Stopping on a High
 

While reading through some old posts, one of the regulars mentioned that they had a good win and were done for the night.

Has anyone done any analysis to confirm whether that can be a worthwhile strategy? To me, if you believe you have a winning system, then you need as many bets as you can to average out your P&L.

Hi FredTheMug

I agree completely with your view. It makes absolutely no sense to stop betting on pre-determined selections just because you have had a good day.

If your normal selection process (whatever that maybe) has identified a horse as a bet then you should execute that bet save for extreme circumstances such as a dramatic change to track conditions.

The most important point to draw from this discussion is that probability has no memory.

The stop at a high tries to take advantage of the law of averages. If your have had a good run early then more then likely your later bets will not be as successful in order to revert your strike rate to its mean.

My thoughts are it all depends on your strike rate. If you have a strike rate less then 80% then stopping when you hit a high is probably a good idea. On the other hand if your strike rate is around 95% (michealg has this sort of strike rate) then your giving up a lot of profit stopping at a new high each day.

Each rule suits a different situation and this one is quite good for low strikes.

Thanks for the replies guys.

Watching my own P&L go up and down over the day often makes me wonder if my approach is less likely to win on the later events of the day, but none of my (very light) analysis has shown any significant bias.

I would love to have a strike rate of 80%! I guestimate that mine is around 52% and I do OK.

Yes, as the others have mentioned, you have two approaches. You can bet all of your selections and take the results as they occur, or you can set a predetermined profit or loss percentage or dollar value. The latter of course means you could either miss out on more profit or miss turning a loss into getting even or making a profit, but of course you could lose even more.
It depends on your personal risk profile too of course. Those who, say, invest in the more secure investments such as term deposits or blue chip shares would prefer the latter method and vice versa.

Hi FredTheMug

If your strike rate is anything close to 52% then believe me you are doing very well. As you would probably be aware a higher strike rate means less variance and is certainly easier to profit from long term than a low strike rate due to the higher bank risk and larger draw down periods associated.

If your strike rate was 80%, and assuming you had a 10% betting edge, then your average dividend would be $1.38.

Those who remember kenchar would know he had this type of approach for place betting, if memory has not failed totally it was 1 unit profit or 2 units loss would be his stopping strategy for the day.

Remember him well, Shaun. Indeed your memory is quite accurate. He leaned heavily on place betting --- but was very emphatic on discipline. He tended to have large wagers to reach the result(s) he was after. There is an interesting thread going back quite a while now in which his philosophy is outlined and where the subject of this thread is given an airing too.

http://www.propun.com.au/racing_for...ction#post72269

Kenchar has not been sighted here for quite a while now, and I fear he may have fallen victim to the big "C" which I believe he was battling.

I do have his e-mail and will drop him a line and see how he is, great bloke and one of the true punters that visited this site.

Thanks Shaun and Kenchar*(.. wherever you are, mate!). This is an extremely valuable insight for me at this part of the 'journey'.

Cheers LG

* King of the place bet