grab some sack..a bettors opinion

[docicu3]

Just a small point to add to the discussion would be that there are probably less than a handful of days during the year that the pure volume of handle can make a strong play like Matt is advocating a life changing score. You get mega payoff if you can hit a big race at moderate odds if you can take down a tri or even in some cases exacta.

For myself my strongest moment in the game so far was being lucky enough to key the Preakness last year as a play against the derby winner. By keying Bernadini/Saint against the field 200 dollar exacta and 75 dollar tri literally paid well into 6 figures on a) very solid horses b) betting against a favorite out of the money 3) playing a triple crown race where the handle is 8 figures

You dont have to win it all to win an incredible amount of money if your right. The winner only paid $28 but the exacta paid $171 and the Tri paid almost 4 thousand for 2. Sometimes volume works heavily in your favor.

[hockey2315]

Originally Posted by docicu3

Just a small point to add to the discussion would be that there are probably less than a handful of days during the year that the pure volume of handle can make a strong play like Matt is advocating a life changing score. You get mega payoff if you can hit a big race at moderate odds if you can take down a tri or even in some cases exacta.

For myself my strongest moment in the game so far was being lucky enough to key the Preakness last year as a play against the derby winner. By keying Bernadini/Saint against the field 200 dollar exacta and 75 dollar tri literally paid well into 6 figures on a) very solid horses b) betting against a favorite out of the money 3) playing a triple crown race where the handle is 8 figures

You dont have to win it all to win an incredible amount of money if your right. The winner only paid $28 but the exacta paid $171 and the Tri paid almost 4 thousand for 2. Sometimes volume works heavily in your favor.

So what exactly was your rationale for tossing Barbaro?

[docicu3]

Short rest asking for the surperior effort again on two weeks rest......if I am wrong it's just one of many stupid (losing) wagers you make over the course of a year but if you don't take on the giants at shorter odds (0.50 that day) you can't reach for the ring.
Will I ever know if he would have smoked that field....of course not but it doesn't matter all your looking for is an angle with a reasonable chance of (> than 5-10% of covering)

How many horses who win the derby fail to win the preakness?

It's not the horse but the situation and it will happen again this year when a superior horse will be short odds on short rest and the public will still bet it down to almost nothing.

And if they take my several hundred for a chance at a hundred thousand so be it...

[Kasept]

This is a monsterously broad topic that has unlimited answers that apply individually but only one that applies universally: Play horses you 'like'.

The difficulty with a standard application of a betting formula of any kind stems from the fact that the casual player has varying degrees of motivation, time and opportunity when it comes to his or her horseplaying. Because of that, the casual player generally is betting too many races on their race-playing days to be especially successful long term.

The discipline to only play horses that you identify as most likely winners is only the first part of the equation. From that point. you then have to decide what an acceptable price is on that horse for you to be involved as well as how you want to utilize that horse or those horses. Handicapping will lead you to horses in every single race that you believe are the most likely winners. If one 3-1 and one is 8-1, where do you go from there? Do you key both in tris? Do you box them for exactas going heavier with the lower price on top? Do you use the pair as part of the foundation for P3 or P4 plays? Do you bet both to win?

No one can answer that for you because each player has to apply their own style of play and personal price-value ratio to their investment strategy.

Hooves' style of play is exceedingly unique and not for everyone. To utilize some baseball analogy, he is very much like Adam Dunn of the Reds. He may bat .246 on the year with 170 strikeouts, but hits 47 home runs and drives in 118 runs. His 'production' makes him a success. Like Dunn, he maintains a high confidence level that allows him to go to bat each time thinking he's going yard in that at bat, and doesn't allow the days with 3 K's in 4 at bats to shake his confidence.

Does that make him better or worse than an 'Ichiro' type horseplayer who gets 215 hits for a .366 average but with few home runs and far fewer RBI? It doesn't make him better or worse... Both are successful. The Ichiro horseplayer takes lower prices and bets them conservatively and ekes out out a steady profit. The Dunn horseplayer is prone to pendulum swinging streaks of misses and scores where the longshot prices of the scores more than offsets the misses.

And as in this analogy, 'taking pitches' is the key. Dunn goes to the plate with the attitude that every any pitch near the plate is hittable and swings accordingly. Ichiro is content to take pitch after pitch waiting for a pitcher's mistake before swinging. That is the same as approaching every race as playable versus being willing to accept a 'walk' by passing a race and looking forward to your next at bat. A fat pitch coming in looking like a grapefruit is a horse you like. If you're an Adam Dunn, there's a pitch every at bat that looks fat and if you're Ichiro, there's maybe one pitch a day that looks fat.

What are you looking to do? (i.e. singling to move runners up = getting through the leg of a P4.. Tying the game in the bottom of the ninth with a solo homer, etc..). The fact is that being a horseplayer is a lot like being a baseball player. It's a long season or career..

They play 162 games a year in baseball and that may be about how many times a casual fan plays races (about once every 2 days on average over the course of the year). What you do in your last at bat (that one day) isn't important. "Getting even" on the day is not important. There is no 'bet of the day' just as there is no 'at bat of the day' for a baseball player. You swing at pitches you like and if you don't see a pitch worth swinging at for three straight games (or 12 straight races), so be it.

If you're in a groove you swing at everything and everything is a double off the wall or carries out of the park. When you're in a funk, it doesn't matter what you're doing, you miss everything or you line out viciously to the shortstop. The important thing is that you're going to take the field tomorrow and get the same chances you had today. You're looking to be put up Hall of Fame numbers OVER A LIFETIME.

Like baseball, horseplaying is a game of redeeming qualities. Identifying what you do best and having confidence in your attributes as a player is all that matters. No one should be adjusting your stance or tinkering with your swing. The only good advice is simply to maximize your pitch selection, accept bases on balls when they're offered and swing when you see something you like. Remember that Rod Carew AND Harmen Killabrew are both in the Hall of Fame, though both took entirely different routes to get there.

[golfer]

Steve, that's a great analogy, except for one point; most of us who can completely relate to what Hooves is saying (ie.. betting "light" when we should be betting heavy)can do so because we are NOT getting the results at the end of the day (week, month..) that we believe we should be. Your analogy is about different ways to get into the Hall of Fame, but, and I'll speak entirely for myself, I need a way to get to the big leagues, first. My wagering approach is not working. The definition of insanity is continually doing the same thing, but expecting different results. I need to change my swing, and I find Hooves' approach to be very interesting. This is why I think this may be the most important thread I've read on DT!

[pmacdaddy]

Do most of you guys track all your wagers?

Personally, I usually keep a "tab" for Saratoga. Other than that I just have a general sense of how I'm doing, or at least how I think I'm doing....

Obviously, really keeping score can't hurt. Do you see it as escential to a productive strategy? What level of detail?

I have been thinking about really documenting my plays starting with BEL.

[ArlJim78]

Originally Posted by pmacdaddy

Do most of you guys track all your wagers?

Personally, I usually keep a "tab" for Saratoga. Other than that I just have a general sense of how I'm doing, or at least how I think I'm doing....

Obviously, really keeping score can't hurt. Do you see it as escential to a productive strategy? What level of detail?

I have been thinking about really documenting my plays starting with BEL.

In my opinion if you aren't keeping track of how you are doing you aren't really serious about it. I use brisbet and Youbet and you can get summaries of your performance. I started putting the data in a spreadsheet each month.
I like to evaluate my performance on different wagers, tris, supers, pk3-4's, and I also found it extremely valuable to review performance at different tracks.

so yeah, in my opinion its important because it lets you know where your strengths and weaknesses are.

If you don't play often the data might not be very good as one or two big hits will skew things. But if you take the long view and look say at a whole year you should see trends.

[docicu3]

Originally Posted by Kasept

This is a monsterously broad topic that has unlimited answers that apply individually but only one that applies universally: Play horses you 'like'.

The difficulty with a standard application of a betting formula of any kind stems from the fact that the casual player has varying degrees of motivation, time and opportunity when it comes to his or her horseplaying. Because of that, the casual player generally is betting too many races on their race-playing days to be especially successful long term.

The discipline to only play horses that you identify as most likely winners is only the first part of the equation. From that point. you then have to decide what an acceptable price is on that horse for you to be involved as well as how you want to utilize that horse or those horses. Handicapping will lead you to horses in every single race that you believe are the most likely winners. If one 3-1 and one is 8-1, where do you go from there? Do you key both in tris? Do you box them for exactas going heavier with the lower price on top? Do you use the pair as part of the foundation for P3 or P4 plays? Do you bet both to win?

No one can answer that for you because each player has to apply their own style of play and personal price-value ratio to their investment strategy.

Hooves' style of play is exceedingly unique and not for everyone. To utilize some baseball analogy, he is very much like Adam Dunn of the Reds. He may bat .246 on the year with 170 strikeouts, but hits 47 home runs and drives in 118 runs. His 'production' makes him a success. Like Dunn, he maintains a high confidence level that allows him to go to bat each time thinking he's going yard in that at bat, and doesn't allow the days with 3 K's in 4 at bats to shake his confidence.

Does that make him better or worse than an 'Ichiro' type horseplayer who gets 215 hits for a .366 average but with few home runs and far fewer RBI? It doesn't make him better or worse... Both are successful. The Ichiro horseplayer takes lower prices and bets them conservatively and ekes out out a steady profit. The Dunn horseplayer is prone to pendulum swinging streaks of misses and scores where the longshot prices of the scores more than offsets the misses.

And as in this analogy, 'taking pitches' is the key. Dunn goes to the plate with the attitude that every any pitch near the plate is hittable and swings accordingly. Ichiro is content to take pitch after pitch waiting for a pitcher's mistake before swinging. That is the same as approaching every race as playable versus being willing to accept a 'walk' by passing a race and looking forward to your next at bat. A fat pitch coming in looking like a grapefruit is a horse you like. If you're an Adam Dunn, there's a pitch every at bat that looks fat and if you're Ichiro, there's maybe one pitch a day that looks fat.

What are you looking to do? (i.e. singling to move runners up = getting through the leg of a P4.. Tying the game in the bottom of the ninth with a solo homer, etc..). The fact is that being a horseplayer is a lot like being a baseball player. It's a long season or career..

They play 162 games a year in baseball and that may be about how many times a casual fan plays races (about once every 2 days on average over the course of the year). What you do in your last at bat (that one day) isn't important. "Getting even" on the day is not important. There is no 'bet of the day' just as there is no 'at bat of the day' for a baseball player. You swing at pitches you like and if you don't see a pitch worth swinging at for three straight games (or 12 straight races), so be it.

If you're in a groove you swing at everything and everything is a double off the wall or carries out of the park. When you're in a funk, it doesn't matter what you're doing, you miss everything or you line out viciously to the shortstop. The important thing is that you're going to take the field tomorrow and get the same chances you had today. You're looking to be put up Hall of Fame numbers OVER A LIFETIME.

Like baseball, horseplaying is a game of redeeming qualities. Identifying what you do best and having confidence in your attributes as a player is all that matters. No one should be adjusting your stance or tinkering with your swing. The only good advice is simply to maximize your pitch selection, accept bases on balls when they're offered and swing when you see something you like. Remember that Rod Carew AND Harmen Killabrew are both in the Hall of Fame, though both took entirely different routes to get there.

I have only read a year of your stuff but excluding columns this has to be the longest post on a subject I have ever seen you leave. Either great coffee for the first two hours of a day or a real chord was struck with you on this one Steve.

I have seen you write time and time again that you don't beat this game over the long run with the 9/2 win shots. That the only way to beat this game LONG TERM is the exotics (exacta,tri's and super's) and taking advantage of the payoffs with lesser take out such as the P3 or P4 sequences. As much as I certainly agree that you should play horses you like I would also make a play for playing the types of races you like.

I happen to think that I am better off playing turf races and maiden races because the payoffs seem better and exotics are my thing. Some angles (turf breeding for one) require faith without form you can see if your betting maiden special wgt or turf routes that your keying pedegree based on stats and trainer styles of handling horses that tell you the trainer thinks he has something though the horse may never have run a turf or a route before.(Contessa the day he said "If you see me drill a day or two before a maiden race say 3F's and I let the horse blow it out I mean business") It seems that occasionally it is an angle in a race you like or look for that you key.

Haven't you over the life of your handicapping found that certain races, trainers and favorite tracks bring out the best in you Steve. It seems you murder New York tracks with the predictabilty of tax day. My guess is that has to be a comfort zone for you.

[AeWingnut]

Originally Posted by docicu3

I have only read a year of your stuff but excluding columns this has to be the longest post on a subject I have ever seen you leave. Either great coffee for the first two hours of a day or a real chord was struck with you on this one Steve.

I have seen you write time and time again that you don't beat this game over the long run with the 9/2 win shots. That the only way to beat this game LONG TERM is the exotics (exacta,tri's and super's) and taking advantage of the payoffs with lesser take out such as the P3 or P4 sequences. As much as I certainly agree that you should play horses you like I would also make a play for playing the types of races you like.

I happen to think that I am better off playing turf races and maiden races because the payoffs seem better and exotics are my thing. Some angles (turf breeding for one) require faith without form you can see if your betting maiden special wgt or turf routes that your keying pedegree based on stats and trainer styles of handling horses that tell you the trainer thinks he has something though the horse may never have run a turf or a route before.(Contessa the day he said "If you see me drill a day or two before a maiden race say 3F's and I let the horse blow it out I mean business") It seems that occasionally it is an angle in a race you like or look for that you key.

Haven't you over the life of your handicapping found that certain races, trainers and favorite tracks bring out the best in you Steve. It seems you murder New York tracks with the predictabilty of tax day. My guess is that has to be a comfort zone for you.

I hear you. Turf and Maidens are gold if you can hit 'em. The first thing I look at is the breeding. Breeding gives you an idea of potential. It's pretty exciting with new sires. Every year there is someone new throwing winners at a big price. Polytrack provides another puzzle.