Yes they are independent events as are all races, but look at common denominators.
No sprinters win Melbourne Cups, horses must have had certain number of starts etc etc etc.
Statistics cannot tell you the coreect finishing order for a race, but can tell you wheter your selection is value and a good bet.
Statistics are used in numerous applications in society, they are not meant to predict the exact future as such, but tell you of continuing trends which continue to be profitable year in and year out.

As an example: 9 out of 10 Australians will rely on the Government for retirement income.
This statement comes from statistical research. It does not mean that exactly 9 out of 10 people in your street will be in this position, it simply means that ON AVERAGE this will be the case.

Therefore, lets say I have a system that shows 30% POT with a strike rate of 45%, it doesn't mean I'll win every day or week, but rather come out ahead over a month or year.

As to handicapping, is this not contained within stats anyway?
Or perhaps the two go hand in hand.

Incidentally, there are purely mechanical systems mentioned deep in the archives of this very forum that are still producing profit to this day :wink:

[ This Message was edited by: Chrome Prince on 2003-12-16 23:58 ]

Some good points Chrome. Without stats. Hadicapping would be lost in the woods. Hermes point though about handicapping what a system throws up is a good point too. A system that has a 45% SR might be improved by 5/15% by throwing out selections that for whatever reason handicap as poor value. This information can also be used to fine tune the system rules.
Value is the name of the game and by whatever means is what we should look for. I regularly dump horses that I think will win purely because they represent poor value. In the long haul backing such runners will produce a loss, meaning that an 'any price a winner' mentality is to be strenuosly avoided.

Cheers.

[ This Message was edited by: crash on 2003-12-17 06:57 ]

Question for the "non-system" folks! One of the main arguments from people who don't "believe" in systems (bah - next you will be telling me you don't believe in Santa!) is that you can't use the past to predict the future or that each race is unique and therefore no system can predict the results. The question is, therefore, why do you think your handicapping would work if a system can't? Surely your handicapping is based on past experience and the results of past races - if these are irrelevant then standard handicapping techniques are just as irrelevant as any system. So either you must concede that past results/experiences/trends ARE important and therefore systems based on these MAY work or we may as well all pack up and go home because this game is impossible!

In my opinion systems DO work, and they can work quite well provided they are based on sensible rules (eg. a system based on backing horses with Taurus in the name is obviously a load of Bull even though it would have worked well last week!).

So why do they stop working? In my opinion there are 2 main reasons:

1. They never actually worked in the first place. Backfitted systems sold by certain publications probably fall into this category! The system itself is not based on valid criteria and the fact it produced profit for a few months is nothing other than mere statistical co-incidence (or simply downright lying in the promotional material). Systems that rely on loss-chasing staking also fall into this category - they only show a profit because they haven't hit a losing streak of a certain length yet that will break the bank.

2. Overuse. Any system or handicapping relies on finding a big enough edge to overcome the bookie/TAB take and then make a profit. As we all know (I hope) when too much money is placed on a particular runner the price falls so the edge you have is reduced. If too many people are backing the same horse then the edge will eventually disappear. Of course they don't all have to be using the same system but if various systems are targetting similar characteristics then they will come up with similar selections (eg. lots of systems target last start winners so there is often no value left in these selections).

Combine these two reasons together and you will find very few published/sold systems work for any length of time. If they were valid in the first place and show a good profit then word-of-mouth will probably result in them becomming popular and their profitability will reduce.

Bottom line is if you want a really profitable system you will probably have to develop it yourself and then keep your mouth shut about how you are doing it!!!

__________________
"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson

Becareful, I agree with what you are saying except for one point. Your belief that punters can be devided into Hadicappers and system users. It is a grey area surely. Most hadicappers also use systems and vis-a-vis. I have my system account and my handicapping account [system account this year is killing my hadicapping account] and often due to time restrictions, my system account is the only one used.
I maintain hadicapping [a system in itself but not in the sense that it is purely mechanical like most 'systems'] due to the intellectual challenge I need to maintain interest. Profit is the the no. 1 goal but not the whole aim as otherwise racing is reduced to nothing more than counting money [accounting]. The sport of Kings ? Hardly.

Hello All,

Becareful's point about handicappers using the past is a very valid point. Even those people who "do the form" are using past events to try to predict the future. Even in a first start 2yo, "form analysts" use past events to predict the outcome... Which horse has the better breeding, which has the better trainer, which looks the best, etc, etc.

I also agree with Crash that the line between systems and handicapping is very thin. I use Price Predictor. A good proportion of my systems are based on either one of it's ratings systems. Surely this is handicapping? I'll agree that it's purely mechanical handicapping, because I mostly back the selections blindly, but it's still handicapping.

As for why most systems fail, I wonder whether MOST systems do in fact fail? I suspect that MOST systems will hit a terrible run of outs, and that if the betting bank isn't structured correctly they will break the bank, but does the system actually fail in the long term?

Earlier this year I came across a free system, which I particularly liked. I started betting it, and after 56 bets it had a horrible strike rate, and I had lost half my bank. As of last weekend, it's strike rate is 35%, flat stakes POT is 26%, and with judicial use of a staking plan, the bank is 2.5 times what I started with. (actual POT 35%)

So, after 3 months and 56 bets, I would have considered this "system" a failure. Today it's easily my best performing system - the one that I put my largest bets on each Saturday.

I have done a lot of analysis on the "cash flow" of my systems - graphing the bank has been extremely useful. I've come to the realisation that most systems will be "down" for long periods of time. Even my best system has already had two 3 month stretches where it has been below it's previous bank high. Not a long way below, but below all the same.

I can be a very stubborn fellow at times.. when I start a system I generally bet it to the last dollar.... This has saved 3 of my systems so far, and these three continue to perform well at present.

Cheers,
Chris.

Re: mechanics. Approx. 30% of favs win. 60% placed, this figure doesn't seem to alter much (so they tell me) whether Sat only or any day. Also the same figures seems to hold up with actual favs. or pre-post favs. Now presumably the odds are arrived by a mechanical handicapping technique involving all known parameters. The resulting loss seems to be equally mechanical i.e. approx 9% on t/o (depending who you talk to)improved slightly with using top fluc.

So Crash it seems you are right, we're sunk without that "personal" judgement, especially regarding "VALUE"

Crash,

I certainly never meant to imply that punters are either handicappers or systems users. If most people looked at the way I pick my bets they would classify me as a system user BUT the systems have been developed using (in my mind at least) sound handicapping techniques. The system is just an automated way of perfoming that handicapping approach.

There are, however, some people who seem to believe that a fully automated selection system can never produce long-term profits because the system is based on previous events. My question was therefore how do they perform their handicapping without any reference to the past????

Several poeple have also mentioned using a system to produce selections but then using a manual process to decide if they should bet or not. My main betting now is all from systems I have developed and if the system says a selection is a bet I put the bet on without question. In the past trying to examine each selection manually to improve on the system has cost me far more than it has saved when horses I assessed as poor chances romped home at double-figure odds!

__________________
"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson

To clarify my contribution, stats on 20,000 races might show that, for example, last start winners from barriers 1-3 are good things. And of course there is a certain predictability to this that you can rely on. But every race is a unique event all the same, and while such runners might be good things statistically they might not be in any given race. That's my point.

The question to ask about any stat is: in what context? It is the context that is unique. You can narrow it down but the best instrument for accounting for the full context is human judgement, in the end. I reckon.

My main point is that any mechanical system can be improved by the application of wise judgement, especially judging which races to shun.

At least I see it that way because most mechanical systems I devise either fall over or break even eventually and the best way to push them into the black is not to throw more stats and filters at it but to apply some judgement. Departing from your "system" you might decide, as the race shapes up, scratchings are made and real money is laid down and the context changes, to increase a bet. Or pass the race. These deviations from the rules are where I make the money that pushes the mechanical system into profit.

I regard mechanical systems as guides. Most of them break even at best, long term. For me. There comes a point in the development of a system where throwing more statistical power at it won't achieve much more than drastically reducing the volume of bets. That's the point at which I think its best to drop the science and apply some well-honed human judgement which is best able to comprehend and synthesize the unique context in which the mechanically chosen selection is situated.

Hermes

In two words Hermes, spot on !

The missing ingedient of all mechanical systems is 'reasoning'. Reminds me of when automatic cameras came on the market [yes I was there way back then]. Basicaly the rhetoric was 'it does the thinking for you'. No more exposure problems. However when confronted with a white cat in a black coal mine type situation, what does the automatic brain do, expose for the cat or the coal mine ? Reasoning is why Pro. photographers still use manual cameras and why even though I have a great automatic camera with all the bells and whistles, my old Nikon F1 manual camera and my hand held light meter are the first things I reach for to take a serious photo.

'Systems are great value but their final 'filter' with this punter anyway, will always be reasoning.

Cheers.

So Crash where was your "reasoning" yesterday at Sandown :lol: :lol: :lol:

Sorry - couldn't resist.

Hermes - I guess your human judgement is better than mine! As I said in the past when I have tried applying my judgement to my selections I end up missing good winners.

I am interested in your point that you use judgement to decide which races to ignore - surely in the majority of cases you could incorporate rules into your system to cull most of these for you anyway? eg. exclude races with fewer than X runners, exclude maidens, jumps, etc, exclude the race if more than X horses have a rating higer than Y, etc. All I am saying is that a lot of what people call judgement can be incorporated into a system quite easily. Of course there are the "gut feeling" type decisions that are harder - but unless you have been punting for lots of years (and I haven't) then gut feelings are often mistaken.

__________________
"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson