I have found that one of my selection methods over the past four years has returned a POT of 38% for level stakes. I wondered what would have happened if I had started with a bank of $30 , bet 10% of it and put all winnings back in the pot.
After about 18 months the theoretical bank was up to $570 000 and then the rot set in and it got back to$180!!(a series of shocking losing streaks)My point is that no matter how you make selections, you will have a purple patch sooner or later and should have a system in place to capitalise on it.
So I'm going tohave this little system on the side and see how it goes. Can somebody else apply it to their past results? Betting 5% of the pot works better for the faint-hearted!

Perhaps a ceiling for the pot after which the excess is removed. Probably 50k ceiling as a 5k bet winning would result in a tidy profit. It would also help lesson the impact of a losing run?

The idea of a cap is a good one, but where you put it depends on your personality. I'm considering running three consecutive banks with a tenfold difference in cap(say $300, $3000, $30,000), then take the lot and start again at $30. All the same, I'd like to have a fourth bank running to a cap of "semi-retirement". I may never have the same run of "luck" again but if I'm only risking a $30 bank every now and then who cares?

The best method is have a number of horizon tal betting series rather than running verticals, this spreads your investment which lessens the impact on each of the pools..

Woof43

A question: How do you bet horizontally? Do you mean in parallel? eg four lines of betting, each may be betting on the same horses but they have different end targets.

Also another question from EI's Weekday madness post, using MCsim testing. I'm wondering from what you said, whether there is an optimum moment in a series in which to Stop betting and count the rest of the series goodbye. And if that is the case, would it allow a method or approach to abstain from betting on losing streaks?

Horizontal and vertical betting series, a vertical series is a person playing Win only, if they were playing horizontal you would be linking key runners in win & the exotics ...you dilute the pools by investing too much into one pool, the beauty of playing the exotics is it allows you to create your own odds on your key runner if the best payoff for a win is 6/4 an your ratings dictate you need 2/1 you move your plays to the exotics and by trimming the number of linkages to your key you can create 2/1 for your key, but you then have a risk that an runner you havn't linked may not fill a placing.

In regards to the Mcsim of EI's what i did was look at his payoffs max and minimum etc then ran 5000 simulations of 100 bet series then looked at the deviation from the breakeven point, by knowing when the avg min and avg max in the deviation from the breakeven occurs within allows one to adjust your staking within any betting series,that is increase or decrease your staking, instead of using regression etc..whilst protecting your capital.
But its essential you never change your method of selction once that occurs your on the road to ruin.



[ This Message was edited by: woof43 on 2003-01-24 17:20 ]

[ This Message was edited by: woof43 on 2003-01-24 17:22 ]