Question - why not back for win only??? Sure you would have a longer time between "drinks" but based on your initial post ("no good for placebetting alone - margins too fine") and todays results you would be better off. For today $26.40 in divs from 14 races - so at $5 a race (ie. put your place pool in win) you would be up $62 for the day.

I was just being careful becareful.

It won't work for placegetters only but it will for win only - if it "works" at all - , except you then expose yourself to long dries between drinks, as you say. And if you take out the placegetters and play win only I suspect runs of outs could be severe. There is nothing to buffer them.

One of the features I find attractive here is that it nets lots of placegetters which breaks up a run of outs and saves you from cycles of boom/bust.

Betting win only would be more fun. More ups and downs. I'm a conservative soul. I'm looking for stability.

You seem to be having fun with the mini system.
Good luck.

Many punters in this forum, including myself, had a bad one last Sat. Oakfield Duke, Ex-files, Zed-Files, Timidity. And so on. This simple selection system scored though.

Thirty one eligible races. Outlay at $1 win, $4 place = $155. Return = $166.50.

At win only, return = $250.50. (Underlines becarefuls point!)

Check them out. The winners were Gullcatcher, Wyngrove, No Stops (at $15.60 to win), Mr Attorney (at $11.50), Zabenz, Judanazo, Zedimbi, Glenwest ($7.10), Zip Infatuation.

Going OK.

Hermes

I've extended my sample to get an idea of the long term prospects of this mini system. I don't have hard figures. I mainly did it by eye, but it seems to me that, in the long term:

*If you bet win only, you'll go bust pretty quickly. You hit long runs of outs punctuated by small paying winners. After a while there are just not enough good paying winners to off-set the outs.

*If you bet each way you'll go bust slowly. Again, after a while the volume of outs exceeds the returns provided by the low paying placegetters. It will grind you down.

So, in conclusion:

If you are a fun better looking for a good day out, this system is recommended. High fun value and on lots of days you'll do well pulling in some wild and wooly winners. It is much better than following favourites.

But do NOT adopt this system as an investment strategy or your long-term betting strategy. You'll lose. I haven't worked out the gorey details. Don't need to. You can see the graph trends. You'll lose.

Hermes

One way to increase your profit but keeping the idea of win & place,
is to bet 1Win+3Place instead of the 1W+4P
This should increase you profit on turnover by 20 points, because the betting ratio has been changed from 20%W*80%P to 25%W*75%P

__________________
Cheers.

Thanks for the tip Bhagwan.

System started off well today but fell in a heap at the end.

Rose Hill R1 #1 Eastwest Success - Win $2.70, P. $1.30.
R2 #5 Prsently - 4.40/1.40
Flem R3 #4 Malu, 3.10 the place.
Sunshine R3 #10 Sequently, 4.40 the place.
Sunshine R4 #3 Jestica 8.40/2.00
Rosehill R5 #6 Bringing Joy, 1.40 the place.
Flem R5 #5 The Big Ask - 5.30/2.20 (A great win! Great race!)
Then a loooong run of outs.
Until Flem R8 #6 Freegold, 3.90 place.
Chelt.R7 #6 Court Hero, 4.20/1.80


Pulled in some goodies, but too many outs on the day. At each way $1, $4. Outlay $125. Return = $112.80. Betting win only = exactly even.

Collating results, and despite what I wrote earlier in this topic, win only looks the better way with this mix, doesn't it? But you get substantial runs of outs before it puts you ahead. Going through a few weeks results now, each way betting is poor value - just behind. Win only has us in front, pulling in some good wins. Long term prospects doubtful I reckon. What do you think Bhjagwan? Can I make anything of this?

THE GUNGADIN FACTOR

A refinement to the system. There must be a way to filter out the likes of Sunshine Coast R1 #11 Gungadin, a selection in this sysatem. I know we are looking for the occasional long shot, but Gungadin is too much. We can squeeze extra value out of this system by eliminating runners like Gungadin, a wasted bet, the longest of long shots.

So eliminate horses with the Gungadin factor:

*The bottom average prizewinners.

If your lowest numbered last start winner has the worst average prizewinnings in the race, forget it.

That will leave the happy mix of all-sorts and take care of Gungadin.

Hermes

Hermes

It seems that the answers to some of your queries are to be found, in seed form at least, in some of what you have said yourself.

1) In your first post you said that "You need the winners to make it profitable." Therefore the place component is obviously not pulling its weight (no matter how satisfying it may be to get a return from the TAB or whatever on a regular basis), and so you should stick to the win bets.

2) The 200 or so results that I presume you have (original 180 plus recent races), should give a reasonable idea of what should be the cut-off point about saddlecloth numbers. Are the few winners over, say, about number 8, or whatever, giving a reasonable return? I'd like to hear your answer to that one!!

3) And the next step is surely to find a progression that will take advantage of your very good strike rate of 30% winners. Perhapos the forum can help there.

All in all I think it has great prospects. Congratulations.

Thanks Merriguy. Good advice. Will do some further figures including looking for a saddlecloth cut off. Lots of # 5 and 6 overall, I've noticed, but not sure about win onlys. In fact, it seems I'll need to recalculate all of this on the win only figures. Becareful had it right several posts back. He wrote:

"Question - why not back for win only??? Sure you would have a longer time between "drinks" but based on your initial post ("no good
for placebetting alone - margins too fine") and todays results you would be better off. For today $26.40 in divs from 14 races - so at $5 a race (ie. put your place pool in win) you would be up $62 for the day."

You were right becareful. Win only is the way. It's doing better. A strike rate you could do something with.

I'II do some more figures. Wish I had a push-of-a-button database.

Hermes

Thanks for the positive comment Hermes! One idea you might like to look at to get rid of the "Gungadin" factor would be to eliminate horses over a certain price (maybe $25?). I don't know if this would work but it would be worth looking at when reviewing your data.