Carrying on from yesterday, today I want to talk about step 2 in the plan for preparing yourself to win at betting.
At the end of the week we'll put together everything we've covered in the week into a plan that you can work to get yourself on a professional footing.
Step 2 is – Analyse Your Own Personal Emotional/ Psychological Make Up
Most bettors don't like losers and find it hard to tolerate long losing runs.
Even if they have done their research and they know that their system or method has had a losing run of, say, 10 in the past. They can still crack and give up after a losing run of 5 or 6.
If you can't stand losing runs then you need to be looking at high strike rate lower priced selections in the methods that you use.
Betting at shorter odds at a higher strike rate may give you the confidence to bet with higher stakes. But again you need to think about how much you could lose and still remain calm and focused on your goal.
Obviously with higher stakes it doesnt take much of a losing run to run up a big deficit.
I know bettors who will risk a grand or £1500 on a short priced selection, but if 2 or 3 of those lose on the bounce you need balls of steel to stay cool and maintain your judgement.
The important thing is to stick within your comfort zone. Ideally you should be betting at a level such that if you lost 10 bets on the bounce that it wouldnt effect your judgement. And wouldnt effect your life at all.
If you had a £1000 bank for example, how would you feel if you staked £2 and lost that bet?
Not bothered I guess. What about if you staked £5 and lost, how would you feel? What if you staked £2 and had a losing streak and lost 10 bets in a row, £20 loss.
I guess you wouldn’t be too bothered if you knew the system had a good history, so you need to look at losing streaks and factor in the level of loss that you could comfortably tolerate.
Greed plays an important factor for those that are in the 98% bracket. Greed can be a very subtle emotion, and we all operate greed to some degree now and then. With betting however, it is very important to isolate greed completely, because greed is your enemy, and it is out to trip you up.
The best way to keep greed in check is to assume that your bet is going to lose, and to ensure that the stake amount is set according to your emotional make up. Once you have this level set, you are ready to continue.
The reason it is important to bet within your emotional comfort zone, is so that you don't pull out of a losing streak prematurely.
Most people when they bet, pullout halfway through or near the end of the losing streak. They determine that the system or the tipster is no good, but in fact, quite often, the bettor pulls out prematurely and suffers from a reduced bank.
With proven successful systems, the losing streak usually pulls out back into a profit, and continues to make an increased profit throughout the year.
For those that have pulled out however, have ended up with a loss and have not enjoyed the profitable return that the system has made. Those that bet according to their emotional/ psychological make-up, are more likely to stick to the system to see the losing streak through.
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My thanks go to the Betting Insiders Club who inspired this weeks posts – Find out more about the Betting Insiders Club at http://bettinginsiders.com
Todays Selection ourtesy of the Betting Insiders Club.
Yesterday’s selection Kopkap faded out of it at the business end of the race.
For today we are turning to our stats guru Mark Foley’s new “Owner Watch” angle with the 3yo Agerzam who would most likely have won last time out but for meeting interference in the final furlong. The owner has a 39% strike rate at the track in the last few years.
Agerzam (2030 Kemp) 7/4 – Totesport/Paddy Power
Today I'm pleased to announce that not only do we have some words of wisdom from Peter Hawkeye but we also have a special offer on his service.
Understanding Greyhound Racing Form
I've been promising for a while now that I will teach some winning greyhound strategies so today I'm going to explain how the form is recorded for the dogs. I'll then go on to share a strategy that I have used for years whenever I bet the dogs.
This is going to run over a number of days and I might spread it out a bit so as to not bore those readers not interested in the dogs, but we'll see how it goes.
So below you will see a screenshot of some greyhound racing form and below that a list of what the various items mean.
Greyhound racing form – Click to Enlarge
[1] Starting with the easy, this is the trap that the dog will run from
[2] The dogs name & (W) indicates that this dog is a wide runner and consequently it will be allocated one of the outside traps each time it runs. You may also see (M) which indicates a middle runner and this dog will be allocated a middle trap.
[3] The best recent (Calculated) time that the greyhound has achieved along with details of the grade and the date. In this case the best time came in a trial, a trial is a qualifying race which helps the racing manager to know how to grade the dog IE what is it's ability what race should he put it in. Trials will usually have less than 6 runners, 3 in this case, and there is no betting on trials.
[4] The name of the trainer.
[5] This is the Racing Post rating for the dog. It is time based and personally I don’t pay much attention to it.
[6] A description of the animal in this case a F b which is a fawn bitch (female) a male will be indicated with a d for dog. This is followed by the name of the dogs sire (father), dam (mother) and the date whelped (Date of Birth).
[7] Date last in season. Bitches only!
[8] This is the Racing Post's tipsters comment, often vague and and can sway your judgement.
Now we get to the past form for the dog in question. Each line represents one race with the top line being the most recent.
[9] The date of the race.
[10] The track where the race was run.
[11] The distance of the race in metres.
[12] The trap number that the dog ran from on that occasion.
[13] The sectional or split time. This is the time from the traps to the winning line the first time the dog passes the line. This is useful to hep you understand the pace of the dog and whether it is likely to lead early.
[14] Position in race at the start (IE out of the traps), quarter (In a 4 bend race this will be between the 1st & 2nd bends), half and three quarter stages.
[15] Finishing position.
[16] The distance beaten by or if the winner the distance won by.
[17] The name of the winner or the second if this dog was the winner.
[18] The Racing Manager's in running comments for that run
[19] The time that the winner took to complete the race.
[20] The allowance made for the going. N = normal otherwise plus or minus in hundredths of a second EG – 40 means that the time was adjusted down by 40 hundredths of a second.
[21] The starting price of the dog.
[22] The grade of the race.
[23] The calculated time for this dog. This will be calculated from the distance the dog finished behind the winner and adjusted for the going allowance.
Now that we understand the information (form) that we have available next time we can look at how we can use that information.
Now we know how to read the card check out these posts that deal with finding a winner.
Who is the fastest to the first bend
Greyhound racing videos
Baulking
Is it fast enough
Image courtesy of Saris0000 under Creative Commons 2.0
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