ROTW Hawthorne

[Furious Pete]

I\'ll have a small stab at It\'s your nickel, nothing serious but just got 10/1 (fixed odds) which I think is more than acceptable to take my chances. If the legs are there, the race might set up good for him if someone manages to challenge Hedge Fund for the lead. Agree that there are more likely winners out there, but I always like to give these horses a chance that just seemed a bit overmatched last time out. Owns the biggest figure in the race. Doesn\'t love the jockey though. Let\'s hope it\'s just a steering job!

[billk5300s]

It was great to see the discussion about the Illinois Derby as we having nothing to talk about when it comes to local racing.  Sadly the result mimicked what goes on regularly in Illnois.  Slower horses getting bet and winning.  What a sad state we are, it\'s embarrassing.  Good luck to all moving forward!

[Furious Pete]

I thought it was an interesting race to watch because even after the fact, if one knows what we now know and you plot in all those data in a monte carlo engine and get it to run this race a thousand times, I\'m not even sure if Multiplier will win enough races to defend that odds. Many things went wrong for Hedge Fund and still he was able to kick clear in the stretch in a matter that didn\'t seem likely that anyone would catch, even 100 yards from the finish line it didn\'t look likely that Multiplier would get up. The opening at the rail was pretty miraculous, too, and probably due to a mistake of Channing Hill. I bet that the only \"real\" value play in this race was actually Hedge Fund at 2/1, which I\'m sure is counter intuitive to most peoples understanding of the concept of value. One sure wouldn\'t think so just by looking at the sheets beforehand. but then again, the \"real\" world really doesn\'t care much about how the sheet we\'re looking at looks.

[jimbo66]

Pete

U could stop posting now, in mid-April, and still be odds on for most bad posts in 2017.... (Of course unless Bellsbendboy becomes a regular poster, in which case u have no shot)

Hedge fund, after the race, clearly the value at 2-1.

U know what else I just realized, Always Dreamin has the same sheet as Orb.   Can a 5th different person explain to Pete, I mean me, why that isn\'t the case...

Small tip - always best to pint out value plays before the race.

[Furious Pete]

Do you not think if they reran that race a thousand times, Hedge Fund would be likely to win more than 1 out of 3? How many times do you figure St Louis Guy would win? Or Mr. Misunderstood? Certainly not 1 out of 8, or 1 out of 5.

As I said, this kind of thinking is counter intuitive to most. It demands a sense of reality.

As I wrote, I had a bet on It\'s a nickel at 10-1. Even though I beat the market, because he went off at 7/1, I\'m not sure he would win that race 1 out of 10 times from what I know now. Perhaps, if things got even worse for Hedge Fund and Mulitplier didn\'t get that dream trip and It\'s a nickel avoided the trouble he ran into when turning for home, he could win. It\'s a close call if that will be the case 1 out of 10 times. St Louis Guy or Mr. Misunderstood on the other hand, couldn\'t even win that particular race 1 out 100, from what we know NOW.

Value is not subjective. It can\'t be.

One must remember that what one is trying to do when betting the horses, is to predict value. One is predicting value on the basis of the information one has available, and/or a set of principles one has grown fond of. I buy Thorograph because I think it\'s the provider of speed figures that over time will have the most accurate assessment of a race, but you must remember that making figures is still a question of plausability and probabilities. When one have multiple runners in a race, coming out of different races, tracks, surfaces etc, each having faced different trips, challenges and scenarios, and you try to use those numbers to predict what will happen TODAY or TOMORROW, with all those other \"thousand factors\" that could have an influence on that result, well, it\'s just a lot of room for error. And it makes this game the toughest game on planet to beat.

But \"likely value\" based on what we know before a race unfolds, and this is where this becomes a skill game (or insider game), is not the same as actual value in the real world. I\'m not saying I\'m particularly good myself at predicting actual value. I certainly wouldn\'t have bet Hedge Fund at 2-1 based on the information I had in my hands. That doesn\'t change that after the facts, the bet with the best expected value in Illinois Derby 2017 was probably Hedge Fund at 2-1. Who would\'ve known.

[FrankD.]

You write to well to be Chuckles !!!

Point well taken Pete, on T-graph board a horse that was co 2nd slowest in the heat provided value after the race getting beat at 2/1. How can anyone argue with that? The only thing more off base than your comment was a PAID ANALYST on the local OTB show said a few minutes ago that \" Hedge Funds effort yesterday even spreads more flattery on the Sunland Derby\" BRILLIANT!!!

I just dropped Hence from my ticket and I liked McCracken a bit until the tour de force came in. I think I\'ll go to India and visit Jimbo for the Derby. This is NUTS.

FD

[Furious Pete]

But you know, that\'s why it\'s so hard to win in this game. You would have bet even money on me providing the most bad posts in 2017, even though you\'re staring right at the 1/9 favorite in the mirror every morning.

[Furious Pete]

No worries Frank, I didn\'t expect anyone to grasp or even try to grasp what I was saying. Maybe some young guns that are lurking will. After all, that\'s what happened in poker.

I will back off now and go back to lurking myself for a while, so you all can restore your peace of mind and regain your focus at trying to predict the future through your little magic lense that is sheet theory. I will be reading every post with great interest, because it truly is a fascinating game and I do enjoy the discussions on here sometimes. Good luck in the derby everyone. See you on the other side.

[TGJB]

Pete-- Let\'s try to keep this at least slightly tethered to reality. The nuttiness in your point has nothing to do with being anti \"sheet theory\". You\'re a) saying that you gained information after the race (i.e. redboarding)that should have made everyone draw a specific conclusion, and b) that information indicates you should not have bet the winner, but c) the favorite. Who lost.

And you do this without even knowing what figures everyone ran. There was some ground loss in that race, if they ran it a thousand times a lot of different things could have happened even if they ran the same figures.

[P-Dub]

Furious Pete Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No worries Frank, I didn\'t expect anyone to grasp
> or even try to grasp what I was saying. Maybe some
> young guns that are lurking will. After all,
> that\'s what happened in poker.
>
> I will back off now and go back to lurking myself
> for a while, so you all can restore your peace of
> mind and regain your focus at trying to predict
> the future through your little magic lense that is
> sheet theory. I will be reading every post with
> great interest, because it truly is a fascinating
> game and I do enjoy the discussions on here
> sometimes. Good luck in the derby everyone. See
> you on the other side.


Yup.

Its Derby season.

[TGJB]

By the way, as an exercise, I decided to try Pete\'s type of analysis on another race to see how it worked out. I picked the 2009 Derby. If they ever run that race again, I will definitely bet Mine That Bird. Or the favorite.

[sekrah]

I get the point Pete is trying to make in his posts, but I\'ll try to articulate this the best I can.

First to his post race analysis: 9/2 on the winner in a 7-horse field is probably the correct value in the race, even in a Monte Carlo simulator with all the wildcard variables known post-race.  IMO the trips were pretty neutral to both horses, not 100% perfect for either but not train-wrecks either.

There\'s more potential variables at place that could make Hedge Fund more of an underlay than his performance might detail.  It wasn\'t a very fast pace, and it ended up benefiting Hedge Fund. An even slower pace and Hedge Fund probably wins his fair share with the setup, but it\'s hard to knock the winner\'s value when the race could have more easily been faster earlier on.  

A bad start at the gate, a fast middle move by another horse, a blown turn by the horse inside him, a premature (or late) move by his own jockey, a bad step on the turn, etc.. are just some of the possible negative variables that could have affected him.  

Secondly, and the point some of the others are getting at: There\'s another set of variables that make him an underlay. The thing with Sheets theory Pete is that it\'s grounded in the fact that there are all these unknown variables that are extremely difficult to quantify. It properly ignores all these impossible-to-predict variables. It\'s based on the fact that certain patterns are more likely to produce a positive outcome (top or pair) than other patterns.  Wagering is based on what we know (figures, patterns, and odds). Some of the horses that ran poorly on Saturday, on another day, would have run a much bigger figure with their particular patterns, and that\'s what some of these guys are cutting at you with.  

But I do understand the angle you were trying to look at this race by. It just comes off a little as redboarding to the guys who\'ve been doing this a long time that are focused on the outcome probability of patterns.

In poker parlance, it would be kind of like looking at everyone\'s folded cards after the hand and realizing they all had your outs and that you made the wrong decision when you called pot-odds to try to make your flush, when in reality with the information you had available at the time, you made the right decision.

[Furious Pete]

I might have been a little fast at denouncing Hedge Fund the only possible \"after the facts\"-value bet, the winner probably fits that bill as well, but I guess that wasn\'t really the point I was trying to make, either.

I guess the point I was trying to make, is that horse racing is really often times a sucker game. You think you know something just to find out that boy, you really didn\'t have a chance. It differs from most big money betting markets like i.e team sports, in that a lot of things are kinda \"pre-decided\" when the gates opens. In a soccer match or hockey match, a team can win 5-0 but if you could play that particular match many times more you would get totally different results every time. There are so much coincidents, game dynamics, psychology, luck and mistakes involved that influence how one particular match is going. There are these things in horse racing too, but not nearly as much. As Illinois Derby was a good example of, a horse that looked a perfectly fine bet on paper in St Louis Guy were ice cold in the markets, and couldn\'t have defended odds of 100-1 \"after the facts\". I can\'t see one way that race unfolds that would give him any shot of winning that day (it certainly wasn\'t due to ground loss, that\'s ridiculous).

So, what is value in horse racing and how do you go about finding it on a consistent basis? (without watering it down with poor bets in the meantime).

I have no problem accepting that given what one knew, by looking on the form and the sheets, and by comparing hundreds of similar situations - one is perfectly \"entitled\" to say they feel St Louis Guy is value at odds of 7/1. I\'d even bet a few successful bettors did. The problem I\'m trying to raise though, is that in this particular race he wasn\'t. In the real world, this time, he wasn\'t. It wasn\'t due to a lucky strike against early, or a poor referee decision, or an unlucky own goal, no it was because this horse, this day, didn\'t have the legs to compete. That\'s what makes horse racing an almost impossible game to beat, because if value isn\'t subjective, and really, math isn\'t, one will end up putting ones money in bad A LOT. It\'s an inevitable part of this cruel and beautiful game.

Now what does one do about it? That\'s where these discussions could get interesting. Is there a solution to the problem?

I guess the best way to go about solving this problem, is simply by putting in the extra work. What I have in mind, more precisely, is an excercise I first heard about in Philip Tetlocks \"Superforecasting\" called \"calibrating\". It\'s about calibrating oneself with the \"real world\", and it\'s as easy as it\'s time consuming, and difficult. All you have to do is make your own lines, if you will, ascribing win-percentages to preferably every horse in many, many horse races. You could also do this with 2nd place and even 3rd place.. Now, after a while, just run the numbers. How many of the horses you\'ve given a 10 % chance to win, end up winning? 15 %? 5 %? Or, do they really win 10 %? What about the big favorites, the \"sure things\", let\'s say you\'ve given them a 70 % chance. If they only win 50, well then you are too sure of yourself and will end up losing your money. And what about the \"easy tosses\", that Jimbo ascribes \"zero shot of winning\", let\'s say we give them 1 % chance of winning. Wouldn\'t it be interesting if those came back as 5 % winners?

Well, now you have the info. You could adjust, identify your flaws as a predictor of the future and then test again in a while. And changing your betting accordingly. If one does this, and maybe even demand an edge like at least 10 % if one is perfectly calibrated, more if not, so that you won\'t have a bet unless you get 10 or 20 % more than what you have assessed as fair, well then at least one stands a chance. IMO, first then would it really make sense to talk about value before a race.

But maybe others have another, easier solution to this problem?

Back to my hole..

[SoCalMan2]

Furious Pete Wrote:
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> Cheers, that\'s unheard of where I come from, for
> trotting and ordinary racing to share the same
> track/surface. Closest thing we\'ve had must be
> when a trainer got fed up with his very talented
> trotter always galopping in his races, so he
> entered him in a stakes race for ordinary race
> horses instead. He did get bet down to favorite
> and created a lot of fuzz, but finished nowhere.
> How would one interpret that start in sheet
> theory?

Is an \"ordinary race horse\" a thoroughbred or a pacer?  The guy entered a standard bred against pacers or thoroughbreds?  Not really sure what is meant here.

As to surfaces, for very many years, the Meadowlands dirt track was used for thoroughbreds for the Autumn, but for standard breds the rest of the year.  So, the best standard breds in America raced over the same dirt track that Seattle Slew lost to Dr. Patches on.  (I am sure there was some track maintenance and scraping involved in the switchover, but the oval was the same).

[Furious Pete]

Yeah maybe I was unclear there, I don\'t have a particular good language for trotters because I don\'t really acknowledge them as animals to have a bet on.

He was a trotting/harness/pacer?-trainer, whatever you call them, that entered his horse in a stakes race for galloping race horses. I believe it even was on turf.