How long does it take to judge whether a system is working?

Trading is often about how to take the appropriate risk without exposing yourself to very human flaws.
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ruthlessimon
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Now Peter would be a better person to ask, (because I am super new (typo there :lol: ) with this type of analysis), but I think seeing divergence like that (if both strategies were deployed simultaneously) should breed confidence that your original strategy is a real edge - & if you know what/why the edge is, then your onto a winner - literally :)

The question is what's causing the divergence

P.S. I think the divergence is good in this case, as you've added a completely new variable. A minor tweaked variable could suggest randomness - but again Peter is the person to ask about that :)
FrogThimble
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ruthlessimon wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 4:47 pm

The question is what's causing the divergence
My opinion at the moment is that the divergence is caused by the lead changing hands more frequently and earlier in the short sprint races. As soon as the horse I am trading loses Favouritism then I go into the Red. In the longer races the original Favourites seem to retain favouritism for a longer proportion of the race even if they are going to lose - so more chance to grab my profit. On the other hand the danger in the longer races is that if my horse falls at a fence before I've done the 2nd half of the trade then I'm looking at a bigger loss - but I can't do much about that really.
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ruthlessimon
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That strikes me as pure knowledge, & an interesting bias if true :)
FrogThimble
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ruthlessimon wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 5:18 pm
That strikes me as pure knowledge, & an interesting bias if true :)
No, not knowledge so much as observation. I know nothing at all about horses but I'm coming at this from a mathematical bent. I've been watching the price movements carefully and it seems to me that a lot of really wild stuff happens to the prices in the early stages of the short races whilst the early stages of the longer races are more stable.
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ShaunWhite
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The course also has a significant effect on IP strategies.

Whether you can prove much by backtesting is a hotly debated topic but you can certainly use it to look for the likely effect of course, runners, surfaces, distances, seasons etc. Or just quickly see if a strategy is a non runner.

These examples aren't related what you're doing, but are from strategies I tested on the last 50,000 races run in the UK. A few thousand more races and it might be a decent sample size :) Actually the data goes back 100,000 races, 1 million horses over 10 yrs, but it just takes too long to run my iterations.

Maybe you should have a play with the data, if you're a maths guy you might find something.

BUT you're much more likely to find something if you start collecting your own data to zero in on the area you're interested, ideally something which isn't in the public data.
Course.png
Runners.png
Example BF data...
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ShaunWhite
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FrogThimble wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 5:31 pm
I've been watching the price movements carefully and it seems to me that a lot of really wild stuff happens to the prices in the early stages of the short races whilst the early stages of the longer races are more stable.
"It seems to me....." is always a good place to start. The most interesting part of your brain often does it's stuff without showing it's workings out...

Distance can indeed be something that's significant, this one was from a test to determin my 'jeopardy' variable, a hell of a lot of work to prove something obvious, but a proof and a number are always satisfying.
Distance.png
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FrogThimble
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ShaunWhite wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 7:29 pm

"It seems to me....." is always a good place to start. The most interesting part of your brain often does it's stuff without showing it's workings out...
I hope I have learned quite a lot today. Today's trading has exposed several different holes in my strategy so I've taken steps to adjust my conditions and parameters a bit. I think the most immediate impact of this will be that I'll have fewer races that I can try to trade.

I'm eliminating all of the short distance races - everything below a mile and a half is not within of my consideration. So far as the remaining races go I'm also altering (by widening) my condition on how far apart in price the Fav & 2nd Favourite need to be in the races where the Favourite isn't a clear one.

Anyway, I'm not trading tomorrow due to having volunteered to deliver leaflets for the local elections... so maybe other thoughts of what I need to change will creep into my mind as I'm out pushing my party's propaganda through letterboxes. ;) I'll get back to this experiment on Sunday.
FrogThimble
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Day 6:

A day of overall losses and a terrible strike rate of 53% - though it would've been slightly better (60%) if I'd implemented the changes I've thought of ahead of play today. Anyway, this takes me up to 92 trades in total.
Day 6.jpg
Today's strike rate: 53% (10/19)
Overall strike rate: 72% (66/92)
Today's loss: -2.3% decline of my bank
Overall profit: 29.7% growth of my bank over 6 days.

I hope I can do better on Sunday as the top of my graph is looking like the makings of a flat line or worse.
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FrogThimble
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I've just looked at what races are on this coming week... It looks like it's just flat racing - so that kind of blows a complete hole in my strategy. I might have to have a serious rethink or just go ahead and play the ones that match my price conditions or I'll have no trades.

Can anyone with more experience tell me if it's going to be this way for a long time now?
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Dallas
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FrogThimble wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 8:38 pm
I've just looked at what races are on this coming week... It looks like it's just flat racing - so that kind of blows a complete hole in my strategy. I might have to have a serious rethink or just go ahead and play the ones that match my price conditions or I'll have no trades.

Can anyone with more experience tell me if it's going to be this way for a long time now?
Flat season began about 2-3 weeks ago and NH season has now ended, there is still a few jumps meeting on throughout the summer but its basically over till September when the flat winds down and the jumps begin properly again

Purple = Flat
Blue = NH (Jumps)
Yellow = AW
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FrogThimble
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Dallas wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:07 pm



Flat season began about 2-3 weeks ago and NH is now ending, there is the odd jumps meeting still on throughout the summer but its basically over till September when the flat winds down and the jumps begin again
Thanks for the information, Dallas. It's not what I'd hoped to hear but at least I know. Trust me to device a strategy based around long races just as they're about to end... :roll: Oh well... I'll give the shorts ones a fair try seeing as they're the only game in town. :D
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Dallas
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FrogThimble wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:13 pm
Dallas wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:07 pm



Flat season began about 2-3 weeks ago and NH is now ending, there is the odd jumps meeting still on throughout the summer but its basically over till September when the flat winds down and the jumps begin again
Thanks for the information, Dallas. It's not what I'd hoped to hear but at least I know. Trust me to device a strategy based around long races just as they're about to end... :roll: Oh well... I'll give the shorts ones a fair try seeing as they're the only game in town. :D
If you do have to park the strategy for a few months during summer at least you'll have something to pick up again in September, as the chart shows once it starts up again it doesn't take long to get back in the full swing.
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ShaunWhite
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Flat races aren't all sprints. You might also find that the going is a consideration too if distance is.

It's certainly worth you learning a bit about race types and grades to supplement your analysis.

Also if the strategy depends on how the favourite runs you might want to look at a service like pacecards to quickly eliminate some likely to spoil your day.
weemac
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Totally different ball game, imo.
FrogThimble
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I'll see how it pans out next week with my existing conditions (other than distance). If it goes wrong at least I'll be picking up clues as to why as I go along.
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