lol..how mysterious and knowing of you JohnD..secrets secrets

no selections though..scared

Hi Johnd,

Re 'A word to the wise' - Thanks.

BlackCat

There's an interesting point been brought up by Old-Timer on a thread of Fulham's "over there". As Old-Timer points out VDW theory expects to define a likely winner, class/form horse or whatever, the theory then decides which of these should be backed. Apparently the literature itself suggests only backing 20% of these c/f horses and suggests an expected strike rate of around 80%, ie 16% of the entire bunch should be backed and expected to win. Bear in mind that the likes of Barney think it's quite rational behaviour to spend two hours or so deciding, or not always managing to decide, the class/form horse. One then has to find the 20% of these to back. Does nobody else think this is the most ridiculous basis for selection imaginable? We know that favourites win about 33% of races, that's twice the strike rate we can expect from class/form horses, and rather than spending hours figuring out the class/form horse we can just look at the forecast and read the name of the favourite. Further, we only have to reduce our sample of favourites to 40% in order to do as well as VDW. Somebody tell me how the VDW process can possibly be justified, it purports to put the odds in the bettor's favour but in fact it increases the difficult extraordinarilly, from trying to narrow the range to 40% to narrowing it to 20%.

Yes, Epi, the percentage game is very interesting anf probably very useful. i just wish I knew the best way to play it!

Your point about favourites seems valid. I've always been an anti-favourite punter, which may not have been very sensible.

Anyway, just to get a few horses' names up before 11.30pm, here are a couple of paper favs that I'd consider for betting tomorrow;

135 N, First approval
415, G, Paradise mill

All i've done is look at the RP online for a few minutes. Nothing elaborate; can't even tell you what they did lto, or who is riding, or anything. Nor are they on any list or system.
Just two animals that I believe should go close, judging by a few things i saw on the RP site.

It will be interesting to see how they go.

Epi

a few posts ago I did suggest that from what I can see from those that have poste, sort of VDW selections,..you get the same thing by backing maiden favourites blind..plenty of winners and no value..with a lot less work.

why go to a lot of trouble just to identify a bad value overbet favourite or 2nd fav that most punters in the bookies have backed because it's got lots of 1's next to it's name.

If people think it's worthwhile..I've no problem..it's when they tell people it's some sort of intricate religion only a few can understand and patronise anyone that sees it for what it is.

It's just a method..and an ill defined, over generalised one at that...no different from anything else really..except it's got a following of people that want to convince others it's some kind of special route to riches...either that or they like selling booklets

Epi
Barney and Fulham have both created their own mountains out of molehills.
The following quote from Lee would be a far more reliable guide to the process:

It takes me less than half an hour, each day, to verify if there is a winner in each race I look at. If there is then I do take the race apart, but 9 times out of ten that winner in the race is a bet. It appears to me that when a horse is boiling in the sense that VDW meant the trainer rarely gets the placement wrong i.e. distance, course, going, and opposition etc.

VDW uses ratings support. Forgetting about class/form etc, I've listed today's favourites that are also top rated by both PM and TS (no doubt this method has been used hundreds of times before but I've never been paying attention), let's see how they get on.
G 4:15 Paradise Mill
N 1:35 First Approval
N 3:20 Best Lady
S 3:30 Possextown
S 5:15 Mr Mischief

quote:

It takes me less than half an hour, each day, to verify if there is a winner in each race I look at

whereas, you John, are unable to find a selection in 5.5 hours

Hi Epi

Intersting results:

Paradise Mill - 1st 2/1F
First Approval - unpl. and not live fav
Best Lady - 3rd and not live fav
Possextown - 2nd 8/13F
Mr Mischief - 1st 6/5F

I didn't back anything and only looked very quickly at the cards, but would make the following observations:

In addition to not being the live favourites, FA and BL are 2 y.o.'s making only their 3rd run.

Of the other 3, did form suggest they were potentials? (class LTO, lengths btn by, etc). For some shameless VDW-style after-timing, I'd say perhaps it did!

Any other observations?

BlackCat

the method posted by EPI will make less loss over a period of time than ANY pre race VDW selections.

try it..if you can find someone that will post VDW selections

Yes, Paradise Mill wins well in a good race.

The other one? Complete flop. put it down to the "Hills factor".

Don't think VDW ever backed in Filleys races -

Let alone "Filleys Maiden Stakes" -

Tell me that I am wrong .



tc

I am learning slowly - as I have only been in the game for about 4 years -

but - I think that I have now learnt - that the most important thing in Betting - is to decide on the races that - are not worth betting on !!

tc

I've made one small change to the definition of a hyperparapseudovanderwheilist class/form horse. Out of a sense of nostalgia in these final days of the present forum I've chosen to call this a hidden factor and will steadfastly refuse to offer further elucidations other than the most cryptic. I'll post the selections on the sod 'em thread for ease of tracking and to see if they can offer a serious challenge to the combined expertise of our VDW initiates.

tc
van der wheil often backed fillies,the Lancashire Oaks at Haydock was a favourite race of his,hope this helps.

Thanx PD -

I had absorbed another post which suggested otherwise, and accepted it without checking .

I am a -

Pearl of wisdom from Investor, "but at the end of the day we are looking for FORM horses the way that vdw saw them and Art eyes wasn't in that category." Yes, but Investor, Art Eyes won the race, how many times a week does this have to happen before you consider the possibility that "looking for FORM horses the way that vdw saw them" might not be the brightest idea?

Art Eyes top-rated on flatstats. Their top-rated usually win eventually.

VDW and investorpro weren't to know that, of course, but, as i suggested on the "tipping" thread this morning, this wasn't a day for the form students.
That Flashy Wings and Nidhaal didn't shine.
My own selection was absolute shite and, even when I backed a 6 length, odds on winner, Sasso,
I find those bastrds at betfair have taken more in tax than I made in profit!
A fk up on my part, I know. Backing odds-on isn't clever, and I know R4 would have applied on course to proper betting.
Still a bit of a bummer, imo.
Not to worry, tomorrow's another day.

Elsworth is a shrewd cookie at Newmarket with 3yo now 9/36 and in profit of 35.80

Check out Art Eyes - plus a lot of todays other winners on -

http://www.racing-edge.co.uk/todays%20ratings.htm