Rick G's Blog

For anyone not familiar with retention ponds, they provide water drainage for the surrounding built up area.  Most suburban subdivisions (especially in low lying areas) have them.  But normally they do not stock them with fish.

We have one next to my complex that serves a newly-built subdivision.  It was a corn field before that and wetlands before the farmer grew his corn.  I've lived next to it for 30 years.  It always had a small area that would collect water after heavy rain but by-and-large it was dry (otherwise the farmer wouldn't have planted there.)

The subdivision's builder dug out this field for a retention pond.  It is now a quite sizable body of water and is surrounded by 10 yards of wetlands grasses, etc. that they do not cut.  An exemplary job by the builder...almost looks like a real pond and the critters have a place to hide in the tall grass.  However there are no fish in there except for the few that may have been thrown in there by locals.  Those poor goldfish probably died soon thereafter because of the oxygen-robbing algae.  But I digress.

Every day I see would-be anglers fishing in this pond.  On several occasions I've approached the anglers and asked tongue-in-cheek, "Any luck today?"  The unanimous answer is "No."  My next question is, "How's the fishing in here?"  I get two answers...."Not bad" and "Haven't caught a thing in here".

To those that answer "not bad", I say "Good luck...I see 'em jumping in here all the time."  To the honest fishermen I explain that it's man made and has no fish because it wasn't stocked.  They look sheepish, but I'm telling them for their own good.

Am I bad?  You betcha! 

At any rate it provides me with a good laugh when I'm taking my coffee breaks next to it.  And I've yet to see any signs of fish so I've got years of entertainment ahead of me.

Moral of the story?  If you're not catching fish choose a different lake, preferably one that is not rectangular.

Note:  For anyone not familiar with takeout...it is the money the track skims off the top of the betting pools before you see the odds on the toteboard.  Usually it's around 17% and that's how they make their money.

Beating the Track Takeout

Tools needed:

A)  Morning line odds

B)  A good rating system (this could be any rating system you wish, such as speed ratings, etc., but the top-rated horse should win roughly 30% of the time to qualify it as good.)

C)  A morning line generator program (I found mine by doing a google search)


Using your ratings and morning line generator enter every horse's ratings and create your odds line, but DO NOT take into account track takeout or breakage.  I call this the "raw odds".  From these odds determine the fair payouts for each horse.  This is done by multiplying the odds times 2 and adding 2.  The program I use does this for you.

Now determine the payouts for each horse using the morning line odds...again, multiply the odds times 2 and add 2 to get the projected payout.

Compare the morning line payout to your "fair" payout.  Play the one whose morning line payout is the most profitable compared to the fair payout.

Here is an example.  I've only listed the top four rated horses for brevity.

#1..rating 126.9..raw payout $6.86....M-L payout $4.40

#7.............123.0....................$8.06......................$18.00

#2.............119.5...................$10.52......................$7.00

#2B...........116.2...................$13.64......................$7.00
.
.
.

As you can see the #7 has almost a $10 advantage in projected payout.  It is a great potential bet.

Considerations:

--You have to use a good rating system

--Don't consider horses whose raw odds are higher than 8/1

--Don't consider horses who don't rank in the top six of your scale

--Don't pay any attention to closing odds - place your bet and fuggetaboutit.

--Horses are bet to win unless they have morning line odds of 8/1 or higher (as in the example), then they are bet to Win and Place.

--Limit your analysis to "predictable" races...for example, maiden races are not as predictable as others.

This scenario plays out every day at every track and almost every race.  If you consistently bet this type of overlay then you have a similar advantage to a blackjack player who knows that the rest of the shoe contains mostly high cards.

If you can beat the track takeout then you are on your way to profit!

Good luck and good racing! 

 

I live in a townhouse in a condo complex.  We have a little 4' X 8' patio that I feebly decorate with a potted geranium every year.

Just now my son asked me, "What the hell is this woman doing on our patio?"

Lo and behold it was my neighbor picking flower petals off of my plant.   Before I could get to the door she scurried away.

My conundrum is this...should I go knock on her door and ask for my geranium petals back or lend her a few bucks for packaged potpourri from the store?

One of the oddest things I've ever seen.  At any rate, it's provided us with some laughs.

 

There are two ways to determine overlays.  One is the horse's closing odds and the other is using the morning line odds as a guide.

I use morning line odds and here's why.

Horse A.........fair odds 5/1........morning line 7/2...................closing odds 8/1

Horse B.........fair odds 5/1........morning line 8/1...................closing odds 8/1 

Horse A is a bigger overlay from his morning line but why is he such an overlay?   The morning line gauged his chances as 7/2 but the public didn't buy it for whatever reason.  That's a red flag.

Horse B's morning line was 8/1 so his talents are not as readily apparent to the morning odds maker.  The public doesn't see it either but they bet him enough to equal his morning line odds.

In summary, Horse A was an overlay because he wasn't being bet.  Horse B was an overlay because he wasn't being recognized.  The bet would be on Horse B.

The morning line odds are a good base-line indicator of how the public will bet.

Good racing! 

Here's a handy little chart for newbies. It converts the odds of a horse to its corresponding percentage chance of winning. Sometimes it helps to think in terms of percentages that must fill a pie chart to equal 100%. Every horse gets a piece of the pie.

Let's say you have a 12 horse field.  The favorite is 2/1 (33%) and the second favorite is 3/1 (25%) for a combined total of 58%. That means the other ten horses in the field have a combined percentage chance to win of only 42%. That is not a realistic division of the "pie" and it can be exploited looking for value in your betting. The goal is to find the horse(s) that are being cheated out of their fair share of the pie in the betting pool.

 

Odds conversion to %      Rounding was used

ODDS      %      ODDS     %

1/9     .909     10-1     .091
1/5     .833     11-1     .083
2/5     .714     12-1     .077
1/2     .667     13-1     .071
3/5     .625     14-1     .067
4/5     .556     15-1     .063
    1     .500     16-1     .059
6/5     .455     17-1     .056
7/5     .417     18-1     .053
3/2     .400     19-1     .050
8/5     .385     20-1     .048
9/5     .357     25-1     .038
2-1     .333     30-1     .032
5-2     .286     35-1     .028
3-1     .250     40-1     .024
7-2     .222     45-1     .022
4-1     .200     50-1     .020
9-2     .182     60-1     .016
5-1     .167     70-1     .014
6-1     .143     80-1     .012
7-1     .125     90-1     .011
8-1     .111     100-1     .001
9-1     .100     
     

Bet the crowd, not the horse.

 

*  The three basic rules of horse races to skip is still viable:

- Maiden races

- Turf races

- 2 year-olds races

---Normal handicapping procedures do not apply well to these race types unless you have a proven effective angle for the race type.  Most of us don't.

 

--Improve your win percentage and profit by skipping the question marks involved in these race types.

 

Good luck and good racing!

 

 

 

 Weekly Winners for : Frederick G.

Date	Track	Race #	Race Name	Selection	Finish Position	Win Payoff
2007-07-09	MNR	3	--	Pleasant Company (#2)	1	$68.20

That's me.  Mountaineer Park's 3rd race yesterday. 

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President Cheney, oops I mean Vice President Cheney, is now maintaining that the Vice President's office is not a part of the Executive Branch of government.  Why?  Because the Vice President is also President of the Senate that makes him a part of the legislative branch of government and not the executive branch.  Any laws that would apply to the executive branch do not apply to Mr. Cheney's office.

We apologize for the confusion and would ask you to change your Political Science 101 curriculum to reflect this change until the new textbooks have been written.

Thank you for your continued blind cooperation,

Dewey, Cheatem and Howe Law Offices. 

When you stand in front of a mirror and look at your reflection in a mirror placed behind you, you are reflected into eternity.  You can't count the reflections because they are endless.  The mirror image in front of you or behind you is finite but the reflections are infinite.

Our universe is considered finite but it could be nothing but an atom of a larger universe, which is an atom of another universe, etc., etc., ad infinitum.  For humans to try to understand the full scope of this is fruitless.  To try to explain it or assign a creator to it is absurd.  Thinking in finite terms, we say "Well, someone created matter".  But matter could be as infinite as the creator we assign to it...it can't be created or destroyed, only transformed.

There is a thread that holds this all together.  I prefer to add the extra "o" in God and call it Good.  If more people believed in Good rather than God our little boson of a world would be a better place.

...not internet connections.  I finally had cable internet hooked up.  After ten minutes of using it you wonder how you could have dealt with phone line connection for so long.  Martha is right, "It's a good thing."

But in the process I had some computer issues that I needed help with.   In the Yellow Pages I discovered an outfit named Friendly Computers (www.friendlycomputers.com).  They are a national franchise that offers mobile computer services.

I called at 10 am and he was at my door by 3 pm.  He was able to find my network card that the computer was not even registering as a device.  He finished the cable installation and added some RAM that I had on hand.  It took him an hour and twenty minutes but he only charged me for an hour.  He was a very good tech.  The machine and hookup are running like champs.

Their hourly rates are similar to a decent car repair shop or plumber.  I would highly recommend them to anyone (such as myself) who is  "computer-challenged".   It saves a lot of aggravation.

Current results of an AOL poll, 5/21/07:

Are you satisfied with America right now?

 No 83%

 Yes 17%

 Total Votes: 218,618

 
Sad state of affairs.  I feel sorry for the clean up crew.
 

John McCain tells us that the hunky-dory is on in Baghdad. As he visited a Baghdad market, wearing his flak jacket surrounded by a hundred troops and covered by attack helicopters, he determined that the "surge" was working. The Baghdad merchants he was visiting don't think so (especially when the bomb went off after his entourage and protectors left), the Iraqi people don't think so and the rest of the world doesn't think so.

What do you think?

I think Johnny just shot himself in the foot with Cheney's shotgun. He is aligning himself with one of the most unpopular administrations in history. A vote for McCain in 2008 will be a vote for Bush-Cheney. His political acumen seems to be as dull as his myopic view through the rose-colored glasses. He might get nominated but he won't get elected on the path he's taking. Too bad...I used to like the guy.

3/29/07

Santa Anita

4th Race

# 4  Mabadi

Their recent actions are continuing testimony to their leaders' anti-social intent in the world. The British soldiers were not in Iranian waters according to British GPS coordinates, Indian GPS coordinates and Iran's very own reported original position of the British ship. (Thank God for GPS.)

This anti-world behavior on their behalf is a grave mistake. It is a continuing theme from that country and it doesn't bode well for peace in the Mid-East. Why? Because they don't want peace in the Middle-East, they want to own it.

The common man and woman in Iran are paying a price and this time they can't blame "the West" for their woes. It's the "little guy" sitting at the over-sized desk in the President's office who is satisfying his Napoleon Complex insecurity and some religious puppeteer pulling his strings.

He must not have been in school the day they taught about the defeat at Waterloo.  Maybe he was beaten up in the schoolyard.

But let's get to the real problem...who opened this can of whup-ass worms? (Hint: He likes to be referred to as a "war president" with a smirk.  Iraq, Iran and North Korea comprised his "axis of evil".)

At this rate I wouldn't be surprised if we were at war with all three of these axes in January 2009.

Impeachment serves a purpose in a democratic society and with this horrendous managing of our country for these last six years, it should be expected.  This administration puts Nixon's to shame and if they can impeach for a semen stain they should be able to impeach for dissolving the Bill of Rights and creating World War Three.