February Summary:

We managed 4 winning bets to end the month and February was a better month from the January figures

• January P/L £914
• February P/L £1,637
• Running Total £2,551

On the Acebots forum Clive raised the issue of Cherry picking bets and obviously one way of viewing this is to take the higher return bets.

For the two months eliminating bets below 55.0 return gives an improved running total of £2,830. But increasing the base further to eliminating bets below 60.0 return gives a negative effect with reduced P/L.

So ok' 2 months doesn't indicate very much but it is something to consider. 

Sat Early Bets

We have 7 targeted races today.

• will be posting @ 12;30-13;00

Todays Dutch bets

4 No: early bets

The 13;50 Ling will probably be a 5 runner dutch frame before the off. At the moment have had to mark the market Unstable.

Friday

We have 9 targeted races today.
Better racing at last at Newbury - and Doncaster

• will be posting at 13;00-13;30 with update 17;00-17;30 for the evening meets.

Yesterdays results included in screen shots - I couldn't get back to upload, there were only 2 live bets on the day.

Todays Dutch bets

Update for evening meets Now at 6pm.

If  I have a clean sweep Andy Holden naps Cola Pier in the last 21;05 His Dundalk podcast at William Hill is a must if you follow Irish Racing.

Selections

Things are not going to plan with the early selections.
yesterday in the 17;45 Kempton we had a 3 runner dutch in which the third horse changed later in the day. The third won and strictly when posted it has to be a losing bet. 
More importantly before the off time it had become a no bet for my main ATO bets.

As of this loss the year to-date figures are:
Early Selections   + £1802
ATO Bets             +£5520
   - ok it's profit but 33% of the potential doesn't really hack it?

I'm going to keep the Early Bets going until the end of March to see if the return starts to improve.
Bottom line is I shouldn't have been posting the evening meet early but I knew I wasn't going to be around. So I'm probably going to have to commit to more updates.

What I may do is post the list of potential races and start to post the ATO updates  in advance of races.
This would mean that you could note the race times and check before hand if you want to play the race.
So on today's list for inst: If you think 21 runner maidens at Thurle are a stupid idea! or say Maidens at Chelmford are unproven territory you could skip them and check in at other times.
It doesn't matter which bets are taken or skipped there is no sequence or reason to think this would change returns long term.

So today there is a list of 8 potential race times for ATO updates.
It wouldn't be necessary to check out at every race time -perhaps three updates over the racing when I can make them available.
If the Early selections don't fire a higher return this will be a much better future for the blog. Meanwhile I'll play around with making the above format workable.

Early Selections

Todays Dutch bets

14;10 Wincanton       -  2 runner frame
14;25 Bangor             - 2 runner frame
17;45 Kempton         -  3 runner frame 

Early Selections

Yesterday I mentioned 14;05 Plumpton and McCoy on first time out danger against dropping to a 2 runner Dutch. Yep! He won.

I was looking through the Jockey stats earlier on. 
Tony McCoy has got his retirement season's strike rate through 30% !
No other jockey gets even close, flat,Aw, NH.
Was there ever one to match him for simply making a horse do what it had decided it couldn't? 
Well I thought down memory lane don't forget this man.

I have had the privilege of enjoying the later part of his career as well as the whole of Tony McCoy's.
Lester's quip noted in one of the biographies - after winning at the Breeders cup and being hounded by the American press (he didn't exactly have much time for them)

Good ride Lester when exactly did you know you had the race won, they demanded?           - shoving the mic's up to him has he was led in.
"Last Wednesday" 

Todays Dutch bets

14;10 Lingfield           -  3 runner frame
14;30 Catterick           - 5 runner frame
14;40 Lingfield           -  6 runner frame 

Early Selections

Todays Dutch bets

Monday around 13;00-13;30

14;05 Plumpton               -  3 runner frame*
14;20 Ayr                          - 4 runner frame
17;30 Wolverhampton   -  3 runner frame (corrected!  at 13;40)

Note*
14;05 Plumpton may well tighten up to the 2 runner Dutch frame market - but I got the  3 way frame early and although the top two look to have it on paper stick with this. Third horse is McCoy up on a first time out mount and not going away in the market. The return on 3 runner dutch is up into 60's now, better than posted.

Yesterdays only selection was a 4 runner frame (in a field that ended up 5 runners) A good quality novice hurdle grade 2 and we needed that 4 runner frame as the favorite trailed in fourth!  

Favorities!!! Longest losing run (taking all race types sequence) recorded at 30+ Can't imagine what it is at double figure odds?


Note**

The U symbol against the 16;00 Wolv means the market is unsettled with different runners moving into the dutch frame. I expect the market to crystallize later and take it ATO.


Monday Roundup

One of those clean skin days when everything goes right with all four races going in ATO
The 16;00 market did shape up for the 5 runner frame & the 17;30Wolv market kept tightening up into a 2 runner frame ATO with the fav holding off the newcomer 2nd fav. The 2 runner frame had a 68.4 return just before the off so better than the original early 3 runner return.

On the right hand side of the screen shot is the results summary for all the ATO bets. 
Expectation on the bets is running at 21.6 and strike rate 91.5%

On the early bets the strike rate is holding up at 90.2% but the actual return is quite disappointing only 44% of the ATO result year to date.
Reasons are obviously the 153 live bets against 248 and also the straight dutching each race rather than using the hedge fav bet.

I still hope the Early bets will catch up a little!

Early Selections

Todays Dutch bets

Just the one early bet. 
Couple of the others look like they will form ATO bets later. 
Some races today have favorites too strong to allow any dutch market return  - Rock the Kasbah  in 15;40 for inst.

• 15;20 Naas    -  4 runner frame

Early Selections

Todays Dutch bets

Some pretty tricky markets today and only 2 races qualify early

• 13;55 Chepstow   -  4 runner frame
• 15;10 Kempton     - 2 runner frame

May update if some other races come up

Early selections

Todays Dutch bets

Up  @ 1;00-1;30 today & Update @ 17;00 for late meets

• 14;20 Exe  - 3 runner frame
• 14;30 Ling  - 3 runner frame
• 15;20 Exe   - 4 runner frame

Update evening meets

• 18;05 Dundalk               - 5 runner frame
• 20;45 Wolverhampton - 4 runner frame

Early Selections

Todays Dutch bets

14;50 Clonmel          - 3 runner frame
16;25 Huntingdon   - 2 runner frame

Early Selections

Todays Dutch bets

14;05 Punchestown  - my bet hasn't matched on this as of posting Only @13.5k on race currently!
16;35 Lingfield - Correct as a 4 runner frame (Dutch frame column to the right has 3 showing. The bet is on the margin so err on right side)

WHAT TO DO IF DUTCH FRAME DOESN'T GET FULLY MATCHED.

Answer is leave it a reasonable period 10-15 mins But then force a match by adjusting odds. Currently I have £35 on fav and £20 on Kayf Hampshire unmatched. This market is poor liquidity and could soon tighten up - so best to get matched.
ON NO ACCOUNT  LEAVE THESE BETS UNMATCHED UNTIL THE OFF!

Just as I posted a strong move on Kayf - Already in to 11's from 17 really liquidity was too low on this race to handle the bets.

Todays For Consideration

Upload @ 1pm. today
quite a few for consideration.

Received an email about following selections in small fields only?
This strategy does not increase the strike rate or expectation.
During last week there was a race (not selected) which cut up to only 4 runners before the off - won by the outsider of the 4  at high odds! 
For each race type there is a No: of runners 'choke' level built in which tightens the market filters above that number. This i hope balances the field size bias in the Uplift Stats. which are central to the market filters. 
As example nov. chases have about the highest' Uplift' factor of any race type - but novice chases are over long term on average small fields and now even worse as recession gripped racing. 

There are some large fields today- see how it plays out?

The one aspect that does concern me in posting up these early markets is continuing to apply the straight dutch bet rather than using the fav -hedging method I prefer (and simple arithmetic agrees) 

The basic Dutch bet we use is Fixed Profit Staking.
i.e. adjusting the stakes to give equal return off each of the runners in the dutch.
It has been proven with long simulations that this bet equals (or v slightly betters)the returns from Level staking -but does so at reduced Volatility. Reduced Volatility against Level Stakes, thats definately worth having! - and opposite direction to all the useless staking plans out there. Quite simply we are using lower stakes as the risk increases out into the market.
Fixed profit or Return staking is the best in the business. 
Don't combine it with % bank staking but use a periodic increase in stake. The high strike rate of 90% allows a real opportunity to get exponential growth over regular period adjustments.

Early Selections

Todays Dutch bets

14;40 Taunton     - 4 runner dutch frame
14;50 Wetherby  - 3 runner dutch frame.

Yesterdays poor effort had losing dutch in 17;10 where top 2 in market got in a mess. Also 15;50 race cut up badly and although top 2 finished 1st & 2nd the withdrawal deductions took most of profit, so zero there too.

Feb 16 Selections

Todays Dutch bets

15;50 Lingfield               -  2 runner Dutch Frame
16;20 Lingfield               -  3 runner Dutch Frame
17;10 Wolverhampton -  3 runner Dutch Frame

The 15;05 Wolv may well be a viable selection ATO but these three early.
Usual Monday quality . In the 15;50 Coyaba seems to be taking money in to turn over the favorite, one or the other will suite me. 

Feb 16 Todays Early Bets

Monday selections  @ 1-1;30 pm

My mail box is just bursting with offers and advice on racing from the weekend! An unbelievable endless stream of stuff, affiliates, experts and a lot of old cronies reinventing themselves with polished up services, short term statistics and tailored reports on results. I'm sure if i put this weekends verbiage into a mixer every horse in every race is covered!

• Ask yourself one simple question?

If even any single one of these guys is so good at making money out of racing long term  - why are they then scratching around buying or trading each other database clients and punting for your money? 
Its a nasty business. 
Its always been the case in racing but worse than ever these days. The amazing thing is some of these charlatans end up believing themselves. 

A month or so back I subscribed to what  i thought may be a good form service with an angle on timing and pace. The guy started to edit his own results  and  set out to convince himself in print that he was doing it to help his 'clients' and complain he was receiving uncalled for abusive emails. In hindsight he had obviously edited the historic results he supported the service with in the first place. 

Some even send me their complete life stories,on and on..........................................

.....................................fact is, it were so damn good he had to find me on a data base and beg for money!

Feb 14 Todays Early Bets

First selection is for the 13;40 Gowr race.

Theres is very low market liquidity on some races. Less than 5k at the moment (on A Saturday?) - so posting will be late, but before the 13;40

Today I am going to update at 2pm. The later markets may firm up by then. 

Update:
You can see the 13;25 Ling became an ATO bet - but the market didn't cristalize out until 10 mins before the race,
Have added in the 15;55 Gowran race. 
Wont include this in the early results , win or lose, as we keep the record to the early post. 

What a disaster todays Ascot card is. Good prize money for any just sub Cheltenham horses  - but no runners! First time i have missed going to this meeting for many years, but last night just couldn't raise the enthusiasm with such cut up races and it blows really cold through that main stand!

Saturday Summary:

One of those Clean skin days where the basic race selection was  all that were required. 

There were finally 6 ATO bets from the 10 pre-selected races of which we only captured 3 Early bets.
The 10 pre-selected races produced winners 4 -win favs, 4 -second favs & 1 -4th in betting in the 13;40 Gowran novice chase.  Any filters entirely redundant.

If only?

Columns H-K & P-X fed into a whole series of filters for each market type. Obviously on an open blog its not sensible to detail these but they are really necessary.  

But the race selection alone was good to us today.
The 10 year rolling stats I stick with for race selection hold good year after year. I have an old copy of 'Braddocks Complete Guide to Horse-Race Selection and Betting' which was handed down to me 1987 edition. 
The same stats are in there with only small variance, collected by Peter Braddock pre computer, pre spreadsheet. Considering the size of samples he had available there is surprising little variance with current figures.


If you take for example Novice Hurdle races. (omitting Grade 1 races)
@ 82% are won by the first 3 horses in the market.
@ 46% are won by the favorite alone.
Most importantly for our purposes the second & third in the market are taking
@ 67% of the balance of the remaining races. Our Uplift figure in column 'J'

Year in - Year out.
Dismantle what the mostly brain dead pundits are spouting on each race with this basic structure.

The final Dutch Frame is not static covering the first 3 in the market every time, it varies inline with the Shape of the market filters.

Feb 13 Todays Early Bets

Friday 13th................................

.......................................................................Evening Update @5pm

* The 3;15 Lingfield is a race i have doubled up stake on. The 3 horse dutch frame looks very strong with 3rd runner in frame really well backed, next the 4th horse Mark Johnson's, he cant do egg n spoon race at moment. Market shape is a peach Friday 13th or not!

That turned out to be messy!  2nd fav refused to stall and left with 2 horse Dutch. They shot home 1st & 2nd but I don't like these spanners in works, even though the result is more profit. 

No Update bets for the evening meets.

Feb 12 Todays Dutch Bets

click on screen shot for early bets:or can just drag to desktop

• TODAY 3 No: DUTCH BETS AS MARKED IN COLUMN 'L'
• No: OF RUNNERS IN DUTCH FRAME AS MARKED IN COLUMN'M'
• TARGET RETURN At 485 stake (PRO rata) column 'N'

Thoughts and queries please tsiri@hotmail.co.uk


16;30 update for Chelm Maiden race?

Late Chelm Update:

Feb 11

Todays Dutch bets

14;00 DownR           -   4 runner Dutch Frame
14;10 Muss              -  2 runner Dutch Frame
14;55 Chep              -   5 runner Dutch Frame
16;25 Muss              -  5 runner Dutch Frame

Nothing late for Kempton. 8 straight Handicap Card. phew!

Feb 10 2

Todays Dutch bets

13;35 Clonmel               -  5 runner Dutch Frame
14;10 Ayr                       -  2 runner Dutch Frame

Have left yesterdays mentions in screen shot. One 13;50 did become ATO bet, other 14;20 remained below return limit   - both fav's beaten

• Please ignore the 55.8 figure opposite 16;30 race in the screen shot. Its a No bet early.

The 13;35 Clon race was one with a change to the Dutch Frame after early selection. Admiral Brian was heavily backed and you should have changed the bet to accommodate this later change taking out Shake it Up, a bad drifter. 
As it turned out Argentino - strongly backed around the time of posting took the race with both the above no-showing, so in the bag either way! 

Feb 10

RISK of Ruin Charts:

Here are or probability charts for bankroll wipe out.

The charts are a level bankroll scenario and do not account for retaining any profit and increasing the number of betting units. 

Chart1; is based on the Dutch bet cap set at £485. 

Chart 2; is based on @ quarter stake cap at £125.

Sample size is 1700 races giving just over a years selections.

So What happens if I set off dividing my bankroll into 10 units? Almost certainly can survive the month but @ 10% chance will go bust before increasing it by half! And if I keep trying it's15% likely. Can't risk that? 

A lot of 'What if' questions can be answered off these charts, to devise timing of bankroll and stake increases, etc. Can my staking plan keep risk under control if increasing bank at £1000 profit? If i survive 1 month can I survive at reasonable risk 1000 bets? Do I need to add back profit and reduce risk? etc.
In addition to the bankroll to cover risk,particularly at lower stakes an addition is required to cover multiple bet placement. On a busy day there may be up to 10 bets placed and this alone may be outside the comfort zone?

The colour coding is a guide only.

Briefly
LH columns - bankroll and betting units 
Mid columns - Risk probability to doube, increase by a half, increase by one quarter.
RH side  - probability to survive 1000 bets (up to 200 /month) probability to survive 1 month and Long term survival with at least sufficient funds foe 1 no: further bet.

Hopefully we now have the right selections continuing, sufficient capital and a staking plan to grow the bankroll.

Feb 09

Todays Dutch bets

NO bets Monday

The 13;50 & 14;20 Plumpton races were live 2 runner dutch frames - but the return on both is currently below the minimum. They may loosen off closer to ATO.
So nothing on the record today.

RISK: First Things First!

Theres going to be a few posts to follow around the topic of risk in following this dutching strategy.

The internet is bursting full of systems strategies tipsters statistics and self styled experts - almost all are failures or at least their customers are! The proof is quite straightforward that the high Ninites of betfair customers at any one time have losing accounts and then of the remaining few, semi-pros or pros, they may be in the money but a similar  high percentage of these fall by the way side over time. Some are in truth just riding their luck, those with a genuine long term edge often fall pray to risk events which they are not equipped for.

So Dutching to level stakes with an edge ranging between 4 -6% checked over 10 years and a strike rate of 90%+ What could possibly go wrong?

The Standard LLR (Longest losing run) formulae gives a figure of just over 3 consecutive losers in this scenario. But Draw down with cummulative negative variance can produce extreme  periods of risk.

The sample for the following Risk of Ruin figures covers 1700 races over a full year.

There is no occurance of 3 consecutive loses, but in this shot is a losing sequence totaling £2,600 to the Dutch staking cap of £485.

When this occurs there are two facts

If you don' believe you have the edge you will crumble.

If you haven't got the bankroll numbers right you will get wiped out. 

Feb 08

Sunday Leopardstown

Class filter

Fantastic card at Leopardstwon today but you will find later 4 of the races marked off with a class filter?

In nearly every type of race the long term stats fall away sharply in class 1 races (Group races on flat) for the simple reason there too much quality right down the field.

So its sit and watch these or do the  formbook research before you dutch!

Here are typical stats group on Novice hurdle @ 11k race sample

You can see in RH column the Uplift figure falls below 50% in grade 1.

Uplift:

A key concept in the filters I apply.

Defintion - The percentage of the remaining races, Not won by the favorite, Won by the next two in the market.

In the nov. hurdle races we include this runs at 66.9% i.e. If the favorite doesn't Win(38.8% it does) then 2nd and 3rd fav. Win 66% of the time.

It ma be that today at Leoparstown the favorites pour in - but I will search the form book before considering these races. Unfortunately I particular love the big chases so will probably do just that!

As its a blog I just pick up these issues as they arise.

Next week I going to post Risk of Ruin figures for bankroll. Its absolute step 1 - I can't tell anyone to take any level of risk but these numbers will be good guidance. 

Todays Dutch bets

13;25 Exeter               -  5 runner Dutch Frame
16;00 Exeter               -  2 runner Dutch Frame
16;20 Leopardstown -  3 runner Dutch Frame

Feb 7

February Update

One or two mid-week results were not posted.
You can see just below the  summary box we have had 100 selected races YTD with 10 loses. 
ATO I have taken 164 selections in comparison. The rate of return is also higher because of the inclusion of  the 'fav- Hedge' bets.
I intend to change the Early bet format to include this shortly. This will complicate the bet placement but produce significant Profit over time.  

For now we just need to follow the three 'Lite'  columns, place a standard Dutch, no of runners to cover, and match the return (or better) in third column. Dutch bet to equal return across each runner. This is the most efficient / low volatility bet over time.
The fourth column shows the betfair return after tax @ 5%. Hopefully most will be on a lower rate.



Todays racing has 15 potential race selections but there is a further 10am inspection at Warwick

Todays Dutch bets

9 Early races

Update for 1 possible Wolverhampton

No bets at Wolverhampton evening meet

Feb 06

Todays Dutch bets

NOTE Post getting later - aim to put up @ 1hr. before first race.

Also update Later for Wolverhampton/ Dundalk  @    4pm.

UPDATE;

Feb 02

Todays Dutch bets

Just one 3 runner framed selection Monday

Feb 01

JANAURY

A review of January results with comparison to my ATO full results.

Pretty well a disaster, have to see what February brings.

I may introduce back in the betting using the fav.HEDGE bet that I use.
Basically this would split down to 2 & 3 selection Dutch frames on the standard Dutch bet
and 4 or higher using the favHEDGE method.
But I'll continue as is for now and keep things simple

Todays Dutch bets

13;15 Chelmsford        -  4 runner Dutch Frame
14;00 Musselborough -  3 runner Dutch Frame
14;10 Punchestwown -  2 runner Dutch Frame
14;30 Musselborough -  3 runner Dutch Frame
14;40 Punchestwown -  4 runner Dutch Frame