How to Help Others

[turfsup]

Dear Ted I ENJOYED YOUR ANSWER ABOUT RDSS I THOUGHT IT WAS GREAT. I WOULD LIKE TO ASK YOU HOW I COULD HELP OTHERS WHO HAVE HELPED ME IM NOT SURE IVE BEEN AROUND FOR ENOUGH TIME TO TRY TO HELP BUT I DO HAVE SOME GREAT INFO ON MAKING MOMEY OM MAIDENS BOTH TURF AND DIRT.ANY IDEAS ABOUT THIS WOULD BE GREAT?? TURFSUP

[Ted Craven]

Hi Turfsup,

I would say that a great way to be of assistance to others is modeled by some other recent posters (some of them newer RDSS users, many though with deep handicapping background either in Sartin or other methods).

If you have hit (or missed) an interesting or difficult race: put up an analysis of it along with a screenshot describing the exact though process you went through and the betting decisions you made. (If you don't know how to make screenshots - and after you Google 'how to make and post screenshots' - just let me know and I'll help you).

If someone describes in a post their process of getting up to speed with RDSS (or problems doing so) and it sounds familiar to you from your own process in the past few months - share with us your process of dealing with what screens to use, how to qualify contenders, how to find information from the tangle of online documentation. Etc! How your education process evolved. How you go about choosing races to work, then how you analyse a race.

You have recently done a LOT of work getting up to speed with RDSS after a hiatus from the Methodology, and have some great stats which you shared with me, and a bit with us on line. For example,regarding Turf and Maidens - you say you have 48 of your last 100 Winning bets on Turf, and 30 of those last 100 winning bets were Maidens, plus some other stats. Some great stats to be keeping: I wonder if you can also elaborate on those in terms of winning Turf bets (and winning Maiden bets) compared to ALL bets made. Also - I am presuming that your ROI on Turf races and on Maiden races is higher than on non-Turf non-Maiden races (as is typical, due to greater uncertainty and sometimes greater field size). Do you find this so?

With this info in hand, perhaps other people who are seeking a specialization for their time and bankroll can get valuable ideas from you. Perhaps you as well can learn more which will help your own game by responding to others and having to come up the kinds of details I suggested above.

Re Maidens, since you have so many of these types of races, perhaps you can respond how you deal with the uncertainty of limited or no past running lines. Do you limit the kinds of Maiden races you play - e.g. everyone must have at least a few lines, Maiden Allowance races only, 3 and 4 YO Maidens only, certain tracks only, etc, etc. Anything which adds to the average Mutuel rate, while not increasing uncertainty beyond a certain point - is valuable to many (certainly to me!) Uncertainty is where higher Mutuels live.

Those are some initial ideas I have to your question (which I moved here from another thread, just to keep discussions as focused as possible on a single topic). I think the ability to illustrate your ideas by detailed info (e.g. stats) and by illustrations (screenshots) - makes communication MUCH more effective. (Also not TYPING IN ALL CAPS is a good thing ).

I wonder if before you decide to focus only on Turf races, or only on Maidens (or only on Turf Maidens - LOL ) you might want to accumulate another 100 winning wagers or couple hundred more total wagers made. Sometimes seasonal or short term swing trends, or just random 'clumping' of winners can make a trend appear when there is not really such a trend long term. Also, as mentioned - the ROI on your impactful race subsets (Turf, Maidens) is more important than the hit rate, although it seems to me the sweet-spot will always be between an acceptable hit-rate, say 50% betting 2 horses (i.e. NOT long, potentially discouraging strings of losses) combined with a nice ROI. So since you've shared your hit rate broken down by category, perhaps next some corresponding ROI numbers.

I think this will help lots of people! Thanks for all your reports privately to me - and for your enthusiasm and sense of gratitude. This is good food for us both!

Take care,

Ted

[turfsup]

Dear Ted As per your response I'm going to add about 200 more races to my data and then post. thanks for your help turfsup

[MJS6916]

Question 1 about eliminating pretenders.

In the racing events anyone here chooses to play, are there any present

who are successfully eliminating pretenders at a minimum of 6 out of every 7 races wagered on?

wait there's more .........

while keeping the # of contenders at a max of:

2 runners in a field of 5,
3 in fields of 6 + 7,
4 in fields of 8 + 9,
and 5 runners in fields 10 and up.

Once again, just curious and I'm not asking how you do it?

[Tim Y]

The bigger your data base, the closer it is to an approximation of reality. THE LAW OF LARGE NUMBERS

[MJS6916]

To me it looks like the TE numbers I'm reading in RDSS favor:

runners who set or press the early pace (especially fast early splits) in sprints,



and those who run furthest back in the early stages behind slow early fractions

then make up the most ground late in turf routes (especially in fast F3s).



does that sound right?


Mike

[MJS6916]

To questions 1 and 2, I'll blink 1st and answer them myself.


answer to question 1:

apparently not, or who ever does believes I'm going to hound them
with a bunch of "follow up gotchas" if they confess to being that successful.

As stated earlier, in different terms: a "yes" or "no" is good enough.



answer to question 2:

my assumptions are 19/1 against being wrong.



Subsequent responses to questions 1 and 2 won't alter my journey (either way)
towards eliminating pretenders at minimum of 6 of every 7,
with a chance I may have to expand the # of contenders in
field sizes of double digits.


but 6 out of 7 ? yes. that's going to happen.


On to question 3,

Mike

[rmath]

I am responding to your question on contenders.
1.) I do not play races with less than 8 entries.
2.) In fields of 8 or more I get it down to 4 or 5 final contenders
at least 6 of 7 times.
Rmath

[DanBoals]

Hey Mike,

Your question doesn't really make sense to me, since it all depends on how good YOU are at picking pacelines as to whether you can get the winner in your top few horses.

I have been picking pacelines for about 20 years now and I am getting the winner in the top 5, 9 out of 10 times. I get the winner in the top 4 about 8 out of 10 times, and since I mostly play exactas and trifectas, this works for me.

TE works for some people, once I get the pacelines I like, I use SR and BL/BL. I love BL/BL because it is a composite of important factors. But if you don't use the same pacelines I use, these factors might not work for you. That is why it is so important to keep good records. As you advance in the methodology, your handicapping and paceline selection will evolve and you will find different factors leading you to the winner.

Hope this helps some,

Dan

[DanBoals]

As for question 2,

If I am not mistaken TE is simply the velocity of the F1, F2 and F3 added together. So I am not sure how it would favor early horses, since the faster your F1 is the slower your F2 and F3 will normally be.

For Turf races, Doc told me look at LPR and HID, so ya, horses that run evenly early and then have gas in the tank late are probably good bets for turf routs. I do the worst on turf, so I am certainly not the one to explain turf, but Howard seemed to think they were a money maker once you figured them out. I am working on them for my own handicapping now, since they are kind of tough

Gotta keep improving if you want to keep up and ahead of the crowd.

Dan