NetCapper
Thoroughbred Handicapping:
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To The Cappers Tips On Using The Capper Using the Spot Play Charts: A Positive Pattern When I use the spot play charts, I increasingly look for a particular pattern which I'd like to show you. First, I narrow the universe of spot play charts by running a PQ report. Here's how I configure the report when I'm looking for charts to handicap:
With these settings, I'm looking for 1000+ bets that have at least a break-even (1.00) ROI, and I'm checking all three types of subcategories (race-specific, horse-specific and individual tracks). (Note: Remember to go back to the old settings when you're done with this process if you use the spot plays to modify your betting line.) Next, I go to the PQ Spot Plays tab of the General Reports dialog, highlight a day where I have handicapped races available and click the button. If you run a PQ report using these settings and nothing shows up, reduce the Minimum # Long Term Bets to something smaller, like 500, and try again until you get subcategories showing up. Here are some of the subcategories that show up for me:
Remember: these are all long-term profitable spot play/subcategories. The thing about even long-term profitable methods is that they can operate well for days, weeks or even months at a time, and suddenly, just as you think you've learned how to mint money, the method's performance falls off a cliff. That's why I like to use the spot play charts. They are unparalleled tools for tracking the performance of a particular method. They incorporate countless numbers and statistics about a handicapping method into one picture. Now I can tab over to the Spot Play Charting tab and check each of the spot play/subcategories that I'm interested in. (Note: You can enlarge a certain area of the Spot Play Charts by dragging your mouse pointer over the area you want enlarged in an "L" pattern. Be sure to hold down your left mouse button while dragging the L pattern. To bring the chart back to full size, drag a backwards L pattern.) The recent spot play chart for 5YO Gelding/Good Trainer: 1C Rank: 1-2 looks like this:
Look at this chart as I explain the chart pattern I look for. Here are the rules of my pattern: 1. The red Profit/Loss line hits the lower Bollinger Band. This is the initial signal. Note the initial dollar level on the left axis when this happens. If the line continues to trend down and hits the lower Bollinger Band again, the most recent time it hits it is the initial dollar level. 2. The next day that the Profit/Loss line goes anywhere above the initial dollar level, that's the the secondary signal. That's when you start betting the method. 3. At this point, if the line goes below the initial dollar level, you stop playing. If it stays above the initial dollar level, you bet the method. If it hits the lower Bollinger Band again, the pattern starts over. 4. If the Profit/Loss line goes above the 2 Week Moving Average, the rules change. You keep betting as long as the line is above the 2 Week Moving Average. If it goes below the 2 Week Moving Average, you stop betting. If it then comes back above the average, you start betting again. This continues until the Profit/Loss line hits the lower Bollinger Band again, at which time a new pattern begins. Now let's apply this method to the above chart. Going from left to right, the Profit/Loss line hit the bottom Bollinger Band several times on the way down. Around 12/22/03, the Profit/Loss line hit the lower Bollinger Band and headed up above the initial dollar level of $130. That would have been the entry point. You would have bet the method as it went up to about $150 and until it came down again to the initial dollar level. At that point you would stop betting. The next pattern began when the P/L line hit the lower Bollinger Band on 1/3/04 and went above the initial dollar level on 1/4/04. You would have started betting the method after 1/4/04 at the $110 level. You would have continued betting as it went above the 2 Week Moving Average. (Remember: when it goes above the 2 Week Moving Average, the rules change. You keep betting as long as the line is above the 2 Week Moving Average. If it goes below the 2 Week Moving Average, you stop betting. If it comes back above the average, you start betting again. This continues until the Profit/Loss line hits the lower Bollinger Band again, at which time a new pattern begins.) You would continue betting until the P/L line went below the 2 Week Moving Average around 1/22/04. You'd be out of this chart for a while. At 1/29/04, a new initial signal occurred because the P/L line hit the lower Bollinger Band again. You would have waited until 2/8/04 before the secondary signal (the Profit/Loss line goes anywhere above the initial dollar level) occurred and you started betting again. From 2/8/04 until the end of the chart, you'd keep betting the method because the P/L line didn't go below the Average in that time. The periods you'd be "in" using this chart pattern are highlighted in gray in the chart below:
To recap, the first period of betting would have been pretty much break-even. The second period would have gone from about $105 to $195 for a $90 profit (assuming $2 bets). The third period would have gone from about $160 to $220 for a $60 profit (so far). This pattern should be used only on long-term break-even or better spot play/subcategories. It doesn't help to hit the lower Bollinger Band if the chart is continuously trending downward. Use this pattern to tell you when to bet basically good charts. As you look at more charts, you'll be able to pick out this pattern in a second or two. I think you'll see that it repeatedly gets you in when most of the profit is made. Let me know how it goes or if you've found other ways to use the spot play charts. Capper Talk Forums There's now a public Capper Talk forum in the Grandstand message board as well as the private Capper Talk Forum. If you're a user of The Capper and you don't have access to the private Capper Talk forum, go to The Grandstand and click on the Register Your Free Account link to register an account with ezBoard. When you're done with that process, email me your username. I'll add you to the list of people who can access the Capper Talk forum. Then, when you want to access it, just go to The Grandstand and login using that username. Talk to you later, Copyright �2004 NetCapper Inc. All rights reserved. Tech Tips: Using The Capper �You can enlarge a certain area of the Spot Play Charts by dragging your mouse pointer over the area you want enlarged in an "L" pattern. Be sure to hold down your left mouse button while dragging the L pattern. To bring the chart back to full size, drag a backwards L pattern. �You can set the performance qualifiers in the Qualified Spot Plays tab of the Setup dialog to B for Best. For instance, if you set the Minimum LT Flat ROI to B, a qualifying spot play will only display if it is from the subcategory with the best long-term Return On Investment. If, for the Fundamental Contenders spot play, MSW is the subcategory with the highest LT ROI, then a Fundamental Contender spot play will only show up in the Performance Qualified Spot Play report for MSW races. �To keep The Capper running as fast as possible, keep your database lean and mean. The best way to do this is to delete your race data as soon as possible. After you've downloaded, imported and recalculated the binary charts for a particular day, you can delete the old race data from that day. Here's what I do: every day, before I download yesterday's binaries and today's race files, I go into the Delete Race Data tab of the Utilities dialog and use the calendar to delete all race data from the day before yesterday and before. Then I quit The Capper, start the Database Utility and hit the Compact/Repair button. That compacts the database and helps speed it up significantly. Then, when I download and Import, Recalculate and Print New Races, everything goes really fast. With a relatively new computer, each race file will generally import in about half a second. Also, note that I pretty much never delete model data (using the Delete Model Data tab) -- only race data. �If you have a reasonably fast computer, it's a good idea to download all 1 Month Surface Model files whenever you're downloading race files. That way, when you import and recalculate, the TSDs (Track/Surface/Distance adjustments) will be as current as possible. A good alternative is just to download the 1 Month Surface Model files for the tracks you're handicapping each day, and then, once a week or so, download all the tracks. This will ensure that shippers from tracks you don't normally handicapped will be judged properly by The Capper.
Copyright �2004 NetCapper Inc. All rights reserved.
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