dingoboy, with regards to experience at the punt, I can tell you I have EXTENSIVE experience of "gut" type betting, some spectacular wins b4 the inevitable "bad runs".
But have started to get it together in the last couple of years, and now my activities are much more controlled.

To answer your questions: I commit the utmost SIN with this method i.e. I target bet, (cringe cringe) eg.
say the target is $30 from each bet...so I have 1 selection in 2 different races grouped together and back em as if they are one bet @7-1 , which will give me 3-1 for my money if one wins at 7-1.

So I bet $5 on each selection
say they both lose so now my target is $60 + the $10 that I lost=$70

My next bet will be $12 on each
Say one won at 3-1, so I won $36, so my target now is $34 (shortfall) + $30 =$64

So my next bet is $11 on each. Say one won at 10-1, so I win $99, so I have cleared my Target of $64 plus $35, so the $35 goes into the reserve bank and I start again with a target of $30,..... lets say there is a run of 5 outs so in fact I have backed 10 losers, I then reduce the target by whatever is in the reserve bank and carry on, in this case however I would have a maximum amount that I am prepared to lose in any one bad run, on this scenario it would be $500.

So as you can see it is NOT dutching at all, just grouping of selections to try and avoid long runs of outs.

As far as selection methods are concerned, yes it is a case of whatever works for you, but I would follow on paper only for a while and insist on a minimum of a break even situation b4 trying a staking plan especially anything as "risky" as target betting.

Good luck!!
PS The reason I like this method is that you can back race to race, day to day or even week to week, put your bets on early b4 work and check em out after etc.





[ This Message was edited by: partypooper on 2004-10-01 17:29 ]