計得精彩

[kido]

Just got the book from chin.  The book introduces a great idea for open public to view horse racing in a systematical analytic way.  Tools like mathematics, excel files are used to illustrate the ideas.

I haven't formally started yet, but has found the the author tried not to use difficult math to scare people off, instead he was trying to do those math in the excel, and thus hiding the joy of reading the book. 

Also I am glad that he mentioned the Harville formula, which is a must in teaching his concepts, but on the other hand he didn't use the Henery's and Lo/Stern's model to illustrate further. 

Some statistical test, chi-test, p-value, which is quite interesting (to me, a non-math backgrounder). And this book will keep me busy for a while.

[chin]

How far have you gone?

[kido]

Read some of the chapters and slightly feel that the book is kind of... too much praise, too little explanation.  

Chapter 1 / 2 / 3 refer to the methods used by the convention 馬迷, probably needless to me (I skipped quite lot)  But a good point is that he was trying to quantify every parameters/conditions on the track.

Chapter 4 includes some stat., some little math.  Chapter 5 / 6 I think are the main theme of the book, somewhat too 'operational', not enough explanation for an ordinary people to understand.  And also the author expects reader  find out the answer from the Excel themselves.  Some readers may appreciate that if they don't like the maths, but it's just not adequate for people like me that love finding fact.

Chapter 8 is most fruitful so far, because he introduces (and describes) hedging and arbitrage on different pools. So it enlightens me and give a new way of thinking.

[chin]

See, I told you so. 

[kido]

I think next step I'll do the dirty job -- to understand the excel by looking at those figures.

[chin]

I think next step I'll do the dirty job -- to understand the excel by looking at those figures.

Any progress report for the last two months? 

[kido]

Any progress report for the last two months? 

I have stopped drilling into that book anymore, however, it leads me to the door of qualitative (computational) gambling, regardless of whether it takes me in or not. 

But still this book is a good tutorial on the hedging. For example reducing the double pool into a win pool. Similarly reducing a place-Q pool to a place pool.

On the other hand, the 'expensive' book mentioned in this thread was a good reference in anytime.  There are quite some parts of the book that I never go thro' yet.  But it sound likes everyone is using the win odds to deduce the expected odds in the exotic pools. 

Everything in the 'expensive' book and 計得精彩 point to one thing: there needs to have a database of past records to verify the correctness of the calculations.  In fact this is a crucial step to build one to verify the any model deduced..

[chin]

Yes, the database is a crucial part - a part that you have to have for further study but does not necessarily guarantee success.

One of the difficulties he has is the complexity and effort in maintaining that database on a on-going basis.

[kido]

Yes, the database is a crucial part - a part that you have to have for further study but does not necessarily guarantee success.

One of the difficulties he has is the complexity and effort in maintaining that database on a on-going basis.

Oh Chin, I brought the book with me tonite, but forgot to return it back to you. ( and also to wongyan, I have another book for you, holding for the whole night but also forgotten)

[kido]

I've found a good link, I think it's very suitable for beginners if one finds interest. If I found this link months ago, then it must shorten my learning a lot. Don't know who is the author, but it's definitely useful.

電算機隱藏的祕密