The BTC Horse Racing Thread
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@Jonathan-Jones can fairbot ask for a worse price by a couple of ticks? If so do that and as long as you have Best Price Execution enabled in Betfair you should be matched everytime with one or two in a blue moon outside your odds range.
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Wondering if anyone has done any analysis on the effects of not getting matched.
This month has been a pretty frightning wake up call to be honest. Its a totally crap month so far (unusually so) so i did a long and painful deep dive into my logs. I have in live lost 22.38 points this month (so month total current -22.38 and DD is far beyond the backtested limits). The software confirms its a bad start to the month but has only recorded -10.17 points (thats half as much and well within the backtested limits). Got me very curious as to what the hell was going on.After several hours i can see that the rules did execute for all the missing horses (accross all the strategies, including a very nice pace back that went on to win). The problem is the bets sat unmatched (despite being for less than £1 and being placed at best lay/back to maximise chance of getting taken).
I didnt check in April because like many people (probably) i only really start questioning and spending sill time on analysis when things dont go to plan (and April went very much according to plan).
Wondering if anyome else has noticed this and what they did to mitigate it. I can think of a possible mitigation but the way Fairbot automation works thats not going to work with running a portfolio. I requested a change from Bintenko a while ago (which they agreed to implement in the next version) which might (depending on how comprehensively they implement it) solve the problem but at the moment i am stuck.
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Looks like things are getting back on track after an up and down winter. This game can try the patience of a saint. Which I am not.
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@dan-mackinnon said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
@john-folan said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
Race Type
Handicap Y/N
Class
ClassificationThese are where I normally start. Especially the first one.
That's similar to my go-to list. Would you split those down further, for example Back the Fav in AW or hurdle only vs all race types that are profitable?
I’d go as far as to look at each one Individually. Mostly because after you have done that other filters have more relevance in some types than other(pace as an example).
Thank the Lord for the save as new version button!
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@jonathan-jones said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
I have for Back C&D Winner. I have 3 seperate strategies (Chase, AW, Turf) and also for pac backs (only done on turf). I am sure i tried to do this on the lays but found they didnt pass out of sample testing or some reason like that for not keeping them.
Race type is the biggest one I think. You’ve deffo done the right thing there.
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@jonathan-jones said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
@john-folan
Thing is.. Its already accounted for when you run the backtests and create the strategies. I admit it sounds completely reasonable but you would be acting on a variable with no empirical evidence in opposition to your backtest data.It is but imagine if you could take those days out. It would be interesting to see.
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@john-folan
Thing is.. Its already accounted for when you run the backtests and create the strategies. I admit it sounds completely reasonable but you would be acting on a variable with no empirical evidence in opposition to your backtest data. -
I have for Back C&D Winner. I have 3 seperate strategies (Chase, AW, Turf) and also for pac backs (only done on turf). I am sure i tried to do this on the lays but found they didnt pass out of sample testing or some reason like that for not keeping them.
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@matthew-sheehan said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
As it's bucketing it down at Chester today, thought I would ask a question. I used to know somebody who would not place any trades on football if it was bucketing it down. He would just pull out of any planned trades he was going to do. Normal rain was okay, but if persistent heavy rain, players with dripping wet hair etc, he would write it off. Does anyone do the same for horse racing - would you advise writing the day off if the conditions are grim in the air, with poor visibility and soaked horses/jockeys?
I can actually relate to this. Persistent heavy rain ‘appears’ to affect the racing. I’ve no stats to back it up but strategies seem to go to pit in the rain. Mainly backing or dobbing.
I always go back to how much we hate running in the rain. Why should it be different for animals? Plus it must affect jockeys
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@john-folan said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
Race Type
Handicap Y/N
Class
ClassificationThese are where I normally start. Especially the first one.
That's similar to my go-to list. Would you split those down further, for example Back the Fav in AW or hurdle only vs all race types that are profitable?
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As it's bucketing it down at Chester today, thought I would ask a question. I used to know somebody who would not place any trades on football if it was bucketing it down. He would just pull out of any planned trades he was going to do. Normal rain was okay, but if persistent heavy rain, players with dripping wet hair etc, he would write it off. Does anyone do the same for horse racing - would you advise writing the day off if the conditions are grim in the air, with poor visibility and soaked horses/jockeys?
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Race Type
Handicap Y/N
Class
ClassificationThese are where I normally start. Especially the first one.
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@dan-mackinnon said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
I was hoping to do a deep dive into the horse racing but been busy of late. Just out of curiosity, what do others look for when going through analysis?
Do you start with different race types? Handicap vs non-handicap? Do you analyse each course or find removing courses to be backfitting?
I like high SR, so I prefer to lay at higher odds and am more than happy to take that over the occasional big loss. My approach is to have as few filters as possible and go for a year-round approach. The downside to this is you potentially get loads of trades and need to be careful when recording data vs software that I often find myself cross checking multiple versions of the same strategy.
I thought we could get a bit of a discussion on here as a lot of us seem to be the type that do deep dives into the data.
Plus it makes a change from the pre-software days when this thread was just John posting his DOBs!
I tend to always look at every possible variable after starting with an idea, starting with the ones that I think should have the most obvious affect.
So for example, if I was looking at a Lay the Stall Draw strategy (which I'm in the middle of doing), Course would be the first variable to look at, then Race Distance, then No. of Runners, then possibly Going. As logically these should have the most significant affect. (There may also be others!!)
Once the above is fine tuned to give maximum SR and/or ROI, would check if every other variable in the software had any significant affect and include/exclude any that did.
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I was hoping to do a deep dive into the horse racing but been busy of late. Just out of curiosity, what do others look for when going through analysis?
Do you start with different race types? Handicap vs non-handicap? Do you analyse each course or find removing courses to be backfitting?
I like high SR, so I prefer to lay at higher odds and am more than happy to take that over the occasional big loss. My approach is to have as few filters as possible and go for a year-round approach. The downside to this is you potentially get loads of trades and need to be careful when recording data vs software that I often find myself cross checking multiple versions of the same strategy.
I thought we could get a bit of a discussion on here as a lot of us seem to be the type that do deep dives into the data.
Plus it makes a change from the pre-software days when this thread was just John posting his DOBs!
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@philip-brogan I assume you are talking about back and lay the same horse in any race. As Paul mentioned, the strategies have different odds ranges so there is a fair chance only one of the bets would match. Thats not certain to be the case though. I downloaded the individual results of all the strategies to analyse and in some cases both bets would match (in some i would even get 2 lays and one back etc on a single horse). If you played it like this you would likely have a small residual profit/loss on that race (provided no other horses match). This is how i play it. I have it automated. If there is a back and lay on any given horse then my automation monitors for bets on both, if both match then i take the small profit/loss. If you are running a portfolio then this is the only way to play it consistently with your backtest.
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@tony-hastie said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
Does the horse racing software have the ability to back test places rather than wins? Nothing is glaringly obvious in that dept, asking in hope that Ive missed something...
Not yet. It will do.
Not ideal tho but in the meantime you can download the individual results and include whether it placed or not a the place bsp. Can work out a p and l manually from that.
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Does the horse racing software have the ability to back test places rather than wins? Nothing is glaringly obvious in that dept, asking in hope that Ive missed something...
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@joseph-henderson probably not tested that one for years, others may know better
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What’s the reason for the ‘laying the rubbish tipster’ strategy running from mid-May to mid-August? Did it perform badly in back testing on jump racing?
