How often do you have winning days at this very hard game? I think it's an interesting and informative question, and in some cases I am pretty sure it can help us become better players.
Over the last 18 months I have changed my style of play. I felt I had to with the increased presence of the betting teams. My old way - playing more volume, sticking with my 2000-2015 thoughts of what "value is" - was passing me by.
I went through some of my daily statistics and found this shift brought an interesting change - I play less money, but I win more days than I lose. Right now I am at about 59% winning days in the last eight months of data I looked at.
This got me wondering. With different styles of play in this game, what do players who I know are successful do in this regard?
I asked two sets of players - the volume player and the more spot or value player - what their betting make-up looks like.
The Volume (in this case) Dudes
"I have 48% up days and 52% down days," said one. "But the key is my up days are 1.5X the down days"
Another echoed that sentiment.
"My key is, my biggest, best or average days are all bigger than my losing days."
When I was playing volume this was exactly my experience. And it makes mathematical sense.
The risk in this type of play is that if you are losing so many days (180+ days a year of red) it's easy to go on tilt from time to time. I admire people that are able to control this emotion.
Spitballing, I suspect playing with algos or batch betting helps with this. You can check at the end of the day if you are red or green and don't get the emotional whipsaws.
I *think* @dennycaps (Bet with the Best Pod here) fires bets this way, while conversely, ITP plays with pen and paper, race by race with mouse clicks. If either of them - or anyone else reading - wants to share their up/down day stats, or dealing with tilt at high volume, please do under the twitter post. I'm sure people would be interested.
The Spot Play Types
This was my most favorite type of player to look at. I have less experience with selective type play (although I have moved that way lately), and it's probably most-interesting to many.
I went in thinking that they must be winning at over 60% because they are i) very good cappers and winning players and ii) they're selective.
The first two players I chatted with blew that supposition out of the water!
One player hits about 25% of his win bets, precisely because he does not wade into the chalk waters. And when you hit at only 25% you're going to have many losing days. He in fact says he's around 40% winning days and 60% losing days.
Another player whose play I admire much echoed that.
"I play with more risk, so it's about 40% winning, 60% losing."
I got some of my confirmation bias quenched with a third player - but he bets win only. He's an excellent player and he's not afraid to hammer the chalk when he thinks it's good chalk (and favorites are winning a lot more than they used to). He wins around 3 of 4 days.
The one set of player - and it's a big one, CAW's - I did not do any asking. I always get a weird sleeping with the fishes feeling (only half joking) when I ask them questions like this, so I did not. But as one sharp player put it, they probably win north of 70% of the time because of their style of play and I think I agree with that. Once again, if anyone wants to share their thoughts on this, please reply to the twitter post.
I think there's value in the above. If we delve into it a little, there are characteristics of play that can help every day players or weekend warriors get better. I'll share some of those thoughts in a follow-up post this week, hopefully.
Have a very nice Sunday everyone.
