Belmont Blathering -- Somewhere between Trivia and Science

[ajkreider]

Rich Curtis Wrote:
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> And finally, it would take Ludwig Wittgenstein to
> clear up all the confusion here:


Does that make richiebee Karl Popper (though he\'s more like a member of the faculty, than a visiting lecturer).

On patterns, looking for a pattern merely in the numbers is a fool\'s errand.  I certainly don\'t want to put in the effort, but how many different \"3rd\" figures have horses run after, say, a 14 and a 13.  Additional figures don\'t help much, as it\'s pretty well established that any string of numbers is compatible with being part of an infinite number of patterns.  I don\'t think we want to turn TG analysis in the fibonacci \"head and shoulders\" nonsense so common to Wall Street witch doctors.

Better to focus on tops, big efforts, and their effects - which at least can be tied to something causal.

[TempletonPeck]

A personal favorite, in the same vein: Pierre Trudeau, when asked how he felt about the revelation that Nixon had called him an \'a--hole,\' and a \'pompous egghead,\' replied, \"I\'ve been called worse things by better people.\"

[richiebee]

hellersorr Wrote:
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> And BOOM! goes the dynamite.


Hellersorr:

The only one who lights the fuse, who sees me really get angry, is my wife, my shayna punim.

You will be invoiced for the continuing Yiddish lessons at a later date.

[Rich Curtis]

\"Does that make richiebee Karl Popper?\"

We\'ll find out when I suggest that he and I play poker.

\"Additional figures don\'t help much, as it\'s pretty well established that any string of numbers is compatible with being part of an infinite number of patterns.\"

 Down this road lies:

1: The impossibility of making decent speed figures using the method employed here.

And:

2: The wisdom of blindly betting on the longest shot on the board.

[hellersorr]

Personally, I score it 10-9 Curtis (though RBee\'s Disraeli/Gladstone exchange is  excellent), but I look forward to more WFB, Jr. vs. GV.

Bonus quotes from Merry Olde England:

Lady Astor:  If you were my husband I\'d poison your tea.
Churchill:  If you were my wife, I\'d drink it.

Lady Astor:  Churchill, you are drunk!
Churchill:  Yes, and you, Madam, are ugly.  But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.

[Rich Curtis]

Richiebee wrote:

\"Rich, I do not believe I am a major or even minor offender in terms of insults.\"

I agree entirely. That\'s why I wrote that stuff about the Richiebee Rule. It contained neither irony nor sarcasm. The only person I remember you really insulting with a heavy hand is Ken Sherman. And since he once said, with typical (nay, Shermanesque) understatement, that I am \"the problem with the sport,\" I have a hard time working up a lot of sympathy for him.

\"It pains me to hold my tongue sometimes\"

I wish you wouldn\'t try so hard. You will correct me if I have been reading you poorly over the years, but it seems to me as if one of the things that annoy you most is lack of subtlety in others. If this is true, and if you have any inclination to try to modify behavior through your posts, then you are in something of a tricky spot: You have a style that is bathed in subtlety, yet you employ it on people who are immune to subtlety.

\"As to confronting Jerry Brown or Len Ragozin\"

  They qualify in that context. Indeed, they were my examples. But please do not read \"royalty\" too narrowly.

\"Yes, I confess to wanting to lambaste those who redboard, because
they do not have the understanding of the pari-mutuel system to realize why
redboarding is unsavory.\"

 I don\'t agree that lack of understanding of the pari-mutuel system accounts for redboarding. I think these exact same people would redboard a non-betting race in a second. Just look at what threatens to become the latest trend: Attempting to get around the no-redboarding \"rule\" by redboarding losers who lost in such a manner that they can be read as having flattered the handicapping (and in some cases the betting) of the poster. Add to this all the 2/3 redboards (pick 3), 3/4 redboards (pick 4), futures redboards (accomplished through delayed, selective unveiling), and redboards in the guise of product endorsement, and it is hard to see reasons for optimism.

\"I believe that I fairly clearly stated that I did not rely heavily on
patterns in handicapping the Triple Crown. I did not disparage those who do choose to utilize patterns to handicap these races. While some might say that Cloud Computing had a forward moving pattern going into the Preakness (or that he \"never went backwards\"), to me this was a lightly raced colt who improved in each of his starts. As Sekrah astutely pointed out, my choice not to call this trio of races a \'pattern\' is a matter of \'semantics\'.\"

You did state it clearly, and you certainly did not disparage anyone. You were unfailingly polite and in all ways the gentleman. What is more, I have no problem whatsoever with anybody who minimizes the importance of patterns or scoffs at bouncing (as Ernie Dahlman did) or departs from the orthodoxy in any other way, as long as he is prepared, as you are, to defend his point. While I don\'t think that redefining accepted terms in the middle of the Triple Crown while pushing (albeit with tongue in cheek) scientific method is necessarily ideal, I am not opposed to a little mischief from time to time. The real reason for my bafflement at your pattern posts lies in the following:

\"I think a pattern requires some sort of repetition before it is validated. I won\'t even get into how many races you need to see from a 2YO before you can say that you have identified a pattern.\"

For most people, it seems, the sexiest sheet patterns are on horses who are fairly lightly raced. As a group, they are the horses who have the most improvement in their futures, and sometimes they will give you a lot of it in one shot and at a big price. I have met few people who are itching to storm the barricades over a recovery pattern on an older horse. OK, asking, say, that a spring 3YO prove the validity of its explosive pattern by exploding is akin to asking that a virgin prove her virginity through the act of losing it.

\"Regarding the example above, your explanation of looking for a different sort of repetition is quite logical. Lets assume you are talking about a 2YO or young 3YO. Lets say the expected result is 14- 13 - 11.25, based on the repetition you speak of. The first thing I might mention is that if the third race is a stake race, a stretch out or a surface switch... can we still expect the forward move?\"

Although this is a lot neater and cleaner in theory than in practice, I would recommend taking the projected figure (which would actually be a range) and adjusting it up or down based on your estimate of how the different conditions will affect the horse, all the while taking solace in the fact that non-sheet players are probably busy making surface/distance adjustments of their own.

\"Again since it is my OPINION (sorry I\'m yelling now), I feel no need to \'attack the source of the problem.\' It is not a \'problem\' for me.\"

  Oh, that merely reflects my martial tendencies when it comes to wording. My first declaration of war each morning is directed at my alarm clock. Certainly there is nothing here that genuinely qualifies as a problem. And of course I knew you were giving an opinion. What else could it have been?

[hellersorr]

I withdraw my Buckley-Vidal reference.

This might be the most gentlemanly dispute in the history of the Internet.  I fully expect both Curtis and Bee to switch sides at any moment.

[richiebee]

Hellersorr:

Any master debater should be able to argue both sides of an issue convincingly.

[johnnym]

What about a master baiter?