Thorograph Seminar

[Rich Curtis]

Frank D. wrote:

\"Handicappers are not allowed to change their mind? No one ever loved or was negative about a Derby horse a month before and made a different play on Derby Day?\"

  Well done, Frank. You have penetrated all the noise and obfuscation and gotten right to the core of the matter: my firm belief that horseplayers are not allowed to change their minds.

[moosepalm]

Airnate012 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The strategy I now use to construct my superfecta
> tickets I learned from reading about other
> player\'s big scores after the Derby, and the vast
> majority didn\'t post their plays on any online
> forum before the race. I guess it was redboarding
> by them, but for me it was a learning experience
> and I was appreciative that they shared their
> story. If anything, I would think it would be a
> big positive for players using Thorograph (or any
> other resource) to show how they did, and share
> what resources/strategies they used to construct
> their tickets. It could maybe help us all in the
> long run, as well as bring in new customers to
> purchase the resource.

Nate, first of all congrats for your Derby score, and for your good-natured acceptance of Richiebee\'s well-intentioned ribbing.  You raise an interesting point here, and since the topic of red boarding has been beaten into the ground, I\'d like to change the conversation, though not completely divorced from the topic.

To state the obvious, whatever you\'ve found that works for you, go with it.  Anything I\'m about to say is not meant to talk you out of anything, for no other reason than I\'m the last person who should be offering any kind of handicapping advice to anyone.  But I will share some of my thoughts on handicapping analysis that we find on message boards.

On this board, if Mathcapper had a big score, and made it known to the board, which I\'m fairly certain he wouldn\'t, I would pay very close attention to anything he says from a statistical basis that underlies his approach.  He\'s proven his bona fides on that front, numerous times, though not in a handicapping context.  But, if he did, I\'m all in.  Likewise, if Christian Hellmers won another big contest, and shared his approach and strategies, I\'d hang on every word, even if that included references to mystical Hinduism, or especially if they did, but that\'s another conversation.  And if Rich Curtis brought down the house with a bet, and wrote about it, I would take anything he said on any aspect of handicapping straight to the bank, However, if he actually wrote a syllable about that you can be certain he\'s only doing it because someone\'s pointing a gun at his head, and eyeing him with bad intent.

It\'s like picking out a financial advisor.  You want to know with whom you\'re dealing and more about them than the fact that they had just made an extremely lucrative play in the market.  Their methodology may make sense to you, but there is also the issue of applicability.  Will they be able to do that in other scenarios?  In a racing analogy, if someone structures a Derby bet that leads to a big score, wouldn\'t you want to know how successful that approach has been in prior Derbies, and have some tangible evidence of it?  Or want to know about its applicability in other races where there aren\'t 20 horses doing something that they\'ve never done before?

There probably isn\'t anything contained in the description of a big score that hasn\'t been written already by someone who has credentials that he or she has put in the public domain.  Conversely, I have an inherent distrust of message boards.  I have no idea if this happens here, but on other kinds of boards, there are posters who fraudulently pose as \"insiders\" because, for whatever reason, being a big deal on a message board really floats their boat.

Let me illustrate by personal example.  I\'m a big pick-5 player.  I put in a fair amount of money, and have a pretty consistent framework of analysis and structure of play.  I am also a pretty good writer.  Not Richiebee good, but good enough that I could create a very plausible message board persona that suggests I\'m a pretty big deal in the game, and do so without a great deal of embellishment of facts that are part of my racing experience.  I could drop names, or events I attend, or boxes I sit in, and while I might sound like a pompous ass, I could also be reasonably conversant in analysis, pattern reading, workout tips, etc. to create the illusion that I was somebody worth listening to.

So, within the past 3-4 months, I had a couple of really big scores.  Yes, a very gratuitous red board, but let me finish.  I could have had a friend do the dirty work of disclosing this, and on top of the faux board persona I\'ve created, I might look like a serious player, and yes, have something to offer.  However ... if you were to go back not too far in time, you would reach a point where those two scores were completely offset by losses, and the further you went, the worse that trend line looks.  But, hey, I had a big score and I talk like a serious player, so, absent information on my entire betting history, I must be somebody who can advance the ball of handicapping insight.  Well, I\'m here to tell you I can\'t.  I hit big on occasion, and chase bigger, often.  And unless I know at least that much about anybody else, such as the individuals I mentioned above, I have no interest in reading about one big score, or even a couple.  Again, that\'s my approach.  You\'ve gleaned some useful information that\'s worked for you, so that litmus test trumps my skepticism, but I do think it\'s a topic that deserves to have its tires kicked, and apologize for the length it took me to do so.