Bhaggy's Best?
 

Dear Bhagwan,

I have been following this forum a fair bit recently and searching etc.. I have come across many posts from you where you say "this one works really well" and things like that.

Well I have tested a couple and I agree...if you aren't greedy and just be conservative and go for a small (3-5%) POT approach, you can do quite well.

My question to you is (if you are willing to share, understand if you don't) what are the two best Lay Systems that you have discovered, and are they auto? rely on manual selection input? Staking plan?

I have been playing with Lay88 which looks ok for a couple of things.

If you would like to PM, that is ok, I have some info about a bigger test I ran that you might be interested in as form of exchange.

Best regards,

Travolta.

The best lay systems, seem to be those where one goes for one selection per venue.

Lay bet .7% of bank if price is <=8.00

Put up you email so we can contact.
PS. best not make email literal .
Make it read e.g. bob at hotmail dot com

This is done so those cunning programs called spiders dont get hold of it & start spamming you.

Yeah i was doing pretty well with that system for awhile until i hit a few winners, but laying is not really my thing.

Bhagwan, you can contact me at laypunter at gorillas dot com dot au

Shaun, yes the recovery staking plan can cause some angst when a couple of winners fall in!! ....but having a big bank to cover the increase is obviously critical....

My approach is that if you start off with a sizeable bank (say $5K, and then make $100 per day with a stop loss of $1500 (as has been suggested), you need 15 winning days before you hit that stop loss to know that you are ok. I don't think that this is unreasonable given the smallish amount of testing I have done.

But having said that, losing $1500 of a $5K bank in 1 day might not be for everyones tastes!

I was not using recovery, i was laying to payout 2% of my bank on the first selected runner that met the criteria of that meeting, if i won i stopped on that meeting if i lost i stopped on that meeting, i few times depending on the prices i could lay 2 winners on a 8 race card meeting and still make a profit.

I went for a few days with no losers and made a bit but then hit a rough patch, as i have said i am not a layer and was just testing the waters of a Bhagwan system.

Travolta, if you can average around the 2.5-3.5% POT from laying then you are doing pretty well. If you can maintain a 5% or better POT then your doing very well indeed.

Laying is as much to do with turnover as it is about making a profit. To this end I'll disagree with the Bhagwan and say that the best laying systems are those that present a high volume of value selections allowing the layer to compound that 2.5% POT. One selection a venue would be the equivalent to watching paint dry. Multiple selections per race is the way ahead. ;)

AngryPixie, you mention multiple selections.

I've been experimenting in certain races where I lay not just multiple selections but the entire field on S.P. I've been showing a profit on all my evolving methods with this type of laying, but was not entirely satisfied with any of them. However I've fine-tuned my current method and am currently showing a POT of 22%, and with four more races to go it is virtually impossible to lose today.

If anyone's interested, I select certain races and use certain settings on the neurals to identify horses that are in single figures in my neural market. These I lay for a fixed liability, and all the remaining horses in the race for a higher liability.

What I particularly like about this is that I can put the lay-bets as soon as the neurals load the scratchings. About 80-90% of the selections end up in the black, and quite often the worst accident will be very low. I've even had an äll green race and often very close to it.

Wow Michael, 22% that's amazing. Is that profit on liability or profit on stake? My comments above are for the former.

How many races have you under your belt?

Well done Michael. I worked 4 races on Aus today, lost on 1, USA 1 win from 1 race, and UK tonight have 3 from 3 already all in profit. It really is the way to go, although sometimes the SP's can be dodgy.

Should add, no losers on that USA race and only 1 loser in one of the 4 AUS races and the bu gger won!

AngryPixie, the POT refers to liability. Today I had a liability POT of 17%. My first two races lost, but only a total loss of $0.96.

There's only been a paltry 35 races since I started this particular system from last Monday. However, there's slightly more than 200 races since I began laying the field, continually experimenting to improve the system until I was satisfied, which I think I am now.

Over these 200-plus races the liability POT was about 6%.

How do I go about laying the field.

Michael that's sounding good. I'm pretty much exclusively SP into the UK market these days. Looking over my numbers the returns from the last week and a half have been above average. Last night was a pearler peaking at a profit of 65% of bank and finishing with 53% increase in bank betfore Betfair tax. It's up and down though. I'd be expecting a correction tonight.

Think there's a group of us all basically doing variations of a theme ;)

Benny, every horse has to be clicked in the S.P. lay section to display them on to the laying section. Then the liability for each individual horse has to be inputted in to the appropriate area.

It does not take long, but double-check that every horse has been displayed because it is not too difficult to accidentally omit any one of them.

AngryPixie, I too am laying U.K. races which I do about 9.30 p.m. Sydney time. I'm keeping my head "above water" but it can be hit and miss because the market sometimes changes considerably before even my first race is run.

Michael, I'm running Betbotpro which allows me to be a bit more selective with my races, and means I can pretty much set and forget and have it place the lays in the seconds leading up to jump time. All while I'm asleep :D

Because last nights result was outside the curve I'd be expecting a loss of up to 20% of bank early on so I'll stay up and run in sim mode until that point is reached, and then switch to live mode. I try not to double guess the market though as you can get caught out, but there's only been two losing nights since Tuesday of last week.

I presume you are not laying the field?

I want to clarify my POT.

I think the method of my POT calcs is not accurate, and if so, hopefully someone will confirm/correct me.

For the POT I have been using the highest liability layed per horse. For example, if the highest liability I inputted was $40 on no.5, and it was beaten and gave me a profit of $4.00 on the race I would calculate a POT of 10%.

However, I think that the actual liability should be the highest amount I could possibly lose on a particular race. For example, if the worst result was a loss of $5 but I ended up winning $5 I would assume the correct POT should then be 100%.

Assuming the highest liability per race was $4 (this is most likely overstating it) then the POT so far is slightly over 50% - I don't think laying the field is necessarily a bad way to go.

Michael, no not laying the whole field ;)

I've really just stripped everything back to the bare basics and similarly to Chrome I lay all my selections to the same liability. I use 10% of bank. This makes POT calculations easier as I just need to look at the aggregate of what I've risked and divide any profit by that number. i.e. risked a total of $5000 over all races and ended with a profit of $250 is a POT of 5% for the day.

The 10% is more aggressive than some would like (helps to be asleep when that's happening ;) ) but due to laying multiple selections it's effectively more like 5% which is roughly my advantage.

Well done Michael.

You say the liability is set higher for the double digit horses.

Can you say what percentage higher than the single digit priced horses?

Never try to second guess the market!!
 

Doesn't pay to be a smarty. Started in simulated mode last night and after 5 races would have had 4 winning lays under my belt and a before Betfair increase in bank of 23.5% :( At that point stayed in simulated mode and went to bed. Would have finished with 12 winning lays from 27 markets and a closing profit of 26.4%, after peaking at 36.6%. And me without a cent on :mad:

Note to self - never forget that it's all random.

I would say this variance to the expected came about because you are laying not the field, but a portion of it. Therefore you are subjected to greater degrees of highs and lows and dependant on certain runners losing rather than the market corrections.

I lay the entire field and use 2.5% of bank due to massive fluctuations in profit/loss.
Without a doubt 90% of my profit/loss on any day comes from higher or lower than expected odds on favourites saluting for the day.

In your case, not 100% sure, but taking a wild stab, you are relying on a group of horses rather than overall odds on faves.
I'm also laying UK and AUS races using the same principles.

I've found that almost always, when I have a much better or much worse than expected result, it turns around the next day, if not the day after.

My approach is to stake to expectation and it's been working extremely well to date.

E.G.

Day 1 5 units profit to $100 liability
Day 2 6 units profit to $100 liability
Day 3 28 units profit to $100 liability
Day 4 16 units loss to $50 liability****
Day 5 8 units loss to $100 liability
Day 6 6 units profit to $100 liability
Day 7 4 units profit to $100 liability

So I halve the liability for the next day after a big win and double it the next day after a big loss.
But bear in mind, I'm using only 2.5% of bank to start with, @ 10% of bank, it could wipe you out quite quickly.

Chrome hi

The 10% (effectively 5%) is based on quite a deal of research and I'm comfortable using a "maximum boldness" strategy for these selections. It's loosely based on Kelly by using an average advantage and dividend.

Just laying the more popular runners with a simple price based filter. I like it's utility as I put no thought what so ever into any of the selections, can let the bot do it's on thing (running out of Dublin at present) so I don't have to hang around. Can't get quite what I want out of the bot so I do have to touch it each day.

The same approach doesn't seem to work anywhere other than the UK.

Bhagwan, the ratio with my single figure horses against double figures is a simple 30/35. I lay my single figures for a liability of $30 and all the double figures for $35 regardless of their Betfair price. I can't remember any outsider ever being in the red.

I won't reveal how I chose my qualifying races nor my neural settings but I would be very surprised if any neural setting/s were to end up losing because this method drastically reduces the race liability. And even when one of my selections does not win the race then a profit is made much more often than not. For example, there has currently been two qualifying races already run but none of my selections won - yet I'm showing a 100% P.O.T, or 10% P.O.T. depending on which method one calculates it.

Chrome, further to above I'd only really consider "sim-ing" if the previous days result was well outside one standard deviation. What has happened every other time is that you'll lose early and recover late. So if you know the range your working with you can turn a losing day into a winner by sitting a few out.

Sorry Travolta, seem to have taken over your thread :(

Thanks for that Michael.

That looks a very cunning strategy.

Not at all....this is a really good discussion :-)

I have been successfully laying the field with S.P. using a different system which is based on Betfair's prices.

Today there were four races that were "all green". Out of interest, in the fourth race I calculated the S.P. market. My calcs came to a 100% market, as would be expected.

I could easily accept my calcs were incorrect, but because the worst possible result was more than a 6% POT (based on the highest liability layed on any horse in the race) I would have had to badly miscalculate the value of the market. There were no late scratchings in any of the four races.

If all the four races did actually have a 100% market it would be mathematically impossible to have an "all green" race, seeing that the price does not change.

Any ideas?

SP on 18 of the 24 Syd, Melb, Bris races today, were over 100%.

Thanks, Mark. And three of my "all green" races were not from these venues, so maybe it's quite common. And maybe that's the reason my Lay The Field methods are doing so well.

But I think its raises a few questions:

Is this Lay anomaly common in England?

Is this because there's more "laying" than "backing" money or vice-versa?

Does the market even-out so that it often is less than 100%, otherwise backers are being disadvantaged?


I wonder how many punters are aware of this. It would be inconceivable that Betfair isn't, so hopefully the S.P. market won't/can't be adjusted.

Yes, it is the same in England.
It is because there is more back money pushing the market on firmers.
If you picture a 100% market, and then backers scramble to "get on" to the firmers, the firmers are heavily supported at the top end of the market, allowing a shift in market percentages.
It's simply a case of more markets over 100% than under, you just need enough liquidity and you have a set and forget edge.
Mostly punters aren't aware of this judging by the Betfair forum.
Betfair are accutely aware of this, which is why they bet into these markets themselves.
They are trying to make it unattractive to layers by pushing the prices up and increasing premium charges, because there isn't enough commission generated by field players.
My main concern is that they already know what's going on and every few months it becomes a little harder.
The clock is ticking when it will no longer become viable. :(

BF, b4 smoke & mirrors, now smoked glass in the mirrors! , soon?????

Thanks for that info, Chrome.

TAB employees (and employees of corporate bookies?) are not allowed to bet, one wonders why Betfair employees have no such restrictions. Disgruntled losers on Betfair could easily come up with conspiracy theories, some of which could have merit - such as Betfair employees manipulating their market.

Here are a couple of lay plans that have shown to be very consistant.

100ptr Lay Plan
Target race 1 only.

Lay the UniTAB 100ptr

Price 2.50-4.50

Lay Bet 1.5% of bank level stakes.
Good for 20+ outs

Its amazing how many of these short payers fall over for what ever reason.


Lay Plan No.2
Target all runners priced 4.00-8.00

Must have been unplaced at both of their last 2 starts e,g, 56 08 64 ect
No resumers.
But resuming in between runs OK e.g. 5x4

Lay Bet them at .8% of bank level stakes.
Good for 20+ outs.