Looks like it is time to revisit an interesting discussion Jerry and I had two years ago regarding the \'variant\' question -- Rags vs. TG.
While I will admit that there will never be a true and final answer as to who whether TG or Rag have it right, my preference is to use factual data for my variant as opposed to one\'s personal assumptions so that my numbers make a nice clean line.
Cases in point: Jerry\'s post today. Let\'s take each point in order:
1) Magic Weisner. First, a correction. Rag does not have his pre-Preakness race as being a 9 point move from his 2 y.o. year. The move was 6 points, which makes a huge difference in how you would read his line going into the Preakness. The 3\" off of the 6\" is thus surprising (I thought the horse was a toss at 45:1) but not totally shocking, given the generally explosive line that MW exhibited previously.
Additionally, to claim that Ragozin\'s Delaware Valley numbers are systematically too slow is absolutely false. I cannot count the number of times I have bet Laurel and Pimlico runners at NY tracks because they had faster numbers than the NY horses but were underbet b/c they came from MD.
2) The winner in the first race at Pimlico. She was not much of a stretch at all on the Rag sheets. She had already run a 9 sprinting and my experience with Rag sheets is that fillies who just badly x\'d off of a distance that they are not particularly strong at often come back and run around 0 to 2 points off of their top. I personally thought that the race was unplayable given the odds.
3) The two grass races. You have got to be kidding! There is not a single number in race 5 that is at all surprising. The field was a bunch of first time grassers and horses coming off tops. The winner ran back to his second best number and the bounce candidates bounced a few points. Also, wet grass courses always produce a lot of x\'s simply because horses often don\'t like running on the soft turf. As for the 7th race, same analysis. The only semi-quizzical numbers were Watch and DeAar. However, Watch was coming off a layoff and had not run particularly well on a wet turf before. DeAar had x\'d in her only prior wet turf start and had just run her eyeballs out three races in a row. Again, upon further review, no surprises.
4) The 11th race. Now, talk about dogma, Jerry!! Apparently it is written in THE BOOK that a horse can\'t bounce six points. First, it was not the whole field. Most of those horses were slow to begin with. Second, every single horse going into that race that had run fast in their last or second to last race was a horse with a high probability to run negatively. Tenpins didn\'t get his \'slow\' numbers at a Delaware Valley track. He got them in KY. Given his jumpup I had him pegged to run between a 6 and a 10 (he ran an 8). Lightning Paces looked terrible. Tactical Side was a huge bounce candidate with an ugly line. Bowman\'s band was a bit of a surprise but a semi-ouchy horse coming off of a 2+ figured to bounce 2-4 points. Lyracist was slow always. Ground Storm was still going backward off of his 1 (War Emblem fans, take note), Full Brush was slow, Grundlefoot was a horse running an average of 8s coming off a layoff, and First Amendment figured to bounce off of the 6 in his last.
The bigger point here, Jerry, is where is it written that a bunch of ouchy older horses with bad patterns can\'t all \'x\'? It happens all the time. And for you to just assert that it\'s \'ridiculous\' merely unmasks you as the most dogmatic of all but dogmatic in a religious \'I believe it therefore it must be true\' way instead of a \'I have looked at the evidence and this is how it is\' way. I will take the second kind of Dogma any day.
5) Agree here. He looked better on your sheet but that\'s true of just about every horse who winse because that is how you have decided to make your numbers. You have a belief as to what horses can and should do and massage your variants to make the results fit your theory. No one can ever prove that wrong just like I can\'t prove that God didn\'t put the fossils there to fool me into thinking that the earth is billions of years old.
5)
You know Dave, you\'re right, there is not much in the way of ultimate proof here. Your points will stand here for all to see. On the Rag board, everything on these comparative points will be deleted except the Rag party line and your version of Jerry\'s arguments. You clearly approve of this, since I have not seen any post from you criticizing the editorial policy over there.
The merits of this debate aside, you guys cannot tolerate any dissent whatsoever, and you Dave, having posted some hilarious stuff about Jerry\'s methods on the Rag board before, are beneath contempt, since you do this kind of thing knowing your Big Brothers will delete any unflattering responses.
If you want to pat yourself on the back as some kind of expert, be my guest. Your castle is made of sand.
How about a contest on Belmont day? Win bets only. $20 units per race. You can skip a race (or races) to add $20 units to other races. Picks must be posted by a time to be selected on Friday night (so we both have the same disadvantages re: weather and scratches). Since I really don\'t want to see you or meet you, we\'ll make it a gentleman\'s bet. Bragging rights only. I didn\'t hit the Derby or the Preakness, and only Shiny Band\'s win bailed me out 5/18, so I\'m not exactly lighting up the board lately.
I know, one day doesn\'t mean anything, blah, blah, blah. Let me know. I\'ve never been afraid to make a fool of myself, and this would seem to be one of your strong suits as well. HP
HP,
You\'ve got too much class so you need not
prove anything. Save your time & energy & focus on the things you enjoy.
Peace.
Nunzio
Thank you for your positive comments Nunzio. I\'ll be handicapping the card anyway and I will enjoy exposing David Patent almost as much as winning cash money, so for me it\'s like a two-for-one sale. It will also be amusing to see him make an excuse not to accept, which is what I\'m expecting given the know-it-all tone of his posts. He\'s all talk. I\'m all...something. HP
HP,
As usual, I will go point by point.
First off, I find it amusing that you attack me for \'hiding\' behind the folks over there when a) I post with my real name and attach my real email address to my posts whereas, who the hell is \'HP\'? b) I have come over here and taken my shots on a \'free speech\' board from time to time, again using my real name and inviting anyone to respond and engage in a dialogue. What\'s your problem with that?
Second, as usual from the TG gang, instead of choosing to engage me on the facts or on handicapping theory, you just fire a bunch of personal attacks. See below for why the Rag. board deletes most of you and your cohorts\' posts.
1) \'You clearly approve of this [editorial policy on the Rag board] since I have not seen any post from you criticizing the editorial policy over there\'.
Right and wrong. I generally favor an open policy. However, what I have witnessed time and time again on the Rag. board from TG supporters are unsigned conclusory churlish rants and personal attacks, so I can\'t say that I\'m all that surprised at their policy. Additionally, the Rag./TG debate is sort of like Evolution vs. Creationism. Either you believe one or the other and Creationists tend not to be persuaded by facts so what\'s the point of debating the point further?
2) \'You, Dave . . . are beneath contempt, since you do this kind of thing knowing your Big Brothers will delete any unflattering responses\'.
HP, this is just a dumb statement on your part since I posted my response to Jerry on this board, not the other one.
3) \'If you want to pat yourself on the back as some kind of expert, be my guest. Your castle is made of sand.\'
To be honest, HP, ever since my son was born last May, I have made it out to the track only about 8 times. My handicapping has not been all that good and I\'m sure there are tons of people kicking my butt. Still, I enjoy the challenge and when I do go to bet I want to use numbers where at least I know the general mathematical basis for them as opposed to one man\'s personal beliefs (e.g., that handicap horses can\'t bounce 6 points and that a turf course can dry out enough to be 6 points faster in 2 hours on a cool and cloudy day, or that horses need to run nice clean patterns).
4) I have no problem with a friendly contest, but why win bets only? Don\'t you like to play exotics?
Why not a side bet on War Emblem? Seems to me that Rag. and TG patterns point to clearly different outcomes.
That said, I\'d be happy to do a \'gentlemen\'s handicapping contest\', but I\'m sure that if I beat you that you won\'t swear off of TG\'s sheets, nor would I stop using Rag. based on one day\'s performance. Long term ROI is the goal.
Congratulations on using your real name. I can get everything I need from you right here out in the open, so there\'s no need for any email address or any other personal revelations.
You have taken cheap shots at Jerry on the Sheets board before. In fact, in addition to this carefully reasoned post, you made ANOTHER post simultaneously on the Sheets board that was a little less than carefully reasoned, and it was just removed! Somehow you didn\'t see fit to mention this part of your campaign. But your Big Brothers are at work again so now no one can see it.
This is not a \'personal attack\'. My point stands. I\'m not addressing your handicapping points, I\'m addressing how you go about doing things.
You didn\'t JUST post over here, where there can be a response. You posted over there too, where you know there wouldn\'t be any dialog at all. Why did you write that post over there, Dave? You had already made your points here. Maybe you like to blow your own horn, like you\'re doing now on the thread to Tiznow, referring everyone over here to see your genius in print.
They don\'t just delete the \'churlish\' posts David, they delete Jerry\'s too. They leave up the stuff that criticizes and addresses him directly and then they delete his responses. Not a peep out of you. If you don\'t like the facts, you just leave them out, right Dave? And if it looks like you\'re screwing up (like your post that they just deleted), they cover your ass. So much for your \'meaningful exchange on handicapping theory\'. It may be possible over here, but not on your turf.
Don\'t tell me you\'re not aware that they delete Jerry\'s posts. I have to hand it to Robes, at least his position is consistent. You\'re something else entirely. You seek to take advantage of a competitor\'s forum to address differences while endorsing the competitor\'s deletion of any posts on this subject. At the same, you use your protected forum to fire off attacks on Jerry knowing full well that Jerry can\'t respond over there. Perfectly okay with you to confine any real debate to THIS forum, while you are free to post your nonsense over there. The more I think about this, the more you disgust me.
The challenge stands. Exotics are fine. $20 a race. If you beat me I may stop handicapping altogether.
As for your comments on War Emblem, he looks to me like he\'s going to back up on both products, but he might win anyway depending on who else goes. HP
David Patent wrote:
>
> Looks like it is time to revisit an interesting discussion
> Jerry and I had two years ago regarding the \'variant\'
> question -- Rags vs. TG.
>
> While I will admit that there will never be a true and final
> answer as to who whether TG or Rag have it right, my
> preference is to use factual data for my variant as opposed
> to one\'s personal assumptions so that my numbers make a nice
> clean line.
>
> Cases in point: Jerry\'s post today. Let\'s take each point
> in order:
>
> 1) Magic Weisner. First, a correction. Rag does not have
> his pre-Preakness race as being a 9 point move from his 2
> y.o. year. The move was 6 points, which makes a huge
> difference in how you would read his line going into the
> Preakness. The 3\" off of the 6\" is thus surprising (I
> thought the horse was a toss at 45:1) but not totally
> shocking, given the generally explosive line that MW
> exhibited previously.
>
> Additionally, to claim that Ragozin\'s Delaware Valley numbers
> are systematically too slow is absolutely false. I cannot
> count the number of times I have bet Laurel and Pimlico
> runners at NY tracks because they had faster numbers than the
> NY horses but were underbet b/c they came from MD.
>
> 2) The winner in the first race at Pimlico. She was not much
> of a stretch at all on the Rag sheets. She had already run a
> 9 sprinting and my experience with Rag sheets is that fillies
> who just badly x\'d off of a distance that they are not
> particularly strong at often come back and run around 0 to 2
> points off of their top. I personally thought that the race
> was unplayable given the odds.
>
> 3) The two grass races. You have got to be kidding! There
> is not a single number in race 5 that is at all surprising.
> The field was a bunch of first time grassers and horses
> coming off tops. The winner ran back to his second best
> number and the bounce candidates bounced a few points. Also,
> wet grass courses always produce a lot of x\'s simply because
> horses often don\'t like running on the soft turf. As for the
> 7th race, same analysis. The only semi-quizzical numbers
> were Watch and DeAar. However, Watch was coming off a layoff
> and had not run particularly well on a wet turf before.
> DeAar had x\'d in her only prior wet turf start and had just
> run her eyeballs out three races in a row. Again, upon
> further review, no surprises.
>
> 4) The 11th race. Now, talk about dogma, Jerry!! Apparently
> it is written in THE BOOK that a horse can\'t bounce six
> points. First, it was not the whole field. Most of those
> horses were slow to begin with. Second, every single horse
> going into that race that had run fast in their last or
> second to last race was a horse with a high probability to
> run negatively. Tenpins didn\'t get his \'slow\' numbers at a
> Delaware Valley track. He got them in KY. Given his jumpup
> I had him pegged to run between a 6 and a 10 (he ran an 8).
> Lightning Paces looked terrible. Tactical Side was a huge
> bounce candidate with an ugly line. Bowman\'s band was a bit
> of a surprise but a semi-ouchy horse coming off of a 2+
> figured to bounce 2-4 points. Lyracist was slow always.
> Ground Storm was still going backward off of his 1 (War
> Emblem fans, take note), Full Brush was slow, Grundlefoot was
> a horse running an average of 8s coming off a layoff, and
> First Amendment figured to bounce off of the 6 in his last.
>
> The bigger point here, Jerry, is where is it written that a
> bunch of ouchy older horses with bad patterns can\'t all \'x\'?
> It happens all the time. And for you to just assert that
> it\'s \'ridiculous\' merely unmasks you as the most dogmatic of
> all but dogmatic in a religious \'I believe it therefore it
> must be true\' way instead of a \'I have looked at the evidence
> and this is how it is\' way. I will take the second kind of
> Dogma any day.
>
> 5) Agree here. He looked better on your sheet but that\'s
> true of just about every horse who winse because that is how
> you have decided to make your numbers. You have a belief as
> to what horses can and should do and massage your variants to
> make the results fit your theory. No one can ever prove that
> wrong just like I can\'t prove that God didn\'t put the fossils
> there to fool me into thinking that the earth is billions of
> years old.
>
> 5)
I will give you credit for being one of the few raggies who will discuss these questions on the merits, although I also agree with HP that intellectual honesty should make you call the Ragozin office on their duck and delete chicken droppings.
1. You are correct—he “only” moved 6 points on Ragozin, it was 9 points to the Preakness number. He also “only” jumped 4 points in his last, from an established level. You are claiming he figured to jump (or even had a remote chance to) on Ragozin? That the line, AFTER the jump, was explosive?
Friedman, in his pre-race analysis, where he said he would toss MW and tabbed him as third worst out of 13: “Nice looking developmental line, but coming in off a 3-1/2 new top that if repeated is too slow to contend.” Not even a whisper about a new top, which is correct off their sheets.
My pre-race analysis: “Really good late development as a juvenile set this one up for a strong campaign this year, and he has done nothing wrong—in fact, since he’s only developed 2 points from his 2yo top he probably has another move in him. Problem is, he’ll need a 2 point move just to become relevant with these.” Which, of course, is exactly what happened, and the inside trip got him second. I would also point out that, numbers aside, there is a dramatic difference in the 2yo pattern, which is why we went ahead and bought the horse (he failed the vet exam).
As for the Delaware Valley question: again, everyone should look at the figures for this card on both sets, and going forward, and make their own decisions. MW and Quidnaskra are just two that stand out.
2. Not the winner, the second filly in the opener. Those races you call X’s were not stopping non-efforts, but OPEN LENGTH WINS. You figure the fillies behind her ALL X’ed even worse? Some coincidence. I’m betting they made miraculous recoveries when returned to sprints.
Again we had her last two 10 (TEN) points faster.
3. Come on, David. The 5th race was a 3 year old stake, and EVERYONE in the field ran at least 2 points off their TOP. Again, in a 3yo stake. Are you kidding me? When you handicapped that race, with 4 horses having tops of 10 or better on Ragozin, you thought a 13 would win it? Please. The first 3 finishers all ran at least 3 points off their tops. How does the race look if you take off 3 points?
In the 7th, another stake, the whole field gets figures averaging about 5 points off their tops. The winner gets only 2 points off her top, BECAUSE RAGOZIN DIDN’T GIVE HER CREDIT FOR HER PREVIOUS DELAWARE VALLEY EFFORTS---HE HAD HER TOO SLOW. I urge you and everyone else to look at this race on TG and Ragozin, and see how the race would look if you took 3 to 5 points away from the numbers Ragozin assigned them on Preakness day.
4. You are leaving yourself wide open here. First of all, IT WAS THE WHOLE FIELD—EVERY HORSE IN A GRADED STAKE RACE, RAN AT LEAST 6 POINTS OFF THEIR TOP. When you handicapped that race, you thought an 8 would win it? Gimme a break. How’s this race look if you take off 4 points?
As for those horses who “were slow to begin with”—they ran even slower. Every horse in the field but one ran AT LEAST 6 POINTS WORSE than his previous race.
I said this to you once before, David—horses do crazy things all the time, but GROUPS of horses don’t. That’s the whole theory behind projection style figures, that previous figures can be used to project today’s variant, the system used by TG, Ragozin, Beyer, Time-Form, and every serious figure maker. Beyond that, in this era of sports medicine horses are even more likely than before to run well, and this was a GRADED STAKE—WITH EVERY HORSE BUT ONE COMING IN ON AT LEAST 4 WEEKS REST.
Ragozin has the track much faster for this race than for the previous route (6th race) to tie it to the Preakness (I have it at the same variant as the 6th, changing afterward). Ask yourself this—if the card had ended after the Schaefer, what figures would Ragozin have assigned it?
By the way—why do you suppose Friedman only posted the first 12 races? Why don’t you ask them to post the 13th, in the name of intellectual honesty?
5. “He looked better on your sheets, but that’s true of just about every horse that wins because that is how you have decided to make your numbers.”
That is one hell of an admission (that the winners look better), so thank you. Now:
A. Are you saying we fudge earlier numbers after subsequent races to make the winners look good? If so, someone would have noticed by now—if not, and the winners look better on TG, that should be really, really important information.
B. When we gave WE that first 1 (Ragozin gave him a 9) it represented a 7 point new top on our figures. Yet I gave it to him—because he earned it. By your reasoning, I never could have given him that number, since it didn’t fit with his previous figures. Horses do crazy things all the time—groups of horses don’t. It’s the underlying premise.
Again, I urge everyone seriously interested in figures or in making a decision as to which to use to carefully examine both the TG and Ragozin sheets for Preakness day. And I really hope they post the 13th race.
HP,
My post on the Ragozin site was no different in tone or message than what I put on this site (thought it was admittedly shorter). Why do you think that Rag. deleting my posts helps me? If I just wanted to post and say stupid things knowing they\'d be deleted, why would I then post over here?
After reading your latest ad hominem rant against me, I rest my case.
However, in the spirit of gamesmanship, I will post my Belmont picks on Thursday, since I will probably be getting on a plane Thurs. night to fly to NYC, where I will be at the Belmont. Let\'s use a $1,000 bankroll to bet how we want. It\'ll be fun, win or lose for me.
They have now deleted EVERY post related to this.
So David, we will firm up the ground rules Thursday June 6 and post by midnight Friday June 7. This should be a very stimulating handicapping review, without any personal attacks (heaven forfend!) to hurt anyone\'s feelings. I know how delicate you Raggies are.
Of course your smartass posts (today\'s - which was deleted in record time - and previous ones - like the one where you lamely chimed in on Friedman\'s joke) do not constitute personal attacks.
But long-term ROI is all that matters. HP
Sorry I was posting and we must have crossed.
Dave, your post over there WAS different in tone. You don\'t see \'a difference in tone\' between a whole long detailed explanation of your points versus a quick few lines knocking Jerry? It was \'just shorter\'? Come on.
The Rag guys delete your posts because they don\'t want to seem to be inviting discussion of this over there. It\'s not that it isn\'t a \'discussion of handicapping\', it\'s a discussion of handicapping that they don\'t want to have. You seem smart enough to know the difference. Again, you endorse their policies, and if you want to \'rest your case\', be my guest. I\'m responding to your disingenuous technique and not your discussion of figure methodology, which I will leave to Jerry because I don\'t know enough about it. But when it comes to the BS in the way you went about things today, I\'m an expert.
When you say $1,000 bet how you want, are you talking about the whole card or just the Belmont Stakes?
I probably won\'t be handicapping till Friday. I\'ll just follow your lead. If you bet it all on the Stakes, that\'s what I\'ll do. If you spread it all over the card, ditto. If you bet exotics, I will too.
After all this, it will be hilarious if we came up with the same plays.
We\'ll see. Have a nice trip and will look forward to your picks and \'analysis\'. HP
You are funny HP.
I had a friend that used to post on this board and all his posts were deleted - just because he posted a dissenting view or brought up facts that Jerry didn\'t want to discuss.
Most of this quote from you, \"They leave up the stuff that criticizes and addresses him directly and then they delete his responses. Not a peep out of you. If you don\'t like the facts, you just leave them out, right Dave?\" directly applies to you on this board as well. JB even deleted some of your posts here I think (just like Robes does on the other board when it clutters up Sheets discussion).
What about it HP? How come you never defended the \"right\" for everyone to speak their mind here? I guess being open is a matter of convenience.
Based on my observations, deletions here have been few and far between, whereas the Rag board is subject to deletions on a much more regular basis. I would say it is much more likely that posts critical of Jerry and TG will remain up here as opposed to posts critical of Robes and the Sheets remaining up on the Rag board.
If your friend is Jim, who I know had posts deleted over here, I suppose Jerry had his reasons for taking the stuff down. I wouldn\'t dream of defending Jerry on this, and he can speak for himself.
None of us really have any \'rights\' here. These guys are allowed to do what they want. I could care less if anyone deletes my stuff. We\'re all subject to the same whims of the same kooks. If you can\'t live with it, either don\'t read it, or don\'t post, or read and post or do whatever the hell you want.
If you are referring to today\'s stuff, David Patent put up, for lack of a better word, a \'blurb\' that was an attack on Jerry, and then he put up the \'full length\' version here (and which remains up, which would NEVER happen on the Rag board).
The \'full length\' version was fine, but the \'blurb\' struck me as dirty pool, since he knew damn well that there was no response possible since they delete every one of Jerry\'s responses. They took down Patent\'s \'blurb\' version, which I suppose reflects well on \'the Sheets\'. They haven\'t always taken down the these inherently one-sided jabs, but in this case they did the right thing. I think Patent knew full well what he was doing, and was either attempting to gain an extra foothold for his argument or working on a very weak sense of self-esteem, since the \'blurb\' was totally unnecessary given his detailed post here.
You are right, being \'open\' is a matter of something, whether you call it convenience or business judgement or anything else. I don\'t make these calls. I\'ve been called far worse things than \'hypocrite\'.
Have a nice weekend. HP
HP, I think it is admirable that you don\'t dare defend Jerry\'s censorship of posts that offer a dissenting view or facts that he doesn\'t want to discuss.
But it seems like it should be a little deeper for you. After all, you seem to ask everyone how come they put up with Robe\'s policy of keeping the board clutter free. Yet, you refuse to criticize Jerry for his actions. When you start calling a spade a spade I\'ll give you a lot of credit.
Have a happy and healthy weekend!
Jerry,
O.K., here we go.
1) I didn\'t think that MW looked likely in the Preakness. Per my post on the Rag. boards, he was a toss unless he was 100:1 or higher. There were too many other explosive or faster horses in the race. Guess I was wrong. But you can\'t hit \'em all.
2) The first race. Again, that filly\'s numbers were x\'s and it does not matter whether she won or not. Horses don\'t get bonus points for winning. She clearly enjoys sprinting more than routing. I didn\'t bet the race because I didn\'t see any value but I have seen fillies do what she did (run within 2 points of a top off of a declining line where the last race was way off the top) many many times.
3) This is a very important race to discuss, because it\'s on the turf. Unlike dirt, where you can come up with any number of explanations for the surface getting faster, there are only a few things you can say about a turf course over the span of 2-3 hours: a) They mowed it; b) They compressed it; c) Evaporation dried it out; d) the action of the horses running over the grass made it faster.
Now, I know they didn\'t mow the grass. I know that the actions of horses running two races on the turf doesn\'t make the grass 6 points faster (otherwise we would see big jumpups in time every time there were multiple turf races in the same day). There obviously was some evaporation but on a cloudy day over 2-3 hours, the equation shouldn\'t be too hard to figure out. With all of the experience you have with grass races over the years, there is a simple math model you should be able to apply to figure out the evaporation effect on the ground. Given my experience with lawns, however, I would fall out of my chair if 2-3 hours of evaporation on a 60 degree day could possibly increase the speed of the course by 6 points. Lastly, I don\'t know whether they compressed the grass. Do you? If not, then it\'s not a factor. If they did go over the course with rollers, again, calculating the impact on the course should be easy calculation based on years of experience and lots of data point.
But that\'s not what you did, I\'ll bet. You figured that the race would be won with a \'6\' and so you gave the winner a \'6\' regardless of the time and then just backed into the variant. You do that all the time because your method relies on preconceived notions of what the horses will do instead of empirical observation. Same comment for the 7th race.
4) The field in the Schafer was, for the most part, a bunch of crippled allowance horses. Who cares if it\'s a graded stake? The horses don\'t know that. If you look at the Rag. sheets, almost every single horse in there figured to run worse than in his last race. The winning number was almost exactly what I figured Tenpins would run (a 6-9). The only horse who surprised me was the horse that ran second. I had him running a 4-6. But I\'m not going to let one horses \'x\' tell me that the whole race is wrong. There was not \'group\' craziness in that race. Every horse ran to his predicted number except one.
5) My point on WE, and just about every horse on the TG sheets is this: When you have most horses with a pretty line, you will almost always be able to say \'He looked good on my sheet\'. But the losers will also look good on the sheet. That\'s the problem I had with your product the couple times I bought it -- there is very little mechanism for separating horses that have bad patterns and tossing them. That to me is the true value of the Sheets -- tossing losers. It\'s very rare that I cash because I nailed a horse ready to run a big top. It\'s almost always from eliminating noncontenders. So, if the product makes most horses look likely to pair up or move forward, as TG does, then I have no use for it.
I have not suggested that you fudge numbers after the fact. What you do, though, usually, is determine before hand what you think the number is and if the time does not come back what you thought it should be you will often (not always, but often) change the variant to make the number fit your beliefs. To me, someone better have a darn good reason that has a proven statistical basis before they do that. And saying that \'they watered the track\' or \'it was two turns\' does not cut it, unless you have done soil tests or multiple races at the same distance to back it up.
It\'s very easy to pull a handful of races from one card and jump all over somebody. I could do the same, leading off with the 6th race -- Sarava was an absolute lock on the Rag. sheets and I put more money to win on that horse than I have in the last 10 years. On the TG sheets, he was just one of 3 or 4 contenders.
My final comment is this: The Rag. sheets are more expensive and are used by the majority of the people who earn a living by betting horses. That says a lot. If TG were better, I suspect that the top bettors would migrate over here. But they don\'t. What does that tell you?
Jerry Jr. wrote:
>
> You are funny HP.
>
> I had a friend that used to post on this board and all his
> posts were deleted - just because he posted a dissenting view
> or brought up facts that Jerry didn\'t want to discuss.
>
> Most of this quote from you, \"They leave up the stuff that
> criticizes and addresses him directly and then they delete
> his responses. Not a peep out of you. If you don\'t like the
> facts, you just leave them out, right Dave?\" directly applies
> to you on this board as well. JB even deleted some of your
> posts here I think (just like Robes does on the other board
> when it clutters up Sheets discussion).
>
> What about it HP? How come you never defended the \"right\" for
> everyone to speak their mind here? I guess being open is a
> matter of convenience.
Tg--Jim has a friend? He was barred for making only personal attacks after several warnings--I told him (you?) that I would allow any meaningful discussion of of differences to stay up. It\'s too bad--you (he?) were a valuable resource.
David Patent wrote:
>
> >
> Right and wrong. I generally favor an open policy. However,
> what I have witnessed time and time again on the Rag. board
> from TG supporters are unsigned conclusory churlish rants and
> personal attacks, so I can\'t say that I\'m all that surprised
> at their policy. Additionally, the Rag./TG debate is sort of
> like Evolution vs. Creationism. Either you believe one or
> the other and Creationists tend not to be persuaded by facts
> so what\'s the point of debating the point further?
>
>
TG--Wow. I guess you haven\'t noticed any unsigned conclusory churlish rants and personal attacks by raggies here, huh. I\'m not surprised at their policy either, but for entirely different reasons--it\'s what they\'re all about. But the question is not whether we\'re surprised, but whether it\'s right to do it, and what inferences should be drawn from the fact they do it.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am a Ragozin user. However, I can assure you that I have never spoken to anyone in the Ragozin and am not making this post in an attempt to secretly tout their product. I do have a few things to say about this exchange.
When you take as a compliment the fact that your winners \"look better\" you are entirely missing the point. All of your horses look \"better\" because your lines are smoother. That is only a benefit to the unsophisticated sheet user.
In my mind, the sheets are extremely valuable for two things (1) identifying horses to throw out as too slow or bounce candidates and (2) identifying horses with explosive patterns that are likely to move forward. When you have smoother looking lines, it may make the horses look better, but it makes both of these taks much more difficult to accomplish.
The fact is when I look at your sheets, several of the horses in every race look more or less the same and each horse tends to have a smooth looking pattern. Nobody is arguing that you go back and tweak individual horses numbers to make them look better. However, when your overriding philosophy is that groups of horses in a single race do not deviate from the norm -- a proposition that does not comport to my own experience -- then by definition your numbers are going to have far less deviation.
In my view -- and I do not purport to be a variant expert -- there are just too few data points in a single race to make the conclusion that the track must be the reason all horses ran slower or faster than you would expect compared to different race on the same card. While I am willing to accept the premise that sometimes the track changes significantly during the day, I suspect that is far less often than you articulate (mostly it seems to me, in an attempt to distinguish yourself from Ragozin).
I do not see any valid scientific manner in which to change the variant for a races on the same day based on what you would have expected to occur. In fact, the process of doing so makes the entire statistical analysis suspect. On a particular race, you may be right and you may be wrong, but this process moves too far into the realm of guesswork for my taste. Though all variant making includes statistical analysis with a little guesswork, the idea is to minimize the guesswork, not maximize it. If that means some of the numbers turn out to be \"wrong\" -- I have certainly seen some suspicious looking numbers in the past -- so be it. But at least with Ragozin, I have some comfort that the numbers are based on a consistent scientific foundation and not one person\'s opinion.
I tried to do this late last night, but I got disconnected and went to bed, which, as it turns out, was just as well.
David Patent writes: \"My post on the Ragozin site was no different in tone or message than what I put on this site (though it was admittedly shorter).\"
Nonsense, David. Here it is:
\"Len will almost surely not respond--which is entirely proper in my view. Please read my post, if you are interested, titled \'Jerry, Jerry, Jerry.\' The fundamental difference between Rag and TG is that Rag figs are based on observable data from the times run and A BASIC ASSUMPTION [emphasis mine] that a track does not materially change over a 20-30 minute period absent some major intervention. As a result, a horse\'s pattern will sometimes look a little \'ragged\' or ugly. TG believes that horses run in predictable and steady patterns and he will thus change the variant for a race in order to make the horses\' patterns fit his beliefs about what he thought they have run in that race. One thing I did not add in my post on the TG site concerning the turf races was that I\'ll bet a good meteorologist, physicist, or chemist could verify that the rate of evaporation over a 2-3 hour period between the 5th and 10th races could not significantly affect the firmness of the ground. This would invalidate Jerry\'s figures for the 5th and 7th races.\"
The only thing that is invalidated, David, is the above statement, which you made to HP.
Patent writes: \"...my preference is to use factual data for my variant as opposed to one\'s personal assumptions...\"
What about the huge assumption Ragozin makes: that track speed doesn\'t change unless he can see the reason for the change. Isn\'t that all-knowing and altogether immodest? He doesn\'t take soil samples, does he (or should that be He)? Why don\'t you take the next step and claim that Ragozin doesn\'t permit the track to change speed unless it gives advanced, visible warning? And don\'t forget to track down that meteorologist to invalidate JB\'s figures. Did you actually write that, David? Talk about patent Patent crap.
Patent writes: \"...as usual from the TG gang, instead of choosing to engage me on the facts or on handicapping theory, you just fire a bunch of personal attacks.\"
Ask Jake when he\'s going to apologize for calling me a liar. Ask Plever, who is a demented cowardly punk, when he\'s going to apologize for preposterously saying that I made public his private email. Ask Cory, who used to work for Ragozin, when he\'s going to apologize for saying he knew several people who knew me personally (a total lie) and disliked me (impossible, I am reliably told). Ask Howard Dennis, a former Ragozin employee, to explain his latest post on The Derby List (link on the Rags site). And while you\'re at it, be sure to tell him that Ragozin uses the projection method. Quite a gang you have there, David.
The numbers part of your posts reminds me of that basketball commercial with Larry Bird calling his shot in a game of Horse: \"Over the building, off the billboard, through the tunnel, into the Atlantic Ocean, across, up, off Big Ben, nothing but net.\" Yeah, David, they all bounced. They were all sore. They all hated the distance. They all hated the grass. They all hated soft turf. They all had that Ragozin filly pattern that no one but you has ever heard of. It happened. All of it happened. It had to have happened. Ragozin said it happened. Nothing but net.
Let me leave you with a question, David: When choosing between competing explanations for an event, do you habitually choose the one that is more complicated?
One day the mass figure makers will measure the moisture in the track if they do not already. A probe inserted 2, 4, 8 and 12 inches beneath the surface. The density of the surface materials will also need to be factored. Until that time it will be a matter of speculation and debate. But anyone knows that a very low humidity day with strong wind can alter a track\'s condition almost hourly. I garden and I have seen the surface and soil change quickly under those conditions. You\'ve got to be very careful with subjectively altering figures however. At the same time, a track surface is more a living, evolving thing than a static mass of materials. I\'m still in favor of the handicapping challenge. Let the best of theirs go up against the best here and see how the results shake out. Do it on a regular basis and I think it will become self evident who makes the better variants. A speed figure really is nothing more than the variant determined with some precision.
Tabitha
I would like to thank Alydar, because without Patent\'s post from the Ragozin board I think I look like I\'m nuts here.
Tone is a very subjective thing, but anyone can see the difference between Patent\'s respective posts on the Sheets site and the TG site. This is what I take issue with, not the Rags v. TG method argument.
As for censorship policies, there are basically NO posts on the Rag board that are critical of anything they do, whether it is handicapping related or on any other subject. Nobody is right all the time, and the compulsion to try to create what Jerry Jr. refers to a \'clutter free\' environment is interesting given the obvious knowledge that Friedman and others bring to the table. Every prognosticator has to face the chant of \"you suck\" now and then. The way I look at it, a person who hasn\'t heard that they suck hasn\'t really lived.
This whole \'clutter\' thing is baloney anyway. It\'s not like using a scroll bar or clicking a mouse qualifies as hard work. Click, push, move on. Next case.
As for the figure making method, from what I know, the wild card in this, the one thing that will separate the products (assuming equal trackman input) is the variant, or what you add or knock off the numbers. This is not a scientific formula. The equation for wind resistance is a scientific formula. Variant making is totally subjective, and whether it\'s Jerry or Ragozin doing it, you are paying for their judgement of the vast accumulation of races they have seen on each circuit. No matter what numbers you prefer, no matter what the weight each figure maker assigns to each variant variable, you are paying for an opinion, not a fact. I\'m not that dogmatic on Rags vs. TG since I\'ve seen guys get good results with both. The person interpeting the figures is probably the biggest part of the success equation for both products. HP
Alydar, you stole the thought right out of my head before I even had a chance to write it...
Jason L said: \"But at least with Ragozin, I have some comfort that the numbers are based on a consistent scientific foundation and not one person\'s opinion.\"
As Alydar already said, there is no scientific basis for assuming a track stays the same for an entire card, even under \"normal\" conditions. This is just one man\'s opinion, nothing the least bit scientific about it.
In fact, a hypothesis that tracks do change daily carries MORE scientific weight. Are you saying there is no such thing as evaporation? Or that water trucks are always able to replenish the EXACT same amount of water between races that has evaporated since the last watering? That the exact same amount of moisture is introduced every time the track is harrowed? To me, this is sceintifically ridiculous, expecting that to all stay the same. So much for your \"scientific\" argument.
I swear, some of these raggies need to go back and take debate classes, provide facts with your arguments, not opinions or rhetoric! Here are some of my other recenet faves:
TG: Delaware valley numbers on rags are too slow. (3 examples from preakness day sited)
Patent: No they aren\'t, I make money with them all the time (no examples sited)
Hmmmm, who is more credible here?
(?? on sheets board): Why are TG and sheets numbers so different?
Jim: Because TG is a \"knockoff\" product. (no factual backup provided)
And raggies are less prone to personal attacks? You have got to be kidding me. JB is right, more raggies that post here the better. They show a fine example of the caliber of people using their product.
Patent, I believe you\'ve got the parties mixed again. In this debate Thorograph is the evolutionist, believing the track evolves throughout the day. The Raggies are the creationists believeing the track is predominately static on a given day. Sheesh, if you\'re gonna ever get to the meat of this debate at least get the analogy right.
Oh, and which group won\'t listen to facts?...lol.
Tabitha
David Patent wrote:
>
> Jerry,
>
> O.K., here we go.
>
> 1) I didn\'t think that MW looked likely in the Preakness.
> Per my post on the Rag. boards, he was a toss unless he was
> 100:1 or higher. There were too many other explosive or
> faster horses in the race. Guess I was wrong. But you can\'t
> hit \'em all.
>
> 2) The first race. Again, that filly\'s numbers were x\'s and
> it does not matter whether she won or not. Horses don\'t get
> bonus points for winning. She clearly enjoys sprinting more
> than routing. I didn\'t bet the race because I didn\'t see any
> value but I have seen fillies do what she did (run within 2
> points of a top off of a declining line where the last race
> was way off the top) many many times.
>
> 3) This is a very important race to discuss, because it\'s on
> the turf. Unlike dirt, where you can come up with any number
> of explanations for the surface getting faster, there are
> only a few things you can say about a turf course over the
> span of 2-3 hours: a) They mowed it; b) They compressed it;
> c) Evaporation dried it out; d) the action of the horses
> running over the grass made it faster.
>
> Now, I know they didn\'t mow the grass. I know that the
> actions of horses running two races on the turf doesn\'t make
> the grass 6 points faster (otherwise we would see big jumpups
> in time every time there were multiple turf races in the same
> day). There obviously was some evaporation but on a cloudy
> day over 2-3 hours, the equation shouldn\'t be too hard to
> figure out. With all of the experience you have with grass
> races over the years, there is a simple math model you should
> be able to apply to figure out the evaporation effect on the
> ground. Given my experience with lawns, however, I would
> fall out of my chair if 2-3 hours of evaporation on a 60
> degree day could possibly increase the speed of the course by
> 6 points. Lastly, I don\'t know whether they compressed the
> grass. Do you? If not, then it\'s not a factor. If they did
> go over the course with rollers, again, calculating the
> impact on the course should be easy calculation based on
> years of experience and lots of data point.
>
> But that\'s not what you did, I\'ll bet. You figured that the
> race would be won with a \'6\' and so you gave the winner a \'6\'
> regardless of the time and then just backed into the
> variant. You do that all the time because your method relies
> on preconceived notions of what the horses will do instead of
> empirical observation. Same comment for the 7th race.
>
> 4) The field in the Schafer was, for the most part, a bunch
> of crippled allowance horses. Who cares if it\'s a graded
> stake? The horses don\'t know that. If you look at the Rag.
> sheets, almost every single horse in there figured to run
> worse than in his last race. The winning number was almost
> exactly what I figured Tenpins would run (a 6-9). The only
> horse who surprised me was the horse that ran second. I had
> him running a 4-6. But I\'m not going to let one horses \'x\'
> tell me that the whole race is wrong. There was not \'group\'
> craziness in that race. Every horse ran to his predicted
> number except one.
>
> 5) My point on WE, and just about every horse on the TG
> sheets is this: When you have most horses with a pretty
> line, you will almost always be able to say \'He looked good
> on my sheet\'. But the losers will also look good on the
> sheet. That\'s the problem I had with your product the couple
> times I bought it -- there is very little mechanism for
> separating horses that have bad patterns and tossing them.
> That to me is the true value of the Sheets -- tossing
> losers. It\'s very rare that I cash because I nailed a horse
> ready to run a big top. It\'s almost always from eliminating
> noncontenders. So, if the product makes most horses look
> likely to pair up or move forward, as TG does, then I have no
> use for it.
>
> I have not suggested that you fudge numbers after the fact.
> What you do, though, usually, is determine before hand what
> you think the number is and if the time does not come back
> what you thought it should be you will often (not always, but
> often) change the variant to make the number fit your
> beliefs. To me, someone better have a darn good reason that
> has a proven statistical basis before they do that. And
> saying that \'they watered the track\' or \'it was two turns\'
> does not cut it, unless you have done soil tests or multiple
> races at the same distance to back it up.
>
> It\'s very easy to pull a handful of races from one card and
> jump all over somebody. I could do the same, leading off with
> the 6th race -- Sarava was an absolute lock on the Rag.
> sheets and I put more money to win on that horse than I have
> in the last 10 years. On the TG sheets, he was just one of 3
> or 4 contenders.
>
> My final comment is this: The Rag. sheets are more expensive
> and are used by the majority of the people who earn a living
> by betting horses. That says a lot. If TG were better, I
> suspect that the top bettors would migrate over here. But
> they don\'t. What does that tell you?
TG--1. You weren’t wrong—given the data you were using, you came to exactly the right conclusion. That’s the point.
2. Its not about bonus points. She won by open lengths at the routes—she only “clearly enjoys sprinting” if you believe the Ragozin numbers. The question is whether it’s REASONABLE to believe she won those races running total X’s, since the others behind her ran worse.
3. 6 points = less than 2% difference in final time. Are you saying that a turf course that was soaked with rain earlier can’t have gotten 2% faster as it dried over a couple of hours? Incidentally, the grass actually got less than 4 points faster.
4. I answered this on your other post. Call me next time, and we’ll bet.
5. Uh, David—they don’t all look good on TG. In the Derby, I took a stand by throwing out the favorites—one of whom was Friedman’s pick—and crushed the race.
What is true is that the horses run in a tighter range, and if you knew more about making figures you would know what this means. All those horses on Preakness day are coming from all over the place—different races, different tracks, different distances. That Quixotes Hope gets a sprint number at Pim that ties in with her route numbers at Pha confirms both figures, etc., etc. You can’t make a whole race fit (give lots of horses figures in the range they usually run) unless either:
a. you screw around WITHIN a race, adjusting the relationship between horses dramatically (which the Ragozin office would have pointed out long ago—while we use greatly different approaches to variants, our formulas within the race are similar). We don’t.
OR
b. the figures are accurate—both the ones you make, and the ones you use to make them.
6. We charge less in order to expand the market, and boy, is it working (this is the same theory Ragozin uses in charging horsemen less than 10% of what we do, despite which they have only had a tiny fraction of the success). LOTS of top bettors have migrated over here.
7. I didn’t “pull a handful of races from one card”. Friedman almost never posts a whole card—when he does, like the Breeders’ Cup, and there are differences (errors), I post a response.
Jason L. wrote:
>
> In the interest of full disclosure, I am a Ragozin user.
> However, I can assure you that I have never spoken to anyone
> in the Ragozin and am not making this post in an attempt to
> secretly tout their product. I do have a few things to say
> about this exchange.
>
> When you take as a compliment the fact that your winners
> \"look better\" you are entirely missing the point. All of
> your horses look \"better\" because your lines are smoother.
> That is only a benefit to the unsophisticated sheet user.
>
> In my mind, the sheets are extremely valuable for two things
> (1) identifying horses to throw out as too slow or bounce
> candidates and (2) identifying horses with explosive patterns
> that are likely to move forward. When you have smoother
> looking lines, it may make the horses look better, but it
> makes both of these taks much more difficult to accomplish.
>
> The fact is when I look at your sheets, several of the horses
> in every race look more or less the same and each horse tends
> to have a smooth looking pattern. Nobody is arguing that you
> go back and tweak individual horses numbers to make them look
> better. However, when your overriding philosophy is that
> groups of horses in a single race do not deviate from the
> norm -- a proposition that does not comport to my own
> experience -- then by definition your numbers are going to
> have far less deviation.
>
> In my view -- and I do not purport to be a variant expert --
> there are just too few data points in a single race to make
> the conclusion that the track must be the reason all horses
> ran slower or faster than you would expect compared to
> different race on the same card. While I am willing to accept
> the premise that sometimes the track changes significantly
> during the day, I suspect that is far less often than you
> articulate (mostly it seems to me, in an attempt to
> distinguish yourself from Ragozin).
>
> I do not see any valid scientific manner in which to change
> the variant for a races on the same day based on what you
> would have expected to occur. In fact, the process of doing
> so makes the entire statistical analysis suspect. On a
> particular race, you may be right and you may be wrong, but
> this process moves too far into the realm of guesswork for my
> taste. Though all variant making includes statistical
> analysis with a little guesswork, the idea is to minimize the
> guesswork, not maximize it. If that means some of the
> numbers turn out to be \"wrong\" -- I have certainly seen some
> suspicious looking numbers in the past -- so be it. But at
> least with Ragozin, I have some comfort that the numbers are
> based on a consistent scientific foundation and not one
> person\'s opinion.
TG--See my replies to David Patent, also my posts Changing Track Speeds (11/17/01), and Figure Making Methodology (5/2/00). You are welcome to post here any time with comments or questions.
HP, you wrote:
\"Every prognosticator has to face the chant of \"you suck\" now and then. The way I look at it, a person who hasn\'t heard that they suck hasn\'t really lived. This whole \'clutter\' thing is baloney anyway. It\'s not like using a scroll bar or clicking a mouse qualifies as hard work. Click, push, move on. Next case.\"
If you really believe this why don\'t you lambast Jerry Brown for his censorship of posts that are critical of him, even if there may be name-calling (which he has returned)? You think that statement should only be applied to the Sheets?
As usual, seems like TG (and their partial defenders) are playing both sides again.
I deleted you (er, sorry, I meant Jim) not because they were critical of me, but because they contained nothing of substance--David and Jason have posts critical of me on this string, and I\'m not deleting them. If Rosencrantz (I mean Guildenstern) was as smart as them, or knew enough about the subject matter to contribute, I would have let his (your?) posts stand. But all you (he?) did was rant, and it was annoying the sane people.
JB: Does this mean that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead on the board (sorry, couldn\'t resist)? If so, please reconsider. Treadhead (who has earned my respect) and I want to talk to them (Jim) about their use of the term \"knockoff product.\" Now that Patent has expired (sorry again, but he ignored me, and, how did Glenn Close put it?), it\'s time to bring Jim back. He is effectively out of our reach when he\'s on the other board.
First of all, anyone who hasn\'t seen the film version of the Stoppard play should rent it--Tim Roth and Gary Oldman are hilarious. I answered Guildenstern\'s last couple of posts, but he will eventually get deleted again, due to his nature and his limitations. Patent \"expired\" (not bad) because he was end-played--he couldn\'t ask Friedman about the 13th race on Preakness day, and he couldn\'t offer a reasonable explanation of why he wouldn\'t, so he disappeared. I\'m guessing you\'ve taken a look at the day, and see how the roof would fall in if they post their figures for that race.
Even more interesting than the figure question is the Raggie psychology (pathology?). Talk about creationist/fundamentalist--David is willing to be partisan WHEN IT\'S AGAINST HIS OWN INTEREST TO DO SO. He can only gain and has nothing to lose by getting them to post the race and explain how they came up with the figures--only they do.
Aaron Sorkin ain\'t Shakespeare or Stoppard, but-- \"you can\'t HANDLE the truth.\"
Okay. Jerry, I lambast (lambaste?) you for censoring Jim\'s posts. I thought they were great and they should have been left up.
Although Jim, I think censoring a post by you over here is different than them censoring a post by Jerry over there. You don\'t sell figures and what you have to say is of limited interest, same as my posts. HP
Jerry can spin his censorship however he sees fit. I certainly don\'t think his opinion is more valuable. If anything, he is less objective than me/Jim, therefore more likely to spin his posts. Look no further than this thread to see the slightest criticism of him is met with sarcasm - talk about no value.
Jim, all wisecracks aside--Friedman deletes 50 to 100 times as many messages as I do, and not just attacks like yours (posts like David Patent\'s would not be allowed to stand, despite raising important questions). Since you don\'t blast them for it, how do expect me or anyone else to take this post seriously? I\'m being nice about this.
A few weeks ago I noted 8 instances during the Kee meet where there was a major difference between TG & Rags. Since then we have WE, Beat Hollow on Derby Day, & the Preakness card. In almost each of these instances, it wasn\'t a matter of there being 3 or 4 contenders who had smooth lines, as some who very rarely if ever see both products at the same time are arguing, but rather a stick out which appeared much faster using TG. The problem of course is that these instances are anecdotal evidence, as is the much anticipated HP v. DP tilt, which is taking place the same weekend as Tyson/Lewis.
The solution of course is to announce & do a one mo. prerace comparison at a particular track. When this kind of suggestion was made in the past, my best recollection is that the response was along the lines that TG didn\'t want to help promote Rags. If that was ever true, it isn\'t now & might instead be a knockout blow for Rags users who have an open mind. Then you\'d have more than a growing but still limited no. of examples, coupled with something those considering the issues should already know, namely that one figure maker is passionate about the accuracy & integrity of what he does, & is willing to explain it, while the other refuses to acknowledge legitimate questions from his own customers. If the results turn out the way I think they will, you might even allow people to use a variation of your slogan, to wit, \"Rags. Everything you need to lose.\"
I like the slogan, but my lawyer has a problem with it. I was the one who challenged them to a contest (I think 4 times), and the DRF was willing to host it on their site. Sportstat was doing a 6 month study at (I think) 13 tracks, but after gathering all the data from us, Rag, and about 5 others, decided they (Jim Bayle) was too busy betting, and didn\'t have the time.
I was going to let this go, but, Nunzio notwithstanding, going against one\'s personality is often unhealthful.
JB writes: \"Aaron Sorkin ain\'t Shakespeare or Stoppard, but--you can\'t HANDLE the truth.\"
How did Demi Moore put it? I object. No, I strenuously object. \"A Few Good Men\" is entertaining, but it telegraphs all its punches and it\'s wildly implausible. Cruise is a lazy, softball-playing deal-making lawyer who turns out to be a better trial lawyer than his legendary father, who was Attorney General of the United States. Okay, Sorkin. And why the hell didn\'t Meathead (his CA cigarette tax pisses me off to no end) squeeze a nude scene out of Demi Moore? To see her looking her all-time best, rent \"About Last Night, which was based on a play by David Mamet, who is ten times the writer Sorkin is.
Sorkin also wrote the screenplay for \"The American President,\" which Reiner also directed. This movie was a harbinger to \"The West Wing.\" It\'s a saccharine, wimpy, two-inches-left-of-center paean to Clintonism and its gory offspring. It signalled the death of dialectic, the death of politics, the death of all that was good. Sorkin sucks. But you\'re right about \"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead\" and Stoppard in general.
Jerry,
I know you don\'t delete nearly the amount of posts that Friedman does. My point is that censorship is censorship - if you delete 20 of my posts then you are still a censor.
Why don\'t I criticize them for it? The answer to you and HP is they don\'t want to get into any of the confrontational discussions that you and HP would like and I don\'t care. The only reason I point it out on this board is because of your blatant hipocrisy.
From your point of view, you see it as being afraid to tackle important differences between the two products. From their point of view, they don\'t see any good reason to get into it. They are number one by far, so why give any attention/credence to you or your product?
Certainly agree about \"American President\". Mostly agree about \"A Few Good Men\". Not a big fan of Mamet.