HTR Price Play

[completebill]

Has anyone ever tracked the long-term performance of the "Price Play"? In my large arsenal of Spot Plays, I have many longshot plays, all of which are profitable (or they wouldn't stay in the arsenal!). In not all cases, of course, but in MANY cases, one of my l.s. spot plays coincides with the HTR "Price Play".
Are there profits to be found playing " the Price Play", either to win or to Place? (or in any other manner?). Is there any way to test this, using the Robot, or otherwise?
Thanks for any input------------------Bill

[km]

The "Price Play" is just the highest "$$" horse in post-position order.

It was a leftover from many years ago when there was a single $$ play only per race. After we allowed multiple $$ per race, it stuck and the computer just lists the last one it finds. I was going to remove it since this is sort of fluke. But users protested and said "don't you touch it!"

So there is no secret to it and also no actual coding since HTR2 simply loops through the $$ horses and lists the last one it finds in each race. So it cannot be tested specifically, but you should find many profitable spot plays with the "$$" in general.

[Rick]

I just ran a test on an older database for Price Play.

An overall lose of a little over 14%.

Win rate just over 9%.

Criteria in Access was nLong=2 and nPPO=Max.

Needs help to narrow it down.

[km]

Rick, i think that query finds $$ horses with the outside-most post position. In other words, if a horse has the $$ and drew post 8 in a field of 8, then that query catches it.

The PRICE PLAY however, could be horse #1 in a field if it was the only horse with the $$. Or it could be # 5 in a field of 8, if #2 and #3 also had the $$.

[Rick]

I am glad everyone thinks I am stupid.

I may be but not that stupid.

That was done with max pp of the $$'s.

SELECT ALL_HX4.tTRK, ALL_HX4.tDATE, ALL_HX4.nRACE, ALL_HX4.nLONG, Max(ALL_HX4.nPPO) AS LastOfnPPO
FROM ALL_HX4
GROUP BY ALL_HX4.tTRK, ALL_HX4.tDATE, ALL_HX4.nRACE, ALL_HX4.nLONG
HAVING (((ALL_HX4.nLONG)=2));

[km]

Gotcha Rick, i doubt anyone thinks you are stupid on here. Very clever query, i didn't realize the MAX could be used to pull that data so efficiently. Well done.

[Rick]

Just being a little facetious.

I tried both Max and Last, and they both work in this case.

It wouldn't work right when I tried to include other fields like program # and horse name.

[Rick]

I double-checked my work and found that Max and Last are not the same in this case.

Max should be used.

Will edit example to change Last to Max.

[Rick]

Triple-check and found I made another error. Must have been the JD. :)

Results are imporved but still not good.

Total Bets 32546
WIN PLACE SHOW
Total Amount 65092.00 65092.00 65092.00
Wins 3326 6981 10665
Pct. 10.22% 21.45% 32.77%
Amount 56046.90 53368.00 51566.90
Profit/Loss -9045.10 -11724.00 -13525.10
Pct Profit Loss -13.90% -18.01% -20.78%
Avg. Payout 16.85 7.64 4.84