How many programs do you need. i would say overkill!

Why or what would cause H3 to produce inferior numbers to HSH2 (or did it) with some of the factors? Curious what kind of wagers Rook made-- win, horizontal, etc.? 2006, not sure if the Whales were around then?

Rook was (maybe still is) a very anal superfecta bettor.
The whole thread Dave links to is worth a read. I remember him from the HSH board.

First, Rook was brilliant.

But the backstory is incomplete.
Let me present it by the numbers.
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1. Rook did not handicap WITHIN HSH.
He handicapped using a CSV export.
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2. In HSH v2, the composites were ALL based upon RANKS.
That is, the composite ratings themselves were ACTUALLY COMPUTED after the raw version of the the numbers were turned into ranks.
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3. This created a problem for Rook.
The problem was that every time a horse scratched, every horse that was below the scratched horse in any factor used in a composite CHANGED forcing a re-export of the data for the race.
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4. Because Rook's software did not import just a single race, he had to reimport the entire card!
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5. During HSH v2's time, Rook lobbied very hard for that to change.
I resisted, but he ultimately unionized the HSH forum until he had everyone screaming for Rook to get his way.
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6. Ironically, the change was a MASSIVE IMPROVEMENT.
Seriously, never had any single upgrade worth so much. LOL
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7. But his results weakened.
We eventually figured out why.

It turned out that APV had been SORTING UPSIDE DOWN for years!
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8. Rook said that I broke his results.
He wanted me to put the bug back.
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9. I explained that coding & data integrity just would not allow that.
Besides, it was his idea. LOL
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10. Seems reversing APV was getting him some whopper Trifectas & Supers.
I offered to build him another version that sorted in reverse but he said that it had to have the same number or it messed up all his system.
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11. Again he tried to unionize...
... but the ridiculousness of the request - to ignore data integrity - was just not well-received.
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12. Rook started other threads on PA, all in the same vein.
Now, Rook was a fair man, and always started the thread by saying how well he was doing with HSH, and sharing his NET WIN for the previous year.

(if you do some other advanced searches on PA, I am sure you can find them.)
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13. As an aside, every time he made an angry post bashing HSH...
... I sold about 15-20 copies of HSHs that month.
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14. When he said that he'd made over...
... $400,000 in each of the previous 2 years (as I recall), that number about doubled.
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15. Idiot that I was... (you guys will like this one)
... after one particularly ugly post, I THANKED HIM for making my cash register ring.
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16. He never made another post.
Yes, I was THAT stupid.
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EPILOGUE
Years later, we spoke again.
As I recall, he had banked enough and was retired.

It was also a time when the whales were really starting to make the game really difficult.

TO GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE...
...as I said earlier, Rook was a brilliant man who did an amazing job of leveraging my work into a REAL BUSINESS.

Under the hood there are some very strong mathematical concepts that he gave me. They did not go into HSH publicly until he was done playing.

Wow, quite the story.

Wait until I tell you why I posted it.

That will Saturday morning.

I remember that thread. What I don't understand is why didn't he just keep using the version with the bug that was successful for him? And if that wasn't possible, why didn't he take you up on your offer to build him his own version with the APV reverse sorted? Or even still, if he imported the output why didn't he just do his own sort? Something doesn't seem right about his story.