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[classhandicapper]

The game is tough because we are often working with incomplete or inaccurate information and a less than perfect understanding of the situation, type of race, issues in the race etc...

Sometimes we are competing with people that have a better combination of both in that specific situation. But our egos tend to make us think that all our information is accurate and complete and we understand everything. So what we perceive to be underlays or overlays are sometimes perfectly efficient odds.

That's what makes it tough.

To overcome that, you have to limit yourself to situations that you know you understand well and where you know you know something that the general public and perhaps even other high level handicappers do not.

For example, I know that I'm not as good a turf handicapper as I am a dirt handicapper and also know a major weakness in my game is pedigree and the associated values of that kind of information.

So you'll never see me play a turf race with a lot of 1st time starters and/or 1st time turfers. However, I also know that turf and dirt speed figures do not translate well and some very informed handicappers in the public eye do not grasp that as well as I do. So I sometimes have opportunities on surface switches where the horses have clear form on both surfaces because I know other people are misunderstanding their surface preferences, performances, and current form based on figures that do not translate.