Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Dunbar
Says who? Racing is about many things. If you are talking about handicapping successfully, then it most certainly is NOT about taking the kind of position that says a horse has no chance or says a horse is a lock. Those are the kind of "stands" that complete amateurs would take. Every horse has a chance. The successful capper is one who can tell that the odds he or she is getting on a bet is better than "fair" odds.
I'm sure Rupert will have a "position" when it counts, which is on race day. A reasonable position at that point is NOT "I'm going to bet Lava Man." A reasonable position would be "I'll bet Lava Man if it looks like I'm going to get 6-1", or some other number that Rupert thinks is higher than "fair" odds.
Is this your idea of "taking a position"? What does "I will be stunned" mean exactly? Would you give me 50-1 on LM hitting the board? Do you think Lava Man has less than a 10% chance of hitting the board? Without even capping the race carefully, I'll take all the action at 9-1 that you want to give. That's a good bet for you if you think Lava Man has less than a 10% chance to hit the board. But I'm pretty sure that that bet is not appealing to you. So what is "stunned" exactly?
Let me shift gears a minute. What if I say that Invasor is a great bet at 7-1 in the JCGC? Well, if he wins, am I a genius? If he loses, am I a dope?
If I like Invasor at 7-1 and he loses, so what? If I win 20% of my 7-1 bets, I would be the envy of every sports bettor and handicapper in the world. But winning 20% of the time means losing 80% of the time. (I know you knew that, ;>), but I'm stressing the downside!) So Invasor losing doesn't say much about my capping, does it?
In a similar vein, Invasor winning wouldn't make me a genius either. Maybe Invasor winning is the only 7-1 shot I'll pick in my next 20 bets in that odds range.
Over the course of time if accurate records were being kept, which they certainly aren't here, statements like "I like Invasor at 7-1" would add up and either show the person knows how to cap or doesn't know squat. But tossing out an opinion, or worse, a "stand", here and there doesn't prove anything.
And insisting that someone "take a stand" rather than voice a hedged opinion is ludicrous.
--Dunbar
|
Yes, I agree with pretty much everything you said. When it comes to taking a stand in general whether you're talking about a stock, a sports team, or a horse, I have always found that the really successful people are more conservative with their prdictions than the people who are not successful. It's fuuny how the biggest losing players are the ones who will "guarantee" you that a certain team is going to win or they are "positive" that a stock will go up. The guys who are the most successful will rarely make bold predictions, they will tell you their opinion but they will usually throw in a disclaimer as to why they might be wrong. I've got a frined who is a really successful money manager who is woth over $100 million. he doesn't give me stock picks too often but when he does his record has been incredible. He gave me one stock at $14 and it went to $70 within a year. He gave me another one at $16 that went to $80 in less than a year. As good as this guy is, he never acts like any of these stocks are "sure things".
There is another guy who was a childhood friend of mine that I hadn't spoken to in a long time. I heard he was a stock broker so I gave him a call to see what his thoughts were. He was a relatively bright guy as a kid but I had no idea whether he was a good stock broker or not. It took me about 3 minutes on the phone with him to figure out that he was not a very good broker. He told me that some $50 stock would go to $100 within 6 months. I said, "Wow, you think so?" He said, "I know so!" Right when he said that, I thought to myself "This guy is a schmuck." Who would say, "I know so!" He actually said "I know so!" about each predition that he gave me. By the way, it was no surprise to me when I heard that he was broke a couple of years later.