I have no idea,...! But I think I will just plod along with my analysis of sectional times which I have been doing for the last couple of years now, it keeps my head above water. A thought occurred to me a fortnight ago. Any horses that I highlight (and then blackbook) from my sectional time and tv replay study, I then look back at their last prep/s and look at the similar runs in last time and even the time before, against this time. It's amazing just how similar the patterns are for some horses. Yesterday, saturday the two standout bets from my bb'ers on this basis were Causeyacan and Flying Ruby. They both won.

I'd love to know a lot more about Excel spreadsheets. EG, can you say put a horse from there, plus say a cell that might have a rating number on it, into a sort of database,..???, that is retrievable in alphabetical order,..??

Paul

Well if I could answer that *I PROBABLY WOULDN'T* hahah! but as far as the system I put up here, it's worked for 4 years that I know of, maybe more, and I'm confident that it will continue UNLESS something changes i.e. the method of WA TAB-FORM to form the pre-post market changes, or who ever does the ratings loses the contract etc etc etc.

I can tantalising tell you that by adding just one more rule to those posted, turned this into a 30% POT winner, and 14% POT for the place and is on-going. (but halved the bets)

But one thing I know for sure is that the ultimate long term winning system is MECHANICAL (MATHEMATICAL) in the same way the the book is fixed mathematically against us 130%, 120% etc etc, so the loophole is there I believe to reverse that, but remember you may be working on 1-2% on turnover. A lot of punters would baulk at that, I say bring it on!

Just three more things to add, LEVEL STAKES, LEVEL STAKES, LEVEL STAKES

"Just three more things to add, LEVEL STAKES, LEVEL STAKES, LEVEL STAKES"

I was perusing another forum and there was this forumite talking about whether we were serious punters or not. Then I saw young PP's post and I thought, "this needs to be said!"

Please don't anyone think that I am any kind of authority on these matters. This is simply one blokes opinion. ( Developed over many, many years of full time punting never the less).

This simple quote of young PP's is to me the essence of whether you are to make a living off this game or not. One thing that worries me about this post I'm doing is that it flies in the face of the Bagman and I really do regard this forumite highly. I know he is a great staking plan punter and value all he contributes highly. Having said that I now have to say that if you really want to live off this wonderful game I believe PP's quote is "THE ONLY RULE THAT CAN'T BE BROKEN".

In the short term, be it one month, one year or whatever, a good staking plan will always outperform level stakes. But when you start wanting to actually live off your winnings I believe one will find any sort of staking plan (other than percentage of bank ) is simply not sustainable be it because of bet size, bank size or just too much freaking blood pressure.

So my defining questions of a serious punter are not "how big is your bet?" but "how disciplined are you at sticking with your system and are you betting level stakes ?"

I hope this helps some poor soul to avoid that impossible loosing run and is using a staking plan.

__________________
"Not winning on a horse that came first is one thing.....Losing on a horse that didn't come first is something else entirely!!!"

TWO BETS, Bhagwan and I are good mates and communicate regularly "off forum" I respect all of his input and understand where he is coming from with the staking plans. I do in fact run some aggressive staking plans (for fun) alongside my staid LEVEL STAKES bets.

To be serious as you say, one has to effect a POT i.e. PROFIT ON TURNOVER, now it doesn't really matter whether you are using a staking plan or not as long as you are consistantly showing a POT.

But here is where Bhagwan and I diverse, as Ian Barnes said there is "no difference between level stakes and a staking plan" in other words re-iterating what I have said that it's showing the POT that matters.

I'll try once again to explain that in laymans terms (not that I'm a big shot by the way just my humble opinion of course)............ OK so you use a staking plan over a given set of selections, lets say it's progressive stakes for example. Just for arguments sake, say 11111, 22222, 33333, 44444, 55555, stop and go back to 1 after a profit is shown (remember this is just illustration purposes) it could be any staking plan.

So, over 10,000 bets you will have so many bets @ 1, so many bets at 2, so many bets at 3, so many bets at 4, and so many bets at 5, you will have a given S/R and either POT or LOT which will not change wether you have 1 unit bets or 5 unit bets (this is where Bhagwan and I see things from another angle)

In fact if you now add up the total amount of stakes you have wagered divide it by the number of bets to give you an average stake, apply this to the total odds returned you will see that as Ian Barnes said there is no difference in the S/R or POT (LOT)

So to answer your question TWO BETS,.... YES I am very serious.

I believe most progressive staking plans can be dangerous if one cant pick the winners.
That goes for level stakes as well but not as dangerous

Some rules I follow when using most staking approaches.

DUE TARGET METHOD
If using a due target plan e.g. $5 a race plus losses.
e.g. 10 races at $5 profit per race = $50 target by the 10th bet + losses

Target per race should be .01% of bank.
So $5 a race, should be using a $5000 bank.

Ones max bet should be under 4% of bank.
If bet requires an amount 4%+, add say 3 to 5pts to the divisor.
This will bring the outlay down below the 4% for the next few races.
This helps keep things in check until the winners decide to pop up.

I also stop betting if I strike say 9 outs in a row then wait for 2 winners to get up before recommencing.
It's not the most perfect way of avoiding the long run of outs, but it does give one the feeling of some control.

FIXED TARGET METHOD
If going for a fixed target amount, I feel an amount of 1 to 2.5% of bank is the safest.

I believe its usually best not to carry over losses if possible , it tends to have a disturbing influence on the general psyche of a punter.

Try a stop for the day if up on ones bank is up between 1.5 - 5% on the day .

Its amazing how often a punter is up in the say the first half of the day, only to give it all back in the next half of the day.

What is also amazing is that 5% seems to be a lot easier to achieve than say 8% .
One will often find they hit the magic 5% then battle for the rest of the day to end up with the same 5% ,weird!

Discipline is the big thing alright & very few punters have it.

I feel if one practices stopping at say 5% or less , they should have a greater chance of long term success.

The most successful plans seem to be the stop at a winner for the day.
Most punters don't like this idea because they feel there is more winners to be had where that came from & there's the rub and raises the question, is the punter more interested in a volumn of winners or are they interested in making money.

I feel one should restart at the beginning as soon as any profit is made , no matter how small because its the going for the promise of the big pay off is the punters undoing long term.

Therefore I feel staking plans should realy be used to recover losses more so than making huge profits.

BETTING TO PRICE
An alternatitve to level stakes betting which usually works well is betting to price to return say 5% of bank.
This allows for approx 40 outs on average selections.

e.g. Bank $5000 @ 5% = $250
Say our horse is $4.00 divided into $250 = O/L $63

With this method , we are assuming more shorter priced horses get up than longer priced horses which is usually the case according to the stats.
What this tries to do is even out the returns long term.

Example.Betting to price to return $250
R1- $4.00 ........O/L $63
R2 - $2.20 .......... 114
R3 - 2.80 ............ 89
R4 - 10.00 ........... 25
R5 - $5.00 ........... 50
R6 - $6.00 ........... 42
Total O/L $383


Lets say the 2 shortest priced horses got up for a ret 2 x $250 = $500
$500 - $383 = +$117 profit

If betting level stakes, a loss of 1 unit or -16.7%
or -$63.83 if the above Total amount was bet accross the 6 selections, same amount on each.

One of course is going to miss out when the larger payers get up , but just in case you havent already noticed , most level stakes selection plans show a level stakes loss, mainly because more was not placed on the winning prices & less money should have been placed on the loosing prices.

Most of the winning prices will be at the shorter end of town and that is what this plan is trying to address.
It often improves a selection plans results.

Its an idea to treat odds on horses as $2.20 if one feels they must bet these commodities.

LEVEL STAKES METHOD
This plan can work very well.
Bet 1/200th of bank up & down .

Reset bet amount at the start of each new day..
e.g. If we are down to say $180 , bet 1/200th of this remaining amount for the whole day.

The reason 1/200th is used is that it smooths out the rapid ups & downs on the bank balance, that can happen if using a lesser divisor.
It is also very good for the confidence of a punter knowing there is a strategy in place, especially after a horror run of outs.

Cheers.

__________________
Cheers.

I have one problem with this, I do agree with the statement. The problem is you dont now how much $$$ the progressive staking plans will cost you, you don't now your total outlay so how do you now what stake to use at level stakes??? so really it cann't be done.

Cheers

Crackone, I see what you mean, but in most cases people would have had a "dry run" for a decent period of time b4 putting on real money, so by doing the hypothetical exercise described you would have a fair idea what you are likely to be staking over a period of time. But apart from this, one would imagine that you also work backwards from what you expect to make, i.e. for arguments sake you want to make $1000 a week , you expect to make say 15% on turnover (so work on 10%), so you need to be "investing" $10,000 a week, say there is an average of 40 bets a week so you need to be investing $250 on each level stakes and an available (hypothetical) bank of $25,000 i.e. 100 bets, though where one would get cold feet is something else, if you start off into profit you're ok, but if you start off into a long losing run, who knows???

hey partypooper

I just wanted to ckeck something you said earlier re: your system and betting style and you indicated win only but I noticed a later post where you indicated you had 11 bets with 8 placings for XXX return.

Just a couple of questions, do you bet metro meetings only, Saturdays only and is it strictly win only, or each way as well?

The reason I ask is I just checked today's meetings and using 100 rater, last start winner withing 21 days and pre-post fave, could only spot 2 candidates. Is that usually higher for city and Saturday meetings?

cheers. It's an interesting topic.

honkin

honkin, my main betting is for the place at Metro only. But I've got several other plans going for the win and win/place as well.

The method I descibed was originally devised with place betting in mind but after extensive research showed better returns for the win.

What I would suggest is just use the idea as a base for selections and then tweak it to your own taste.

cheers partypooper

just kind of tweaking a few things, really. I did find that there seems to be very limited opportunities with what you describe, though. Like today as an example, there is only 1 in Sydney and 1 in Melbourne. Nothing in Adelaide, Brisbane or Perth.

Being in Melbourne, I am naturally using the supertab ratings, but to find a 100 rater with a last start win inside 21 days that is also pre-post fave at the TAB website, has only resulted in 2 candidates. Do you find similar results using unitab?

cheers

honkin