It is a time of year to take stock, sit back, try to examine the macro as opposed to focusing on the micro. Examine strategy as opposed to operations. Try to evaluate what has gone before, take what we have learned from the year that has just passed and see if any learning can be incorporated into plans and objectives for the year ahead.
So betting then. If you do not keep records of your bets, you should still have a think about what worked for you during 2011, the types of bets from which you think you did well and the types which you just know cost you money. If you do keep records, so much the better; you can have a look through your records and differentiate the good bets from the bad bets. Once you have done that, you can resolve to increase the former and reduce or eradicate the latter.
My 2011 was the usual mix of stupid bets, should-have-had-more-on bets, should-not-have-been-near-it-with-stolen-money bets, horses-that-were-just-too-short bets, horses-that-didn’t-really-have-a-chance-of-winning-but-suckered-me-in-with-fancy-prices bets, lucky winners that I shouldn’t really have backed, unlucky losers that were actually good bets, and plenty of horses that were simply not as good as I had thought or hoped they would be.
Overall, thankfully, it was a profitable 12 months, but I am still looking to tweak things. You should always be looking to tweak things. Here are three of the tweaks:
1. Back fewer short-priced horses
Different things work for different people. Lots of smart bettors turn significant profits by backing 3/1 shots that should be 2/1 shots, or by backing even money shots that should be odds-on, or 4/7 shots that should be 2/7, but I’m not one of them. My mentality is much better suited to backing 20/1 shots that I think should be 12/1. The difficulty with those is that, even if your judgement is correct, they are still 12/1 shots, on average only one in every 13 of those win.
Of course, if you are backing them at 20/1, and if one in every 13 wins, in the long run you will make a profit, but you will almost certainly have to endure several confidence-shaking long losing runs. Sometimes you are tempted in by the 9/4 shot that you think should be 2/1 or 7/4, simply because you feel the need to back a winner to end a losing run or to enhance a winning one or to restore confidence in your ability to assess a race. My 2011 records, however, say that that strategy, for me, is not one that adds value, and my intention is to strictly limit such bets in 2012.
2. Lay fewer horses
Again, as above, lots of bettors make significant profits from laying horses on Betdaq or on the other exchanges. Again, I am not one of them. My Lay column for 2011 is not a pretty sight. I sometimes take to laying a horse when (obviously) I think that he is too short a price, or when I think that market has over-reacted to a piece of form, or when I think the ground has turned and the market hasn’t taken that into account, or when I think a horse won’t have the stamina for a trip or the pace for a trip, or won’t jump well enough, or won’t be suited by a big field or the likely sedate pace or by going right-handed. They are all viable reasons for laying a horse, as long as you think that the market is wrong.
The difficulty with laying a horse, however, is that you are trading at short prices. If you are laying a horse even at as short as 6/4, that means that you are actually backing every other horse in the race at combined odds of 4/6, and I would rarely back a 4/6 shot. (See above.) Because of the short odds involved, I invariably end up laying the horse to lose more than I should, based on the degree to which I believe the odds are wrong, if that makes sense.
The other difficulty with laying a horse is that you are effectively backing every other horse in the race, including some horses that you don’t really think have chances of winning the race and other horses that you think are also under-priced, and that doesn’t make sense. Better instead, if you think that a favourite is too short, to back the two or three or four horses in the race that you think are consequently too big.
3. Re-investigate in-running betting
My in-running column has all kinds of in-running bets in it, so, without sitting down and going through each bet, and trying to figure out the genesis of each one, it is impossible to tell if one in-running strategy is making sense and others aren’t, or if they are all just pretty much breaking even. That is a mistake with my recording procedure, and it needs to be fixed.
I have concluded that you need more than one column for in-running bets in order to present a true reflection of the bet. There are horses you backed at big prices because you thought they would stay on for pressure, horses you laid at short prices because you thought they would travel well and find little, horses you backed before the race and put up offers to lay him in-running (back-to-lays) because you wanted to guarantee yourself a profit if he went close or because you thought he would at least travel well into the race, horses you laid before the race and put up offers to back in-running because you thought he wouldn’t travel well and would stay on, horses you laid at short prices because the ground was heavy and it was a handicap chase at Towcester or Downpatrick, leaders you laid or hold-up horses you backed because you thought the pace was too fast, leaders you backed or hold-up horses you laid because you thought the pace was too slow. And the rest.
A few more columns required then.
