Author Topic: Trigger firing when it shouldn't?  (Read 1408 times)

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Trigger firing when it shouldn't?
« on: 07 Jan 2023, 17:00 »
I'm probably doing something stupid but I have a trigger that keeps firing when it shouldn't.

There are three conditions (pls see conditions.jpg attached):
  • The lay price of a selection must be be between 1.01 and 15 
  • There must be at least six (min_runners) valid selections left after the previous condition 
  • The lay price must be equal or less than the remaining selections (matching_number) after the two previous conditions have been met

However I'm getting fairly frequent occurrences where this trigger fires when it shouldn't in relation to this third condition. In MF.jpg attached I've highlighted the third favourite in red where the lay price is 13, so for this to fire there should have been 13 runners (matching_number) left, but there are only 7. Any idea what I'm missing?

Many thanks

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Re: Trigger firing when it shouldn't?
« Reply #1 on: 07 Jan 2023, 17:19 »
Not sure if it is related to my post above but just in case, I've noticed scenarios like the attached (statement.jpg) several times where the odds seem to be out of order. In this case the second horse (presumably actually the third favourite though it's in the second favourite's slot) has a lay price of 7.4 which would require a minimum field of 8 horses for the trigger to fire, but it the trigger seems to have fired on the basis of the third horse in the list with a lay price of only 5.5 which obviously would only have required 6 runners to fire.

Is it possibly that if the first to third favourites prices are moving very fast that MF executes part of the logic on one selection but the market shifts before it checks the second. If so, should I add two further conditions to my third condition above specifying that the lay prices of the first and second favorites are also less than the matching_number of remaining runners? Thx

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Re: Trigger firing when it shouldn't?
« Reply #2 on: 07 Jan 2023, 17:50 »
Hi
In the trigger log at the moment of checking the conditions selection name Public Service is shown as third favourite with a lay price of 7.0. This meets the condition where third favourites lay price is equal or less than matching_number which is 7.

For info ranking in MFP is defined by selections back price so the lowest back price is the Favourite.

You can sort selections by lay price (or any other variable) and then address by an index. Please see the helpfile for explanations of these conditions. The second condition will check third fav by lay price against matching_number:

selections sorting order is defined by lay_price
and selections trigger expression match_3_lay_price is equal or less than matching_number

btw US racing markets have very wide spreads between back and lay prices and much lower matched volume so you can expect wild fluctuations in prices and ranks

its a learning curve and you are doing well :)
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Re: Trigger firing when it shouldn't?
« Reply #3 on: 07 Jan 2023, 17:59 »
Many thanks for the fast (and helpful) reply Mark. Totally missed that about the back price (not lay price) determining favourites!

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Re: Trigger firing when it shouldn't?
« Reply #4 on: 08 Jan 2023, 17:27 »
I'm puzzled by "match_3_lay_price" - how or where is it defined? It doesn't seem to be an MF defined value (from searching the help files for it where it doesn't appear) so where does it come from? Thx

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Re: Trigger firing when it shouldn't?
« Reply #5 on: 09 Jan 2023, 07:22 »
Hi
It's in matching selections variables (same place as matching_number)
described as match_{index}_

in your example we used it to find the third index in the list of selections sorted by lay price. i.e. third favourite by lay price

selections sorting order is defined by lay_price
and selections trigger expression match_3_lay_price is equal or less than matching_number
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Re: Trigger firing when it shouldn't?
« Reply #6 on: 09 Jan 2023, 09:43 »
Aha. Completely missed that in the help files. More reading needed. That's really powerful syntax using "_" in that way. Nice.
Thx v much.

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Re: Trigger firing when it shouldn't?
« Reply #7 on: 09 Jan 2023, 22:43 »
I'm almost there but still not quite!

Attached are the conditions, the statement and the trigger log for a race this evening. Just trying to understand what happened here and if there is any way of preventing it. I assume there was very little liquidity and the prices were very volatile so it couldn't match Boosical Lady at all. Short of reversing all lays before the start if all of them can't be filled, is there any other way to avoid this? Thx

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Re: Trigger firing when it shouldn't?
« Reply #8 on: 10 Jan 2023, 10:27 »
Hi
Checking the results for that race it looks like selection Boosical Lady was a non-runner and was likely withdrawn between placing the bet when it was still a runner and the off. Actual start times for US races can be all over the place so it is difficult to know when is best to place the bets.
You can make periodic checks for withdrawn selections and reduction factor using variables: 
withdrawn_number
runner_number
reduction
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Re: Trigger firing when it shouldn't?
« Reply #9 on: 10 Jan 2023, 10:36 »
Many thanks - v helpful

 

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