How are you recreating the '88 thing'? As you can imagine there's lots of proprietary stuff in Det that would be nearly impossible to recreate on your own. And the 88% is just the tip of the iceberg.
So, first, I recommend that you prove to yourself that your group of '88%' horses actually have at least an 88% chance of including the winner. After that, figure out how to winnow that down to the number of horses you want to bet.

Hey, StatsMan =
Welcome!! Glad to have you join us.

The 88 thing does work. We have several columns of
proprietary rankings that DO work and give you 88% winners
in the contenders that are flagged.

As the fields become more competitive, the number of
horses that make up the 88% goes up - there are more horses
that have a chance of winning. It can range from a low of 2
to as many as 7 or even 8 in a turf race with a very large field..

You need a clear way of judging how competitive each race is
and then determining how many horses can win - the 88%.

Very difficult to do without deTerminator.

Why not wait for the races with precisely four contenders that comprise the 88% and just play a 4 horse exacta box with those? I would imagine that the hit rate would be pretty good.

Dave - How do you know when the 88% is precisely 4
without deTerminator?

You can have 4 competitors in a 5 horse field and 4 in a 12 horse field.
Or you can have 2 or 3 in a 5 horse field and 2-3-4-5-6-7 in a 12 horse field.

The question is how do you know how many?? WITHOUT deTerminator.
I'm not sure you CAN know without the program.

I believe the 88% metric is a probability for horses that can win the race, not necessarily run second or third for exacta and trifecta wagers. Also, there is an odds factor built in. Just because one of the horses in the group has a probability of 88% to win the race doesn't mean the others will have an 88% chance to run second, third, or fourth. I don't think it works that way.

Sorry about that ponyplayer I guess I should have worded that more precisely. I WAS referring to the deTerminator's ability to able to come up with the winner 88% of the time with its 4 contenders. My question was only about the deTerminators ability to do this and not about any other method.

My experience is that the 88% is exceptionally accurate.

I do tend to believe that win percentage can be used as a proxy for a horse's theoretical place and/or show percentage. Just about every stat I have ever seen show a factor's place hit percentage greatly exceed its win percentage in anything but the smallest samples if that factor is any good.

@StatsMan and @Dave Salvini

Welcome!

Every reply in this thread has been accurate.

What we’ve seen is that the SMALLER the field the more accurate it is.

If you look at the AI Line closely (which is the source of the percentages that create the 88), you will notice that when you get to the high end, you can really be splitting hairs.

For example, in an 88:7 race, the difference between the 7th and 8th horses is often less than a single odds point.

Now, that’s plenty when we’re looking at 6.0 and 7.0, but not so accurate when it’s 32.2 and 32.6.

@ponyplayer recently discovered that when the 88 is above a certain threshold- I think he said 6 - you should consider adding an extra horse.

I will leave it to Brian to discuss his research.

On Chaos 5 races with 88:5-6-+, I've found that you really need
to add 1 more horse. If it is a Chaos 5 and 88:5, take the 1st
6 horses, not just the 1st 5. 88:6 take 7. 88:7 take 8.

Dave is right. There is such a small difference between horses
5 and 6 that you really need to include him. If he is truly weaker,
he will be eliminated when you go through your eliminations. If
he has a chance to win, he will not be eliminated,

In Chaos races, we know that we need to go wider. Take that 1 extra
horse and give him consideration. You will be surprised at the extra
wins that you will get!!

I like using it. It's a good starting point for picking contenders.

So my contention that an 88:4 race being approximately in the middle of the possible range of contenders might indeed be a good candidate for a 4 horse exacta box? Or am I reading too much into this?

Unfortunately, I'm not necessarily an exacta player. I haven't tracked this, but I've noticed that the 1st and 3rd horses are on the board more often than not. The place horse-less occurring. Let me know if you find any data on this. You might be onto something.

Thanks Dio. That is good information. I am looking to getting up to speed with the program in a couple of months.

So my contention that an 88:4 race being approximately in the middle of the possible range of contenders might indeed be a good candidate for a 4 horse exacta box? Or am I reading too much into this?

@Dave Salvini

On top of that you need to determine VALUE.

If you watched the videos enough you have probably heard about “The NEAL.”

At the bottom of the scale you get hit rate and higher up you get price/value.

My play demands a PROFIT horse or else why bet the race?

So, the two horses- HEDGE and PROFIT work together.

The Hedge is the lowest Neal and the Profit is the lowest of all the horses ABOVE the “profit threshold.”

It is logical you could find some interesting “criss-cross” bets.
(My name for them)

Example:
Key (hedge,all profit)


[edit] Sorry for the sloppy post. I was in the ER all day - from 10am to 6pm. Hard to write from my phone.

@Dave Schwartz Hope you're okay

Appreciate all the responses. It’s honestly more feedback than I expected, and most of you seem to agree the 88 idea actually works with Det. I don’t use Det yet, but I’m trying to understand whether there’s something behind the 88 that I could replicate myself.

If I have an 88:4 race, I can just take the top four morning line horses as my contenders. But I still don’t really know what the 88 number is underneath the hood. Any ideas how I could figure that out on my own?

Could I just take the top four horses in a seven- or eight-horse field and get something close to the same results, or is there more going on that I’m not seeing?

Thanks for asking.

It was nothing life threatening.
I've been struggling for a few days with a very painful back issue.

Until this morning it was a minor annoyance, but this morning it escalated to such a level that I was unable to walk without some real support. It was pure level 10 pain.

Sat in a wheelchair in the ER for FIVE HOURS waiting to see a doctor. Amazingly, when I got out of the wheelchair for the first, the pain was reduced to about 10% of what it was. No clue what caused that.

They ran lots of tests - including a cat scan and a lot of blood tests. The doc says I've got some arthritis, but all my bloodwork returned (his words) "really good numbers."

Then they gave me an intravenous steroid and I walked out.
Still have pain, with a few shots that hit level 7 or 8, but nothing like the prolonged pain at level 10.

I will let the rest of the community address your other questions.

Dave
PS: Really great thread for your first post.

Hope you get well soon and the pain goes away. Take care and prayers.

One of the top 4 horses in an eight-horse field will win approximately 82% of the time. As is customary Dave being on point once again, the trick is to find value. Get better soon Dave. Take more drugs...! Better life through chemistry.

Dave: I hurt my back about 25 years ago at work and quickly realized that the seated position was probably the worst thing for causing more pain. Standing or laying on the side proved to be much more tolerable along with abdominal strengthening exercises.

Welcome. You are surrounded by a lot of talent in this group.