do in that situation. In other words, suppose you look down at the sheet which lists your 4 & 5 star plays, & the number is less than the number of plays you need for the contest. What then? Also, how do you decide whether & how to use your 4 & 5 star plays on multiple tickets? Best live shots? Most likely winners in the 6-1 to 8-1 range?

[overdog]

Picked my subject line title by trying to figure out how you could characterize what I was doing. :)

Sorry about the delay between posts. Consulting work is feast or famine. (Actually busy or bored.)

Since my original post I have added a column for Speed Horses. These are horses with 5 or more Quirin points. I red code races with only 1. Especially noteworthy are those with 0, or those with 4 or more spd horses.

Getting back to your point about the contest. At the moment I TOTALLY ignore even looking at races at less than 3 stars. I don't count horses in races with 4 or 5 stars, just ID the races and handicap 5 star races first, then 4's. These I 'cap by choosing the 5-stars, in chronological time order. then the 4's.

So far, I've yet to hit a day with fewer than 12 or 15 hi-possibility races. At the most recent Orleans, especially the last two days with the two extra tracks added, it was NOT a problem. So having sufficient plays has yet to be a problem. In the event, thru weather or whatever, that field sizes shrink and change the star rating of a race, then I guess I'll just go down to trying 3 & 2 star races with larger fields or very evenly matched velocity ratings.

The most interesting thing about playing multiple entries with the same horses would be to do it for the first 2 days, then on the third, as the day wore on, and depending on where you stood, start betting two horses per race.

Good luck,

Fraser