To All: Apologies if my earlier comments about staking plans implied I didn't think staking plans should be discussed... What I meant to say was that I didn't want this discussion to become one about the merits of one staking plan vs another. Discussions about how staking plans affect risk are clearly part of the discussion.

To FryingPan: You make some excellent points about elements of risk that have not yet come under discussion directly. A few posts have touched on some of the points you raise. Becareful's selection of a 5%-of-bank for his 60% strike rate system for example.

Your points about odds and strike rates are valid, but I think these are decisions that are taken well before we start to think about risk. Personally, I don't particularly care about odds and strike rate, as long as SR times by Odds is greater than 1. I must admit to leaning towards the longer priced selections, as it's an incredible high to pick a $20 longshot, whereas picking Lonhro to win at $1.80 is boring... (In my opinion).

* How to rate a method. Which is how risky a method really is.

I think this is a very interesting point, and one that I hope people here have some ideas about. I personally use MaxDD as a measure of a system's RISK and I also very much like Chrome's SV calculation as a system measure. I've tried to make the point (perhaps badly) that I think Longest Run of Outs is a very poor measure of a system's risk.

Personally, I'm on my third "system risk measure". When I first started this journey, I used strike rate as a measure of a system's risk. "Gee, a 50% strike rate, I can be half my bank and be rich in no time"... I kid you not, that was an initial thought I had many months ago when I was very, very green......

Another extremely vital aspect of risk that I think it was crasher who mentioned in passing is DISCIPLINE (BTW Crasher - I hope you got some of the $6 or $7 being offered about Delzao by the bookies????? - I took $6 on IAS early on Sat as I had to go out :smile: )

Discipline is perhaps THE most important element in risk management. I for one find it very difficult to stop myself from looking for something to bet on when my systems throw up none or just 1 selection for the day... I don't have any impulses to bet on more nags if I've just scored a big win, only when my systems have only a few bets on a given day.....

Another issue that hasn't yet been touched upon is the natural inclination to fiddle with a given system. On another thread here I've stated how I like simple systems, and I think that once you find a system that seems to work, you should run with it for a period of time... I know a lot of people will keep "fiddling", cutting a few losing bets here, adding another filter there, all the while trying to get that "super system".... I try to avoid this urge as best I can.

Cheers,
Chris.