HI ROBERT 99 You mention above Robert Dowst. Would this be the same Robert S Dowst who wrote Win Place And Show. If so any idea where this book can be bought.
Thank you Paul
Hi Paul
You can read the Robert Dowst Book on-line at the following.
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #33 on Jan 25, 2009, 10:55pm »
"r99,
I think you will find that your loyalty is not only to a misconception but also to a vanity that will not admit a mistake."
It is not a question of loyalty. It is a question of fairness, of evidence and hearing the evidence and any counterclaim from both parties. I have not made any mistake to admit to - I read the original newspaper articles in the same vein as I have done for the many articles by other writers that have appeared on into Raceform Update. If they have anything interesting to say I test that out and if proven to have any value use it - if not, I move on. I don't spend 30 years in bitterness seeking some sort of vengeance or apology. VDW has provided something to debate and test - how many others apart from perhaps Nick Mordin in WeekEnder have written anything to stir equivalent interest? I got something from his writings part of which I use to this day and so have many others it seems to make the topic so long lasting.
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #34 on Jan 26, 2009, 2:07am »
I don't spend 30 years in bitterness seeking some sort of vengeance or apology.
Robert99,
Why do you think bitterness, vengeance and/or apology has anything to do with it? I can't speak for anyone else but I would have used the word EXPLANATION. I think that was the only reason Fulham started trying to find VDW. As far as I can see he went about in a very polite, civilised manner.
If you have read and tried to test the ideas presented by VDW you must surely have found some apparent anomalies. Ideas that could have more than one solution, passages, and words that could be taken several ways. How did you solve them or did you just ignore them?
Mr Peach should have known about them as he was a member of at least one VDW forum. He made no effort to clear any of these problem up, even if he could. I'm told he was asked a few straight questions on that forum. He didn't bother to answer my e-mails when it was discovered VDW was still alive What else is left to do if one is trying to understand how VDW worked, approach the author of the ideas.
Where the chap that started this thread got the idea Fulham was saying the Ideas were a scam I don't know. He along with most others who know the identity of VDW STILL think the ideas are sound. There has to be question marks about the way they were presented though. Problem is we can never be sure who's using the methods as VDW suggested until we find the answers.
JIB.
It would give me great pleasure to claim the important element of the VDW thinking as my own. I can't as for me it is there in black and white written by VDW. It worked back then and it worked on Saturday. Working the way I do I eliminated the horse that most would have made the c/form horse in the big hcp at Doncaster. It not only finds the winner it cuts out the losers to.
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #35 on Jan 26, 2009, 12:21pm »
Mtoto,
To me 'VDW' never got as far as you did. To me he was forever mired in the intricacies of 'class' and 'form', to be fair to him I think he knew he was close, but he never found a way of putting his finger on it, thats why he finished his work with a fantasy.
You have uniquely found a common denominator amongst the examples that were given, i say uniquely because your solution is different from Fulham's, and from Sadken's both of whose methods I have a good grasp. Your solution is also almost certainly different from Lee's though I can't be certain of that as I don't have the privilege of his secret though from what he has revealed it is almost certainly different.
If all these working solutions have their origin in the original examples then it is impossible to escape the very worst appraisal of the situation, which is that three of you are equals to VDW, in that you have found a unique working approach, just as he claims to have done, and that one of you is only a successful disciple.
However reality makes that appear terribly kind to VDW and the prosaic conclusion has to be that he never had a method nailed down, he wasn't the sort to put in the effort necessary. That is why he didn't write to the forum saying how he had noticed how often the winner came from the top set of ARs and CRs and then asking other readers opinions, but instead fantasied about being a genius who already had all the answers.
The original examples were chosen because of the class element that VDW knew was important, by taking those examples apart you and the others have come out ahead of VDW, as one day I hope to without ever spending any time on them.
You have an excellent method of finding the class animal in a race, just as the others do, but it isn't VDW's idea it is yours. When you read a book you will often find that at the beginning the author writes a brief note of thanks to those who were important to him in his work. If one day you write yours you can do that for VDW but you will be the author of the book not him.
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #36 on Jan 26, 2009, 12:58pm »
JIB I am even more confused now.If VDW did aftertime his selections has it has been suggested by some, what is the chance of anyone person let alone at least three people coming from different angles finding a way through this mine field. VDW did say there was many ways of reaching the same conclusion. What would be interesting to know is how many times Mtoto, Sad Ken and Fulham / DR Alan B have reached the same conclusion
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #37 on Jan 26, 2009, 1:32pm »
A55,
Sometimes they do agree sometimes they don't, though the methods they use don't seem to pick the same races to analyse all that often. It would be wrong to say that they necessarily make different horses their selection in the same race, though their set of probables usually looks pretty similar.
The methods employed tend to result in different betting tactics, Fulham usually goes for a win or a win and place, though he will exploit the A v B market too, almost exclusively in the flat hcps. Sadken is most often found making a book, especially in big hcps. Mtoto is happy to back the place as well as the win in flat and NH hcps and non hcps. So as you can imagine they don't often agree on the same race to analyze.
If the old examples were backfitted, something of which I am convinced, then they read better because the winner can be explained. When the principles are applied in live racing though then the sussess rate drops because 'VDW' convieniently didn't analyze the losing examples. and more importantly he couldn't tie down any possible common factors in the winning selections because he didn't do the work necessary.
I believe these others mentioned have done the work VDW never attempted and have as a consequence, learned things VDW never did. These people have analsed live races where the original method was unsuccessful and began to isolate deciding factors, often specific to a particular race category, which were either present or absent from the original (and successful) examples.
In other words they tested the theory in real time and found unique solutions to make it work. Having had the privilege of becoming familiar with their methods it is immediately obvious that their finished products bear as much resemblence to the original as the Concorde does to the Blériot.
« Last Edit: Jan 26, 2009, 1:41pm by johninbrasil »
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #38 on Jan 26, 2009, 2:41pm »
JIB Another thing that i seem to remember , is the comment Fulham made in one of his last post, about where VDW now lived, it read as if Fulham has based part of his conclusion on VDW's post code. It is as if, had VDW been sucessfull or partly sucessful he would have had a better post code.
Fulham is a clever chap and sending a christmas card was a nice thing to do.VDW does not have to respond , but as far has i know this is the second time VDW has responded, hopefully building blocks are being built and one day he will join us on this site.Maybe he would accept to join us if a more persuasive measure was used.
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #39 on Jan 26, 2009, 3:13pm »
Arkle
If I may respond to your 11.58am post, I see the position as follows:
1) Van der Wheil set out, but not in complete detail, a main method (most fully described in his March 1981 article), and much more briefly several others. Confining the rest of this post to the main method, he made a number of claims about the level of success one would achieve with it if one properly understood it, of which the principal one was probably that one should achieve at least an 80% strike rate. Van der Wheil did not say whether this was achieved by single bets, by books, or by a combination of both, but from some of his comments (eg about the 1986 Old Newton Cup) it is reasonable to suppose a combination.
2) Almost ever since he wrote, others have been trying to discover the method, and several have published their takes, eg Jock Bingham, Alan Coldrick, Philip Close and Sadken. None of these claim to have worked out Van der Wheil's main method, but have used elements of it, with greater or lesser intelligence, to find their own solutions.
3) On the Gummy forum as was, several posters seemed very familiar with Van der Wheil's work (probably others were as well but did not post as much as so it is more difficult to know). Like those mentioned in (2), they have made their own interpretation of Van der Wheil's work (there is no alternative), but none, I think, claim to have achieved an 80% strike rate. That may mean that it is unachievable (and probably that Van der Wheil did not achieve it back in the 1970s and 1980s). Or it may mean that their interpretations fall short of how Van der Wheil actually worked.
4) Of the posters I have in mind, only one (Mtoto) was posting in the six months or so during which I was a member, and he and I had several exchanges. I have no idea what level of success he achieves, but he clearly does not use the same method as set out in the March 1981 article, most obviously by not employing the ability rating method Van der Wheil used there (and I believe in all the prior and most of the subsequent selections). Like Messrs Bingham, Close, Coldrick and Sadken, Mtoto has found an approach that works for him, but it is different to the method shown in the March 1981 article.
5) The other two Gummy posters I have in mind are Guest and Lee, neither of whom was posting during the period of my membership. I would like to have had exchanges with both, because in my view they were using approaches that very closely mirrored the March 1981 one. Of the two, Lee was probably the more successful. Guest gave more than a hundred pre race selections and I think hit a strike rate of about 30%. Lee gave many fewer, about a dozen, but achieved a strike rate more or less consistent with that Van der Wheil claimed. Only he will know whether that was because he posted during what for him was a purple patch or whether that was (and is) his general level of success.
6) I have no reason whatever to doubt that all seven of those I've referred to (Bingham, Close, Coldrick, Sadken, Mtoto, Lee and Guest) have found successful ways of building from Van der Wheil's work. But in five cases (all except Lee and Guest) their approaches are clearly different from that Van der Wheil set out in the March 1981 article. Any or all of the five may be better than Van der Wheil's, but they are objectively different, and one would not expect them always to come up with the same selections.
7) It is my view that even Guest and Lee had not, at the time they were posting on Gummy, gone to whole way in working out Van der Wheil's March 1981 method, as neither seems to have used the probables device Van der Wheil referred to in the letter about the 1978 Erin, and having studied many of their selections I have reservations, methodologically speaking, about some of them. So again one wouldn't expect the two of them always to agree, or have the same selections as the other five.
8) At root here is the question is there an objective Van der Wheil main method which genuinely finds the selections he claimed and, more importantly from a practical point of view, achieves the kind of strike rate he claimed? If so, it necessarily follows that everyone using it will find the same selections, but not of course necessarily the same as Messrs Bingham, Coldrick, Close, Sadken, Mtoto, Lee and Guest. It is my view that there is such a method, but without being able to check with the man himself I can't see any way of being sure exactly what it is. What one can do, of course, is pinpoint the variations between the March 1981 approach and the approaches used by those to whom I have referred, and by avoiding those variations get closer to the Van der Wheil method.
« Last Edit: Jan 26, 2009, 3:54pm by georgejohns »
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #40 on Jan 26, 2009, 4:49pm »
It is my view that even Guest and Lee had not, at the time they were posting on Gummy, gone to whole way in working out Van der Wheil's March 1981 method, as neither seems to have used the probables device Van der Wheil referred to in the letter about the 1978 Erin
George,
For me they were not only not using the probables idea, more importantly they also ignored the other ratings. When the examples in SIAO are studied these ratings are very important, if fact the over rule the ability rating in some cases. For all I know they may have used some sort of rating, but was that rating VDW based? VDW said he used ratings that he formulated and they couldn't be found in any publication. One of these rating made BL well out of contention, so I think a rating that achieves this is a must, before one can move on. Some are trying to get around this by saying BL fails because he isn't a form horse, but how does that sit with being well out of it on the ratings? Surely it means he failed on/in the ratings, in or out of form. If as has been suggested these rating are simply a yes or no procedure why does VDW show two sets of figures in SIAO?
As for not following the ideas set out in the SIAO, how can you say they work? Plain and simple they don't work UNLESS items he forgot to mention are also used.
A55,
I have found when I agree with the likes of Fulham, and Lee the selected horses often perform very well even if they don't actually win. My short list often agrees with theirs, but on occasions we are looking for different things. They are looking for outright winners I'm looking for profit. So on occasions I will back or put up a horse that doesn't fulfill all the requirements they look for if the PRICE is right I will take chances they wouldn't. In saying that I think their selections sometimes lack the important element of form with a degree of achievement. However that's just me. Until VDW speaks I don't think we will ever know if any of us has mastered the methods.
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #41 on Jan 26, 2009, 5:16pm »
Mtoto
I agree with you that the probables issue is not the only aspect of method where Lee and Guest may be at variance with Van der Wheil's March 1981 method, but unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to explore those other aspects with them so I am not sure.
I also agree that what, judging by posts on other forums, some people seem to believe was the March 1981 method - the consistency aggregates and ability ratings allied to position in betting forecast - doesn't work nearly as effectively as Van der Wheil led us to expect his method would. But that is because those are only part of the method. When deployed with the other parts that were referred to but not spelt out - the probables device, Van der Wheil's approach to form, and his take on probability (quite distinct from probables and what helps explain why Little Owl and Sunset Cristo were bets but Kenlis (despite being described as a "good thing"), Wild Gamble and Gaye Chance were not) - markedly better results flow.
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #42 on Jan 26, 2009, 6:42pm »
Arkle55
Don't be fooled by all this 'Mr NIce Guy' garbage that members of his secret society are trying to foist upon you. Fulham had one aim in mind when searching for VDW, and that was to find the answer he had almost wrecked Gummy's forum to find previously, namely "How did VDW find 80% winners". Bear in mind it throughout most of this he thought that VDW truly did have the answers, and it wasn't altruism that drove him on, rather the pot of gold that he thought would be his alone if he could have exclusive audience with the man. Despite the junk about how politely and sensitively the whole thing was conducted, he himself has admitted his obsession with his cause to the extent that he had visited Market Harborough frequently - up to 2 years previous to this debacle - even to the extent so despised by Tony Peach of actually going there and going through the electoral register of the town. Nor should it surprise that TP would have little to do with his/their questions either, as he was no doubt subjected to similar bombardment. Had Fulham been the gentle and sensitive person some would have him, he would surely have let the old guy rest once he had his answer, not gloated over of his denouement over the internet, in much the same way he gloated on Gummy's forum how he had tried to wreck that through the back door. Far from acting in VDW's best interests, he had his own self-serving motives throughout, and is far less fondly remembered by many who had crossed his path previously than his henchmen would have you believe.
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #44 on Jan 26, 2009, 8:01pm »
Is Fulham Alanb, if so Alanb was a most helpfull fellow and a real gent.
JohnD,
The above says it all. For every person that agrees with you about Fulham, I'm sure I could find 5+ that would disagree. It would be the reverse if you were put to the same test.
I remember Tony Peach saying some people were up in arms when he was going to print all the letters in one book, The Golden Years.
Downey,
It does cross my mind TP would have had more to lose than anyone if VDW had put the explanations in a book. That would have killed the goose stone dead, so how much credence can we put on that statement? Some people or one person?
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #46 on Jan 26, 2009, 8:09pm »
Downey,
Fulham and AlanB are indeed one and the same person.
Jd,
You have got the wrong end of the stick as regards Fulham.
To give you one example: on several recent occasions I have urged him quite strongly that he should turn up on VDWs doorstep so that he can have the staisfaction of at least knowing what the old fraud (my own harsh description) looks like. However Fulham insists on respecting the fellow's denials and refuses to disturb someone who I, (and I am sure I am not alone), feel owes an explication, and for that tolerance and forebearing Fulham is a better man than I.
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #47 on Jan 26, 2009, 8:24pm »
Mtoto
It is a matter of no practical importance, but one of the people with whom I have corresponded about Van der Wheil tells me that Tony Peach's "The Golden Years" was not the first time the letters from the Sporting Chronicle Handicap Book were brought together.
Apparently at some stage in the course of the letters reader interest grew to the point that the Handicap Book themselves reproduced the letters to that point, and made them available as a pack of about 12 pages to readers for a nominal charge. With only 12 pages (and I don't know whether there were letters on both sides) the pack presumably didn't include all the material in "The Golden Years", but that pack (which may well have been Tony Peach's idea) would certainly have been a good starting point for writing "The Golden Years".
Regarding Tony Peach, he apparently used to do a regular piece that was included in the Browzers Bookshop website, but the current one there (nothing relevant to Van der Wheil) is dated March 2008, so presumably he has stopped writing them.
Joined: Jan 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 5,628 Location: Scotland
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #50 on Jan 26, 2009, 9:01pm »
ap·pro·ba·tion (âp'rə-bâ'shən) Pronunciation Key n. An expression of warm approval; praise. Official approval. ................................................................................
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #51 on Jan 26, 2009, 9:16pm »
I have to say, that i personally would have liked to have seen the so called evidence that some of the posters have been privileged to have seen. That said i have actually met Fulham face to face and first impressions were that he was a friendly and decent person, and i do believe that i am a very good judge of character.
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #54 on Jan 26, 2009, 11:00pm »
BC I think deep down we all love the controversy its what keeps us going, otherwise it gets a bit dull.
HERE WE GO , HERE WE GO, HERE WE GO, COME ON ALL YOU FOOTBALL LOVING FANS YOU KNOW THIS CHANT , HERE WE GO, HERE WE GO, HERE WE GO, FEEL FREE TO JOIN IN.
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #55 on Jan 26, 2009, 11:34pm »
Am I reading this correctly? Is it being suggested/stated by some that this vdw character ( obviously, that is not his real name) is alive now?
If so, is it too much to ask his age? I would guess that such a person must be in his nineties.
I accept that asking for the whole truth would be futile ( why spoil a good story, when money can be made from it?), but surely, at least one of the in-crowd could let us know the age of the great pretender?
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #57 on Jan 27, 2009, 12:17am »
I am amazed at what I am reading on this thread. I had never considered the possibility that Van Der Wheil was still alive. What further revelations are in store for us all? This is a story that will run and run!
Re: VDW - reincarnated « Reply #58 on Jan 27, 2009, 1:08am »
I have no problem with debate.
Debate loud.
Debate strong.
Defend your corners with honour.
Be controversial if you like.
Just don't - please - make it personal.
Or take it personally.
Don't bait. Don't deliberately wind-up. Please.
There are egos on all sides of the debate.
Treat each other with respect.
You are all right from your perspective.
And your truth is right.
And so is the other fellows!!
*****
Gosh. Put 5 stars under my name and I come over all philosophical.
*****
A quick re-cap
Sean, Goodlife, and any other that missed it...
You obviously missed the thread put up by JIB on the original Gummy forum, titled something like "A time for great humility".
Here is a quick re-cap, played to the tune of Eastenders, given in terms that I am genuinely hoping will be taken in the spirit they are intended, which is to summarise the situation in as light-hearted and non-partisan a fashion as I can manage.
Here we go :
AlanB (who is also Fulham) says he has found and identified the writer of the letters penned under the name Che Van der Wheil. He is alive and well and living in Market Harborough. (Where else would he be living?)
Fulham has made know the findings of his research to a select few.
Included in the select few are JIB, Mtoto and Lee.
JIB, Mtoto and Lee confirmed on the original Gummy forum that the AlanB findings were virtually indisputable. They are convinced as to the veracity of the evidence. (Veracity - big word for a little kitty cat).
Several contributors have expressed disatisfaction with the evidence only being give to a few. Amongst them is Johnd who is unconvinced, and he would like to see the evidence to be persuaded.
The person known as Van der Wheil is, according to AlanB, not living in the style to which we would expect to see if the claims made in the booklet were to be belived.
Johnd pointed out that not all millionaires live like kings. Some go out of their way not to stand out.
AlanB contacted VDW by letter, but was rebuffed.
I recon that's brought you roughly up to where I got to in the saga, but it sounds like a little more had occurred since.
I've probably got some of it skewed, but I'll be put straight, no doubt.
*****
And finally, in those immortal words uttered by Woody in the movie Toy Story, "Play nice".
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