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System Analyser & MyCalc

System and Staking Analyser

System Analyser helps you pick profitable system rules

Bet Selector's Analyser module is part of System Selector. It actually has two functions, one to analyse the system rules over past meetings and the other to analyse staking plans when applied to system selections. These functions are referred to as System Analyser and Staking Analyser respectively and are discussed in separate sections below.

System Analyser works by tabulating the performance for individual system rule criteria. For example System Analyser will show you the number of bets, wins, strike rate, return, profit etc was for every individual barrier position, field size, distance and so on.

System Analyser Output

System Analyser is available in versions above Bet Selector Gold via the "Analyse Last Test" button in System Selector (if you use this button in the Gold version it will simply open a spreadsheet file). The System Analyser output is an HTML file which reports performance for every System Selector criteria (and more) so you can see performance contributions for individual criteria values.

 Following are the descriptions of the data columns in the System Analyser output:

Following the above columns are two horizontal bar charts - the first for percentage strike rate and the second for percentage profit (only positive values capped at 100% are graphed). Of the above columns the only one that requires further explanation is the Impact Value which are numbers centered around 1 where less than 1 indicates the strike rate is less than the average for all horses in the test and more than 1 indicates the strike rate is greater than the average. (They are better than strike rates for comparison purposes because strike rates by themselves are influenced by field sizes and individual horse win chances).

The above columns are for the default win/place analysis. If you select the Jockey/Trainer analysis you will get the above columns less the Up and Down columns and with a Rate column in place of he I.V. column (it contains a rating following the traditional scale of 0 for the best through to 8 for the worst).

Going down the page you will see performance for individual criteria values corresponding to most of the System Selector rules. The best way to illustrate this is with a sample output from System Analyser which you can view via the following link:

System Analyser Sample Output

The above sample is just an extract from the full report and only shows a handfull of criteria. The full list of criteria analysed is as follows:


Note that System Analyser is only available in versions above the Gold version and criteria marked like this^ are only reported on in the latest Bet Selector Ultimate Professional version. Note also that in the latest Ultimate Professional version you can System Analyse virtually anything you like from the form downloads as well as your own calculations (ie you are not limited to the above list).

System Analyser Data File

In Bet Selector Gold the "Analyse Last Test" button in System Selector opens a spreadsheet file containing full system data for all selected runs. In Bet Selector Ultimate the same button opens System Analyser as dicsussed above but there is still a button in the System Analyser module for opening the spreadsheet file directly.

Spreadsheet files in comma delimited format are created every time you run System Selector over past meetings. The comma-delimited format (with each column of data separated from the next by a comma) has been chosen as it is the most common format asked for and the format most compatible with all spreadsheet and database programs. It will load into programs like Excel with the data automatically separated into columns within the spreadsheet - so you can sort the data by any column you like and even apply calculations to individual columns. A explanation of the spreadsheet columns is as follows:


Note that some of the columns documented above may be empty if you are not using the latest Bet Selector Ultimate Professional version with Bestform downloads.

Staking Analyser Output

The Staking Analyser output is a CSV file that loads into your spreadsheet program and reports performance of your system bets based on the application of various staking plans. The option to run win or place staking analysis is made via radio button selections at the point where you would normally run System Analyser.

Each Staking Plan is illustrated by two columns of data -the bet size BET and the bank size BANK. Column headings are prefaced by letters (eg a, b, c etc) to indicate the actual Staking Plan being applied. A legend can be found at the end of the spreadsheet explaining the names of the staking plans and more details on them can be found below:

At the bottom of the spreadsheet you will find absolute $ profit, percentage profit on opening bank (POB) and percentage profit on turnover (POT) for each plan.

The Staking Analyser lets you run either win or place staking analysis and also allows you to alter the divisor and select the initial bank percentage from between 0.5% to 5%. Note that the divisor default is set to twice the average odds which the program determines from your system test run.

MyCalc

The MyCalc module (only in Bet Selector Ultimate and above) is used when you want to include your own calculations in System Selector.

To use the MyCalc module just select it via the pull down RUN menu and click the "New"button in the top left hand corner. This create a new calculation to which you can give a name using the box at the bottom right near the "Save As" button, then enter the form items you wish to use from the appropriate drop down lists below the respective "Insert" buttons at the top of the screen (just select the item from the drop down and click the "Insert" button immediately above the drop down to insert the item) 

The drop down lists for Race, Horse data and Last Start form data give you descriptions of the various items available. When inserted into the formula box, they are prefixed by R for race fields, H: for horse fields and F: for last start form fields (if you are running Bet Selecotr Ultimate Professional then you also have accesss to second, third and fourth last start data items which use the prefixes F2, F3 and F4). A final drop down allows you to insert special variables from System Selector like past start margins and turn positions etc (note these work when using the calc in System Selector but not in MyCalc test mode).

Once you have entered a single form item into the large formulae text box in the middle of the screen you can add additional items with operators like +, -, * or / between them. Such operators can be typed in manually or inserted by clicking on the respective operator buttons at the top right of the screen. Note that left and right brackets can also be inserted or typed in and these may be required depending on what you want to do (as with normal algebra you need to be aware that (A+B)/2 is different from A+B/2).

Calculation Examples

The following example should help you understand the formula format. This example takes a horse's prizemoney earnings and divides them by the number of placings a horse has had:

H:STAKES/(H:WINS+H:PL2+H:PL3)

The first, second and third placings must be added together and enclosed in brackets for the division to work. Note that Last Start SP is inserted as BOOK2DIV(F:SP) where BOOK2DIV is an internal MyCalc function used to convert the price from bookie format to numeric format.

In My Calc you can test your formula at the click of a button before using it in System Selector. You do this using the "Test" buttons towards the middle bottom of the screen using the drop down lists next to the "Test" button for selecting the date and meeting you wish to test. One test button opens the reuslts in a Notepad window while teh secodn test button opens them in Excel.

To save the formula you create you must click the "Save As" button on the middle right of the screen making sure you type a name into the adjacent text box. Once saved, the formulae name will appear in the left hand list box of saved formulae. These can be opened by simply clicking on the names in the list box and they can also be deleted by using the "Delete" button under the formulae name list box.

Testing MyCalc Formulae in System Selector

When testing systems in System Selector there are special rules on the system rules window that give you full control over MyCalc results as follows:

An important example of using these new rules is where you link a system to your MyCalc calculation for Selection Poll points, set the min and max ranges for calc value to 1 and 1 to pick the top MyCalc horse, and then set a minimum of 2 points for the gap between the top and second top horse (gap position number 1). An example on exactly how to do this can be found at Selection Poll System

Please note that you can also pick races where the gap between the top and second top horse is say at least 2 and then pick the second top horse (doesn’t have to be the top horse). You can also set percentage gap limits – for example a 20% gap would require the top horse to be at least 12 if the second top was 10. Note also that MyCalc rankings assume your MyCalc returns positive numbers with the best horse having the highest number. So if you want to test gaps between something like rated prices then you will have to engineer a MyCalc that returns higher scores for more favoured horses. As an example, the following subtracts the rated price from 20 and replaces negative outcomes with zeros:

MAX(0,20-BOOK2DIV(H:PRICE))

You can also use MyCalc to test the gap in price from the favourite to the second favourite. To do this you need to use the TAB prices in MyCalc (remember to run Race Day Live to get the prices if doing this before the event). Because Mycalc expects higher numbers to be better, we need to subtract the TAB dividend from 1,000 for the MyCalc to work:

1000-H:CPRICE

More MyCalc Examples

I have given the name "experience" to a calculation that express the number of wins at the track as a percentage of the total number of career starts. Note I do not mean as a normal percentage of starts at the track so the better horses have to have not just a high proportion of wins at the track but also a high proportion of runs at the track relative to their runs at all tracks. An "experience" percentage of 30 or more can boost profits of some systems between 10 to 30%. 

The formula for "experience" is 100*H:TCW/H:STARTS

A similar formulae that refers to distance wins is 100*H:TDW/H:STARTS

Next is a "last start prizemoney" calculation that is of great benefit to last start winner systems. It expresses the prizemoney won last start as a percentage of the prizemoney on offer in the upcoming race. This calculation immediately separates the better last start winners from the rest and by selecting only horses where the calculation is greater than 20, can boost last start winner system profits by over 20%. 

The formula for "last start prizemoney" is 100000*F:PRWIN/R:STAKES

A special function called MyPts is available to assist you in allocating points for numeric drop down items like TAB number, barrier position etc. The first parameter to this function is the drop down item you want to convert into points, eg H:TNO for TAB number. This is followed by two numbers representing the range of items you want points allocated to which in turn are followed by two numbers representing the range of points you want to allocate.

For example if you want TAB number 1 to 3 to get 3 to 1 points then the required function would be:

MyPts(H:TNO,1,3,3,1,0)

For example if you want barrier number 1 to 24 to get 10 to 1 points then the required function would be:

MyPts(H:BP,1,24,10,1,0)

The last parameter to the MyPts function is a 0 if you don't want points allocated outside the range you specify or a 1 if you want points to be allocated outside the range (in which case a straight line extrapolation is used). For example with the TAB number example above, the last parameter of 0 indicates all TAB numbers outside 1-3 get allocated zero points. If you change the last parameter to 1 then TAB number 4 would be allocated 0, TAB number 5 -1, TAB number 6 -2 and so on.

MyReport

MyReport uses the same drop down list items as MyCalc but instead of combining them together in a calculation it concatenates them into a string for reporting purposes. This way you can create reports that are different to the standard ones within the program.

To access MyReport you simply change the radio button from MyCalc to MyReport and then list the items you want for each column on separate lines one after the other. For example you can list horse name, jockey and trainer side by side in a report by simply saving the following:

H:HORSE
H:TRAINER
H:JOCKEY

Finally you should note that in MyCalc you can also separate long calculations onto multiple lines by pressing the Enter key to start a new line in place of using the plus sign to add a new item (but not if the items to be added are inside other functions or grouped within parentheses).

Expert Mode

Expert Mode is a more advance system testing environment where you have access to a lot more rules - in fact virtually every form item that is available from the data files. It is only available in Bet Selector Ultimate Plus and above.

Both MyCalc and Expert Mode work by accessing detailed drop down lists of data as follows.

Race File Data


Horse File Data


Last Start File Data


More Race Data


More Horse Data


Strike Rates


Ratings and Rankings


Bestform Data


Sportsbet Data


More Past Data


Note that items marked like this^ are only available in Bet Selector Ultimate Professional.

To use a data item, all you need do is select the one you want from the drop down lists in the MyCalc/Expert Mode editor and click the Insert button above the drop down list. This places the relevant variable name in the large edit box. When finished composing you system/calc you just save your code giving it a name so it can be refereced for future use.

More information on how to use the above data items can be found on our blog at:

betselector.blogspot.com

Finally if you have Bet Selector Ultimate Plus or above you can use the hidden variable UNIVAL that allows you to test AAP dry track 100 point ratings back to January 2009. For this to work you must start your system name with the letters RTGS and you must install in your Price folder the data files RTGS2009.DBF, RTGS2010.DBF, RTGS2011.DBF and RTGS2012.DBF from RTGS.ZIP.

For a free eBook containing 189 free racing systems and a free copy of the Bet Selector Gold software (used to cost $450), just send an email with your first name in the subject line to demo@capitalinfo.com.au