I'll put this "out there" for an opinion, as my brains a bit fried after today.
Say in a 10 horse race I believe the winner will be found in the first 6 favourites.
Do I Dutch Back the first 6 favourites for a $100 liability say, OR Lay the last 4 horses for $100 liability?
I've been trialling a new dutching bot today and I think I'm ahead Back Dutching this scenario by 0.02% after commission?
Where assuming the winner was one of the first six favourites.
Someone with some wisdom, "Please explain.."
Thanks, RP

RP, here's, a system I devised that might interest you with these small fields. I took fields between 8 to 12 runners and I looked at the top part of the Betfair market.

For example, if the field had 8 runners I bet (on paper) every horse that was $8 or less on Betfair for a level bet of $1 and I did the same thing with fields of 9, 10, 11, 12 runners.

For the period I checked it (about a week), it proved profitable even when I included the favourite. But with as usual with my non-lay methods I lost interest. A bot would probably be helpful.

The answer is it depends.

In general though your better off laying as you find this makes more profit. But it does depend on the odds of the first 6 runners and the odds of the last 4 runners.

there is no right answer as it is race dependent.

I new this question would hook you UB and I appreciate your feedback. With this bot you set your over round at a max of say 94% and it calculates stakes based on exchange back prices which can be a lot better than lay exchange. Any unmatched bets go SP on close. So I'm figuring that you pick up a bit of an edge with the spread?
Also the art of Laying is more profitable at the overbet pointy end of the market. It's only a very slight edge but God help us we need it!
Thanks again, RP

Depending on what side of the spread you are on it can help or hinder. For instance Mark is very good at making a book and would rely on getting the prices on the right side of the spread (and before or after movements).

I am not good at that and so I rely on the final figures and usually (not always) am on the wrong side of the spread but I can make it work and it suits me. To me the difference between offering $200 vs $400 is so small that its not going to erode my profit margin too much. When you think about it for a $100 liability the difference is only 25c. If your relying on that 25c to be your entire profit margin then your in trouble. The difference on a 10,000 outlay is only $25 and I would be expecting a much larger profit then that after risking 10K.

My problem with backing and laying is the time it takes to place all the bets. By the time you have placed a bet on horses 1-5 the bet on horse 6 is probably at least a few seconds later than the price you last checked so your behind the latest information already. This might not seem like much and probably won't be an issue in most cases (especially if your using SP on unmatched bets) but what if the race goes in play before you get your bet on and its not taken ? It might only happen 1 race in every 100 but that might be a large percentage of your profit margin.

So I would prefer to go the method with the least transactions whether that is laying or betting (usually it will be laying).

Then download BF Bot Manager Dutching or Multiple Strategies for a free trial, all those worries are sorted. Latest version April 2013. It's a beautiful thing. You can program it to lay certain number of favourites based on field size, back the first four say and lay the rest, the list just goes on.
RP

That may be good for some but I have my own bot programmed which I can tinker and modify to do exactly what I need/want which works for me.