Supercoach Racing returns for Autumn
 

The fantasy sports game Supercoach Racing is back for the Autumn 2020 season. Select a stable of horses and their real-life feats will contribute to your fantasy points total. Making it harder is that you have a budget to work to and the likeliest horses to win the most lucrative races cost more. Astute picking for value can see you score more points per dollar and as - your horses win - your budget can rise each week. The stable with the highest total will win....absolutely nothing, it seems. So it's for the glory!(?)

https://supercoach.foxsports.com.au...sic/team/select

February 21, 2020 - Registrations open

March 7, 2020 (round 1) - Competition begins - Flemington (MEL) - Randwick (SYD)

March 14, 2020 (round 2) - Caulfield (MEL) - Rosehill (SYD)

March 20-21, 2020 (round 3) - Moonee Valley (MEL) - Rosehill (SYD)

March 28, 2020 (round 4) - Rosehill (SYD)

April 4, 2020 (round 5) - Randwick (SYD)

April 11, 2020 (round 6) - Randwick (SYD)

April 18, 2020 (round 7) - Randwick (SYD) This is of course in addition to the NRL and AFL fantasy competitions which begin on the 12th and 19th March respectively.

Round 1 Lockout is at 12:20pm.

I'm trying something different and my stable (pre-scratchings) is:
Nature Strip (c)
Standout
Muntaseera
Tagaloa
Rubisaki
Larimer Street
Ole Kirk
Minhaaj
Farman
Supreme Idea

I have no idea why you can't easily download the horse pricing info from someplace...

Swapped Captain to Standout due to odds changes.

Really wished I didn't!

Ended up with a total of 245pts and placed 655th of 11,500 participants. Had I left the Captain's armband on Nature Strip I would've been 20pts higher in 183rd.

My stable value has now gone up by $75,000. The top stables went up an additional $100k, which is a little disappointing.

Current first place is on 320pts. They filled one spot with the cheapest possible starter. I only had a cut-down list of horses 'cause I needed their prices for my approach and there's no easy way to scrape the site; it was missing from the list and I didn't think to look for cheapies myself. I'll try and figure out how to get a full list of competing horses next week.

I'm also only considering a horse's expected value with respect to them coming first. I should do that for all points-earning places. That cheapie above was in a 6-horse Group 2 race and even coming 5th it got 12pts - as much as my Captain did! I'm sure there used to be a spreadsheet around here somewhere showing the average chance of a horse priced at $x in a field of size y coming in zth place. That could come in handy... Else a Monte Carlo simulation is probably more accurate for a given field.

The other issue I had was in determining the importance of points potential vs value. I could only think of selecting my stable manually and seeing what the expected total would be, or checking every combination automatically. There must be a better way....

Alligator Blood (c)
Probabeel
Sylvia's Mother
Funstar
Master Of Wine
Ilovemyself
Kaakit Akit
Rainbow Thief
Kumasi
Celestial Sol

I scored 153pts this week. I had predicted 190, but that was largely contingent on my captain's score. I'd anticipated Alligator Blood likely adding around 50pts to my total; he added 8pts. Sylvia's Mother was also a top-3 pick for me: 0 points to the total.

Better news with my jockey choice: James McDonald who scores 3-2-1 for 1st-2nd-3rd finishes, ended up with 15pts for the day. He outscored 6 of my horses!

254 - over 100 greater than my score - was the highest of the round. But I was still in the top 16% of the week and my overall ranking dropped only slightly to 726th out of just over 13k.

Tough Round this week....



Tagaloa
Minhaaj
Te Akau Shark (c)
Addeybb
Princess Jenni
Chenier
Cosmic Force
Mugatoo
Montia
Mamaragan



Jockey: Craig Williams

I'm suffering a little as I've been unable to increase my budget. Any increase (from a horse I have coming 1st or 2nd) is pegged back by another coming last or 2nd last. Some of those stables ranked in the Top 20 have an extra $250k to spend on me.

Earned 190pts last week and was in the top 20% for the week but I have been slowly slipping down the rankings. Currently around the 900-mark (of 14000+).

Not doing any handicapping at all, just using in-game pricing and market odds to determine pointscoring opportunity per dollar, gives me these starters this week:
Verry Elleegant
Funstar (c)
Probabeel
Villami
Royal Celebration
Quick Thinker
Mugatoo
Return With Honour
Zebrowski
I Am Swerving

Jockey: James McDonald

Had I the extra couple hundred of grand, I would have selected Sweet Deal instead of Return With Honour.

Still yet to make a good captain choice: last week it was Funstar's turn to fall short. I held steady in the ratings and remain in the top 6% overall - without doing any handicapping and just searching for value in the game pricing with respect to real-world odds.

There are some big-priced runners contesting the races this weekend and I need an extra million in my salary cap to afford the ones that I want. Everyone's in the same boat though, to at least a certain extent (the highest-earning stables have an extra $275k more than me).

This weekend's stable:
Nature Strip
Castelvecchio (c)
Rubisaki
Brandenburg
Quick Thinker
Reloaded
Ole Kirk
Damaged
Zebrowski
Mamaragan

Jockey: J. McDonald

There was quite a bit of shuffling around with the stable, given the cap limitations and some quite similar expected values. Doubtland, Prague and Paradee were all in there at one stage before being swapped out for runners who were very marginally ahead. Hopefully these miss out on Saturday and I'm rewarded for having a closer look at things.

And wouldn't you know it....!? LOL. Doubtland won and Prague got 2nd. I think I still came out slightly ahead with their replacements and what they allowed for the rest of my stable, but it's easy to see where I could have plugged them in for some poor performers. Speaking of poor performers: to the surprise of no-one my Captain failed once again, with Castelvecchio going down. I really liked Nature Strip and held concerns regarding Castelvecchio over the longer distance, but I'd made a decision just to go with whatever the figures said.

I ended up with a total of 236pts this week, leaving me in the top 7% of stables. Had I got my Captain right I would have finished 750 or so places higher.... Overall I'm sitting around 650th of 14,000-odd teams; not bad for just doing what the market says/my salary cap allows.

With a couple of winners - and no big losers - my salary cap goes up $75000 for next week, the penultimate round. I'm no chance of taking it out but the scoreboard is quite compressed, so hopefully I can continue the rise. ...and finally get a captain choice right!

Could have done with some more cash...

Young Rascal (c)
Danon Premium
Funstar
Cosmic Force
Shout The Bar
California Zimbol
Colette
Nudge
Untamed
Chianti

Jockey: J. McDonald

Races 6-9 are Group 1s but most of the value candidates are in Race 6; I would have liked to spread my runners around a little more than I was able.

Chianti is just in as the cheapest prospect. Hopefully she doesn't come last, else I'll lose $25k off my salary cap for the final week.

I'm tempted to put the Captain's armband on Colette but - to continue the experiment - I'll continue to go how the expectation values indicate. I'm not too sure on Young Rascal, a feeling which is perhaps strengthened by the fact that none of my previous Captain choices have gotten up!

Well, there you go. As anticipated Young Rascal didn't win and Colette did. A couple of the popular Captain picks got up, so I've consequently taking a little dive in the overall rankings; just staying within the top 1000 now. As an indication of how important Captain choice is, had I picked Colette this week and Nature Strip last week (following my own thoughts rather than the expected values), I'd be sitting around 600 places higher.

King's Legacy (c)
Pierata
Shared Ambition
Ole Kirk
Rubisaki
Hellenism
Brandenburg
Quick Thinker
Holyfield
Untamed

Jockey: J. McDonald

Just the two Group 1s, with Race 5 containing all the value picks. Only 10 in that field too, so wherever they finish they'll earn points (and coming in the last pair won't matter as it's the final week of Supercoach Racing). Race 7 has all the big money candidates, a larger field and 3 runners around the same price at the pointy end of the markets. Right now the $4.60 favourite is Pierata, but Santa Ana Lane and Bivouac are both only at $5. I could afford any one of them and could monitor up until Saturday morning to follow the money. I'll sit on Pierata though.

The method says that King's Legacy in Race 5 is the way to go for Captain. I'm not so sure (Ole Kirk?) and the method's had a terrible run at selections. It looks a low-scoring round to me, so it'll be vital to nail both Group 1 winners - particularly the captain.

And that's that! A pretty good round to finish up on with my Captain finally winning a Group 1 race and me getting a 2nd placing in the other. Every selection performed above expectation except for Holyfield - who was last picked and just whom I could afford - and even then only very slightly.

My round 7 total was 209, not the highest but pretty good considering the races that were on offer. It was the 711th highest score among players, which was also around about my final ranking of 768.

The table was quite compressed though. What could have been!? Ignoring my subjective Captain selections as noted in this thread, in Round 3 the Captain choice came down to an expected value of 28.466 vs 28.455. There is some rounding along the way and had I normalised those figures then the latter horse would have been the actual pick. That was Addeyb, who won, and there would have been a 16pt turnaround. Round 4 I actually stuffed up my Captain choice entirely and should have gone with Verry Ellegant per the figures; another 22pts lost there. Fixing just those two errors I would have finished up in 455th. Perhaps higher still if I had the method entirely in place ahead of Round 1 and had used it then.

Not to imply I'm a clever horse-judge by the way, I'm just using the market's estimation after all. My method is essentially just comparing the value of a $x shot in a Group 3 vs a $y chance in a Group 1, but I guess it goes to show how well you have to go to beat the house.