Betfair Row Re-order

[fjt1973]

Evening all...

For Horse Racing do we have an idea what time Betfair might re-order the rows in order of favouritism?

I'm using Stored Values to collect the Back Price on the first 16 rows (where available) at different times over 18 hrs or so. Therefore interested in how Betfair re-ordering might affect this.

TIA

[Dallas]

Evening all...

For Horse Racing do we have an idea what time Betfair might re-order the rows in order of favouritism?

I'm using Stored Values to collect the Back Price on the first 16 rows (where available) at different times over 18 hrs or so. Therefore interested in how Betfair re-ordering might affect this.

TIA

If you use a 'fix market order' rule and have it trigger just prior to your Stored Value rules beginning it won't matter when and how often Betfair change the order

[fjt1973]

Doh! I knew the answer would be an easy one.

Thanks Dallas...

[CallumPerry]

I asked this a few weeks ago with regard to a spreadsheet. I've now started collecting data but haven't had time to check whether the order has been moving around or not. In case it has, does anybody know how to make the order STAY exactly the same as it is from the millisecond excel links up to a market?

[Wolf1877]

I asked this a few weeks ago with regard to a spreadsheet. I've now started collecting data but haven't had time to check whether the order has been moving around or not. In case it has, does anybody know how to make the order STAY exactly the same as it is from the millisecond excel links up to a market?

Callum, the runner order does move around within excel for the simple reason that non-runners drop off the list. So if say there are 10 runners in a race and the 3rd one in an excel worksheet is declared a non runner then runners 4 to 10 just get shuffled up a row. I'm not sure if they are otherwise resequenced.

I capture data by writing data out to a flat file from excel VBA. If you write the horse name out with each of frame of data that you capture then can then use the horse name to collate the related data for that horse together in your external processes.

[CallumPerry]

I asked this a few weeks ago with regard to a spreadsheet. I've now started collecting data but haven't had time to check whether the order has been moving around or not. In case it has, does anybody know how to make the order STAY exactly the same as it is from the millisecond excel links up to a market?

I'm not sure if they are otherwise resequenced.

I capture data by writing data out to a flat file from excel VBA. If you write the horse name out with each of frame of data that you capture then can then use the horse name to collate the related data for that horse together in your external processes.

That's what I was trying to look up, if there were any other reasons things could be resequenced. If it's just down to horses being withdrawn I can deal with this easily enough, can anybody confirm this to be true please?

I have been working on a replay system which already has had a lot of time dedicated to it. It takes all of the runners and their info and allows me to backtest stuff but if the horse's name is jumping around for any reason other than one being withdrawn it would take a lot of manual tweaking to fix so I've been putting off checking my log files for this very reason. Going to have to bite the bullet tomorrow but I may just drop lucky so my question still stands. Any way of locking the order completely and maybe even if there is a withdrawal; any way of the others not shuffling up the sheet, I'm ok with there being a blank row where the withdrawn horse was? Can't find this kind of in-depth excel settings anywhere in the user guide.

[Wolf1877]

Callum, I'm pretty sure there are no settings to fix the runner order in Guardian linked excel worksheets. The easiest way to find out if it changes would be to run a new instance of Guardian/Excel on tomorrows racing and develop some VBA code to dump the horsenames and row sequence out every few minutes throughout the day before in-play. If you run a whole saturdays racing and the sequence never changes apart from for non runners then you will have your answer.

[Wolf1877]

Callum

I realised that I could answer your question by querying my captured data.
The runners do move around other than just for non runners.
I suspect it is whenever the markets are suspended.
See fridays runners in the excel file attached showing their positions.

[CallumPerry]

Greatly appreciated mate! Ahhh that is really annoying. Am I reading your spreadsheet correctly? In the 13:00 race there were 9 runners to begin with and then there were 8 and then 7 so the order changed two times? The times down further when number of runners remains the same, did the order fix itself into order of favouritism or any sort of logical reason like that? Obviously can't see any odds in the spreadsheet to work this out for myself, any chance you have that data on hand?

Would it be reliable to use the number of runners cell and market suspended cell to check for changes? I'm hoping this is instantaneous so a runner gets withdrawn and the order moves like a millisecond after the number of runners cell has changed. The market ALWAYS has to suspend before this happens to? If I'm going to have to rework a big part of my replay system I could do with knowing reliable triggers before I waste my time. That is mighty annoying that it does that!

[Wolf1877]

Callum,

Yes, looking at my data for the 13:00:00 on Friday from midnight through to the actual race start there were 5 combinations of row sequence/number of runners.

Looking at the data for the horse named "Panic and Run" below. It started at midnight as the 7th horse of 9 runners in my Guardian linked excel sheet. This would probably have been the initial row sequence whenever I linked excel sometime on Thursday 10th Jan or any sequence change before midnight.
At 09:51:01 Panic And Run became ranked 5 of 9 runners in excel. i.e. the row sequence changed without there being a non runner.
At 12:14:03 and 12:16:01 the number of runners dropped to 8 then 7 (i.e. 2 non runners)
At 12:32:03 Panic And Run became ranked 4 of 7 runners in excel. i.e. the row sequence changed again without there being a non runner.
No further excel sequence changes occurred in this race between 12:32:03 and the race actually starting at 13:00:26.

Hunt 11th Jan 13:00:00 Panic And Run 7 9 00:00:00 09:50:49
Hunt 11th Jan 13:00:00 Panic And Run 5 9 09:51:01 12:13:54
Hunt 11th Jan 13:00:00 Panic And Run 5 8 12:14:03 12:15:56
Hunt 11th Jan 13:00:00 Panic And Run 5 7 12:16:01 12:31:59
Hunt 11th Jan 13:00:00 Panic And Run 4 7 12:32:03 13:00:26

I dont actually track market suspensions as such but I do sometimes see markets suspended and then immediately unsuspended without there being a non runner so I'm literally just guessing that the excel resequencing which is definitely happening probably coincides with suspensions.

I originally didnt think I captured the excel row sequence of individual runners because its completely irrelevant to my processing but then I realised that I had indirectly captured the excel sequence because data is loaded into my SQL database in exactly the same sequence as the excel row sequence. I identified these row sequence changes by querying my SQL data. You need to change your processing to be able to cope with sequence changes.

That 13:00:00 race above was stable for the last 28 minutes before the off but you do sometimes get suspensions much nearer to the actual off time especially if one of the nags is playing up entering the stalls. Looking at the data for Dundalk 17:00:00 below a non runner occured at 17:00:44 and the race started 4 minutes late. I'm sure there must be times the market is briefly suspended late on for other reasons so processes that rely on no change of excel runner sequence are definitely going to come unstuck.

Dund 11th Jan 17:00:00 Elegant Lass 14 16 00:00:00 09:12:03
Dund 11th Jan 17:00:00 Elegant Lass 16 16 09:13:03 10:32:28
Dund 11th Jan 17:00:00 Elegant Lass 13 16 10:36:07 12:33:37
Dund 11th Jan 17:00:00 Elegant Lass 13 15 12:35:12 13:52:34
Dund 11th Jan 17:00:00 Elegant Lass 13 14 13:55:03 14:10:55
Dund 11th Jan 17:00:00 Elegant Lass 12 14 14:15:27 17:00:44
Dund 11th Jan 17:00:00 Elegant Lass 12 13 17:00:44 17:03:54

[CallumPerry]

Thank you for such a detailed reply Wolf1877!

[Wolf1877]

Thank you for such a detailed reply Wolf1877!

It was a bit wordy! Thats why I dont post on here or follow this forum so much these days!

As to fixing the Excel runner sequence then its probably something worth asking for this option in the suggestions thread. I'd suggest a settings option to fix the sequence keeping the Non Runners in same rows in the worksheet but mark them as non runners.

Finally let's hope the lads put a decent performance in at Man City tonight!

[CallumPerry]

Good idea, I'll get on it now!

As for the match... didn't expect much really. Them and Liverpool are on another level, truly superb. Boly made a very daft unnecessary challenge very early which immediately made it game over. It was just a matter of keeping it from going embarrassing. Go again Saturday!