Ooops! Hope I haven't started something here.

Thats what a forum is for Jose, for people to give their opinions, whether everybody agrees or disagrees,

Gday All..
I find myself well and truly in Neil's corner here... As most know I rate nearly very race that the NSW TAB punts on.. and I bet my selections.. I find that if the "public" (for want of a better word) win on any given day I tend to lose. what that means if there are a lot of favs winning I am more likely to lose. My ratings throw up a lot of favourtites as well as the odd roughie as top selection, but if you are using ratings correctly, you don't just bet the top selection, If you do you will usually fail in the long run with ratings.(over time my top rater breaks even or turns a small profit at flat stakes, but I won't back the top one all the time) You need to look for the horses that present at value prices, and I am afraid looking blankly at a TAB screen in the pub, does NOT tell you where the real value is, unless you are armed with a set of reasonable ratings. Even a quick glance at the DFS sheet will give you a bit of an idea of what the market order is likely to be.

Now I don't believe for one minute that any thinking punter would walk in to a club/pub/TAb/oncourse TAB/bookmaker etc..and say "horse 1 is the fav...; I will get on even tho i know ************ all about it".. to my way of thinking that way lays the soup kitchen .. you will certainly go broke doing that.

People who provide ratings are people who take the time to atually do the form, and put thier expertise out there either freely or for a charge, for punters benefit.. Sometimes they are correct more often than not they are not.. thats the way racing is.. there is nothing in racing that is a given..except back favs exclusively and you will lose.. The idea is to help people to win. If people think that is not the case and say the public are the best judge (in my opinion they are an ok judge 30% of time) and will only blindly back what the public elects as fav.. more power to them.. I will take their hard earned when I rate something at $4 and it wins at10 or 15 bucks. remember when you are betting at the TAB,the money that ends up in your pocket is not the TAB's but the other punter's money.. the takeout is NOT your greatest enemy, the bloke standing next to you is the one that you are playing against.. so why would you want back what he is more than likely on? Unless you know that that horse deserves the tag of fav.. And you won't know that just by looking at a monitor...

XPT,

All I am saying is that if I back every favourite at a price of 20+% over their final tab dividend, over a period of time, would I be in front or behind? my guess is slightly in front. As you point out there are true favourites and false favourites but racing being racing you will get horses that really deserve being short odds getting rolled and others that dont really deserve the favourite tag getting up. All ratings do is put you on to the horses that should run well provided that they get the chance to run their best, ( jockeys will have good days and bad days just like the rest of us) and on their bad oneswill position a horse poorly, so to me spending more time getting value rather than pooring through alot of form makes more sense. If your ratings are making you dollars then Im glad and hope it continues for you. The method I use also seems to work.

Results of Pre post fav selections from previous page

10 bets for 3 winners and 6 placegetters
10/3 & 6
10/$9.20 & $10.60
Early daysbut, will keep an eye on it.

I know what you mean Neil, but I still think the 'public' is given a a lot of flack it doesn't deserve [eg:their all mugs] and I'm also aware that 'value' is the name of the game.

After several tries at paying for ratings over the years [and from a couple of well known reputable services too], none of them showed a profit from their top picks and it isn't uncommon for some services to base their strike rate on 'winners' that have come from any of up to 5 selections they have made for a race, rather than their top selection. Top selections are almost always short priced favorites that anyone can pluck from the Sportsman or winning Post or even their local paper. How often do we hear the claim: 'so-and-so got up at $24 and our service picked it '! What isn't said of course is 'so-and-so' happened to be among 4 other horses for the race they selected and he certainly wasn't the top pick.

In a recent article, I read about several top Pro's who where given the opportunity to try and beat the 'mug punter' public's 30% win strike rate. Of course they all failed dismally. Anyone care to try out the experiment :-)) ?

Neil ? ...you still there Neil ?

Anyone else ?

[QUOTE=DR RON]XPT,

so to me spending more time getting value rather than pooring through alot of form makes more sense. QUOTE]

My question here Dr Ron is how do you get value if you don't know which horse has the better form. You have to identify True and False favorites in some way and, although I know a lot of people on the forum seem to disagree with this view, I would expect a study of the form would be the most accurate way.


KV

I often see this 30% quoted. I'm interested to know what races it relates to. I process all races for a state (only done NSW and WA so far) in my system and get into the low 29% range but this includes all the backwater races which may only have a few runners. Based on that I would have thought someone who knows something about racing (I know buggar all about racing but a bit more about programming) would make 30%.
Maybe a bit harder on say all NSW Tab races though, where I'm a percent and a half down on the all up figure.

KV

I am a bit with you KV, because presumably you would have to do some type of form analysis, (as basic as it may be) to put horses in order to frame prices, then shop for value. This is what I do.

But I think value can mean different things to different people. Dr Ron is comparing prices from one source to the other, taking the longer one and calling it value. Maybe fair enough.

I think traditionally framing prices and then shopping is the recognised meaning of value. But I am all for alternative methods of finding winners, same for pricing.

Each to their own, ultimately the bottom line is the only thing that counts.

Each day you hear the word value butchered by tipsters. ie: wide open market $4-5 the field, "there will be plenty of value if you can find the winner." Total garbage.

I think the value of tipsters is somewhat outdated, especially the ones on radio and I take very little notice of any of them.

Kenny Victor, Your right of course when you suggest that by not looking at the form I would not a true fave from a false one. What I ambaking on is the fact that the public get it right more often than any ratings service when compared on an overall basis and not just selected races. I know that sometimes I will back a horse that isnt as good as what the public thinks it is , but I am not going to worry about losing on an individual race, I try to look at it that over the longer term. In the past I have guilty of betting haphazard amounts on horses, usually more on the losing ones and smaller amounts on the ones that get up, but know thanks to reading as many posts as I can on this and other forums I now bet in a more logical fashion so that a couple of losers isnt going to faze me. All I am saying is that if I get overs on betfair on average around the 20% mark as against the tab then in the long term i may just make a dollar. Even when i do the form I dont get it right as often as the public. I sometimes may find a good price winner, but overall I lost money. By having set goals and going about in a settled manner, I am finally starting to make consistent progress.Considering the smallish amounts I bet,the purchase of ratings , even if they did show a profit, would not be justified as it would probably take years to get to a level where it was worth my while.