Matchup Challenge Standings (1 Contest)
 

We had one washout and with one regular (Tim) out of town there were still 7 participants. Not a bad start. Lots of hits and discussion and well thought out Matchup thinking.
Everybody is underwater. But mowens33 and Bill V. are at the shallow end.

Matchup Challenge Standings (after 3 Races)
 

Seven Furlongs and Capcondo have zoomed into positive territory after a great performance on the weekend. Seven F was 2/2 and Tim got the nice price from Sundays race at Oaklawn also which was a difficult one. Nice input and thinking from everyone. We will keep it going next weekend....

Pook

Matchup Challenge Standings (after 4 Races)
 

Not much change this week. PeteC was the only one to actually profit. Cigar also pegged the winner though. So with the profit PeteC has managed to get himself up off a tie at the bottom. Seven Furlongs remains at the top.

Matchup Challenge Standings (after 6 Races)
 

Mowens33 hit the weekend double and raceman5 opened up his contributions with the big price on Sunday. Well done once again. So with that opening the raceman vaults to the top and the Pook remains at the bottom sucking the old hind tit. We now have 4 matchers out of 10 in positive territory. We are all good handicappers though (us 10 matchers so far) and I think given time we will all be in the black.

Pook

Matchup Challenge Standings (8 Races)
 

PeteC sweeps the weekend with singles. Multiple winners over both days. The results are starting to smooth out with Raceman5 still on top and Mowens33 keeping his impressive positive ROI going with the most races played.

Matchup Challenge Standings (after 11 Races)
 

Multiple winners this weekend. 2 low prices. Pete and Capcondo singled the decent payoff of the first leg which launched them to the top of the overall.

sorry, did not know how to post new thread...aqueduct sunday r1-2 dds....1,5/5

KB, nice call

Mike

Matchup Challenge Standings (after 13 Races)
 

KBROD, Mowens, and Raceman had the stones and so reaped the benefits, of betting against SB on Saturday.
Many winners on Sunday including Mowens33 (Mike) who smacked his own weekend double! Great work folks. I'm including hits in the computations to give another perspective on how everybody is performing which is quite well I think. Generally the bottom of the list is populated by low sample counts that haven't had time to get going. As a group there are some nice numbers up there.

Pook

Shared Belief injured in Charles town race
 

Everybody's hearts sank when we saw SB pull up. Sure a few of us made money on the situation but we wouldn't want injury to horse or rider to get it. I am glad that Mike Smith is as professional as he is and that SB will fight another day. These horses sometimes give their lives for our entertainment and not a day goes by that I am not thankful for them and all their connections for what they do.

Pook

That black and white photo of Mike Smith is a classic. Clearly an emotional racing event, for a whole host of opposite reasons. Here's hoping Shared Belief recovers fully and continues his amazing career. Mike Smith = clearly a class act.

Attachment 38825

Ted

Pook, Ted, I agree 100%

Horse Racing needs horses like Shared Belief to be on the race track!

Mike

Matchup Challenge Standings (2 Months)
 

Ted and Mike hit the nice price on Saturday which shakes up the leaderboard somewhat. There were multiple winners on Sunday including Mike (Mowens33) again who now rightly so finds himself at the top. Mike has the highest participation rate AND the highest ROI after 2 months. Not too shabby!

Ted with his winner on Saturday (showed us how certain tools in RDSS like tote-Xray) can nudge you in the right direction. This helped him to score big and rocket out of the basement.

We now have 7 out of 15 in positive territory after 2 months. Some players have become somewhat dormant though it is early days. There is also quite a range of experience matching here (I'm assuming because I don't know most of your histories) but new folks to the method shouldn't feel discouraged in any way. Guys like PeteC and Tim(Capcondo) and others are long time matchers and it shows. Bill Lyster has a lot of experience too and I don't expect him to remain subzero for too long.

I've decided to (asterisk) highlight those that haven't played at least 50% of the time. Randomness can play a big part when you've only played a few so I just wanted to flag as we go from here on as a reminder. To be considered seriously:D in year end standings you need the 50%. However there is still plenty of time.

Overall I'm having fun with this and I hope everyone else is too. If nothing else it is showing those who are interested in what we do, what we can do in real time with real results good or bad. This is a little like spot playing as recommended by Mr. Bradshaw as the approach to take if you want to profit. The races selected are vetted out to a certain degree as to their Matchup quality but obviously they aren't all matchers cup of tea either. Entertainment value is also considered and the challenge aspect too. Sort of like "here....matchup this race!"

Feel free to comment on the above and hopefully confirm that you players find this endeavour worthwhile.

Derby weekend is next. Tim, for one, can't wait.

Pook

Thnaks Pook
 

Pook, thanks so much for putting this together. You've committed to doing a lot of leg work on this for all of our benefit and that is much appreciated.

As far as participation, I think it's an interesting question. I know for myself each week I am going through a decision process not only about the race(s) but also whether or not to enter a contest pick(s).

First, I decide if I have a feel for the race and can confidently narrow it to 1 or 2 horses. Then I try to project what the odds might be and decide if it makes sense ROI-wise to make a pick for the contest. Since I may be offline at or near post time this is mostly a projection based only on ML odds and a feel for what the final odds might be. There's also the consideration of needing to stay at the 50% level too so I may enter contest picks even though I wouldn't bet them because of odds.

I wonder if this is similar to how others are doing it. If ROI is the goal and you can be online near post time it would make sense to wait as long as possible before deciding to make a pick.

I also considered the idea of just matching and if I can narrow it to 1 or 2 horses, make my picks and let the ROI chips fall where they may. Mike seems to be doing just fine not worrying about odds. It helps when you are as sharp as he is at hitting those big prices!!

Anyway, just some thoughts. I wonder how others are approaching it...

Thanks again,

Pete

My approach is too do the best I can to match-up what’s in front of me (I practice during the week with DRF race of the day free PP). My main focus is to match and get my contenders, which the majority of the time will put you on the favorite. Then I will look at the other contender (that matches today's predicted pace) and look for the horse that will give me the best bag for my buck.

That’s the beauty of the Sartin Method of betting two horses to win, even if I’m betting the favorite (which comes in about ~35% of the time), I can make money when my higher price horse comes in. But again I will go with a BOM and a BOM and sometimes a BOM and a BOM, with another BOM if the opportunity presents itself. Derby time is a great time to look for these opportunities!

So I’m having fun matching, with the hope that it will make me a more disciplined Handicapper!!

Unfortunately for me discipline is still a work in process!!! But working these races with you guys is a giant step in the right direction to becoming a 2 percenter!!!!

So let’s keep matching and learning.

Thanks, Gent’s

Mike

So Mike you mean the 2 percent that supposedly consistently wins? Surely you aren't aiming for a 2% ROI. If my aim was (2% ROI) and that was all I could realistically expect I would throw in the towel.

Pook

Pook my Man, I know your smart enough to figure that one out!

Keep posting and capping, you and Pete are doing a fantastic job!!

Mike

Mike, just fooling with ya....keep up the good work.

Pook

love this site......mike if its not to much to ask..whats your feed on the derby...im dying to get the pps and posts soon....

KB, this is what I have, I should get an update on this soon.

Derby PP

Shouldn't the last few posts with Oaks and Derby PPs be in their own separate, new Threads. Please let me know if I can reorganize anything!

Ted

You probably should make those new threads Ted if you can. Otherwise some folks won't know there here. One for the Oaks. One for the Derby. Tim may be including one or both of those in the Challenge thread but he would do that separately in a day or so.

Thanks
Pook

Thought I would put the Derby in the challenge but not the Oaks since the races in the challenge are run on Saturday and Sunday.

I'll post the Derby tomorrow.

Tim

I moved the Kentucky Oaks PPs to its own >> Thread. <<

When Tim (Capcondo) opens the Derby Matchup Challenge for Saturday, I can move the above PPs there for that race too.

Ted

Matchup Challenge Standings (after 19 Races)
 

Thanks to Tim for a great weekend of races. I played all 4 along with my regular racing and by Saturday night my brain was pretty much fried. A good fry though.

Pook

Matchup Challenge Standings (after 22 Races)
 

Welcome to newcomers Hoof 11 and chuckg who both performed quite well over the weekend. Beware when playing Woodbine against Hoof 11. It is the only track he plays and he is an expert at it.

Congrats also to cigar and Bill Lyster who hit the only decent price over two days.

I tried to pick races which might give us some decent non-favourites but the Woodbine crowd at this time seems to be right on it. Yesterdays 13 horse field produced a 2-1 crowd choice! Chalks getting up my nose again. Yes its chalk folks....don't get any ideas.

Pook

Weekend Plays
Putting these up now so that players can check to make sure that I have logged their action correctly.

Pook

Matchup Challenge Standings (after 24 Races)
 

Thanks Mike for the weekends races. We might be in for a treat this year with a TC horse in our midst. We could use one but how many times has a strong looking horse fizzled in the Belmont since 1979? I think it takes more than two hands to count.

In the Belmont in three weeks I personally want to cheer on AP and not try to match against him. To bet to win on him will be useless. Looks like I will be doing the weekends races at that time so to make matching that particular race more interesting I was thinking of introducing $2 Exactor betting so we could consider others to go with AP. Singles, boxes, wheels, whatever. Or skip the Belmont?

Let me know what you think.

I am looking forward to Bill Lysters' assessment of the Belmonts marathon distance. He is always a good read.

Pook

Pook, sounds like a good idea to me since that’s what I typically do with the match up races.

That’s why not getting that bet in on the 5th at Woodbine hurt. Along with a win bet I typically play the perfecta ($75.20) in units (4-3-2-1) and play a 3x4x5 (sometimes more on the end) trifecta ($287).

But it all comes out in the wash! There were plenty of times I missed a bet and my horses were way down the track. They don’t hurt at all !!!!

Pook, your right Bill is always a great read on the big races!

Mike

Matchup Challenge Standings (after 26 Races)
 

Muchas gracias Mister Pete for the races once again. Two reasonable payers again too.
If you smell smoke you gotta know what it is...smell it?....come on surely you've smelled it.....its....none other than The Mow Man (mowens33) lighting it up, on fire, in the zone....whatever you want to call it, sweeping another weekend and leaving the rest of us in the dust bin. Congrats my man and of course congrats to our other more recent member chuckg who also had Sundays race.
We are about one third through this thing so there is still lots of time for results to gain and lose, slip and slide, twist and shake. Next week Capcondo will host the weekend with I'm sure a couple of gems from somewhere.
Then there will be Belmont week. Watch this forum next Sunday night for a special betting event for The Belmont only. The Challenge will celebrate in its own way this new attempt at a Triple Crown. You will have the opportunity for potential redemption or self destruction. All in one race. Sharpen your pencils.

Have a good week, and Capcondo weekend,
Pook