Graphic credit: www.hmi.de
I looked back on the genesis of FINOO (Follow-In-Next-Outing-Only), its development and application, and its phase of the public trial. It was a hard look. It HAD to be.
I had to lose myself so much in a jungle of data accumulated over the last 14 months, from 3 centers, which filled nearly 110,000 rows with 22 columns.
Trying to again sift from it some coherent method that would logically choose itself without compromising with FINOO's greatest asset and strength--the high strike rate--reminded me of one of the earliest phrases our English teachers taught us in school--looking for a needle in the haystack!
I would have welcomed some help, espcially from Curious No End who has been 'at it' for the last couple of months, but unfortunately he said he was 'busy as hell' this week. The other ever-willing soul, CP, who's so enamoured by FINOO that he always keeps on saying he would take premature retirement if FINOO lives up to its promise (and I suspect and fear he means it!), is abroad. So I had to go all the way alone.
Not that I am complaining. Only, I feel sorry for not putting up any articles this week on the blog. A lot of things were happening, especially at Bangalore. And no man whose concern is racing can pass up those events without a comment. First there was news about D'Artagnan's primary sample testing positive. Then yesterday, came in the news that the BTC cannot (even if it wishes to) organise a new year party at its premises. I mean, technically they can, but packing off at the stroke of midnight when everyone else in the world will be lustily cheering the first minute of the new year 2010, does not look like a bright idea, does it?
Whatever the picture and reasons projected on the surface, the underlying reality is that the fallout (of BTC being forced to shift from the present premises) is the result of a fight between greedy politicians cloaked in altruistic garb on one side and a confused and short-sighted BTC committee on the other. The sad part is, whenver a wolf knocks at a lamb's door, it is always the wolf that wins--unless the Lion steps in and offers protection to the lamb. The only two agencies that can act as Lion in this case are the Bangalore 'junta' and the 'Bangalore High Court'.
From Sharan Kumar's article on his blog, I gather that the junta doesn't care about racing one way or the other, so maybe only the judiciary can help. But the question is, does BTC have the kind of guts to drag the state government to the court?
Unlikely, if you ask me. So finally it may be left for some spirited PIL (Public Interest Litigation) to rein in a chief minister who is acting more like a King with Divine sanction than as an elected representative whose term comes with an expiry date.
Coming back to revisiting the FINOO system, including a re-think of the qualifier rules, I have come to these decisions:
1) The present profitable run of FINOO so far (with old qualifier rules) will be "frozen" here and now, and only preserved for record-keeping's sake as it will not be right to mix up new results (based on different qualifier rules) with them.
2) The new qualifier rules, unfortunately, are too complicated and will have a lot of nuances (too much more work for us). So, at present, they will NOT be discussed on this blog. Because there could be too much useless discussion on them and the main theme, profitability or loss of FINOO, might take a back seat in all that 'galaata' (galaata' is a Kannada word I learnt from Sharan Kumar's daughter Appu, and I believe it means 'a lot of unproductive and useless noise'--I just love this word!).
3) So there will only be TIPS, posted as early as possible after the declarations, WITHOUT ANY ACCESS TO HINT OF ODDS (so that I hope there is no galaata either about tipping 20 paise win or place odds horses).
4) For the first time, FINOO will try to be extra bold and take up an experiment of a unique nature by tipping horses for FOUR separate categories:
i) Win only,
ii) Place only,
iii) Win & Place,
and iv) SHP & Place.
5) Results will be monitored (based on BTC tote odds) for ALL the FOUR categories so that along with our readers, even we will discover if there turns out to be any particular type of bet that is more successful than the other types.
I hope this clears all confusion as to how FINOO is going to look in Phase II starting from tomorrow, Saturday, June 20.
We seek your best wishes for this project.
Prakash Gosavi
