Congrats jms62! ~~ And a Fornatale blog profile!

[jnunan4759]

Good jo, Jim. Keep firing on all cylinders.

[NTamm1215]

Great work, Jim!

[hoovesupsideyourhead]

great work jim !!

[Kasept]

Jim featured in Pete Fornatale's weekend wrap column: http://www.drf.com/blogs/fornatale-q...enus-valentine

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by Kasept

Jim featured in Pete Fornatale's weekend wrap column: http://www.drf.com/blogs/fornatale-q...enus-valentine

Impressive, indeed, Jim! I didn't realize that it's the 3rd year in a row.

There's also a nice shout out to Steve Byk and At The Races in that DRF article.

[herkhorse]

Nice work jms

[Kasept]

And MORE jms from Fornatale!

Computer geek Sebes mines data for winners

http://www.drf.com/blogs/fornatale-c...s-data-winners

Competition runs deep in Jim Sebes’s family. He has two younger cousins who competed at the national level in sports. Nick Sebes played football at Stanford University, where he still holds some sprinting records, and Doug Sebes is a competitive natural bodybuilder who has won some major events. These days, Jim Sebes is doing his competing on the National Handicapping Championship Tour, where he is in 16th place.

Sebes, who won last weekend’s NHCQualify.com contest, started going to the races when he was a kid. Like so many horseplayers, an early taste of success fueled his fandom.

“I had a friend who used to go to Liberty Bell with his uncle,” Sebes said. “I followed the races in the paper and gave him two bucks to bet on a horse named Vinegar, who won. You know the rest of that story.”

Sebes later became a computer consultant who manages clinical trials. He developed a fun weekly tradition when he was working at the World Trade Center in New York City in the late 1980s.

“I would collect five bucks from several of my colleagues every Thursday and would make a run to OTB at lunchtime to place a bet,” he said. “If we won, then we took a long lunch on Friday with the winnings at Luna in Little Italy. If it was a big score, then we’d follow it up at Jeremy’s under the Brooklyn Bridge after work.”

His racing activities weren’t limited to the city. By the 1990s, he was heading to the Jersey Shore for weekends.

“Monmouth Park was our stop on any cold, cloudy, or rainy Saturday,” he said.

Even then, he didn’t get serious about handicapping until Smarty Jones’s nearly historic run in 2004. One key to his success was reading the work of pace expert and early computer handicapper Tom Brohammer. “I read [‘Modern Pace Handicapping’], which laid things out in a language I understand well,” he said.

“I use several different software tools and keep a statistical model of different attributes and look for trends on price horses,” he added, “but when there are none, I will also fall back on classic strategies such as looking for a change that may move a price horse forward along with jockeys that may move a horse up based upon the horse’s style of running and the expected pace of the race.”

Contests entered the picture three years ago, and he’s qualified for the NHC in each of the three years he’s been a tour member. His biggest success in a tournament was his 11th-place finish at the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge. He’s also not averse to backing up his contest opinions with his wallet. He cashed for more than $10,000 in Fair Grounds’s pick three that was also part of the NHCQualify.com sequence.

He believes his multipronged handicapping approach is essential for him to be the best contest player he can be.

“In contest play, you must be flexible looking for price horses,” he said. “If you employ a single strategy, everything needs to break your way during a contest to be competitive.”

He’s also constantly boning up on strategy. “I reread parts of ‘The Winning Contest Player’ on my way to different events,” he said.

When Sebes played in the 2015 NHC, he thought back to his competitive cousins. “Following them was inspiring and really got my competitive juices flowing again,” he said. “Contest play on this level is an amazing outlet.”

[knickslions2]

Good stuff there

[senator L]

Very impressive - congratulations

Overall NHCQ winner Jim Sebes, who uses a statistical model to assist in his handicapping, thought there were several positive angles. "I thought she'd come running late and my model showed that type of style would fit this scenario," said Sebes,

Any chance you can expand on this? (the stats part)

[jms62]

Originally Posted by senator L

Very impressive - congratulations

Overall NHCQ winner Jim Sebes, who uses a statistical model to assist in his handicapping, thought there were several positive angles. "I thought she'd come running late and my model showed that type of style would fit this scenario," said Sebes,

Any chance you can expand on this? (the stats part)

Thanks for the Kudos. I keep a database of a number of different factors gathered from several software packages I use. I look for trends at the track distance surface I am playing along with Long shot factors. Sometimes I get them and sometimes I am fighting yesterdays war.. Unfortunately since I am playing competitively I can't give any further details which would allow someone to reverse engineer. Read Brohammers book for a basis.. Having said that you absolutely need to be flexible and can't follow a black box approach. Often times my analysis puts me on a low priced horse in the middle of a tournament when I am in the need for price. At that point you need to look at other reasons why a horse can jump up. I know you are looking for details but unfortunately this is the best I can do. I will give the details when Belicheck hands over his game plan to Rex Ryan

[GenuineRisk]

What I love is that your response to all our praise was, "Thanks, but I'm still mad at myself for not doing an AP-All exacta in the BCC." Spoken like a true handicapper. You're a class act, Jim.

[casp0555]

Originally Posted by jms62

Thanks for the Kudos. I keep a database of a number of different factors gathered from several software packages I use. I look for trends at the track distance surface I am playing along with Long shot factors. Sometimes I get them and sometimes I am fighting yesterdays war.. Unfortunately since I am playing competitively I can't give any further details which would allow someone to reverse engineer. Read Brohammers book for a basis.. Having said that you absolutely need to be flexible and can't follow a black box approach. Often times my analysis puts me on a low priced horse in the middle of a tournament when I am in the need for price. At that point you need to look at other reasons why a horse can jump up. I know you are looking for details but unfortunately this is the best I can do. I will give the details when Belicheck hands over his game plan to Rex Ryan

He will not give it up....even after a bourbon or five