Monthly summary - November

It is my plan to produce a monthly summary at the end of each tipping month (as I did with the early bird project).

The reasons for this are two-fold: firstly, it enables you guys to see how the month has gone (when it must be very easy to get lost in the day-to-day detail of it all); and secondly, it ensures I recap on what has happened – making sure I recognise what went well – and learn from what went poorly.

I’ll try to keep the reports relatively short – though you may have to excuse a little indulgence on my behalf (these things can become quite fascinating once you start digging).

Anyway, without further ado, here is the summary for November – starting with the headline numbers…

Main-line tips:

Total staked: 38.75pts

Total profit: 18.25pts

ROI  47%

Early-bird tips:

Total staked: 2pts

Total profit 11pts

The profit for the main line tips was generally worked out using the best easily available price at the time of issue (so the price must have been available with at least 2 bookmakers – unless the maths got really messy !).

For the early bird tips, it was the best price available at the time of issue…

So whilst one or two of you may have made 30pts profit on the month, I would expect that the majority are likely to have made in the region of 25pts…

Concentrating on the main-line tips:

There were 56 tips across 50 races (I tipped multiple horses in the same race a few times).

The average price of the tips was 14/1 (though I’m not sure that really means anything) and if you had just backed the horses at best available price and then layed them back, you would have made 8pts profit on the month (though again, I’m not sure that is particularly important, as I’m not trying to beat the market – unlike the early bird project).

What is more important, is the number of firsts and seconds, which was 8 and 6, respectively.

From 50 races, that is a very good strike rate (28%).

However, bearing in mind what I’m generally trying to do is pick winners, I think the most interesting alternative way to look at the numbers, is to see how many horses traded at 2 or less in-running.

If a horse trades at 2 on Betfair, it means that at a moment in time, it looks just as likely to win a race as it does lose (so the racing equivalent of tossing a coin).

You would hope that, over a period of time, half of the horses that you back, which trade at 2 or less, will win (at that point, they have a 50:50 chance of victory, so that is a reasonable assumption).

During the month (including the early bird tips), 18 of the horses tipped traded at 2 or less IR (which is a very good strike rate).

And, sure enough, 9 of these horses went on to win – and 9 were ultimately beaten.
This is precisely where it should be and suggests that we neither had good luck nor bad luck during the month…

However, the profit generated from the 9 horses that traded at 2 or less was 53pts – whereas the profit that would have been generated had the other 9 horses won instead, was a whopping 102pts !

That’s a difference of nearly 50pts – an absolutely huge amount.

Therefore, if all of our winners had been beaten – but our losers that traded at 2 or less had won, the profit for the month would have been 70pts instead of 20pts…

When I talk about a lack of luck – that is what I mean !

The trouble when this sort of thing happens, is that it puts you under pressure.

If we are not accruing the profits as we should be doing during the good times – when the lean times come, we haven’t got the same profit cushion to fall back on.

Anyway, there is no point bemoaning our luck. It is a completely random thing (in theory at least !)  - and you just have to accept whatever fate throws at you.

However, if you are feeling that we had been a little unlucky in November, the numbers suggest you are probably right !!

Aside from the figures, then I have to admit that I am struggling a bit to fit everything in…

My original hope/intention, was to tip and do the daily write-ups in the evening.

However, it soon became apparent that the evening markets simply aren’t strong enough for me to do this – half of you wouldn’t get on the tips, which I’m sure would soon become very frustrating.

Consequently, I am just studying the form in evenings – and then tipping/producing the write ups in the morning.
However, when you consider that I watch the races in the afternoon – and then produce the race review early evening, you will realise that it doesn’t leave much of the day for anything else !

It is particularly difficult during the big meetings (such as Newbury this weekend) – I’m getting to the end of the 3 days and feeling that I need to have a break, simply to catch up on life !

The odd day off will certainly help – and I may cut back a little on the write-ups (though in truth, it is the structure I’ve had to put in place that is causing me the biggest issues, not writing a few extra paragraphs).

Anyway, if you have any suggestions for improvement, you’ll be getting the survey very shortly, so please feel free to suggest away !

In summary then, a good month (if intense – and hard work) – that could have been a great month, if things had fallen our way.

I guess I’ll just have to keep plugging away in December and hope that we get some of the breaks that I feel we deserve (though I for one, won’t be counting on that !!)

TVB.