Reguest for JB

[jwo7]

JB,
I have used your product for a couple of years now with some success.  I consider myself to be a good handicapper, but poor at choosing my bets. I have read your advice on how to bet but am still not maximizing my plays.  I was hoping that you could take a card that you\'ve played recently, maybe your trip to Saratoga, and list what bets you made and the rational behind them.  You could use units instead of dollar amounts if you\'d like. This would be extremely valuable and greatly appreciated.
JWO7

[msola1]

JWO7,

I have been wrestling with the same problem for too many years.

A couple of months ago, I posted a similar letter. The only response I got was that maybe I wasn\'t as good a handicapper as I thought, which I didn\'t find very helpful.

The crux of the problem, as I face it, is how to structure a bet, in light of several variables: odds, certainly; number of horses to put in the Win slot, and under what circumstances; whether to bet both exactas and trifectas on the same race; how to weight the combinations; etc.

If you are interested in engaging in such a discussion off the forum (since I don\'t think much will ensue there), I can send my email address, or the office can simply give it to you.

Mike

[HP]

Crucial subject. I will risk some embarrassment...

The key is almost always evaluating the favorite. The favorite will be ITM two-thirds of the time. It\'s the most powerful betting stat in racing. I play more in races with bad favorites. I\'ll also focus more on races with bigger fields (eight and up).

I\'ve done better lately with a few things:

1) Less exotic wagering as a percentage of total wagers. If I\'m finding a lot to like/play in a race, I FORCE myself to find a solid win bet more than I used to. I\'m looking 5-1 and up. I will bet more than one to win, but generally not unless they are both over 10-1. I won\'t \"dutch\" for less.

At the end of the day I want to look back and see that I covered my longshots with win bets...I don\'t want to look back and see the $20.00 I didn\'t cash because I missed the exacta and the tri...

2) I key more and box less. ESPECIALLY tris. Tri boxes are bankroll killers. I need more focus. Since the keys cost less, for the same amount of money I played in boxes I can sometimes hit the tri a few times as opposed to just once. I\'m not that sophisticated, I just key a horse I like on top, and if the odds are good on others I like or the favorite looks bad, I may key more than one on top.

I have to say I am shocked by how good the payoffs can be in the tri with the favorite on top. As just one example, I played the 9th at Arlington yesterday. The favorite won, the second choice finished second and the third horse was about the fifth choice at 14-1. The $2 tri came back $136.80! There was only one other horse in the race that I could imagine cracking the tri.

3) I try to stay out of the exactas more if the favorite looks good. If the favorite looks bad, I\'ll go deeper in the exactas, and I try to focus on the longer priced horses. If the favorite figures, I lean more and more towards just trying to beat the favorite with a win bet. Also, as per the above, if the favorite figures, I may prefer to key it in the tri, since you may do well there if there are nice longshots (even one nice longshot!) under. I don\'t want the $27 exacta, I want the $136 tri!

4) Another thing I\'ve been doing that\'s working out is when I like two horses and both are prices. Some of your questions address this (how many to play to win, etc.). It can be a real headache. I take the two horses and box them with the other contenders.

Let\'s say the 1 and 2 and prices and I also like the 5, 6 and 7. I do 1, 2, 5; 1, 2, 6; and 1, 2, 7.

In the AP race yesterday, I really liked the horse that finished second and the longshot that finished. Instead of boxing the four horses that were contenders ($24 for $1), I played my two with the two other contenders (two $2 three horse boxes cost $12 each) and doubled my payoff.

A little focus (and less boxing) can go a long way. Has definitely helped me.

Good luck. HP

You didn\'t ask me, but since this is the very issue I struggled with for years (while losing) despite fairly solid handicapping I\'ll make some suggestions. (now winning)

Many are going to disagree with my thinking on exotics, but that\'s OK.

1. You absolutely must learn how to make an odds line.  Start by identifying contenders and non-contenders and then rank the contenders in order of preference. If your order of contenders is much different than what you see on the odds board, that\'s a good place to start looking for a value bet. You can refine that process over time and start assigning actual win percentages to the horses.  

2. Try to focus your attention on races where there is a \"suspect\" favorite. Accumulate an arsenal of situations where the public makes the same mistakes over and over. They are fertile ground for proftiable wagers.

3. I rarely bet exotics of any type. I usually bet the best value overlay horse to win. Occasionally I bet two horses to win if they are both big overlays. I don\'t ever play any of my overlays in exactas, triples etc... underneath other horses as a saver. There is very little, if any value in putting an underlay over an overlay in an exotic as a saver. IMO, most saver bets cost you money over the long haul. I will occasionally box two overlay horses because there is added value leverage in that sort of box when you hate the favorite.

4. I rarely accept win odds of less than,
3-1 or 7-2. On the rare occasions I do, it\'s usually a small field with less than the typical number of contenders. Over the years I wasted an incredible amount of time, energy, and money trying to find \"value bets\" among shorter priced horses. The fine line edges that are theoretically possible to locate in that category are much harder to find than most people think. IMO, most players - even successful ones - simply spin thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars through the windows with little or no edge (or even small losses) on horses going off at very short odds. You will dramatically increase your ROI by cutting down on bets on horses going off as short priced favorites even when you believe they are decent value. Most of the time, they are not. They are break even or slightly positive/negative depending on your skill.
All the profit comes from the rarer huge overlays.

That\'s a good start.



Post Edited (08-20-04 14:25)

[TGAB]

JB is up in Saratoga this weekend. Posted on the Archive page are JB\'s betting strategies, which have been posted before. This is a good discussion topic. HP and classhandicapper offer suggestions and others can weigh in on this as well.

[cozzene]

Hello

Their is a book by a fella named Mitchell that has 1 good thought.

The win pool is the most linear.  The superfecta pool the least linear.

The idea is to fish where the competition is the least knowledgable.

Become an expert in some type of exotic bet.
Know the bet inside out, and how the random nature of the outcome effects the payout.

Know what type of payout to expect when the favorite wins, and when the favorite is out.

Know how field size effects the bet.

Know which tracks have the least sophisticated crowds regarding this bet.

I used to think I was a good handicapper who lost by chance.  Now I think I am a mediocre handicapper who wins by skill.

I pick no more winners than before but I cash lots of big exotic tickets.  

I fish in the right stream now.

Good Luck

Cozzene

[Lucy]

hey, I posted some advice, but it got deleted.

[Mall]

The result was exactly the opposite, but yesterday\'s late pk4 at Sar illustrates the kind of betting strategy question one faces on a regular basis. For purposes of discussion, assume that while you have an opinion on races 8-10, your strongest dope is that Dinner Date has a 25% or better chance of winning the 7th. Do you: (a)Invest most or all of your bankroll in race 7? or (b)Try to leverage your opinion on Dinner Date into a big pk4 payoff?

In the CBY contest, I decided to devote 75% to the AP Million, which left me with only $100 for the pk4, & as a result I ended up tossing the winner of the 2nd leg & missing an $8k for a buck score, double the total which ended up winning. Yesterday, I did almost the exact opposite, using 100% on pk4 tix which did not include EA, thereby missing an 8-1 winner & a $48 exacta. In other words, I managed to get it wrong both times, something you might want to keep in mind as you consider my opinions on the subject.

Some \"experts\" maintain that you should spend 25% of your time handicapping & 75% deciding how to bet, which seems a bit much to me, though a 75-25 ratio the other way doesn\'t seem too far off the mark, as one of the biggest mistakes I see a lot of very good dopesters make is spending 90% or more of their time handicapping. The result, in my opinion, is a betting strategy which at worst does not even reflect the handicapper\'s opinions, & at best is usually not designed to realize the maximum gain if you\'re right about the race.

Think about the number of times you\'ve been asked or discussed \"who you like\" compared to the number of times someone has questioned how you plan to structure your bets. On those very rare occasions when the latter is raised, my response is often the same one I\'ve made here: Tell me why you bet on racing, & I\'ll tell you which bet or bets make the most sense for you. This invariably triggers a blank stare, but isn\'t that essentially what each of us does when advising friends & relatives on the Derby & BC,namely recommend bets which are consistent with your knowledge of the individual\'s level of interest in the game & tolerance for risk?

That\'s why, assuming the reference is to \"straight\" boxes, I\'m in HP\'s camp when it comes to structuring bets based on a single key, though I favor the exacta more than the tri because of the lower take & the availablity of probable pays. It also explains why one of my cohorts does very well with 5, & sometimes even 6, horse boxes, a bet I have never even considered making.

Taking the above factors into consideration, & again assuming a $400 bankroll, the bet I think I would have made, & the one I told my one racing trip to Sar per yr & doesn\'t bet too much brother to make, if all funds were spent on the 7th race, is as follows: $100 win 1;$150 exacta,which was paying almost $50 as opposed to the $27 it should have been paying, on the 1-8; $100 exacta 1-2, which was a little less than fair value if I remember correctly; & two $25 exactas 2-1 & 8-1, although some might raise legitimate questions about making such bets.

The bets I actually ended up making were a twice as much pk4 on 1/1-5-7-8/4-6-7/all but two, and a half as much pk4 on 2-8/1-5-7-8/4-5-7/all but two. Neither included EA, which is why all I have to show for those two days of hard work & fairly accurate opinions is the Mall of America shirt I picked up on the way to the Minneapolis airport last Mon.

[HP]

Mall,

Thanks for the positive comments. I have definitely made mistakes and stretched for tris when the exacta was fine (or sometimes better). Still evolving on this...

There are some incredible payoffs on pick threes, and I don\'t think you could help but notice how good some of those pick fours are, especially when they run concurrently like they do in NY. I see the pick three with favorites or second choices paying like $100 and the pick four, with the second choice from the 7th race, will pay like $380. Very tempting, but...

I would have to say that these \"multi-race\" bets are my least productive bets, by far, and I know people who do almost nothing but. I\'ve thrown them out of my repetoire almost entirely. In my experience, these bets take more TIME to get right, and there were just too many ocassions that I spent so much time figuring out a P3 or P4 ticket that I blew a perfectly good straight win shot.

The \"Now-I\'m-Going-To-Kill-Myself\" factor is very high with the pick three, and I need less of that...

HP

[OPM]

First: you have to keep records and ROI and then you can ascertain if you are good at picking winners or contenders.  You can do this if you find out hitting more boxes than keys, if you win more playing horses in exotics, vs to win.  If you are good at picking contenders then boxing is for you.  I recently took a look at all my win bets and found that I was 1 for 34.  This told me that I was going after too many longshots, my handicapping wasn\'t good enough or I was betting the wrong contenders.  Also, if you can only hit winners 10% of the time, then you should bet on any horse lower than 10-1.  I found out that I make the most money of exotics.  Also, it seems tri and supers with the payoff being so high, may be worth the stab if you have a deep enough bankroll.  I have no qualm boxing 6 horses in the tri if the odds are high enough.  Remember, you\'re here to make money not pick winners.  I still regret not doing a 6 horse super box in the AP million!!.  However, in order to do this you have to decide if the fav is vulnerable and that is the crux of the matter in my opinion.

[msola1]

HP,

I found your reply very helpful and practical.

A question: Where you say, \"3) I try to stay out of the exactas more if the favorite looks good. If the favorite looks bad, I\'ll go deeper in the exactas, and I try to focus on the longer priced horses. \"

Could you give a hypothetical example that would show what you mean by \"go deeper...and focus...\"

Many contributors to this board use the phrase \"go deeper,\" and I never really know how you do that. In, let\'s say, a 9-horse field with a bad favorite, what might you do with exactas to go deeper?

Mike

[jbelfior]

Cozzene---

Your ol\' friend Joe B. here.

I\'ll be at the Travers on Saturday and I know you love LION HEART. So if he\'s somewhere around 5-2, what do you do??


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[HP]

Msola,

If I really think a favorite will be off the board entirely, I will spend more on the race. This is part of what I meant by \"go deeper.\"

I also may use more horses (but if I can\'t narrow the exacta down to four I tend to tune out).

When I mentioned \"focus\", I mean I will try to key a few more on top instead of just box-ing away.

In your hypothetical nine horse field, if you can throw out the favorite, you may encounter a scenario where you can toss a few non-contenders and have a manageable number of decent-priced contenders for the exotics.

I really don\'t like to go more than four deep in the exactas. On ocassion, I will play tris as what I would call \"extended exactas.\" If I don\'t like the favorite, but I can narrow it down to two or three contenders, I might use the two or three I like in the first and second spot of the tris and just go \"all\" in the third spot so I don\'t get screwed by the 30-1 shot that clunks up in there. So in a way I figure I\'m playing a modified exacta since I\'m really only handicapping the first two spots on the tri ticket.

Someone else commented that you should pick an exotic bet and really focus on it -- I\'ve played enough tris to know that ANYONE can finish third (pace may be a much bigger component in figuring this out as opposed to figuring out who can win, in my humble opinion). So if the favorite looks really bad, I may just say to hell with the exactas and play the tris with the \"all\", or, if I\'m lucky, just the few I think can make it.

Hope this clears it up a little. Good luck. HP

[msola1]

HP,

Thanks again for the information. I\'ve saved everybody\'s answers to the quesstion and am trying to find how best to resolve the tension between win betting and exotics. All of the replies are helping.

Now onto another problem that I\'ve been wrestling with. I would welcome a response from anyone.

Problem: establishing odds.
Premise: based on Thorograph numbers, I give every horse a rating of my own, again with lowest number being best. Now to turn these ratings into probabilities/odds?
Examples:

Horse__________a____b____c____d____e
Race 1 rating___4____6____7____12___20
Race 2 rating___4____10___11___15___20

Even though the spread between first and last is the same, horse a in race 1 should certainly be at somewhat higher odds than horse a in race 2, since he is closer to other contenders. How to get to odds from here, mathematically, without arbitrarily assigning odds to anyone.

Mike