Anyone with a Unitab data base?

[michaelg]

I've been looking at Unitab's ratings where:

1) Sole top pointer.
2) Last two starts have between 3 and 6 placed-points.
3) Unbroken by a spell.

The results (unitab divvies) over the past 7 days are:

50 selections for an outlay of $50.
16 winners for a return of $57.50.

I haven't got the records but it seems that Place betting has also fared quite well, with the highest divvy being $3.00.

Can anyone with a data base check to see if there is any merit in the above?

Out of interest, today's selections are:

Ipswich R5 no.3 - Eagle Jester
Goulburn R5 no.9 - Mallory Park
Swan Hll R5 no.2 - I'm a Smarty Pants
Grafton R1 no.7 - Subculture
Grafton R6 no.5 - Cee Jay Clang
Grafton R7 no.6 - Macca's Girl

[michaelg]

Not a good day yesterday. I'll try again today and see what happens...

Eagle Farm R1 no.9 - Lagerphone
Eagle Farm R2 no.10 - Our Lukas
Eagle Farm R3 no.3 - News Alert
Eagle Farm R4 no.12 - Funtantes
Randwick R2 no.3 - Vintedge
Randwick R5 no.4 - Joku
Randwick R6 no.3 - Red Latter Daze
Flemington R2 no.1 - Chortova
Flemington R3 no.3 - Stoneblack
Flemington R6 no.6 - Testimonial
Morphetville R2 no.8 - Galactic
Morphetville R4 no.6 - Custard
Morphetville R6 no.13 - Starlite
Morphetville R8 no.5 - Bold Moves
Gold Coast R7 no.1 - Bruleur
Gold Coast R9 no.2 - Lifebuoy
Newcastle R3 no.2 - key Vendor
Belmont R1 no.2 - Dawinner
Belmont R4 no.4 - Broadway Belle
Belmont R5 no.5 - Ma Ma Machine

[stugots]

while i dont have an exhaustive db by any means, ran it through what i have -

bets 1092
wins 267
s/r 25%

collect $910.4
bet $1092.0
net -$181.6
lot 16.6%

not a bad s/r but too many shorties kill it it seems

[michaelg]

Thanks, Stugots.

It's disappointing but better to know.

I might think about a filter/s.

[michaelg]

Yesterday from the 20 selections there were 15 placegetters for a return with NSW TAB of $25.00.

Looking at races with 8 to 12 starters there were 13 races for 11 placegetters for a return of $18.00.

And on Friday's six selections there were 2 races as per the above rule - they both placed for a return of $2.40.

As the Place component has fared quite well I'll list today's selections and see how they go for Place betting. I'll identify those with 8 to 12 runners - there are 3 of them.

Sun Coast R2 no.7 - Man Of Oar*
Sun Coast R5 no.5 - Eurostorm*
Sapphire Coast R3 no.1 - Flaunter
Pakenham R3 no.7 - News Just In
Pakenham R4 no.2 - Chang
Pakenham R5 no.4 - Intruder.*

* = 8 to 12 runners.

Stix, if you read this, is it possible ro run your program with races of 8 to 12 runners for Win and Place betting?

[michaelg]

I'm adding another filter - must have a Place strike rate of at least 30%.

One selection today:

Moonee Valley R6 no.8 - Woppitt.

[michaelg]

Yesterday's only selection placed, paying $1.50.

Three selections today:
Gosford R5 no.2 - Mulhim
Sale R1 no.12 - Morrego
Sale R3 no.15 - Triple Mocha.

[michaelg]

Yesterday's three selections placed for a return of $4.80.

Today's selections:

Canterbury R3 no.10 - Verrekeen
Sandown R2 no.3 - Disco Dan
Sandown R7 no.4 - Fairygem
Sandown R8 no.4 - Ladari
Gold Coast R5 no.11 - Questionheir
Balaklava R8 no.5 - Alice Coupez.

[michaelg]

In a previous post I asked if Stix could check his data base - it was an error because I should have asked Stugots...sorry, Stugots.

From yesterday's six selections there were four selections for a loss of $0.10.

Two selections today:

Bendigo R6 no.9 - Cut And Run
Eagle Farm R5 no.2 - Smuggler's Inn

[michaelg]

Only one placegetter yesterday for a loss of $0.40.

Two selections today:

Cessnock R8 no.6 - Inspired Choice
Penola R7 no.2 - Ned's Court.

[jackact]

There is something to this, Michaelg. Seems to filter out much of the rubbish, and also false favourites. Are you getting better results from Saturday metrop meetings? I am seeing a slight Place profit on main Saturday meetings, if bet 'best tote'.

[michaelg]

Hi, Jackact.

Unfortunately I have only last Saturday, which using the current rules the result is:

13 selections for 11 placegetters giving a POT of 53.8% with NSW TAB divvies.

In comparison, since Sunday there have been 15 selections for 11 placegetters for a POT of 10.0%

I could manually look at Saturday results for the past few months to get some sort of idea, but that would take a long time. I presume you have some results for Saturdays?

[stugots]

Michael, i will run it thru later today & post back

[jackact]

I don't have a data base, Michaelg, but I did choose five Saturdays over the past few months: 14 March, 18 April, 25 April, 2 May and 9 May, and did them manually. Overall POT for a place (Sportsbet best price) was just over 4 per cent. I did not use your filter of place strike rate of 30% +, so may have been better.
4 per cent is not great, but may indicate this is a good general filter for 100 pointers. Other filters may be able to lift the POT.

[stugots]

total races reviewed - 3973
selections - 772

wins - 195
s/r - 25.3%
collect $632
bet $772
net -$140
lot -18.1%

places - 417
s/r - 55.8%
collect $654
bet $772
net -$118
lot -15.3%

[michaelg]

Thanks, Stugots.

To recap the rules:

1) 8 to 12 starters.
2) Outright top selection in Unitab ratings.
3) Last two placed-positions to be between 3 and 6 points.
4) Unbroken by a spell.
5) Minimum Place strike rate of 30%.
6) No Maidens, Hurdles and Highweights (races with Hurdle jockeys)

Jackact, there have been several selections whose Place strike rate has been under 30%. They have had a poor strike rate and were not in profit so I've filtered them out of the method.

Today's selections

Morphetville R5 no.5 - Silver Shamrock
Kembla R6 no.8 - Tully Endeavour
Belmont R1 no.6 - New Image
Belmont R3 no.5 - Beyond Repute
Belmont R4 no.11 - Strait Laced
Sun Coast R1 no.2 - The Lording Dragon

[stugots]

& just out of interest the heaviest losing day for the win was Saturdays - lot of 37%

I have spent a bit of time looking for a couple of filters but nothing stands out amongst the usual suspects - weight carried or +/-, distance, age & sex, win%, track & distance records, days last start etc

good luck with it tho, hope you can pickup on something

[jackact]

Thanks heaps, Stugots. Looks like I used too small a sample of Saturdays. Yesterday was not flash, either.
I still think Michaelg is onto something here. His main filters (the first four in his last post) put Top Raters into two categories I reckon: Good Value (his selections) and Bad Value (the Top Raters he filters out).
If we can't turn a consistent profit on the Good Values, maybe we can on the Bad Values. For example:
-only Metrop meetings
-only races where only one Top Rater
-only where the Top Rater takes a sizeable percentage of the pool, e.g. win price of $5.00 and below
-Lay on Betfair, or bet around the Top Rater.

I'll do some more work and let you guys know if I find anything that works consistently.

[michaelg]

Thanks, Stugots.

The loss for Saturdays of 37% is almost double the loss if every 100 pointer was layed - it seems extraordinarily high.

Interestingly, my figures show that if all the selections since last Sat (8 days) had been layed then it would be in profit.

Today's selections are:

Sun Coast R1 no.4 - unplaced
Sun coast R7 no.8
Cranbourne R6 no.4
Wellington R3 no.2 - ran second
W'bool R6 no.7

Might be a Lay system.

[michaelg]

None of today's five selections won.

If layed they would have produced a profit of 4.75 units.

I'll now record it as a Lay method.

[jackact]

I plan to do this on Saturday Metrop meetings for a while. It shows a much better result than Country or Provincial. Still, I thought I would do todays meetings, just to see what difficulties there are in deriving selections.
Rules:
Candidate races (inlcluding Maidens, but not jumps, all field sizes) have a single top rater, which does NOT meet Michaelg's criterion of 'last two placed-positions to be between 3 and 6 points, and unbroken by a spell'.
Top rater must be below $5.50, but above $2.00. (If outside this range, again not a candidate race.)
Back the two lowest priced horses other than the top rater.
Actual prices (one minute to go?) are best, but I'll try with AAP prices. This presents some problems when get multiple equal prices - can result in single selections when cannot identify a clear second selection. Also, with scratchings, need to re-calculate market to check if, for example, a top rater at $6.50 may fall below $5.50 with scratchings.

Today's selections are:
Queanbeyan: R1 numbers 3 and 6, R2 3 and 9, R3 4 and 14, Race 4 1 and 2.
Muswellbrook:R2 1 and 3, R3 2 and 5, R4 1 and 10, R9 1 and 5.
Moe:R1 8 and 9, R2 1 and 6, R5 3, R6 2.

[jackact]

Oops, No 1 is scratched in the last at Muswellbrook. Selections are 5 and 7.

[michaelg]

Good luck, Jackact. I'll be looking at it with interest. Who are you backing them with - the TAB, top Fluc, Betfair...?

The 100 pointer in Moe R6 meets the criteria for the original method. Are you betting in this race?



Today's selections are:

Muswellbrook R5 no.3 - Husisname.
Moe R6 no.7 - Rose Syrah.

[jackact]

You are right, Michaelg, R6 Moe was not a candidate race.
Only $10.70 return (Unitab) for outlay of $21.00 for the day. If had used actual prices would also have backed Hannesburg R3 Queanbeyan ($5.90), but still a bad day.
I think I will wait till the weekend, where I am hoping that over reliance on ratings by many punters will make some of these top raters over bet, and so produce value for non-Top Raters.

[jackact]

I have had a change of heart. I think mid-week Sydney may be OK (based on a small sample of past results), so here are the selections, again based on AAP prices, for Canterbury today:
R1 no 3, R3 2 and 4, R5 5 and 6.

[michaelg]

From yesterday's two selections there was one accident for a loss of 1.15 units.

Today's selections are:

Canterbury R4 no.5 - Cheap Thrills
Townsville R3 no.7 - People's Choice
Ballina R1 no.5 - Got The Cash
Ballina R4 no.3 - Border Loop
Horsham R5 no.4 - Hiconi.

[stugots]

one filter which i had overlooked that may help exclude a few winners is no selection where weight is rising >=1.5kg from last start excluding any apprentice claims


raw data for those selections is -
bets 257
wins 79
s/r 31%
net +$5.2
pot 2.0%

[jackact]

A modest win yesterday, a return of $7.20 Unitab ($8.80 City Best Price), on an outlay of 5 units. I'll keep trying with Sydney Mid week.
Warwick Farm today:
R3 3 and 5, R4 2 and 6.

[jackact]

Slight loss: $3.60 (R3 no 5) return on outlay of 4. Will keep powder dry until the five Metrop meetings on Saturday.

[jackact]

Randwick R1 3 and 4, R5 1 and 7, R6 1 and 2, R7 1 and 2.
Moonee Valley R1 2 and 3.
Morphettville R1 1 and 3, R2 2 and 4, R4 1 and 5, R6 4 and 5.
Belmont (Pre scratchings) R5 1 and 9.

[jackact]

With scratchings, Belmont selections are now R5 6 and 9.

[jackact]

Return of only $17.70 (City Best Price) on turnover of 20. Interestingly, none of the top raters in the candidate races won. That might be the path to follow.