Hi Duritz,
Pleased to see you've grasped the nettle at last. Or are you having a sly dig at sytemites?
First you say that systems are great, something of an about face from most of your previous threads, then you tell us we're dreaming or at least our prospects are illusory
And do you think that all systemites share the juvenile fantasy you have described? And if so, why only systemites? Do you equate us with the glossy brochures from the Gold Coast? I've never seen any posting from from you telling form analysts that they are chasing such pie in the sky.The inference being that you think more serious and dedicated form analysts have loftier ambitions maybe?.
Anyhow, be careful how you play with your systems. You just might get hooked.

p.s. If you need a hand with the champers or the blonde (while you're doing the form perhaps), I'm your man.

Fox don't get me wrong - I love systems. Always have. I love them because they offer fresh hope if you've had a losing day. You can go from being miserable as your get out in the last hides away in the back of the field to being ecstatic at about midnight that night as you are still up, swigging vodka straight from the bottle, wearing just boxer shorts and endlessly tweaking the rules.

I love systems because they are the promise of SOLVING IT, of BEATING it in one fell swoop.

I love systems for these reasons and always come back to inventing them because frankly it's fun, too. I love systems, I have just never actually believed they can win.

Doing the form is such a grinding way to win compared to them. Don't get me wrong, I love doing the form too. Tonight I thoroughly enjoyed doing full form for three races at Ballarat tomorrow which I will be value betting. I enjoyed the challenge and the thought process involved, but the yin to this yang is the system, where you don't have to think of the horses each as individuals and know what they can do and can't do.

I love the form when it works out, too. Like on Saturday I had been busy on Friday and wasn't that keen on Flemington anyway so just did Makybe Diva's race only, in Sydney. She was an absolute certainty for mine, and after I examined each runner with my weight ratings applied, it bore it out. Over 2400m, she was a certainty. Over 2000m, Grand Armee would've been a certainty. This is something a system could NOT have grasped, but of course the mind can.

I think overall I love systems because if you find one that wins it means you can have that most lovely thing - a daily punt - without having the endless grind of form. Trust me, you don't want to do the form every day. I love the form, but really try to restrict myself to just Wed and Sat (plus specials like public hols) so I don't burn out. When I do go and do too much form I get sloppy and end up LOSING on badly made bets. When I stay fresh I do the form RIGHT and I WIN because of it.

But I do like the daily punt, even if it's just a smaller bet on a couple of chances that a system throws up. That's why I try to find one.

As I said in another post, my grandfather used to keep piles of the Sporting Globe and would be endlessly going through them to try and find a winning system. He was no mug, either. In Phar Lap's Melb Cup he had $2000 pounds on the great horse at something like 8/11, won about 1550 pounds. Work that out to todays currency with inflation etc. He bought a mansion in Toorak from that.

But he never found the pot of gold sys. My old man has spent much of his life doing the same. I don't want to be that way. I do firmly believe that to have an edge long term you need to do the form properly and - VERY IMPORTANT - bet properly.

With that in mind I sort of expect this system I have invented to fall over. However, it has something going for it - it is based around my weight ratings. They are great ratings and are obviously not something anyone bar me (and my wife should she wish to use them, which she doesn't! and my 1yr old girl, who isn't yet saying "quinella" or "trifecta" but will) has access to, so that angle and edge may enable them to win.

At any rate, I am going to bet the selections it throws up, give them their chance. Mind you I won't be outlaying as much on them as I do on my value betting though. But, in time, should it continue, who knows.....

At the time of writing, the research I have done on them, using SP prices, comes up with these stats:

selections - 407
Winners - 129
s/r - 32%
collect - 620
profit - 213
%pot - 52%
ave win price - $4.80

As I said, that's on SP. So, over that time, even just say betting maxi div I think the POT would be higher.

Maybe it'll fall down. I'll find out because I'll give it the great test run - with the dollars down, the chips in.

G'Day Duritz,
I think I might have a clue for you as to why your systems keep falling over.

Maybe you should try Y-fronts, earlier in the day and whisky not vodka. And if that doesn't work I'm right out of ideas.

I must disagree with you about a system not being able to pick Makybe Diva to beat Grand Armee. Just off the top of my head how about in a 2400 race backing the horse that has won most money at 2400 or further? I guarantee that using that simple plan MD would have been an even bigger cert than on your weight ratings.

Anyway, I have another system that needs some attention so I'm off to find a bottle and change my daks.
Happy punting.

How about shortest priced or highest rated horse that had been placed at the distance of today's race. Or any horse placed at today's distance which had won it's last start exactly 7 days ago.

My only issue with mechanical systems is that they tend to focus on what a horse has done in its previous starts rather than comparing its performances relative to other horses in TODAY's race.
As an example - if today's race was a 1350m race at Doomben and your system rules included (say) "winner at track and distance". The system would select a local horse. Unfortunately that sneaky Mr Hawkes had shipped up Lonhro for the race - never raced at 1350 or at Doomben so would slip through the filters. System falls over.
I guess that's where judgement rather than blind acceptance of the system output comes in.

Yeah OK so systems could get MD over Grand Armee, but in those examples b/c GA hadn't started at the distance. What I mean is, it took a little bit of insight to say MD will love the extra 400m. If RoboAnalyst looked at MD he'd say "Beep Beep, she won G1 Australia Cup over 2000m, beep beep, she is at her best therefore at 2000m, toot." But MD didn't do her best in the Aus Cup. Her best is clearly 2400m+ but RoboAnalyst would say she is equally good from 2000m-2400-3200, b/c she has won G1's at all of them. (Beep toot).

Zorro I agree with what you said to an extent, which is why I have fashioned the rules of this one around my weight ratings, meanign the horse has to be good enough to win in order to qualify. "Hapless slug" ridden by "I.M.Useless" may have won a c1 at Rosehill on a wednesday on a heavy track against three other slugs, unnoticed, by a lip, and they were all stuffed at the end, and the owner may have entered him in the Grand Armee v Makybe Diva matchrace over 2000m at WFA last weekend, and as you say you'd be having your bet on Hapless Slug, because he's won at the track and distance. Well, not with my method.

But I guess you don't need ratings to do that. You can introduce some sort of class rule. Must have placed in the class or something. Must be pronouncable after three quarters of the bottle of no name vodka you're swigging from at midnight, standing in the middle of your study in your boxers yelling at the computer....

Duritz, you said:
a)"What I mean is, it took a little bit of insight to say MD will love the extra 400m."

How much insight did it take? Not a lot. Everybody and his dog was on MD (apart from super optimists who still think a Sydney donkey could beat anything from Melbourne) and there have been 4 off the cuff examples of the simplest sytems that would pick MD.

b)"If RoboAnalyst looked at MD he'd say "Beep Beep, she won G1 Australia Cup over 2000m, beep beep, she is at her best therefore at 2000m, toot.""

Have to disagree again. Even on a bad day in boxers and lubricated with vodka RoboAnalyst would say that MD was best at 3200, better than GA at 2400 and almost as good as GA at 2000, depending on how he was programmed of course.

Seems to be my day for disagreeing with people.
Do you mean that because the system did not pick the winner of that hypothetical race it is useless?
If so, the simple (and eminently sensible) filter of not backing your pick against odds on pops would fix that. I realise that you are hyperbolising when you use Lonrho for your example but there are many other filters that could be applied and nobody expects his system to pick every winner anyway.
I'd gladly settle for one loser per day every day as long as I could have two bets.
Cheers.

I know where your coming from.
Its how your horse is rated against other horses in TODAYS race.
An example is XPTDRIVERS ratings in another thread.
Cheers.
darky.