Forming Tissue Odds
I will now attempt to explain the basics of forming your own odds. I will use the 4.40 at Limerick on Sunday the 31st March 2019 as the example. This is a handicap chase with 13 runners declared and the idea would be to show you how to very basically form your own the odds for that, race. Now at present this race has no weights declared, no form guides, write ups or little else, so you have to work with what you have.
All we have are the runners names, the trainers details and their official ratings. The runners are at present listed alphabetically, but we form our first market by listing them by their official ratings and price them up accordingly.
Having then listed them, we now go to the bottom rated horse which is in this case Presenting Mahler and alter that runners official rating from 109 to (2), this has meant reducing it by 107. You must now reduce all the other ratings by 107 to obtain a new rating for the rest of the field ,which will give us a workable figure to calculate our first set of odds.
Runners Name | Official Rating | Adjusted OR | Percentage Total | Initial Odds |
---|---|---|---|---|
Goulane Chosen | 142 | 35 | 15.48% | 11-2 |
Tycoon Prince | 137 | 30 | 13.27% | 13-2 |
Lucky Pat | 136 | 29 | 12.83% | 7-1 |
Impact Factor | 134 | 27 | 11.94% | 15-2 |
Nearly Nama'd | 128 | 21 | 9.29% | 10-1 |
Dakota Moirette | 127 | 20 | 8.84% | 10-1 |
Reach Up | 121 | 14 | 6.19% | 16-1 |
Call A Cab | 120 | 13 | 5.75% | 16-1 |
Carrig Cathal | 120 | 13 | 5.75% | 16-1 |
Gurteen | 120 | 13 | 5.75% | 16-1 |
All The Chimneys | 112 | 5 | 2.21% | 40-1 |
Alto Esqua | 111 | 4 | 1.77% | 50-1 |
Presenting Mahler | 109 | 2 | 0.88% | 100-1 |
To obtain our first set of odds ,we now have to convert our new ratings into a % ,so by totalling all of our new ratings for the thirteen runners we get a total sum of 226. So, by dividing each new rating by 2.26 we will achieve a % rating for each runner. This will form a book (set of odds) to 100% .Unfortunately ,although this would be fair, the bookmakers have to build in a profit margin of usually about 10% ,but we will cover that in part two.
Finally ,we compare the % rating to this chart Odds to Percentages (listed in the Reference and Help section) to obtain the odds for each runner. This is only part one of this thread , I will now wait for the handicapper to allot the weights for the race and that is hopefully where it all changes. You can usually work out what the weights would be from the official ratings but lets take it a step at a time.
admin
28/03/2019 @ 10:13 AM
Hi Again
Now that the weights have been announced (and this is where your own personal take on handicapping comes into play) I will attempt a set of tissue odds but his will change when the non runners jockey allocations and ground have been announced. The theory behind handicapping each horse is that by allocating each horse a different weight (according to its official rating) they should end up crossing the line together. Obviously this is impossible but I will now give you my version of the next step using the weights allocated the class of the class of the animal and its recent form. This is still risky at this stage but if nothing else will hopefully give you an indication of how it effects the odds.
Goulane Chosen 11-2 now 13-2.
Tycoon Prince 13-2 now 14-1.
Lucky Pat 7-1 now 33-1.
Impact Factor 15-2 now 10-1.
Nearly Namaβd 10-1 now 7-2.
Dakota Moirette 10-1 now 12-1.
Reach Up 16-1 now 8-1.
Call A Cab 16-1 now 10-1.
Carrig Cathal 16-1 now 66-1.
Gurteen 16-1 now 10-1.
All The Chimneys 40-1 now 14-1.
Alto Esqua 50-1 now 66-1.
Presenting Mahler 100-1 now 10-1.
As you can see the the biggest change in price is Presenting Mahler who would have been a 100-1 shot if racing against the others at level weights but now carrying a lot less weight than most of his rivals is now showing at 10-1.
The new favourite is Nearly Nama’d who is now 7-2 from the original 10-1 and the biggest losers have been Carrig Cathal 16-1 out to 66-1 and Lucky Pat who has gone from 7-1 at the head of the market to a huge 33-1.
I have also adjusted the market from 100% to 112% in an attempt to make the market more realistic.
I will post my final findings Saturday night when all the non runners etc are declared. When this occurs you will be able to compare my prices to the bookmakers prices and when you have finally stopped laughing π maybe tempted to have a go yourself. ?
The majority of my work is done on a homemade excel program and if anyone is interested in how it works let me know.
admin
30/03/2019 @ 3:55 PM
So we now have the final non runners (hopefully) jockey bookings and the going declared which means I can now post my tissue odds for the race. I have deliberately done this now before any of the bookmakers post there odds to ensure fairplay and to increase the humour factor when the horse I have chosen to be favourite ends up a 100-1 no hoper etc.
Goulane Chosen 85-40
Presenting Mahler 7-2
Dakota Moirette 9-2
Tycoon Prince 11-2
Lucky Pat 9-1
Carrig Cathal 16-1
Alto Esqua 16-1
All we have to wait for now is to see which way the bookies go and more obviously see what happens in the actual race tomorrow.
admin
31/03/2019 @ 7:01 PM
Goulane Chosen at 3-1 duly won (even though it was tight )and as experiments go I have to be chuffed to bits with the result. π
Although there was a late non runner in Dakota Moirette the bookmakers had formed a market before the withdrawl and to use as a comparison to mine the market was as follows:
Dakota Moirette 9-4
Goulane Chosen 5-2
Tycoon Prince 3-1
Presenting Mahler 7-1
Carrig Cathal 9-1
Alto Esqua 10-1
Lucky Pat 11-1
There was a big late gamble on Alto Esqua into 11-4 f after the withdrawl of Dakota Moirette. ?
As for the worth of the experiment you must make your own minds up but obviously having got the winner in this I will try this again in the near future.
admin
05/05/2019 @ 6:51 PM
As my season has come to an end I will now have more time to dabble with the blogs and will take this opportunity to revive this one by posting my odds in the 4.30 at Down Royal tomorrow.
The reason I picked this race is that if all eight stay in it will represent a good each way shout as well as the the obvious win option by following the market differential.
My odds are the first listed in bold with the bookies odds in brackets (best available).
Little Hearth 5-2 (33-1)
Crazy Heart 100-30 (9-2)
Presenting Mahler 9-2 (7-1)
Lucky Pat 11-2 (10-1)
Tisamystery 7-1 (8-1)
Dakota Moirette 10-1 (9-2)
Dylrow 10-1 (9-2)
Veinard 14-1 (9-2)
As you can see my odds are vastly different to the old enemies but I will stick with the program and take an each way punt on Little Hearth at 33-1.
Murphyslad
07/05/2019 @ 2:11 AM
Hi Mike,
Between your own guideline in this thread, and Rob’s Value Calculator method I believe there is much merit in the approach to tissue odds and forming a basis for value finding opportunities.
My own method was devised a few years back and has been tweaked here and there in the interim to now form part of my only method for assessment of the markets. Initially it is not too dissimilar to your own method, in that I first score each runner against the handicappers assessment, and then go on to add points to each horse based on a strict set of criteria.
These points are added through the process of profiling the horses past performances against what it faces in it’s current assignment. Therefore the following are the basic foundation based on suitability.
Going
Distance
Course Form
Course + Distance Form
Trainer Form
Trainer + Jockey Combo Form (if I feel warranted)
Things then start to go a little deeper, in the sense that I generally start deep delving into track suitability, months of the year (wins / places), weight carrying ability, class suitability, field size suitability etc etc.
Most of the info I source from the RP website via the Pro Card Profile Feature, and score individual merits from 1-5 (lowest to highest). Like your good self I use an excel spreadsheet to assist with the calculations, and form an overall score for each horse on the back of it all.
I can usually narrow the field down to a few likely candidates after this analysis, and then I make the few remaining adjustments based on my own judgement of the potential of those that remain. This largely consists of whether I feel a handicap mark is exploitable by either one who has dropped to a handy mark, or one that is potentially ahead of their mark, also some video analysis generally takes place at this point, or at the very least I have a good look at the analysis covered by the pundits in their last few races. Once I have scored accordingly, based on the information I have gained at that point, I sometimes then go on a little bit of gut feeling of whether to upgrade any of the criteria further, this can often mean trying to guess where the market may go as well.
I tend to try and factor the bookmaker profit margin in at around 10- 20% dependant on the type of race and amount of overall contestants, and then hit the macro button which formulates my book.
My own method is fairly in depth, and may potentially put any newcomers off the task of trying to formulate a book, but it is something which works for me, and generally the majority of horses I put up with a price against them, tend to go off there or thereabouts at what I have measured their chance to be. It’s obviously not an exact science, but I believe most of what I assess above is what the market tends to focus on, and if you can concentrate on a few select races per day, then you have a chance of getting in there before the main market catches on a lot of the time, and in turn you can secure the best value.
This can be time consuming, but once you have performed the arduous task as many times as I have it soon becomes second nature, and I can generally assess a standard race in as little as 30 minutes to an hour dependant on amount of runners, and quite often it takes me longer to write up my picks than to price them up. Obviously there are many many times I perform this task and simply get nowhere due to there being no viable value in the market, but again this is part and parcel of the process and the gems that can be found every now and then more than make up for the times where you feel as though you have wasted your time.
I hope the above makes logical sense, and although I would love to attach my workings and the like, I hope you can appreciate that my own spreadsheet is priceless as far as I’m concerned, and in general is very personal in any sense so may not appeal to all. That being said both yourself and Rob have provided very solid base lines in which your readers should be able to build upon to develop their own method for assessing value, and hope that what I have mentioned above may further help others with the task.
Kind Regards
David
admin
07/05/2019 @ 8:13 AM
Hi David
Thanks for taking the time to post a reply I believe yourself Rob and Moi are all singing in the same choir but are just pitching the notes at different register’s. I have always fancied myself as a baritone (although the daughter and the other half may disagree). π
I fully understand you wishing to keep your spreadsheet under lock and key as if it is anything like mine it has taken many years to finalise (not that they are ever finished). I am also reasonably sure both yours and Rob’s are a tad more in depth than mine as you both have a far more professional approach to your betting than I do.
However I do hope when/or if I ever conquer some of the finer points of wordpress to be able to put a downloadable version of my excel program on here for people to try out.
I am currently trying to integrate speed ratings into my formulae but that is proving problematic at present as it does require linking two seprerate programs together and at my age remembering where I parked my car can be testing enough. π
As it stands at present I use the following criteria all expressed as ratings or precentages:
Class of horse at todays code ie Chase race
Class of horse overall
Form last time out
Ability over both course and distance (hoping to add suitabilty to courses with similar traits)
Recent Jockey and Trainer form (hoping to add additional course suitabiltity for both)
There are also seperate columns for the Going plus a combined Official rating/Handicap rating)
Thanks again for the input I am currently upgrading this thread with a better section of grids and tables but that is another wordpress learning curve which may take a while. π
Mike
GeeSport
26/05/2019 @ 3:20 PM
Hi Mike, now the football season has finished, I thought I would have a browse on the site at other articles. On reading the above article I was confused by the reasoning behind lowering the official rating by 107 per horse. ?
Obviously being more of a football person than a horse racing person, I hope this does not sound like a daft question.
admin
27/05/2019 @ 9:03 AM
Hi Lynn
No question posted on here is a daft question and to be honest I wish I had a few more as the whole idea of this site was to get a few like minded people working together to improve our betting. π
I have made a schoolboy error there by assuming you had already seen my excel program in action.
The actual official rating stays the same it is just that to get a workable set of odds I have to make the figures I am working with fit my calculations.
As an example if you have three high figures lets say 100, 98 and 95 and you total them (293) and divide each figure by the total to obtain a % you would get 34.12%, 33.44% and 32.42%. This would make the resulting odds 15-8 2-1 and 85-40.
However to get more definition in my pricing I have by reducing the figures down using the figure 2 as a base now have 7,5 and 2 (having reduced them all by 93). This would result in the following percentages 50%, 33.71% and 14.28% which when converted would now give odds of Evens, 2-1 and 6-1 (working to a 100% market).
The % figures to actual odds were taken from the usual conversion chart https://gptwp.justahobby.co.uk/odds-to-percentages/
I hope this somewhat clarifies the situation but if you have any more queries please do not hesitate to drop me a line.
I do still hope if the interest in the thread picks up hope to have a program to try out posted on the site in the coming weeks.
Murphyslad
02/07/2019 @ 10:32 AM
Hi Rob,
Sorry for jumping on essentially an old article or should I say apologies for the late response. In regards to WordPress and the uploading of files as downloadable content, if I remember correctly this is not something that was all that difficult back in the day when I tinkered with WordPress. As the administrator I believe you should have the capability to add media to your posts, if this is the case then it would simply be a case of zipping up your file and then pressing the add media button and uploading the zip file.
Alternatively you could simply upload your zip file to the following site which will give you a download link, and then post that link on here. The site is free to upload to, and stores your file for as long as you need.
https://gofile.io/?t=welcome
Hopefully the above may help, as I know how tricky it can be to navigate around WordPress, which is one of the reasons I built my own site via Weebly and it’s website builder feature.
Regards
David
admin
02/07/2019 @ 3:29 PM
Hi David
I am assuming the reply was meant for me and not Rob and if so thanks for the input.
I am still looking into posting such programs on the site but really initially wanted to generate a bit more interest. ? As I am sure you more than anyone else will understand the work that goes into the running of a website due to your involvement with your own site https://www.maxbetracing.com/ and as such I do not want to go to heavily into something that is unlikely to be used.
I have recently installed a program that records the traffic to this site and it can have as many as 100 hits a day but unfortunately only one or two people seem to get involved. ?
Murphyslad
03/07/2019 @ 8:30 AM
Hi Mike,
Indeed it was meant for you, apologies for that. I totally understand how you feel, as although my own site has more traffic in terms of hits etc, it still has a limited amount of response from those who do visit it. My own site was fairly well used each day before I decided to make it a members only viewing environment, and even though the membership is free not as many people have signed up to the email list as I would have imagined based on the daily hits before it went to membership, but that’s something I dont actually mind by all accounts, as I’m not overly concerned about the numbers and more about the mindset of those who do follow.
Rob’s blog is by far and away the most successful part of web traffic to MBR as things currently stand with hundreds of hits every Thursday, and then a solid amount of hits thereafter each day, but even then the interaction levels are extremely limited.
The reality these days seems to be, that everyone wants everything for free and rarely want to give anything back in return, and more often than not are quick to criticise when what they do get does not work for them.
I personally think this site is a fantastic little portal not only in terms of knowledge sharing, but a place where people can air their views or indeed ask questions to learn off others, and I hope you decide to keep up the sterling work going forward.
Regards
David
admin
03/07/2019 @ 9:53 PM
Hi David
Thanks for the kind words and I will be continuing with the site but hopefuly developing it as it goes along. I may also be adding a members only page when the selections get a little more serious. π
As for this thread I will hopefully try linking it to the speed ratings thread to take it one step further next time out.