New Spot Test

[George]

Have been testing a new (to me at least) spot play using impact early speed in filly/mare races as the main factor. Against 9535 races in db it hits 39% win with 1.27 roi. Gets one play every 25 races so not many plays per week.

Going forward with real money it has hit 25/56 for 44.6 percent win rate with 1.42 roi. Am always surprised when one produces going forward.

Plays for 8/26/01

AP R5 # 2 (against Canuck's #7 spot - perhaps a good 2-7 box ?) scratch
LAD R1 # 4 won $4.40
LAD R3 # 8 won $6.80
PHA R4 # 10 (it even works at PHA!!) won $7.20

If it holds up thru a couple hundred races will post it on HDCP 101 section.

[ERNIE2]

A BIG P.S.....I wrote all this asking what it was,what you gonna do.......then I read your last line.....Still looking forward to seeing the results...am really looking for a few plays that I can find--bet---go fishing--play with the grand kids(or the wife if the g-kids aren't around) onward with the search........"end of first draft edit".....

Would like to know what the other requirements are,if you don't mind sharing.
Question from last year: I went back to last years post looking for spot plays that had been talked about, are you still using the two factor,one horse spot that rewarded a 60-62% win rate? is it stil holding? "AND WHAT IS IT",...I had intended to e-mail you and ask you about it at the Stardust this year but didn't get as much of your time as I wanted to. I had to grin when I saw a post to Glen stating the results and your shock that no one had ask about it...........I looked very slowly at the next few post and no one "still" ask.......to busy cashing/ripping tri tickets to be bothered.
Have been using your k-1 spot........did expand it to k-1-2-3.....intend to post results here soon, so far looks like something that works well if you make a decesion on each race.....but doesn't track well........in other words in three weeks of play I made some money,but when I look at past races on the spreadsheet I can't see how,need to analize betting pattern.maybe I made more money pitching pennies in the patio than I thought...... ;) :D ;)

[George]

Hi Ernie,
Seemed like time flew by at Vegas and hardly got to talk to anybody more than 10 minutes. Hopefully will be in same "retired" condition as you next year and if so am planning on spending a couple extra days in Vegas. Maybe will be able to visit more then.

1) The play above is pretty simple if you want to check it out. Be careful as I really don't know if it will hold up. I run it on db but it can be checked easily manually.
1a) filly/mares only (nSEX=2)
1b) impact trainer rank 1,2,3,4 (nTRN<5)
1c) speed diff > +5 (nESD>5)
1d) run style * (nLDR=1)
1e) fast or wet dirt (nSUR=1 or 3)
Play produces better on routes than sprints, both win% and roi. Don't know why.
Suspect will do better at some tracks than others but not tracking that right now.
Same play on all males sucks (go figure!).

2) Glad you are making a little on K1. Have found the profit margin on the strong K1's to be very low but consistently on the plus side. I still like the K1 better when find a "weak" one and go against it. The weak ones only win around 28% which gives me 72 chances out of a hundred of cashing a nice exacta or tri.

3) Not sure which play the thread you mention was about on the 60+ percent. Have found several spot plays over last three years which will hit 60-70%. Bad news is most occur infrequently and one can turn greybeard while waiting. Other bad news is they are chalky and return is about the same as the "good" K1 which occurs more often.

Think the two factor mentioned was PAR>103 and impact nRES +6 over nRES High Avg from the old impact program. Not certain that is the one.

Regards,
George

[ERNIE2]

sent you a copy at your old address(@airmail,net) and it came right back.
the old post is from 3 April 2000 titled: "par as classifier" send me your e-mail address and I'll resend it to you.

[George]

gbloom7916@aol.com should work, if not use george.bloomfield@eds.com

My wife changes ISP's every time they offer a free deal and I am not smart enough to set up a hotmail account so e-mail addy stays the same. One of those things keep meaning to do and never get a "roundtoit".

[George]

The play looked good yesterday with 3 of 3 wins.

Two plays today.
TDN Race1 # 1 won $3.20 2.40 3.20 good show bet!
DMR Race2 # 6 won $4.00 2.40 2.20 five in a row!!

Test thru 8/27
races bet 61 (corrected bets from 60 to correct count of 59 before 8/27)
races won 30
win pct 49
amt won 184.60
roi 1.51

[ERNIE2]

Took a hard copy of this play with me this afternoon..(imported only required data to spreadsheet....printed)Arrived late so I missed DMR R2.......the reason for posting this is to (maybe help)point out another requirement........look at DMR R6.....when looking for "esd>5 only" you miss the fact that #3-2 are tied at "0" and that #5 is -6.........I looked at this as #3&2 were actualy +6......but they read as "0" because of the tie......#3 has the "ldr" and "trn" requirements going at 4/1 ( #6 was the public fav from the start) was easy decesion kept thinking "that's not what he said, but looks like he would agree"
Tonight I see R7 at SAC had a tie but other horse was only -3.......plus it was for males only,I hadn't looked at it today(one tied horse placed @2/1 other ran out)
this was my first real money test.....results look good so far......
on a side note there is a "young" guy who pays a service to give him picks.....he was having a good day so late in the day I ask him what his picks had been that had helped him today.....you can guess the rest one of the picks he paid for was #6 in DMR R-2..... you've had this play in public for one day do you think that someone has copied it already??????
:D ;) :D

thanks for sharing,I'll be looking for this play,am already up $ 8.80 for my two dollar bill.
Another thing that helped with my betting decesion today was that both races 2 &5 the spot play horse were comming out of "key" races(found by looking at tandem/key races on the single race screen....for those that may not know :) :D :) I've long been looking for some requirment to use with the tandem/key races that would make them more profitable.....

[George]

Ernie...thnaks for the input on the ties. I had missed that. Will be a little tricky to put in my db query but easy to see manually.

Going back through these, also appears they are more stable if also K1 or K2 on regular htr prog.
Was trying to develop a "one screen" play but will look at two if it helps the bottom line.

Gonna quit posting these and just track a couple hundred, then report. Will take a while as it looks like will only produce about 20 plays a week.

BOL,
George

[Bernie]

George,

What paceline do you use for this? Have you applied it across all tracks or did you target it to certain ones?

[George]

Bernie,
Impact uses a "mystery" paceline it selects<G>.
In developing the play used only the impact db.
Every item in the play "helps" it. Leave one item out and play degrades quite a bit. Not sure the K factor mentioned yesterday is really that helpful but am planning on tracking it with the play.

The play occurs only about one in twenty races so don't have enough plays for a "track" check to mean anything. One would think a speed favoring track would help and the reverse would hurt. I don't know that to be a fact yet.

BTW, the play "almost" works on turf. Some tweaking might make it profitable there. I did not pursue it on turf because am personnaly reluctant to play early speed on turf.

[George]

Bernie,
Didn't read your track question carefully. Answer is play was developed using "most" tracks. Some small tracks like YAV, CLS, FP were left out. Also left out Canadian tracks as can't bet them in my present accounts.

Ernie,
Just re-read your last post and finally caught the key race note. Thanks, will watch for that. BTW, the DMR race 5 you mentioned had 5 of the 7 horses in it claimed. Conspicously NOT claimed was the favorite # 6. Mark that one in your notebook as having a problem.

Funny how not posting yesterday got me a $14.80 winner. Better prices thru silence ?? :)

[MtKen]

George:

I tried the above spot play in 4 different months(Nov,Dec,April,Aug--that's how I'm set-up with Excell) but I couldn't replicate your success.

I got 29% winners & the only profit I could find was by eliminating MLOr <3 plays & that was small & for routes only. -$240 bet & +$253 won.....$13

Sprints MLOr >2 -$274 bet & +$258 won....-$16

I'm wondering about track specificity again; in fact, I'm thinking about dividing my db (collection of spreadsheets actually!) into sections based on how i rate the track for early speed & then trying to develop spot plays from there. That way the 'A' EV1 tracks won't be affected by results from the 'C' EV1 tracks. I wonder if that's what happened with my test of your play here? I'll check a couple of other months too.

Thanks for posting the details & I hope it continues to go gangbusters on your tracks.

Ken

[MtKen]

George:

I went into a spreadsheet I have that is nothing but Esp #1 &/or EV#1 sprint horses from Nov-July. I ran the spot play again for sprinters & found when I tweaked MLOr to >2 & <6 I did best; getting 15% profit on over 300 qualifiers.

-$656 bet.....+$753 won.....+$97

For some reason all of the Florida tracks did well...& several bombed big time----Aqu, Beulah & Suffolk come to mind.

[George]

MtKen.....your results are why I don't quit my day job when I find one of these. On any play and in particular the ones that don't occur very often, results can vary quite a bit by time of year, kind of races being carded, tracks played, etc.

Appreciate your feedback and am betting these very lightly. Will bail out at the first "bad week".

*****added at 1:40 pm CDT *******
Ken,,,,,just noticed that you appear to be testing using regular HTR with pacelines. The play is based on impact numbers which may or may not matchup well with the HTR early speed numbers. Think that may be the reason you are getting different results.

We could still get different results on varying timeframes or tracks, but wanted to make sure you were testing IMPACT numbers.

[MtKen]

George:

I always run Msa & Impc & then link them later so the Impact import should be ok.

After 8 months I have 1 play that I consider reliable & 2 or 3 on the bubble.

Are you still using a jock db? I look at them occasionally & they go very streaky.....was looking at jocks with nLDR #1 & then saw your play with nLdr #1.

I did another track by track early speed chart & I'll post it somewhere on the board.

Ken

[George]

Thanks for the quick response Ken. Guess I will be extra careful with the play although it is knocking them dead this week. Worm can (nd probably will) turn very quickly.

After almost 3 years I have 3 reliable plays and 4 or 5 on the bubble. Think Ron was right on the button when he stated this is part science and part an art. When I relax and let my intuition guide me while using HTR for the "numbers" part I do quite well. When I inhibit the instinct part and go by the numbers only I have some really bad streaks.

Still keeping the jockey db but not sure why. Have put in so much time and effort am unwilling to trash it. Have learned some neat things from it but have not came up with a reliable way to tie it in with any of my plays.

[Glen]

I was using this spot play earlier in the year....Except it was for males...Males were kicking but on this play...$1.50 ROI...Females were worthless...Then went and tested data for last year....And guess what...Females ruled and males stunk. Absolute opposite of what what happening in the spring....Spooked the Poop out of me so I jumped off the play until I could accuumulate more data...

[Carl]

My results are closer to Mt. Ken's also.

I tested it on a one year db, 52,000 races, July 1, 2000 to June 30th 2001. Again, I am using all tracks (including Podunk Downs).

ALL_MSA Misc Query ROI Report

nSEX=2, rTRN <5, nESD>5, nLDR=1, Sur "w" or "d".
52,000 races July 1st 2000-June 30, 2001. All tracks.

Total Bets 2781
Total Amount Bet 5562.00
Wins 828
Pct. 29.77%
Amount Won 5251.80
Profit/Loss -310.20
Pct Profit Loss -5.58%
Avg. Payout 6.34

I did a five minute "muck" (translate: backfit data) with the play, improved it considerably by
1) Eliminating sex requirement.
2) Adding Ev1 (Pl1), nFIN >3, nMLO >4.

ALL_MSA Misc Query ROI Report

rTRN <5, nESD>5, nLDR=1, Sur "w" or "d", nFIN >3, MLO>4, rEV1 (Pl1).
Total Bets 907
Total Amount Bet 1814.00
Wins 169
Pct. 18.63%
Amount Won 2066.40
Profit/Loss 252.40
Pct Profit Loss 13.91%
Avg. Payout 12.23

later,
Carl

[Bernie]

Carl,

I noticed you reversed the TRN requirement. Is this how you ran the query, or was it a typo?

[Carl]

Hi Bernie,

1) The ">" rather than "<" was a typo.
2) I think George wanted to limit his original query to IMPACT factors. And I think when he typed "nTRN" (which is trainer rating number with three digits) he meant to type "rTRN" witch is the trainer ranking in IMPACT ("nTRN <5" makes no sense, since there are none).
3) In my own table, which is a blend of HTR and IMPACT, I have both trainer numbers, I use "rTRN" for the old HTR, "TRNr" for IMPACT. But I thought if I typed "TRNr", it would mixed everyone up, so I stuck with the "rTRN" term, and used the IMPACT rating for this query.

later,
Carl

[George]

Thanks Carl for confirming MtKen findings. Makes me a lot more comfortable that we are all testing the same thing. Glen's comment on male & female reversing at different times of year coincides with your finding that gender is not that important in the play.

Looks like a 30% play that loses money very slowly. There are days where I would settle for that :)

[MtKen]

18% winners with 14% profit isn't bad over 900 horses. I'll at least make a macro & track that.

George: How many horses in your query now?

Thanks again for posting, soon I'll think I'll post a 'blinkers off' play of mine so others can test.

Ken

[George]

MtKen....original query was 9535 races across 45 tracks from April 2001 thru early August 2001.
Had 496 qualifiers with 197 wins for 39%.

Have played 45 of them since Saturday thru Wednesday. Hit 22 win, 33 w/p, 37 w/p/s for 49%, 73%, 82% respectively. Roi 49%, 23%, 16% w/p/s.

Someday we will find one that will do that for more than a week :)

[MtKen]

George:

For Sat to Weds I get decent results too:

53/ 22-14-3 $106 bet/ $126-$119.10-$107.10

Have you checked backed before April?