Is "Without spelling it out" a euphemism for "I haven`t got a f***ing clue"?

This thread was started by Swish with the aim of investigating the ideas of VDW and deciding if those ideas have any practical value in selecting horses that will win their races. Unfortunately it fairly quickly became a platform for certain peculiar individuals who, for whatever reasons, decided to present themselves as having a great deal of knowledge about VDW but whilst wishing to help others to arrive at an understanding of VDW felt that the dangers of a direct explanation were too great to be risked. The prime representative of this tendency was of course Guest, who rose to the position by nothing more profound than self promoting hints and long-winded boring posts about historical races. In a way that was okay, one could glance at one of his posts and if there were more than six lines just skip past it, however most of the contributors to the thread seemed to take Guest at his word and accordingly the thread never really developed any new ideas, very little was proposed if it went against the word of Guest. Recently Johnd (amongst others) made a direct challenge to Guest to justify his position, this Guest attempted and completely failed to do. However, and most extraordinarily, instead of concluding that after all Guest did not have any secret knowledge so let's try to understand things without the mystification, Guest's retirement to well earned obscurity is bewailed as a tragic loss to the board. The frequent posters have become so used to the style of secrecy and bizarre hints that Guest introduced as the proper means of discussing VDW that things are really no better now that he's gone. So, I am going to open a new thread on this forum for open discussion of VDW related ideas as applicable to contemporary racing. I suggest those who are interested in historical races and the literal interpretation stick to this thread and those interested in playing with the ideas in a workshop style atmosphere use the new thread.

While I echo many of the sentiments you express, I am not sure that moving to a new thread is the real answer. There are many contributors to this thread who have useful thoughts to convey, but they are invariably shouted down by the 'Inner circle', who then go on to regurgitate the same old thinking, not actually saying anything positive or helpful, just continuing to congratulate themselves on how smart they are, without ever exposing themselves to only real test of their approach, i.e. putting selections up before the races. I have the greatest of respect for Guest, for the hours he has put into VDW, for his willingness to put up his selections before the race, and for his reasoning behind those selections. That those selections did not come up to scratch, should have seen his approach queried, analysed, and advanced, or changed, and their is little doubt that would have been the case, possibly even with Guests participation, were it not for the 'Dog in a manger' attitude of some of his acolytes.

FULHAM
Thanks for posting the "Ad Hoc" piece. It does show that there is a way forward without blind adherence to ability ratings. For those that are interested, the same principles also showed Milligan as a good thing on the following Saturday, although the reasons are slightly diffferent.
I appreciate that much of your understanding of VDW comes directly from Guest, and your loyalty is entirely understandable. Your point-blank refusal to accept any other approach, does not do you, or other members of this board, any favours, and is, in good part, responsible for any lack of progress.
You have your views, and you may wish to stick to them, that is fine, what is not so good is this attitude being the catalyst for the dismemberment of this thread.
As you, and others, have said on many occasions, looking back at previous races has limited value, because of the subjective nature of this approach,and the ease of making the theory fit when the result is known.
You refuse to discuss any races ' Before the off' on this thread, to which you apparently owe much of your knowledge, yet you often admit to posting them on a private thread. That is neither in the spirit of this thread, nor, ultimately, VDW himself.

Fine. The new thread isn't meant to exclude any of the posters from this one, of course anybody who is interested and willing to discuss matters openly is encouraged to take part. Hopefully the two threads can coexist and aid each other in their somewhat different aims.

Johnd

There are several good reasons for not posting selections before the races in question, and I made my position on that clear from (almost) day one in response to the then persistent but now long gone Pasuzu (or some similarly spelt username) and, whatever other criticisms might be made of me, have been consistent ever since. There are other ways of helping those trying - like me - more fully to understand VDW's work, and I think if you were to reflect on my contributions to this thread over what in now quite a long period you might feel that I had pulled my weight.

I readily admit that my interest is a narrow one - to discover as fully as possible how VDW operated. That is palpably not your interest, as evidenced by your response to Crock, who precisely identified the principal research check available to us all. While not denigrating other approaches or doubting that they can be profitable, (I have seen enough of Mtoto's selections posted here and elsewhere before the off to know that they can), I happen not to be interested in them - any more than I am in systems. From your perspective, that clearly seems dogmatic and narrow-minded: from mine it seems well-focused and business-like.

As I've said before, good luck to you in your quest to find a profitable way of betting. Thanks to VDW, I've had one for the past six years, and thanks to Guest and one or two other contributors it became even more profitable during the past year. And in those six years I have never had to give up betting to re-appraise my position or whatever it was you have been doing over the last couple of months.

As you are so confident that I know so little, and you know so much, perhaps you would respond to my previous challenge to post your selections, before the race, against mine, on this board, and let other members judge for themselves whether they are truly VDW selections, or not.

Johnd

I don't think I've ever said you know little - only that your approach, insofar as you've described it, won't resolve the VDW examples.

Consistent, for me, means consistent.

Fulham,

I have to ask why do you think I should operate from another thread? You say your only purpose is to understand VDW, by this do you mean VDW as seen by Guest? As far as I can see the only way we differ is I can't except the inconsistencies Guest has shown in his operating of VDW and some of his selections. I have asked without reply why the early examples are examined using the c/form method. Why is all the work put in by VDW (win % for consistent horses) ignored? Why are his thoughts about the going, course, and track ignored? Why is his formula starting with consistent form, ignored? The c/form method has very little to do with consistent form.

These are all questions I have asked in the past. I will ask another, were do I fail in the use of VDW? I use the filters as suggested by VDW, although I use another ability rating. I would suggest the bulk of my selections are readily recognisable as VDW type selections, unlike some of Guest's. I also had Ad Hoc for the Whitbread based on the Roushayd method. The only difference is the way I work I don't have to find reasons why horses are out of form (even when the facts say they aren't) i.e Rosette the c/form horse against Soaf. I think this c/form method is very useful, a horse MUST be out of form if VDW selected another horse in the race. Or to be able to say he went against the c/form horse in this case. The question must then be why.

I think you are intelligent enough to make a profit using the ideas put forward by Guest, but I do worry about other poor souls that try to make it work. Guest has gone from a 100% strike rate (working the examples) to something around 50% putting the theory into practice.

I wish you well

Mtoto

I'm not for a moment suggesting that you should operate only on another thread. Your comments, observations, questions etc on aspects of VDW, and especially his examples, are to me some of the most interesting on this thread deriving, as they do, from you having looked in detail at those examples.

My suggestion of Swish-approach and Mtoto-approach threads was addressing a different matter. Both Swish and you have developed your own approaches, in your case certainly taking something from VDW's writings, I'm not clear to what extent this is true of Swish. You've both posted successful selections prior to the races in question and, not surprisingly, some are interested in your methods.

In other words I'm distinguishing Mtoto the perceptive critic of what might be termed "standard VDW", and Mtoto the developer of his own, idiosyncratic and seemingly successful approach.

You and I both belong to other forums which adopt different forms of organisation. The Methodology and Analysis Groups have essentially one thread, where all topics are discussed and the organisation is simply chronological. Another forum seeks to separate out various topics, eg historical examples, current races, etc. Neither broad approach is unproblematic. My (slight) preference is for the later, and it was from that perspective that I suggested that this thread might focus on VDW's method(s), while other themes - your and Swish's methods, for example - might usefully be on different threads.

I'll respond to your other points later, as I have a commitment to honour now.

Mtoto

To revert to your 6.02pm post, the position as I see it is thus.

We have a body of letters and articles, including well over one hundred example races where selections are named, by someone (whose name may or may not have been Van Der Wheil) who claims that the successful implementation of his approach produces strike rates well beyond what I suspect any of us has been able to achieve long term by our own devices.

If we take the view that the material could be genuine - and I think we both do - it would clearly be well worth understanding that approach (or, as it may very well be, those approaches). The question then becomes how best to try to tease it/them out.

In those writings, VDW emphasises that many factors need to be taken into account, including those to which you refer, but he explicitly says that class and form as he conceptualises them are at the heart of his approach/approaches. He also explicitly says that what he refers to as the "class/form horse" is the "one most likely to win", and names 21 class/form horses (one, Bonny Gold, incorrectly so named, almost certainly due to an error in the form section of the Sporting Life).

A possible and in my view sensible point of departure is thus first to try to understand, in operational terms, VDW's conceptualisations of class and form, and what he means by the class/form horse. Once that is properly understood, we have what VDW himself regarded as the core of his approach/approaches.

Through Guest's posts, some of us clearly think we can now have a pretty good shot at sorting out c/fs his way, and the way I do it resolves, to my satisfaction, all 21 explicit examples of c/fs and leads me to the conclusion that Guest has discovered VDW's way. Your way of isolating the c/f doesn't resolve all 21, and that is why (profitable as it may be in finding the winners of current races) to my mind it is clearly not VDW's way.

But not only does the Guest (and I think VDW) way of isolating the c/f provide the solutions to the 21 explicit c/f examples, it also provides the solution to a host of VDW's other examples, including some (Love from Verona, for instance) where yours doesn't. We can't, of course, test Johnd's approach as, perfectly reasonably, he has not set it out for us either in the clear way you have, or the less direct way Guest has set out his.

Of course being able to isolate the c/f in the VDW way doesn't solve the whole problem. VDW made it crystal clear that some c/fs were worth backing and others should be left, or opposed. Thus we also have the task of sorting out PRECISELY why, for example, Little Owl, Sunset Cristo, Stray Shot and Zamandra were bets, while Kenlis, Gaye Chance, Castle Warden, Kevinsfort, River Rhein and Bonny Gold were not. And that is where the other factors to which you refer come in.

And consistency is certainly one of those elements: the four bets I mentioned above were all consistent horses.

Finally, there is the question of implementing what one has learnt in current races. VDW made it clear beyond doubt that one could not expect a 100% strike rate, but said 80%-90% is possible. Guest has said that he is some way off achieving that level, and I haven't noticed anyone else claiming to have got there yet, either. And that is not surprising. The time factor is very relevant. Some analyses are very complex, and with current races we necessarily have very limited time. Mistakes are likely to creep in, and I'm sure we've all made them. The conclusion here, I suspect, is not to be too ambitious in the number of races analysed per day. Better to do two or three thoroughly than ten making mistakes on the way.

Do we also have to adopt VDW`s outmoded 1930`s style of speech when we post ??

or does that add credibility to the post ?
TC

Fulham,

Thanks for your reply, I don't want to keep on but you seem to be the only person that is prepared to answer questions.

If you didn't know the result of the Erin, and hadn't seen Guest's solution to the race would you have come to the same result i.e Beacon Light was out of form? I know this is hard to answer as you do know the result, and there has to be a reason why VDW eliminated him. It is the fact the results are know that causes the problems. I except the c/form horse isn't an automatic selection, but how many times would you have by passed the horse? Without knowing the result. You say it works for most of the examples but would you have made the same decisions.

You say my way doesn't find Love From Verona, but on the face of it neither does the c/form method. If I except none of the contenders don't have a reliable ability rating (my way), I also can have LFV as the selection. I don't mind the fact that Guest, or someone else, because they know the results have found a way of MAKING them fit. The big doubt it puts in my mind is how valid are the reasons given for ignoring the original c/form horses. Why is Rosette not the selection against Soaf, it is to easy just to say he was out of form, or the form not good enough? Or did VDW use collateral form, but if he did, doesn't that bring Guest's judgement/knowledge of VDW into question?

I fully understand the time it takes to post up selections, I understand why Guest has stopped doing it. Why can't he find time to answer these valid questions, after all he did raise them. After all I am only doing what VDW suggested, not taking his word for it.

Be Lucky

I have said thats out of form for that race,

whether you believe it or not is irrespective, the thing is, it is not easy to say that a horse bringing winning form to a race is out of form. In fact just the opposit, especially when used day to day, it goes against the grain.

do you EVER try to fit all these clues and pointers into place?

I am begining to think that if someone had a hammer they could not knock it into you.

Barney,

Sorry I forgot, if you say something it must be right!! Explain why he is out of form in plain English.

Yes, I can also make the examples fit AFTER THE RESULT, any fool can. It is doing it before the result that is the trick. Can you?

I have to say it looks as if the praise from Mr e d has gone to your head. It would take more than a hammer to make me except anything that doesn't make complete sense. Unlike some!

It's more than lucky you need

you work it out. you have been given more clues than anybody i have ever seen

questions
questions
questions

that all you ever give

you dont believe/ are not capable of proving it


GIVE UP

Mtoto

re the 1978 Erin, it is highly probable that, prior to understanding (I think!) how VDW assessed which horses were form horses and which were not, I'd have concluded that the most probable winner was Beacon Light. However, once one understands (I think!) VDW's way of assessing which horses are form horses, it is clear that BL is not a form horse. The key point is whether, having understood (henceforth regard the phrase "I think" as qualifying such statements) VDW's approach in this regard, one accepts it. I do, because I've found it works.

As regards Love from Verona, VDW did not specify that he was the c/f in the race, and this raises a methodological question where I am unsure of the answer, one that arises elsewhere, eg with Move Off and Battlement. In the Love from Verona race there is at least one horse - Persian Crown - with a higher ability rating which VDW might plausibly have regarded as a form horse. (Just as in the race for which Battlement was the selection, VDW may have regarded Move Off as a form horse and thus the class/form horse.)

The issue of methodology that at present is, for me, unresolved is whether VDW regarded Persian Crown and/or Move Off as form horses and thus the c/fs, but preferred Love from Verona and Battlement for reasons that are clear when one analyses the races, or whether he regarded them as not form horses in the context of the races concerned. (To put it in more recent, Guest-example, terms, are we looking at a situation like the Champion Chase, where Guest made Edredon Bleu the c/f and Flagship Uberalles the 2nd c/f, but FU the bet, or are we looking at the kind of situation where he regarded Feet So Fast as the c/f despite the higher ability rating of Artie, who had won lto a much higher class race than FSF, or the race they contested?)

Finally, there is the question of Soaf/Rosette. Again, this is an example where VDW did not explicitly name Soaf as the c/f, though I think he was. It is possible that VDW regarded Rosette as a form horse, and therefore Soaf and Rosette as joint c/fs, but I doubt that he did, for the reason given in my post of 10.27pm 30/12/02.

As will be clear, there are issues about which I remain unsure, and as VDW himself said, "to isolate the "class/form" horse can often prove a tricky problem". But that said, much of the time, ie with the two class C races today, sorting out the form horses is not too much of a problem.

Finally, only Guest knows why he has stopped posting, and whether he will post again. But consider. Who on this thread has ever been able to offer him any help? Probably no one, not because others were unwilling. Rather, because although his understanding of VDW is no doubt less than perfect, it is (in my view) miles ahead of anyone else's, ie we are literally incapable of helping him. The "price" he paid for the trouble to which he went was periodic abuse from the moronic tendency, and (once he started pre-"off" posting) the giving up of analysis time, which I suspect effected his performance.

I think you should appreciate that Guest was very close minded when it came to considering the results of other people's investigations of VDW, notably Mtoto's.

Epiglotis

My guess is that Guest would be interested in anything that:

a) improved his understanding of VDW's approach;

b) offered an alternative, rational approach with the potentiality of achieving better than the 80%+ strike rate that is said to be possible with the experienced application of VDW's approach.

With no disrespect to Mtoto, neither he nor anyone else (most certainly including me) has offered either (a) or (b).

James Willoughby - Raceform Update.
Article sent to Portal site.

Delboy