Variance consistently challenges us, as value punters, with prolonged periods of system drawdown.
I’ve discussed this topic previously in several posts, including this one:
At the start of that post I said:
Given that SYS3 has a relatively low strike rate of 16%, this means we will encounter plenty of inevitable long losing runs. It’s totally impossible to circumvent the laws of variance when it comes to value betting. Trying to pretend otherwise is both foolish and completely unrealistic. And for me to pretend anything to the contrary would be wholly dishonest of me.
In the same post, I also mentioned how two psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, demonstrated how financial losses cause people twice as much pain as the pleasure they receive from financial gains. The term used to describe this mental phenomenon is “loss aversion.”
Considering this, effectively managing system drawdown becomes crucial, given that enduring prolonged periods of it is often one of the most challenging aspects of horse race betting for many punters. While no system can eliminate the drawdown entirely, making some minor adjustments should help alleviate it.
Let's consider a couple of examples.
Here's how SYS3 has been performing this month:
So, SYS3 is presently showing a profit of 76.36 points (Betfair SP) this month. Nonetheless, this is still much lower than its monthly peak of 132.02 points on April 13th.
It’s currently on a testing system drawdown of 55.66 points. Its previous record drawdown, as discussed in the post below, was 73.18 points. And the system ended up taking 83 days to recover from this period of drawdown. Hence, we recommend a chunky starting bank of between 200 and 220 points for this method (which is around three times the previous record drawdown).
Meanwhile, SYS3 (Pace), which has faced its own downturn recently, is currently navigating a drawdown of 25.26 points, so under half of SYS3's drawdown. One advantage of SYS3 (Pace) over SYS3 is its ability to better manage system drawdown, owing to its lower volume of required bets. Its previous worst drawdown of 34.1 points took 42 days to recover (so it took approximately half as long to recover than it did for SYS3).
We're thrilled to share that we do offer other system options that have significantly mitigated recent drawdowns compared to the current 55.66 points of drawdown for SYS3 or the 25.26 points of SYS3 (Pace).
Here are two of those options that are available exclusively to our Premium Members:
Option 1:
This first option is currently experiencing a minor drawdown of just 5.86 points from its previous peak.
Option 2:
The second option, on the other hand, currently experiences a drawdown of 15.75 points from its previous peak.
A drawdown ranging from 6 to 16 points is decidedly more manageable than an extended downturn of 56 or 73 points. Therefore, if you find prolonged drawdowns challenging, perhaps consider exploring Option 1 or Option 2 mentioned above. Alternatively, you might simply prefer SYS3 (Pace) over SYS3. Here's a previous post detailing SYS3 (Pace):
In that prior post I wrote the following:
The rationale behind this new Pace sheet addition is that it’s a good way to help trim down the volume of bets on the main SYS3 data sheet. This should also help reduce the overall drawdown during a downturn. So it’s a good alternative for those that prefer to tread more carefully, as it helps to reduce the volume of required bets by over 1/3. Roughly speaking, for every 100 bets placed on SYS3, the SYS3 (Pace) alternative should only require around 63 or 64.
Hold-up horses prefer to avoid the early pace by racing in the rear, looking instead to make their move nearer the finish. One of the big disadvantages that hold-up horses typically face, though, is that they can get into difficulty when they look to make their move. They might get caught in a pocket and not be able to find a viable gap to open up in the field. This can mean the jockey will be forced to weave around (wasting both precious time and yards) looking for a clear run, by which time it can often be too late in the day to make their conserved energy truly count. Hence, our SYS3 (Pace) data sheet looks to avoid such bets.