Thank you for your reply, and I could not agree more with the final sentence of your posting quoted above. These are words I have spoken often!

I also took the liberty of downloading your programs and looked at them, you have done a lot of work and are very serious about what you do, so from that point of view I wish you every success. You are a doer and not a talker :-)

In as far as most systems are similar in fashion but change in design, they are all dependant of several key areas, I can see the dynamic nature of your system, and it represents a real-time/race day solution. I want to develop my system to have a dynamic capability NOT on race day but the day before or several days before.

This of course would mean that current prices would not be part of that criteria, however predicted prices certainly could play a role in the selection process and then if predicted prices are matched with real prices on the day, you could back the selection then.

My ideal system would involve collecting the fields for a meeting several days before the event, running the program to come up with selections, give me a print out of same to pop into my pocket and take with me to the races or any other place where I have access to placing a wager.

Then armed with my list of selection and probable price ranges, I sit and wait to see if the odds expected match the odds on offer and I place the bet, the rest of course is up to fate and history :-)

So my form of dynamic in this sense is the interplay between the selection criteria and the prices on the actual day. I would of course only have to concentrate on the races where selections have come up according to the selection criteria. Other systems would have you scanning every race for a possible match and that is a full time job.

My second form of dynamic is totally different than described above. In this form of dynamic system, I would have all the above as well as a direct current odds feed. The program would flag me when a certain price point (odds) matched a desired predetermined set of selections according to my selection criteria which I can run on the day the fields come out.

The essential difference between the two systems are in the first, you get a print out and can go and have a life and place your bets over the phone or in a Tab outlet etc. The system would rely on you doing a personal observation of the prices on offer for the selection in question.

The second system would require you to be at your computer with a direct constant feed of prices waiting for the all important matching of odds to required price to make your bet.

Both systems do the same thing, they differ only in releasing you from your computer dungeon, if you want to get away occasionally and live like a real person.

The bottom line is, regardless of how much you automate your system, how much you rely on dynamic, real-time information, you simply can't avoid making a human decision when it comes to betting and nor should you want to. At best you must oversee your creation and be totally aware of what is happening at all times, especially if you have a healthy respect for your money.

At worst, you will need to spend countless hours, copying and pasting and doing manual tasks to format your data and make sense of it and eventually give you a selection and then leave you with a decision to bet or not. This is the hard way and I think would be a very good first step for any programmer/punter before moving up to the next level of semi or full automation.

These are just random thoughts on the subject of dynamic. Dynamic could be measured by the amount of time/work you spend doing tasks to actually make a list of selections. In this sense, whether or not you make a profit hardly seems to be the focal point. It becomes a question of how much time and effort you invest in your system versus any profits or otherwise :-)

Tailwag