Minimising the impact of luck (part 2)

It was nice to see yesterday’s piece on minimising luck, so well received…

In addition to the 3 comments on the blog, I was contacted by 6 other subscribers – all interested to further explore the area…

I guess the fist thing I should say in part 2, is that in an ‘ideal world’, there would be no need to minimise luck.

The luck you got, would neither be particularly good nor particularly bad. It would even itself out quite quickly – and everyone would be oblivious to it…

Far from guaranteeing you more profit (as I know some of you hope it might !), the method I suggested for dealing with the impact of luck, would likely cost you in the region of 10% of the profit that you could ‘reasonably’ expect to make (made up of the Betfair commission charge – plus inefficiencies in the laying).

However, in return for that charge, you would get a much less variable return – which in turn would result in greater confidence in betting (and thus staking) – and for me, in tipping…

And I think, it is that last point that makes having the ability to at least view things in such a manner, so important to me.

I’m sure that it is bad enough following a tipster on a long losing run (I read Rowans blog, so I know it can be a struggle !) – but just imagine what it is like being that tipster and trying put things right…

There is a huge temptation to change things in the quest for winners – even though you know deep down, that what you are doing doesn’t really need changing.

What it would be better to do instead, is be able to look at your results in a different way -  as this will hopefully confirm that everything is fine and that all you really need is a bit of good fortune…

Unfortunately, I haven’t got endless bets recorded, that I can use to help ‘prove’ this approach – but I have got details of all the tips that I issued as part of the early bird service last year.

That service made 53 pts over four and a half months.

If all of those tips had been layed off in running at 2, it would have made 34 points instead.

Obviously that isn’t as good – but I don’t think it is too bad either. The early bird service was helped by a couple of the really important tips winning – but it was also hindered by quite a long losing run during December (which wouldn’t have been so long, if it had been ‘adjusted for luck’)…

Interestingly, if you put the lay point just a tick higher than 2 - at 2.02 - then the profit would have risen to 46pts.

For anyone considering implementing the method in some way, this does raise the very pertinent point – where precisely should you place the lays…?

I would suggest not at 2 – probably just above it (or maybe even below it).

The number of losers you will ‘catch’ will vary in a linear fashion depending on precisely where you put the lay – but 2 is a popular cut-off point and so it is probably best avoided.

I haven’t got detailed numbers for either the Cheltenham special or the Aintree special, but I think that Cheltenham would have produced about the same profit, adjusted for luck (there were 4 winners – and also 4 horses that traded below 2 and lost); whilst Aintree would have been better as there were no winners, but 2 horses traded below 2 in running.

The important thing however, is that the P&L ‘adjusted for luck’ better represents the quality of the tips I produced.
Ideally, I wouldn’t need to produce tips at all ! I could just produce the daily write-up and you could all effectively interpret that and strike bets at the appropriate level, on the appropriate horses at the appropriate time…

But even if that did happen – there would be no way of measuring it – and therefore judging it…

Anyway, I’m sure that there are still a few of you out there, who think I’m just being paranoid and that luck will always even itself out.

If that is the case, then consider this for a moment…

If a coin was tossed an infinite number of times, there would be a point, when 100 heads appeared one after another…

It would happen eventually – it might take a lot of coin tossing before it did – but it would happen…

Now try to view that total sequence of infinite coin tosses as a ‘luck line’ – and equate it to the ‘luck line’ we experience when we are betting horses…

For this TVB project, we have joined the luck line – though we have no idea at what point.

In theory, we could have joined it at the moment that the run of 100 heads was about to occur (we haven’t because we’ve already bagged a few winners – but you get my drift !).

The main issue we have, is that we are not staying on the luck line for very long – maybe 60 tosses of the coin – and what happens from here to the end of our journey, is completely random. We could get a string of winners; we could get a string of losers; or we could get mix.

Hopefully we will get a fair mix – ideally we will get a string of winners – but if luck goes against us, we could leave the luck line, feeling that things really haven’t gone our way.

If things were to go particularly badly we could even end this season with a loss.

In which case, I will refund everyone their subscriptions; write off the previous 5 months - and you probably won’t hear from me again.
And that will simply because our timing, when getting on and off the luck line, was not very good.

I really don’t want to leave something so significant to chance – and I suspect that most of you don’t either.

Hence my idea to adjust results to move a chunk of the luck

Hopefully, at very least, you can all see my point...

TVB.