High volume services like Systematic and Piecost continue to perform poorly with very little progress being made. While there appeared to be light at the end of the tunnel last week, we're back to square one again.
The lack of bets from Steve Lewis Hamilton is also telling - is he scared to enter the market or is the quality / type of racing just not worth taking the risk and he's doing the right thing in biding his time.
Whatever is going on I'd like to get out this rut!!
As I mentioned I'm starting following The Football Analyst bets from this weekend and am just in the process of working out which systems to follow and how it all works. Will keep you posted as definitely looks like a promising site to follow (and it's free!!)
7 comments:
I'm with you regarding services,n.monk,slh,f.ball elite & systematic , how frustrating is this game!
You have slh who won't put ought up & systematic who gets 3 great results &3 bad .there's no getin away systematic gets prices but boy you need to work for it(25bets)some days! I feel like its a job I itself .what about you?
If been disappointed with Steve but maybe no bet is a gd bet
Baz
Posted some comments earlier ,
When looking over slh comments and review messages he insists that 6 wks ago all preparations are in place so what the kuck has happened to all this prep.1 thing I aint is a mug but following him makes you wonder,c halo/grand cru come on mate there hardly unexposed ?all in all I'm in same boat as you what do you feel regarding staking im100 per pt with systematic but that is a worry with recent results..
Anyway great blog
Echo your thoughts here.
It was a very frustrating week so far after last week. I had my best Saturday in around a year last weekend (and thats without Systematic) as well with Brampour a 14/1 winner for Narrowing the Field and a 44/1 BFSP system bet on Fox Hunt taking my bank to just off a 3 month high. Really felt ready to kick on come Monday. Some hope lol.
This week has been laughably bad – my own stuff has been garbage (1/11 so far) and with Piecost and Systematic in the horrors as well it has been a tough start. I had huge hopes for Piecost. I really thought it was going to be the next Equine / Systematic but my confidence has been sorely tested. At small stakes almost ½ my bank is gone and a bad day today will bring me past my 50% cut off point. Going to see how the rest of the month pans out before deciding to adopt a watching brief. The number of services that go from blog to pay model and then nosedive can’t be a coincidence.
I’m with FA. Be very careful with staking. If you followed every system bet you can be putting down over 150 bets in a busy weekend with up to 12 points riding on a single selection. With the prices involved long (by soccer terms anyway) losing runs if backing outright are an inevitability. I’m €2 a bet to give an idea of the staking. Up marginally and I do mean marginally but was down over a 100 units at one stage. Some experimentation with what systems to follow means you can home brew the selections to a nice extent. I don’t think I have done enough research on the individual systems myself to get the best out of it.
As I write Sam Twiston Davis has lost on Emilys Flyer while trading at 1.01 for the second time in 5 days while carrying my money - 1 of Systematics and 1 of my own systems bets. Even more annoyingly I could see it coming and for some reason could not get my own lay at 1.01 matched which would have turned a hefty profit on the race. My biggest Cheltenham win came when he blundered at the last fence in I think the Friday bumper to leave my 84/1 BFSP nag get home. He seems intent on taking that all back at the moment.
Another day of death by a thousand papercuts for poor old Piecost.
Keep the head down and keep on trucking I suppose.
Hi Baz - VERY frustrating game. Following Systematic is hard work at times with the volume of bets - I've moved slightly away from placing at the time the bet is issued and it isn't having a huge impact on prices (apart from the 33/1 Drom the other day which i managed to get only 12/1 on) so it is less time consuming. You can use the betplacer system mark offers which does most of the hard work for you!
Yeah would hope for more bets with Steve but I do admire his caution in some respects. Unlucky today!
Anon - thanks - yeah I know what you're saying in terms of bets but a couple of short priced winners can boost the confidence! I'd like to see a long winning run from Systematic...
Banaz - hi mate - great to hear you are doing well - the two bets you mention in your first paragraph are they through systems you have developed yourself? How are you doing that/ where did you start? I really need to start being a master of my own destiny rather than relying on others to do it for me!
The lack of progress with Systematic worries me - it feels like a long time of treading water. As for Piecost - maybe I should blame you for joining!! (lol). Well I'm down 51 points since joining so thank goodness I started with £5 a point. It begins to worry when losing runs drag on for this long.
Thanks for your thoughts re FA - I certainly don't plan to follow all the systems and am reading through some of Graeme's blog posts to make a decision on what to follow - I think some of the double systems are probably best.
I don't watch the racing because of the annoyance of things like you have described! He's had some calamities in his time that boy thats for sure!
I keep thinking things will turn round and there'll be another boom period - it just ain't coming.
Banaz - sorry I meant to say as well re FA that I just couldn't follow all the systems as I don't think I could ever find the time to put all the bets on and keep track of what i'd put on! How do you manage!
Anyway cheers for your comment as always.
Brampour was a recommendation of a service called Narrowing the Field. It has a big race focuses only with a spotlight on race trends and dosage theory (the idea that certain horses have breeding characteristics suited to certain types of races). Imported from the US but around 100 years old in as much as I recall. Ben Aitken (looks about 20!) has a book out about two years ago on it but I didn’t realise he had a website until very recently. Also does a trainer and trends analysis by month which is mainly stuff that is fairly obvious but still worth looking at. I followed his methodoly in 2010 after I got his book but there was a lot of work in it so at £140 for the season and with the dosage allied to trends I thought it worth a go. It is unfortunately closed for the rest of the NH season but no harm in asking. He is W3 L11 and I am up 10.5points since the start of November when I started following. Plenty of liquidity as well given that the races are decent handicaps at worst. Not afraid to go for either a shortie or a longer price depending on the circumstances. Early days yet but he knows his stuff and I love printing of the 10 – 11 page analysis the night before the race and reading with breakfast the next day.
Sorry about my Piecost recommendation. Looking like “of course there’s no Indians over the hill General Custer” as pieces of advice go. I’d been following him for about 4 and a half months before he went to the pay model and I’d racked up a nice little sum but its like a switch has been flicked in the last 3 months. I don’t have the nerve or bankroll to stay involved if he has a poor Saturday given how many bets are likely. It’s a rollercoaster only going down at the moment. Getting the SBC seal of approval seems to be the kiss of death for the last few services they have been involved in. Probably just a coincidence!
Re systems I think it’s the way to go longterm to develop your own. I think Mark Littlewood has a few trainer / placement systems that are fairly easy to spot with trainers coming back with horses after a lay off in certain months and so on. There are some decent free ones knocking around forums as well. I use winners coming back within a certain time frame (DSLR 0- 7 days etc) as well. Its pretty basic stuff but seems a perennially good one with a low steady yield but lots of qualifiers. Systematic seem to have a fair few selected on this basis albeit with some filters.
The problem is that the better ones get overbet over time and the value goes. Give it a while and a few years later when they have fallen off people’s radars the value comes back. Nick Mordin in his books recommends following a system bet for 3 times after the “event” triggers in some cases. If you come up with something decent and unique keep it to yourself being his best piece of advice!
I agree with a poster on another thread about longer priced systems bets. Nice to be able to mix it up with stuff with a better strike rate as these outsiders landing on Betfair can get a few killer wins if you can stomach the losing runs. I’ve two jockey-trainer combinations that I know will land 1 if not 2 40+ BFSP wins each during the winter AW season. I’ll have to sit through 20 or 30 losers in a row but I’ll make 50% minimum of both.
Re FA its pretty easy to place the bets to be honest. I sort into the individual bets multiply by my stake and use in the main firstly Pinnacle and SBOBET as 80% of the time they are best priced there. After that I place the rest with the other books I use.
Banaz
Hi Banaz - thanks for the detailed response to my questions - will have a look at the Narrowing the Field service - I do like reading great analysis - Northern Monkey being a case and point.
Piecost is having a nightmare at the moment and it seems to be getting worse - have you decided what to do after a woeful weekend - think I'm going to ride it out for a while longer.
Thanks for the info re systems - I wish I had more time to look into things and start working on things.
Good luck with the AW bets - if you can get a couple of big winners - but it's stomaching the long losing runs!
Good weekend and lets hope it continues.
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