Handinaps - Race 3 and 4

I am running catch up here as there were two more rounds of the Handinaps this weekend.  I will continue the series of post for now.  The idea is to track the good bets whether winners or losers.  Previous reviews are here.

Race 3 - The Experts

This week the experts liked Rajinski and Coltrane in bigger numbers than the rest of us.  I speculated before that the experts were picking based on the draw or based on one that the betting market might leave behind. 

Race 3 Distribution of picks (Experts only left, All right)

This time I am going to look at it based on steamers.  The experts will be used to working this way, identify one overpriced in the morning market.  If they are right then the market will catch up and the horse shortens.  Basically, beating the closing price.  This is how you make money betting.  The problem I see with picking this way in the Handinaps competition is that you do not get the early morning price, everything is settled at SP.

BFSP compared to Morning Weighted Average Price (Shortener highlighted)

Maybe they are just picking this way from habit.  Or maybe they believe that with steamers that the closing price has not in fact caught up yet.  Joseph Buchdahl talks a bit about that here.

One thing for sure is that the experts so far have a higher average score than the rest of us, so I still think its worth looking at their picks.

Race 3 - The Market

The second thing I have been looking at is the market.  We believe that the BFSP is fairly efficient, and for people of my ability it is the best estimate I can get to the true and fair price.  So comparing the picks agains the BFSP might have some merit.

Again for Race 3 as a quirk of the rules, playing Each Way was the way to go.  The 1/4 odds at ISP is overbroke on 4 places.  Of course outside this competition you cant bet those terms.

Race 3 - ISP vs BFSP

This is showing that Solo Saxophone and The Grand Visir both each way had the highest Expected Value for Race 3.

Race 4 - The Experts

Race 4 Distribution of picks (Experts only left, All right)

In Race 4 you can see that the Experts liked Darkness and Fresh.  This goes against our Steamer theory (both horses drifted from their morning price).  They did like Darkness as well back in week 1.  Fresh was one of the Favourites, so given a Cup week maybe that played a part in their thought process.

Race 4 - The Market

On to the Race 4 market, below are the EV's based on BFSP.  The picks - Path of Thunder (Win) and Shoot to Kill (Each Way).

These ones where the BFSP is bigger than the ISP intrigue me.  They seem to pop up every race in the Handinaps.  There was a well reported case in the Grand National when this also happened.  There was some discussion on that here. One suggestion that I took away from that thread (or another) at the time was that of user error.  Someone forgot to unclick the "if unmatched take bfsp" box for a big stake on an unfancied runner.  I can't see the actual tweet now whether it was deleted, or whether it was something I read into something else said.  The horse won anyway.  Indeed if you bet all the ISP prices bigger than BSP going back 5 years you would be in profit.  

Are they edge case where the BFSP is wrong (through user error or some other mix up)?  Or is there systematic value in identifying these and betting on course at best prices?

Race 4 - ISP vs BFSP

Finally, I have had a request (from I am guessing the only person that reads my blog) to track the analysis to see how the "optimum" picks do against the rest of the competition.  So far those haven't hit a single unit profit yet, hopefully we will hit a couple over the full 40 race season and see how closely the Actual unit profit tracks the Expected unit profit.

Expected Value so far of BSP analysis