Showing posts with label players pool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label players pool. Show all posts

  • So easy a caveman could do it

    POSTED Aug 30, 2013 By Unknown
    Playing 25,000 combinations in the Pick 6 doesn't guarantee victory (believe me, I know), but it does allow you to be fast and loose with the opinions.

     The question is, do you try to be really right in 1 or 2 races or sorta right in all the races?

     As a self-described disciple of Steven Crist and his ABC method of tackling multi-race wagers, I more often lean toward the former, but sometimes the better play (at least in retrospect!) is to just be sort of right on all races (the Crist-called caveman approach).

     The Players Pool is a fun and educational opportunity for TwinSpires.com customers, and since I'm one of those myself I try to have fun and learn from it as well. So what did I learn from yesterday's shut out?

     Don't force strong opinions.

     In leg 1, we leaned heavily on 4, 9, 11. The 4 finished second as the favorite but never really threatened the winner, who we didn't use on a backup that had two others. I'm fine with leaning on the three we did, but if not them then we should have gone deeper on the main back up.

     In leg 2, we didn't lean on anyone, really, going five deep to catch the shortest price in the sequence in $4.10 Kingston Bay. This literally was the worst-case scenario for us because leg 1 winner Nuffsaidnuffsaid was the shortest price of the horses we didn't have on multiple tickets, and we coupled her with the favorite on a ticket that started all with all.

     This was a deflating beginning because even though we were "live" it was tough to envision a scenario in which we could profit considering we were now down to two singles who both would be favored.

     So what could we have done differently?

     Well, we had leg 3 mostly right. Sure, we were four deep, but we were right to go against the favorite. We were wrong on our single in leg 4 (Roses For Romney) but the two we used on the backup ticket both hit the tri, including winner Lady's Lunar Luck. Leg 5 we thought only Racetrack Romance couldn't win, and the longest shot on the board obliged with a last-place finish.

     Leg 6 is where we should made the most of a contrarian opinion. I leaned on favored #4 Brandys Secret because I did see her as the most likely winner, but the feeling was if she didn't win any of them could, and indeed, the longest shot on the board Hunters Forward got it done at nearly 35-to-1.

     So how could we have stringed these together? Well, we couldn't have leaning on both Roses For Romney and Brandys Secret. Even leaning on one or the other was a path to ruin. We basically made it so one of them had to win, and given the air of vulnerability we thought both had, that probably wasn't the best approach with this size bankroll.

     In retrospect, I think we could have "gotten there" going 8 deep in leg 1 (again, acknowledging that we liked 4, 9, 11 most but after that there were 5 others that made sense and 4 who didn't). Leg 2 probably should have been our single if we had any, but this works even with the same quartet we did use. Leg 3 we were four deep. Leg 4 we use our single plus the two from the back up. Leg 5 we use them all except the overmatched 4, and then we use them all in leg 6.

     This approach basically is playing AGAINST the two favorites we ended up singling, but if we thought they were fair value at even money then they're still both going to lose 25% of the time. That's 3-to-1 odds, and this 8x4x4x3x6x10 approach would have returned about 9-to-1.

     Which approach to take is at the heart of every players pool. There was a pool in late June in which we decided to go against a big favorite. That favorite won, and while we "hit" for 6/6 the wager lost money. This time we decided to go with the favorites and crapped out.

     The game is humbling in that way, but at least when you do connect on wagers like this they usually cover the losses!

  • It's OK to be wrong as long as you get paid when you're right

    POSTED Jul 30, 2013 By Unknown
    What do Rich Perloff and the TwinSpires.com Players Pool have in common? Neither hit the Pick 6 on Monday at Saratoga.

     The difference, though, is that Perloff could have while TwinSpires.com should have. The former because Perloff gave out an $80 play that would have hit for ~$50k (if he had been in the pool). The latter because the players pool had roughly the same opinions in the last three races that would have allowed Perloff to connect. The biggest difference being that even with $50,000 compared to Perloff's $80, the TwinSpires.com Players Pool couldn't find race 7 (leg 3) winner Jade Run despite going four deep in a race Perloff only needed two bullets.

     Perloff got some razzing for not playing his ticket, but most people were impressed not only with his handicapping (he essentially hit a 275-to-1 Pick 4 using only two combos) but also his bet structure; count me among the latter group.

     Perloff works for a company with similar goals as my employer: Educate horseplayers and make horse racing fun. His Pick 6 strategy certainly educated me. I wrote that missing the leg 3 winner was our critical error. While that's true from a which-race-did-you-miss standpoint (we had 14 consolation payouts, but the consolation rarely is one) the critical error was not leaning harder on our strongest opinions.

     The size of the Players Pool doesn't mean we have more things to be right about, it means we can afford to be wrong sometimes if we're "really right" about some other thoughts. There's no reason liking the winners of races 8, 9, & 10 as much as we did that we shouldn't have spread a little bit earlier. We don't mind being wrong about a race, but it stings to be right and still not get paid. Perloff did his job in that regard. It was clear what needed to go right for his ticket to cash.

     I don't consider myself a tout or public handicapper. I love the game and share opinions on social media just as brazenly as I do at the Paddock Bar at Keeneland. The Players Pool is a shared experience too. We pool our money and try to have some fun. Yes, winning is more fun than losing, but handicapping is fun, too, as is leaning from our experiences.

  • ABC Double carryover

    POSTED Jul 24, 2013 By Unknown

    The above grid represents my ABC selections only, and not the opinions of other Players Pool team members. Good luck to those in the pool and those playing Summer Showdown!

  • Winning underlay or losing overlay? The Players Pool conundrum

    POSTED Jun 27, 2013 By Unknown
    You are offered two games of chance with fixed odds. In the first game, you flip a coin and get 4-to-5 odds on your choice (heads or tails). In the second game, you roll a standard six-sided die and get 6-to-1 odds on your choice (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6).

     Which game do you choose if...

     A) You get one chance and must bet 100% of your bankroll?
    B) You get 100 chances but can only bet 1% of your bankroll on each chance?


     The coin offers underlaid odds but a much higher chance of success. The die offers better value, but you fail 83.3% of the time.

     So if I only get one chance for all of my bankroll I'm flipping the coin. My expected value is lower, but so is my risk of ruin. Sort of a one in the hand is worth two in the bush situation. Under the "B" scenario I'm rolling the die. I'll win less often, but getting 6-to-1 instead of the fair value 5-to-1 on each successful roll makes it far more likely that I will profit.

     Balancing these probabilities is at the heart of multi-race wagering for me. Giving yourself a chance not only at success from a "hitting it" standpoint but also financially rewarded for the risk taken.

     The Pick 6 on Wednesday at Belmont featured a $248,140 carryover and a coin flip paying 1-to-2 in the form of Crackerjack Jones in race 5 (leg 2). 3-to-5 on the morning line, Crackerjack Jones paid $2.90 after winning by 4 3/4 lengths. He was never threatened, and in retrospect  was probably fair odds to win considering it's tough to see him losing that race more than a third of the time.

     The Players Pool took a stand against him, however, using him on "only" 42.82% of our tickets, which indicates odds of about 4-to-3. The thinking was that there was far more value in beating him than trying to hit it multiple times at the expense of not using longshots we liked later in the sequence. As it turns out, Crackerjack Jones won and none of the potential $20+ horses we liked ran a step.

     We correctly leaned on Strapping Groom, who won race eight (leg five) at odds of 23-to-5. We used him on 22.7% of our tickets (17-to-5), but made our biggest mistake in the first leg where Cay To Pomeroy faltered as the 1.55-to-1 second choice but as the top choice on our tickets with 48.9% (nearly even money) of our action.

     All that adds up to we backed the wrong side of the coin and was wrong about the die. We took the calculated risk to play the ticket to give us the best chance at a $500,000 score. We don't always play it that way. Sometimes I agree with the public that a horse like Crackerhead Jones can't lose, and we ask, "what can we do to hit this thing 10 times?"

     Even with all the dead money in the pool from the two-day carryover, a horse like Crackerhead Jones winning is never going to produce the watershed payoff, and that's OK. If you choose to flip the coin then make the most of the opportunity. But having $48,315 to put into the Pick 6 and not loving a 1-to-2 favorite put us in a unique position to make a really nice score otherwise.

     Here's to next time.

  • Four-five is the Rainbow Six

    POSTED Apr 4, 2013 By Unknown
    I don't know many horse players who haven't had April 5 circled on their calendars for some time.

     Whether it's the Rainbow^6 mandatory payout, opening weekend at Keeneland, Derby Championship Series presented by TwinSpires.com weekends at Aqueduct and Santa Anita, or all of the above, this is unquestionably the biggest weekend of racing in the United States since the Breeders' Cup World Championships five months ago.

     I'll be in wagering action starting at 1:10 p.m. EDT when Keeneland lifts the lid on its 16-day season. It'll be a whirlwind three weeks with big fields and big prices, but the flurry of activity coast-to-coast expected over a 30-hour period will leave many people's head spinning, no doubt.

     The Rainbow^6 carryover will be around $2-million going into Friday's races, which is closing day at Gulfstream. That it's closing day means the whole net pool--which any other day only pays out to a single winner--will be paid out to all winners. It's an extremely unique opportunity to chase after a seven-figure pot for as little as a dime. Estimates for new money into the pool range from $4-million to $8-million! Imagine that: a $10-million pool on a base wager of a dime!

     Of course, the TwinSpires.com Players Pool is looking to hit it for more than a dime, as me and handicapping champions Michael Beychok & Patrick McGoey will have tens of thousands of dollars (i.e., hundreds of thousands of dimes) to wager on the sequence that begins with race 8 at 4:34 p.m. EDT.

     FRIDAY MORNING UPDATE: Well, we're off the turf at Gulfstream, which is a slight monkey wrench considering pending scratches and having to re-handicap some races for dirt/off track. The biggest change is in wagering strategy, though. The Players Pool is putting $100,000 into this, and the goal is not to hit the Rainbow^6 but to make money. Some combinations will absolutely need to be covered multiple times--maybe as many as 100x ($10) or 200x ($20) times.

    On the plus side, we're "fast" (Polytrack) and firm at Keeneland, so tab below is pretty current. The Gulfstream tab will be updated as scratches come in. The Gulfstream "picks" below is my grid only and does not reflect the approach of the Players Pool or its other panelists.

  • Players' Pool post mortem: A consolation never is

    POSTED Nov 15, 2012 By Unknown
    Tough sequence on Wednesday, as only two of the ~143,500 combinations bet into the $89,489 Pick 6 carryover successfully navigated the sequence that ended with $111.50 winner Noosh's Tale.

     Difficulty is not an excuse for the Players' Pool, however, because as someone said to me after the races, "This is the type of result the Players' Pool should hit."

     I don't disagree. Between the three handicappers on the Players' Pool at least one of us mentioned every winner, and we all had Sportswriter as the most likely winner of leg 2 (race 5). Still, we only had one consolation payout to show for it.

     We considered using Sportswriter on every ticket, but each of us felt that he was vulnerable enough that we wanted an out if he lost. Sportswriter ended up on 71.2% of our tickets, which is equivalent to assigning him a fair value of 2-to-5.

     Noosh's Tale was on one of our tickets, but we needed Natalie Victoria to win the fourth leg (race 7) to connect with her, and she just wasn't good enough. Bad single.

     The other race we "missed" in the sense that the winner clearly wasn't one of our stronger picks was the third leg (race 6) when Star Black gave jockey Abel Castellano and trainer Randi Persaud their first winners of the meeting while paying $22.80. The horse fit, and I mention the jockey and trainer getting their first wins because one of the reasons I ultimately made this horse a "B" rather than an "A" is because she was co third choice on the morning line and with those connections I preferred the first-time starters at bigger prices.

    It's one thing to have all the dots on the page, but connecting them is obviously the key. What was the path yesterday? A 6x1x9x5x5x8 ticket would have cost $21,600 and hit for $84,000 (we'd have been the third winning ticket, so the payout would have been less) plus 28 consos for about a 2-to-1 ROI on our $25,000 investment. That's 86.4% of our money on Sportswriter, though, so instead of betting him like a 2-to-5 shot he's now 3-to-20. But, that's how we could have gotten it done.

    So lesson learned: Always single the big favorite. Just kidding! Just because the above would have worked this time doesn't mean that's the right play. Poker players understand this well. Just because you hit your inside straight on the river doesn't mean the call you made on the turn was necessarily correct or will be next time you're in a similar situation.

    But learning from the experience is always the right move. As Ernie Munick said on Facebook so poetically: "If I don't learn something when I handicap – a trip, a pedigree, a stat, an eccentricity of running or training or riding style, any pattern – then it feels like wasting time, with zero chance of the special."

  • Double carryover Pick 6 mania Wednesday at Aqueduct

    POSTED Nov 14, 2012 By Unknown
    As captain of the TwinSpires Players' Pool, I'm responsible for wagering $25,000 on the Pick 6 Wednesday at Aqueduct.

     $25,000 is a significant amount and will represent 5%-10% of the new money bet into the pool that already features a $89,489 carryover.

     The significance of the amount is not only in its volume but also in its effect on strategy. At this level of wagering, simply hitting the Pick 6 is not enough. Considering automatic withholding on any score greater than $5,000, the Pick 6 would need to pay at least $30,000 for the pool to break even, and that assumes that our consolations would total another $2,500 (it would also assume we hit the thing--no small task considering we're talking about only 8-12 winners based on pool estimates).

     The biggest question for today's sequence is what to do with Sportswriter, who won at this level three back, but that is his only win in his last seven tries, and he's giving weight to his competitors in this race (including some elders).


    Sportswriter certainly is the most likely winner, but is he a universal single? Put another way, is there more value in trying to hit it multiple times with Sportswriter or go against him? With 12,500 combinations at my disposal, the Players' Pool can do both, but balancing that ratio is essential. I'd hate to beat Sportswriter then miss elsewhere, but I'd hate for Sportswriter and a few other horses I really like to win and not have it multiple times.

    Post time for the first leg of the Pick 6 (race 4) is 1:47 EST, and Brisnet.com has lots of great handicapping information including a FREE Win Factor Report from fellow blog contributor Derek Simon.

    Good luck to everyone playing today.