Hi All,

We have just released another update to Axis yesterday and this morning it got me thinking; how can I tell people about it? Im not a sales man, and mostly the things that are used to promote our Axis program are meant to be a 3 line catchy grab and so on. While I understand the need for this, I also see a lot of our ideas go totally unnoticed because of that. Axis is a very involved program; don't get me wrong its easy to use, my 6yo can do it, but there are features that don't often make the 'front page' because Axis can really be everything to everyone; but that can't be summarised into 3 lines.

So my idea is to start this thread, a blog if you like of the new things that are coming into Axis from the perspective of a punter, self-made programer, father, husband .... ME; a normal everyday bloke. Hopefully this will also help YOU. I have been around the traps of punting for close to 2 decades now, most of them full time so I know that there are things that I can help with. I am familiar with the trials and trepidations, fears and failures that most punters encounter, I have been there as has Paul. You can also always visit our website to find out more About Us if you care to know.

So here we go; I hope that you will find the information useful even if you have no intention of using Axis. I will make any points in Italic so watch out for them, they may help! And if you get the crazy notion of partnering up with us, whether it be from here or because of the information you find on our website PLEASE let us know that you have found us through OZmium forums. We insist, they have been great with their support of us and punters in general.

Michal

__________________
Michal - Ratings2Win Pty Ltd
R2W Axis - Axis is Australia's leading horse racing software and database;
with sophisticated form analysis tools and accurate horse performance ratings for TAB meetings.
http://www.ratings2win.com.au/

I can hear people think, your stuff costs money and you are just trying to flog me something. Why if it’s that good ..... I can get everything free .... all I need is the paper .... I don’t need anything all ....

Sure, all those are valid points, let’s get all of this out of the way in one post because I don't plan to come back to them.

Ratings2Win is a business, yep, we sell things, things like information, tools and ideas and we don't hide that fact; we also give away loads of our time in helping people.

If it’s so great why not keep it to yourself and make money!

We get this often, the answer is easy, and there is more than one; it’s not a mystery or some cover up, just facts. Besides who says that we don't make money?

1. We don't use everything that Axis has to offer, there is just too much for any one/few hundred people to use. The worse thing anyone can do is to spread too thin! Try to do too much and you'll end up losing focus. For instance there is the possibility of using, in many ways, up to 18 different ratings/ranks in Axis. 9 of them are our proprietary unique ratings offering different angles, 4 of them are publicly available like API and so on and up to 5 can be ratings of any description privately imported into Axis by the client. If you think that we have the time and energy to tap all of those possibilities to even half of its capabilities, you would be wrong!
2. We have our personal unique ways of using Axis; both Paul and I are different in the way that we use the information, and the rest just sits there. So it’s available for other to use in their own unique ways and you would be helping to develop the program further with ideas and subscription (financial) support to the benefit of everyone.
3. For us, this is not an academic pursuit, we don't have jobs to fall back on, we use Axis for punting and live and breathe by our ratings successes. So we have total commitment to our products (Axis and SRA), the information within them and to our clients. If something goes wrong it isn't just the clients that suffer, we are right there with them, so we make darn sure that this doesn't happen. Same with functionality of Axis, if it’s a good idea and we use it; it’s available to our clients. We don't have the selfish notion of keeping the best for ourselves!
4. Once your punting gets into 4 figure sums all bookies begin to dislike you as a successful punter with a passion, so there is a very real ceiling on what we can bet without being forced to take the lowest ******** sucking prices that many bookies force you to take as they restrict you. Liquidity in some races is also an issue. Anyone that tells you otherwise isn’t realistic. Wait till you get there, you’ll see, but it’s a nice problem to have.

Finally the cost, everything is free and I don’t have to pay for anything to be successful.

OK, never said it has to be one way only, if you have the time; to gather free information, program spreadsheets and do research with paper and pen or any combination of there off and you don’t mind the wasted hours doing something that takes minutes in Axis then our products are not for you, and I respect your tenacity. Been there, done that; my hat off to you. Unfortunately there are also many hundreds of people just like you using the same free resources and have been for years, you are up against some very smart people with some very smart tools. If time is a valued commodity for you then using a tool like Axis can speed up EVERYTHING using the unique information/tools that most don’t have access to. Produce long term research without errors and without relying on others. Develop profitable systems with long term, large sample resulting evidence in hours not months or just to get today’s data with a click of a button. What is the cost of the time saved? If nothing else, invest the same time and get hundred times more benefit for it. So it’s worth it IMO because of the tools and time and uniqueness of/and information.

It’s also worth it because of what it can save you on the punt directly. Axis is a multi level value product. There are several subscriptions to choose from so as to match your level of punting. If you bet $10 the obviously paying for the Professional subscription is crazy but there is always the Classic version for you. If you bet in hundreds the Professional subscription is very affordable. Our goal is to arm our clients with the necessary tools, information, knowledge, education and understanding that enables them to profit from racing on a consistent basis (our mission statement). What if that saves you a few loosing bets a month and god forbid picks up extra winners? You have payed off Axis without really spending a cent extra.

When people compare costs and benefits of AXIS they do so within the limiting framework of what they do now, while I understand I can assure you using Axis will change your punting!

__________________
Michal - Ratings2Win Pty Ltd
R2W Axis - Axis is Australia's leading horse racing software and database;
with sophisticated form analysis tools and accurate horse performance ratings for TAB meetings.
http://www.ratings2win.com.au/

Personal Ratings Import

Is the latest function that extends the analytical power of Axis. This function offers the ability to test, include in systems and analyse ratings that are not native to Axis. Any rating. Be it a price or a value, Axis now has the frame work to enable you to fully utilise that import in the program.

Do you create your own ratings? Do you collect Racing and Sports ratings? Unitab? Sky ratings? Early markets? Other free ratings? Do you buy something that arrives in a file or a spreadsheet? Right, most of us collect or create something; we all understand the value of unique information. Do you know what the performance figures are for that ‘something’? I’m not just talking about the top pick strike rate or something like that, that’s important, but even that changes, so are you using something that you had analysed a few years ago and are you still going by those findings, are you accepting your ratings providers word on what the strike rate is or was in 2003?

It’s sad that many punters use ratings or information without having exact information about even just the above mentioned overall performance. If they do, then they most certainly don’t know how that information behaves over different distance, track condition, race class and when it’s integrated and leveraged against others and so on and so on.

It has been my pet project; as a punter I know how important it is to be able to confidently answer the above questions. Early on I spent a full year developing a spreadsheet that created speed ratings, it was epic and at the end I couldn’t tell you what the strike rate was. I was just like most punters, I believed that it was good and I had no way of analysing it. I did at the end and it was good but the point here is; if you don’t know and you don't have the skill or time to build something that can analyse what you are using then the question is; what are you really doing with it? I learned the hard way, you don’t have to.

Being able to analyse a rating is important because it is my belief that ratings are the last bastion of profit for punters. EVERYONE has access to some kind of analysis of form, books, programs, generous answers on forums and so on which makes the point; everyone, for many years has had the ability to siphon anything worthwhile out of ‘The Form’. It has now been reduced to just being a framework on which to hang something else that has the ability to create an edge. A PERFORMANCE RATING. Makes no difference how you get to it, it is the only unique piece of info that is limited to only those that get it unlike Form which is available to everyone.

Axis has the ability to deliver 9 ratings that each target a different edge and are produced differently (I’ll deal with ratings later). Further we pass on the usual API, Win, Place rank and Handicapper rating. So that is up to 13 ratings/ranks to begin with. Now comes extra 5 for you to import from elsewhere. Remember we don’t supply the rating, we provide the framework and mechanism to import it and to use it. Think about the leverage you create by having so many different ‘opinions’ about a horse. The axis ratings are enough but these extra 5 add a whole new level. Their consensus value can be used to create a new consolidated rating based on your importance settings. This alone has almost limitless possibilities. Using systems, you can identify selections that involve more than one ratings tick of approval; what do you think the chances are of a horse that is on top of 18 different ratings? You can find out. Because all that information including your 5 ratings can be tested and analysed so you know exactly how they interact with one another, and what are the combinations that are profitable and in what situations?

Using Axis you will know in minutes. It takes about 3 min to test a year’s worth of data and the same to fully analyse it across about 120 factors. You don’t have to guess or search, the analysed results are presented to you on a platter. Axis has the ability to unlock information and combinations that are user unique that others have no possible way of having access to. That is how you can develop an edge.

__________________
Michal - Ratings2Win Pty Ltd
R2W Axis - Axis is Australia's leading horse racing software and database;
with sophisticated form analysis tools and accurate horse performance ratings for TAB meetings.
http://www.ratings2win.com.au/

Do you keep records ?

If not then perhaps you don't need to read any further, but then again may be you should; every successful punter keeps records, those that don't are not as successful as they could be, and that is a fact! Many a smart man in our history has said something along the lines of:

'Those that fail to learn from mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat the same mistakes in the future'.

I would add that those that don't look at their past successes may be domed to miss those successes in the future. Your past punting history is filled with wins and losses, many of them. If you are to become the best punter that you can be it is imperative that you know where your strengths and weaknesses are and emphasise your strengths and either work on or avoid your weaknesses. Unless you keep records of your punting, which includes bets and money management then I can assure you that your punting is not as successful as it could be even if you are winning.

I don't think that I need to explain the money management side too much it makes sense doesn't it? Know where you started, where you are now and there is your outcome in real dollars; the real reason we all do this. While that is a rather simple way of looking at it as a minimum that will do, if you bet on credit and or with many bookmakers then your needs will be more sophisticated, and we are looking at assisting punters in that regards in the future as well.

Before we get an uproar of people grabbing onto the fact that punters bet on credit with bookies, let me explain that that is a very normal and sound money management strategy most big punters adopt. You keep your money in the bank, earning interest and you settle once a week with the bookie; otherwise you would need to tie up large capital in several accounts in order to be able to optimise your dividend selection (price shopping) across several betting agencies, this also keeps you under their radar for longer due to the randomness of bet that you place with them.

So while money management is obvious, keeping a track of your bets is something that most punter fail to do. Using your TAB account to keep track of your bets is ..... well next to pointless except for a cursory glance. I can assure you that all bookies have a far better grasp of your punting then you; that is a fact, they analyse your bets for patterns like you have no idea. If it’s good for the bookie then it must be good for the punter right? There is no understating this; the reason you keep records is so that you can analyse them later and see where you can improve. A punter needs to know exactly where he is betting, what sort of selections are his optimum bets and which bets he should avoid and everything in between. You have spreadsheets as a minimum in which to do this so there is no excuse! Start today if you haven't already.

Axis offers the ability to refine records keeping using our Personal Horse Flags (PHF). This gives our clients the ability to quickly and effectively mark horses for later analysis. The whole reason for keeping the records is so that you CAN analyse them later. Let’s say that you mark your best bets with a '1' and your spec. bets may be with a '2'. Now after a while you can go to the analyser and analyse your betting. Learn where the strengths and weaknesses are, see what races to avoid, what distances to let go off or what jockeys for instance give you the best results, whatever you can think of in the context of form and ratings can be analysed in Axis. About 120 or so filters or analysis markers if you like can be seen at a click of a button. No one can tell me that their punting would not improve under that sort of scrutiny. If you are betting $100 per selection then just one saved dud bet a month pays for the subscription without taking any other benefits that you gain from Axis into account. Just one bet saved; I would wager that most of you would be surprised with what you would find. By the way the Personal Horse Flags are available even in the Classic version, we don't want you to miss out if you are just starting and are on a tight budget! This ability is a gift that just keeps on giving, the more data you have the more it will tell you.

There may be other programs that allow you to do this, with one major flaw; they assume that you start with them from scratch! Start today and mark you bets; what about the years worth of bets that you have in a spreadsheet? May be you could go and manually enter them? LOL that is one way, the other is to take your list of bets and import them into Axis and analyse them there and then instantly knowing what benefits you can gain from your partnership with ratings2win and Axis. We don't want you to wait for months to gather evidence if you already have it. The main reasons why punters don't keep records, is that they have no way of doing anything with them anyway! It's a shame but if you have records then use them. Now! If you don't have them, then start gathering. Now!

We even allow you to do this while you are in 14 day money back guarantee period. Why not, you should have by now realised that we are transparent and realistic in our approach to everything; so take the program for a spin, import your bets (it’s real easy as long as you have some basic data identifying the horse and when it ran), analyse them and sit back and uncover the, up to now hidden, truths about your betting method/s in the cold hard reality of our analysis report.

__________________
Michal - Ratings2Win Pty Ltd
R2W Axis - Axis is Australia's leading horse racing software and database;
with sophisticated form analysis tools and accurate horse performance ratings for TAB meetings.
http://www.ratings2win.com.au/

A Note to Self: BACK this horse next time it runs.

No prizes for guessing that today's piece is about leaving notes for yourself as a reminder of something that the horse did or something that you should do next time it runs. Those things are called Comments and Black book and believe it or not it's a 2 part post.

The Black Book

One of the issues I had when I was starting out was that the program that I was using didn't have a black book, and looking around I couldn't find one that did what I wanted to do. So I did what most people do and used one of the many free online reminders that send you your black book via email and SMS; which turned out to be useless because I would forever forget about them. This was because they came NOT at the time I needed them but mostly a day before or other inconvenient time and as everyone knows unless you have everything in front of you, things get left behind in the organised confusion that most Saturday mornings turn out to be; and they of course go on to win. The other issue is keeping the blasted thing up to date; the logging in, typing and spelling, deleting and so on. A hassle all around!

So I turned all that around in our R2W Axis. Firstly the Axis Black Book has the capability to black book more; Horses, Jockeys, Trainers, Jockeys & Horses combos and Trainer & Jockey combos. Anyone that is just a little racing savvy will see the obvious benefits in having the ability to black book all those possible entities. Horses are obvious. I use jockeys and trainers to not only know when my short list of good ones are racing but also to let me know when they seam to travel for no apparent reason outside their jurisdiction for a one off race. Same goes for time when a certain Jock rides a certain horse or when a certain Trainer engages a certain jockey, these are situations that transmit a clear message "This horse is running on its merits today" or "this is just a training run".

Most Black Books go by the wayside because of the efforts required to maintain them. I mean what is the point of booking horses when you end up with a truck load of them; after a while you stop looking at the list! Axis has the capability of setting an expiry date (or not) so that the program will delete the bookers for you. Automatically. Some you might want to keep indefinitely, like a fave horse or a jockey but most you want to keep for a short while and then let go. Keeping the book current and relevant is most important; expire or indefinite, the duration is up to you and you can always prune the list the old fashion way anyway.

So when do you actually get reminded? Right at the time that you need it! When you load a day, a list of all your black bookers running that day pops up including your comment if you have one. Also as you look/study each race in the Race Day Portal if you have a booker then it's marked for you. You will not miss a thing!

To enter a black book 'entity' you can do it from the Race Day Portal without typing anything other then your comment with a click of a button so spelling is not an issue!

Easy as, a thinking punters black book!

__________________
Michal - Ratings2Win Pty Ltd
R2W Axis - Axis is Australia's leading horse racing software and database;
with sophisticated form analysis tools and accurate horse performance ratings for TAB meetings.
http://www.ratings2win.com.au/

Hi Michal,

Tayjack here, your posts regarding axis is extremely well explained and as i am on the lookout for a programme that delivers what you have explained, how do i go about gettting more info regarding it, or even having a demo somehow, i have seen the video demo, just wondering how i can go into it more? Looking to set up the professional suite.
Regards - TJ