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

[FrogThimble]

Frog if you can I recommend doing it; just tweak some variables & see how things change.

If I hadn't - I'd thrown this idea out on the first trial. But for some reason the "mid-variations" are outperfroming (I aint got a clue why btw ):

Yes, I did make some small adjustments today after the losses. I saw, in the case of two of them today, that if I'd got out on the Green side for a lower profit than I'd been seeking then I'd not have seen those two go red. They're not drastic and don't alter the basic principles of the strategy but I've fiddled about with where my closure points (on the green side - the red side stays the same) are and I'll be curious to see how it plays out tomorrow.

It obviously not easy to calculate what I would have ended up on if I'd tweaked before today's races started but it would certainly have been more as my strike rate would have been 82% instead of 71%. Three of my losing trades would have remained losers at the same amount as before whilst the other two losing trades would have been small positives. Some of my wins would have been reduced in size though so it's a tricky balancing act.

Anyway, tomorrow is another day.

[FrogThimble]

For anyone who is curious here is how my graph would look if I'd been using even stakes (based on an initial £100 bank just because it's easier to deal with percentages using £100 than using my real £10 bank).

Even stakes 5.jpg

I'll maintain this version of the graph alongside my other one.

[FrogThimble]

Or maybe it makes more sense to show it this way?:

Day 5 even stakes with bank.jpg

[ShaunWhite]

For anyone who is curious here is how my graph would look if I'd been using even stakes.

Without knowing what the strategy is and the race selection criteria, it's just a line.

My comment about 10000 races was obviously tongue in cheek but nonetheless true.

[FrogThimble]

Without knowing what the strategy is and the race selection criteria, it's just a line.

My comment about 10000 races was obviously tongue in cheek but nonetheless true.

Race selection is based upon whether the price of the Favourite (which I will try to trade in-running) at 10 seconds before the off is:

1) Within a certain price range
2) A certain number of points below the price of the 2nd Favourite

I'm sure you'll understand that I don't want to say exactly what the figures are for those conditions but, if both of those conditions are met then I trade the race. If either one or both conditions are not met then I sit the race out. If I play then I try to trade for about 5% of what I'd win if the horse were to win the race. If the horse never reaches the point where I can get out for that profit then I have a safety servant to take me out for a Red.

However... I'm introducing a 3rd condition today about race length.

This is a graph of the percentage growth of my bank at level stakes. The blue line represents all of the races of 12 furlongs or longer that I've traded (almost all jumps, of course). The orange line represents all of the races of under 12 furlongs that I've traded (all flat races).

Distance comparison.jpg

I think the difference is quite stark. Of course I don't know if I'm looking at a Long v Short or a Jumps v Flat difference but I'm going to treat it as Long v Short. These shorter races are maybe not worth using my strategy on after all.

[ruthlessimon]

Now Peter would be a better person to ask, (because I am super new (typo there ) 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]

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.

[ruthlessimon]

That strikes me as pure knowledge, & an interesting bias if true

[FrogThimble]

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.

[ShaunWhite]

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...

Untitled.png

[ShaunWhite]

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

[FrogThimble]

"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]

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.

[FrogThimble]

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?

[Dallas]

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