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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FrogThimble
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:26 pm

Day 7:

Today 8 races met the conditions of my strategy taking my total trades up to a nice round 100. Although I made a decent profit today I feel it was more by luck than by judgement. 6 of the the races played out "normally" allowing me to get out for small profits or small losses but I also had 2 races where all hell broke loose really and I was lucky to come out on the upside of those overall.
page 7.jpg
In the Wetherby 4:25pm I was trying to trade out for a small loss at exactly the moment that the market swung wildly in my favour and instead of being down 19p I ended up gaining £1.41...

Then in the Wetherby 5:30pm I had pretty much the reverse scenario. I was greening up to lock in a 5p profit at precisely the moment that the market swung wildly against me and went 48p down instead.

These two markets were my biggest gain and biggest loss so far in percentage terms so it confirms to me how volatile these short races are.

I was also unable to exert any control over my position in the Wetherby 6:00pm but ended up OK on that one in the end.

Anyway, as a consequence my graph looks a bit crazy tonight.

Day 7.jpg

Today's strike rate: 75% (6/8)
Overall strike rate: 72% (72/100)
Today's profit: 8.6% growth of my bank (£12.97 to £14.08)
Overall profit: 40.8% growth of my bank over 7 trading days (£10.00 to £14.08)
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ShaunWhite
Posts: 9731
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:42 am

So the strategy is to back to lay clear favourites. I wish you well but it's going to be really difficult to do this consistently especially as horses running styles become more exposed. You will start to find that early leaders don't shorten as much as you hope because the inplay specialists won't see this as an indication the horse will win any more often than sp suggests.

With you being new to racing you might not appreciate that horses don't just run as fast as they can from start to finish. People who make money from your type of strategy usual only manage to do so by factoring in the horses running style.

I really do think you should try looking at the historical data, you can leave your spreadsheet running overnight as wake up to every permutation of profits and stops for every surface and distance, for every variation of favorite prices over the last 100000 markets. It will save an aweful lot of guesswork. Although, if you do you'll join a group of about 1000 people who have tried and failed to find a simple edge in this area.

With all due respect I don't see any application of maths, it's just picking random profits and stops. You will be very very lucky to have found a magic combination and the pl from your last 60 races (ie almost zero) shows its not quite as easy you might have hoped. I'd never deter someone from trying but I'd use your random strategy as an opportunity to learn about the fundamentals.

The markets are brutally efficient, I'd guess that after 500 races you'll find that you are in loss by approximately the amount of commission you've paid.
FrogThimble
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:26 pm

ShaunWhite wrote:
Sun Apr 29, 2018 10:37 pm


With all due respect I don't see any application of maths, it's just picking random profits and stops. You will be very very lucky to have found a magic combination and the pl from your last 60 races (ie almost zero) shows its not quite as easy you might have hoped. I'd never deter someone from trying but I'd use your random strategy as an opportunity to learn about the fundamentals.

The markets are brutally efficient, I'd guess that after 500 races you'll find that you are in loss by approximately the amount of commission you've paid.
The stops are not exactly random. I have two Servants that I've set up to take me out at very specific points. I was finding that they were working reasonably well on the longer races. However, on the shorter races I find it harder to sit back and let them get on with it due to the volatility of the prices and this causes me to intervene to try to get any scrap of profit that I can before it goes red - hence on the shorter races I'm winning less on my winners but losing the same on my losers as I would on the longer races.

So I think it's fair for you to say that my profits and stops on the Flat races are random but on the Jump races I'd argue that they are not because I have been letting the Servants deal with the Jump races unaided (or unhindered) by human intervention.

You also make a very fair point about the poor performance of my system over the last 60 races. The best part of the graph is without doubt the first 20 races and the most interesting thing about that section of the graph is that almost all of those races were jump races.

Races 1-20: 17 Jumps, 3 Flats
Races 21-40: 14 Jumps, 6 Flats
Races 41-60: 13 Jumps, 7 Flats
Races 61-80: 11 Jumps, 9 Flats
Races 81-100: 13 Jumps, 7 Flats

I have a 78% strike rate on the Jump races and just a 58% strike rate on the Flat races (55% on the 5-6 furlong ones). A strike rate of roughly 66% on this is break-even, I think.

All of the races in the next 20 will be Flat races and I very much expect to take a hit because of that based on the limited data I've gathered so far.

I never thought it would be easy though. If I thought it would be easy I'd be playing these trades with a far bigger bank than I am doing - I'd have kicked off with £100 or £200 in my bank if I were sure of my theories. I think the small bank I am using is a reasonable reflection of my confidence (or lack thereof) in my system. ;)
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ShaunWhite
Posts: 9731
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:42 am

What I meant by random is that the points you close at weren't selected with anything specific in mind. Such as the average inplay minimum a clear favorite in the pre race betting reaches. 7% just felt doable more often than not? I wasn't suggesting you just closed your eyes and clicked :)

More sophisticated automation might help as you could include logic to let your profits run further, or to reduce your loss with a stop that moves intelligently, maybe nudging down in steps as different profit levels have been reached. It would be ideal if the clear leaders that just head off into the sunset paid really well to help offset the occasional one who never gets going and screws you over. Remember that if the average price you backed at was 3.0 then probably 33% of them were winners. The difference between a winning strategy and a losing one is often just a few percent.

It takes 300ms to blink and 200ms to react to something and click. In that time, BA could have processed your logic rules 25 times with a dozen BF price changes. Unless you have a talent for reading how horses are looking in running, full automation really is the only place to be for inplay horses. You need all the speed you can get when you're fighting loads of other people to grab that tenner on the ladder.

You're wise to keep it small and the best thing of all is that you're enjoying it. Sorry if I came across as cynical but my intention is just to try and give you a steer, if not to profits then definitely away from losses. Your strategy is a well known one, no need for everyone who tries it to pay the full cost of learning the pitfalls.

With your strategy being quite long duration back to lays I still think you'll do better on the flat. Flat sprints won't be ideal though as how they break from the stalls can be a do or die within seconds.
FrogThimble
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:26 pm

I'm fascinated by your suggestion that I might do better on the Flats, Shaun. I hope you're right about this as there's precious little else on offer right now. I think I am struggling with the more rapid rhythm of these markets though and it does indeed seem to be do or die on the short races.

I very grateful to you for defining sprint races for me as 5 to 6 furlongs as they are my worst results so far. From today I'm not playing them and just going with 7 furlongs and higher so long as the prices qualify for my system.

The only real hint of sophistication that I have in my Servants is that the price differences between Fav and 2nd Fav that are acceptable to me are different depending upon the price of the Fav... By that I mean I'm not looking for the same price gaps between a short price Fav and its 2nd Fav as I am between a longer priced Fav and its 2nd Fav.

I have 4 different price bands for Favourites and each of those 4 bands demands a different gap between the Fav and 2nd Fav.

Anyway, I appreciate your input and I didn't take your comments as being cynical. :)
FrogThimble
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:26 pm

Day 8:

Today's racing isn't over yet but I'm not going to try to play the last few races tonight because I've got other stuff I need to do. I played 11 races today bringing my total trades up to 111.

Today I was taught a brutal lesson by my own stupidity. My strike rate today was 10/11 yet I only basically broke even on the day. This was because I didn't have the confidence to let my Servants get on with it... so I intervened manually and blew 9% of my bank (28% of my profits) in one stupid trade... :shock: Lesson learned!!! After that I sat on my hands and let the Servants do their thing for the remaining 7 races that I played. So I ended the day on just 0.6% profit when I would have had 6.3% profit if I'd behaved myself properly today...
Page 8.jpg


Day 8.jpg
Today's strike rate: 91% (10/11)
Overall strike rate: 74% (82/111)
Today's profit: 0.6% growth of my bank (£14.08 to £14.17)
Overall profit: 41.7% growth of my bank over 8 trading days (£10.00 to £14.17)
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FrogThimble
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:26 pm

Day 9: 13 trades today taking the total up to 124 trades. The 1p win at the end of the day was an error - that was me exiting pre-off a race I didn't really want to trade on. I've included it in the stats though as it was still a trade.
page 9.jpg

Day 9.jpg
Today's strike rate: 77% (10/13)
Overall strike rate: 74% (92/124)
Today's bank growth: 5.5% (£14.17 to £14.95)
Overall bank growth: 49.5% over 9 trading days (£10.00 to £14.95)
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FrogThimble
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:26 pm

Day 10:

Almost no data to add today. I was out all day involved in the local elections campaign putting leaflets through doors... in the rain... Great fun. ;)

So I only played the races from 6pm onwards and only 2 of the evening races met my criteria. So that nudges up my total trades up very slightly to 126.
List 10.jpg


Day 10.jpg
Today's strike rate: 100% (2/2)
Overall strike rate: 75% (94/126)
Today's bank growth: 1.3% (£14.95 to £15.14)
Overall bank growth: 51.4% over 10 trading days (£10.00 to £15.14)
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FrogThimble
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:26 pm

Day 11:

15 trades taking the total up to 141. Still early days but I am now past the equivalent point at which my previous system collapsed anyway.
List 11.jpg

Day 11.jpg

Today's strike rate: 80% (12/15)
Overall strike rate: 75% (106/141)
Today's bank growth: 5.1% (£15.14 to £15.91)
Overall bank growth: 59.1% over 11 trading days (£10.00 to £15.91)
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FrogThimble
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:26 pm

Day 12:

15 trades today bringing the total up to 156 trades.
list 12.jpg
Day 12.jpg

Today's strike rate: 87% (13/15)
Overall strike rate: 76% (119/156)
Today's bank growth: 7.4% (£15.91 to £17.08)
Overall bank growth: 70.8% over 12 trading days (£10.00 to £17.08)
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FrogThimble
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:26 pm

Final update:

Day 13... 19 trades today and I totally messed up.
Day 13.jpg
The big drop was due to another stupid intervention on my part rather than the system... but the system can't possibly work if I can't make myself play by my own rules. So I'll go and think about my self-discipline (or lack thereof)...

Anyway, that's the public part of my experiment over with. :)
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xitian
Posts: 457
Joined: Fri Jul 08, 2011 2:08 pm

Can't you automate it somehow? A system isn't really a system if there's discretion involved. At the same time if discretion is not require for it to work then in theory you should be able to convert it to a set of rules which you can try to automate?

Even if it needs a bit of configuration at the start of the day or whatever, if at least the execution can be automated then that would be worth it.
FrogThimble
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:26 pm

xitian wrote:
Sun May 06, 2018 12:25 pm
Can't you automate it somehow? A system isn't really a system if there's discretion involved. At the same time if discretion is not require for it to work then in theory you should be able to convert it to a set of rules which you can try to automate?

Even if it needs a bit of configuration at the start of the day or whatever, if at least the execution can be automated then that would be worth it.
It was automated... but... that didn't stop me interferring. Even though the system was (mostly) producing a slight profit I couldn't stop myself from sometimes making manual interventions if I felt something was going against me. All of the biggest dips and biggest leaps in my graph were due to interventions. All of the small upwards and downwards movements were due to the automation doing what it should have done.

The problem was with me rather than with the system. It's no big deal with a £10 bank but image how I'd have got on with a bigger bank that I actually cared about? More interventions and more significant losses, I think.

Anyway, over the last few days I've mostly been studying the movements of the markets and I think I've noticed another huge pitfall to my approach... the biggest flaw possible (one so big that I'm amazed I didn't spot it before) really so I'm rather glad I didn't persue this any further. I'm looking at the strengths and weaknesses of a totally different in-play idea now but just in the early stages of testing it.
FrogThimble
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:26 pm

FrogThimble wrote:
Thu May 10, 2018 5:34 pm
xitian wrote:
Sun May 06, 2018 12:25 pm
Can't you automate it somehow? A system isn't really a system if there's discretion involved. At the same time if discretion is not require for it to work then in theory you should be able to convert it to a set of rules which you can try to automate?

Even if it needs a bit of configuration at the start of the day or whatever, if at least the execution can be automated then that would be worth it.
It was automated... but... that didn't stop me interferring. Even though the system was (mostly) producing a slight profit I couldn't stop myself from sometimes making manual interventions if I felt something was going against me. All of the biggest dips and biggest leaps in my graph were due to interventions. All of the small upwards and downwards movements were due to the automation doing what it should have done.

The problem was with me rather than with the system (up to a point... as the system itself has a major flaw that I spotted today). It's no big deal with a £10 bank but image how I'd have got on with a bigger bank that I actually cared about? More interventions and more significant losses, I think.

Anyway, over the last few days I've mostly been studying the movements of the markets and I think I've noticed another huge pitfall to my approach... (alluded to in my previous paragraph) the biggest flaw possible (one so big that I'm amazed I didn't spot it before) really so I'm rather glad I didn't persue this any further. I'm looking at the strengths and weaknesses of a totally different in-play idea now but just in the early stages of testing it.
FrogThimble
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:26 pm

Apologies for duplicate posts above due to poor editing of my reply to xitian.
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