Hi Duritz,

Please take my suggestions constructively.
Seems we are some of the few really putting in the research (publicly) and it's paying dividends.

Firstly, to show a profit over 5,800 bets is phenomenal.
I would be worried about the volatility, but it only depends on your personal habits. I could never endure a rollercoaster such as this, as I am in essence a confidence punter. Even a losing month is hard for me to digest financially and emotionally (discipline wise).
I recognize my short comings and have turned around my punting since that time. I also know that sooner or later I will have a couple of losing months in a row, but I can endure this if it is not a regular thing.

If you have the personal confidence and discipline to stick like glue to the system, never wavering, then I say good luck to you and you deserve every dollar profit you collect.

It's a damn fine system guaranteed.

Just curious, is this the profit over 2 years betting?

__________________
RaceCensus - powerful system testing software.
Now with over 413,000 Metropolitan, Provincial and Country races!
http://www.propun.com.au/horse_raci...ng_systems.html
*RaceCensus now updated to 31/01/2025
Video overview of RaceCensus here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W821YP_b0Pg

Cheers thanks KV that wasn't waffle, it's got me thinking.

Chrome - yep, two years worth (I combined the January's, Febs etc so those monthly figures are actually combined data).

Like you, I am not one of those firm, like glue types who'll resolutely stick with it through thick and thin - I tend to waver too. I really think I'll need this to make a constant profit or I might not stay the course.

It's making me think hard about what to do - what I'd certainly like to do is test it over longer.

Going to sleep on it.

Duritz.

[QUOTE=Duritz]
Jan -39
Feb -19
Mar +107
Apr -21
May +98
June -40
July -26
Aug +31
Sep +108
Oct +2
Nov +134
Dec +83

Total = +417 over the 5800 odd bets.

Should I be concerned?[/QUOTE

No if it's not the rent money your using as capital to punt with, yes if this bird flu pandemic goes human to human [I'm stocking up the food supplies and candles :-).]

What I find interesting in your figures is the loss/skinny profit periods. It certainly reflects my bad periods and good periods to a large degree.
OK we have Jan. And Feb. Hot as hell and lots of 2 yr. olds running around as 3yr. old with ************ all form. Difficult period. March, well those 3 yr. olds have some form now and there is good prize money around [less dodgy races and trainers doing their thing]. More money around basically and more reliable form.

Winter, the flip side of summer with very little money around and then an upswing into the money period of spring. Xmas period into Jan. early Feb. is probably a good time to do something other than punting. I certainly wind down my punting $ outlay during that time. A tough period.

I find all that timing reflects my system and/or handicapping efforts similarly and that in itself is interesting. Well maybe it is if many other punters have a similar experience with different times of the year.

Yeah I tend to concur with that - also in those months like Jan and Feb, in the open grades the fields are thin (have a look at some of the fields on a Wed at Sandown) and the favourites short, that makes it hard to make a buck.

Perhaps further proving that - my handicapping method has its highest strike rate of winners on top & winners in top 4 in Dec, Jan, Feb - yet the sys can't win in Jan Feb, and its derived from the handicapping method. This says to me that in those months the winners are easily sorted, and go around at their right odds.

OK this is not only worrying for me, guys, it's also worrying for everyone else whose been in on this thread - see that list I published previously, the month by month breakdown? Well, that's only five of the months as losing months, not six. I don't know how I counted that as six, and I don't know why no-one picked up on it!!!

It must be because I'm so highly respected here, held in such high regard and esteem that as soon as I said "six months losing" no-one thought to question, because surely this genius, this Goliath of an intellect could not have made such an elementary, moronic error as to miscount the plusses and minusses!!

Well, it seems I have.

So, five months losing, seven months winning. That's becoming a little more easy to handle.

To break them down, here they are:

Losing months: -39, -19, -21, -40, -26
Winning months: +107, +98, +31, +108, +2, +134

I'm a lot happier right now, looking at that - because also there might have been losing months there but they're not that big. Even 40 bets (though 40% of your bank if betting flat stake) is not so bad when you've got an increasing/reducing bank. It still means this system is going to be volatile, but some of those winning months are really great winning months.

So, anyway, here it is broken down month by month for each of the two years, rather than both combined:

2004

Jan -14
Feb +2
Mar +64
Apr -16
May +26
June -36
July -57
Aug +16
Sep +93
Oct +22
Nov -1
Dec +45
Total = +144 for the year

2005

Jan -25
Feb -21
Mar +43
Apr -5
May +72
June -4
July +31
Aug +15
Sep +15
Oct -21
Nov +135
Dec +37
Total = +273 for the year

So, both years in the positive, healthily so, esp 2005.

Losing months, broken down

2004: -14, -16, -36, -57, -1
2005: -25, -21, -5, -4, -21

So, of the 10 losing months, 3 of them are virtual chop-outs (and with better than tote odds, surely would be chop-outs). That means there's actually only seven of the 24 months total which are REAL losing months, if you will, or about 30% of them. I said earlier I wanted 75% of the months in profit, well we're getting closer now.

The seven losing months go -14, -16, -21, -21, -25, -36, -57. Those two worst months were June and July of 2004 - the worst run of the method, quite clearly. Loss of 93 units over those two months. I guess what that shows is that you need to minimize damage in times of loss.

To illustrate this, I've compiled a little example. If you'd started with a $1000 bank and betting 1% reducing/increasing ($10 start point and a $10 minimum no matter what the bank) on each and started at the start of '04, by June 1 your bank would be $1630 (profit $630), and your bet size $16, when the losing streak begins. Beacause of reducing/increasing bet size, by the end of July when you've lost 93 units over the two months, your bank is down to $690. If you had a "non-decreasing" clause in there, your bet size would have peaked and held at $21 from early April, and on July 25th you'd have lost the last of your bank. So, increasing/reducing has kept you in the game and only lost 31% of your initial bank, non-reducing has wiped you out.

Interestingly, if you'd just level staked $10 without increasing/reducing at all, at the end of July your bank would be $690. So, not much difference if you just flat stake but then you don't give yourself a chance for big profits as you increase. For me, I think this shows that the 1% increasing/reducing has the scope to take advantage of "good times" and the ability to cope with the bad runs without a wipeout. However, you need the minimum bet rule. I set it at $10 for the sake of simplicity of maths for this, it of course depends on yourself but realistically you wouldn't want it below $5. From $5 to professional punting levels is like from the Manangatang picnic gallops to the Cox Plate. As I said, I've used $1000/$10 as a good point for maths.


OK, just re-read all of that. I don't even really know what point I am trying to make, however I think what this has done is let me learn a lot more about what I am potentially in for with this system. This is not going to be a steadily increasing bank like the graphs on the glossy pages of the system sellers, which is why I think th 1% increasing/redecing is perfect for it. It runs with the peaks and troughs and adjusts itself for them.

Waht do you guys think of those figures?

http://home.iprimus.com.au/jfc2000/drawdown.htm

Reminding or introducing any who might be interested about this toy.

If you want to try out the situation in the Triple your Bank thread the relevant parameters are:

20 = % - Chance of Winning
7 = Decimal Odds


One thing worth noting is that Maximum Drawdown is never less than Longest Run of Outs. That makes the Drawdown far more useful.

For example a few fluke wins could break long run of outs and give false assurance about a dud system. Whereas the Drawdown is more immune to flukes.

What do we think of the figures?

All over the shop, but if the system is making a profit, great!
The nitty-gritty for you though is: I bet this system is not your only bets [no exotics or other bets etc.?] and are you keeping a record of those? :-))

From a true statistical perspective would these results really be deemed volatile?

I think it is a bit like the stock market in as much as the degree of (perceived) volatility will vary with the time span being examined. If you looked at these sort of results in three monthly periods after (say) ten years then it would possibly appear a very stable set of results?

As Chrome alluded to, I think the hardest thing for punters to come to grips with is that profit making doesn't necessarily follow a nice straight line - which is why you see some punters changing systems/methodologies as often as they change Irish underpants.