As this is a thread about VDW's method ....
He was I think spot on about value when he wrote: "People can talk about value bets and all the rest of it [he would surely have included the notion of under and over bet within "the rest of it"] but it still boils down to backing more winners than losers. I see no point or satisfaction in backing a 6/1 shot because it is value if it finishes down the field."
The problem with value is that it is wholly subjective, however assessing it is dressed up by statistical nonsense. There are no true odds in racing, in contradistinction to comparators such as roulette and the oft-referred to coin tossing. Everything turns on selection method.
The Buffet quote
BC posted doesn't quite work with horse racing, though the principle behind it is sound; as VDW himself said, in racing one can't avoid backing losers and he referred to some he had backed. If the selection method is good, though, as VDW clearly thought his was, three things happen. First, one avoids many losers. Second, in the cases where one does find a horse that meets the requirements of the method in all aspects, it usually wins (from a VDW point of view, that is consequence of having a good selection method). Third, one can make a warranted judgement about acceptable price. Having found a selection, in the context of the race one will have a warranted [ie based on previous experience] sense of how strong it is, and what the minimum price is acceptable. That is value in a very particular sense - it accepts that the idea is subjective but considers from the context of experience of the selection method how likely the horse is to win. VDW was specific about this in the case of Little Owl, 07/03/81:
"This race clearly shows [by his method] that Little Owl is a racing certainty and when the true odds are calculated a price better than 3/1 on would represent value.
He could have phrased that better. It is clear from the body of his work that what he meant was when you find a class/form horse like Little Owl, with such little competition [one at a similar forecast price, two rank outsiders], that it will prove to be the winner is as certain as you can ever get in racing. One can safely take a very short price, provided one allows for the occasional mishap, perhaps more likely in NH races than on the flat. The 3/1 on does not represent some statistical way he used to generate his own tissue. Rather, it represented his assessment of that particular race expressed in odds terms - as good a class/form horse as comes along, virtually no opposition and only the misfortunes that occasionally happen in racing such as being brought down by a horse falling just in front possibly preventing a winning bet. He didn't quote figures in other races (as far as I can remember) but he discriminated descriptively between class/form horses: "racing certainty" (sometimes just "certainty"), "almost a certainty", "outstanding bet", "good thing" etc etc. In each case VDW would have considered the specific circumstances including the known unknowns, and asked himself what was the minimum price his experience of previous class/form horses worth backing suggested should be taken.
As to overbetting or underbetting, this makes sense only against a personal judgement of minimum acceptable price. For VDW in the Little Owl case, had the available price been 7 to 1 on, he would have regarded the horse as being overbetted, at better than 3 to 1 on, underbetted, each a consequence of his warranted judgement about minimum price.
Yesterday's pre race analysis of the 1.50 is a typical example of the VDW method.
One works through the field methodically on the three VDW considerations, identifying possible winners and, very importantly for avoiding losing bets, any questionmarks which attach to them.
That leads to the identification of the class/form horse, in yesterday's case joint class/form horses which is unusual.
Both had question marks, as indeed did the second on class/form, so despite the investment of time, the conclusion no bet was the logical outcome of the method. Sometimes that means one misses out on a winner, but very much more often, as yesterday, one avoids a loser.
Hypothetically, though, suppose for a moment that one of the class/form horses had no questionmarks and had it been Statusnine, a "consistent form horse", it would have been quite strong-looking one. How then to judge what kind of class/form horse he was, descriptively, whether he should be backed and if so the minimum acceptable price?
There are two main points of relevance here. First, according to the method, there were six horses with higher ability ratings in the field. None a "form" horse, but neither the VDW method nor any other can guarantee a horse not currently viewed as in form won't come back to form. Little Owl, Roushayd and other VDW examples faced no similar concern as they were top, or very near, top rated on ability*. Second, there were eight other "form" horses in the race, plus two (Trefor and The Man) who VDW might well have regarded as "form" horses on the basis of "less obvious form". While in this hypothetical situation Stratusnine, as the class/form horse without any questionmarks, would on the method have been the most likely winner, he faced a very much more competitive situation than Little Owl. I suspect VDW would, in this hypothetical situation, have thought of Statusnine as like Prominent King, "a good prospect" but no more, and likely would not have backed it. If he had thought it worth backing, he would certainly have been looking for an available price a great deal higher than 3 to 1 on.
*
In an early letter VDW wrote: "For those unable to balance the factors it would be well if they stuck with the class horse (highest ability rating) and then only when ALL other factors support it as in the illustrations". That is because if one's selection is top-rated on ability, one cuts out one potential problem - a better horse (on the ability rating) returning to form.
MySportsAI i have said in last two days that winning is hard and there is only one winner every race and the rest are beat that's fact so saying you would loss betting the fav in that top race long term means absolutely nothing because if your bet the fav in every race you loss and sec fav and third fav and forth fav and every outsider.
Mr Hall was, after all, the Master of the cryptic post.
